1 INTRODUCTION David Osher Think of Your First Days at School—Or at A

INTRODUCTION

David Osher DRAFT Think of your first days at school—or at a new school. Maybe you arrived with high hopes, expectations, and excitement. Or perhaps, due to negative experiences, you felt wary. One way or the other, you felt alone—until you experienced something that helped you feel comfortable and that you belonged. Maybe it was a principal or teacher meeting you at the front door, smiling, calling you by your name, and telling you how happy they were that you were there. If you are lucky, you soon felt safe and supported, were engulfed in learning, felt that you belonged and that you could succeed. If you were particularly fortunate, these feelings characterized your school career: you experienced challenging and engaging educational opportunities and support for realizing these opportunities, and you could develop the skills and mindsets that helped you build a future.

This happens in some places, at some times, in some classes, for some students. But all too frequently, it does not happen for other students, who experience poor conditions for learning, have limited opportunities for deep learning and creativity, and realize poor or mediocre learning outcomes. Multiple sources of data suggest the dimensions of this problem.

These data document persistent disparities for students of color, English learners, students with disabilities, students whose families and communities struggle with poverty, and students who experience trauma and other adversities.1

So how can schools routinely create a caring community that supports the social, emotional, and academic needs of all students? How can schools realize equitable high standards and build and foster deeper learning and creativity while supporting the physical, emotional, and identity safety and engagement of every student? These are the questions that many educators

daily try to answer. We now have a unique opportunity to address them successfully because of advances in science, lessons from practice, and policy. We wrote this book with experts from a variety of fields to leverageDRAFT this information and to provide a comprehensive resource of research-based practices, frameworks and tools for school leaders and other professionals who support children and youth in and out of school. We designed the book to help you, the professional educator, address these questions in a practical, strategic way that improves your school and district and accelerates equitable and quality outcomes—both in the short and long run—no matter how close or far you are from equity with excellence at scale.

This volume builds on Safe, Supportive and Successful Schools Step by Step It is also based on 120 years of the authors’ collective experience, including our ongoing work with urban, suburban, rural, and frontier schools and with districts, states, and agencies in every U.S. state and territory. Our experience and that of of the chapter authors include both consultation and technical assistance with schools, districts, agencies, and states as well as evaluation research and synthesis activities to identify and apply what we know about supporting student, educator, school, and system capacity so that every student is engaged and thrives—both educationally and as a whole person. We have discovered a great need for a single resource that can help educators think strategically about all the areas that need to be attended to in creating schools that support deep learning learning and well-being for all students , that makes sense of all the programs and frameworks that exist, and provides a road=map as well as recommended tools. This book intends to do exactly that.

Scientific Advances: Implications of the Science of Learning and Development

Over the past decade, researchers working in neurobiology, learning science, developmental

science, and education have learned much about the factors that enhance or impede learning and development forDRAFT children and adolescence. This knowledge converges on practical science-based principles regarding the science of learning and development that have been

reviewed by leading scientists and practitioners. These principles include:

- Relationships and stress drive and undermine learning.

– Social, emotional, and academic skills interrelate and can be learned.

– Conditions for learning and teaching matter.

– The impacts of stress and adversity must and can be addressed, and resilience can be

supported.

– Culture, identity, and subjective perceptions affect learning.

– Neurobiological and neurohormonal processes can support or undermine learning (e.g.,

impact of cortisol).

– Learning and development is both social and individual.

– Multiple factors within the individual and the individual’s context contribute to results.

– New analytical techniques enable us to personalize though addressing the multiple factors

that contribute to results.

Lessons From Success and Failure

At the same time, practice-based research and wisdom has accumulated, and we have learned from successes and failures of interventions and other initiatives intended to support children and youth

• Evidence is necessary but not sufficient; readiness to implement, implementation

quality, and context matter.

• Cultural competence and responsiveness are essential to realizing both equity and

excellence. • Academic pressDRAFT without student engagement and support does not work • Comprehensive approaches that align social, emotional, academic, and health

supports can best address barriers to learning.

• Comprehensive approaches can be efficiently implemented through a relational,

multi-tiered model (See figure Intro-1) that has a robust foundation adapted to local

needs

• Data-informed planning and continuous improvement are necessary to drive change;

these data should include stakeholder perceptions and concerns.

• Collaborative, strengths-based asset mapping enhances collaboration and efficiency.

Implications of the Every Student Succeeds Act

This book is meant to combine the knowledge of science and practice to help P-12 educators plan and execute effective interventions to improve their schools and boost the outcomes and lifetime prospects of all their students. It also comes at a fortuitious time when educators are being encouraged to monitor the quality of their school climate and its effect on all students by policy makers, parents and others. The federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) provides opportunities for school personnel to improve student academic progress by addressing the whole child and equity. The Title IV-A guidance states that education agencies may adopt strategies to support children’s social and emotional development to achieve the grant priorities under “well-rounded education.” ESSA’s accountability guidance creates a “fifth indicator,” which can include indicators of whole child development, student engagement, and school climate as part of its accountability system. The legislation prioritizes equitable schools and

opportunities for students to engage deeply in their academic experience. The ESSA emphasizes the use of data to continually inform state and local improvements. In this volume, weDRAFT draw upon what we have learned from students, teachers, pupil services personnel, administrators, family members, and agency staff. While we will draw on these lessons throughout every chapter, let’s start with the voices of youth and teachers.

Youth

In countless conversations and schools and in forums, youth have told us what they need from adults in order to thrive. These conversations have enriched our thinking and underline much of the advice in this book. Here is some of what they say:

“You see me as you want to. If all you see is a stereotype, then you shall never know me, but you will forever know who I am not.” (Langston, an African-American high school senior from New England)

“You don’t know me; you just see me. You don’t even give me a chance.” (Melissa, a

17-year-old Caucasian high school student)

“I am the one people expect less of, the underachiever, the dropout. No, I think not. But I am the one who had to go against all stereotypes, mean and dirty looks, and much worse.” (José, a Mexican-American youth advocate who dropped out of a California high school)

“Know students’ names, and call them by their names; know what embarrasses them, and never embarrass them.” (Mexican-American student activists from Texas, when asked what teachers can do to make classes work)

“We are not afraid of challenge and hard work because our teachers ‘have our backs.’”

(African-American high school students responding to the question, “Are you ever pushed too hard?”)

“We are happy when ‘we have a sense of belonging.’” (Caucasian 4-H youth when asked the question, “What makes you happy?”) Teachers DRAFT Teachers, who work most directly with children and youth have also informed this volume and speak eloquently to the need for . Here is one teachers’ story, that of Mary Cathryn D. Ricker’s, a

National Board Certified Teacher and Executive Vice-President or the American Federation of Teachers.

Mary’s story, like the many stories she and we have hear, illustrates the need for a comprehensive, systematic approach to supporting students:

When I was a new teacher hired to teach eighth-grade English, the middle school I joined had just completed a lengthy process of redefining itself as a middle school and adopting middle school philosophies and practices, including printing posters to be displayed in every classroom that began with “All students can learn.”

It was an important, informal induction into my profession, which solidified three lessons from my teacher training program: Approach everything with the belief that all students can learn; don’t assume anyone knows you believe that if you haven’t explicitly stated it; and if students aren’t learning in your class, then do the work to uncover what barriers are preventing them from learning and remove them.

Initially, I believed the barriers were in the four walls of the classroom. I asked myself questions such as, “Did I need to reteach something? Were the definitions clear enough? Had I given enough time to the material? Did I provide interesting and relevant connections to create engaging lessons?” Looking back on my career in the classroom, I realized that these were surmountable obstacles to learning I could control, not that they weren’t pernicious from time to time.

While those barriers existed and it was my primary job to look for and remove them, I noticed issues that didn’t reflect on my inability to introduce a short story in an engaging way or had nothing to do with DRAFToffering constructive feedback on a student’s writing that was both clear and concise. For example, the student who was frequently late to class, the student who refused to sit in his new seat assignment, the student who put his head down on the desk and started sleeping shortly after class started, or the student who would come back from lunch crying and ask to go to the bathroom.

Initially, these situations elicited a superficial disciplinary response. Being marked tardy meant lunch detention. Refusing to sit down in a newly assigned seat like every other student meant a stand-off that resulted in sending a student out of the classroom, while I felt my authority was challenged. The student who slept got nudged awake as often as needed so the principal wouldn’t walk in and see a student sleeping in class and reprimand me (and how was I supposed to know if my lessons were engaging if a student wouldn’t even try to engage with them?!). Maybe the student crying would have to use a pass to go to the bathroom.

However, none of these situations were what they seemed on the surface. After some investigation, I learned that the student who was frequently late to class had purposefully hung back in the classroom to avoid students who otherwise would bully her when they found her in the hallway. The student who refused to sit down told the social worker that the desk he was assigned would be too embarrassing to sit in because it had an attached chair and he was afraid he wouldn’t fit in it; he was too embarrassed to tell me that. The student who slept in class had a part-time job at a local, fast food restaurant and took only closing shifts so he could be home after school to watch his little sister. And all those students who returned to the classroom after lunch crying? (There were many more than one. A lot happens at lunch in middle school.) They

all had their reasons, and when you are 12 or 13 or 14 and life happens, sometimes it’s sad or it hurts. No teacher telling you, “It’s time to learn now” is going to distract you from how sad you are or how hurt you feel.DRAFT In these cases, and countless others, students were lacking a safe environment, or maybe they didn’t feel supported by the teacher or their school community. I realized there was something besides my teaching that wasn’t engaging them or that there was a logic in their world outside of school that was more relevant, meaningful, or engaging to them and took precedence. In some cases, school was not a place where they felt successful because their success, sometimes just in that moment, was tied to something the school did not have a way to value.

The realization that a school community, and as a teacher in that school community, had the responsibility to show students their lives had value extended into the other things I noticed or discovered were impediments to learning. For example, I had a student who was frequently absent after he turned 13. When his mom came to parent/teacher conferences, she apologized profusely for his attendance, with him sitting right there, and went on to explain that she and her children were homeless and had moved from her car to a shelter to be just a little more comfortable; but now that her son was 13, he didn’t get to stay in the “women’s and children’s” side anymore. He had to stay in the men’s side. He wasn’t getting much sleep, so he would sleep when he was with her. There was a student whose work started to drop off after a strong start to the school year. When I called home, I found out the student’s older sister had recently been convicted of a crime and sent to jail. Her mom said they had all been struggling with the situation at home. One Monday, a student came to school and walked into homeroom with his wrist cupped in his opposite hand. He came up to me, showed me his wrist—which was blue,

purple, black, and about three sizes larger than it should have been—and asked, “Ms. Ricker, my mom wanted me to ask you if I could see the nurse this morning to take a look at my thumb?” His family had no healthDRAFT insurance. His mother had kept him as comfortable as she could all weekend with ice, over-the-counter pain relievers, and her constant attention. The school nurse was his urgent care center.

How do we create school environments that support the learning and development of the whole child with these and other barriers to learning and development? What conditions need to be in place so that I can successfully meet the academic needs of students while being present and mindful of the social and emotional needs of students as well? How can we assure those professionals that they are not expected to do this alone and that there is an entire school community collaborating toward successfully meeting the needs of our students? That our talents in isolation may be impressive, but our talents in concert with those of our colleagues are unstoppable? How do we amplify the professional voices of those of us hired because of our expertise at meeting the needs of students? What are the most meaningful ways of collaborating with our students, their families, and our surrounding community to create safe and supportive spaces that engage learners and their families for the most successful outcomes possible?

We start this book featuring the voices of students and teachers, because they are essential to driving equity with excellence and must be at the center of school improvement. We could also listen to pupil services personnel, who work hard to provide students with individual support, but often feel marginalized or overloaded by staff-to-student ratios, or by spending their time on documentation rather than on consultation and student support. Or we could listen to the visionary principals and superintendents we have met, who are committed to supporting both

teachers and students and who envision schools that promote the success of all students, foster creativity and healthy development, and contribute to the wellness of their entire community. We could also start with familyDRAFT members—who, like teachers—balance multiple jobs and roles. They support their children 24/7, and experience their children’s strengths and needs as a whole—not as a set of service silos. Or, we could start with culturally competent agency staff who employ strengths-based, family- and child-driven approaches to supporting children and youth. We have written about all of these groups elsewhere and include their voices throughout this book.2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13

This book intentionally employs the word you for or intended readers—student leaders, family members, teachers, pupil service professionals, paraprofessionals, principals, superintendents, board members, or agency staff. This book is designed to help YOU and other members of your school/district community realize your goals and aspirations in a way that leverages assets and addresses challenges to fostering educational equity with excellence that includes social and emotional learning (SEL) and deeper learning for all students. We know this work is hard and has many elements. However, it is made harder by ineffective, underaligned, incoherent solutions that address only part of the problem and may add to the burden on students, families, teachers, and leaders. This book will help you by:

• naming and explaining problems and their interconnectedness;

• strengthening your school’s capacity to assess needs, identify solutions, plan

implementation, and roll out your plan in a way that maximizes engagement and

support;

•

• showing how you can identify, adapt, and align interventions that will work in your

context; • providing toolsDRAFT to assess and develop readiness to implement these interventions and to monitor, assess, and continually improve what you do;

• connecting the dots;

• providing links to other tools and resources; and

• providing examples of school, district and communities who have experienced

success with a comprehensive, systematic approach

•

How this book is organized

The chapters in this volume are organized in five sections that focus on activities that you must address to create schools that support the social, emotional, and academic needs of all students and produce excellence with equity. Although each chapter can be read as a stand-alone resource, the sections are organized in a logical, iterative order and the chapters are interdependent with specific chapters that describe certain issues and practices in depth. Links to all of the major tools and other resources mentioned in the chapters can be found in the “Tools

Table” found in the appendix.

Build Capacity. Chapters 1 through 5 address building the capacity of the school and school staff to lead and implement the work with passion, enthusiasm, and efficiency. This involves building skills, structures, and motivation, including organizational incentives, to do the work; building leadership qualities and teams that work well; and conducting needs assessments and developing strategies and action plans that include the right interventions. Chapters address these topics:

• Developing individual and organizational capacity and motivation (1).

• Leading schools and school improvement through effective leadership and key teams: aDRAFT schoolwide team and a student support team (2). • Implementing needs assessment and asset mapping, identifying doable and

sustainable interventions that produce short-term gains while addressing the root

causes of problems and challenges, developing an action plan and indicators for

monitoring, and securing stakeholder input and investment (3).

• Becoming a critical consumer ready to select the right programs, practices,

strategies, approaches, curricula, and policies, based on what we know can work

in your school with your staff to address the types of issues with which you are

concerned, and understanding what we don’t know and the challenges of

implementation and adaptation (4).

• Identifying, leveraging, and coordinating resources that can support whole-child

education and development, including blending and braiding funding, and

redeploying resources (5).

Engage. Chapters 6 through 10 focus on engaging and harnessing the strengths of the school’s undertapped stakeholders. Readers will learn:

• How and why to implement culturally competent and culturally responsive

approaches (6).

• Strategies for engaging students and employing youth development approaches

(7).

• Effectively engaging families in a culturally responsive and family-driven way to

maximize partnership, equity, and excellence (8).

• Effectively engaging and collaborating with the community (9).

• Leveraging community based, expanded learning and support (10). Act. Chapters 11DRAFT through 19 address approaches to creating safe, supportive, engaging, academically robust, and equitable schools. They cover these activities:

• Building conditions for learning and development for equity with excellence

through the lens of a generalized three-tiered model based on a robust foundation

to support the success of all students (11).

• Building and restoring school communities—Building and sustaining school

communities through relational and restorative practices (12).

• Creating respectful, trauma-sensitive, and inclusive schools—Using trauma

sensitivity and intentional programing to address and prevent the effects of

adversity and marginalization (13).

• Using MTSS, an established model of multi-tiered systems of support, to

coordinate and align academic and behavioral support in a multi-tiered manner

(14).

• Employing selected intervention strategies to address the needs of students who

are at some elevated level of academic or social, emotional, or behavioral

problems (15).

• Employing intensive, indicated interventions to address the needs of students

who are at a further elevated level of academic or social, emotional, or behavioral

risk (16).

• Employing effective approaches to leverage the power of universal Social and

emotional learning (SEL) skill building programs (17).

• Building conditions for teaching so that teachers can support SEL, conditions for

learning, and learning (18). • AddressingDRAFT learning challenges in a way that addresses the individuality and the culturally grounded nature of learning, does not stigmatize students, and scaffolds

skill development and engagement in deeper learning (19).

Improve.

• Using progress monitoring and formative and summative assessment techniques

to monitor progress and to refine and evaluate interventions (20).

Building equity with excellence is important for our children, our communities, and ourselves. It is not easy task. But it can and is being done. This book is intended to help you do this work in a sustainable manner—collaboratively, respectfully, and strategically.

Notes

1 U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, “2013–2014 Civil Rights Data

Collection: A First Look,” last modified October 28, 2016, https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/2013-14-first-look.pdf; “CRDC Data

Summaries,” https://ocrdata.ed.gov/DataSummary.

2 L. Hunter et al., Working Together to Promote Academic Performance, Social and Emotional

Learning, and Mental Health for All Children (New York: Center for the Advancement of

Children's Mental Health, Columbia University, 2005).

3 D. Osher et al., “Warning Signs of Problems in Schools: Ecological Perspectives and Effective Practices for CombatingDRAFT School Aggression and Violence,” in Issues in School Violence Research, eds. M. J. Furlong et al. (Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 2004), 13–38.

4 N. Rappaport et al., “Enhancing Collaborations Within and Across Disciplines to Advance

Mental Health Programs in Schools,” in School Mental Health Handbook, eds. M. D. Weist et al.

(New York: Kluwer Academic, 2002), 107–118.

5 M. M. Quinn et al., Teaching and Working With Children Who Have Emotional and

Behavioral Challenges (Longmont, CO: Sopris West, 2000).

6 D. W. Woodruff et al., The Role of Education in a System of Care: Effectively Serving

Children With Emotional or Behavioral Disorders (Washington, DC: American Institutes for

Research, Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice, 1999).

7 K. Dwyer, D. Osher, and C. Warger, Early Warning, Timely Response: A Guide to Safe

Schools (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 1998).

8 M. M. Quinn et al., Safe, Drug-Free, and Effective Schools for All Students: What Works!

(Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research, Center for Effective Collaboration and

Practice, 1998).

9 D. Osher and T. V. Hanley, “Building on an Emergent Social Service Delivery Paradigm,” in

Making Collaboration Work for Children, Youth, Families, Schools, and Communities, eds. L.

M. Bullock and R. A. Gable (Reston, VA: Council for Exceptional Children, 1997), 10–15.

10 K. P. Dwyer et al., “Team Crisis: School Psychologists and Nurses Working Together,”

Psychology in the Schools 52 (2015): 702–713.

11 T. W. Osher and Osher, D, “The Paradigm Shift to True Collaboration With Families,”

Journal of Child and Family Studies 11, no. 1 (2002): 47–60.

12 D. Osher, M. M. Quinn, and T. V. Hanley, “An Agenda for Success,” Journal of Child and Family Studies 10, no. 3DRAFT (2002): 1–11. 13 D. Osher, S. Sandler, and C. Nelson, “The Best Approach to Safety Is to Fix Schools and

Support Children and Staff,” New Directions in Youth Development 92 (2001): 127–154.

16 Applied Developmental Science

ISSN: 1088-8691 (Print) 1532-480X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hads20

Drivers of human development: How relationships and context shape learning and development1

David Osher, Pamela Cantor, Juliette Berg, Lily Steyer & Todd Rose

To cite this article: David Osher, Pamela Cantor, Juliette Berg, Lily Steyer & Todd Rose (2018): Drivers of human development: How relationships and context shape learning and development1, Applied Developmental Science, DOI: 10.1080/10888691.2017.1398650 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2017.1398650

Published online: 24 Jan 2018.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 49

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=hads20 APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2017.1398650

none defined Drivers of human development: How relationships and context shape learning and development1 David Oshera, Pamela Cantorb,c, Juliette Berga , Lily Steyerb , and Todd Rosec,d aAmerican Institutes for Research; bTurnaround for Children; cHarvard Graduate School of Education; dThe Center for Individual Opportunity

ABSTRACT This article synthesizes knowledge on the role of relationships and key macroand micro-contexts - poverty, racism, families, communities, schools, and peers - in supporting and/or undermining the healthy development of children and youth, using a relational developmental systems framework. Relationships with parents, siblings, peers, caregivers, and teachers are explored in the context of early care and childhood settings, schools, classrooms, and school-based interventions. Additional contextual factors include; chronic stress, institutionalized racism, stereotype threat, and racial identity. A companion article focuses on how the human brain develops, and the major constructs that define human development, the constructive nature of development, and the opportunities for resilience. Human development occurs through reciprocal coactions between the individual and their contexts and culture, with relationships as the key drivers. Relationships and contexts, along with how children appraise and interpret them, can be risks and assets for healthy learning and development, and their influence can be seen across generations and can produce intra- as well as intergenerational assets and risks. This knowledge about the individual’s responsiveness to context and experience has both positive and negative implications across early childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. Sensitive periods for brain growth and development are considered within the contextual factors that influence development including; parental responsiveness and attunement, intentional skill development, mindfulness, reciprocal interactions, adversity, trauma, and enriching opportunities. The accumulated knowledge on human development and the power of context and culture can inform child-serving systems that support positive adaptations, resilience, learning, health, and well-being.

This article presents a picture of the macro- and they contribute to and are influenced by the idiographic micro-contexts that shape children’s developing brains pathways of others. In this article, we integrate and and their overall development. We examine the ways synthesize research on the influences of key contexts in which individuals and contexts come together and relationships within contexts in young people’s lives through relationships that are affected by both positive that drive their development over time, and address and negative developmental factors (e.g., stress, attune- growth and malleability throughout the life course. ment, and support). Developmental Systems Theories Along with the companion article entitled, (DST; e.g., Ford & Lerner, 1992; Overton, 2015) provide “Malleability, Plasticity, and Individuality: How a framework to integrate the underlying processes of Children Learn and Develop in Context,” this article neural malleability and plasticity with the dynamic rela- synthesizes convergent bodies of knowledge across tional interconnectedness of children and the adults with diverse scientific disciplines within a DST framework. whom they interact in their social, cultural, and physical The integration of knowledge within this framework contexts (Bronfenbrenner, 2005; Overton & Müller, enables us to see that child development is neither 2012). Viewed this way, children grow as individuals, genetically predetermined nor governed by a “nature in culture and context, producing unique individual versus nurture” dichotomy (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; (idiographic) developmental pathways across the life- Oyama, 2000). Rather, development is a constructive span (Overton, 2010). Although everyone’s developmen- enterprise shaped by ongoing, reciprocal interactions tal history is unique, individuals influence each other; between children’s biology, their developing brains,

CONTACT Juliette Berg [email protected] American Institutes for Research, 1000 Thomas Jefferson Street NW, Washington, DC 20007, USA. 1References in this document are illustrative due to space constraints and do not represent all citations used to inform this review. Please see online extended reference list for the full set of citations that helped inform this review. © 2017 David Osher, Pamela Cantor, Juliette Berg, Lily Steyer, and Todd Rose This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. Published with license by Taylor & Francis 2 D. OSHER ET AL. and their physical and social contexts, with the latter situated, which is understood in their ecologies and playing a defining role. Of particular importance, affected by the ecologies of those who interact with among the reciprocal coactions between the individual them (Bornstein, 2015; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, in their contexts and culture, are the significant 2006; Cairns, 1979; Gibson, 1979). When the framework relationships in each microsystem context that children incorporates a phenomenological component (Spencer, experience directly and how children appraise and 1995, 2007), it allows us to examine the role of context, interpret their relationships and experiences (Slavich culture, intra-subjective experiences, and social and & Cole, 2013). emotional states, appraisal, meaning making, and other The findings presented in the article come from a factors in explaining human development. In particular, variety of correlational, longitudinal, and causal studies; the framework allows us to examine the variability and our approach was not to rely solely on causal evidence, stability in developmental range, sequencing, and but rather to triangulate across multiple sources. First, pacing of behavior, complex skill acquisition, adaptive we solicited and reviewed recommendations for critical capacities, resilience, and performance, and how these works from experts in the identified scientific fields. become stable and transferable to new situations over Next, we systematically and comprehensively identified time (Bornstein, 2017; Fischer & Bidell, 2006). Skill and reviewed meta-analyses, peer-reviewed literature development and meaning making are contextually reviews, and handbook chapters that synthesized and culturally circumscribed. Mental and physical research over the last two decades. In some cases, we activities perform specific functions in specific settings supplemented these sources with empirical and/or and are interpreted both within and across contexts. theoretical studies to nuance and validate our findings. All children are vulnerable. Micro- and macro- Our sources either integrated an area of research with contexts provide risks as well as assets that can prevent an established body of knowledge or presented findings the actualization or impacts of risk, reduce a child’s net that have been reproduced in multiple studies. We vulnerability (i.e., history of one’s prior experiences and tempered our language where the literature shows less coping outcomes), and foster resilience. In so doing, consistency because the science is more nascent and/ contexts support learning and healthy development or pronounced disagreements remain. To vet our source (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Spencer, Swanson, & Harpalani, selections and validate our findings, we sent multiple 2015). The processes through which ecologies affect drafts to experts in relevant fields and conducted two development can be observed in individuals at neuro- face-to-face invitational meetings (in October 2016 biological, physiological, phenomenological, behavioral, and June 2017) at which we presented the final research and social levels. Whether in the home, in schools, or in report and the companion manuscripts (Berg, Osher, other child-serving settings, relationships characterized Cantor, Steyer, & Rose, 2016; Osher, Cantor, Berg, by sensitivity, attunement, consistency, trustworthiness, Steyer, & Rose, 2017a, 2017b). This article and its cognitive stimulation, and scaffolding enable children to companion piece update our findings and situate them develop secure attachments and mature in progressively within a powerful, unifying framework that integrates complex ways (Bornstein, 2015; Center on the bioecological, relational, and contextual factors. Developing Child, 2016; Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Li & Julian, 2012; Thompson 2015). Children’s patterns of development remain responsive to relationships, Dynamic development systems theory as an experience, meaning making, and context throughout organizing framework their life course, offering opportunities to buffer and Development is “always development in context,” and is overcome the effects of risk factors throughout the shaped by all the contexts that the developing child and developmental continuum. youth experiences (Goodnow & Lawrence, 2015). DST Development occurs within interlinked bioecological provides a flexible, constructive framework that enables contexts that encompass an array of environments and us to both capture the richness and complexity of devel- societal structures (Bornstein & Leventhal, 2015; opment in a bioecological context (Bronfenbrenner, Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). These include the 2005; Fischer & Rose, 2001; Overton & Müller, 2012) differential allocation of risk (e.g., exposure to violence) and to explain its diversity and variability—from the and hegemonic belief systems that legitimate or ignore expression of genes at the cellular level and the secretion the impacts of privilege (e.g., Gay & Kirkland, 2003; of chemical hormones to the expression of behaviors Spencer, 2017). Structural and social features of devel- and the appraisal and processing of experience. The opmentally rich contexts support development (and framework enables us to view children’s development buffer the effects of adversity) when they foster adults’ as embodied, contextualized, and socially and culturally capacities to attune with and support children and to APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 3 teach, model, and coregulate the development of social, modeling, consistency, trustworthiness, cognitively emotional, and cognitive competencies. Develop- stimulation, and a caregiver’s capacity to accurately per- mentally rich contexts can function as a “constructive ceive and respond to the child’s mental state (e.g., Bergin web” through which complex dynamic skills are & Bergin, 2009; Bornstein, 2015; Li & Julian, 2012; developed and positive adaptation is fostered (Fischer Siegel, 2012). Support must also be developmentally & Bidell, 2006). Such experiences lead to the integration constitutive in a manner that aligns with a child’s of neural structures that establish representational tem- social-historical life space; provides emotional security, plates through which future experiences are interpreted, information and knowledge; and helps children develop reappraised, and processed (Siegel, 1999). The adapta- age-appropriate skills (Thompson & Goodvin, 2016). tions that young people make to one context can carry Developmentally constitutive relationships can be over to other contexts, thereby enabling them to succeed incorporated into the design of practices and interven- in environments that pose new and differing challenges. tions seeking to support performance and promote the Meanwhile, developmentally unsuitable, insufficiently development of complex skills, adaptive capacities, and supportive, and culturally incongruent contexts can resilience, particularly among students from environ- exacerbate stress and hinder the development of ments that place them at higher levels of risk. foundational competencies, which include bonds that Developmentally constitutive relationships with children make with adults, skills to cope with and man- adults, along with supportive environments, are founda- age stressful conditions, and the regulation of emotion tional to healthy development (Baumeister & Leary, and attention to effectively engage and accomplish 1995; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, goals (e.g., Farmer, Dawes, Alexander, & Brooks, 2016; and Medicine, 2016). Developmental relationships allow Stafford-Brizard, 2016). caregivers to care for the physical and emotional needs of infants and children and support the integration of social, affective, emotional, and cognitive processes Relationships as drivers of human (Center on the Developing Child, 2016; Siegel, 2012). development: Positive supportive contexts The caregiver’s capacity to accurately perceive and Relationships between and among children and adults respond to the child’s mental state are important for are a primary process through which biological and building shared experiences and emotions (Bornstein, contextual factors influence and mutually reinforce each 2015; Siegel, 2012) and for the development of self- other. Relationships that are reciprocal, attuned, cultu- regulation (e.g., Main, 1991). Early and ongoing develop- rally responsive, and trustful are a positive developmen- mental relationships at home and at school promote tal force between children and their physical and balance between self-regulatory systems and contribute social contexts. Such relationships help to establish to the child’s capacity to regulate emotions, behavior, idiographic developmental pathways that serve as the and cognition; to develop a sense of agency; to feel foundation for lifelong learning, adaptation, the connected to other people; and to establish an autobio- integration of social, affective, emotional, and cognitive graphical narrative (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Murray, processes and will, over time, make qualitative changes Rosanbalm, Christopoulos, & Hamoudi, 2015). These to a child’s genetic makeup (Bornstein & Leventhal, relationships build upon early attachment relationships 2015; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). which establish a secure base for exploration and a safe That relationships are important is not new knowl- haven, which continue to be important for learning edge (e.g., Luthar, 2006; Masten, 2014; National Scientific and development (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991; Bowlby, Council on the Developing Child, 2004). However, a 1988; Cassidy, Jones, & Shaver, 2013). Perceived support need exists to operationalize “relationship” in a manner is more strongly related to psychological well-being than that accounts for the power of relationships to shape other dimensions of support (Thompson & Goodvin, development in constructive ways. Li and Julian (2012) 2016), and is affected by how developmental relation- operationalize “developmental relationships” as having ships are experienced, processed, and remembered— four characteristics: enduring emotional attachment, phenomenological factors that can be shaped by reciprocity, progressive complexity of joint activity, social-cognitive factors such as parent-child discourse and a power balance that allows for transferability to and culture (Cassidy & Shaver, 2008; Thompson 2015). new settings. They hypothesize that these four factors are the active ingredients in effective interventions Role of ecological contexts across settings. Developmental relationships are also characterized by attunement, social synchrony, Human behavior and development take place in nested compassionate communication, co-regulation, support, ecological systems, which affect development directly 4 D. OSHER ET AL. and indirectly through effects on individuals and families living in or near poverty (Luthar, Crossman, & practices (e.g., Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Small, 2015; Vandell, Belsky, Burchinal, Vandergrift, & Ecological contexts encompass an array of relationships, Steinberg, 2010). One setting can also buffer or exacer- environments, and societal structures (e.g., Holman, bate the negative effects of another setting. For example, Garfin, & Silver, 2014). Ecological contexts and the problematic family functioning can exacerbate the risks individuals embedded in them are characterized by of community violence (Luthar et al., 2015). Sociological continual interactions within and across levels and by studies of housing policy provide another example. great variation in internal as well as external risk and Housing policy, which reflects historical policy choices protective factors. Margaret Beale Spencer (2007) (as well as institutionalized racism and white privilege describes it this way: (e.g., de jure until the 1960s) and de facto housing segregation), affects wealth accumulation and sets the Risks and protective factors may take a variety of forms given variations in race/ethnicity, gender, faith, stage for neighborhood effects. These, in turn, affect community, body type, immigration status, skin color, parenting, peer relationships, school resources, processes privilege, health quality or disability status, cultural and opportunities to learn, along with student traditions, social class, and temperament. All are linked attendance (Perkins & Sampson, 2015; Tolan, 2016; to the character of the context and the individual’s Wadsworth, Evans, Grant, Carter, & Duffy, 2016). history of experiences and even the group’s history in Similarly, adaptations that children and youth make the nation. (p. 840) in one context carry over to other contexts. Children For each individual, net level of stress is the effect of and youth cope with stress and adversity, including the stresses actually experienced and the factors that identity threat, in ways that may be adaptive or maladap- buffered the experiences to prevent the damaging effects tive. The result will depend on alignment between of stress (Spencer, 2007, 2017). contexts, which makes transfer easier. Adult support The characteristics of contexts matter. A developmen- can promote positive adaptation. This occurs when tally rich context can provide safe, secure, enriching adults (e.g., teachers) are able to understand the origin opportunities and developmental relationships with of a problematic behavior in another context and pro- adults; direct targeting of self-regulation; executive vide the child with attuned, developmentally appropri- function; and social and behavioral skills, opportunities ate, and culturally competent psychological support for practice and reinforcement of these foundational that helps the child meet the expectations of the new competencies, and opportunities to take on leadership context (e.g., Pierce, Gould, & Camiré, 2017; Spencer, roles and participate in collaborative and productive 2007). Although some social and emotional skills may peer interactions (e.g., Jones & Bouffard, 2012; Lerner, be domain specific (e.g., skills learned through sports; 2004). Structural and social features of schools and early Pierce et al., 2017), social and emotional learning childhood educational settings that provide a develop- programs can intentionally support skill transfer (Yoder, mentally rich context can enhance developmental range, 2014). Similarly, adults can provide a web of support that buffer the effects of stress and trauma, promote resili- helps children and youth develop cultural competence, a ence, and accelerate the development and integration capacity to code switch, and the ability to employ socially of affective, cognitive, social, and emotional processes. effective scripts when encountering challenging and Developmentally unsuitable, insufficiently supportive, identity-assailing situations (Oppedal & Toppelberg, and culturally incongruent contexts can exacerbate 2016), all of which can help children and youth adapt stress; hinder the reinforcement of foundational compe- to environments that have differing behavioral expecta- tencies; and impel maladaptive behaviors by failing to tions and pose differing challenges (e.g., Goodnow & foster healthy relationships with adults, limiting Lawrence, 2015; Jakonen, 2016; Spencer, 2017). enrichment and stimulating experiences, and reducing the chances of interacting with peers who are positive Microsystem contexts influences (e.g., Farmer et al., 2016). Young people who experience recurring and continuous negative con- Developmental relationships occur in microsystem texts cease to recognize them as abnormal and become contexts—communities and neighborhoods, families, child habituated to these contexts (Siegel, 1999). care, schools, and peers—whose composition, culture, The effects of one context can carry over to other con- and structure constrain or foster these relationships. texts. One setting can positively affect another setting. Relationships within these systems are affected by other For example, one study found that high-quality early ecological systems as well as by cultural factors, the child care improved mother-infant interactions among attributes of individual children and adults, and the APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 5 child’s developmental stage. Although these factors are Manago, & Cheng, 2016). Siblings also matter. Siblings co-influential, for heuristic purposes, we discuss the four may spend more time with one another than with their primary microsystem contexts separately along with the parents (Lucey, 2010). Sibling effects can be positive or relationships that most regularly occur in these settings. negative, can be direct or indirect (through effects on Microsystems “invite, permit, or inhibit engagement parents and teachers), and may affect social, emotional, in sustained, progressively more complex interaction and cognitive development (e.g., McHale, Updegraff, & with, and activity in, the immediate environment” Whiteman, 2012). Kin who do not live in the household (Bronfenbrenner, 1994, p. 39). They include families, may support family capacity and extend the family’s early care and learning settings, schools, peers, religious resources by providing social, cultural, and financial institutions and faith communities, youth development capital (Stack, 1974). programs, drop-in centers, cultural institutions and settings, gangs, and juvenile justice institutions. Each Relationships with caregivers microsystem provides opportunities for social learning The caregiver–child dyad plays a foundational role in and can affect social, emotional, and cognitive develop- the development of children’s social, emotional, and ment through the quality of relationships and the extent cognitive skills (National Academies of Sciences, to which children and youth experience safety, connect- Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). Parents play a key edness, engagement, challenge, and opportunities to role in five relational domains, each of which has its develop competencies and access supports—both posi- own developmental course and set of regulatory tively (e.g., enrichment and social and emotional learn- mechanisms: protection, mutual reciprocity, control, ing) and negatively (e.g., bullying and engagement in guided learning, and group participation. Each domain high-risk behaviors). We focus on four key systems: fam- is activated under different conditions, involves a differ- ilies; early care and childhood settings; schools; and ent parent–child relationship, requires different parent- peers. ing responses, and is associated with different outcomes (Grusec & Davidov, 2016). Parenting practices (and their mental models) are shaped by parents’ own experi- Families ences and circumstances; practices they learn from their Family resources, social supports, emotional climate, social networks; cultural and societal beliefs and norms; and stability, along with positive mental models and supports available to them within communities, supportive caregiver-child interactions and relation- institutions, and policies; and children’s individual and ships, are essential if families are to provide the developmentally specific demands (National Academies bonding, connection, and safety necessary for healthy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). Six development (Bornstein, 2015; Patterson & Hastings, parenting practices are particularly important for 2007). Insufficient space or privacy, environmental supporting physical health and safety, emotional and toxins, and housing insecurity are examples of behavioral competence, social competence, and resource-related factors that can affect the quality of cognitive competence in children (National social, emotional, and cognitive developmental context Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, insecurity (e.g., Diette & Ribar, 2015) and can contrib- 2016): (a) contingent responsiveness: adult behavior ute to increases in student mobility, childhood stress, that occurs immediately after a child’s behavior and is and self-regulation challenges (e.g., Herbers, Reynolds, related to the child’s focus of attention; (b) showing & Chen, 2013; Rumberger, 2003). warmth and sensitivity; (c) routines and reduced Grandparents, siblings, and other kin often play key household chaos; (d) shared book reading and talking roles. For example, 7% of children in 2010 lived in to children; (e) practices that promote children’s health households headed by a grandparent and 17% of and safety such as prenatal care and ensuring children living with grandparents were being raised in adequate nutrition and physical activity; and (f) use of homes with no biological or adoptive parent present appropriate (less harsh) discipline. Parental inputs are (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Some are children of incar- effective when children feel that their parents cerated parents and face particular social, emotional, consistently care for them, are sensitive to their needs, and academic challenges (e.g., Eddy, Cearley, Bergen, understand them, and have their best interests at heart & Stern-Carusone, 2014). Although research on grand- (Grusec & Davidov, 2016). parents is limited, the preponderance of available There are also some universally harmful practices, research suggests that grandparents can be important which include harsh punishment, unresponsive support systems for and positive influences on their parenting, hostility, lack of psychological support, and grandchildren (Luthar et al., 2015; Powell, Hamilton, lack of autonomy and monitoring as children mature 6 D. OSHER ET AL.

