Despite pressure for school choice, empirical evidence of its academic effects, especially on minority urban students, is mixed. Examination of evidence on public-private sector competition shows some improvement in public school efficiency. However, there is little evidence of the positive or negative impact of charter schools and vouchers.…

Interviews with 42 parents who located in the best school districts they could afford suggest that the beliefs that inform their choices are mediated by social status ideologies emphasizing race and class. Thus, school choice policies alone may not level the playing field for lower-income parents. (Contains 56 references.) (SK)

Analyzes three landmark Supreme Court cases in which the value of literacy and the reality of racial discrimination were contested. Concludes that there is an ideology in which the economy of literacy is regarded as white property and argues that these court decisions have stalled the civil rights movement. (Contains 59 references.) (SK)

A four-phase reflective cycle can help teachers better attend to student learning: (1) presence in experience; (2) description of experience; (3) analysis of experience from multiple perspectives; and (4) experimentation (taking action). Teachers should also solicit structured student feedback to distinguish between what they think they are…

Three models (threshold, identification/commitment, social inequality gap reduction) were used to examine effects of extracurricular activities on 12th-grade and postsecondary outcomes. As the identification/commitment model predicted, school-based extracurricular activities were more beneficial than out-of-school activities. Consistent with the…

The field of styles presents three major controversial issues: styles as value-laden versus value-free, styles as traits versus states, and styles as different constructs versus similar constructs with different labels. We address these issues by proposing an integrative model of styles--the Threefold Model of Intellectual Styles--which divides…

The Animation Tutor[TM] is a curriculum project that uses software to supplement instruction in courses such as intermediate algebra. Its purpose is to ground mathematical reasoning in concrete experiences through the use of interactive animation and the virtual manipulation of objects. This article summarizes how the project has progressed from…

Parent involvement has a sound research base attesting to the many potential benefits it can offer in education. However, student motivation as an academic outcome of parental involvement has only recently been investigated. The purpose of this article is to show how parent involvement is related to students' motivation. Studies of students from…

Traditionally, Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) has focused on instructional methods to decrease extraneous cognitive load so that available cognitive resources can be fully devoted to learning. This article strengthens the cognitive base of CLT by linking cognitive processes to the processes used by biological evolution. The article discusses recent…

Who are the people who become positive educational leaders? This essay presents WICS as a model of positive educational leadership. WICS stands for "w"isdom, "i"ntelligence, "c"reativity, "s"ynthesized. Each of these elements is asserted to constitute one of the elements of educational leadership. Regrettably, our society is organized around a…

Previously, Robinson, McKay, Katayama, and Fan (1998) examined women's involvement in six educational psychology journals ("American Educational Research Journal," "Contemporary Educational Psychology," "Educational Psychologist," "Educational Psychology Review," "Journal of Experimental Education," and "Journal of Educational Psychology") from…

This article explores learner-generated drawing, a strategy in which learners construct representative illustrations in support of learning goals. Both applied and empirical literature is reviewed with the purpose of stimulating research on this strategy. Clear from this review is the gap that exists between prescriptive readings on…

This review of the literature on peer and cross-age tutoring emphasizes programs in mathematics and suggests that such programs have positive academic outcomes for African American and other minority students as well as for White students who participate as tutors, as tutees, or both. Such programs also appear to have a positive impact on a…

Research indicates that maladaptive patterns of Internet use constitute behavioral addiction. This article explores the research on the social effects of Internet addiction. There are four major sections. The Introduction section overviews the field and introduces definitions, terminology, and assessments. The second section reviews research…

The development of a conceptual model that provides a theoretical framework for understanding the conative factors of desire, resourcefulness, initiative, and persistence in autonomous learning considered the related variables of gender, education level, age, and marital status. The relevance of these demographic variables is based on prior…