(Press-News.org) DURHAM, N.C -- When students repeat a grade, it can spell trouble for their classmates, according to a new Duke University-led study of nearly 80,000 middle-schoolers.
In schools with high numbers of grade repeaters , suspensions were more likely to occur across the school community. Discipline problems were also more common among other students, including substance abuse, fighting and classroom disruption.
Public debate typically focuses on how retention affects an individual student's academic performance, said lead author Clara Muschkin. So she and her colleagues decided to take a wider view and consider how holding students back may affect the school as a whole.
"The decision to retain students has consequences for the whole school community," said Muschkin, an associate director of the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy. "That wider effect is an issue worth considering as we debate this policy."
The study by Muschkin, Elizabeth Glennie and Audrey Beck looked at 79,314 seventh-graders in 334 North Carolina middle schools.
For information on retention and discipline problems, the authors turned to administrative data from the state's public school system. The authors found that different schools have greatly varying numbers of older and retained students, with significant consequences.
The authors took pains to account for a range of factors that might offer alternative explanations for their findings, including schools' socioeconomic composition and parents' educational status. Even after controlling for such factors, the presence of older and retained students was still strongly linked with more discipline problems in the entire group.
For instance, if 20 percent of children in seventh grade were older than their peers, the chance that other students would commit an infraction or be suspended increased by 200 percent.
"There's a strong relationship here that we think is likely to be causal," Muschkin said.
The study focused on two groups in particular: students who repeated a grade, and students who were a year older than their classmates, on average. When there were more older and retained students present, discipline problems increased for all subgroups in the study, including black and white students and boys and girls. Two groups saw a particularly large jump in discipline problems: white students and girls of all races.
"This finding took us by surprise," Muschkin said. "These two groups appear to be a bit more affected than others by the influence of older peers."
In early adolescence, a time of major physical and psychological change, students are particularly vulnerable to peer influence, Muschkin noted. However, more research is needed to understand why some subgroups appear to respond more strongly than others to the influence of their classmates, she said.
Holding students back became a popular educational option as criticism of "social promotion" mounted. The study suggests that since retention has school-wide ramifications, educators should do more to assist older and retained students with their academic struggles; for instance, through tutoring, summer school and peer mentoring.
"Support for older and retained students is an investment in the achievement and climate of the entire school," Muschkin said.
The paper appears online Feb. 28 in Teachers College Record.
INFORMATION:
Research funding was provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, through the Duke University Transdisciplinary Prevention Research Center. Data was provided by the North Carolina Education Research Data Center at Duke University, with assistance from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and financial support from the Spencer Foundation.
CITATION: "Peer Contexts: Do Old for Grade and Retained Peers Influence Student Behavior and Suspensions in Middle School?," Clara G. Muschkin, Elizabeth J. Glennie and Audrey N. Beck. Teachers College Record, February 2014.
Retention leads to discipline problems in other kids
Kids who are 'held back' may contribute to disruptive middle school environment
2014-02-28
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Dangerous mistaken identity
2014-02-28
This news release is available in German.
Proteins like the so-called heat shock protein Hsp90 play an important role in almost all processes within human cells. They help other proteins fold into their three-dimensional structure or return damaged proteins back into their proper shape.
Recently, there has been increasing evidence indicating that the heat shock protein HSP90 may also be involved in the folding processes of the tau protein. Deposits of tau proteins in brain cells are typical for Alzheimer's disease and are held responsible for decaying nerve ...
Diabetes and obesity more common in socioeconomically deprived regions
2014-02-28
Living in a socioeconomically deprived region is a risk factor for being affected by diabetes mellitus and obesity. This holds true regardless of the individual social status of the inhabitants. This is the conclusion reached by scientists from the Institute of Health Economics and Health Care Management (IGM) at the Helmholtz Zentrum München (HMGU) and the Department of Epidemiology and Health Monitoring at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Berlin. "Regional factors, such as the population's average income, unemployment or quality of the living environment can affect ...
Unearthing key function of plant hormone
2014-02-28
This news release is available in German.
Plants, like animals, employ hormones as messengers, which coordinate growth and regulate how they react to the environment. One of these plant hormones, auxin, regulates nearly all aspects of plant behavior and development, for example phototropism, root growth and fruit growth. Depending on the context, auxin elicits a range of responses such as cell polarization or division. In this week's edition of Science (DOI:10.1126/science.1245125), a team of researchers including Jiri Friml from IST Austria and led by Zhenbiao ...
Scientists discover the specific types of macrophages that affect Crohn's disease severity
2014-02-28
For those coping with Crohn's disease, a new research report published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology offers hope for the development of new and more effective drugs. In the report, scientists show for the first time, precisely what type of immune cells are involved in driving the inflammation process in the disease. With this knowledge, new compounds can be identified which reduce the activity of these cells or lessen their inflammatory effects.
"By increasing the knowledge on the different macrophage subsets in the intestine and their blood counterparts, we hope ...
York physicists pave the way for more energy efficient technology
2014-02-28
An international team of scientists led by physicists from the University of York has paved the way for a new class of magnetic materials and devices with improved performance and power efficiency.