(e.g., Grusec & Davidov, 2016; Luthar et al., 2015). struggle with poverty provide their children with effec- Maltreatment by caregivers is one of the most powerful tive care and supervision, leveraging both their personal disrupters of child adjustment (Luthar et al., 2015). skills and social capital (e.g., J. Smith, Brooks-Gunn, & Maternal experiences of childhood maltreatment (e.g., Klebanov, 1997). Jouriles, McDonald, Slep, Heyman, & Garrido, 2008) has been associated with offspring childhood maltreatment Early care and childhood settings and adjustment problems (Berlin, Appleyard, & Dodge, 2011; Plant, Barker, Waters, Pawlby, & Pariante, 2013). Early care and education settings are, next to the family, The role of parents continues to be important the most important social contexts in which early devel- through adolescence and young adulthood, although opment unfolds. Child care and other early childhood the range and depth of parental control change as settings affect development during a highly sensitive children work out the developmental challenge of indi- period of brain development. Children tend to enter viduation (Smetana, 2011) and extend their life space to early care within the first few months of life and spend more complex engagement in social fields that include approximately 36 hours a week there. Early care and school, peers, and work. For many adolescents, the education (ECE) quality varies but tends to be mediocre opinions of peers become more important than those with regard to the capacity to promote positive develop- of family (e.g., Blakemore & Mills, 2014). Parents can mental outcomes (e.g., Institute of Medicine [IOM] & still affect their children’s development and life course National Research Council [NRC], 2015b). Research trajectories through attachment-based support, limit- suggests that the magnitude and sometimes the direc- setting, autonomy, and monitoring of their children’s tion of child care effects on development may be mark- behavior as well as by creating and supporting access edly different for children from higher risk contexts and to healthy social environments (e.g., Blakemore & Mills, that access to quality care is limited by family economic 2014; Luthar et al., 2015). The combination of high resources and geography (Berry et al., 2014; Donoghue, levels of warmth and developmentally appropriate 2017; Sandstrom, Giesen, & Chaudry, 2012). discipline (i.e., authoritative parenting style) is most Effective child care settings have high adult–child beneficial, and the level of warmth and control that ratios, small group sizes, developmentally appropriate adolescents respond positively to is contextual and cul- curriculum, safe physical environments to support turally dependent (Luthar et al., 2015). Providing these positive interactions, and effective instruction (Center parenting characteristics well requires skill and, in some on the Developing Child, 2016), and staff are well cases, support. Many adolescents increasingly want and trained, supported, and compensated (O’Connell, Boat, strive for autonomy, differentiated identity, and an & Warner, 2009). These effective settings provide ample increased role in family decisions (Beveridge & Berg, opportunities for frequent, warm, and responsive inter- 2007), although different adolescents’ push toward actions with adults through language- and relationship- increased autonomy occurs at different rates and for rich environments (e.g., Center on the Developing Child, different types of issues (Smetana, 2011). Because 2016). This often includes experiential learning, which parents and children may perceive risk and their enables children to incorporate and use knowledge (Blair children’s competence differently (as well as parental & Raver, 2014). Pretend play, when combined with other behavior), parents who are more accurate in their ability instructional strategies such as child-centered classrooms to understand their adolescents’ thought processes are and playful learning, is an important context for learning likely to realize better outcomes in conflicts (Hastings and development in early childhood (e.g., Lillard et al., & Grusec, 1998; Holmbeck & O’Donnell, 1991; Smetana, 2013; Snow, 2016). Child care settings that have a clear 2011). Parents who have better relationships with their focus on social and emotional learning and on develop- children also realize better results from monitoring their ing self-regulatory skills (including executive functions) children (e.g., Abar, Jackson, & Wood, 2014). can build greater school readiness, and these efforts Parents may need additional support, whether due to can be enhanced by more intensive, targeted social stress, motivational issues, skills, or resources (e.g., interventions and social and cognitive skills training Semke, Garbacz, Kwon, Sheridan, & Woods, 2010). (e.g., Flook, Goldberg, Pinger, & Davidson, 2015). Work demands can affect parents’ levels of monitoring One factor that reflects quality is the high rate of and control. Limited financial resources can affect par- suspensions and expulsions in ECE (U.S. Department ental access to social, cultural, and liquid financial assets of Education, Office of Civil Rights, 2014). The high that middle class parents can more easily leverage to rates reflect staff and center capacity, but the disparities improve learning and health outcomes for their children appear to be due to implicit bias, which, as indicated (e.g., Osher & Chasin, 2016). Still, many parents who later, is also a problem in K–12 education (e.g., National APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 7

Association for the Education of Young Children, engagement and cultural responsiveness by building 2016). Expulsion rates are 13 times higher in federally staff cultural proficiency and cultural humility (Hook funded child care centers than in K–12 classrooms et al. 2016; Hook & Watkins, 2015), by regularly (Gilliam & Shahar, 2006). Black preschoolers are 3.6 assessing how school policies and assessment times more likely to receive one or more suspensions procedures, as well as staff attitudes and practices, than White preschoolers are. Boys are three times more differentially affect culturally and linguistically diverse likely than girls to be suspended. students and families, and by changing policies and practices that privilege some students and disadvantage others (King, Sins, & Osher, 2007; Osher, Cartledge, Schools Oswald, Artilles, & Coutinho, 2004). Schools are dynamic, multilevel, multilayered contexts Culturally responsive approaches scaffold learning by for human development where teachers, peers, helping connect learning and instruction to students’ classrooms, public spaces and structures, culture, com- individual experiences, cultural resources, and needs position, policies, and student attributes influence each with an appreciation of individual variation and an other (Crosnoe & Benner, 2015; Pianta, 2016). These understanding of the effects of macro-system factors co-influential interactions produce differential effects on opportunities to learn (e.g., Gay, 2000; Spencer, that can be studied and understood at both an individual Swanson, & Harpalani, 2015). Leveraging prior knowl- and subgroup level over time (e.g., Beltz, Wright, edge, experience, and interests can reduce cognitive load Sprague, & Molenaar, 2016; Kremer, Flower, Huang, & and mental effort, creating space for new learning (see Vaughn, 2016). companion article for a deeper discussion of how Schools can be designed and organized in ways that leveraging prior knowledge and experience can improve support students by providing a web of support and learning). Culturally responsive approaches support fostering developmental relationships for students with opportunities to learn for all students by supporting their teachers and peers (Crosnoe & Benner, 2015; communication between teachers and students (Gay, Osher & Kendziora, 2010). These relationships are key 2000; Hammond, 2016). Schools can be designed to drivers of learning and development (e.g., identity) address the individual needs of the most vulnerable chil- and are co-influential. Schools support developmental dren while leveraging their strengths and, simul- relationships when they foster key conditions for taneously, creating conditions and opportunities that learning: emotional, intellectual, and physical safety; con- support the engagement and learning of all children. nectedness; support; challenge; engagement; respect; and When the design and organization of schools do not agency (e.g., Berkowitz, Moore, Astor, & Benbenishty, foster conditions for learning, student-centered 2016). The classroom is the most proximal school setting instruction, and cultural responsiveness, schools can for establishing developmental relationships. Positive actually harm students both immediately and over time. classroom climates support students’ social and For example, classroom climates characterized by emotional development and help them be effective lear- conflict are associated with poorer peer relations, more ners (Hamre & Pianta, 2010). Schools with instructional aggression, and poorer outcomes including academic and curricular designs that support learner-centered focus and performance (e.g., Jones & Bouffard, 2012). instruction and learning environments that successfully Over time, adverse experiences in school can lead to a integrate affective, cognitive, social, and emotional cascade of negative academic and behavioral transac- processes with curricular content accelerate the develop- tions that can lead children to withdraw and become mental range of students (Hammond, 2016; Jones & less motivated, leading to greater gaps in school perfor- Bouffard, 2012; Osher et al., 2016). mance and achievement (e.g., Masten et al., 2005; Schools that are culturally responsive and competent Ursache, Blair, & Raver, 2012). This disengagement help build conditions for learning and support develop- can contribute to poor attendance and grades in core ment while reducing cognitive load and minimizing the classes, grade repetition, and discipline actions, includ- tensions and the demands on psychic energy created by ing suspension, that can, in turn, lead to dropout and culturally challenging schools. Culturally challenging school failure (Kendziora, Osher, & Carey, 2014). Exclu- schools require additional attention for some students, sionary discipline provides an example of school-cre- who expend mental and emotional energy on hostile ated adverse effects: the use of exclusionary discipline environments, thereby taking away cognitive and contributes to the experience of shame, student disen- emotional energy for learning and socialization (e.g., gagement, grade retention, dropout, and arrests (e.g., Boykin, 1986, 2000; Spencer, 2017). Culturally Mallett, 2015). Exclusionary discipline can negatively competent schools create conditions that support family affect the learning, engagement, and sense of safety of 8 D. OSHER ET AL. students who are not suspended (e.g., Perry & Morris, and successful learning reflect the power of these devel- 2014). Even one suspension increases the risk of opmentally constitutive relationships, particularly when repeating grades, school dropout, and incarceration combined with a well-designed mastery learning frame- and reduces the likelihood of postsecondary success work. (See the companion article for a full discussion of (Arcia, 2006). mastery learning and the role of relationships in neural integration and motivation.) The power of positive developmental relationships Relationships with teachers and other adults with teachers for promoting student outcomes appear Teachers matter for student motivation, engagement, to be driven by the extent to which the relationships learning, behavior, and psychological support (Pianta, contain social synchrony and emotional attunement, 2016). Student-teacher relationships are important, foster opportunities to learn (including time on task, particularly for students who are at elevated levels of mentoring, and modeling), and increase student con- risk (Hamre & Pianta, 2005). Emotionally close, trustful cepts of themselves as learners (e.g., Gregory & Korth, relationships with nurturing teachers and high teacher 2016; Li & Julian, 2012). Teacher capacity includes the responsiveness foster positive development and learning technical, pedagogical, social, and emotional skills to (e.g., Jones & Bouffard, 2012). Teachers’ explicit teach content, manage classrooms, and develop expression of high expectations and belief in students’ supportive and culturally responsive relationships (e.g., capabilities correlate with successful achievement (e.g., Doyle, 2006; Osher, Bear, Sprague, & Doyle, 2010). Steele, 2010). Positive relationships with teachers Effective teaching depends on teacher qualities which promote self-regulation, which supports children’s include teacher social and emotional competence, the classroom behavior and, in turn, contributes to positive ability to accurately interpret student cues, and the classroom climates. Positive climates are associated with ability to listen to students and to understand the mean- school success-related skills and dispositions, such as ing of student behavior (Everston & Weinstein, 2006; greater cognitive and academic competence, self-esteem, Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). school satisfaction and engagement, higher attendance, Classroom management and instructional practices and less acting out (Hamre & Pianta, 2005). Positive that employ communication and positive interactions relationships with other school staff that occur outside as a way to increase engagement and maintain the classroom, and mentoring relationships benefit appropriate levels of arousal support the development students in similar ways (D. L. DuBois, Portillo, Rhodes, of students’ emotion regulation, executive functions, Silverthorn, & Valentine, 2011; Rhodes, 2004). and academic skills (e.g., Zelazo, Blair, & Willoughby, Positive developmental relationships with teachers 2016) and contribute to positive self-representations which can help children modulate stress reactivity can and more positive responses from others (e.g., Murray also provide working models for students about the pro- et al., 2015). For example, reflective reprocessing of cess of learning. Developmental constitutive relation- information and re-appraising of prior knowledge and ships can contribute to relational trust (Bryk & experience is thought to be necessary for the develop- Schneider, 2003) when students view teachers as reliable ment of executive functions and to reduce cognitive and trustworthy sources and teachers view students as load and can be encouraged through intentional effective learners (e.g., R. E. Mayer, 2014). Students instructional practices (Zelazo, 2015). Meditation, who have close relationships with teachers are more problem-solving tasks, and video gaming tasks are confident and positive in their approaches to learning instructional practices that can develop executive and are more comfortable asking for help (IOM & function skills and the likelihood that they are activated NRC, 2015a). Positive student–teacher relationships in future activities (e.g., Galinsky, Bezos, McClelland, can help students achieve, engage, regulate their emo- Carlson, & Zelazo, 2017). tions, build social competence, and take on academic Effective instructional practices, support for student challenges. High-quality teacher–student relationships behavior, and positive classroom climates can counter may also (with other teacher strategies) reduce stereo- the effects of chronic stress on students and improve type threat (Steele, 2010), protect students who are at outcomes for students who are at high levels of risk higher levels of risk for poor outcomes (e.g., Roorda, (e.g., Kellam et al., 2011). Conversely, negative interper- Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011), and buffer the effects of sonal transactions that include infrequent positive tea- victimization and other adversity (e.g., Norwalk, cher support and attention during academic learning, Hamm, Farmer, & Barnes, 2016). Together, the neural lack of teacher praise, and limited opportunities to integration of affective, cognitive, social, and emotional respond (e.g., Sutherland & Oswald, 2005), as well as processes that are vital to student motivational states teacher stereotype priming (Steele, 2010) can increase APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 9 stress. Heightened stress and anxiety can reduce work- dramatic play, can be important for the development ing memory and lead to trouble paying attention in of executive function skills (Blair & Raver, 2014). On class and completing work, especially for students strug- the other hand, peer-group interventions that aggregate gling with regulating behavior in social situations in peers who exhibit high-risk behaviors can reinforce school and at home. These social and classroom problem behaviors (Dishion, McCord, & Poulin, behaviors lead to negative perceptions and expectations 1999). Although these effects may often be uninten- on the part of both the student and the teacher tional, these adult structured peer effects can be influ- regarding the student being poorly regulated, not enced by the abilities of adults to attune to the need capable, and unable to learn. This can contribute to for inclusiveness and belonging in children and youth negative reinforcement, negative student self-identities, (e.g., Hamm, Farmer, Dadisman, Gravelle, & Murray, student learned helplessness, and a teachers’ sense of 2011). Peer interactions are also affected by individual inefficacy (e.g., R. C. Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, child characteristics. Characteristics such as arousal 1995). Psychological distress or appraisals of events as responsiveness that have neurobiological roots, social stressful or challenging are, in turn, associated with and social-cognitive skills, and cultural competence impairments in self-regulation (e.g., Duckworth, Kim, shape the nature and quality of peer interactions such & Tsukayama, 2013). as rejection, exclusion, friendship, and popularity Teacher well-being and working conditions are (Rubin, Bukowski, & Bowker, 2015). For example, important (Pianta, 2016). Many educators are chal- children with hostile attributions of intent to peers are lenged by excessive cognitive demands, lack of cultural more likely to be aggressive toward peers (De Castro, and linguistic competence and humility, or an inability Veerman, Koops, Bosch, & Monshouwer, 2002). to attune to the development needs of children or to Among young children, scaffolded peer interactions respond to the impacts of trauma on children and adults (e.g., social dramatic play) can be important for the (Baird & Kracen, 2006). Teacher stress matters and is development of executive function skills (e.g., Center affected by the teacher’s own ecology, which includes on the Developing Child, 2016). As children mature, the level of principal support, job stress, and teacher peer relationships become more central and complex ability to manage student feelings and behaviors (e.g., and serve as venues to acquire prosocial norms, Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; S. M. Johnson, Kraft, & perspective taking, social communication, and concepts Papay, 2012). of self in relationships (e.g., Rubin, Coplan, Chen, Findings from evaluations of school-based interven- Buskirk, & Wojslawowicz, 2005). Peer relationships help tions, including ones that monitor student and teacher children and adolescents understand themselves and cortisol levels, suggest that teacher stress affects interac- their values, which can be important for identity tion with students, student stress levels, teacher beha- development (Parker, Rubin, Price, & DeRosier, 1995). vior, and student academic outcomes (e.g., Flook, Having friends has been shown to decrease loneliness, Goldberg, Pinger, Bonus, & Davidson, 2013). Reducing increase self-esteem, promote school satisfaction and teacher stress through interventions such as mindful- engagement, avert some victimization, and, through ness interventions can reduce student stress biomarkers support, to buffer the mental health consequences of (e.g., Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Oberle & Schonert- bullying and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis Reichl, 2016). Adults in schools and other agencies need dysregulation (Adams, Santo, & Bukowski, 2011; effective preparation, training, and support, including McLaughlin, Hatzenbuehler, & Hilt, 2009). Peer positive conditions for teaching and supporting diverse interactions, however, can also reinforce risk-taking children and youth. Staff benefit from respectful and and antisocial behaviors through modeling and supportive leadership and strategies that address stress reinforcement, particularly when in groups unaccompan- and provide guidance on managing classroom and other ied by adults (e.g., Silva, Chein, & Steinberg, 2016). setting dynamics (e.g., Farmer et al., 2016). Peer effects can best be understood transactionally (Dishion & Tipsord, 2011; Hicks et al., 2014). An individual child’s affective, social, emotional, and cognitive Peers characteristics can support developmental relationships Peers are important socializing agents, both directly and with peers, and these relationships, in turn, provide indirectly through their effects on teachers and other opportunities to practice and refine self-regulation, adults. Adults intentionally and unintentionally executive function, and interpersonal and communi- structure peer relationships, which can be more or less cation skills in ways that adult interactions may not. promotive of healthy behavior and development. For Bidirectional influences can be positive or negative example, scaffolded peer interactions such as social and can have short- and long-term effects. For example, 10 D. OSHER ET AL. withdrawn or anxious children are more likely to be and exposure to contexts where opportunities rejected, which then makes them feel more anxious for enrichment and choice are limited or absent (Rubin et al., 2015). Early peer acceptance or rejection, (e.g., Oyserman & Lewis, 2017). Consistent with DST, which is affected by cognitive and emotional processes macrosystem and microsystem contexts are interlinked including social information processing (i.e., how and exert powerful effects on development. Structural children understand and interpret social situations; macrosystem factors institutionalize practices, as in e.g., Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000) affects later cognitive, the case of public and private housing policy that emotional, and behavioral development (Hay, Payne, promotes housing segregation which, in turn, affects & Chadwick, 2004). Young children who exhibit wealth accumulation. Harmful structural macrosystem aggressive behaviors and are rejected by peers are at factors can also be buffered by beneficial factors, such greater risk for later antisocial behavior than children as connection to neighbors, neighborhood collective who exhibit aggression and are not rejected (Coie, efficacy, and sense of belonging, and by positive Terry, Lenox, Lochman, & Hyman, 1995). Bullying, microsystem contexts, including developmental rela- victimization, and rejection in school, which can dysre- tionships with family members, teachers, and peers gulate stress responses, can have significant effects on (Luthar et al., 2015). Cultural macrosystem factors are long-term physical and mental health (Prinstein, Ran- hegemonic beliefs and mindsets such as victim-blaming court, Guerry, & Browne, 2009; Vaillancourt, Hymel, approaches to understanding social problems that & McDougall, 2013). ignore or deemphasize the impacts of history, context, These transactional peer processes can be understood and privilege (Lee, 2010; Ryan, 1972). ecologically within the dynamic contexts in which they Poverty and racism, both separately and together, occur, and young people can be susceptible to the make the experience of stress and adversity more likely positive and negative influences of peers at various for children and adults who must deal regularly with the times. Peers socialize each other in the classroom, consequences of economic hardship and prejudice in school, and community through social learning, their daily lives in contexts that ignore the omnipresent reference group effects, and peer pressure in dyads effects of racism (Spencer, Swanson, & Harpalani, and groups (e.g., Snyder, Schrepferman, Bullard, 2015). These effects may be visible in the moment McEachern, & Patterson, 2012). As discussed earlier, (e.g., a racial slur), or they may be emergent and only teachers and other adults intentionally and unintention- visible upon analysis (e.g., racial disparities that are ally play a role in structuring peer relationships, and this the product of multiple small and often subtle steps; structuring is affected by their ability to attune to Osher, 2015). They can also be indirect, such as the students (Farmer, Lines, & Hamm, 2011; Norwalk impacts of housing segregation on the differential et al., 2016). Adults can organize contexts in ways that resources available for schools under local funding for- promote development. For example, scaffolded peer mulas (Cutler & Glaeser, 1997). interactions in ECE can support the development of executive function skills (e.g., Blair & Raver, 2014; Poverty Center on the Developing Child, 2016). On the other Poverty is an ecological risk factor which makes chil- hand, contexts characterized by peers who bully, family dren and youth’s access to developmentally rich experi- violence, teachers who ignore or dismiss bullying, and ences and opportunities more difficult and makes it negative school climates encourage peer victimization more likely that they will experience stress-producing among older children (Espelage & De La Rue, 2011). adversity and health challenges (Lerner, 2004). Absent intervention, poverty-related risk factors increase the odds that children will exhibit more behavioral prob- Macrosystem factors lems, diminished self-regulation, including executive Research often neglects the impact of macro-level function, and lower social and emotional competence factors at the microsystem and exosystem levels (Blair & Raver, 2016; West, Denton, & Reaney, 2001). (Spencer, 2007). Children and adults experience The effects of poverty and resilience are mediated and macrosystem factors regularly and directly. Macrosys- moderated by family and community social and tem factors are operationalized through rituals, policies, emotional resources, social networks, service systems protocols, routinized practices, and opportunity and interactions with parents, grandparents, kin, structures. Children and adults experience macrosystem teachers, and peers. factors directly through attitudes, behaviors, and Poverty can contribute to an accumulation of routines that affect how children experience and react parental and child stressors, such as crowded housing to environments and indirectly through social stigma and housing insecurity, as well as class-based identity APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 11 threats (Sennett & Cobb, 1972). Poverty can limit can affect parental attunement, and high pressures to support for dealing with these stressors, including access excel at home and at school (Coley, Sims, Dearing, & to high-quality health care, and this, in turn, can dimin- Spielvogel, 2017). Recent research suggests these sources ish developmental opportunities (e.g., Blair & Raver, of stress are associated with elevated risk for substance 2016). Caregiver experience of chronic stress can lower abuse, social and emotional maladaptation, and risky their ability to buffer their children’s stress through behaviors (Lund, Dearing, & Zachrisson, 2017; Luthar, attunement, warmth, and sensitivity, and can contribute Small, & Ciciolla, 2017; Luthar, Barkin, & Crossman, to heightening the stress response in children (Duncan, 2013). Magnuson, & Murnane, 2016; S. B. Johnson, Riis, & Noble, 2016). In this way, experiences of stress can have Racism effects on the development of foundational competen- Racism is both ubiquitous and omnipresent. It is oper- cies such as self-regulation (Blair & Raver, 2016; Lee, ationalized across ecological systems (Lee, Spencer, & Siegle, Dahl, Hooley, & Silk, 2015). Particularly in chaotic Harpalani, 2003) and experienced by children and or stressful environments, children can adapt to harsh or youth both directly and indirectly. Institutionalized inconsistent parenting in ways that contribute to anti- racism drives (and has driven) structural inequalities social behavior (e.g., Mills-Koonce, Willoughby, Gar- that are related to poverty, labor market segmentation, rett-Peters, Wagner, & Vernon-Feagans, 2016; Patterson and an absence of wealth accumulation (e.g., Reardon & Hastings, 2007). Poverty can get “under the skin” & Bischoff, 2011). Processes that lead to associations through the response to stress and, affecting social, between racism and children’s learning and develop- emotional, cognitive, and physical development (e.g., ment are both historical and in the moment. They occur Blair & Raver, 2016). at the individual level as well as in the microsystem, ECE settings and schools amplify the effects of mesosystem (i.e., a system of two or more microsys- poverty-related macrosystem factors. Children who are tems), exosystem (i.e., relationships between two or economically disadvantaged are more likely to have less more settings, one of which does not contain the devel- access to robust academic opportunities (Gustafsson oping person), and macrosystem (e.g., Bronfenbrenner et al., 2014) and experience a disproportionate number & Morris, 2006; Dupree, Spencer, & Spencer, 2015). of underprepared teachers (U.S. Department of The stresses created by the experience of racial aggres- Education, Office of Civil Rights, 2014), punitive sions and microaggressions can embed in a child. They environments, and policies that run counter to how can affect children’s and adolescents’ perceptions of children learn and develop (e.g., Nance, 2013). In themselves and others and how they deal with what they K–12 education, economically disadvantaged students feel and experience (e.g., Martin et al., 2011). Still, many are more likely than other students to attend schools children and their families demonstrate instrumental that feature exclusionary discipline, police presence, a and psychological resilience by building on individual, higher proportion of teachers who cannot address stu- family, and cultural strengths (Spencer, 2007). However, dents’ learning needs, and poor conditions for learning research suggests that the physiological burden of (Kupchik & Ward, 2014; Sass, Hannaway, Xu, Figlio, & racism lasts (Chen, Miller, Brody, & Lei, 2015). This Feng, 2012). can limit opportunities for development and has been Although poverty makes poor outcomes more likely, associated with stress-related mental and physical family assets can protect children from the negative illnesses across the lifespan (Center on the Developing consequences of poverty. Family assets that include social Child, 2016). networks (DiMaggio & Garip, 2012) and cultural Racism can be understood ecologically. It affects stu- resources, such as religious institutions, can help families dents directly through the identities they create, stereo- address the impacts of poverty. The seminal examination type threat, and microaggressions, as well as through the of parenting in Philadelphia by Furstenberg, Elder, Cook, adjustments they make in order to succeed and main- Eccles, and Sameroff (1999) identified the diversity of tain a sense of dignity (e.g., Stevenson & Stevenson, parenting strategies in high-need neighborhoods and 2013). Racism affects children and their microsystems how parents used their knowledge and social capital to —families, schools, and peers—through the types and protect their children and maximize the children’s success. quality of support and opportunities they receive Ecologically embedded sources of chronic stress and (IOM & NRC, 2015b). For example, the Civil Rights its effects on children and families is not limited to Data Collection (U.S. Department of Education, Office those affected by poverty. For example, children and of Civil Rights, 2014) demonstrates the impacts of struc- youth in affluent communities face sources of chronic tural inequities in education, which include not only stress, such as high workloads among parents, which disparities in discipline but disparities in opportunities 12 D. OSHER ET AL. for learning and enrichment. Racism can be seen at the of growth. These demands are structured historically, mesosystem level. An example of how racism affects the culturally, sociologically, and biologically. For example, education-related aspects of the mesosystem is the prob- adolescence was only “discovered” in the nineteenth lematic interactions between educators and families of century (Demos & Demos, 1969) and has been defined color, which include an inability to identify, respect, in a variety of ways across cultures and time (Choudhury, and leverage family assets (e.g., Harry, Klingner, & Hart, 2010). Adolescence is affected, sociologically, by the 2005). Racism can be seen at the exosystem level through expansion of social fields the adolescent must navigate, well-documented disparities in health care, mental the accompanying increase in disparate expectations, health, housing, child welfare, educational resources, and the demands of new roles (Kellam & Rebok, 1992; work opportunities, opportunities for civic participation, Lewin, 1939; Merton, 1957). Adolescence is structured justice, and policing (e.g., Fisher, Busch-Rossnagel, Jopp, biologically through the complex interactions of genes & Brown, 2012). Racism is present and institutionalized and environments, which contribute to new opportunities in macrosystems through policies and cultural forces for structural and neural plasticity (Choudhury, 2010; that sustain or legitimize racial privilege (Pager & Spenrath, Clarke, & Kutcher, 2011). For example, around Shepherd, 2008). puberty, the part of the brain associated with affective, Institutionalized racism creates contextual factors that social and emotional functioning experiences a surge that enhance the likelihood that children, adolescents, and creates changes in social motivation, including a focus on young adults experience compounded deprivations social status and social rewards (Crone & Dahl, 2012). to development, which include the combination of indi- This overly active emotional system can lead to challenges vidual deprivation, identity threat, and emotional stress in judgement and problematic decision making (Crosnoe (e.g., W. E. B. DuBois, 1903; Perkins & Sampson, 2015). & Johnson, 2011; IOM & NRC, 2015a), which includes Racism acts directly on the child and indirectly through risk taking (Galvan et al., 2006; IOM & NRC, 2011; its effects on parents, peers, and teachers (e.g., Caughy, Steinberg, 2008). O’Campo, & Muntaner, 2004). Explicit biases, discrimination, and racial microaggressions contribute to depri- The first three years vation both through denial of opportunity and through stress (Brody et al., 2014; Pager & Shepherd, 2008; Priest Infants and toddlers devote their time to forming et al., 2013). Racism-related stress can be buffered by attachment relationships (including developing trust of internal and external assets, such as an intentional focus others), learning to function autonomously (including on the development of a positive sense of racial identity developing trust in themselves), and acquiring self- (Berkel et al., 2010; Brody et al., 2014; Sellers, Copeland- regulatory attributes that allow them to be flexible prob- Linder, Martin, & Lewis, 2006; Wills et al., 2007). When lem-solvers (Yates, Egeland, & Sroufe, 2003). In the this does not happen, youth are at risk for negative indi- early years, the brain’s plasticity is strongest; 700– vidual and social identities and school and health-related 1,000 new neural connections form every second, and problems (IOM & NRC, 2015a; Pachter & Coll, 2009; the volume of gray matter increases rapidly (Center Sampson, Sharkey, & Raudenbush, 2008; Spencer, 2007). on the Developing Child, 2016). This early period of formation and pruning of neural circuits shapes the architecture of the developing brain before the circuits Individual-context relations across are fully mature and stabilized (e.g., Center on the development Developing Child, 2016). Emotional development, Child development progresses along a continuum and including the ability to experience, express, and manage varies widely between individuals and developmental emotions and impulses, begins in this stage, in conjunc- tasks. At the same time, some brain functions (e.g., tion with motor control and cognition (e.g., Tarullo, executive functions in early childhood) predictably Obradović, & Gunnar, 2009). The early years are also undergo rapid change during certain developmental per- a sensitive period for the development of language iods (Davidson, Amso, Anderson, & Diamond, 2006). and visual systems (Dawson, Ashman, & Carver, 2000). Similarly, some interactions between the individual Parental behavior during the first three years is and the context occur more prominently at certain particularly important. Parental responsiveness, proper points in development, which can trigger more rapid nutrition, and early interventions to address cognitive, improvements in specific functions. The first three years social, and academic concerns during this period are of life, early childhood, middle childhood, and ado- associated with long-term benefits, while parental lescence each pose their own unique developmental depression and maltreatment, social deprivation, and demands and provide opportunities for specific types exposure to toxic substances are associated with long-term APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 13 challenges (Dawson et al., 2000). Early caregiver emotional, and behavioral competence can be more relationships are the most proximal and prominent important for early school success than cognitive contextual influences on development in these years competence or family background (Raver & Knitzer, and can serve to promote optimal brain function and 2002), and intentional efforts to promote these skills behavior. Attunement and reciprocity is associated with have been found to be successful (Menting, Orobio executive function, early language processing skills, de Castro, & Matthys, 2013). An intentional focus on vocabulary growth, and other immediate and long-term the development of self-regulation, including executive outcomes (Bindman, Pomerantz, & Roisman, 2015). function in young children, can build brain functions The first three years are an important time to build involved in many regulation-related skills, including resilience within and across settings (e.g., Masten & those that support the integration with cognitive Cicchetti, 2010), although resilience is a lifelong process skill development and learning overall (Center on the that changes across time and contexts. Developing Child, 2016).

