Early maturers enjoy many social advantages because their superior height and advanced muscle development often provide success in athletics, greater leadership roles, and more popularity among peers and adults (Ge, Conger, and Elder 2001). Petersen (1987) reported in studies she conducted in the 1960s that early-maturing males were more successful at peer relations during middle and high school. These individuals excelled in athletics, demonstrated confidence in social situations, and became the school leaders. The studies showed, however, that when the late-maturing boys reached their thirties, they seemed to have a stronger sense of identity.
Continue reading MVP#4 I just… need your attention
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MVP#3 Don’t judge if you don’t understand them
Social changes over the last several decades have also dramatically changed the transition from adolescence into young adulthood, and such change is reflected in policy discussions about key aspects of this transition (e.g., access to and affordability of higher education, the potential role of nonmarriage in poverty). As the manufacturing sector has given way to a service and information economy, jobs providing steady working-class incomes and benefits have been disproportionately replaced by low paying, unstable jobs without benefits (Morris & Western, 1999). Access to more secure and rewarding careers has increasingly required higher education. Indeed, wages for noncollege graduates have dropped substantially, resulting in rising relative returns to a college degree (Lemieux, 2006). Although adolescents and their parents are keenly aware of this
trend and now almost universally aspire to earn college degrees (Bachman, Johnston, & O’Malley, 2008; Schneider & Stevenson, 1999), college enrollment and graduation rates have not kept pace (Snyder, Dillow, & Hoffman, 2008). That attainment has not increased more dramatically given the rising returns to and aspirations for college degrees reflects, in part, waning public financial support for 274 JOHNSON, CROSNOE, AND ELDER, JR. higher education. Specifically, tuition has risen substantially as tax dollars have paid less and less of the cost of education and the real value of financial aid options such as Pell Grants has eroded (Kane, 2007).
Continue reading MVP#3 Don’t judge if you don’t understand them
MVP#2 Help me to learn English but…don’t laugh at me please
Khurami, a 7th grader from Yemen, explains how he experiences discrimination through his experiences of being an Arabic speaker. He states, “I want them [his peers in school] to know about us when they talk about us in English, because we are not talking English, and they laugh about us. I want them to not laugh because we are new here, because we just came into the country. Because if they go to my country, they’re gonna be the same.” Khurami here shares how he feels excluded from conversations at school because of his beginning level of English and how other students talk about and laugh about him and some of his peers in the ESL classes because their use of English is not as strong as that of the native English speakers. He feels quite deeply the laughter and scorn of other students in school and wishes that it would stop. Khurami thoughtfully points out if these same native English language speakers came to his country of Yemen to learn Arabic, they would be in the exact same situation he is currently in of learning a new language and they would face similar difficulties in learning a new language (Becker, Gabriel, and Roxas, 2017).
Continue reading MVP#2 Help me to learn English but…don’t laugh at me please
MVP#1 Stop overwhelming to our students
The implementation becomes particularly relevant for schools with large populations of students of color and students of low socioeconomic status, as these zero tolerance policies often lead to high levels of out-of-school suspensions and expulsions. These policies disproportionately impact students of color and students with disabilities (Brownstein, 2010). As evidence, 18% of students enrolled in preschool are African American; however, African Americans make up 42% of students suspended at least once, and 48% of the preschool students who are suspended more than one time (US Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, 2014). Overall, African American students are 3.5 times more likely than white students to be suspended or expelled, and Hispanic students are 1.5 times more likely to be suspended and twice as likely to be expelled than white students (Brownstein, 2010). Students with disabilities are four times more likely than students without a disability to be suspended (New York Civil Liberties Union, 2011). If we break it down by disability we can see that 76% of students with learning disabilities and 90.2% of students with emotional behavioral disorder will be suspended at least once, while 37% of students with other disabilities, such as autism, will be suspended (Fable, Thompson, Plotke, Carmichael, March banks, & Booth, 2011). These practices generally cause students to fall so far behind in the curriculum that it becomes impossible for them to catch up and, as a result, they often drop out of school (Brownstein, 2010; Stearns & Glennie, 2006).