Communal schools and teacher victimization

Despite data showing that teacher victimization is at least as great a problem as student victimization, far less research exists regarding teacher victimization than student victimization and overall school crime, particularly with regard to the application of criminological theory to explain the victimization of teachers. We address this gap by examining the hierarchical relationship between communal school organization and teacher victimization in a nationally representative sample of 37,497 teachers from 7,488 public schools in the United States. Results showed that teacher experienced less victimization in schools that were more communally organized. We discuss these findings and present implications for school-based delinquency prevention.     

School Climates and Student Behavior: Implications for Counselor Role

The current research on the study of school climates is described, and implications of this research for counselor role are indicated. This research has examined the nature of educational climates and environments, as well as the relationship of various environments to student achievement, attitudes, and behaviors. The research provides information about the nature of school environments as they are affected by staff characteristics and behaviors and student peer group characteristics. This research indicates that schools do have quite different climates which are supportive of diverse types of student and staff behavior. It appears that the adjustment and success of an individual student may well be a function of (a) the type of climate of the school he attends, and (b) the extent to which the school climate is supportive of his individual needs. After an extensive review of nine methodologies for studying school climate, possible applications of these research findings by the counselor are described.     

Turtle Soup: Establishing Innovation-Friendly Conditions' for School Reform

Pressure groups in today's complex society present our school systems with diverse, conflicting demands for school reform. Educators can retain eroding public support only through pervasive innovations in our school systems. In order for our schools to survive and thrive in changing times, educators must overcome serious organizational and contextual barriers that inhibit innovation in the schools. Educational leaders must address these barriers by attending to the essential nature of creative thought, and to some basic tenets of organizational change. These concepts are portrayed in the form of a visual metaphor, which captures the essence of creative organizational development and recommends some specific Jeadership initiatives.     

Trauma‐Informed Programs Based in Schools: Linking Concepts to Practices and Assessing the Evidence

When children experience stress and adversity in their homes and communities, schools become a critically important setting in which to intervene and foster their resilience. Changing practices within schools so that vulnerable and traumatized children are better understood and more compassionately served is a goal shared by many school professionals, yet schools remain poorly equipped to address the needs of these children. Any number of school‐based programs have the potential to benefit children with an elevated risk for academic difficulties and mental health disorders, although questions remain as to which programs are most promising, effective, and sustainable. Questions also remain about which programs best serve diverse populations and which have potential to reach the largest number of children, including those who do not outwardly manifest behaviors consistent with an underlying disorder but nonetheless require support. In this review, we take stock of existing programs used in schools to address the social, emotional, and academic needs of children with trauma histories. We summarize components of a various trauma‐focused programs, categorized as: (a) individual and group‐based approaches, (b) classroom‐based approaches, and (c) school‐wide approaches. For each category, we review and comment on the state and quality of research findings and provide illustrative examples from the literature to show how programs address trauma in the school context. Findings of the review suggest that empirical evidence currently favors individual and group‐based approaches, although classroom‐based and school‐wide programs may be better positioned for integration, access to services, and sustainability. Implications and recommendations center on future research, practice, and policy.     

Relationships Between Selected Social Factors and Extent of High School Counseling

This research compares highly counseled and non-counseled secondary school students for differences in social status, attitudinal, and parental characteristics. The 2 guidance functions of career and non-career guidance were studied. Subjects were selected from a larger pool of seniors at 8 diverse high schools. The data revealed that subjects who received extensive career guidance (a) participated more actively in high status social and leadership activities in school, (b) reported their parents to be more active in community, social, and recreational activities, (c) had higher educational goals, and (d) that extensively counseled males were more other-directed, while highly counseled females were more inner-directed. Parental social status and academic achievement did not distinguish between highly counseled and non-counseled students. Few measures differentiated the 2 groups on amount of non-career guidance. These results were interpreted as indicating that utilization of secondary school guidance services may be determined to an important degree by factors extrinsic to the interpersonal process of the guidance situation.     