Early childhood Middle childhood Neurobiological, emotional, and behavioral foundations Middle childhood is marked by its own meaningful in very early childhood set the stage for the development changes in brain development and social contexts: of school readiness skills and for positive developmental brain structures and functions, predominantly in the outcomes over the life course (e.g., Schweinhart et al., prefrontal cortex (which supports cognitive self- 2005). With proper contextual supports, early childhood regulation and executive function), undergo rapid marks a period of dramatic increase in executive growth between ages 7 and 9 (S. B. Johnson et al., functions and cognition–emotion integration (e.g., 2016). It is a time when children are experiencing Espinet, Anderson, & Zelazo, 2012). Cognitive, increasing independence in new and challenging emotional, and behavioral integration at this stage helps contexts and changes in the nature of their social children successfully navigate the social demands of interactions. In the United States, the typical key preschool. As children begin preschool, they enter into developmental tasks during middle childhood are self- relationships with teachers and peers that can mutually regulation, acquiring skills and knowledge related to reinforce social behavior (e.g., Hay et al., 2004). The learning, and developing interpersonal skills (Nagaoka skills necessary to be accepted by peers—emotion et al., 2015). These tasks emerge out of the formation regulation, executive functions, social understanding, and development of friendships, increasing autonomy and prosocial behaviors (such as helpfulness and and behavioral expectations, and increasing academic sharing)—are the same skills that afford children demands. Developmental constitutive relationships in opportunities to form positive relationships with middle childhood are increasingly characterized by teachers and to learn (e.g., Hay et al., 2004). Early reciprocity and a balance of power as children become experiences can set off a cascade of relationships, self-regulated and caregivers and children increasingly behaviors, self-perceptions, stress responses, and engage in joint reciprocal activities (Li & Julian, 2012). emotions that mutually reinforce each other over time The nature of the developmental relationship with the in sometimes adaptive or sometimes maladaptive ways caregiver changes from proximity to availability (e.g., Nagaoka et al., 2015). (Bosmans & Kerns, 2015). Developmental relationships Aggressiveness, impulsivity, and attentional and also expand to other adults, especially teachers. Through affective (e.g., shyness) variability; often associated these developmental relationships, children increasingly with chronic stress, can undermine opportunities to have opportunities to learn and practice critical new connect with others, thereby diminishing opportu- skills as teachers expect children to acquire academic nities to learn and depreciating the child’s and adult’s skills and to develop contextually appropriate perceptions of the child as a learner. For example, chil- behavioral and attention skills, including empathy, dren who exhibit antisocial behavior in preschool par- emotional expressiveness, interpersonal negotiation ticipate in fewer classroom activities, and teachers strategies, and cooperation with rules. These competen- provide them with less instruction and less positive cies, in turn, facilitate relationships with adults and feedback, potentially setting off a cascade of negative peers, afford increasingly diverse opportunities in the self-concept and diminished engagement, learning, home, school, and other structured settings, and drive and attention that can lead to cycles of poor academic success (IOM & NRC, 2009). These compe- academic performance and early dropout (Raver & tencies become more sophisticated as children develop Knitzer, 2002). As a result, affective, social and social skills and knowledge through friendships, as well 14 D. OSHER ET AL. as social perspective-taking abilities (e.g., Goldstein, integration and development. One of the greatest mis- Kaczmarek, & English, 2002). conceptions of this period is that adolescents do not Children who do not develop social, emotional, and need adults; adolescents crave relationship and connec- cognitive competencies and representations of self as a tion to both peers and adults. For example, perceptions competent, successful learner are more likely to exhibit of maternal warmth continue to be important for aca- poor social skills, such as impulsivity, aggressive demic achievement and well-being in adolescence behaviors, poor social problem-solving skills, and school (Luthar et al., 2015; Suizzo et al., 2012; Walton & disengagement (IOM & NRC, 2009). Fortunately, an Flouri, 2010). increasing body of research indicates that intentional Adolescence is a highly sensitive period for the development of habits, skills, and mindsets can help development of regions of the brain involved in social many elementary students develop these competencies cognition and self-awareness (e.g., Nagaoka et al., (e.g., Jones & Kahn, 2017; Osher et al., 2016). 2015). The frontal lobe, which governs cognitive Middle childhood is a time when mental health control, continues to mature and is still developing in disorders and antisocial behaviors begin to emerge with adolescence and early adulthood. A remodeling of the consequences for later outcomes (IOM & NRC, 2009). brain’s dopaminergic system occurs around the time Middle childhood marks the first symptoms of conduct of puberty, in which amounts of dopamine fall sharply and anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, from levels in the early developmental phases (e.g., Sisk and depression (IOM & NRC, 2009). Feedback loops & Zehr, 2005). The dopaminergic system overlaps between maturational shifts in the child (e.g., social and interacts with the brain’s social networks and the and cognitive abilities) and an expanding social networks for processing affective and motivational environment that positively reinforces representations stimuli (Nelson, Leibenluft, McClure, & Pine, 2005). of self and others can affect the course of development One way of viewing the adolescent period of brain positively or negatively during this period. This helps remodeling is through the lens of neural integration, explain divergence in developmental trajectories that which may modulate the predisposition to reward seek- occur during these years (e.g., Mah & Ford-Jones, ing and risk taking, particularly in later adolescence. 2012). For example, research on the iatrogenic effects Research suggests that the brain has two fundamental of punitive, reactive, and segregating interventions processes: one of pruning in early adolescence, the other suggests that poor long-term outcomes may in part of myelin formation in middle to late adolescence (e.g., be a product of developmentally inappropriate adult Sherman et al., 2014). Pruning enables regions of the responses to troubling behavior during these years. brain to become more differentiated; myelin enables (e.g., Petitclerc, Gatti, Vitaro, & Tremblay, 2013). these remaining regions to become more linked and integrated. This adolescent brain remodeling and integration is thought to contribute to higher capacities Adolescence for regulation and other higher order cortical functions After early childhood, adolescence is the time of the (Stevens, Skudlarski, Pearlson, & Calhoun, 2009). Inte- brain’s most dramatic growth spurt, with unique gration and increased connectivity of cortical structures sensitivity to environmental and contextual experiences allow for more functional specialization leading toward (Cicchetti, 2016). Adolescence is marked by capacities for better judgment and decision making, for co-occurring changes in brain development, hormone greater conceptual and creative thinking, and for levels, physical health, and contextual demands and exploration of new situations and challenges in ways opportunities that have implications for later physical not previously demonstrated (Siegel, 2013). Positive and mental health and behavior. For many, adolescence youth development strategies and a web of appropriate is a time for risk taking, social reward seeking, and adult support can greatly enhance an adolescent’s ability novelty seeking (e.g., Yeager, Fong, Lee, & Espelage, to optimize this period and realize the positive potential 2015); it is also a time of expanding processing it contains (e.g., Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak, & and decision-making skills, opportunity, creativity, Hawkins, 2002; Lerner, Bowers, Geldhof, Gestsdóttir, exploration, and optimism about one’s role in the world & DeSouza, 2012; C. Smith, McGovern, Larson, (Geisz & Nakashian, 2016). Hillaker, & Peck, 2016; Varga & Zaff, 2017). Intentional skill development is particularly The practice of mindfulness can be particularly useful important and effective during adolescence. It is a in enhancing neural integration in the adolescent brain period in which environments and relationships, (Siegel, 2013). Studies of mindfulness training among particularly those outside the family in the school and young adults support the benefits of mindfulness as community, play a uniquely important role in one strategy for promoting increases in neural APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 15 integration. These studies have found that mindfulness with competent and caring adults inside and outside training is correlated with increased interconnectivity the home who can provide exposure to life skill- of the connectome and growth of the corpus building activities and who are prepared to respond callosum, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal region positively to developmental changes in youth: opportu- (Cole, 2014). nities to make their own decisions; opportunities to The onset of serious psychiatric disorders is one of the build social networks; opportunities to actively risks in the adolescent period (V. A. Johnson, Kemp, participate and take leadership in family, school, and Heard, Lennings, & Hickie, 2015). One cause of this is community activities; access to safe, intellectually the pruning process, which occurs during this period challenging environments; and guidance through clear and may reveal underlying vulnerabilities in neural standards for behavior and norms (e.g., Eccles & Roeser, connectivity leading to the manifestation of psychiatric 2011; Geisz & Nakashian, 2016). disorders. Excessive pruning, which can result from Unfortunately, developmental contexts such as chronic unbuffered stress and the resulting higher homes and schools do not always have the support or cortisol levels, can also lead to new vulnerabilities to structures to accommodate the developmental needs stress which leads to greater neurotoxicity (Siegel, of adolescents. For example, adolescents may encounter 2013). In addition, there are significant shifts in the dopa- a greater number and complexity of adversities minergic reward system, which may be at play in the risk compared to younger children (Grasso, Dierkhising, of developing addictive problems and other risk-taking Branson, Ford, & Lee, 2016), and maternal distress behaviors during this period (Ross & Peselow, 2009). can be highest during the middle school years, as Reciprocal interactions between contextual changes mothers adjust to the many brain and hormonal (e.g., new social fields) and expectations (e.g., increased changes that occur during adolescence and adjustments performance demands), on the one hand, and brain and in the nature of the developmental relationship (Luthar hormonal changes, on the other, move many children & Ciciolla, 2016). Middle and high schools often are from the dependencies of childhood to the emerging organized in ways that do not fit the developmental identities and responsibilities of adulthood. These tasks or needs of adolescents, often de-emphasizing reciprocal interactions allow many adolescents to apply opportunities for ongoing, deep connections to adults emerging metacognitve skills to more intentionally and peers, healthy social networks, and opportunities contribute to adaptive regulation with their context, to practice autonomous decision-making and higher- such as selecting positive goals, using greater intention- level cognitive strategies, while emphasizing compe- ality in taking on challenges, developing cognitive and tition and social comparison (Eccles & Roeser, 2011). behavioral skills to optimize the potential in opportu- Although adolescents need and want more autonomy nities, and compensating for challenges and failures and connectedness, schools and classrooms at the mid- (e.g., Gestsdottir & Lerner, 2008). Many of the tasks dle and high school levels are not often designed to sup- of adolescence are about the balance between fine- port relationships and community. In fact, the opposite tuning critical self-regulatory skills, sense of purpose, is true. Students often experience a loss of autonomy, as and belonging (prefrontal cortex) versus managing the rules become harsher and connections to adults—who overwhelming emotions that drive risk-taking and work with more students—become more difficult to impulsive behavior (amygdala). Although early maintain. adolescence (ages 12–13) is often described as a time of emotional volatility and a preference for short-term Intergenerational transmission of adversity rewards (Steinberg, 2008), middle and late adolescence and assets are times of increasingly goal-oriented learning, identity formation, autonomy assertion, and a growing sense of Development is an integrative, progressive process. values (e.g., Nagaoka et al., 2015). The experience of developmental support or, alterna- Providing enriching opportunities supports adoles- tively, adversity can have cumulative effects that can cents’ “emotional spark, intense social engagement, produce intra- as well as intergenerational assets and novelty seeking, and drive toward creative exploration” risks. Intentional influences on context represent oppor- (Siegel, 2013, p. 7) in schools and other contexts in tunities to alter developmental sequencing, pathways, which adolescents spend their time helps them unlock and range. Longitudinal studies of the long-term the hidden potential of the adolescent brain leading to benefits of particular interventions on some children increased independence and self-awareness (Scales, (Catalano, Hill, Haggerty, Fleming, & Hawkins, 2010; Benson, & Roehlkepartain, 2011; Siegel, 2013). All Chetty et al., 2011; Kellam et al., 2008; Schweinhart adolescents need positive and sustained relationships et al., 2005), and research on school and neighborhood 16 D. OSHER ET AL. effects, suggest how these impacts can be amplified or process builds a child’s capacity for social development attenuated (Crosnoe & Benner, 2015; Leventhal, and mediates socialization, stress management, emotion Dupéré, & Shuey, 2015; Osher & Kendziora, 2010). regulation, and well-being, which have short- and Longitudinal studies of the costs and benefits of inter- long-term implications for social, emotional, and beha- ventions are powerful because effects (and related costs vioral competency and readiness for learning in the and/or benefits) are compounded and intergenerational. early childhood period. (Feldman, 2015; Hochberg The effects are profound in importance to the overall et al., 2011). health and wellness of our children and our society. Disruptions can be linked to children’s social The intergenerational transmission of both adaptive psychopathologies, including autism, social anxiety, and maladaptive systems is rooted in relational depression, and schizophrenia (Feldman, 2015). bioecological processes, which can be affected by Disruptions can also be linked to environmental factors. improving the net risk vulnerability ratio (Spencer, Some children exposed to trauma and adversities, such 1995) for all children by minimizing risk vulnerability as parental mental illness, alcohol abuse, physical or and addressing the macro- and microsystem factors that emotional neglect, or violence, show cognitive impair- support or undermine healthy development for any ments, attention problems, language deficits, academic group of children (Shonkoff, 2012, 2016; Shonkoff, difficulties, withdrawn behavior, externalizing Richter, van der Gaag, & Bhutta, 2012). problems, mental health problems, and difficulty with Children (and adults) adapt to hostile environments interpersonal relationships (Center on the Developing in ways that can undermine learning and support their Child, 2016). As children grow, exposure to trauma involvement in unhealthy or high-risk behaviors (Crick and to adversity in the home and in other settings & Dodge, 1994; Martin et al., 2011). However, the continues to affect biology and behavior. Children principles developed in the companion article on who experience trauma and adversity show biomarker malleability and plasticity suggest the power of develop- brain structure and activation differences that increase mentally constructive environments to promote resili- their vulnerability to high-risk behaviors (e.g., being a ence as well as positive developmental and learning perpetrator or victim of violence, suicide, drug outcomes (e.g., Masten & Coatsworth, 1998). Relation- addiction) later in life (e.g., Park & Schepp, 2015). ships in the context of well-designed family, ECE, The physical and behavioral consequences of neighborhood, and school settings and interventions adversity and trauma will continue to manifest in the are potential proximal mediators of positive outcomes. interactions between caregivers and children in early Relationships can also be contributors both to chronic care settings and across multiple social fields over the stress and the consequences of stress, thereby establish- life course absent counteracting influences that takes ing pathways toward the intergenerational transmission advantage of children’s malleability. Children’s brains of assets or adversity. are malleable (e.g., Blair & Raver, 2016), and can be The prenatal period and the first two years of life supported through innovative social policy, develop- provide a useful example (e.g., Hochberg et al., 2011). mentally constructed settings, and culturally responsive During this early period, the neurons in the brain that family-driven practice (Hoagwood, 2005; Osher et al., build the foundation for synaptic connections are still 2011). Although past and current maternal experiences developing (e.g., Halfon, Shulman, & Hochstein, can set the stage for coercive interactions between 2001). These processes are related to changes in young children and their parents (Sitnick et al., 2015; maternal brain structure and function, including elev- J. D. Smith et al., 2014), longitudinal experimental ated stress hormones and oxytocin levels (e.g., Kim, studies of interventions such as the Nurse Home Strathearn, & Swain, 2016). These changes, in turn, Partnership program demonstrate effectiveness in influence the development of the fetus and the attach- reducing a number of risk factors including maternal ment relationship in infancy (Center on the Developing and child abuse (Eckenrode et al., 2010; Olds et al., Child, 2016; Kim et al., 2016), which is dependent on 2004). Well-implemented family-driven interventions sensitive responsiveness to the child’s signals (e.g., are important because caregiver adversity and stress Feldman, 2015). The biological and the contextual come can disrupt bio-social synchrony and attunement together within the mother’s body to establish healthy impacting the development of the emotional response or unhealthy developmental processes. In the first year system of the brain and lowering the caregiver’s of life, the physical and behavioral interactions between sensitivity to the child’s social cues (Conger, Conger, caregiver and infant trigger a process of bio-behavioral & Martin, 2010; Kim & Watamura, 2015). The presence synchrony (i.e., sensitivity to each other) that involves of well-designed ECE settings and interventions are an the release of oxytocin and physical contact. This example of a set of contextual factors that have the APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 17 possibility of making developmentally important more social services that support families, children, alterations to unhealthy pathways and establish the and access to higher education (Huang, 2013). foundational behaviors, social skills and foundational There are many drivers of inequality in education. cognitive skills that can be promoted and developed in An illustrative one is the disproportionate use of this early period (e.g., S. B. Johnson et al., 2016; exclusionary and harsh discipline in schools. It starts Nix et al., 2016). in ECE settings and continues until youth leave school. Neighborhoods and schools contribute to the Exclusionary discipline disproportionately affects Black intergenerational transmission of adversity and assets. students, particularly black male students. Suspension Whereas neighborhood advantage is often associated and expulsion affects short and long-term outcomes with higher school quality and high quality social for Black males. These harmful outcomes include services (Twine & Gardener, 2013), neighborhood beliefs about themselves, increased disengagement from disadvantage is associated with poorer school quality, school, suspension-driven chronic absenteeism, as well as the build-up of biological “wear and tear” dropping out, increased likelihood of fathering a child (i.e., allostatic load) over the life course, especially in in adolescence, diminished likelihood of postsecondary men (e.g., Gustafsson et al., 2014). Schools create as school attainment and employment, increased well as amplify risk (Osher, Kendziora, Spier, & Gari- likelihood of arrest, and diminished ability to support baldi, 2014). For example, stress and lack of pre- and a family emotionally and financially (e.g., Osher, post-natal family care and support can contribute to Woodruff, & Sims, 2002; Skiba et al., 2011). These early dysregulation in emotions, cognition, and beha- factors, in turn, affect generations to come (e.g., Foster vior at school entry, which, in turn, can stimulate & Hagan, 2015). unsupportive interactions with teachers who are not These two examples drawn from ECE settings and trained and supported to address this dysregulation. schools serve as two powerful examples of the ways in These unsupportive interactions contribute to beha- which two developmental settings offer a 10–12 year vior problems that reinforce negative beliefs about period in which positive whole child development can belonging and intelligence and questions about the be nurtured, pathways of greater risk averted, and adults purpose of school itself (e.g., Blair & Diamond, supported, all in the service of promoting the internal 2008). Absent a developmentally constructive setting assets of all children. Risk, protection, and assets are in which the norms for healthy development and social constructs (e.g., Kendziora & Osher, 2004; learning are embedded, felt, experienced and practiced Whelan & Maître, 2008). We can build developmentally by children and all members of the school staff, rich settings, or not. If we do, then macrosystem factors reactive teacher responses to troubling behavior can will interact with microsystem factors to contribute to set a negative cascade of activities in motion. Exam- the intergenerational transmission of advantage for ples of this negative cascade include exclusionary many more children. When not addressed and, in the discipline and a focus on behavioral control, student presence of great inequality, education and health dispa- disconnection and disengagement, grade repetition, rities, housing segregation, economic disadvantage, and dropping out, incarceration, substance abuse, mental the lack of sufficient support for families can contribute disorder (e.g., Conduct Problems Prevention Research to adult and child outcomes that put both to risk; and Group, 2015; Kellam et al., 2008), dropout (Lansford, continues the cycle. Dodge, Pettit, & Bates, 2016), early pregnancy Preventing the negative impacts of adversity on (Wagner, 1995; Yampolskaya, Brown, & Greenbaum, children as well as on the adults who care for them can 2002), and long-term physical health problems (e.g., prevent the intergenerational transmission to future diabetes, lung cancer). Moreover, these children generations of children and families of adversity and become parents themselves, which moves risk factors its many risks to development (Reiss, 2013). Conversely, into the next generation (e.g., Chandler, 2006; Lans- building individual assets, such as affective, cognitive, ford et al., 2016). social, emotional, and metacognitive competencies, and Educational attainment provides an example of a environmental assets–such as family and neighborhood potential inflection point in the cycle of intergenera- social capital, can expand opportunities and contribute tional transmission. Cultural capital and family assets, to the intergenerational transmission of adaptive systems along with social capital and neighborhood effects, (Martin et al., 2010; Schofield et al., 2011). Although the contribute to the intergenerational transmission of edu- societal cost and benefit are enormous, realizing the full cational attainment. This intergenerational transmission benefit requires intervention at the level of family, is much greater in the United States than in Scandina- society, and policy, including culturally competent and vian countries, which have less inequality and many family-driven approaches (e.g., S. B. Johnson, Riley, 18 D. OSHER ET AL.

Granger, & Riis, 2013). Evidence suggests that well- These findings reflect convergence of evidence across designed developmental contexts that employ the right multiple disciplines and lines of inquiry regarding the intervention and prevention strategies for each child leading role of context and relationships; their location can provide the level of support, enrichment, and and coaction within nested bioecological systems; the stimulation needed to buffer the effects of trauma and significance of adversity and resilience; the importance other ecological challenges on adults and children of malleability and plasticity; the joint determination (e.g., Jones & Kahn, 2017; Sawhill & Karpilow, 2014). of complex skills through the coaction and co-influence In our companion article, we state that the lifecycle of of multiple developmental resources; the constructive an individual is not prefigured in a genetic program, that and progressive nature of development, its unique positive development emerges from an ongoing collabor- pacing, nonlinear pathways and range; and the impor- ation between biology, nurture and the environment, and tance of culture, intersubjective experience, meaning that epigenetics are particularly important. The epigen- making, and human agency. etic landscape (Waddington, 1956, 1957), which includes This convergence of research across many scientific more than cellular epigenetic inheritance processes, can and educational disciplines reflects a potential to further be expanded (Griffiths & Hochman, 2015). Individuals align and build upon existing knowledge and to build inherit non-molecular features (in addition to their new knowledge about how children learn and develop “cellular epigenetic inheritance”) that include parental in context. This knowledge can be further illuminated and cultural characteristics, learnings from the social and integrated within a DST framework. DST is environment, and the benefits of a developmentally not new, nor does it supplant the rich field-specific bodies enriched academic environment (Griffiths & Hochman, of work presented here. DST helps align these field-spe- 2015; Meaney & Szyf, 2005; Richerson & Boyd, 2005). cific bodies of knowledge within the integrated nature Assets can also be developed and passed on over the of development itself, depicting how these processes lifecycle of an individual to influence future generations. become engaged in the production of an individual child’s As Hochberg and colleagues (2011) observed, “Each life. It does so by focusing on the dynamic integration of living organism has two histories that determine its multiple systems both within and external to the individ- biology: an evolutionary history whose duration is in ual and the immediate environments and reducing the the hundreds of thousands of years, and a possibility of presenting developmental processes in developmental history that starts at the time of its dichotomous terms. DST provides a framework for align- conception” (p. 159). Absent the social construction that ing and combining research on individual and contextual promotes the positive development of individual chil- systems, from the biological and physiological with atten- dren, privilege and the uneven allocation of assets will tion to human agency and cultural, phenomenological, dominate the futures of many children, with continued sociological, and historical factors (e.g., Spencer, 2007), disparities in educational access, economic attainment, and addresses our increasing knowledge that shows that and the health, and wellbeing of our society. This need social, emotional, cognitive, linguistic, and academic not be the case, and the convergence of research development “are deeply intertwined” (Jones & Kahn, summarized in these two articles suggests a way forward. 2017, p. 4). As summarized by Fischer and Bidell (2006), “There is no separation of nature and nurture, biology and environment, or brain and behavior but only Conclusions a collaborative coordination between them” (p. 383). Children’s growth is characterized by complex, dynamic This knowledge about the individual’s responsiveness transactions between nature and nurture; interpreta- to context and experience has both positive and negative tions and internalizations of these transactions; and implications. The ability of contextual influences to the variations of these transactions across time, place, encourage adaptive epigenetic signatures and to buffer and individuals. Throughout this entire process, genes factors that contribute to maladaptive epigenetic signa- are chemical “followers”—their expression at the tures provides a powerful lever to unleash children’s biological level is determined by contextual influences genetic potential. As in the case of the social determi- and developmental malleability and plasticity. Human nants of health (Commission on Social Determinants development is not predetermined, fixed, or linear; it of Health, 2008; Gornick, 2002; National Partnership is not prefigured in a genetic program. Rather, it for Action to End Health Disparities, 2011; U.S. is unique to each and every individual, highly respon- Department of Health and Human Services, 2010, sive to environments, cultures, and relationships, 2015, n.d.), knowledge exists to identify the educational continuously adapting, organizing, and reorganizing, and social determinants of development and learning, and subject to change across the lifespan. and these must be addressed in our practices and APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 19 policies. The future of our education and child-serving short, the potential for all children to thrive. To ensure systems should be built upon what we now know that approaches to whole-child development are scaled about the development of the brain and the power of successfully, we must develop a comprehensive set of context, including the supports provided to adults, to strategies to drive demand for change in the design of construct that development. It is important to apply this - our existing practices and policies, the adoption of knowledge to the intentional design of the environmental successful tools, methods, and measures to support effec- contexts in which children grow, learn, and develop. tive implementation across diverse contexts, and the Skills are context-specific, self-organizing, and culturally establishment of a supportive policy environment. defined. The context specificity of skill development This article and its companion article, “Malleability, can be used to positively affect the development of Plasticity, and Individuality: How Children Learn and children if the context is designed or “personalized” to: Develop in Context,” are part of a trilogy of articles that integrate whole-child developmental processes (affective, have synthesized diverse scientific fields on human cognitive, social and emotional, motivational, and development in context. Whereas the first two examine metacognitive); promote the growth of new, more the diverse scientific fields that compose human complex skills and domain specific knowledge; provide development and the ecologies and contexts in which culturally responsive support consonant with children’s children grow, learn, and develop, a third companion experience, prior knowledge and background; and article takes the content in the first two articles and support the adults in children’s lives. describes specifically what this could mean for practice Dramatic improvements in outcomes and equity in our educations systems. Subsequent articles will apply depend on public and political will, sound policy in these findings to professional development and to other service to whole-child practices based on rigorous child serving settings. science, implemented with quality (Wandersman, Alia, Cook, Hsu, & Ramaswamy, 2016), measured Funding with an understanding of formative progression of This project was supported by grants awarded by the Chan individual development (Fischer & Kennedy, 1997; Rose, Zuckerberg Initiative, Raikes Foundation, Ford Foundation, Rouhani, & Fischer, 2013); and adopted at scale and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (Dymnicki, Wandersman, Osher & Pakstis, 2016), with cultural competence and equitable outcomes as explicit goals. We already know enough to act: we can cease Author’s note doing things that hurt children (e.g., exclusionary disci- We thank our partners in this work: The Opportunity Institute, pline) and start doing things that help children (e.g., pro- The Learning Policy Institute, and EducationCounsel. We also viding access to high-quality child care to all children). thank the following individuals for contributions to this article: However, a cornerstone of this effort must include a J. Lawrence Aber, Arvin Bhana, Natacha Blain, Mette Böll, Sarah Caverly, Marc Brackett, Catherine Brown, Nadine Burke robust translational research and development agenda Harris, Michele Cahill, Annemaree Carroll, Dante Cicchetti, that supports synthesis and integration and application Micheline Chi, Greg Chung, Richard Clark, Patrick Cushen, of current scientific knowledge within and across disci- Adele Diamond, Carol Dweck, Lisa Dickinson, Celene Domi- plines while addressing important gaps in knowledge, trovich, Angela Duckworth, Helen Duffy, Camille Farrington, practice, methods, and measures. Ron Ferguson, Ellen Galinsky, Adam Gamoran, Robyn Gillies, Both the education and child-serving systems were Catherine Good, Mark Greenberg, Donna Harris-Aikens, Stephanie Jones, Paul LeBlanc, Carol Lee, Patricia Kuhl, Gloria designed with too little attention to the foundational Ladson-Billings, Felice Levine, Suniya Luthar, Jeannette knowledge summarized in this and the companion Mancilla-Martinez, Ann Masten, Deborah Moroney, Elizabeth article regarding the powerful role of context in develop- Nolan, Pedro Noguera, Edmund Oropez, Daphna Oyserman, ment (e.g., Cremin, 1980; Tyack, 1974). This knowledge Kent Pekel, Jim Pellegrino, Karen Pittman, Lisa Quay, Cynthia suggests provocative opportunities for defining and study- Robinson-Rivers, David Rose, Pankaj Sah, Bror Saxberg, Robert Selman, Peter Senge, Jim Shelton, Russ Shilling, Jack Shonkoff, ing an increasingly intentional constructive enterprise Dan Siegel, Arietta Slade, Deborah Smolover, Brooke between children, the ecologies in which they grow and Stafford-Brizard, Laurence Steinberg, Jim Stigler, Diane learn, and the relationships to the adults and peers in their Tavenner, Jessica Tsang, Melina Uncapher, Sheila Walker, Greg lives and, by doing so, open pathways for new creative Walton, Roger Weissberg, Martin West, David Yeager, and approaches to solving seemingly intractable learning and Philip Zelazo. social problems. This knowledge, when understood, translated, and applied with an appreciation for the power ORCID of human agency and culture, can support positive adap- Juliette Berg http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8150-5999 tation, resilience, learning, health, and well-being, in Lily Steyer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5823-4681 20 D. OSHER ET AL.

