(2011). Migration, Social Networks, and Child Health in Mexican Families, Journal of Marriage and Family. This paper examines the consequences of parental migratory strategies for children in three types of Mexican families: those living with their migrant parents in the United States, those living with parents who migrated and returned to Mexico, and those living in Mexico with parents who have never migrated. Using data on 804 children from the Health and Migration Survey (HMS), we found significant differences in children's health across the three types of families. Results also revealed robust effects on child health of the size of immediate and extended social networks and migration experience after controlling for potential mediators such as mother's general health, receipt of social support, and child's age and sex. Findings suggest that social networks and migration affect children in complex ways, offering health benefits to those with migrant parents in U.S. households but not to those living with parents who migrated in the past and returned to Mexico. [More] Descriptors: Child Health, Foreign Countries, Migration, Social Networks
(2013). Repercussions of Teaching Training in the Sociology of Work in Mexico, Bulgarian Comparative Education Society. The labour markets in Mexico are characterised by uncertainty in terms of the lack of work contracts social protection, unemployment, high level of self-employed workers independently and micro-businesses, low income levels, the involuntary part-time working and low levels of unionisation. They all indicate that the labour situation currently reflects many deficiencies in the urban labour markets of Mexico. Over the two last decades, modest periods of growth and crises have taken place within a strategy of neoliberal development that promotes increased exports and foreign economic investment. Rates of unemployment have stayed low, with the exception of the devaluation crisis of 1995, but our labour markets continue to display very marked weaknesses with regard to occupations and jobs with reasonable income and other suitable conditions of work. [For complete volume, see ED567118.] [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Labor Market, Urban Areas, Neoliberalism
(2015). High School Track Choice and Financial Constraints: Evidence from Urban Mexico. Policy Research Working Paper 7427, World Bank. Parents and students from different socioeconomic backgrounds value differently school characteristics, but the reasons behind this preference heterogeneity are not well understood. In the context of the centralized school assignment system in Mexico City, this study analyzes how a large household income shock affects choices over high school tracks exploiting the discontinuity in the assignment of the welfare program "Oportunidades". The income shock significantly increases the probability of choosing the vocational track vis-a-vis the other more academic-oriented tracks. The findings suggest that the transfer relaxes the financial constraints that prevent relatively low-ability students from choosing the schooling option with higher labor market returns. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Track System (Education), High School Students, Family Income
(2013). Results of the 2010 Statewide New Mexico School Social Work Survey: Implications for Evaluating the Effectiveness of School Social Work, School Social Work Journal. Today's school social workers are facing unique challenges in the workplace. The results of the 2009 New Mexico School Social Work Survey reinforced the idea that school social workers must be able to prove their effectiveness. Building on the school social work literature on practice outcomes evaluation, a more extensive statewide survey of school social workers was conducted in 2010 to explore further the extent to which they were prepared to evaluate, were evaluating, or had evaluated their own effectiveness. The results of this statewide survey suggest that school social workers in New Mexico are able to access their individual data as well as prepare for and evaluate their impact on student success. However, most do not have access to aggregated school social work data, nor do many share results of their work with decision-makers. Implications for school social work practice evaluation are discussed within the context of shrinking school system budgets and the fragile economy. [More] Descriptors: Social Work, School Social Workers, Program Effectiveness, Data
(2018). Environmental Education (EE) Policy and Content of the Contemporary (2009-2017) Mexican National Curriculum for Primary Schools, Environmental Education Research. In Mexico a reformed curriculum is being implemented at the national primary level focused on the competence model and incorporating EE as a key element. This article reports our analyses of what theories, policies and/or EE related-contents were included in the documents that integrated this curriculum: general study plan, study programs of Grades and official students' textbooks. Results indicate that in those official documents was incorporated a competence related to EE called "competences for the coexistence", implying harmonic relationships with others and the nature. Additionally, EE for sustainability was included as a transversal topic expecting that contributes to reach the graduate profile of basic education that indicates that students should promote and assume the care of health and the environment. Nevertheless, it is not clear how it is expected that teachers implement EE in practice, lacking clarity of the environmental theory that support this curriculum. [More] Descriptors: Environmental Education, Educational Policy, National Curriculum, Program Content
(2018). Innovating Science Teaching with a Transformative Learning Model, Journal of Education for Teaching: International Research and Pedagogy. This exploratory study aimed to describe the impact of the 'Science in Family project', as a transformative learning model for science teachers trying to improve student's attitudes toward STEM subjects. This study took place in a public elementary school in Monterrey, Mexico, which has been developing this project for more than thirteen years with students from 4th, 5th and 6th grade. We used participant observation and interviews with four families whose children are students of this elementary school, and with one family whose sons were students of this school some years ago. Results showed that there is a relationship between positive attitudes towards science in students who were exposed to transformative learning models of teaching. Two of the participants took steps to follow science related careers. This study helps to illuminate the extent to which teacher education models influence students' attitudes and how positive attitudes to science are influenced by the use of learning by doing projects. [More] Descriptors: Models, Science Instruction, Transformative Learning, STEM Education
