Suchergebnisse

This study examined a multidimensional model of school engagement (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004) among low-income, urban Latino adolescents. Ecological theory suggests that students' school, family, and peer contexts influence their behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement. Using qualitative methods of inquiry, this study examined how these various microsystemic factors influenced the school engagement of 32 Latino adolescents. Participants between 18 and 20 years of age participated in interviews focused on their retrospective experiences in high school. Participants identified school, family, and peer themes that facilitated or hindered various components of school engagement. Youth discussed how school and peer factors affected all three dimensions of school engagement, while family affected behavioral and cognitive engagement. Understanding processes involved in high school completion will aid in designing effective policies and programs to reduce dropout rates among Latino youth.

This study evaluates the effectiveness of an arts-based educational program, Basic Reading Through Dance. Basic Reading Through Dance is a 20-session, curriculum-based reading intervention for first-grade students developed by Whirlwind, a not-for-profit organization. There were a total of 721 first-grade students from Chicago public schools who participated in the study, with 328 students from 6 schools receiving the program and 393 students from 9 schools serving as controls. The program was designed to improve reading skills, as assessed by the PhonoGraphix Test, such as code knowledge (alphabet sounds) and phoneme segmentation (separating letter sounds within spoken words). Results suggest that the students who participated in the program improved significantly more than control students on all reading skills that were assessed.