References matters. Developmental Psychology, 50(2), 514–525. doi:10.1037/a0033379 Abar, C. C., Jackson, K. M., & Wood, M. (2014). Reciprocal Beveridge, R. M., & Berg, C. A. (2007). Parent-adolescent relations between perceived parental knowledge and collaboration: An interpersonal model for understanding adolescent substance use and delinquency: The optimal interactions. Clinical Child and Family moderating role of parent-teen relationship quality. Devel- Psychological Review, 10(1), 25–52. doi:10.1007/s10567- opmental Psychology, 50(9), 2176–2187. doi:10.1037/ 006-0015-z a0037463 Bindman, S. W., Pomerantz, E. M., & Roisman, G. I. (2015). Adams, R. E., Santo, J. B., & Bukowski, W. M. (2011). The Do children’s executive functions account for associa- presence of a best friend buffers the effects of negative tions between early autonomy-supportive parenting experiences. Developmental Psychology, 47(6), 1786–1791. and achievement through high school? Journal of doi:10.1037/a0025401 Educational Psychology, 107(3), 756–770. doi:10.1037/ Ainsworth, M. D. S., & Bowlby, J. (1991). An ethological edu0000017 approach to personality development. American Psychologist, Blair, C., & Diamond, A. (2008). Biological processes in pre- 46, 331–341. Retrieved from http://www.psychology.sunysb. vention and intervention: The promotion of self-regulation edu/attachment/online/ainsworth_bowlby_1991.pdf as a means of preventing school failure. Development & Arcia, E. (2006). Achievement and enrollment status of sus- Psychopathology, 20(3), 899–911. doi:10.1017/S095457940 pended students: Outcomes in a large, multicultural school 8000436 district. Education and Urban Society, 38(3), 359–369. Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2014). Closing the achievement doi:10.1177/0013124506286947 gap through modification of neurocognitive and neuro- Baird, K., & Kracen, A. C. (2006). Vicarious traumatization endocrine function: Results from a cluster randomized and secondary traumatic stress: A research synthesis. controlled trial of an innovative approach to the education Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 2, 181–188. doi:10.1080/ of children in kindergarten. PLoS One, 9(11), e112393. 09515070600811899 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0112393 Baumeister, R. F., & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2016). Poverty, stress, and brain Desire for interpersonal attachments and fundamental development: New directions for prevention and inter- human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529. vention. Academic Pediatrics, 16(3, Suppl.), S30–S36. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ doi:10.1016/j.acap.2016.01.010 7777651 Blakemore, S.-J., & Mills, K. L. (2014). Is adolescence a Beltz, A. M., Wright, A. G. C., Sprague, B. N., & Molenaar, sensitive period for sociocultural processing? Annual P. C. M. (2016). Bridging the nomothetic and Review of Psychology, 65(1), 187–207. doi:10.1146/ idiographic approaches to the analysis of clinical annurev-psych-010213-115202 data. Assessment, 23(4), 447–458. doi:10.1177/ Bornstein, M. H. (2015). Children’s parents. In R. M. Lerner 1073191116648209 (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental Berg, J., Osher, D., Cantor, P., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2016). science: Vol. 4. Ecological settings and processes (7th ed., The science of learning and development: A synthesis. pp. 55–132). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research, Bornstein, M. H. (2017). The specificity principle Turnaround for Children, The Opportunity Institute, The in acculturation science. Perspectives on Psychological Learning Policy Institute, and EducationCounsel. Science, 12(1), 3–45. doi:10.1177/1745691616655997 Bergin, C., & Bergin, D. (2009). Attachment in the classroom. Bornstein, M. H., & Leventhal, T. (2015). Children in Education Psychology Review, 21, 141–170. doi:10.1007/ bioecological landscapes of development. In R. M. Lerner s10648-009-9104-0 (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental Berkel, C., Knight, G. P., Zeiders, K. H., Tein, J. Y., Roosa, M. science: Vol. 4. Ecological settings and processes (7th ed., W., Gonzales, N. A., & Saenz, D. (2010). Discrimination pp. 1–5). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. and adjustment for Mexican American adolescents: Bosmans, G., & Kerns, K. A. (2015). Attachment in middle A prospective examination of the benefits of culturally childhood: Progress and prospects. New Directions for related values. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 20(4), Child and Adolescent Development, 2015(148), 1–14. 893–915. doi:10.1111/j.1532-7795.2010.00668.x doi:10.1002/cad.20100 Berkowitz, R., Moore, H., Astor, R. A., & Benbenishty, R. Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base: Parent-child attachment (2016). A research synthesis of the associations and healthy human development. New York, NY: Basic between socioeconomic background, inequality, school Books. climate, and academic achievement. Review of Boykin, A. W. (1986). The triple quandary and the schooling Educational Research, 87(2), 425–469. doi:10.3102/ of Afro-American children. In Neisser U. (Ed.), The school 0034654316669821 achievement of minority children (pp 57–92). Hillsdale, NJ, Berlin, L. J., Appleyard, K., & Dodge, K. A. (2011). Erlbaum. Intergenerational continuity in child maltreatment: Boykin, A. W. (2000). The talent development model of Mediating mechanisms and implications for prevention. schooling: Placing students at promise for academic Child Development, 82(1), 162–176. doi:10.1111/j.1467- success. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk 8624.2010.01547.x (JESPAR), 5(1–2), 3–25. Berry, D., Blair, C., Ursache, A., Willoughby, M., Garrett- Brody, G. H., Lei, M.-K., Chae, D. H., Yu, T., Kogan, S. M., & Peters, P., Vernon-Feagans, L., … Granger, D. A. (2014). Beach, S. R. H. (2014). Perceived discrimination among Child care and cortisol across early childhood: Context African American adolescents and allostatic load: A APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 21

longitudinal analysis with buffering effects. Child Develop- classroom affect your earnings? Evidence from Project Star. ment, 85(3), 989–1002. doi:10.1111/cdev.12213 The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 126(4), 1593–1660. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human doi:10.1093/qje/qjr041 development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Choudhury, S. (2010). Culturing the adolescent brain: What Bronfenbrenner, U. (1994). Ecological models of human can neuroscience learn from anthropology? Social Cognitive development (2nd ed., Vol. 3). Oxford, England: Elsevier and Affective Neuroscience, 5(2–3), 159–167. doi:10.1093/ Science. scan/nsp030 Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Making human beings human. Cicchetti, D. (2016). Developmental psychopathology: Vol. 4. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Risk, resilience, and intervention. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2006). The bioecological Coie, J. D., Terry, R., Lenox, K., Lochman, J., & Hyman, C. model of human development. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), (1995). Childhood peer rejection and aggression as predic- Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: tors of stable patterns of adolescent disorder. Development Vol. 1. Theory and method (7th ed., pp. 793–828). and Psychopathology, 7, 697–713. doi:10.1017/S0954579400 Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. 006799 Bryk, A. S., & Schneider, B. (2003). Trust in schools: A core Cole, S. W. (2014). Human social genomics. PLoS Genetics, resource for school reform. Educational Leadership, 60(6), 10(8), e1004601. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1004601 40–45. Retrieved from http://www.ascd.org/publications/ Coley, R. L., Sims, J., Dearing, E., & Spielvogel, B. (2017). educational-leadership/mar03/vol60/num06/Trust-in-Schools Locating economic risks for adolescent mental and @-A-Core-Resource-for-School-Reform.aspx behavioral health: Poverty and affluence in families, Cairns, R. B. (1979). Social development: The origins and plas- neighborhoods, and schools. Child Development. Advance ticity of interchanges. San Francisco, CA: W. H. Freeman. online publication. doi:10.1111/cdev.12771 Cassidy, J., Jones, J. D., & Shaver, P. R. (2013). Contributions Commission on Social Determinants of Health. (2008). Closing of attachment theory and research: A framework for the gap in a generation: Health equity through action on the future research, translation, and policy. Development and social determinants of health. Geneva, Switzerland: World Psychopathology, 25(4, Pt. 2), 1415–1434. doi:10.1017/ Health Organization. Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/ S0954579413000692 iris/bitstream/10665/43943/1/9789241563703_eng.pdf Cassidy, J., & Shaver, P. R. (2008). Handbook of attachment Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. (2015). (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Impact of early intervention on psychopathology, Catalano, R. F., Berglund, M. L., Ryan, J. A., Lonczak, H. S., & crime, and well-being at age 25. The American Hawkins, J. D. (2002). Positive youth development in the Journal of Psychiatry, 172(1), 59–70. doi:10.1176/appi. United States: Research findings on evaluations of positive ajp.2014.13060786 youth development programs. Prevention & Treatment, Conger, R. D., Conger, K. J., & Martin, M. J. (2010). 5(1), 15a. Socioeconomic status, family processes, and individual Catalano, R. F., Hill, K. G., Haggerty, K. P., Fleming, C. B., & development. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 72(3), Hawkins, J. D. (2010). Social development interventions 685–704. doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00725.x have extensive, long-lasting effects. In A. E. Fortune, Cremin, L. (1980). American education: The national P. McCallion, & K. Briar-Lawson (Eds.), Social work experience. New York, NY: Harper and Row. practice research for the twenty-first century (pp. 72–80). Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformula- New York, NY: Columbia University Press. tion of social information-processing mechanisms in Caughy, M. O., O’Campo, P. J., & Muntaner, C. (2004). children’s social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, Experiences of racism among African American 115(1), 74–101. parents and the mental health of their preschool-aged Crone, E. A., & Dahl, R. E. (2012). Understanding adolescence children. American Journal of Public Health, 94(12), as a period of social–affective engagement and goal 2118–2124. flexibility. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 13(9), 636–650. Center on the Developing Child. (2016). From best practices to doi:10.1038/nrn3313 breakthrough impacts: A science-based approach to building a Crosnoe, R., & Benner, A. D. (2015). Children at school. more promising future for young children and families. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Center on the and developmental science: Vol. 4. Ecological Developing Child. Retrieved from https://developingchild. settings and processes (7th ed., pp. 268–304). Hoboken, harvard.edu/resources/from-best-practices-to-breakthrough- NJ: Wiley. impacts/ Crosnoe, R., & Johnson, M. K. (2011). Research on Chandler, A. (2006). A life course framework for improving adolescence in the twenty-first century. Annual Review of the lives of boys and men of color [PowerPoint]. Retrieved Sociology, 37, 439–460. from http://www.gih.org/files/AudioConf/Building%20a% Cutler, D. M., & Glaeser, E. L. (1997). Are ghettos good or 20Movement%20(Abbreviated).pdf bad? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(3), 827–872. Chen, E., Miller, G. E., Brody, G. H., & Lei, M. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2951257 Neighborhood poverty, college attendance, and diverging Davidson, M. C., Amso, D., Anderson, L. C., & Diamond, A. profiles of substance use and allostatic load in rural (2006). Development of cognitive control and executive African American youth. Clinical Psychological Science, functions from 4 to 13 years: Evidence from manipulations 3(5), 675–685. doi:10.1177/2167702614546639 of memory, inhibition, and task switching. Neuropsycholo- Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., Hilger, N., Saez, E., Schanzenbach, gia, 44(11), 2037–2078. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia. D. W., & Yagan, D. (2011). How does your kindergarten 2006.02.006 22 D. OSHER ET AL.

Dawson, G., Ashman, S. B., & Carver, L. J. (2000). The role Eccles, J. S., & Roeser, R. W. (2011). Schools as developmental of early experience in shaping behavioral and contexts during adolescence. Journal of Research on brain development and its implications for Adolescence, 21(1), 225–241. social policy. Developmental Psychopathology, 12(4), Eckenrode, J., Campa, M., Luckey, D. W., Henderson, C. R., 695–712. Cole, R., Kitzman, H., … Olds, D. (2010). Long-term De Castro, B. O., Veerman, J. W., Koops, W., Bosch, J. D., & effects of prenatal and infancy nurse home visitation on Monshouwer, H. J. (2002). Hostile attribution of intent and the life course of youths: 19-year follow-up of a randomized aggressive behavior: A meta‐analysis. Child Development, trial. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 164(1), 73(3), 916–934. 9–15. Demos, J., & Demos, V. (1969). Adolescence in historical Eddy, J. M., Cearley, J., Bergen, J., & Stern-Carusone, J. perspective. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 31(4), (2014). Children of incarcerated parents. In D. L. DuBois 632–638. & M. J. Karcher (Eds.), Handbook of youth mentoring Diette, T. M., & Ribar, D. C. (2015). A longitudinal analysis of (pp. 369–382). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. violence and housing insecurity (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. Espelage, D. L., & De La Rue, L. (2011). Getting serious ID 2678794). Rochester, NY: Social Science Research about community-based approaches to youth violence Network. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract= prevention. Educational Psychology, 5(1), 3–5. 2678794. Espinet, S. D., Anderson, J. E., & Zelazo, P. D. (2012). N2 DiMaggio, P., & Garip, F. (2012). Network effects and social amplitude as a neural marker of executive function in inequality. Annual Review of Sociology, 38(1), 93–118. young children: An ERP study of children who switch doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102545 versus perseverate on the Dimensional Change Card Sort. Dishion, T. J., McCord, J., & Poulin, F. (1999). When Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 15(2, Suppl. 1), interventions harm: Peer groups and problem behavior. S49–S58. doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2011.12.002 American Psychologist, 54, 755–764. Everston, C., & Weinstein, C., (Eds.). (2006). Handbook Dishion, T. J., & Tipsord, J. M. (2011). Peer contagion in child of classroom management: Research, practice, and and adolescent social and emotional development. Annual contemporary issues. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Review of Psychology, 62, 189–214. Farmer, T. W., Dawes, M., Alexander, Q., & Brooks, D. S. Donoghue, E. A. (2017). Quality early education and child (2016). Challenges associated with applications and inter- care from birth to kindergarten. Pediatrics, 140(2), ventions: Correlated constraints, shadows of synchrony, e20171488. doi:10.1542/peds.2017-1488 and teacher/institutional factors that impact social change. Doyle, W. (2006). Ecological approaches to classroom In K. R. Wentzel, & G. B. Ramani (Eds.), Handbook of management. In C. M. Evertson, & C. S. Weinstein social influences in school contexts: Social-emotional, (Eds.), Handbook of classroom management: Research, motivation, and cognitive outcomes (pp. 423–435). New practice, and contemporary issues (pp. 97–125). Mahwah, York, NY: Routledge. NJ: Erlbaum. Farmer, T. W., Lines, M. M., & Hamm, J. V. (2011). Revealing DuBois, D. L., Portillo, N., Rhodes, J. E., Silverthorn, N., & the invisible hand: The role of teachers in children’s peer Valentine, J. C. (2011). How effective are mentoring experiences. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, programs for youth? A systematic assessment of the 32(5), 247–256. doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2011.04.006 evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 12(2), Feldman, R. (2015). The adaptive human parental brain: 57–91. doi:10.1177/1529100611414806 Implications for children’s social development. Trends in DuBois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of black folk. New York, Neurosciences, 38(6), 387–399. doi:10.1016/j.tins.2015. NY: New American Library. 04.004 Duckworth, A. L., Kim, B., & Tsukayama, E. (2013). Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (2006). Dynamic development Life stress impairs self-control in early adolescence. of action, thought, and emotion. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Frontiers in Psychology, 11(3), 608. doi:10.3389/ Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: fpsyg.2012.00608 Vol. 1. Theory and method (6th ed., pp. 313–399). Duncan, G. J., Magnuson, K., & Murnane, R. J. (2016). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Reforming preschools and schools. Academic Pediatrics, Fischer, K. W., & Kennedy, B. (1997). Tools for analyzing 16(3), S121–S127. doi:10.1016/j.acap.2015.12.003 the many shapes of development: The case of self-in- Dupree, D., Spencer, T. R., & Spencer, M. B. (2015). Stigma, relationships in Korea. In E. Amsel, & K. A. Renninger stereotypes and resilience identities: The relationship (Eds.), Change and development: Issues of theory, between identity processes and resilience processes among method, and application (pp. 117–152). Mahwah, NJ: Black American adolescents. In L. C. Theron, Erlbaum. L. Liebenberg, & M. Ungar (Eds.), Youth resilience and Fischer, K. W., & Rose, L. T. (2001). Webs of skills: How culture: Commonalities and complexities (pp. 117–129). students learn. Educational Leadership, 59(3), 6–12. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Retrieved from Fisher, C. B., Busch-Rossnagel, N. A., Jopp, D. S., & Brown, http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978–94-017- J. L. (2012). Applied developmental science, social 9415-2_9. justice, and socio-political well-being. Applied Dymnicki, A., Wandersman, A., Osher, D., & Pakstis, A. Developmental Science, 16(1), 54–64. doi:10.1080/ (2016). Bringing interventions to scale. In M. A. Bond, I. 10888691.2012.642786 Serrano-Garcia, & C. Keys (Eds.), Handbook of Flook, L., Goldberg, S. B., Pinger, L., Bonus, K., & Davidson, community psychology. Washington, DC: American R. J. (2013). Mindfulness for teachers: A pilot study to Psychological Association. assess effects on stress, burnout and teaching efficacy. APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 23

Mind, Brain, and Education, 7(3), 182–195. doi:10.1111/ nationalacademies.org/hmd/∼/media/Files/Activity%20Files/ mbe.12026 Quality/NHDRGuidance/DisparitiesGornick.pdf. Flook, L., Goldberg, S. B., Pinger, L., & Davidson, R. J. (2015). Grasso, D. J., Dierkhising, C. B., Branson, C. E., Ford, J. D., & Promoting prosocial behavior and self-regulatory skills in Lee, R. (2016). Developmental patterns of adverse child- preschool children through a mindfulness-based kindness hood experiences and current symptoms and impairment curriculum. Developmental Psychology, 51(1), 44–51. in youth referred for trauma-specific services. Journal of doi:10.1037/a0038256 Abnormal Child Psychology, 44(5), 871–886. doi:10.1007/ Ford, D. L., & Lerner, R. M. (1992). Developmental systems s10802-015-0086-8 theory: An integrative approach. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Gregory, A., & Korth, J. (2016). Teacher–student relationships Foster, H., & Hagan, J. (2015). Punishment regimes and the and behavioral engagement in the classroom. In K. R. multilevel effects of parental incarceration: Intergenera- Wentzel, & G. B. Ramani (Eds.), Handbook of social tional, intersectional, and interinstitutional models of social influences in school contexts: Social-emotional, motivation, equality and systemic exclusion. Annual Review of and cognitive outcomes (pp. 178–191). New York, NY: Sociology, 41, 135–158. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-073014- Routledge. 112437 Griffiths, P. E., & Hochman, A. (2015). Developmental Furstenberg, F. F., Elder, G. H., Cook, T. D., Eccles, J., & systems theory. eLS, 1–7. doi:10.1002/9780470015902. Sameroff, A. (1999). Managing to make it: Urban families a0003452.pub2 in high-risk neighborhoods. Chicago, IL: University of Grusec, J. E., & Davidov, M. (2016). Socialization in the Chicago Press. family: The role of parents. In J. E. Grusec, & P. D. Galinsky, E., Bezos, J., McClelland, M., Carlson, S. M., & Hastings (Eds.), Handbook of socialization: Theory and Zelazo, P. D. (2017). Civic science for public use: Mind research (2nd ed., pp. 284–308). New York, NY: Guilford in the making and vroom. Child Development, 88(5), Press. 1409–1418. Gustafsson, P. E., San Sebastian, M., Janlert, U., Theorell, T., Galvan, A., Hare, T. A., Parra, C. E., Penn, J., Voss, H., Westerlund, H., & Hammarström, A. (2014). Life-course Glover, G., & Casey, B. J. (2006). Earlier development accumulation of neighborhood disadvantage and of the accumbens relative to orbitofrontal cortex might allostatic load: Empirical integration of three social underlie risk-taking behavior in adolescents. Journal of determinants of health frameworks. American Journal Neuroscience, 26(25), 6885–6892. of Public Health, 104(5), 904–910. doi:10.2105/ Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, AJPH.2013.301707 research, and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Halfon, N., Shulman, E., & Hochstein, M. (2001). Brain Press. development in early childhood. In N. Halfon, E. Shul- Gay, G., & Kirkland, K. N. (2003). Developing cultural critical man, & M. Hochstein (Eds.), Building community systems consciousness and self-reflection in preservice teacher for young children (pp. 1–26). Los Angeles, CA: UCLA education. Theory into Practice, 42(3), 181–187. Retrieved Center for Healthier Children, Families and from https://muse.jhu.edu/article/45872 Communities. Geisz, M. B., & Nakashian, M. (2016). Adolescent wellness: Hamm, J. V., Farmer, T. W., Dadisman, K., Gravelle, M., & Current perspectives and future opportunities in research, Murray, A. R. (2011). Teachers’ attunement to students’ policy, and practice. Unpublished report, Robert Wood peer group affiliations as a source of improved student Johnson Foundation. experiences of the school social-affective context following Gestsdottir, G., & Lerner, R. M. (2008). Positive development the middle school transition. Journal of Applied Develop- in adolescence: The development and role of intentional mental Psychology, 32(5), 267–277. doi:10.1016/j.appdev. self-regulation. Human Development, 51, 202–224. 2010.06.003 doi:10.1159/000135757 Hammond, Z. (2016). Culturally responsive teaching and the Gibson, J. J. (1979). The ecological approach to perception. brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. culturally and linguistically diverse students. Thousand Gilliam, W. S., & Shahar, G. (2006). Preschool and child care Oaks, CA: Corwin. expulsion and suspension: Rates and predictors in one Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2005). Can instructional and state. Infants & Young Children, 19(3), 228–245. emotional support in the first‐grade classroom make a doi:10.1097/00001163-200607000-00007 difference for children at risk of school failure? Child Goldstein, H., Kaczmarek, L. A., & English, K. M., (Eds.). Development, 76(5), 949–967. Retrieved from http://www. (2002). Promoting social communication: Children with jstor.org/stable/3696607 developmental disabilities from birth to adolescence. Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2010). Classroom environ- Baltimore, MD: Brookes. ments and developmental processes. In J. L. Meece, & Goodnow, J. J., & Lawrence, J. A. (2015). Children and J. S. Eccles (Eds.), Handbook of research on schools, cultural context. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child schooling, and human development (pp. 25–41). London, psychology and developmental science: Vol. 4. Ecological UK: Routledge. settings and processes (7th ed., pp. 746–788). Hoboken, NJ: Harry, B., Klingner, J. K., & Hart, J. (2005). African American Wiley. families under fire: Ethnographic views of family strengths. Gornick, M. E. (2002). Disparities in health care: Methods Remedial and Special Education, 26(2), 101–112. for studying the effects of race, ethnicity, and SES on access, doi:10.1177/07419325050260020501 use, and quality of health care. Washington, DC: Hastings, P. D., & Grusec, J. E. (1998). Parenting goals as National Academies Press. Retrieved from http://www. organizers of responses to parent– child disagreement. 24 D. OSHER ET AL.

Developmental Psychology, 34(3), 465–479. doi:10.1037/ Jennings, P. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). The prosocial 0012-1649.34 classroom: Teacher social and emotional competence in Hay, D. F., Payne, A., & Chadwick, A. (2004). Peer relations in relation to student and classroom outcomes. Review of childhood. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45 Educational Research, 79, 491–525. (1), 84–108. doi:10.1046/j.0021-9630.2003.00308.x Johnson, S. B., Riis, J. L., & Noble, K. G. (2016). State of Herbers, J. E., Reynolds, A. J., & Chen, C. C. (2013). School the art review: Poverty and the developing brain. mobility and developmental outcomes in young adulthood. Pediatrics, 137(4), 1–16. Retrieved from http://pediatrics. Development and Psychopathology, 25(2), 501–515. aappublications.org/content/early/2016/03/03/peds.2015-3075 doi:10.1017/S0954579412001204 Johnson, S. B., Riley, A. W., Granger, D. A., & Riis, J. (2013). Hicks, B. M., Johnson, W., Durbin, C. E., Blonigen, D. M., The science of early life toxic stress for pediatric practice Iacono, W. G., & McGue, M. (2014). Delineating selection and advocacy. Pediatrics, 131(2), 319–327. doi:10.1542/ and mediation effects among childhood personality peds.2012-0469 and environmental risk factors in the development of Johnson, S. M., Kraft, M. A., & Papay, J. P. (2012). How adolescent substance abuse. Journal of Abnormal Child context matters in high-need schools: The effects of Psychology, 42(5), 845–859. teachers’ working conditions on their professional Hoagwood, K. E. (2005). Family‐based services in children’s satisfaction and their students’ achievement. Teachers mental health: a research review and synthesis. Journal of College Record, 114(10), 1–39. Retrieved from https:// Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46(7), 690–713. scholar.harvard.edu/mkraft/publications/how-context- Hochberg, Z., Feil, R., Constancia, M., Fraga, M., Junien, C., matters-high-need-schools-effects-teachers%E2%80%99- Carel, J.-C., … Albertsson-Wikland, K. (2011). Child working-conditions-their health, developmental plasticity, and epigenetic program- Johnson, V. A., Kemp, A. H., Heard, R., Lennings, C. J., & ming. Endocrine Reviews, 32(2), 159–224. doi:10.1210/ Hickie, I. B. (2015). Childhood versus adolescent-onset er.2009-0039 antisocial youth with conduct disorder: Psychiatric illness, Holman, E. A., Garfin, D. R., & Silver, R. C. (2014). Media’s neuropsychological and psychosocial function. PLoS ONE, role in broadcasting acute stress following the Boston 10(4), e0121627. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0121627 Marathon bombings. Proceedings of the National Academy Jones, S. M., & Bouffard, S. M. (2012). Social and of Sciences, 111(1), 93–98. emotional learning in schools: From programs to strategies. Holmbeck, G. N., & O’Donnell, K. (1991). Discrepancies Social Policy Report, 26(4), 1–33. Retrieved from https:// between perceptions of decision making and behavioral www.srcd.org/sites/default/files/documents/spr_264_final_ autonomy. New Directions for Child Development, 51, 2.pdf 51–69. doi:10.1002/cd.23219915105 Jones, S. M., & Kahn, J. (2017). The evidence base for how we Hook, J. N., Farrell, J. E., Davis, D. E., DeBlaere, C., Van learn: Supporting students’ social, emotional, and academic Tongeren, D. R., & Utsey, S. O. (2016). Cultural humility development. Consensus statements of evidence from the and racial micro aggressions in counseling. Journal of Council of Distinguished Scientists. Washington, DC: Counseling Psychology, 63(3), 269277. National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Hook, J. N., & Watkins, C. E., Jr. (2015). Cultural humility: Development & the Aspen Institute. Retrieved from https:// The cornerstone of positive contact with culturally different assets.aspeninstitute.org/content/uploads/2017/09/SEAD- individuals and groups? American Psychologist, 70(7), Research-Brief-9.12_updated-web.pdf. 661–662. doi:10.1037/a0038965 Jouriles, E. N., McDonald, R., Slep, A. M., Heyman, R. E., & Huang, J. (2013). Intergenerational transmission of Garrido, E. (2008). Child abuse in the context of educational attainment: The role of household assets. domestic violence: Prevalence, explanations, and practice Economics of Education Review, 33, 112–123. implications. Violence and Victims, 23(2), 221–235. Institute of Medicine, & National Research Council (IOM, & Kellam, S. G., Brown, C. H., Poduska, J. M., Ialongo, N. S., NRC). (2009). Preventing mental, emotional, and behavioral Wang, W., Toyinbo, P., … Wilcox, H. C. (2008). Effects disorders among young people: Progress and possibilities. of a universal classroom behavior management program Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. in first and second grades on young adult behavioral, Institute of Medicine, & National Research Council (IOM, & psychiatric, and social outcomes. Drug and Alcohol NRC). (2011). The science of adolescent risk-taking: Work- Dependence, 95(Suppl. 1), S5–S28. doi:10.1016/j.drugalcdep. shop report. Washington, DC: The National Academies 2008.01.004 Press. Kellam, S. G., Mackenzie, A. C., Brown, C. H., Poduska, J. M., Institute of Medicine, & National Research Council (IOM, & Wang, W., Petras, H., & Wilcox, H. C. (2011). The good NRC). (2015a). Investing in the health and well-being of behavior game and the future of prevention and treatment. young adults. Washington, DC: The National Academies Addiction Science & Clinical Practice, 6(1), 73–84. Press. Kellam, S. G., & Rebok, G. W. (1992). Building developmental Institute of Medicine, & National Research Council (IOM, & and etiological theory through epidemiologically based pre- NRC). (2015b). Transforming the workforce for children ventive intervention trials. In J. McCord, & R. E. Tremblay birth through age 8: A unifying foundation. Washington, (Eds.), Preventing antisocial behavior: Interventions from DC: The National Academies Press. birth through adolescence (pp. 162–195). New York, NY: Jakonen, T. (2016). The integration of content and language Guilford Press. in students’ task answer production in the bilingual class- Kendziora, K., & Osher, D. (2004). Fostering resilience among room. International Journal of Bilingual Education and youth in the juvenile justice system. In C. C. Clauss-Ehlers, Bilingualism. doi:10.1080/13670050.2016.1267694 & M. Weist (Eds.), Community planning to foster resiliency APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 25