Magnetic materials are currently used to store almost all digital information. However, with information processing and storage now making up a significant fraction of the world's energy consumption, continuing improvements in energy efficiency will require new technologies and materials.
A promising development is all-optical thermally induced magnetic switching (TIMS), which ...
Emergency alert in the cell
2014-02-28
When an organism is exposed to life-threatening conditions, it sounds the alarm and a cellular emergency program, the heat shock response, is initiated. However, the name "heat shock response" is misleading. In the beginning of the 1960s, this form of stress response was first observed. Scientists exposed fruit flies to high temperatures and discovered a complex emergency program designated to save single cells and thus the organism itself. Today researchers know that this program is also triggered by other dangers such as radiation or toxic substances. The terminology, ...
Twitter 'big data' can be used to monitor HIV and drug-related behavior, UCLA study shows
2014-02-28
Real-time social media like Twitter could be used to track HIV incidence and drug-related behaviors with the aim of detecting and potentially preventing outbreaks, a new UCLA-led study shows.
The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Preventive Medicine, suggests it may be possible to predict sexual risk and drug use behaviors by monitoring tweets, mapping where those messages come from and linking them with data on the geographical distribution of HIV cases. The use of various drugs had been associated in previous studies with HIV sexual risk behaviors and ...
Competition breeds new fish species, study finds
2014-02-28
Competition may play an important role during the evolution of new species, but empirical evidence for this is scarce, despite being implicit in Charles Darwin's work and support from theoretical studies.
Dr Martin Genner from Bristol's School of Biological Sciences and colleagues used population genetics and experimental evidence to demonstrate a role for competition that leads to the differentiation of new species within the highly diverse cichlid fishes of Lake Tanganyika in East Africa.
They found that the cichlid fish Telmatochromis temporalis shows two genetically ...
Rise in New York foreclosures means many could benefit from bankruptcy
2014-02-28
Rise in New York foreclosures means many could benefit from bankruptcy
Article provided by Michael A. Fakhoury, Esq., P.C.
Visit us at http://www.fakhourylaw.com
According to a report from the chief administrator of courts in New York, the number of foreclosurefilings in 2013 exceeded the totals for 2012 and 2011 combined. In some areas, the problem has been particularly pronounced.
A report from the Times Herald-Record indicated that foreclosure filings approximately doubled in Orange and Ulster counties from 2012 to 2013. RealtyTrac, a company that tracks foreclosures, ...
Divorce and tax audits an unfortunately common combination
2014-02-28
Divorce and tax audits an unfortunately common combination
Article provided by Kenney & Kenney
Visit us at http://www.kenney-law.com
Two dreaded legal actions often occur in the early months of the year; winter is a popular time to divorce and most people are required to file a tax return before April. Unfortunately, certain actions that take place during divorce proceedings may also make it more likely to receive a tax audit. In addition, many divorcing couples have questions about how their divorce will affect their taxes. When do they file as single? Who ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Insulin resistance is linked to over 30 diseases – and to early death in women, study of people in the UK finds
Innovative semaglutide hydrogel could reduce diabetes shots to once a month
Weight loss could reduce the risk of severe infections in people with diabetes, UK research suggests
Long-term exposure to air pollution and a lack of green space increases the risk of hospitalization for respiratory conditions
Better cardiovascular health in early pregnancy may offset high genetic risk
Artificial intelligence method transforms gene mutation prediction in lung cancer: DeepGEM data releases at IASLC 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer
Antibody–drug conjugate I-DXd shows clinically meaningful response in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer
IASLC Global Survey on biomarker testing reveals progress and persistent barriers in lung cancer biomarker testing
Research shows pathway to developing predictive biomarkers for immune checkpoint inhibitors
Just how dangerous is Great Salt Lake dust? New research looks for clues
Maroulas appointed Associate Vice Chancellor, Director of AI Tennessee
New chickadee research finds cognitive skills impact lifespan
Cognitive behavioral therapy enhances brain circuits to relieve depression
Terasaki Institute awarded $2.3 Million grant from NIH for organ transplantation research using organs-on-a-chip technology
Atoms on the edge
Postdoc takes multipronged approach to muon detection
Mathematical proof: Five satellites needed for precise navigation
Scalable, multi-functional device lays groundwork for advanced quantum applications
Falling for financial scams? It may signal early Alzheimer’s disease
Integrating MRI and OCT for new insights into brain microstructure
Designing a normative neuroimaging library to support diagnosis of traumatic brain injury
Department of Energy announces $68 million in funding for artificial intelligence for scientific research
DOE, ORNL announce opportunity to define future of high-performance computing
Molecular simulations, supercomputing lead to energy-saving biomaterials breakthrough
Low-impact yoga and exercise found to help older women manage urinary incontinence
Genetic studies reveal new insights into cognitive impairment in schizophrenia
Researcher develops technology to provide cleaner energy and cleaner water
Expect the unexpected: nanoscale silver unveils intrinsic self-healing abilities
nTIDE September 2024 Jobs Report: Gains in employment for people with disabilities appear to level off after reducing gaps with non-disabled workers
Wiley enhances NMR Spectral Library Collection with extensive new databases
[Press-News.org] Retention leads to discipline problems in other kidsKids who are 'held back' may contribute to disruptive middle school environment