Social Networks Key to Sticking with STEM

October 22, 2020

Looking for job security?  Look no further than STEM, where jobs are projected to grow by more than 8 percent through 2030, with cybersecurity and biomedical, civil and environmental engineering at greatest risk of labor shortages. 

Turning young people onto science, technology, engineering and math has been challenging, especially with the best high schools devoted to STEM historically reserved for only the “gifted and talented.”

A broader swath of

Shutting Down the School-to-Prison Pipeline

September 24, 2020

Once our kids are all back in school, so too will be the school resource officers, there to prevent violence yet unwittingly leaving many students feeling “scared and mistrusted,” according to new research in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

In “School Pathways to the Juvenile Justice System,” researchers Tammy Hughes, Tara Raines, and Celeste Malone report that 77 percent of school resource officers who participated in a 2014 study

Focusing on Numbers Ignores Sources of Gender Bias

September 10, 2020

In a new paper on testing and gender bias published in the FABBS journal, Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, author Joseph R. Cimpian quotes an elementary school teacher:

            “These are my students’ standardized test scores, and there are absolutely no gender differences. See, the girls can do just as well as the boys if they work hard enough.”

In “Why Focusing on Test

Sense of Belonging Critical for Students

July 9, 2020

Like all teenagers, Black students need to feel like they belong, especially in school, where “belongingness” can impact mental health and future outcomes, according to a new paper in Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

To help these students, teachers and administrators need to recognize and understand how racial oppression has undermined belongingness needs, according to the paper, “Why Black Adolescents Are Vulnerable at School and How Schools