The purpose of this study was to examine teachers' practices and beliefs related to the teaching of stringed instrument tuning in elementary and middle school group classes. The aspects examined included the following: (a) teachers' beliefs about teaching tuning in their string classes, (b) activities teachers used when teaching tuning in string…

What does it mean to teach musical expression to child performers? Is it teaching how to interpret a piece of music "correctly," or is there more involved? In this case study, we explored the beliefs and practices of five teachers who specialized in teaching children to perform in a variety of musical performance areas, including violin, cello,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the development of preservice music teachers' concerns using Fuller and Bown's model. Participants were 8 instrumental teachers who participated in the previous Berg and Miksza (2010) study. Data sources included goals essays, journals, a midterm growth plan, and teaching observation reports with…

This study was designed to examine the decision-making process for keeping or cutting the music program in one selected public school district. Lekbery School District, in the Detroit suburb of Lekbery, Michigan, had not made extreme cuts to the music program in over 10 years, nor had it specifically targeted the music program when budgets cuts…

This collective case study examined the experiences of four African American gay band students attending historically Black colleges or universities (HCBUs) in the southern United States. This study explored influences that shaped the participants' identities as they negotiated numerous complex sociocultural discourses pervasive and challenging to…

In this descriptive study, we examined self-reported concerns of 159 music student teachers pre- and post-student teaching, over a period of 5 years. Resulting comments ("N" = 867) were analyzed on the basis of (a) stages of teacher concern (focus on self, subject matter [music and teaching], and students) modeled after Fuller and Bown and (b)…

This study is a secondary analysis of a statewide sample of licensed family child care providers in the Tennessee Child Care Evaluation and Report Card Program ("N"?=?1,145) that describes the general quality of family child care programs in the state and examines the relationships between provider education and global quality. Study…

The main purpose of this study was to explore what Jordanian parents of children attending "traditional" kindergartens recognize as high-quality education programs. The sample consisted of 509 families ("N"?=?509) of kindergarten-age children. Data were collected using a three-part questionnaire: curriculum domains, teacher…

The authors' interest in the associations between beginners' reading and writing performance led them to devise an index of children's meaning construction in reading by increasing the specificity of the Reading Miscue Inventory meaning change index to include finer discriminations between superficial and meaning disruptive miscues…

With the increasing number of preschool-age children of Latino heritage entering U.S. schools comes a growing need to accurately determine children's individual needs and identify potential disabilities, beginning with the screening process. Unfortunately, teachers face many challenges when screening English language learners. Often, parents…

Early literacy intervention programs are predicated on the understanding that children's early literacy performance in preschool is one of the most important early predictors of subsequent school success. As the largest U.S.-funded early literacy intervention program, Early Reading First (ERF) sought to advance the language and literacy…

This study evaluated the effects of Adapted Reciprocal Teaching (ART) on the receptive and expressive flight-word vocabulary of 1st-grade students. During ART, classroom interactions produced narrative contexts within which students assumed responsibility for applying new flight words in personally meaningful ways. Students in the control group…

The purpose of this study is to analyze the ability of preschool children to take on a perspective, based on their self-perception and gender. A relational survey method was used, with 124 children between ages 5 and 6 participating--74 girls (59.7%) and 50 boys (40.3%). The Self-Perception Scale for Children and Perspective-Taking Test was…

The author explores the challenges of teaching and learning African American history, a history fraught with uncomfortable implications about contemporary race relations and race-based inequalities. Drawing on various theories of anti-oppressive education, and using data from an ethnographic study conducted in one history classroom, the author…

The author looks at subject-field disputes about what to teach in the field of social studies in the U.S. He identifies the selection of subject matter to teach as a first source of conflict about the field's nature given the scope of history, geography, and other social sciences. The author argues that disagreements about what and how to…