in children (pp. 177–196). New York, NY: Kluwer Li, J., & Julian, M. M. (2012). Developmental relationships as Academic. the active ingredient: a unifying working hypothesis of Kendziora, K., Osher, D., & Carey, M. (2014). Say yes to “what works” across intervention settings. The American education student monitoring system: Updated Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 82(2), 157–166. doi:10.1111/ literature review. Washington, DC: American Institutes j.1939-0025.2012.01151.x for Research. Lillard, A. S., Lerner, M. D., Hopkins, E. J., Dore, R. A., Smith, Kim, P., Strathearn, L., & Swain, J. E. (2016). The maternal E. D., & Palmquist, C. M. (2013). The impact of brain and its plasticity in humans. Hormones and Behavior, pretend play on children’s development: A review of the 77, 113–123. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2015.08.001 evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 139(1), 1–34. doi:10.1037/ Kim, P., & Watamura, S. E. (2015). Two open windows: Infant a0029321 and parent neurobiological change. Washington, DC: Aspen Lucey, H. (2010). Families, siblings, and identities. In Institute. M. Wetherell, & C. Talpade Mohanty (Eds.), The SAGE King, M. A., Sins, A., & Osher, D. (2007). How is cultural handbook of identities (pp. 476–491). London, UK: Sage. competence integrated into education?. Washington, DC: Lund, T., Dearing, E., & Zachrisson, H. D. (2017). Is affluence American Institutes for Research, Center for Effective a risk for adolescents in Norway? Journal of Research on Collaboration and Practice. Adolescence, 27(3), 628–643. doi:0.1111/jora.12304 Kremer, K. P., Flower, A., Huang, J., & Vaughn, M. G. (2016). Luthar, S. S. (2006). Resilience in development: A synthesis of Behavior problems and children’s academic achievement: research across five decades. In: D. Cicchetti, & D. J. Cohen A test of growth-curve models with gender and racial dif- (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Vol. 2. Risk, ferences. Children and Youth Services Review, 67, 95–104. disorder, and adaptation (3rd ed., pp. 740–795). New York, doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2016.06.003 NY: Wiley. Kupchik, A., & Ward, G. (2014). Race, poverty, and Luthar, S. S., Barkin, S. H., & Crossman, E. J. (2013). “I can, exclusionary school security: An empirical analysis of U.S. therefore I must”: Fragility in the upper-middle classes. elementary, middle, and high schools. Youth Violence Development and Psychopathology, 25th Anniversary and Juvenile Justice, 12, 332–354. doi:10.1177/154120401 Special Issue, 25, 1529–1549. PMCID: PMC4215566. 3503890 Luthar, S. S., & Ciciolla, L. (2016). What it feels like to be a Lansford, J. E., Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., & Bates, J. E. (2016). mother: Variations by children’s developmental stages. A public health perspective on school dropout and adult Developmental Psychology, 52(1), 143–154. doi:10.1037/ outcomes: A prospective study of risk and protective factors dev0000062 from age 5 to 27. The Journal of Adolescent Health, 58(6), Luthar, S. S., Crossman, E. J., & Small, P. J. (2015). Resilience 652–658. doi:10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.01.014 and adversity. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child Lee, C. D. (2010). Soaring above the clouds, delving the psychology and developmental science: Vol. 3. ocean’s depths: Understanding the ecologies of human Socioemotional processes (7th ed., pp. 247–286). Hoboken, learning and the challenge for education science. NJ: Wiley. Educational Researcher, 39(9), 643–655. doi:10.3102/ Luthar, S. S., Sawyer, J. A., & Brown, P. J. (2006). Conceptual 0013189x10392139 issues in studies of resilience: Past, present, and future Lee, C. D., Spencer, M. B., & Harpalani, V. (2003). Every shut research. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, eye ain’t sleep: Studying how people live culturally. 1094, 105–115. doi:10.1196/annals.1376.009 Educational Researcher, 32(5), 6–13. doi:10.3102/0013189x Luthar, S. S., Small, P. J., Ciciolla, L. (2017). Adolescents from 032005006 upper middle class communities: Substance misuse Lee, K. H., Siegle, G. J., Dahl, R. E., Hooley, J. M., & Silk, J. S. and addiction across early adulthood. Development and (2015). Neural responses to maternal criticism in healthy Psychopathology. First view: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/ youth. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(7), S0954579417000645 902–912. doi:10.1093/scan/nsu133 Mah, V. K., & Ford-Jones, E. L. (2012). Spotlight on middle Lemerise, E. A., & Arsenio, W. F. (2000). An integrated model childhood: Rejuvenating the “forgotten years.” Paediatrics of emotion processes and cognition in social information and Child Health, 17(2), 81–83. Retrieved from https:// processing. Child Development, 71(1), 107–118. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3299351/. Lerner, R. M. (2004). Liberty: Thriving and civic engagement Main, M. (1991). Metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive among American youth. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. monitoring, and singular (coherent) vs. multiple Lerner, R. M., Bowers, E. P., Geldhof, G. J., Gestsdóttir, S., & (incoherent) model of attachment: Findings and directions DeSouza, L. (2012). Promoting positive youth development for future research. In C. M. Parkes, J. Stevenson-Hinde, & in the face of contextual change and challenges: The P. Marris (Eds.), Attachment across the life cycle roles of individual strengths and ecological assets. New (pp. 127–159). New York, NY: Routledge. Directions for Youth Development, 135, 119–128. Mallett, C. A. (2015). The school-to-prison pipeline: A critical doi:10.1002/yd.20034 review of the punitive paradigm shift. Child and Adolescent Leventhal, T., Dupéré, V., & Shuey, E. A. (2015). Children in Social Work Journal, 33(1), 15–24. doi:10.1007/s10560-015- neighborhoods. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psy- 0397-1 chology and developmental science: Vol. 4. Ecological settings Martin, M. J., Conger, R. D., Schofield, T. J., Dogan, S. J., and processes (7th ed., pp. 493–533). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Widaman, K. F., Donnellan, M. B., & Neppl, T. K. Lewin, K. (1939). Field theory and experiment in social (2010). Evaluation of the interactionist model of psychology: Concepts and methods. American Journal of socioeconomic status and problem behavior: Sociology, 44(6), 868–896. doi:10.1086/218177 A developmental cascade across generations. Development 26 D. OSHER ET AL.

and Psychopathology, 22(3), 695–713. doi:10.1017/S095457 Murray, D. W., Rosanbalm, K., Christopoulos, C., & 9410000374 Hamoudi, A. (2015). Self-regulation and toxic stress: Martin, M. J., McCarthy, B., Conger, R. D., Gibbons, F. X., Foundations for understanding self-regulation from an applied Simons, R. L., Cutrona, C. E., & Brody, G. H. (2011). The developmental perspective (OPRE Report #2015-21). enduring significance of racism: Discrimination and Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human delinquency among Black American youth. Journal of Services, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Research on Adolescence, 21(3), 662–676. doi:10.1111/ Administration for Children and Families. j.1532-7795.2010.00699.x Nagaoka, J., Farrington, C. A., Ehrlich, S. B., Heath, R. D., Masten, A. S. (2014). Ordinary magic: Resilience in develop- Johnson, D. W., Dickson, S., … Hayes, K. (2015). Founda- ment. New York, NY: Guilford Press. tions for young adult success: A developmental framework. Masten, A. S., & Cicchetti, D. (2010). Developmental cascades. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Consortium on Development and Psychopathology, 22(3), 491–495. School Research. doi:10.1017/S0954579410000222 Nance, J. P. (2013). Students, security, and race. Emory Law Masten, A. S., & Coatsworth, J. D. (1998). The development of Journal, 63(1), 1–57. Retrieved from http://scholarship.law. competence in favorable and unfavorable environments: ufl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1390&context=facultypub. Lessons from research on successful children. American National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine. Psychologist, 53(2), 205. (2016). Parenting matters: Supporting parents of children Masten, A. S., Roisman, G. I., Long, J. D., Burt, K. B., ages 0–8. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Obradović, J., Riley, J. R., … Tellegen, A. (2005). National Association for the Education of Young Children. Developmental cascades: Linking academic achievement (2016). Statement from NAEYC on implicit bias research. and externalizing and internalizing symptoms over 20 Washington, DC: Author. years. Developmental Psychology, 41(5), 733–746. National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.41.5.733 (2011). National stakeholder strategy for achieving health Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An equity. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health & integrative model of organizational trust. The Academy of Human Services, Office of Minority Health. Retrieved Management Review, 20(3), 709–734. Retrieved from from https://www.minorityhealth.hhs.gov/npa/templates/ http://www.jstor.org/stable/258792. content.aspx?lvl=1&lvlid=33&ID=286. Mayer, R. E. (2014). Research-based principles for designing National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (2004). multimedia instruction. In V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, Young children develop in an environment of relationships & C. M. Hakala (Eds.), Applying science of learning in (Working Paper 1). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum Center on the Developing Child. Retrieved from https:// (pp. 7–19). Washington, DC: American Psychological 46y5eh11fhgw3ve3ytpwxt9r-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp- Association. Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/ content/uploads/2004/04/Young-Children-Develop-in-an- asle2014/index.php. Environment-of-Relationships.pdf. McHale, S. M., Updegraff, K. A., & Whiteman, S. D. (2012). Nelson, E. E., Leibenluft, E., McClure, E. B., & Pine, D. S. Sibling relationships and influences in childhood and (2005). The social re-orientation of adolescence: adolescence. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74(5), A neuroscience perspective on the process and its 913–930. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ relation to psychopathology. Psychological Medicine, 35(2), pmc/articles/PMC3956653/. 163–174. McLaughlin, K. A., Hatzenbuehler, M. L., & Hilt, L. M. (2009). Nix, R. L., Bierman, K. L., Heinrichs, B. S., Gest, S. D., Welsh, Emotion dysregulation as a mechanism linking peer victi- J. A., & Domitrovich, C. E. (2016). The randomized- mization to internalizing symptoms in adolescents. Journal controlled trial of Head Start REDI: Sustained effects of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 77(5), 894–904. on developmental trajectories of social-emotional Meaney, M. J., & Szyf, M. (2005). Environmental program- functioning. Journal of Consulting and Clinical ming of stress responses through DNA methylation: life Psychology, 84(4), 310–322. http://doi.org/10.1037/ at the interface between a dynamic environment and a a0039937 fixed genome. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 7(2), Norwalk, K., Hamm, J., Farmer, T., & Barnes, K. (2016). 103–123. Improving the school context of early adolescence Menting, A. T., Orobio de Castro, B., & Matthys, W. (2013). through teacher attunement to victimization. Journal of Effectiveness of the Incredible Years parent training Early Adolescence, 36(7), 989–1009. doi:10.1177/ to modify disruptive and prosocial child behavior: 0272431615590230 A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 33(8), Oberle, E., & Schonert-Reichl, K. A. (2016). Stress contagion 901–913. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2013.07.00 in the classroom? The link between classroom teacher Merton, R. K. (1957). Social theory and social structure. burnout and morning cortisol in elementary school stu- Glencoe, IL: Free Press. dents. Social Science & Medicine, 159, 30–37. doi:10.1016/ Mills-Koonce, W., Willoughby, M., Garrett-Peters, P., j.socscimed.2016.04.031 Wagner, N., & Vernon-Feagans, L. (2016). The interplay O’Connell, M. E., Boat, T., & Warner, K. E. (Eds.). (2009). among socioeconomic status, household chaos, and Preventing mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders parenting in the prediction of child conduct problems among young people: Progress and possibilities. Washington, and callous-unemotional behaviors. Development and DC: National Academies Press. Psychopathology, 28(3), 757–771. doi:10.1017/S095457941 Olds, D. L., Robinson, J., Pettitt, L., Luckey, D. W., Holmberg, 6000298 J., Ng, R. K., … Henderson, C. R. (2004). Effects of home APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 27

visits by paraprofessionals and by nurses: Age 4 follow-up Overton, W. F. (2010). Life-span development: Concepts and results of a randomized trial. Pediatrics, 114(6), 1560–1568. issues. In R. M. Lerner, W. F. Overton, A. M. Freund, & Oppedal, B., & Toppelberg, C. (2016). Culture competence: M. E. Lamb (Eds.), The handbook of life-span development A developmental task of acculturation. In J. W. Berry, & (pp. 1–29). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. D. L. Sam (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of acculturation Overton, W. F. (2015). Processes, relations and relational- psychology revised (pp. 71–92). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge developmental-systems. In W. F. Overton, & P. C. M. University Press. Molenaar (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and Osher, D. (2015). The pedagogy of real talk and the developmental science: Vol. 1. Theory and method promotion of student well-being and success. In (7th ed., pp. 9–62). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. P. Hernandez (Ed.), The pedagogy of real talk: Engaging, Overton, W. F., & Müller, U. (2012). Metatheories, theories, teaching, and connecting with students at risk (pp. viii–ix). and concepts in the study of development. In I. B. Weiner New York, NY: Corwin. (Ed.), Handbook of psychology: Vol. 6. Developmental Osher, D., Bear, G., Sprague, J., & Doyle, W. (2010). How psychology (2nd ed., pp. 19–58). New York, NY: Wiley. we can improve school discipline? Educational Researcher, Oyama, S. (2000). Evolution’s eye: A systems view of the 39(1), 48–58. doi:10.3102/0013189x09357618 biology–culture divide. Durham, NC: Duke University Osher, D., Cantor, P., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2017a). Press. Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children Oyserman, D., & Lewis, N., Jr. (2017). Seeing the destination learn and develop in context. Applied Developmental AND the path: Using identity-based motivation to Science, Manuscript submitted for publication. understand racial disparities in achievement and what we Osher, D., Cantor, P., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2017b). can do about them. Social Issues and Policy Review, 11(1), Drivers of human development: How relationships 159–194. doi:10.1111/sipr.12030 and con-text shape learning and development. Applied Pachter, L. M., & Coll, C. G. (2009). Racism and child health: Developmental Science, Manuscript submitted for A review of the literature and future directions. Journal of publication. Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 30(3), 255–263. Osher, D., Cartledge, G., Oswald, D., Artilles, A. J., & doi:10.1097/DBP.0b013e3181a7ed5a Coutinho, M. (2004). Issues of cultural and linguistic Pager, D., & Shepherd, H. (2008). The sociology of discrimi- competency and disproportionate representation. In nation: Racial discrimination in employment, R. Rutherford, M. Quinn, & S. Mather (Eds.), Handbook housing, credit, and consumer markets. Annual Review of research in behavioral disorders (pp. 54–77). New York, of Sociology, 34, 181–209. doi:10.1146/annurev. NY: Guilford Press. soc.33.040406.131740 Osher, D., & Chasin, E. (2016). Bringing together schools Park, S., & Schepp, K. G. (2015). A systematic review of and the community: The case of Say Yes to Education. In research on children of alcoholics: Their inherent resilience J. F. Zaff, E. Pufall Jones, A. E. Donlan, & S. A. Anderson and vulnerability. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24 (Eds.), Optimizing child and youth development through (5), 1222–1231. doi:10.1007/s10826-014-9930-7 comprehensive community initiatives (pp. 72–104). New Parker, J. G., Rubin, K. H., Price, J. M., & DeRosier, M. E. York, NY: Psychology Press. (1995). Peer relationships, child development, and Osher, D., & Kendziora, K. (2010). Building conditions for adjustment: A developmental psychopathology perspective. learning and healthy adolescent development: Strategic In D. Cicchetti, & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Developmental approaches. In B. Doll, W. Pfohl, & J. Yoon (Eds.), psychopathology: Vol. 2. Developmental neuroscience Handbook of youth prevention science (pp. 121–140). (3rd ed., pp. 96–161). Oxford, UK: Wiley. New York, NY: Routledge. Patterson, C. J., & Hastings, P. D. (2007). Socialization in the Osher, D., Kendziora, K., Spier, E., & Garibaldi, M. L. (2014). context of family diversity. In J. E. Grusec, & P. D. Hastings School influences on child and youth development. In (Eds.), Handbook of socialization (pp. 328–351). New York, Z. Sloboda, & H. Petras (Eds.), Advances in prevention NY: Guilford Press. science: Vol. 1. Defining prevention science (pp. 151–169). Perkins, K. L., & Sampson, R. J. (2015). Compounded New York, NY: Springer. deprivation in the transition to adulthood: The Osher, D., Kidron, Y., Brackett, M., Dymnicki, A., Jones, S., & intersection of racial and economic inequality among Weissberg, R. P. (2016). Advancing the science and practice Chicagoans, 1995–2013. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation of social and emotional learning: Looking back and moving Journal of the Social Sciences, 1(1), 35–54. doi:10.7758/ forward. Review of Research in Education, 40(1), 644–681. rsf.2015.1.1.03 doi:10.3102/0091732x16673595 Perry, B., & Morris, E. (2014). Suspending progress: Collateral Osher, D., Woodruff, D., & Sims, A. E. (2002). Schools make a consequences of exclusionary punishment in public difference: The overrepresentation of African American schools. American Sociological Review, 79(6), 1067–1087. youth in special education and the juvenile justice system. doi:10.1177/0003122414556308 In D. J. Losen, & G. Orfield (Eds.), Racial inequity in Petitclerc, A., Gatti, U., Vitaro, F., & Tremblay, R. E. (2013). special education (pp. 93–116). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Effects of juvenile court exposure on crime in Education Press. young adulthood. Journal of Child Psychology and Osher, T., Garay, L., Jennings, B., Jimerson, D., Markus, S., & Psychiatry, 54(3), 291–297. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012. Martinez, K. (2011). Closing the gap: Cultural perspectives 02616.x/pdf on family driven care. Washington, DC: Technical Pianta, B. (2016). Classroom processes and teacher-student Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental interaction: Integration with a developmental psycho- Health. pathology perspective. In D. Cicchetti (Ed.), Developmental 28 D. OSHER ET AL.

psychopathology: Vol. 4. Risk, resilience, and intervention Developmental science: An advanced textbook (5th ed., (3rd ed., pp. 770–814). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. pp. 469–512). New York, NY: Psychology Press. Pierce, S., Gould, D., & Camiré, M. (2017). Definition and Rumberger, R. W. (2003). The causes and consequences of model of life skills transfer. International Review of Sport student mobility. Journal of Negro Education, 72(1), 6–21. and Exercise Psychology, 10(1), 186–211. doi:10.1080/ doi:10.2307/3211287 1750984X.2016.1199727 Ryan, W. (1972). Blaming the victim. New York, NY: Vintage Plant, D. T., Barker, E. D., Waters, C. S., Pawlby, S., & Books. Pariante, C. M. (2013). Intergenerational transmission of Sampson, R. J., Sharkey, P., & Raudenbush, S. (2008). Durable maltreatment and psychopathology: The role of antenatal effects of concentrated disadvantage on verbal ability depression. Psychological Medicine, 43(3), 519–528. among African-American children. Proceedings of the doi:10.1017/S0033291712001298 National Academy of Sciences, 105, 845–852. doi:10.1073/ Powell, B., Hamilton, L., Manago, B., & Cheng, S. (2016). pnas.0710189104 Implications of changing family forms for children. Annual Sandstrom, H., Giesen, L., & Chaudry, A. (2012). How Review of Sociology, 42(1), 301–322. doi:10.1146/annurev- contextual constraints affect low-income working parents’ soc-081715-074444 child care choices. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Priest, N., Paradies, Y., Trenerry, B., Truong, M., Karlsen, S., Retrieved from https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/ & Kelly, Y. (2013). A systematic review of studies examin- publication/32726/412511-How-Contextual-Constraints- ing the relationship between reported racism and health Affect-Low-Income-Working-Parents-Child-Care-Choices. and wellbeing for children and young people. Social Science PDF. & Medicine (1982), 95, 115–127. doi:10.1016/j. Sass, T. R., Hannaway, J., Xu, Z., Figlio, D. N., & Feng, L. socscimed.2012.11.031 (2012). Value added of teachers in high-poverty schools Prinstein, M. J., Rancourt, D., Guerry, J. D., & Browne, C. B. and lower poverty schools. Journal of Urban Economics, (2009). Peer reputations and psychosocial adjustment. In 72(2), 104–122. doi:10.1016/j.jue.2012.04.004 K. H. Rubin, M. Bukowski, & B. Laursen (Eds.), Handbook Sawhill, I. V., & Karpilow, Q. (2014). How much could we of peer interactions, relationships, and groups (pp. 548–567). improve children’s life chances by intervening early and New York, NY: Guilford Press. often? (CCF Brief 54). Washington, DC: Brookings Raver, C. C., & Knitzer, J. (2002). Ready to enter. Emotions Institution, Center on Children and Families. matter: Making the case for the role of young children’s Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., & Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2011). emotional development for early school readiness among Adolescent thriving: The role of sparks, relationships, and three- and four-year-old children. New York, NY: National empowerment. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 40(3), Center for Children in Poverty. 263–277. Reardon, S. F., & Bischoff, K. (2011). Income inequality Schofield, T. J., Martin, M. J., Conger, R. D., Neppl, T. K., and income segregation. American Journal of Sociology, Donnellan, M. B., & Conger, K. J. (2011). Intergenerational 116(4), 1092–1153. doi:10.1086/657114 transmission of adaptive functioning: A test of the Reiss, F. (2013). Socioeconomic inequalities and mental interactionist model of SES and human development. health problems in children and adolescents: A systematic Child Development, 82(1), 33–47. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624. review. Social Science & Medicine, 90, 24–31. doi:10.1016/ 2010.01539.x j.socscimed.2013.04.026 Schweinhart, L. J., Montie, H., Xiang, Z., Barnett, W. S., Rhodes, J. E. (2004). The critical ingredient: Caring youth– Belfield, C. R., & Nores, M. (2005). Lifetime effects: The staff relationships in after-school settings. New Directions High/Scope Perry Preschool study through age 40. Ypsilanti, for Student Leadership, 2004(101), 145–161. MI: HighScope Press. Richerson, P. J., & Boyd, R. (2005). Not by genes alone: Sellers, R. M., Copeland-Linder, N., Martin, P. P., & Lewis, R. How culture transformed human evolution. Chicago, IL: (2006). Racial identity matters: The relationship between University of Chicago Press. racial discrimination and psychological functioning in Roorda, D. L., Koomen, H. M., Spilt, J. L., & Oort, F. J. (2011). African American adolescents. Journal of Research on The influence of affective teacher–student relationships on Adolescence, 16(2), 187–216. students’ school engagement and achievement: A meta- Semke, C. A., Garbacz, S. A., Kwon, K., Sheridan, S. M., & analytic approach. Review of Educational Research, 81(4), Woods, K. E. (2010). Family involvement for 493–529. doi:10.3102/0034654311421793 children with disruptive behaviors: The role of Rose, T., Rouhani, P., & Fischer, K. W. (2013). The science parenting stress and motivational beliefs. Journal of of the individual. Mind, Brain, and Education, 7(3), School Psychology, 48(4), 293–312. doi:10.1016/j. 152–158. jsp.2010.04.001 Ross, S., & Peselow, E. (2009). The neurobiology of addictive Sennett, R., & Cobb, J. (1972). The hidden injuries of class. disorders. Clinical Neuropharmacology, 32(5), 269–276. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Rubin, K. H., Bukowski, W. M., & Bowker, J. C. (2015). Sherman, L. E., Rudie, J. D., Pfeifer, J. H., Masten, C. L., Children in peer groups. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook McNealy, K., & Dapretto, M. (2014). Development of of child psychology and developmental science: Vol. 4. the default mode and central executive networks across Ecological settings and processes (7th ed., pp. 175–222). early adolescence: A longitudinal study. Developmental Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Cognitive Neuroscience, 10, 148–159. doi:10.1016/j. Rubin, K. H., Coplan, R. J., Chen, X., Buskirk, A., & dcn.2014.08.002 Wojslawowicz, J. C. (2005). Peer relationships in Shonkoff, J. P. (2012). Leveraging the biology of adversity to childhood. In M. H. Bornstein, & M. E. Lamb (Eds.), address the roots of disparities in health and development. APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 29

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, peer deviancy training, parenting processes, and sex 109(Suppl. 2), 17302–17307. differences in the development of antisocial behavior Shonkoff, J. P. (2016). Capitalizing on advances in science to during childhood. Development and Psychopathology, reduce the health consequences of early childhood 24(3), 1117–1138. adversity. JAMA Pediatrics, 170(10), 1003–1007. Spencer, M. B. (1995). Old issues and new theorizing about Shonkoff, J. P., Richter, L., van der Gaag, J., & Bhutta, Z. A. African American youth: A phenomenological variant of (2012). An integrated scientific framework for child ecological systems theory. In R. L. Taylor (Ed.), Black survival and early childhood development. Pediatrics, youth: Perspectives on their status in the United States 129(2), e460–e472. (pp. 37–69). Westport, CT: Praeger. Siegel, D. J. (1999). The developing mind: Toward a neurobiology Spencer, M. B. (2007). Phenomenology and ecological systems of interpersonal experience. New York, NY: Guilford Press. theory: Development of diverse groups. In R. M. Lerner Siegel, D. J. (2012). The developing mind: How relationships (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental and the brain interact to shape who we are (2nd ed.). science: Vol. 1. Theory and method (6th ed., pp. 829–893). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Siegel, D. J. (2013). Brainstorm: The power and purpose of the Spencer, M. B. (2017). Privilege and critical race perspectives’ teenage brain. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam. intersectional contributions to a systems theory of human Silva, K., Chein, J., & Steinberg, L. (2016). Adolescents in development. In N. Budwig, E. Turiel, & P. Zelazo (Eds.), peer groups make more prudent decisions when a New perspectives on human development (pp. 258–286). slightly older adult is present. Psychological Science, 27(3), Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. 322–330. Spencer, M. B., Swanson, D. P., & Harpalani, V. (2015). Sisk, C. L., & Zehr, J. L. (2005). Pubertal hormones organize Conceptualizing the self: Contributions of normative the adolescent brain and behavior. Frontiers in Neuroendo- human processes, diverse contexts and opportunity. In crinology, 26(3–4), 163–174. R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology and Sitnick, S. L., Shaw, D. S., Gill, A., Dishion, T., Winter, C., developmental science: Vol. 3. Socioemotional processes Waller, R., … Wilson, M. (2015). Parenting and the family (7th ed., pp. 750–793). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. check-up: Changes in observed parent-child interaction Spenrath, M. A., Clarke, M. E., & Kutcher, S. (2011). The following early childhood intervention. Journal of Clinical science of brain and biological development: Implications Child and Adolescent Psychology, 44(6), 970–984. for mental health research, practice and policy. Journal of doi:10.1080/15374416.2014.940623 the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Skiba, R. J., Horner, R. H., Chung, C.-G., Rausch, M. K., May, 20(4), 298–304. S. L., & Tobin, T. (2011). Race is not neutral: A national Stack, C. B. (1974). All our kin. New York, NY: Harper & investigation of African American and Latino dispropor- Row. tionality in school discipline. School Psychology Review, Stafford-Brizard, K. B. (2016, July 22). Nonacademic skills are 40(1), 85–107. the necessary foundation for learning. Education Week. Slavich, G. M., & Cole, S. W. (2013). The emerging field of Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/ human social genomics. Clinical Psychological Science, 07/21/nonacademic-skills-are-the-necessary-foundation-for. 1(3), 331–348. html. Smetana, J. G. (2011). Adolescents, families, and social Steele, C. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: And other clues to how development: How teens construct their worlds. New York, stereotypes affect us. New York, NY: Norton. NY: Wiley. Steinberg, L. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective Smith, C., McGovern, G., Larson, R., Hillaker, B., & Peck, on adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Review, 28(1), S. C. (2016). Preparing youth to thrive: Promising practices 78–106. for social and emotional learning. Washington, DC: Forum Stevens, M. C., Skudlarski, P., Pearlson, G. D., & Calhoun, for Youth Investment. V. D. (2009). Age-related cognitive gains are mediated by Smith, J., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Klebanov, P. (1997). The conse- the effects of white matter development on brain network quences of living in poverty on young children’s cognitive integration. NeuroImage, 48(4), 738–746. development. In G. J. Duncan, & J. Brooks-Gunn (Eds.), Stevenson, J., & Stevenson, H. C. (2013). Promoting racial Consequences of growing up poor (pp. 132–189). New York, literacy in schools: Differences that make a difference. NY: Russell Sage Foundation. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Smith, J. D., Dishion, T. J., Shaw, D. S., Wilson, M. N., Suizzo, M., Jackson, K. M., Pahlke, E., Marroquin Y., Winter, C. C., & Patterson, G. R. (2014). Coercive Blondeau, L., & Martinez, A. (2012). Pathways to family process and early-onset conduct problems achievement: How low-income Mexican-origin from age 2 to school entry. Development and parents promote their adolescents through school. Psychopathology, 26(4, Pt. 1), 917–932. doi:10.1017/ Family Relations, 61(4), 533–547. doi:10.1111/j.1741- S0954579414000169 3729.2012.00727.x Snow, K. (2016). Research news you can use: Pretend play is Sutherland, K. S., & Oswald, D. (2005). The relationship important but its role in learning is complex. Washington, between teacher and student behavior in classrooms DC: National Association for the Education of Young for students with emotional and behavioral disorders: Children. Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/content/ Transactional processes. Journal of Child and Family research-news-pretend-play-is-important Studies, 14, 1–14. doi:10.1007/s10826-005-1106-z Snyder, J. J., Schrepferman, L. P., Bullard, L., McEachern, Tarullo, A. R., Obradović, J., & Gunnar, M. R. (2009). Self- A. D., & Patterson, G. R. (2012). Covert antisocial behavior, control and the developing brain. Zero to Three, 29(3), 30 D. OSHER ET AL.