(2018). Integrating Early Child Development and Violence Prevention Programs: A Systematic Review, New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development. Limited evidence describes promoting development and reducing violence in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), a missed opportunity to protect children and promote development and human capital. This study presents a systematic literature review of integrated early childhood development plus violence prevention (ECD+VP) interventions in LMICs. The search yielded 5,244 unique records, of which N = 6 studies met inclusion criteria. Interventions were in Chile, Jamaica, Lebanon, Mexico, Mozambique, and Turkey. Five interventions were parent education programs, including center-based sessions (n = 3) and home visiting (n = 2), while one intervention was a teacher education program. All but one study reported improvements in both child development and maltreatment outcomes. The dearth of evidence on ECD+VP interventions suggests additional research is needed. Integrated ECD+VP interventions may improve multiple child outcome domains while leveraging limited resources in LMICs. [More] Descriptors: Early Childhood Education, Child Development, Violence, Prevention
(2018). Creative Problem Solving How Do Undergraduates Perceive the Teaching Practice of Their Professors?, World Journal of Education. The research question was inquiring the undergraduates' perception of their professors' practice regarding whether they make use of the creative problem solving (CPS) as a competence for teaching. The study was performed in a public university located in the urban area of Merida City, Yucatan, Mexico, where a total of 247 undergraduates from the Education, Economy and Psychology schools participated. A Teacher Practice Perception Scale (TPPS) was used to know how undergraduates perceive the professor's practice under the creative problem solving, the facilitating and hindering factors for developing creative solutions, the importance of CPS for the curriculum and proposals to develop CPS in the university instructional practice. The results show that (a) all undergraduates perceive CPS at a high level of importance, (b) Psychology undergraduates perceive a medium-high use of CPS by their professors, and (c) Psychology undergraduates perceive at a higher level the facilitating factors of this process. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Undergraduate Students, Creative Thinking, Problem Solving
(2018). Homeless: Graduate Students' and Principals' Reactions to the "McKinney-Vento Act", Research in Higher Education Journal. School administrators face many decisions that require a degree of legal knowledge. The "McKinney-Vento Act" requires schools to enroll students that are experiencing homelessness immediately, even if the student is unable to provide any documentation that is typically required by states and school districts before students can be properly enrolled. The law includes even students that can produce no records of immunization or any other medical records. The immediate enrollment includes all students from kindergarten to twelfth grade. Immediate enrollment means that the students must begin attending classes and participating in school activities, if not that very day, then certainly the next. Based on the responses of a sampling of twenty New Mexico administrators and twenty currently enrolled graduate students that are aspiring administrators, it is apparent that the "McKinney-Vento Act" is not well understood. [More] Descriptors: Federal Legislation, Homeless People, Access to Education, Educational Legislation
(2018). Blurring Material and Rhetorical Walls: Children Writing the Border/Lands in a Second-Grade Classroom, Journal of Literacy Research. Spurred by burgeoning racist and xenophobic immigration policy and rhetoric, we analyzed the writing of seven second-grade children about their experiences of living connections that span the United States-Mexico border. Informed by research on children's "testimonios" in literacy classrooms and Anzaldúa's concept of the border/lands, we drew on feminist and critical poststructuralist theories to examine how children's writing rhetorically and aesthetically engaged with the affective, political, and ideological dimensions of borders and the rhetorical and material violence of hostile policies. Methodologically, we conducted close readings of children's writing, tracing how they disrupted boundaries, including those constructed both physically and ideologically across nations and between concepts, identities, and feelings. This analysis underscores children's keen insights into their political and personal worlds, the importance of writing pedagogies that invite children to engage with the personal and political, and the need for methods of analysis that attend to the poetics of children's perspectives. [More] Descriptors: Grade 2, Childrens Writing, Race, Ethnicity
(2018). STEM and Teaching German Language and Literature with an Interdisciplinary Approach: 18th-Century Reports by German Jesuit Missionaries in the German Classroom, Unterrichtspraxis/Teaching German. Recent debates about the future of academia have focused primarily on teaching the STEM subjects. This is certainly a valuable call for action, but it also threatens to ignore the significant contributions of the humanities and other fields. This article presents a workable alternative by way of looking at more technical writings by 18th-century German Jesuit missionaries in Sonora (today Mexico and Arizona), which invites a critical analysis of the data provided by those authors about the natural environment and the social conditions and also a thorough examination of "literary" texts at the same time from a humanistic perspective. Those narratives also serve as meaningful documents for all German students in the Southwest because they indicate the importance of the German language for the study of the local history going back almost two hundred years. [More] Descriptors: STEM Education, Second Language Instruction, German, German Literature