The Promotional Role of School and Community Contexts for Military Students

This article examines how supportive public school environments can serve as a promotional context for the development of children and adolescents from military families. The authors integrate theory and research from multiple research strands (e.g., human development, studies of at-risk youth, educational reform, goodness of fit theory, and school climate) to outline how public schools can support the development of all children and adolescents. This article provides further support for the supposition that school climates and the social-ecological contexts surrounding a school (e.g., universities, communities, school districts) have the potential to protect at-risk children and adolescents from an array of negative social, emotional, and psychological outcomes. The authors draw linkages between these research domains and the development of military children and adolescents. Promotional civilian school environments embedded within supportive and inclusive contexts can create a social infrastructure that supports the development of military children and adolescents. The authors argue that this conceptual approach can create a foundation for interventions and research that focuses on schools as normative supportive developmental settings for military children and youth during challenging times of war (e.g., deployments and multiple school transitions). This article concludes with a discussion of future directions in research on the development of military children and adolescents. Based on a heuristic conceptual model that outlines areas needing further research, the authors call for a deeper theoretical and empirical integration of school climate and external contextual factors surrounding the school. Investigating the social and organizational dynamics within these contexts can result in a more comprehensive picture of the development of military children and adolescents.     

Navigating Middle Grades: Role of Social Contexts in Middle Grade School Climate

During early adolescence, most public school students undergo school transitions, and many students experience declines in academic performance and social-emotional well-being. Theories and empirical research have highlighted the importance of supportive school environments in promoting positive youth development during this period of transition. Despite this, little is known about the proximal social and developmental contexts of the range of middle grade public schools US students attend. Using a cross-sectional dataset from the eighth grade wave of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort 1998–1999, the current study examines the middle grade school social context from the perspectives of administrators and teachers in public schools with typical grade configurations (k–8 schools, middle schools, and junior high schools) and how it relates to students’ perceptions of school climate. We find that administrators and teachers in k–8 schools perceive a more positive school social context, controlling for school structural and demographic characteristics. This school social context, in turn, is associated with students’ perceptions of their schools’ social and academic climate. Implications for educational policy and practice are discussed.     

The School Assessment for Environmental Typology (SAfETy): An Observational Measure of the School Environment

School safety is of great concern for prevention researchers, school officials, parents, and students, yet there are a dearth of assessments that have operationalized school safety from an organizational framework using objective tools and measures. Such a tool would be important for deriving unbiased assessments of the school environment, which in turn could be used as an evaluative tool for school violence prevention efforts. The current paper presents a framework for conceptualizing school safety consistent with Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) model and social disorganization theory, both of which highlight the importance of context as a driver for adolescents’ risk for involvement in substance use and violence. This paper describes the development of a novel observational measure, called the School Assessment for Environmental Typology (SAfETy), which applies CPTED and social disorganizational frameworks to schools to measure eight indicators of school physical and social environment (i.e., disorder, trash, graffiti/vandalism, appearance, illumination, surveillance, ownership, and positive behavioral expectations). Drawing upon data from 58 high schools, we provide preliminary data regarding the validity and reliability of the SAfETy and describe patterns of the school safety indicators. Findings demonstrate the reliability and validity of the SAfETy and are discussed with regard to the prevention of violence in schools.     

The Counselor as Consultant in the Collaborative School

A collaborative work environment has been consistently cited as a characteristic of schools that effectively respond to the diverse needs of students. Because of their role and related skills, counselors seem uniquely positioned to have a significant impact on the development or enhancement of team structures and staff relationships within a collaborative school. Educational collaboration and its relationship to school consultation as a structured planning, decision-making, and problem-solving process is described. Characteristics of a collaborative school and its organizational structures are identified. Roles and related skills the counselor can use in providing leadership in developing and implementing collaborative teams in the school are articulated.     

Parent Involvement in Rural Elementary Schools in New Zealand: A Survey

We surveyed rural elementary schools in New Zealand regarding their practice of parent involvement (PI). Interviews were conducted at 22 schools using a schedule which focused on eleven aspects of PI: policy formation, acting as a resource, collaborating with teachers, sharing information on children, channels of communication, liaison with school staff, parent education, parent support, encouraging parents into school, involving diverse parents, and professional development for teachers. Analysis of data from the interviews identified several common weaknesses in PI provision: a lack of written school policies on PI; the ad hoc nature of the organization of PI; minimal parent education organized by schools; minimal focus on parent support; minimal use of home visits; limited ideas to involve diverse parents; a minimal focus on involving parents of children with special needs; and, limited professional development for teachers on working with parents. Implications for improving the practice of PI in rural elementary schools are discussed.     