31–37. Retrieved from https://web.stanford.edu/group/ Varga, S. M., & Zaff, J. F. (2017). Defining webs of support: sparklab/pdf/Tarullo,%20Obradovic,%20Gunnar%20(2009, A new framework to advance understanding of relationships %200-3)%20Self-Control%20and%20the%20Developing% and youth development. Boston, MA: Center for Promise. 20Brain.pdf. Waddington, C. H. (1956). Genetic assimilation of the Thompson, R. A. (2015). Relationships, regulation, and bithorax phenotype. Evolution, 10(1), 1–13. early development. In R. M. Lerner, & M. E. Lamb Waddington, C. H. (with an appendix by H. Kacser). (1957). (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental The strategy of the genes. A discussion of some science, Vol. 3. Socioemotional processes (pp. 201–246). aspects of theoretical biology. London, UK: George Allen Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. & Unwin. Thompson, R. A., & Goodvin, R. (2016). Social support and Wadsworth, M. E., Evans, G. W., Grant, K., Carter, J. S., & developmental psychopathology. In D. Cicchetti (Ed.), Duffy, S. (2016). Poverty and the development of Developmental psychopathology: Vol. 4. Risk, resilience, psychopathology. In D. Cicchetti (Ed.), Developmental and intervention (3rd ed., pp. 86–135). Hoboken, NJ: psychopathology: Vol. 4: Risk, resilience, and intervention Wiley. (3rd ed., pp. 136–180). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Tolan, P. H. (2016). Community violence exposure and Wagner, M. M. (1995). Outcomes for youths with serious psychopathology. In D. Cicchetti (Ed.), Developmental emotional disturbance in secondary school and early psychopathology: Vol. 4. Risk, resilience, and intervention adulthood. The Future of Children, 5, 90–112. (3rd ed., pp. 43–86). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Walton, A., & Flouri, E. (2010). Contextual risk, maternal Twine, F. W., & Gardener, B. (2013). Geographies of privilege. parenting and adolescent externalizing behavior problems: New York, NY: Routledge. The role of emotion regulation. Child: Care, Health, and Tyack, D. B. (1974). The one best system: A history of Development, 36(2), 275–284. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2214. American urban education (Vol. 95). Cambridge, MA: 2009.01065.x Harvard University Press. Wandersman, A., Alia, K., Cook, B. S., Hsu, L. L., & U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). American Community Survey, Ramaswamy, R. (2016). Evidence-based interventions 2010 1-year estimates: Grandparent characteristics (Table are necessary but not sufficient for achieving outcomes S1001). Washington, DC: Author. in each setting in a complex world: Empowerment U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights. (2014). evaluation, getting to outcomes, and demonstrating Civil rights data collection data snapshot: Early accountability. American Journal of Evaluation, 37(4), childhood education (Issue Brief No. 2). Washington, DC: 544–561. Author. West, J., Denton, K., & Reaney, L. M. (2001). The kindergarten U.S. Department of Health, & Human Services. (2010). year: Findings from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Healthy People 2020: An opportunity to address societal kindergarten class of 1998-1999 (NCES 2001-023). determinants of health in the United States. Washington, Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Education, National DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.healthypeople. Center for Education Statistics. gov/2010/hp2020/advisory/SocietalDeterminantsHealth.htm Whelan, C. T., & Maître, B. (2008). Social class variation in U.S. Department of Health, & Human Services. (2015). HHS risk: A comparative analysis of the dynamics of economic action plan to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities: vulnerability. The British Journal of Sociology, 59(4), Implementation progress report 2011–2014. Washington, 637–659. doi:10.1111/j.1468-4446.2008.00213.x DC: Author. Retrieved from https://www.minorityhealth. Wills, T. A., Murry, V. M., Brody, G. H., Gibbons, F. X., hhs.gov/assets/pdf/FINAL_HHS_Action_Plan_Progress_ Gerrard, M., Walker, C., & Ainette, M. G. (2007). Ethnic Report_11_2_2015.pdf pride and self-control related to protective and risk U.S. Department of Health, & Human Services. (n.d.). HHS factors: Test of the theoretical model for the strong African action plan to reduce racial and ethnic health disparities: American families program. Health Psychology, 26, 50–59. A nation free of disparities in health and health doi:10.1037/0278-6133.26.1.50 care. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from https:// Yampolskaya, S., Brown, E. C., & Greenbaum, P. E. (2002). minorityhealth.hhs.gov/assets/pdf/hhs/HHS_Plan_complete. Early pregnancy among adolescent females with pdf serious emotional disturbances: Risk factors and outcomes. Ursache, A., Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2012). The promotion Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 10(2), of self-regulation as a means of enhancing school readiness 108–115. and early achievement in children at risk for school failure: Yates, T. M., Egeland, L. B., & Sroufe, A. (2003). Rethinking Promotion of self-regulation in school. Child Development resilience: A developmental process perspective. In S. S. Perspectives, 6(2), 122–128. Luthar (Ed.), Resilience and vulnerability: Adaptation in Vaillancourt, T., Hymel, S., & McDougall, P. (2013). The the context of childhood adversities (pp. 243–266). New biological underpinnings of peer victimization: York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Understanding why and how the effects of bullying can last Yeager, D. S., Fong, C. J., Lee, H. Y., & Espelage, D. L. a lifetime. Theory into Practice, 52(4), 241–248. (2015). Declines in efficacy of antibullying programs Vandell, D. L., Belsky, J., Burchinal, M., Vandergrift, N., & among older adolescents: Theory and a three-level Steinberg, L. (2010). Do effects of early child care extend meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Developmental to age 15 years? Results from the NICHD study of Psychology, 37, 36–51. early child care and youth development. Child Yoder, N. (2014). Self-assessing social and emotional instruc- Development, 81(3), 737–756. doi:10.1111/j.1467- tion and competencies: A tool for teachers. Washington, 8624.2010.01431.x DC: American Institutes for Research, Center on Great APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 31

Teachers and Leaders. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/? Zelazo, P. D., Blair, C. B., & Willoughby, M. T. (2016). Execu- id=ED553369 tive function: Implications for education (NCER 2017–2000). Zelazo, P. D. (2015). Executive function: Reflection, iterative Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, Institute reprocessing, complexity, and the developing brain. of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Developmental Review, 38, 55–68. Research.

Implications for Educational Practice of the Science of Learning and Development

Linda Darling-Hammond, Lisa Flook, and Channa Cook-Harvey

Learning Policy Institute

Brigid Barron

Stanford University

David Osher

American Institutes of Research1

Author Note

The authors gratefully acknowledge intellectual contributions to this work from Pamela Cantor, Micheline Chi, Richard Clark, Christopher Edley, Camille Farrington, Ronald Ferguson, Adam Gamoran, Kris Gutierrez, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Carol Lee, Felice Levine, Suniya Luthar, Daphna Oyserman, Jim Pellegrino, Lisa Quay, Scott Palmer, David Rose, Todd Rose, Bror Saxberg, Robert Selman, Jim Shelton, Jim Stigler, Jack Shonkoff, Brooke Stafford-Brizzard, Melina Uncapher, Roger Weissberg, Martin West, David Yeager, and Philip Zelazo.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Linda Darling-Hammond Contact: [email protected]

1 Practice that Supports Learning and Development 2

Abstract

This article draws out the implications for school and classroom practices of an emerging consensus about the science of learning and development, outlined in a recent synthesis of the research (Cantor et al., 2018; Osher et al., 2018). Situating the review in a developmental systems framework, we synthesize evidence from the learning sciences and several branches of educational research about well-vetted strategies that support the kinds of relationships and learning opportunities needed to promote children’s well- being, healthy development, and transferable learning. In addition, we review research regarding practices that can help educators respond to individual variability, address adversity, and support resilience, so that schools can enable all children to find positive pathways to adulthood.

2 Practice that Supports Learning and Development 3

Introduction

As knowledge about human development and learning has grown at a rapid pace, the opportunity to shape more effective educational practices has also increased. Taking advantage of these advances, however, requires integrating insights across multiple fields – from the biological and neurosciences to psychology, sociology, developmental and learning sciences – and connecting them to knowledge of successful approaches that is emerging in education. This article seeks to contribute to this process by drawing out the implications for school and classroom practices of an emerging consensus about the science of learning and development

(SoLD), outlined in a recent synthesis of the research (Cantor et al., 2018; Osher et al., 2018).

Using these articles as a foundation, we synthesize evidence from the learning sciences and several branches of educational research about well-vetted strategies that support the kinds of relationships and learning opportunities needed to promote children’s well-being, healthy development, and transferable learning. In addition, we review research regarding practices that can help educators respond to individual variability, address adversity, and support resilience, so that schools can enable all children to learn and to find positive pathways to adulthood.

This work is situated in a relational developmental systems framework that looks at the

“mutually influential relations between individuals and contexts” (Lerner & Callina, 2013). This framework makes it clear how children’s development and learning are shaped by interactions among the environmental factors, relationships, and learning opportunities they experience, both in and out of school, along with physical, psychological, cognitive, social, and emotional processes that influence one another – both biologically and functionally – as they enable or undermine learning (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Rose et al., 2013). Although our society and our schools often compartmentalize these developmental processes and treat them as distinct from

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 4 one another – and treat the child as distinct from the many contexts she experiences –the sciences of learning and development demonstate how tightly interrelated they are and how they jointly produce the outcomes for which educators are responsible.

Key insights from the science of learning and development are that the brain and the development of intelligences and capacities are malleable, and the “development of the brain is an experience-dependent process” (Cantor et al., 2018) which activates neural pathways that permit new kinds of thinking and performance. As a function of experiences, the brain and human capacities grow over the course of the entire developmental continuum and across the developmental spectrum (physical, cognitive, affective) in interactive ways. What happens in one domain influences what happens in others. For example, emotions can trigger or block learning. Emotions and social contexts shape neural connections which contribute to attention, concentration, and memory, to knowledge transfer and application. Understanding how developmental processes unfold over time and interact in different contexts can contribute to more supportive designs for learning environments.

Furthermore, general trends in development are modified by interactions between unique aspects of the child and his / her family, community, and classroom contexts. As a result, children have individual needs and trajectories that require differentiated instruction and supports to enable optimal growth in competence, confidence, and motivation.

A central implication for educators is that this integrated and dynamic developmental system is optimally supported when all aspects of the educational environment support all of the dimensions of children’s development. This calls for a deeply integrated approach to practice that supports the whole child in schools and classrooms that function coherently and consistently to build strong relationships and learning communities; support social, emotional, and cognitive

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 5 development; and provide individualized supports as needed for healthy development, productive relationships, and academic progress. This holistic approach must necessarily connect with family and community contexts – developing strong, respectful partnerships to understand and build on children’s experiences and, as needed, to strengthen any aspects of the developmental system where there are challenges to children’s health and well-being.

In what follows, we describe the implications for practice of these interrelated systems that address major developmental needs: the need for strong, supportive relationships that enable students to take advantage of productive learning opportunities in cognitive, social, and emotional domains, plus additional supports (physical, social, emotional, and/or academic) needed to address individual circumstances that need attention at a moment in time to maintain a positive developmental trajectory. We stress that all of these are interactive and interrelated and that these aspects of education must be designed to work together in a tightly integrated fashion.

Figure 1 illustrates the four areas which structure the remainder of this review:

1) Supportive environmental conditions that foster strong relationships and community. These include positive, sustained relationships that foster attachment and emotional connections; physical, emotional, and identity safety; and a sense of belonging and purpose;

2) Productive instructional strategies that support motivation, competence, and self- directed learning. These curriculum, teaching, and assessment strategies feature well-scaffolded instruction and ongoing formative assessment that support conceptual understanding, take students’ prior knowledge and experiences into account, and provide the right amount of challenge and support on relevant and engaging learning tasks;

3) Social and Emotional Learning that fosters skills, habits, and mindsets that enable academic progress, efficacy, and productive behavior. These include self-regulation, executive

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 6 function, intrapersonal awareness and interpersonal skills, a growth mindset, and a sense of agency that supports resilience and productive action;

4) Individualized supports that enable healthy development, respond to student needs, and address learning barriers. These include a multi-tiered system of academic, health, and social supports that provide personalized resources within and beyond the classroom to address and prevent developmental detours, including conditions of trauma and adversity.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 7

Within this framework, we address the following questions: Given what we know about human development and learning, and what is known from multiple domains of educational research, what school and classroom practices can create environments that support students in all of the areas of their development? In what ways can educators help students acquire transferable knowledge, skills, habits, and mindsets that support ongoing learning? And what kinds of changes are needed within our education system as a whole to reflect what we know about development, since our current system was not designed with this knowledge in mind?

We focus primarily on k-12 schools, although the principles we articulate are generally applicable to early childhood as well. As we answer these questions, we emphasize the whole child within a whole school and a whole community context. From an ecological systems framework, the school serves as an immediate context shaping children’s learning and development through instruction, relationships with teachers and peers, and the school culture.

Connections between home and school are critical to provide aligned supports for children.

As we describe these components and their implications for educational practice, we both describe optimal practices for all children in schools and specific interventions that are needed when children have experienced adversities that require redress – and when schools have been structured in ways that do not yet permit developmentally supportive experiences at all times and in all the contexts of school life. Where we describe specific programmatic interventions, we do so with the goal of informing a whole school approach that will eventually incorporate these elements into the regular features of educational settings.

The research presented in this article builds on the literature presented in the earlier syntheses on learning and development and maps the key findings to other research on school and teaching practices that have well-developed evidence associated with these goals. We tap

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 8 reviews of research, meta-analyses, and handbook chapters that have synthesized evidence, as well as individual studies that represent a broader body of evidence represented in other research.

The Developmental Outcomes we Seek and the Experiences Needed to Support Them

For more than two decades, researchers, educators, policymakers, and business leaders have emphasized the need to support “21st century” skills in a context where knowledge is rapidly expanding and technologies and work processes are rapidly changing. These abilities include critical thinking and problem solving skills; the capacity to find, analyze, synthesize, and apply knowledge to novel situations; interpersonal skills that allow people to work with others and engage effectively in cross-cultural contexts; self-directional abilities that allow them to manage their own work and complex projects; abilities to competently find resources and use tools; and the capacity to communicate effectively in many ways.

Scholars in the learning sciences have emphasized that developing these kinds of skills requires a different kind of teaching and learning than that emphasized in prior eras of education when learning was conceptualized as the acquisition of facts and teaching as the transmission of information to be taken in and used “as is.” The National Research Council’s review (2012), for example, indicates that the kind of learning supporting these higher order thinking and performance skills is best developed through inquiry and investigation, application of knowledge to new situations and problems, production of ideas and solutions, and collaborative problem- solving. These tasks, in turn, require strong self-regulation, executive functioning, and metacognitive skills; resourcefulness, perseverance, and resilience in the face of obstacles and uncertainty; the ability to learn independently; and curiosity, inventiveness, and creativity. To

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 9 become productive citizens within and beyond the school, students also need positive mindsets about self and school, along with social awareness and responsibility (Stafford-Brizard, 2016).

The SoLD synthesis, along with related research on school improvement suggests that the ability of schools to help achieve these outcomes requires environments, structures, and practices attuned to students’ learning and developmental needs, including,

As part of a supportive environment:

• A caring, culturally responsive learning community, where students are well-

known and valued and can learn in physical and emotional safety;

• Structures that allow for continuity in relationships, consistency in practices, and

predictability in routines that reduce anxiety and support engaged learning;

• Relational trust and respect between and among staff, students, and parents.

As part of productive instructional strategies:

• Meaningful work that builds on students’ prior knowledge and experiences and

actively engages them in rich, engaging tasks that help them achieve conceptual

understanding and transferable knowledge and skills;

• Inquiry as a major learning strategy, thoughtfully interwoven with explicit

instruction and well-scaffolded opportunities to practice and apply learning;

• Well-designed collaborative learning opportunities that encourage students to

question, explain, and elaborate their thoughts and co-construct solutions;

• Ongoing diagnostic assessments and opportunities to receive timely and helpful

feedback, develop and exhibit competence, and revise work to improve;

• Opportunities to develop metacognitive skills through planning and management

of complex tasks, self- and peer- assessment, and reflection on learning.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 10

As part of social and emotional learning opportunities:

• Explicit instruction in social, emotional, and cognitive skills, such as intrapersonal

awareness, interpersonal skills, conflict resolution, and good decision making;

• Infusion of opportunities to learn and use social-emotional skills, habits, mindsets

throughout all aspects of the school’s work in and outside of the classroom;

• Educative and restorative approaches to classroom management and discipline, so

that children learn responsibility for themselves and their community.

As part of individualized supports:

• Access to integrated services (including physical and mental health and social

service supports) that enable children’s healthy development;

• Extended learning opportunities that nurture positive relationships, support

enrichment and mastery learning, and close achievement gaps;

• Multi-tiered systems of support to address learning barriers both in and out of the

classroom based on a shared developmental framework uniting a capable and

stable staff with families and support providers.

Research finds that the presence of these features produces stronger gains in outcomes for those students who typically experience the greatest environmental challenges. This is consistent with developmental science findings that children who experience adversity “may be more malleable – and stand to benefit most – in the context of supportive, enriched environmental supports and interventions” (Cantor et al., 2018).

Accomplishing this work clearly requires an intensive focus on adult development and support, so that educators can design for and enact the practices that enable them to put these features into place. We take up the research about adult learning for developmentally supportive

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 11 practice in a separate companion article that builds upon this one. In the vignette below, we illustrate how the four principles of practice (shown in Figure 1) can be brought together by a skilled practitioner who has been well-prepared to use the science of learning and development.

The Science of Learning and Development in Practice

In Ted Pollen’s 4th grade classroom at Midtown West school in New York city, a diverse group of 27 students is deeply engaged in a mathematics inquiry focused on understanding the concepts of range, mean, median, and mode. Some are seated around tables, while others are in pairs or trios on the rug in the classroom meeting area. While some teachers might introduce the three terms with definitions and rules for calculating them, and give students a worksheet of problems to fill out, Ted's class has been conducting a study that provides them with the data they are now analyzing: They measured and recorded the height of everyone in their own classroom and all the children in one of the kindergarten classrooms who are their “reading buddies.” Each then figured out how to display the data distributions with bar graphs they constructed individually, so as to be able to figure out the mean, median, and mode for each class and compare them. Working in teams, they use various tools, such as manipulatives and calculators, as they advise and query one another about what to do.

Ted moves unobtrusively among groups, watching the process and occasionally asking questions to help move students to the next level of understanding. It's clear that he is thinking about students’ zones of proximal development as he chooses his questions. Ted says to one group: “Think about your design. What's the best way of displaying the data so you can make an actual comparison?” In another, he asks, “Can someone give me the range for kindergarten? Our range? Are there any outliers?” This led to a realization that there was little overlap between the two groups, but there were a few relatively short 4th graders and one very tall kindergartner. A student said proudly, pointing to that data point: “That's my reading buddy!”

In yet another group Ted observes to one of the boys, “You're having the same problem that she's having,” pointing to a tablemate to encourage the two of them to work together. They begin counting and calculating to solve the problem jointly. Ted never gives away the answer, but he assists the problem-solving process with questions that carefully scaffold student understanding. He watches over a student with autism who is doing her work with a one-on- one aide. The student sings to herself periodically while she is doing the work, but continues to make progress. In the hubbub of the classroom, her singing is not a distraction to the others, as they all focus intently on communicating to find solutions to this highly motivating puzzle. Every single student has made significant progress in developing a deep understanding of these key statistical concepts that often elude students much older than themselves.

Around the hard-working groups of children, student work covers the walls: Especially prominent are student accounts of their lives as slaves in New Amsterdam and New York: 1621-1680, along with fractions posters illustrating various problems they have tackled and solved, including how they have split sub sandwiches among various odd numbers of people.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 12

A classroom constitution that was collectively developed and signed by each student and teacher is displayed, along with a “Problem Parking Lot” with stickies listing various problems and questions the class has agreed to return to.

On the back shelves, one set of tubs offers manipulatives for mathematics. Another set of tubs includes books labeled by type, all connected to current topics of study: Authors who have been studied by the class each merit a tub, as do African-American Biographies; Slavery; Other Biographies; Ted's favorites; and more. Hand-made globes and a time line string with chronological date cards of important events hang from the ceiling. The meeting area in front of a whiteboard is covered with a rug that is a map of the world.

Also on the wall are many posters reminding students about their routines. One summarizes the rules for “Book Club.” Another asks “What is figurative language?” clarifying that it is “when words mean something other than their literal meaning”. The poster defines what most would think of as high school terms: simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification, alliteration, onomatopoeia, idiom, allusion, and oxymoron, offering concrete examples of each.

Other posters developed by students and teacher include a “Writing workshop conferencing protocol,” “Poetry guidelines,” “Persuasive essays,” “Jobs in a reading conference” (enumerated for both the student and the teacher), and “Elements of a news magazine article.” These are often in the students’ own words, codifying their learning so they can share it and go back to it as needed. Another poster enumerates, “What we know about maps,” while still another describes “Multiplying 2-digit by 1-digit numbers: The traditional algorithm.”

Invisible in this moment are the school supports that make this productive hubbub possible: free breakfasts for all children; free transportation for children who live in temporary housing; a Family Center that offers educational workshops, cultural connections, and family support services; extended afterschool time and services; twice annual student-family-teacher conferences; and a set of children’s rights that include: “I have a right to be happy and to be treated with compassion in this school.” “I have a right to be myself in this school. This means that no one will treat me unfairly.” And “I have the right to be safe in this school.” Community building and conflict resolution are explicit schoolwide efforts. Although the school is overcrowded, it is welcoming in every respect.

Source: Podolsky and Darling-Hammond (forthcoming); Midtown West Handbook: http://www.midtownwestschool.org/school-handbook.html

This short vignette illustrates how Ted’s class and Midtown West Elementary School are grounded in the science of learning and development which supports strong, trusting relationships; collaboration in the learning process; connections to prior experience; inquiry interspersed with explicit instruction where appropriate; and support for individualized learning strategies as well as collective learning. Authentic, engaging tasks with real-world connections

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 13 motivate student effort and engagement, which is supported through teacher scaffolding and a wide range of tools that allow for personalized learning and student agency. Other scaffolds – like the charts reminding students of their learning processes and key concepts -- support self- regulation and strategic learning while reducing cognitive load, in order to facilitate higher order thinking and performance skills. These also enable student self-assessment, as well as peer and teacher feedback that is part of an ongoing formative assessment process. Routines for reflection on and revision of work support the development of metacognition and a growth mindset.

Meanwhile, students’ identities as competent writers, scientists, and mathematicians are also reinforced as their work dominates the walls of the classroom and is the focus of the learning process. All students feel they belong in this room, where they are learning to become responsible community members, critical thinkers, and problem solvers together. A range of culturally connected curriculum units and materials supports that sense of inclusion, while a wide array of school supports reinforces that inclusion by addressing student and family needs in multiple ways while including families as partners in the educational process.

I. Supportive Environmental Conditions

What the Science of Learning and Development Tells Us

Warm, caring, supportive student-teacher relationships, as well as other child-adult relationships, are linked to better school performance and engagement, greater emotional regulation, social competence, and willingness to take on challenges (Osher et al., 2018). Strong relationships have biological as well as affective significance. Brain architecture is developed by the presence of warm, consistent, attuned relationships; positive experiences; and positive perceptions of these experiences (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard, 2016). Such relationships help develop the emotional, social, behavioral and cognitive competencies

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 14 foundational to learning.

Students need a sense of physical and psychological safety for learning to occur, since fear and anxiety undermine cognitive capacity and short circuit the learning process. A meta- analysis of 99 studies found that the affective quality of teacher-student relationships was significantly related to student engagement (average effect sizes of .32 to .39) and to achievement (average effect sizes of .16 to .19). Students deemed at higher levels of risk for poor outcomes -- children from low-income families, students of color, and those with learning difficulties -- were more harmed by negative teacher affect and benefitted more from positive relationships with teachers (Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011).

Positive adult relationships can support student development and welfare, especially when these are culturally sensitive and responsive (Hammond, 2016). Students learn best when they can connect what happens in school to their cultural contexts and experiences, when their teachers are responsive to their strengths and needs, and when their environment is “identity safe” (Steele & Cohn-Vargas, 2013), reinforcing their value and belonging. This is especially important given the societal and school-based aggressions many children, especially those living under adverse conditions, experience. For all these reasons, and because children develop through individual trajectories shaped by their unique traits and experiences, teachers need to know students well to create productive learning opportunities.

Principles for Practice

These insights from the science of learning and development suggest the following principles for practice in this domain, which we discuss further below:

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 15

1) School and classroom structures should be designed to create and support strong

attachments and positive, long-term relationships among adults and children that

provide both academic and social-emotional support for cultivating developmentally-

appropriate skills, emotional security, resilience, and student agency.

2) Schools and classrooms should be developed as physically and psychologically safe,

personalized learning communities where students feel they belong and teachers engage

in practices that help them know their students well so that they can respond to children’s

specific needs, interests, readiness for learning, and opportunities for growth.

3) School practices should be designed to strengthen relational trust and promote cultural

competence among educators, school staff, and families to provide deeper knowledge

about children and greater alignment between the home and school.

School Structures that Support Strong Attachments and Positive Relationships

Personalizing the educational setting so that students can be well-known by adults and their needs can be better met is a powerful lever that can change student outcomes. Although some currently use the term “personalized learning” to denote computer-based instruction, we use the term in its more traditional sense as educators’ ability to gear instruction and supports to the needs and interests of individual children. While this kind of personalization may sometimes include uses of technology, that is not its main goal or only tool.

As we detail in this section, smaller learning environments and structures that allow for stronger, adult-child relationships can improve attendance, attachment, achievement, and attainment. Often, it is because of close adult-student relationships that students who are placed at risk for a variety of negative outcomes like dropping out are able to attach to school and gain the academic and other kinds of help they need to succeed. Research suggests that students are

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 16 more likely to attend and graduate from school, attach to learning, and succeed academically when they have strong, trusting, supportive connections to adults, including at least one intensive relationship with a close advisor or mentor (Friedlaender et al., 2014; Lee, Bryk, & Smith, 1993).

Developing these relationships in schools can be difficult where organizational structures minimize opportunities for extended personalized relationships, as is often the case in “factory- model” schools designed a century ago for efficient batch processing of masses of students

(Tyack, 1974). These schools were not designed based on knowledge of how people learn and develop optimally. Unlike schools in many countries, where teachers often stay with their students for two or three years in primary school and have more extended relationships in secondary school, U.S. schools adopted the Prussian age grading model that typically moves students to another teacher each year and to as many as 7 or 8 teachers daily in secondary schools. Secondary teachers may see 150 to 200 students per day in short 45 minute blocks, and, despite their best efforts, are unable to know all of their students or their families well. This reduces the extent to which teachers can build on personal knowledge in meeting their needs.

Counselors are assigned to attend to the ‘personal needs’ of hundreds of students, also an unmanageable task, and students who experience adversity may have no one to turn to for support (Eccles & Roeser, 2009; Juvonen, Le, Kaganoff, Augustine, & Constant, 2004).

The design of most U.S. secondary schools is particularly at odds with the needs of adolescents, as high schools de-emphasize personal connections with adults and engage in intense evaluation and competitive ranking of students (e.g., in academic tracking, try-outs for clubs and activities) just as young people are most sensitive to social comparisons and most need to develop a strong sense of belonging, connection, and personal identity (Eccles & Roeser,

2009). Depersonalized contexts are most damaging when students are also experiencing the

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 17 effects of poverty, trauma, and discrimination without supports to enable them to cope and become resilient. Unless mediated by strong relationships and support systems, these conditions interfere with learning, undermine relationships and impede opportunities for youth to develop skills to succeed (Osher & Kendziora, 2010).

Ecological changes that create personalized environments with opportunities for stronger relationships among adults and students can create more productive contexts for learning. For example, small schools or small learning communities with personalizing structures -- such as advisory systems, teaching teams that share students, or looping with the same teachers over multiple years -- have been found to improve student achievement, attachment, attendance, attitudes toward school, behavior, motivation, and graduation rates (Bloom & Unterman, 2014;

Darling-Hammond, Ross, & Milliken, 2006; Felner, Seitsinger, Brand, Burns, & Bolton, 2007).

School Size. Reviews of research about school size have consistently found that students benefit when they are in smaller settings where they can be well known, and these effects are strongest for students with the greatest economic and academic needs (Darling-Hammond, Ross,

& Milliken, 2006). These settings include smaller schools as well as small learning communities created within large school buildings, where staff and students work in together in smaller units that function as close-knit communities. More intimate settings allow educators to more easily develop shared norms and practices, to create a community within the school where caring is a product of individuals knowing each other in multiple ways; such environments also allow more students to be engaged in a variety of extracurricular activities and to take on leadership opportunities, which promotes greater confidence and agency (Lee, Bryk, & Smith, 1993).

Optimum size varies by student needs and school design, with high school sizes below

900 having been found more conducive to student success than larger schools, all else equal. For

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 18 high-need students, school sizes of 300 to 400 have been found most supportive in increasing attendance, grades, and graduation rates, as they enable strong relationships, support systems, and trust among teachers and students (Darling-Hammond, Ross, & Milliken, 2006).

Many studies in high-poverty urban areas have found strong improvements in student outcomes in small schools. In a study of 143 high schools in Chicago, for example, Wasley and colleagues (2000) found that, after controlling for race, socioeconomic status, student mobility, and prior achievement, students in schools of 400 or fewer had better attendance, lower rates of violence, greater parent and student participation and satisfaction, lower dropout rates, and higher graduation rates than similar students in larger schools. An MDRC study that examined the results of New York City’s small high schools initiative using a series of naturally occurring randomized lotteries found that small high schools consistently increased high school graduation rates by 9.5 percentage points, on average, over large high schools and significantly increased

Regents exam scores in English language arts (Bloom & Unterman, 2014).

Personalizing Structures. Small size alone is not enough to produce these effects, however. For example, in a study of 820 high schools, Lee and Smith (1995) found that student achievement and engagement were higher in smaller schools and those that use more

“communal” practices – such as shared responsibility, personalized instruction tailored to the needs and interests of the students, flexible scheduling, cooperative learning, and a collegial environment for all members of the school community. Similarly, in a set of studies of redesigned schools, including randomized controlled trials, quasi-experiments, and case studies,

Felner and colleagues (2007) found that small learning communities stimulate positive outcomes for students, with the greatest benefits in larger schools with more students from high risk backgrounds. These researchers identified consistent findings about the features of successful

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 19 small learning communities that affect both student opportunities to learn and teachers’ opportunities to teach, including small school and class size, advisories, and block scheduling.

In effective advisory systems, each teacher advises and serves as an advocate for a small group of students (usually 15-20) over two to four years. Teachers facilitate an advisory class that meets regularly to support academic progress, teach social-emotional skills and strategies, and create a community of students who support one another. In a distributed counseling function, advisors support students on academic and non-academic issues that arise and serve a point person with other faculty teaching the same student. The advisor functions as a bridge between student, school, and home so that students are provided the supports they need in a coherent way that allows them to navigate school in a productive and positive manner. Many studies finding positive effects of small schools or learning communities note the importance of advisories in enabling these effects (Darling-Hammond et al. 2006; Felner et al., 2007).

Block scheduling is the practice of having fewer, longer, class periods in a given day to reduce teachers’ overall pupil load and lengthen time for instruction. For example, instead of six

45 minute class periods, schools might schedule only three 90-minute classes each day. Each teacher sees half as many students, and students see fewer teachers. This smaller pupil load allows teachers to provide more attention to each student and to engage in more in-depth teaching practices. Block scheduling has been found to support improved behavior and achievement for students, including higher grades and higher rates of course completions (Felner et al., 2007; Woronowicz, 1996), especially when courses continue for a full year and teachers use the longer class periods to implement teaching strategies that support inquiry, help students obtain directed practice, and personalize instruction.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 20

In addition, Felner et al. (2007) point to the importance of interdisciplinary teaming with common planning time for teachers. This structure allows teachers to share their knowledge about students in planning curriculum to meet student needs, while creating more continuity in practices and norms, which supports students emotionally and cognitively. As the authors note:

Effective interdisciplinary teaming reduces the levels of developmental hazard in

educational settings by creating contexts that are experientially more navigable, coherent,

and predictable for students. Interdiscipinary teaming can also create enhanced capacity

in schools for transformed instruction through enabling the coordination and integration

of the work of teachers with each other, including in instruction, and as ongoing sources

of professional development and support for each other (p. 216).

When teachers develop a greater sense of efficacy to jointly solve problems of practice they also develop a sense of collective responsibility that reduces attributions of low student achievement to student-related factors such as family poverty, lack of ability, or low motivation and improves achievement (Lee & Loeb, 2000).