(2018). A Tale of Three Cities: Defining Urban Schools within the Context of Varied Geographic Areas, Education and Urban Society. What constitutes an urban school? This question has confounded social researchers and educators who often limit definitions to population data. H. Richard Milner suggested a framework for defining urban schools that includes population data as well as the racial and social context of schools. This article applied Milner's model to school districts in New York, Nebraska, and New Mexico which exemplified Milner's categories of urban schools: urban intensive, urban emergent, and urban characteristic. Application of the framework to the districts presents a model for teacher educators to deliver two important components of preservice preparation. First, the model can assist preservice teachers to challenge their existing perceptions of urban schools. Second, establishing a framework provides teacher educators the opportunity to guide preservice teachers to view urban schools through a Critical Race Theory lens. Through this lens, preservice teachers can begin to realize the impact of systemic racism within education. [More] Descriptors: Urban Schools, Geographic Regions, Teacher Educators, Preservice Teachers
(2018). Evaluation of Teachers of Basic Education: Political Tensions and Radical Oppositions, Education Policy Analysis Archives. This paper focuses upon the enactment and implementation of a National Educational Reform in Mexico, which introduced competitive examinations for teachers entering the newly established Professional Teaching Service of the National Educational System, and compulsory evaluation of all teachers in active service for promotion and tenure. The analysis describes the (1) aims and intentions of the Reform, (2) the force and errors in its implementation, (3) the opposition of a radical wing of the National Union of Educational Workers, and (4) the social turmoil this confrontation has caused. A theoretical basis for a political analysis of educational reform is provided, one that includes an understanding of the political nature of the reforms, the distinction between design and implementation, and the use of different categories to provide a solid analytical framework. It is important to understand the actors of the opposing forces, the aims they pursue, the rationale of their arguments, and the nature of their power. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Teacher Evaluation, General Education, Educational Change
(2011). Effective Partnering of State Agencies to Achieve Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Benchmarks, Odyssey: New Directions in Deaf Education. Relative to Early Hearing Detection and Intervention (EHDI), New Mexico struggles with multiple points of referral into early intervention in the same way most states do. Referrals are not systematized through a single point of entry. The Step*Hi (statewide Parent-Infant) Program of the New Mexico School for the Deaf (NMSD) receives referrals from sources such as hospitals, doctors, audiologists, Part C programs, the Department of Health, parents self-referring, and audiologists. Babies may or may not receive timely early intervention based upon the system they are moving through. Given these demographics, it is probably not surprising that the EHDI standards of screening by 1 month of age, diagnosis by 3 months, and entrance into early intervention specific to hearing loss by 6 months have not completely been met. What is surprising, amazing actually, is that, even given all of the barriers New Mexico faces, the average age of entry into early intervention is currently 11 months and continues to slowly decline. So how has New Mexico, with multiple barriers, continued to reduce the age at which children receive early intervention? New Mexico state agencies, as key stakeholders in the success of the EHDI system, do more than just "play nicely in the sandbox" together. There is a systemic commitment to decrease the number of children "lost to follow-up" and to decrease the age at which a child receives early intervention. This commitment has led to strategic interagency planning and implementation of these plans. This article describes some of the strategies that New Mexico has found to be successful. [More] Descriptors: Special Schools, Early Intervention, Age, State Agencies
(2012). What's Writing Got to Do with It?: Citizen Wisdom, Civil Rights Activism, and 21st Century Community Literacy, Community Literacy Journal. This article examines what a pedagogy of public rhetoric and community literacy might look like based on an understanding of twentieth century Mexican American civil rights rhetoric. The inductive process of examining archival materials and conducting oral histories informs this discussion on the processes and challenges of gaining civic inclusion. I argue that writing can be both a healing process and an occasion for exercising agency in a world of contingency and uncertainty. To illustrate, I describe several key events shaping the evolution of the post-World War II Mexican American civil rights movement in New Mexico. Taking a case study approach, I begin this chapter by examining the civic discourses of one prominent New Mexico leader in the post-World War II civil rights movement: Vicente Ximenes. As a leader, Ximenes confronted critical civil rights issues about culture and belonging for over fifty years beginning in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is a historical moment worth revisiting. First, I set the stage for this examination about writing, citizenship, and civic literacy by analyzing two critical rhetorical moments in the life of this post World War II civil rights activist. Secondly, I connect the Ximenes legacy to a growing movement at the University of New Mexico and the ways that we are making critical responses to current issues facing our local communities in New Mexico. By triangulating social acts of literacy, currently and historically, this article offers organizing principles for Composition teachers and advocates of community literacy serving vulnerable communities in their various spheres of practice. [More] Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Archives, Research, War