School Context Protective Factors Against Peer Ethnic Discrimination Across the High School Years

Ethnically diverse high school contexts present unique social opportunities for youth to form interethnic relationships, but they may also subject students to certain social challenges such as peer ethnic discrimination. With a sample of 1,072 high school students (55% girls; 54% Latino, 20% African American, 14% Asian, 12% White) attending 84 high schools, school context factors that protect students’ exposure to peer ethnic discrimination across the high school years were investigated with a three-level hierarchical linear model. Each spring for four consecutive years (grades 9–12), self-reported peer ethnic discrimination, interracial climate at school, and perceived school ethnic composition were assessed. At the school level, objective high school ethnic composition data were collected. Peer ethnic discrimination was found to decline slightly across the high school years. Above and beyond this decline, more positive perceptions of the school interracial climate and both objective and perceived numerical ethnic majority status predicted lower levels of peer ethnic discrimination. Taken together, the results highlight the significance of both objective (e.g., ethnic composition) and subjective (e.g., interracial climate) aspects of the school ethnic context to students’ high school social experiences.     

School Context and Ethnic Minority Adolescent Religiosity: A Longitudinal Study

Previous research has shown that ethnic school composition can have an impact on a number of outcomes for pupils. The influence ethnic school composition has on pupils’ religiosity, however, has not received much attention. Furthermore, the few previous studies that have examined this relationship have relied on cross‐sectional data, thus being unable to separate selection effects from causal effects. In this research note we use longitudinal data collected among pupils in the third (2011–2012) and sixth grade (2014–2015) of secondary schools in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium. We examine changes in religiosity among pupils using cross‐classified multilevel analyses. The results show that there is a positive impact of ethnic school composition on ethnic minority religiosity. This does not mean, however, that pupils become more religious in schools with a higher share of ethnic minority pupils. We rather see that a decline in religiosity among highly religious pupils is attenuated in schools with more ethnic minority pupils.     

Gender-Typed Behaviors and School Adjustment

This study investigates whether gender-typed behaviors are associated with two aspects of school adjustment—engagement and attachment. The analysis uses a nationally representative sample of middle and high school students in US schools in 1995 (n?=?6,349 girls and 5,954 boys). Ordinary least square models show that both boys and girls with extremely gender-typed behaviors report lower levels of school engagement and attachment than gender-typical peers, consistent with previous research that documented adjustment problems linked to hypergender. Among boys but not among girls, gender-atypical students report lower levels of engagement and attachment than gender-typical peers, indicating stigma attached to boys’ feminine behaviors at school. Interpersonal problems with peers and teachers explain large portions of these group differences.     

Reading Attitudes of Texas High School Students

Through random sampling, we surveyed 2,568 high school students throughout Texas to determine their reading attitudes vis-à-vis individual and school background variables. Sources were the Rhody reading attitude scale and public domain campus summary data; the lenses of attitude theory and social justice informed this study. Significant differences appeared in overall reading attitude and gender, as well as these school characteristics: public and private, rural and urban, low and high poverty, low and high diversity, and small versus large student-teacher ratios. From the results, an avid reader from a public school would be in small classes in an urban school serving mostly students of color and poverty. These findings challenge educators, researchers, and policy-makers to rethink common misperceptions of the reading attitudes of youths in diverse, high-poverty urban schools.     

Role of Psychologists in Academic Medicine

With an interdisciplinary approach to understanding human psychosocial development and behavior, psychologists in academic medical settings have much to offer in the areas of administration, research, teaching, and service, including in the realm of organizational systems and behavior within medical schools. In these ways, psychologists can play a large role in the fulfillment of the mission of academic medicine and enhance psychology’s stature in the medical school organization. Two case studies are presented that exemplify the varied roles and responsibilities of psychologists in a medical school. To be successful within medical schools, the following generalizable principles are offered: (1) “add value” to the medical school by demonstrating the diverse and relatively unique abilities of psychologists; (2) be flexible and adaptive to the different requirements of medical academic settings; (3) make a concerted effort to work well with medical students, residents, and physicians who may not be well-versed in certain aspects such as rigorous research methodology and statistics; and (4) find a “good match” between one’s strengths, the needs of the medical setting, and the attributes of the M.D. leader. With such an approach, remarkable accomplishments can be made.     