To accomplish this, schools need structures and practices that allow staff to develop collective expertise about their students as well as to develop trust with them. Continuity of relationships is a key principle in this regard, especially important for children who have little continuity outside of school. Strategies found effective in this regard include looping from grade to grade, and longer grade spans at the school level. These organizational designs create sustained relationships, reduce cognitive load and anxiety for students when they do not need to learn new systems and re-establish their identity, and expand learning time because staff carry their knowledge about students and families forward from year to year.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 21

Looping, through which teachers stay with the same students for more than one year, can occur when teachers teach the same students in 4th and 5th grade, for example, or when a secondary teacher has the same students for 9th and 10th grade English. In the International High

Schools, a successful school model for new English learners, an interdisciplinary team of teachers stays with a group of 75-100 students for two years (Darling-Hammond, Ancess, & Ort,

2002). The strong relationships and deep knowledge of student learning supported by these longer relationships between adults and children can substantially improve achievement, especially for lower-achieving students (Bogart, 2002; Hampton, Mumford, & Bond, 1997), and can also boost student and teacher attendance while lowering disciplinary incidents and suspensions, grade retention rates, and special education referrals (Burke, 1997; George &

Alexander, 1993). Teachers in such settings report a heightened sense of efficacy, while parents report feeling more respected and more comfortable reaching out to the school for assistance.

Reducing class sizes can also help personalize instruction. The largest benefits for achievement are often found below a threshold size of 15 to 18 and are often found to be most pronounced for young children, children of color, those from low-income families, and children who have been lower-achieving (for reviews, see Glass & Smith, 1979; Mosteller, 1995; Kim,

2006). Positive benefits of class size reduction are based on a continuing threshold of teacher quality (Stecher & Bohrnstedt, 2002).

Schools with longer grade spans (e.g. K-8 or 6-12), which allow closer, longer-term relationships are also found to be more effective in supporting student outcomes, as they help to establish and build upon close relationships among school members with students and families.

Many studies have found that school transitions have a negative effect on student achievement; in particular, a transition to middle school at 5th or 6th grade sharply increases the odds of

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 22 dropping out, while decreasing achievement in reading and math (e.g. Rockoff & Lockwood,

2010; Schwerdt & West, 2013; Simmons & Blyth, 1987). These results are consistent across multiple states, as well as urban, surburban, and rural areas.

Discontinuity in relationships is, in itself, stressful and can be counterproductive – especially for young people who have little continuity in their home and community environments. Furthermore, at a vulnerable time in young adolescence, when children should be developing greater competence and confidence to support their growing autonomy, they can flounder when placed into an environment that reduces opportunities for attachment and introduces comparisons among students that include negative attributions about competence, intelligence, and other talents. A growing body of evidence notes that low-income students are not the only ones at risk during this time: unusually high rates of maladaptive behaviors are found among affluent youth beginning around 7th grade, including substance abuse, eating disorders, and even suicide attempts (Luthar, Barkin, & Crossman, 2013). These are thought to be a function of high rates of stress associated with a culture of competition and peer pressure, coupled with inattentive or permissive parenting in the context of depersonalized school settings.

Middle schools that seek to strengthen relationships – by using teams of teachers who work with shared groups of students over time and by reducing the total number of teachers students see through block scheduling– mediate the negative effects of the secondary school transition and have better outcomes than those that leave students without means to develop relationships and secure help (Irvin, 1997; Eccles & Roeser, 2009). Similarly, high schools that create 9th grade transition supports can improve outcomes, as Chicago schools did, by providing data to monitor student progress and supports for students to pass their courses, raising

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 23 graduation rates from 64% to 82% over 4 years (Roderick, Kelley-Kemple, Johnson, &

Beechum, 2012).

Structures are important to set the stage for the kinds of coherent, consistent, continuous relationships children need to support their development, but the nature of those relationships and the resulting educational experiences are not a given. They depend on the attitudes, beliefs, skills, and capacity of staff; the school climate, including norms for interactions; and the practices and procedures that are adopted for instruction, classroom management, school discipline, and more. We turn to these important elements next.

School and Classroom Communities that Offer Safe, Personalized Settings for Learning

Learning is a transactional process in which both students and teachers learn how to understand and communicate with each other, and in which trust creates conditions for reduced anxiety, as well as greater striving and motivation (Felner et al., 2007). Research suggests that

“children continue to benefit from readily available relationships with peers and other adults

(teachers) to the degree that the relationships continue to be sensitive and attuned to their emotional needs, consistent, trustworthy and cognitively stimulating” (Bergin & Bergin, 2009).

Practices reflecting these principles are well represented in schools that are successful with students who are typically marginalized and underserved. These include the development of an intentional community that ensures a sense of belonging and safety, with shared norms represented in all of the school’s activities. In addition, a culture of participation encourages student agency and leadership in the context of a culturally responsive curriculum that values diverse experiences. Educative and restorative practices teach students responsibility and allow them to exercise it in contributing to the school and local community (Hamedani et al., 2015;

Noguera, Darling-Hammond, & Friedlaender, 2017).

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 24

Classroom design and management. In developmentally-grounded schools, classroom management is approached as something that is done with students and not to them. Productive classrooms are organized not around a compliance regimen that emphasizes the recognition and punishment of misbehavior, but on the promotion of student responsibility through the development of common norms and routines with the participation of students (LePage, Darling-

Hammond, & Akar, 2005). Students may help develop the classroom rules and norms – often in a classroom constitution that is posted -- and take on specific tasks, ranging from materials manager or librarian to leading activities in the classroom to organizing special events -- that allow them to be responsible and contributing members of the community.

An effective classroom learning community develops respectful relationships between teachers and students, and also among the students themselves, as students are taught to develop social competence. Teachers take time to socialize students to their roles as community members

(Brophy, 1998). Teachers and students together create common norms for how to behave in various situations, so that students can learn how to interact respectfully, take turns, voice their needs and thoughts appropriately, and solve problems that occur. The teacher’s active role in co- regulating children’s behavior helps scaffold the child’s development toward self-regulation by providing them with a repertoire of words and strategies to use to manage different situations.

A recent meta-analysis of 54 classroom management programs found that while all of the approaches had modest positive effects (overall ES=.22) the interventions focused on the social- emotional development of students were the most effective (Korpershoek, Harms, de Boer, van

Kujk, & Doolaard, 2016).

One well-researched example of such a developmentally-grounded approach is

Consistency Management and Cooperative Discipline, which builds shared responsibility for

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 25 learning and classroom organization between teachers and students. The teacher creates a consistent learning environment by working with students in establishing a cooperative plan for classroom rules, procedures, use of time, and academic learning that governs the classroom.

Students become “citizens” of the classroom as they create a constitution and take responsibility for dozens of activities in the classroom that teachers might otherwise do themselves. As they are taught citizenship skills and given multiple chances for leadership, students gain the experiences necessary to become self-disciplined. All adults in the school learn to work with children in consistent ways, and home / community involvement is encouraged. In a set of evaluations in urban public schools, researchers found increases in student and teacher attendance; a reduction in discipline referrals; and improvements in classroom climate, time to learn, and long-term student achievement (Freiberg & Brophy, 1999; Freiberg, Huzinec, & Templeton, 2009).

The development of a classroom learning community helps teachers to manage the classroom, both because children feel more connected and because peers offer greater assistance and collaboration, gaining in competence and agency. Developing community practices that strengthen relationships is critical. These practices may include classroom meetings, “check-ins” about how students are doing at the beginning of class, and routines for how to work in groups productively, engage in respectful discussions, or resolve conflicts. They may also include regular student-teacher conferences. In collaborative communities, members feel personally connected to one another and committed to each other’s growth and learning.

Identity Safe Environments. As we have noted, healthy development and learning require both physical and psychological safety. One aspect of this safety is protection from physical bullying or trauma, accomplished explicitly teaching students how to interact with each other and addressing challenges immediately. Equally important is that teachers create

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 26 environments where students are affirmed and equitably supported. Teachers play a key role in shaping student learning through their own beliefs and the feedback they provide to their students. Their perceptions of students shape expectations that often predict student achievement apart from prior ability (Dweck 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2009).

Unfortunately, there is evidence that many teachers attribute inaccurate characterizations of academic ability and behavior to students based on race and ethnicity (Kaplan, Gheen, &

Midgley, 2002; Irvine, 2003). On average, teachers have lower expectations of Black and Latino students and interact with them less positively than White students (Tenenbaum & Ruck, 2007); they are more likely to label black students as “troublemakers,” punishing them more harshly for the same offense (Okonofua & Eberhardt, 2015). While the vast majority of teachers enter the profession with a passion for fostering children’s learning, growth, and development, implicit bias can nonetheless color how they interact with their students.

This type of bias can lead to negative expectations—which often triggers the behaviors that teachers want to avoid (Kaplan, Gheen, & Midgley, 2002). The way students are treated in school can trigger social identity threat if they feel they are at risk of being stigmatized by characteristics such as race, language background, economic background, gender or other traits.

Social identity threat leads to significant stress, release of cortisol and adrenaline, symptoms of anxiety and depression, and sometimes, challenging behavior that results from an attempt to protect one’s identity from perceived attack (Major & Schmader, 2018). If students come to expect bias, this expectation also influences their behaviors (Sheets & Gay, 1996).

Teachers need to understand how their attitudes toward their students can shape their treatment of students and what students ultimately learn. Affirming attitudes that convey confidence in students’ abilities, for example, have been shown to support students’ achievement

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 27

(Ladson-Billings, 2009; Nieto, 2002) and to counteract stereotype threat – the social identity threat that occurs when someone fears being judged in terms of a group-based stereotype (Steele,

1997; 2011). When triggered, stereotype threat induces stress and reduction in working memory and focus, leading to impaired performance (Schmader & Johns, 2003).

Stereotype threat can be mitigated by how teachers frame the purpose of assignments and assessments -- as diagnosing current skills that can be improved, rather than measuring ability

(Aronson, 2002) -- and by how they give constructive feedback to students about their work, noting that the feedback reflects the teacher’s high standards and a conviction that the student can reach them, along with an opportunity to revise the work (Cohen, Steele, & Ross, 1999).

When the threat is lifted, through affirmations that the student is seen as competent and valued, many dozens of studies have shown that performance on tests, grades, and other academic measures improves significantly in ways that are frequently maintained over time (Steele, 2011).

That affirming attitudes can make a substantial difference in outcomes is suggested by the growing number of studies finding that students of color achieve at higher levels, attend school more regularly, feel more cared for in the classroom, and are less likely to be suspended when they have teachers of the same race (Cherng & Halpin, 2016; Egalite, Kisida, & Winters,

2015; Egalite & Kisida, 2017). One recent study found that having at least one black teacher in

3rd through 5th grades reduced a black student’s probability of dropping out of school by 29 percent, and by 39 percent for low-income black boys. The odds of both boys and girls planning to attend college also increased sharply (Gershenson, Hart, Lindsay, & Papageorge, 2017).

All teachers can convey affirming attitudes by exposing students to an intellectually demanding curriculum and supporting them in mastering it, conveying their confidence that students can learn; teaching students strategies they can use to monitor and manage their own

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 28 learning; encouraging children to excel; and building on the individual and cultural resources they bring to the school, ranging from social knowledge of the community and its history to mathematically rich pasttimes like chess and sports to expressive understanding of language use and popular culture. Strategies that convey respect and concern for students become the basis for meaningful relationships and positive academic results (Carter & Darling-Hammond, 2016; Gay,

2000; Irvine, 2003; Ladson-Billings, 2009).

These elements of an “identify safe” classroom promote student achievement and attachments to school (Steele & Cohn-Vargas, 2013). In addition to the cultivating the classroom features already described, teachers who create identity safe settings cultivate diversity as a resource for teaching through regular use of materials, ideas, and teaching activities that draw on referents to a wide range of cultures and exhibit high expectations for all students.

Creating an identity safe classroom by engaging in culturally responsive pedagogy relies on teachers understanding the views and experiences children bring to school, including, for example, how students communicate in their communities (Lee, 2017). Geneva Gay (2000) suggests that such teaching uses “the cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them. It teaches to and through the strengths of these students” (p. 29), developing classroom practices that capitalize on the funds of knowledge that are abundant in children’s households and communities (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992; Nasir et al.,

2014). This approach counters the deficit narrative of “poor” children with little social capital by recognizing and building upon the wealth of knowledge and “repertoires of practice” (Gutierrez

& Rogoff, 2003) that exist in children’s families and extended social networks.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 29

This recognition can support stronger student learning. As one example, a recent study of teachers of Latino students found that teachers’ beliefs and reported behaviors about the role of

Spanish in instruction, use of students’ funds of knowledge, and teachers’ own critical awareness were positively related to students’ reading outcomes. For teachers reporting the highest level of each dimension, reading gains were significantly higher at the end of the year (.85 SD, for those who valued Spanish; .60 SD for those using students’ funds of knowledge; and 1.70 SD for those who exhibited a critical awareness) (López, 2016).

Practices and dispositions associated with culturally responsive pedagogy include (a) recognizing students’ culturally-grounded experiences as a foundation on which to build knowledge; (b) cultural competency in interacting with students and families; (c) an ethic of deep care and affirming views of students; and (d) a sense of efficacy about learning and creating changes to promote equity that is consciously transmitted to students (Carter & Darling-

Hammond, 2016; Villegas & Lucas, 2002). When teachers view students’ experiences as an asset and intentionally bring students’ voices into the classroom, they create a safe and engaging atmosphere for learning to take place.

Teachers can learn about the strengths and needs of students as well as their families’ funds of knowledge through regular check-ins and class meetings, conferencing, journaling, close observation of students and their work, and connections to parents as partners. These practices can foster trust and alignment among students, parents, and staff, as described below.

Practices to Strengthen Relational Trust and Family Engagement

Recent research shows that relational trust among teachers, parents, and school leaders is a key resource for schools that predicts the likelihood of gains in achievement and other student outcomes where instructional expertise is also present. Trust derives from an understanding of

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 30 one another’s goals and efforts, along with a sense of mutual obligation, grounded in a common mission. As Bryk & Schneider (2002) put it: “Trust is the connective tissue that holds improving schools together.” They identify five features that foster relational trust, including 1) small school size that fosters interpersonal relationships; 2) stable school communities; 3) voluntary associations where there is at least some choice for staff and students; 4) skillful school leaders, who actively listen to concerns of all parties and avoid arbitrary actions; and 5) authentic parent engagement, grounded in partnerships with families to promote student growth.

Principals can nurture relational trust among staff members by creating time for staff collaboration focused on curriculum planning and school improvement, supporting teachers’ growth and development through asset-based feedback and learning systems, distributing leadership for many functions throughout the school, and involving staff in decision making.

These practices have been found to retain teachers in schools, contributing to staff stability, and to increase teaching effectiveness and gains in student achievement (Podolsky et al., 2016).

Schools can nurture strong staff-parent relationships by building in time and supports for teachers and advisors to engage parents as partners with valued expertise, by planning teacher time for home visits, positive phone calls home, school meetings and student-teacher-parent conferences scheduled flexibly around parents’ availability, and regular exchanges between home and school (Darling-Hammond, Ancess, & Ort, 2002; Darling-Hammond et al., 2016).

Building strong relationships between the school and the family increases academic outcomes for students. In a series of meta-analyses examining the impact of parent involvement,

Jeynes (2012, 2017) found consistent positive effects of parent involvement on academic achievement for children from pre-K through 12th grade. A meta-analysis of 51 studies found an effect size of .30 for a broad population of urban students (Jeynes, 2012). Another meta-analysis

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 31 of 28 studies found parent involvement associated with better school outcomes for Latino students (ES = .52; Jeynes, 2017). The largest effect sizes were for programs that encouraged parents to engage in shared reading with their children, including strategies in which teachers offered questions that parents could ask about the readings; those that involved parents and teachers working together as partners to develop common strategies, rules, guidelines, and expectations for children; those that increased communication between parents and teachers; and those that involved parents in checking students’ homework (Jeynes, 2012).

Similary, the Consortium on Chicago School Research found parent involvement a key component of 100 Chicago elementary schools with steep improvements in achievement:

Controlling for other variables, students were 10 times more likely to achieve substantial gains in mathematics and have increased student motivation and participation in schools with strong parental involvement (Bryk, Sebring, Allensworth, Easton, & Luppescu, 2010).

In a research synthesis of 51 studies that included experimental, quasi-experimental, and correlational studies with statistical controls, Henderson & Mapp (2002) found that schools that succeeded in engaging families from diverse backgrounds focused on building trusting relationships where power and responsibility are shared. They found lasting effects on achievement when students feel supported both at home and in school. Students with involved parents have more self-confidence, feel school is more important, earn higher grades and attend college. In a longitudinal study conducted in 71 Title I elementary schools, higher achievement was stimulated by teacher outreach to parents through face-to-face meetings, sending materials home, and phone calls home on a routine basis. The overall effect size between parent involvement and students’ academic achievement was approximately .30 (Fan & Chen, 1999).

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 32

Other research finds that African-American youths’ experiences of their family’s support for them, sense of control over their own academic outcomes, and their feelings of self-worth and emotional security -- in part a result of positive racial socialization -- predict their engagement in school beyond the influence of SES (Connell, Spencer, & Aber, 1994; Spencer,

2008). Creating strong, respectful relationships among families and staff can create the resonance and coherence between home and school that reaps long-term benefits for students’ learning.

Summary. In sum, schools can support student development by creating structures that enable teachers to know their students well and develop strong relationships, ranging from smaller classes and school units to advisory systems, looping, teaching teams, and longer grade spans. Teachers can create classroom communities in which students are affirmed, enabled to belong, and taught social responsibility. And schools can involve families as partners, aligning home and school practices, and capitalizing on their cultural assets. These multiple approaches to developing strong relationships promote the trust, safety, and sense of belonging necessary for students’ productive engagement in all aspects of school.

II. Productive Instructional Strategies

Having created a supportive environment for learning, what are the curriculum designs, instructional approaches, and assessment practices that will enable students to deeply understand disciplinary content and develop skills that will allow them to solve complex problems, communicate effectively, and, ultimately manage their own learning?

What the Science of Learning and Development Tells Us

Modern learning theory emphasizes the situated and social nature of meaning making, by which “mind, behavior, perception and action are wholly integrated” (Jonassen & Land, 2012, p. vi). Children are natural learners and inherently seek to learn things that matter in their

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 33 immediate everyday world. To support children’s learning, adults make connections between new situations and familiar ones, focus children’s attention, structure experiences, and organize the information children receive, while helping them develop strategies for intentional learning and problem solving (National Research Council, 2000).

The science of learning indicates that humans learn more effectively when they are not anxious, fearful, or distracted by other pressing concerns; when the learning is connected to their prior knowledge and experience; when they are actively engaged; and when they have a reason to care about the content they are learning and can use it to deepen their understanding and to solve real questions or problems. Finally, as Cantor and colleagues (2018) note: “There is no single ‘ideal’ developmental pathway for everyone; instead there are multiple pathways to healthy development, learning, academic success, and resilience” (p. 9).

The National Research Council’s (2000) report on How People Learn outlines three fundamental principles of learning that are particularly important for teaching:

1. Students come to the classroom with prior knowledge that must be addressed if

teaching is to be effective. Students are not tabula rasa. If what they know and believe is

not engaged, learners may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught,

or they may learn them superficially but not be able to apply them elsewhere. This

means that teachers need to understand what students are thinking and how to connect

with their prior knowledge if they are to ensure learning. Students come to school with

different experiences, so they present distinct preconceptions, knowledge bases, cultural

and linguistic capital that teachers should learn about and take into account in designing

instruction. Successful teachers provide carefully designed “scaffolds” to help students

take each step in the learning journey with appropriate assistance. These vary for

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 34 different students depending on their learning needs, approaches, and prior knowledge.

Teachers’ success with diverse learners is enhanced by their ability to address students’ different ways of learning, knowing, and communicating.

2. Students need to organize and use knowledge conceptually if they are to apply it beyond the classroom. To develop competence in an area of inquiry, students need to understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, so that they can organize knowledge in ways that facilitate its application. This means that teachers should structure the material to be learned in ways that help students fit it into a conceptual map and teach it in ways that allow application and transfer to new situations.

The teaching strategies that allow students to do this integrate carefully designed direct instruction with hands-on inquiries that actively engage students in using the material, incorporate problem solving of increasing complexity, and assess students’ understanding for the purpose of guiding instruction and student revisions of their work.

3. Students learn more effectively if they understand how they learn and how to manage their own learning. A “metacognitive” approach to instruction can help students take control of their own learning using a set of personalized learning strategies, defining their own learning goals, and monitoring their progress in achieving them.

Teachers need to know how to help students self-assess their understanding and how they best approach learning. Through modeling and coaching, teachers can teach students how to use a range of learning strategies, including the ability to activate background knowledge, plan ahead, and apportion time and memory; to create explanations in order to improve understanding and to note confusion or failures to comprehend; as well as to evaluate their own work, seek out additional insights, and revise and improve it.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 35

In what follows, we use these three principles to organize this section on curriculum, instruction, and assessment, and we infuse additional insights from research grounded in a sociocultural perspective, including a section on motivation. While enormously helpful in synthesizing knowledge from the learning sciences up to that point, the How People Learn report did not fully examine the sociocultural contexts of learning and the social-emotional factors affecting it. The National Academy of Sciences is currently producing a second edition of How

People Learn intended to address these issues.

Among these additional insights are that students’ beliefs and perceptions about intelligence and ability – both generally and in relation to themselves personally -- affect their cognitive functioning, confidence, and learning. These perceptions can be shaped by teachers’ and peers’ expectations, statements, and behaviors. While negative emotions like anxiety and distress can block learning, emotion also triggers learning as it affects excitement and attention

(Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007) and thus should be considered in designing instruction that is mentally engaging. At the same time, consistent structures, supports, and affirmations that allow the student to know what to expect and how to be successful reduce cognitive load and free up the mind for learning other challenging material (Paas, Renkl, & Sweller, 2003).

Finally, as we have noted, there are different kinds of learning which call for different kinds of teaching. Educational goals increasingly emphasize the problem-solving and interpersonal skills needed for 21st century success, which cannot be developed through passive, rote-oriented learning focused on the memorization of disconnected facts. Today’s goals require paths to deeper understanding supporting the transfer of skills and use of knowledge in new situations (Goldman & Pellegrino, 2015; NRC, 2012).

Principles for Practice

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 36

With these goals and insights in mind, the science of learning and development suggests the following principles for instructional practice:

1) Teaching should build on and expand children’s prior knowledge and experiences, both

to scaffold learning effectively as it expands to new areas of content and skills and to

inform practices that are individually and culturally responsive. Given what each child is

ready to learn, teachers should structure appropriately challenging activities that balance

what a child already knows with what he wants and needs to learn, while introducing

other rich experiences to support ongoing learning.

2) Teaching should support conceptual understanding, engagement, and motivation, by

designing relevant, problem-oriented tasks that combine explicit instruction about key

ideas – organized around a conceptual map or schema of the domain being taught – with

well-designed inquiry opportunities that use multiple modalities for learning.

3) To enable students to manage their own learning and transfer it to new contexts, teaching

should be designed to develop students’ metacognitive capacity, agency, and the

capacity for strategic learning. This requires opportunities for self-direction, goal-setting

and planning, and formative assessment with regular opportunities for reflection on

learning strategies and outcomes, feedback, and revision of work.

Building on and Expanding Children’s Knowledge and Experiences

Jean Piaget was the first student of learning to lay out a set of developmental stages that he observed children move through as independent learners. This concept of development was fairly static, suggesting that students would be ready for certain kinds of learning at certain ages, for example. However, Russian teacher and psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) recognized that individual capacities develop in social contexts where they are supported, shaped by language

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 37 and cultural exchanges, and that experiences can influence what children are ready to learn, especially when they have the help of a more expert other within their “zone of proximal development” (ZPD). Futhermore, experiencing a sense of disequilibrium in light of new situations or unfamiliar ideas can trigger the need to resolve puzzlement through exploration, which itself sparks more learning, especially when the right supports are in place to help the student make meaning of what he or she is experiencing.

The learning sciences point to the importance of 1) teaching students within the zone of proximal development, and scaffolding their learning so that they can advance to more complex skills; 2) drawing on students’ prior experiences; 3) creating a rich environment for learning, including opportunities for collaboration with others, which expand the range of experiences each can encounter; and 4) providing cognitive supports. We treat each of these below.

Teaching and Scaffolding in the Zone of Proximal Development. The ZPD represents the learning space between what a child can do in a particular area on his or her own and what he or she can do with some assistance from more capable peers, teachers, or others. Children internalize the help they receive from others, which becomes part of their repertoire to guide future problem-solving. Well-designed instruction helps nudge the child to a new level of understanding within the ZPD by providing the right kind of experiences and supports. This

“scaffolding” refers to the guidance that allows students to more readily master a task that is beyond their existing skill set or knowledge base. Scaffolding includes both affective and cognitive elements: In addition to providing assistance and timely feedback, scaffolding involves communicating reassurance; helping students understand the habits of mind necessary to become proficient; and helping students understand the task’s relevance and how their personal trajectory toward competence could unfold (Nasir, Rosebery, Warren, & Lee, 2014).

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 38

Children’s developmental and learning trajectories vary as a product of the interactions of their attributes and social contexts as well as over time (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Rose et al.,

2013). Furthermore, each student functions within multiple zones of development that vary from one domain to the next. A student may need one kind of assistance as she completes a long division problem, and yet another kind of assistance as she writes a short story. Careful observation, questioning, assessment of work, and one-on-one interactions with students provide the kinds of information teachers need to determine what level and type of assistance a student may need to advance in his or her understanding.

Drawing on Students’ Prior Experiences. Part of successful teaching is learning what students already know, where they already demonstrate competence, and how they can bring that knowledge into the classroom context. As Nasir and colleages (2014) point out, “Often, people can competently perform complex cognitive tasks outside of school, but may not display these skills on school-type tasks.” Or their displays might not be recognized as demonstrating competence according to normative standards based on assumptions that those who differ from middle-class norms operate at a deficit. For example, complex statistical calculations used on the basketball court may not initially carry into the mathematics class, unless teachers are alert to support the transfer by building on this kind of real-world knowledge.

As Lee (2007) demonstrated, a bridge between students’ experiences and school content can be built using a cultural modeling approach that draws on the familiar to make the structure of a domain visible and explicit to students. Lee illustrated symbolic meanings in literature by beginning with rap songs and texts the students knew, and carried their insights into study of more formal canonic texts. Similarly, Boaler’s (2002) study of the outcomes of inquiry-based instructional practices in mathematics classrooms serving low-income students found that

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 39 linguistic, ethnic and class inequalities were reduced when teachers contextualized problems and made them relevant to students’ lives, introducing new concepts through discussion and asking students to explain and discuss their thinking. These teachers achieved stronger outcomes by seeking to understand and support students’ thinking and inquiry in the context of rich, collaborative learning experiences, rather than narrowing the curriculum to rote-oriented algorithms, as often happens for students who have had less prior experience with the content. A broader body of research has documented similar strategies for building classroom communities that support successful mathematics learning (e.g. Walshaw & Anthony, 2008).

In addition to building on students’ prior knowledge, teachers may also need to confront prior knowledge to address misconceptions. In the area of historical thinking, for example, studies reveal that young people come to historical topics with experiences and encounters developed outside of the classroom through media or their families’ accounts of historical events.

Thus, teachers need to surface students’ beliefs and judgments while helping them develop skills for evidence-based inquiry. Curriculum that teaches students to interrogate and use primary source documents builds on expert studies of historians’ practices and helps teachers guide whole class discussions and design inquiry projects that are appropriate for younger readers with less background knowledge (Wineburg, et al., 2011; Monte-Sano & Reisman, 2015).

Creating Rich, Collaborative Environments for Learning. As the examples above illustrate, learning abilities are developed by access to rich experiences that stimulate the brain.

One of earliest studies on the effect of the environment on brain development was the work of

William Greenough and his colleagues (1987), who compared the brains of rats raised in

“complex environments” containing toys and obstacles with those housed individually or in small cages without toys. They found that rats raised in complex environments performed better

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 40 on learning tasks, liked learning to run mazes, and had 20–25% more synapses per neuron in the visual cortex. Many studies since have shown that brain development is experience-dependent.

“Rich environments” that support brain development provide numerous opportunities for social interaction, direct physical contact with the environment, and a changing set of objects for exploration (NRC, 2000, p. 119). Similarly, rich classroom environments provide interactions with others in the classroom and community, hands-on experiences with the physical world, and frequent, informative feedback on what students are doing and thinking. Ted Pollen’s classroom described at the beginning of this article is a good example of such an environment, with different work areas for different kinds of activities, a rich assortment of readily accessible books, blocks and other manipulatives, a physical timeline overhead with historical date cards frequently added, regularly used posters reminding students of how to engage in varied reading and writing activities, and opportunities for collaboration with other students.

Ted’s classroom also illustrates how teachers can set up instructional conversations that support student learning. Vygotsky noted, and learning scientists have since demonstrated, that social interactions using language in support of thinking enable more strategic learning (Tharp et al., 2000). Neuroscientists have also demonstrated that the development of neural pathways is associated with exposure to and generation of language (Kuhl, 2000). Students sharpen their thinking as they converse about their reasoning and inquire into what they don’t yet understand.

When they are able to articulate concepts, use them in a task, see or hear other models of thinking, and get feedback, they learn more deeply.

Substantial research identifies benefits of social learning in well-managed groups (Barron

& Darling-Hammond, 2008), and the capacity to work well in groups is an increasingly valued outcome of schooling. Collaborative learning is an important classroom tool that can be used to

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 41 provide students with learning assistance from peers within their zone of proximal development, opportunities to articulate their ideas, and opportunities to develop metacognitive skills like self- regulation and executive function, as they learn to manage themselves to interact productively with others and seek out help from teachers and peers. These skills are both exhibited and developed through social processes that teachers foster (Tharp et al., 2000).

Cooperative small group learning is one of the most studied pedagogical interventions in educational research – with hundreds of studies and many meta-analyses finding significant achievement benefits for students when they work together on learning activities. For example, a meta-analysis of 158 studies, 70% of which involved random assignment, demonstrated that cooperative learning promotes higher achievement compared to individualistic efforts. Effect sizes range from .18, at the low end, to 1.03 for the most impactful program (Johnson, Johnson,

& Stanne, 2000). In addition to cognitive gains, a review of 36 studies using experimental or quasi-experimental designs found positive outcomes of collaborative learning on measures such as student self-concept, social interaction, time on task, and liking of one’s peers, as well as academic outcomes, with moderate effect sizes (Ginsburg-Block, Rohrbeck, & Fantuzzo, 2006).

Researchers have identified a number of social processes that help to explain why small group work supports individual learning. These include opportunities to share original insights, resolve differing perspectives through argument, explain one’s thinking about a phenomenon, provide critique, observe the strategies of others, and listen to explanations (Barron & Darling-

Hammond, 2008). There is evidence that collaborators can generate strategies and abstract problem representations that are extremely unlikely to be observed when individuals work alone, suggesting that there are unique benefits of joint thinking (Schwartz, 1995).

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 42

While well-managed group work can enhance student learning, it requires group-worthy tasks in which all must engage for the work to be successfully accomplished, support for students to learn to work together, and sophisticated questioning and scaffolding skills on the part of teachers. For example, in Complex Instruction classrooms – a much-researched approach that uses cooperative learning to teach at a high academic level using carefully-constructed, interdependent group tasks – students are taught to undertake different roles (e.g. materials manager, timekeeper, task minder, and others). To support productive collaboration, the teacher orchestrates tasks, relationships, and supports, and disrupts status hierarchies that might develop based on students’ personalities, developed abilities, language backgrounds, or other factors.

Teachers equalize interactions between high and low-status students by structuring tasks to help them recognize and use their multiple abilities, as students draw on different competencies to accomplish a group task. Teachers can also “assign competence” to a student by recognizing the student’s contributions to the group task through public statements conferring a positive evaluation on to the students’ effort, thus boosting participation of low-status students without restraining the participation of high-status students. These moves produce strong learning gains and reduce achievement gaps among student groups (Cohen & Lotan, 2014).