School discrimination and the high school dropout: a case for adolescent advocacy

The literature supports the theory that high school dropouts are unable to find employment when they leave school, and that girls who dropout are more likely than boys to return. It was hypothesized that schools may not want to take back students who had once dropped out of school. To investigate the schools' response to dropouts trying to return, three actors were used to portray a male dropout, a female dropout and a parent of a dropout. Fifteen schools were contacted, to determine the differences in response to each actor. The results indicate that schools were more likely to accept the child who is represented by the parent, and that schools reacted more favorably to the parent. The results are discussed and specific recommendations made for program and practice.     

Organization interventions as a mediator of change in grades in the Challenging Horizons Program

This study evaluated whether an organization intervention was a mediator of change for grade point average (GPA) in a randomized clinical trial of a school-based treatment program for adolescents with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). A demographically diverse sample of 148 participants (105 males) with a diagnosis of ADHD were recruited from nine middle schools. Comprehensive diagnostic evaluations were completed and participants were randomized into one of three conditions (two active treatment conditions, one control condition) for a randomized clinical trial that lasted an entire school year. The results of the trial are reported elsewhere (Evans et al., 2016; Schultz et al., 2017); in this study we evaluated four of the criteria for determining mediation as reported by Kazdin (2007) to determine whether response to the organization intervention in this school-based treatment program mediated the relationship between dosage and GPA beyond previous GPA. The results provided evidence that response to the organization intervention mediated the relationship between intervention dosage and change in GPA.     

A Social Disorganization Perspective on Bullying-Related Attitudes and Behaviors: The Influence of School Context

Social disorganization theory suggests that certain school-level indictors of disorder may be important predictors of bullying-related attitudes and behaviors. Multilevel analyses were conducted on bullying-related attitudes and experiences among 22,178 students in 95 elementary and middle schools. The intraclass correlation coefficients indicated that 0.6–2% of the variance in victimization, 5–10% of the variance in retaliatory attitudes, 5–6% of the variance in perceptions of safety, and 0.9% of the variance in perpetration of bullying was associated with the clustering of students within schools. Although the specific associations varied somewhat for elementary schools as compared to middle schools, the hierarchical linear modeling analyses generally suggested that school-level indicators of disorder (e.g., student–teacher ratio, concentration of student poverty, suspension rate, and student mobility) were significant predictors of bullying-related attitudes and experiences. Student-level characteristics (i.e., sex, ethnicity, status in school) were also relevant to students’ retaliatory attitudes, perceptions of safety, and involvement in bullying. Implications for school-based research and violence prevention are provided.     

Participatory Action Research (PAR) in Middle School: Opportunities, Constraints, and Key Processes

Late childhood and early adolescence represent a critical transition in the developmental and academic trajectory of youth, a time in which there is an upsurge in academic disengagement and psychopathology. PAR projects that can promote youth's sense of meaningful engagement in school and a sense of efficacy and mattering can be particularly powerful given the challenges of this developmental stage. In the present study, we draw on data from our own collaborative implementation of PAR projects in secondary schools to consider two central questions: (1) How do features of middle school settings and the developmental characteristics of the youth promote or inhibit the processes, outcomes, and sustainability of the PAR endeavor? and (2) How can the broad principles and concepts of PAR be effectively translated into specific intervention activities in schools, both within and outside of the classroom? In particular, we discuss a participatory research project conducted with 6th and 7th graders at an urban middle school as a means of highlighting the opportunities, constraints, and lessons learned in our efforts to contribute to the high‐quality implementation and evaluation of PAR in diverse urban public schools.     

Mental Health Research in K–12 Schools: Translating a Systems Approach to University–School Partnerships

The authors discuss the challenges that researchers from university and community systems face in gaining access to and partnering with K–12 school systems to conduct research. Borrowing from Szapocznik, Hervis, and Schwartz's (2003) brief strategic family theory and therapy and Bronfenbrenner's (1979, 1986) ecological systems theory, the authors outline a model for diverse research communities in the United States that can be used by counselors and other mental health services researchers who plan to conduct research in K–12 schools.