In successful use of cooperative approaches, teachers often help students structure roles within the group and provide questions and tasks that guide the group’s discussion. For example, in a review of 94 studies which focused on the conditions for high quality discussion in science teams, the authors concluded that:

A successful stimulus for students working in small groups to enhance their

understanding of evidence has two elements. One requires students to generate their

individual prediction, model or hypothesis which they then debate in their small group.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 43

The second element requires them to test, compare, revise or develop that jointly with

further data provided (Hogarth, Bennett, Campbell, Lubben, & Robinson, 2004).

Teachers play an active role in constructing the tasks and questions that help students learn to coordinate their work and frame their ideas in terms that reflect the modes of inquiry in the discipline. These efforts support the development of social, cognitive and academic skills while also developing student agency and the ability to reflect on and evaluate ideas.

Providing Cognitive Supports. Teachers can also support student learning by being aware of how cognitive development unfolds. At the heart of all learning is meaning making that involves connecting what we already know to new information. The central role of background knowledge is well documented in cognitive research. As just one example, research on reading has long demonstrated that comprehension depends on prior knowledge about the topic that permits sense-making as much as it does on decoding skills (Pearson, Cervetti, & Tilson, 2008).

When students have not had particular experiences or have not acquired certain kinds of background knowledge, teachers can in fact create experiences for them to develop that knowledge. The kind of classroom described above, which constructs rich experiences for students and provides extensive information on the topics that are the subject of deep inquiry, helps to do that. One way to build background knowledge is to ensure a broad curriculum in history, social studies, science, and the arts, as well as reading and math, and engage students in field trips as educators have long advocated. Finally, teachers can set the stage with information about the context and topics of a shared text, before they dive in with students.

The fact that background knowledge is important for higher level problem solving does not mean that “basic skills” must be taught by rote before children engage in inquiry. In fact, allowing for discovery and exploration can help set the stage for explicit instruction. In an

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 44 approach called “inventing to prepare for future learning,” Bransford and Schwartz (1999) found that posing challenges to learners and introducing inquiries into questions created more contextualized understanding and ultimately led to better recall and use of information presented later than did approaches that simply taught novices the relevant facts or formulas.

Teachers can also support student learning by providing strategies and tools that reduce cognitive load and free the mind’s attention for higher order thinking and problem solving.

Cognitive load theory (CLT) addresses techniques for managing working memory load in order to facilitate the learning of complex cognitive tasks (Paas, Renkl, & Sweller, 2003). Working memory is our capacity to simultaneously keep in mind multiple pieces of information, and it is highly influenced by how information is perceived and connected to concepts, schemas, and scripts that are already familiar. These forms of background knowledge influence what is noticed, how easily new knowledge can be kept in mind and previous information remembered.

Prior knowledge allows for a cognitive process referred to as “chunking,” reducing a larger set of items into smaller units that allow for pattern recognition and fit within the constraints of working memory. Teachers can support learning by chunking information in manageable ways and supporting students to become proficient in the use of new material by attaching ideas to one another and to a common schema of the domain under study that makes the material more meaningful (rather than asking students to remember disconnected pieces of information), and by giving students opportunities to practice skills so that they become automatic, freeing up bandwidth for new material and more complex applications.

Educators can also help students reduce cognitive load to free up their minds for problem solving by using tools for adapting to working memory limitations, from using notes to digital tools such as calculators or computers that can be used to offload computational or memory-

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 45 heavy tasks during problem solving sessions. This view of cognition casts intelligence as distributed among minds, material artifacts, cultural tools, and interacting partners (Pea, 1987).

In the classroom we visited at the beginning of this article, the teacher, Ted, had worked with students to create many memory assists that were posted all over the classroom: posters illustrating fractions problems the classroom had tackled and solved, a classroom constitution with shared norms, the rules for “Book Club”, the definitions of figurative language, a “Writing workshop conferencing protocol,” “Poetry guidelines,” “Persuasive essays,” “Jobs in a reading conference” (enumerated for both the student and the teacher), “Elements of a news magazine article,” “What we know about maps,” and “Multiplying 2-digit by 1-digit numbers: The traditional algorithm.” These were often in the students’ own words, codifying their learning so they could share it and go back to it as needed. All of these both helped reduce cognitive load and support student independence and confidence in building on their prior learning.

In light of the need for students to learn to find, curate, and use information, rather than just remember it, educators can help students learn to use tools that improve their performance.

Furthermore, assistive technologies such as audio-books, electronic readers that can adjust the size and type of font, recording tools, dictation strategies, and other supports can help students with particular kinds of disabilities in working memory, auditory or visual processing become successful in managing their learning and developing their performance capabilities, rather than suffering from deficit frameworks that limit the advances they can make.

Pedagogies are ways to coordinate cognitive processes and systems. For example, learning to read requires developing the capacity to decode text, which in turn is facilitated by earlier phases of language development that involve hearing words in meaningful contexts and understanding that they can correspond to written symbols. Working memory, background

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 46 knowledge, and opportunities for elaboration all come into play as children work to develop both decoding and strategies for meaning making.

Research on reading makes it clear that both explicit instruction in decoding and immersion in meaningful, interesting, and varied texts are needed to become fluent in reading, along with sustained engagement with a larger community of readers who support skills and interest development (Pearson, Cervetti, & Tilson, 2008). Learning how to make strategic meaning of the text is centrally important: As readers use reading clues and background knowledge to make sense of text (and the knowledge of others in their community), they are also acquiring more background knowledge for the future from the text and their peers.

Similarly, learning is supported by techniques that lead to the elaboration of material, such as self-explanation, peer teaching, and representing information in multiple modalities.

These deepen conceptual understanding, strengthen mental models, and improve the capacity to recall and use information. In mathematics for example, asking students to represent quantitative information in multiple forms, such as with graphs and verbal explanations, can support robust understanding. More generally, asking students to integrate abstract concepts and concrete examples in their explanations can deepen their comprehension while simultaneously providing richer data to teachers for assessment.

Specific pedagogical moves that support these learning processes include:

• Choices of tasks that have the right amount of challenge with supportive guidance;

• Well-chosen questions as scaffolds that support student thinking, guide their inquiry,

and help them consolidate their understanding;

• Use of multiple and varied representations of concepts that allow students to “hook

into” understanding in different ways;

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 47

• Design of instructional conversations that allow students to discuss their thinking and

hear other ideas, developing concepts, language, and further questions in the process;

• Encouragement for students to elaborate, question, and self-explain;

• Instruction and curriculum that use apprentice-style relationships in which

knowledgeable practitioners or older peers facilitate students’ ever-deeper

participation in a particular field or domain (Bransford & Donovan, 2005).

Supporting Conceptual Understanding, Engagement, and Motivation

Cognitive science indicates that we learn more effectively when we see how ideas are conceptually connected to one another, when our minds are fully engaged, and when the tasks we encounter are motivating because they are interesting and accessible. Productive learning within different subjects is shaped by the unique structures of the disciplines and their particular modes of inquiry. In what follows, we discuss how teachers can shape understanding by 1) organizing and representing knowledge conceptually; 2) developing an inquiry-based curriculum that integrates explicit instruction appropriately; 3) designing environments and tasks that support motivation; and 4) providing for interest-based learning opportunities.

Organizing and Representing Knowledge Conceptually. As we have noted, learning is enhanced when learners have a cognitive map or schema for particular concepts and relationships among concepts within a domain, into which they can place and connect what they are learning so that it adds up to a meaningful whole. For school-based learning, a central set of organizers are the structures of the disciplines. All subject areas have structures that reveal the ways their core ideas are connected with one another (Goldman et al., 2016), including a code of patterns and regularities that organize content fields (Schwab, 1978; Shulman, 1992).

Understanding the structure of a domain helps people learn things more efficiently. For example,

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 48 teaching vocabulary based on the underlying semantic and syntactic structure of the language enables students to learn rules for broader application. When students learn that words can be analyzed into meaningful parts (for example, that “photo” refers to light and “hydro” to water), they then may be able to figure out the meanings of words like photosynthesis and hydrotherapy.

Similarly, when learning a language, knowing the structure of verb conjugations enables transfer.

Cognitive scientists have found that organizing knowledge in schemas facilitates retrieval and use of material from long-term memory. More complex schemas can combine elements of less complex organizations of information that are processed with more automaticity, reducing the burden on working memory (Paas, Renkl, & Sweller, 2003). Organizing knowledge and automating access to this knowledge in long-term memory supports meaningful learning in complex cognitive domains.

Teachers can help students understand the structure of concepts within a domain by providing an overarching conceptualization of the big ideas and then locating specific facts or information in relation to these. In a discipline like history, for example, students may consider how societies organize themselves to engage in government and commerce, and how they distribute power and manage conflicts. If students understand these core concepts, they can look at different societies and different nations over time and see patterns and discontinuities, generalizations, and connections (National Research Council, 2005).

Each discipline also has a different manner of posing questions and solving problems: for example scientific investigation through scientific methods, historical inquiry, literary analysis, mathematical modeling. These central modes of inquiry, knowledge-finding tools, and means of using evidence (Schwab, 1978) are also critical to curriculum design. If students learn to use these modes of inquiry, they will be training their minds in distinctive ways (which was the

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 49 original rationale for introducing the disciplines) and more able to engage in disciplined forms of deep learning. The structures of the disciplines, which can be used to organize the curriculum to engage students around these core ideas and modes of inquiry, also pave the way for transfer to other ideas, subjects, and real-life problems inside and outside of school (Shulman, 1992).

It is important for educators at the state, district, and school level to have knowledge of how to select high-quality curriculum materials that support a conceptual organization and understanding of the disciplines and offer thoughtful guidance for productive engagement with the materials through useful representations of ideas, means to connect those ideas to students’ experiences, approaches to discussions that can engage multiple approaches and explanations, and disciplinary inquiries. Many well-grounded curricular designs – including carefully researched professional learning processes to help teachers understand the underlying concepts and teaching strategies -- have been supported by extensive research (see e.g. Cobb & Jackson,

2011 re: mathematics; Penuel & Fishman, 2012 re: science; Wineburg, et al., 2011 re: history).

While this review cannot fully explore the many bodies of research on learning within the content domains, we note here that significant evidence demonstrates that effective teaching is content-specific, and not based on a toolbox of generic teaching techniques. As the National

Research Council (2005) review of How Students Learn History, Mathematics, and Science observed: “Expert teachers have a deep understanding of the structure and epistemologies of their disciplines, combined with knowledge of the kinds of teaching activities that will help students come to understand the discipline for themselves” (p. 163). This involves particular pedagogies related to the discipline’s rules of evidence for its particular modes of inquiry.

Instruction helps students participate in the forms of thinking, reasoning, and doing that resemble those of a skilled historian, geographer, scientist, mathematician, writer, or artist.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 50

For example, students develop a deeper understanding of history when they examine historical evidence and learn how it can be interpreted based on the type of evidence and its source, and when it is placed in the context of a larger schema (Wineburg et al., 2011). Learning to look for and understand structures and patterns in mathematics, to reason quantitatively as a form of sense-making, and to explore multiple solution strategies produces deeper learning in mathematics (Boaler, 2002). Learning to form hypotheses, experiment, observe, collect evidence, and frame conclusions, while seeking to understand the principles that are at work in a phenomenon helps students begin to think scientifically (Penuel & Fishman, 2012). These and other disciplines have their own modes of discourse as well as investigation strategies (Darling-

Hammond, Barron, Pearson, Schoenfeld, Stage, Zimmerman, Cervetti, & Tilson, 2008).

Inquiry-Based Curriculum that Appropriately Integrates Explicit Instruction. The argument that student inquiry is critical to transferable learning is based on insights from cognitive theories about how people learn and the importance of students making sense of what they are learning and processing content deeply so that they truly understand it (Bransford,

Brown, Cocking, Donovan, & Pellegrino, 2004). Inquiry approaches to learning require students to take an active role in knowledge construction to solve a problem or probe a question.

Inquiry may take place in a single day’s lesson or a long-term project, centered around a question or problem that requires conjecture, investigation, and analysis, using tools like research or modeling. The key is that – rather than just receiving and memorizing pieces of information -- inquiry provokes active learning and student agency through questioning, consideration of possibilities and alternatives, and applications of knowledge.

The family of approaches that can be described as inquiry-based includes problem-based learning, design-based learning, and project-based learning, among others. The success of well-

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 51 designed and managed problem and project-based curriculum has been documented across many schools and experimental interventions. Typically studies find that students exposed to this kind of curriculum do as well as or better than their peers on traditional standardized test measures but significantly better on measures of higher order thinking skills that transfer to new situations, as well as stronger motivation, problem solving ability, and more positive attitudes toward learning

(Boaler, 2002; Bransford et al., 2004; Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008). Similarly, meta- analyses of studies of medical students have found that those who are enrolled in problem-based curricula, in which they have to work on diagnostic inquiries regarding patients and their treatment, score higher on items that measure clinical problem solving and actual ratings of clinical performance (Albanese & Mitchell, 1993).

Inquiry-based approaches to learning develop social and emotional skills, habits, and mindsets as well as academic skills as students learn to set goals, plan their work, reflect on what they have learned and what more they need to know to solve a problem, overcome obstacles, and communicate what they have found (Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008).

Inquiry challenges need to be carefully planned and well-supported so that students in fact learn, rather than wandering aimlessly through discoveries that confuse rather than enlightening them. Research syntheses have documented the advantages of inquiry-based learning over expository forms of instruction for the transfer of learning to new contexts, and have also found that the benefits for achievement are greater for students who have received useful guidance from their teachers (Alfieri et al., 2011 [d=.30]; Furtak, Seidel, Iverson, &

Briggs, 2012 [d=.65]). One meta-analysis of 72 studies found several types of guidance equally effective at promoting stronger outcomes for inquiry-based teaching as compared to expository learning. These forms of guidance defined the learning task, provided prompts, scaffolds, and

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 52 explanations to support aspects of the task, and made task progress and learning visible to the learners (Lazonder & Harmsen, 2016 [d=.66 for effects of guidance on learning activities; d=.71 for effects on performance success; and d=.50 for effects on learning outcomes.])

The literature on pedagogies for inquiry indicates that effective inquiries are guided by clearly defined learning goals, well designed scaffolds, ongoing assessment, and rich informational resources. Good inquiry tasks allow multiple methods for reaching solutions.

They also allow repeated exposure to concepts and provide opportunities for feedback. An effective teacher in this approach is one who designs tasks and processes for engaging them that are clear and support understanding, and who plays an active role in making thinking visible, guiding group processes and participation, and asking questions to solicit reflections. The goal is to model good reasoning strategies and support students to take on these roles themselves (for a review, see Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008)

Effective teachers also offer strategic feedback that takes students to the next stages of learning. Teachers provide direct instruction at critical junctures, offering explanations or directing students to resources that are crafted and timed to support inquiry (Hmelo-Silver, 2004;

Moreno, 2004). Direct instruction to provide information and develop a conceptual schema may be especially helpful when students are new to a topic or when they have entered a new domain through an inquiry-based approach and have developed key questions that motivate them to use new information that is now contextualized in their experience (Bransford & Donovan, 2005).

Students’ needs for teacher support change as they become more cognitively engaged and develop expertise. Teachers need to gauge how much scaffolding to provide as individual learners become more knowledgeable and proficient. However, at any stage of development,

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 53 learners benefit from strategically placed direct instruction, feedback, and critical questions that guide their learning (Hmelo-Silver, 2004). When teachers give explanatory feedback, rather than corrective feedback, student performance improves (Moreno 2004).

In addition, instructional designers need to think about learner’s level of prior knowledge and expertise in order to determine what types of information and activities can facilitate learning outcomes. A common misconception is that reducing cognitive load is uniformly beneficial. However, it is the source, rather than the level of the load, that matters. Extraneous load, such as that caused by stress or trauma, negatively affects learning. However, germane load, such as that created when curiosity is piqued and sparks exploration, increases relevant mental activities and positively affects learning (Paas, Renkl, & Sweller, 2003). Tasks should be engaging and challenging, so that germane cognitive load is as high as possible. What is helpful for an advanced learner, though, could overwhelm a novice. Knowing about the learner allows educators to design tasks and pose questions at the right level to enhance their learning.

Teachers can reduce extraneous load by providing increased guidance for developing conceptual understanding during discovery learning. This can be accomplished by providing explanations of central ideas and relationships at key junctures, offering useful texts, scaffolding the tasks by sequencing them from less to more complex, chunking the inquiry into discrete steps with instructions and information at each step, or having students write hypotheses, conjectures, or summaries that are the basis for conceptual discussion. The amount of guidance needed will vary across developmental levels and from learner to learner.

Developing Metacognition, Agency, and the Capacity for Strategic Learning

A critical component of learning for understanding is thinking about one’s prior knowledge, connecting that knowledge to other ideas within a conceptual framework, and

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 54 processing that knowledge so that it is available for application to new contexts or problems.

The process of metacognition, or “thinking about one’s own thinking,” (Georghiades, 2004) allows more strategic learning and deeper conceptual understanding of content.

Metacognition is part of a broader concept of self-regulated learning through which students are able to respond positively to feedback, set goals, and manage their progress towards these goals, which enhances their sense of agency. Metacognition is especially important as it moves students out of the role of passive receptors of information to active learners where they are aware of and monitoring their own understanding during the learning process (Flavell, 1979).

In order to enable transferable learning that is increasingly independent, teaching should be designed to support metacognition, so that students can learn to accomplish their goals.

The use of metacognitive strategies has been found to distinguish between more and less competent learners. Strong learners can explain their learning process and articulate reasons why they decided to take certain steps or how they arrived at a particular conclusion – an important element of engaging deeply in the learning process (Chi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann, & Glaser,

1989). A substantial body of research has found that students who employ metacognitive strategies, including self-regulated learning and goal-setting, are better able to engage in cognitive processes, remember information, and maximize learning (Farrington, Roderick,

Allensworth, Nagaoka, Keyes, Johnson, & Beechum, 2012).

We discuss here three pathways teachers can use to develop students’ metacognitive skills: 1) teaching metacognition and learning strategies directly; 2) providing feedback followed by practice and revision; 3) employing mastery assessment that allows students to continue to make progress in their learning that they themselves can help to guide.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 55

Teaching Metacognition and Strategic Learning. As Donovan and Bransford (2005) note in How People Learn: Examples in History, Mathematics, and Science, learning well depends on (a) how prior knowledge is incorporated in building new knowledge, (b) how knowledge is organized, and (c) how well learners can monitor and reflect on their learning.

Educators can develop metacognitive skills within the classroom through modeling of thinking, explicit strategy instruction, scaffolds for self-monitoring of thinking and actions, and regular opportunities for student self- and peer assessment. Opportunities for students to reflect on their strengths and areas of growth, and for students to self-correct errors can be incorporated into the curriculum within content areas, so that monitoring of understanding is tied to domain- specific knowledge and expertise (National Research Council, 2012).

In reading, for example, considerable work has been done to teach students to monitor their understanding in the process of reading and take steps to shore up their comprehension as needed (for an overview, see Pearson, Cervetti, & Tilson, 2008). The development of what

Pearson and colleagues call “mindful engagement” on the part of students involves this strategic monitoring that supports comprehension, connection-making, and critique (Afflerbach, Pearson,

& Paris, 2008; Duke & Pearson, 2002).

Among the many strategies that have been found effective in stimulating mindful engagement in reading are Reciprocal Teaching and Transactional Strategies Instruction, which variously include strategies that ask students to think aloud as they are reading, construct images, create themes, predict, question, clarify, make connections, summarize, and read for specific literary elements (see Duke & Pearson, 2002). In these and similar methods, teachers scaffold the process and turn over responsibility for choosing the strategies and managing the discussions to student groups as soon as possible. Reviews of experimental and quasi-experimental studies

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 56 have found these strategic approaches produce positive effects for text comprehension (see, e.g.

Rosenshine and Meister, 1994; Pressley, 1998).

Duke and Pearson (2002) identified a set of steps that typically occur when teachers engage in explicit strategy instruction, including: naming and describing the strategy—why, when, and how it should be used; modeling the strategy in action—either by teacher, student, or both; using the strategy collaboratively—in a sort of group think-aloud; guiding practice using the strategy with gradual release of responsibility; finally, students using the strategy independently, with no teacher guidance, either individually or in small student-led groups.

These steps reinforce Baker’s (2002) point that: “[T]here is a sequence of development from other-regulation to self-regulation. This notion provides the framework for virtually all instructional programs in which the goal is to enable students to take responsibility for their own learning” (p. 78). Instructional supports and scaffolding should not only be focused on higher achievement, but also on qualitative changes in the ways “students view themselves in relation to the task, engage in the process of learning, and then respond to the learning activities and situation,” supporting their increasing self-direction, which, in turn, increases their skills along the way (Ames, 1992). The goal is that teachers and students have a shared understanding and ownership of the learning process, and students are increasingly able to reflect on and self- monitor their own improvement. As scaffolding fades, students should internalize standards and take responsibility for their own learning (Tharp et al., 2000).

Studies have documented how the explicit teaching of metacognitive strategies can improve learning for a wide range of students across multiple subject areas. Some of this research studies the thought processes of experts and then organizes these so that they can be taught to novices engaged in that work. Following Vygotsky’s (1978) notion that talking things

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 57 through – internally or aloud -- helps people to learn by helping them to organize and manage their thought process, many strategies involve teaching students to think aloud.

Studies of writers have found that they engage in an internal (and sometimes external) dialogue about what they are doing and why, which helps them think through their writing process (Pearson, Cervetti, & Tilson, 2008). This research has led to strategies for teaching writing that help novice writers learn to engage in this kind of self-talk and self-monitoring as they go through similar processes. A year-long study of a set of urban elementary classrooms where half the students were identified as learning disabled found that, when teachers of 4th and

5th grade students taught students these approaches as they analyzed texts and modeled the writing process, students engaged in more self-regulating metacognitive strategies, were more able to explain their writing process, and achieved at higher levels in reading and writing than a matched group of comparison students. The learning disabled students in these classes were just as able to describe and use the writing strategies as were the regular education students in the comparison group. Sometimes, the learning disabled students who had received this strategy instruction even outscored the regular education students (Englert, Raphael, & Anderson, 1992;

Pearson, Cervetti, & Tilson, 2008). A review of research on learning of argumentative writing reinforces the importance of teaching these kinds of cognitive processes to students while also engaging them in social discourse about their writing (Newell, Beach, Smith, & VanDerHeide,

2011).

An example from science used the metacognitive strategy of self-explanation. In one controlled experiment, for example, a group of eighth-grade students used a “think aloud” protocol while reading about the human circulatory system from an often-used biology textbook

(Chi, et al., 1994, 2000). The students read a line of text silently and were then prompted to

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 58 explain to themselves, out loud, what the text meant. A control group (non-prompted) was asked to read the line of text silently twice to approximate the same amount of time dedicated to learning the material by both groups. The researchers found that self-explaining raised the posttest score of both high and low achieving students, with those who explained the most showing the greater gains from pre-to post-test. Furthermore, the results for the more difficult questions – those that required students to integrate knowledge of what they had just learned with prior knowledge – indicated even greater gains for the prompted students. One explanation for these gains was that the prompted students utilized their prior knowledge to a greater degree.

Another form of metacognition is self-regulation of motivation. Students can learn to regulate their own motivation by, for example, creating conducive conditions for study, using learning strategies that are more effective for them, studying with peers, or even rewarding themselves when they have accomplished something. Use of strategies for increasing motivation has been found to improve grades and other measures of achievement (Wolters, 2011).

Furthermore, when students have opportunities for self-regulation, including setting their own goals, developing study skills, and taking ownership of their own learning, they are more likely to succeed after high school (Conley, 2011). These co-cognitive skills appear to be better predictors of long-term success than academic skills alone (Lerman, 2008).

Computer-based tools can assist productive collaborative exchanges that support self- regulation and metacognition. One of the most documented examples originated as the

Computer-Supported Intentional Learning project, now known as Knowledge Forum, which allows students to collaborate on learning activities through a communal database with text and graphics capabilities. Within this networked multimedia environment, students can engage in dialogues through their notes about topics they are studying and conversations about formulating

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 59 and testing conjectures. The tools support knowledge building as a community activity. Students at the elementary, secondary, and higher education levels – across all achievement levels -- do better on achievement tests and portfolio measures and show greater depth in their explanations than those in other classrooms (Scardamalia, Bereiter, & Lamon, 1994).

Knowledge forum aims to support creative work with ideas while keeping agency in the hands of the students, enabling more varied interactions among students and between students and ideas. This facilitates self-organization at both the social and conceptual levels, along with better-informed metacognitive control of knowledge production processes that is supported by a collaborative environment which requires articulating explanations and strategies (Bereiter &

Scardamalia, 2014). This kind of technology can also assist the classroom teacher: observing a group’s interactions can provide a substantial amount of information about the degree to which the work is productive, as well as an opportunity for formative feedback and the provision of support for aligning understandings and goals among group members.

Thoughtful Feedback and Revision. Regular, well-designed feedback on students’ work is a critical component of strategic learning. One of the oldest findings in psychological research is that feedback facilitates learning (Thorndike, 1931). Without feedback about conceptual errors or an inefficient backstroke, the learner is likely to persist in making the same mistakes.

In a meta-analysis of 131 studies, Kluger & DeNisi (1996) reported an average effect size on learning due to feedback of .40; however, they also found large variation across studies. In identifying characteristics of effective feedback, the authors found that neither non-specific praise nor negative comments supported learning. Instead, gains were most likely to occur when feedback focused on features of the task and emphasized learning goals.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 60

It is insufficient for teachers merely to give feedback about whether answers are right or wrong. Instead, to facilitate learning, it is equally important that feedback be linked explicitly to clear performance standards and that students be provided with strategies for improvement

(Hattie & Gan, 2011). Rubrics are an important tool that allows performance to be judged in relation to well-defined criteria (rather than globally or in comparison to other students), so that feedback focuses on particular qualities of a student’s work and provides guidance about what to do to improve – along with immediate opportunities to apply the feedback. Research has found that this approach to feedback fosters a mastery orientation on the part of the students where they seek not only to develop an understanding of the content and improve their skills, including their own learning strategies, but also come to recognize personal relevance and meaningfulness in the work itself (Ames, 1992; Hattie & Gan, 2011). Furthermore, students’ sense of agency and motivation are enhanced when they can strive for and demonstrate improvement.

Revision of work is a critical aspect of the learning process, supporting reflection and metacognition about how to approach a particular kind of content or genre of tasks in future learning. Unless students have opportunities to incorporate the feedback as they revise their work or performance (e.g. rework math problems; retry jump shots or musical efforts; reread a tough passage; rewrite sentences, paragraphs and essays; retake tests; revamp products), they cannot benefit optimally from the feedback that teachers or their peers often take considerable time and effort to produce. A long line of research shows that expert performance is related to opportunities for deliberate practice, which is coached through the provision of immediate feedback for a performance, opportunities to evaluate and problem-solve, and repeated attempts to refine the behavior or skill (Ericsson, 2006). As individuals become more expert, they can self-evaluate and identify strategies for improvement with less outside feedback.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 61

Opportunities for regular revision also help students develop a sense of confidence and competence as they see the improvements in their work, and a growth mindset that can carry into other contexts. For deliberate practice and revision to occur, feedback should occur during the learning process, not at the end when teaching on that topic is finished, and teacher and students should have a shared understanding that the purpose of feedback is to facilitate learning. Given that teachers cannot frequently meet one-on-one with each student, classroom practices should allow for students to display their thinking so the teacher will be aware of it, and for students to learn to become increasingly effective critics of their own and each other’s work as they use rubrics and other tools to engage in self- and peer-assessment.

Research shows that this kind of assessment carried out during the instructional process for the purpose of improving teaching or learning can be a powerful tool in targeting instruction so as to move learning forward. A landmark research review by Black and Wiliam (1998) found that focused efforts to use formative assessment routinely produced learning gains greater than one standard deviation, which is equivalent to raising the score of an average student from the

50th to the 85th percentile. These large gains were seen when concrete, specific feedback was provided without any grade and when it was followed by opportunities to revise the work.

Formative assessment is more than data gathering. It is a model for supporting learning that is designed to advance a student within his or her zone of proximal development. The assessment step in the formative assessment model – which answers the student’s question,

“where am I now?” -- provides the insight needed to enable effective support. That support should ideally be informed by an understanding of learning progressions – the next steps likely to support advancement in the domain. A complete formative model, which clarifies goals and provides the means to get there, is synonymous with instructional scaffolding.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 62

Mastery-Oriented Assessment

To manage the formative feedback and learning process, teachers benefit from being able to draw on a range of assessment strategies and tools such as observations, student conferences, portfolios, performance tasks, prior knowledge assessments, rubrics, peer assessments, and student self-assessments. They can then combine rich evidence of student learning with their own deep understanding of the learning process so that they can use insights from assessment to plan and revise instruction and to provide feedback that explicitly helps students see how to improve (Stiggins & Chappuis, 2005).

A mastery-focused approach to assessment that emphasizes learning goals has been found to help sustain achievement-directed behavior over time and to orient learners toward a focus on improving competence and deeply understanding the work they produce (Ames, 1992).

In addition, assessments that place value on growth rather than on scores earned at one discrete moment have been found to create higher motivation, greater agency, and higher levels of cognitive engagement, as well as stronger achievement gains (Blumenfeld, Puro, &

Mergendoller, 1992; Stiggins & Chappuis, 2005). In contrast, researchers have found that evaluative, comparison oriented testing focused on judgments about students leads to students’ decreased interest in school, distancing from the learning environment, and a lowered sense of self-confidence and personal efficacy (Eccles & Roeser, 2009).

Many schools that have been particularly successful in reducing opportunity and achievement gaps for traditionally marginalized students – producing high graduation and college success rates -- have adopted mastery-oriented performance-based assessments that build higher order thinking and performance skills, collaboration and communication skills, motivation and engagement, and a host of co-cognitive skills such as self-regulation, executive function,

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 63 resilience, perseverance and growth mindset (Darling-Hammond, Ancess, & Ort, 2002;

Huberman, Bitter, Anthony, & O’Day, 2014; Noguera, Darling-Hammond, & Friedlaender,

2017). In these schools, assessments of projects, papers, portfolios, and other products are evaluated through rubrics that clearly describe dimensions of quality. When these are coupled with opportunities for feedback and revision, the assessments promote learning and mastery, rather than seeking to rank students against each other. These practices are consistent with research indicating the importance of explicitly expressing high expectations for students that are enacted though meaningful challenges, with opportunities to develop competence, so that students know they are capable of strong achievement (Osher & Kendziora, 2010; Steele, 2011).

Many of these schools require portfolios of rigorous work in each discipline that are presented before committees of teachers and outside jurors, rather like a dissertation defense.

The work typically includes social science research papers, science experiments, literary essays, and mathematical models or projects that require in-depth study, extensive writing, and oral presentation (Darling-Hammond & Adamson, 2014). The work may also include problem-based interdisciplinary projects, sometimes grounded in internships in the community. Research suggests that knowledge that is applied to relevant problems and situations is retained and later used at higher rates, and that students who learn modes of disciplined inquiry within and across content areas are better able to successfully tackle complex problems and learn on their own

(Bransford, Brown, Cocking, Donovan, & Pellegrino, 2004).

Performance assessments which encourage higher order thinking, evaluation, reasoning, and deep understanding are themselves tools for learning (Darling-Hammond & Adamson,

2014). In addition to knowledge, the assessments build students’ metacognitive and co-cognitive skills, such as planning, organizing, and other aspects of executive functioning; resilience and

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 64 perseverance in the face of challenges; and a growth mindset. Performance assessments can also provide multiple entry points for diverse learners, including English language learners and students with special needs, to access content and display learning (Abedi, 2010).

The use of curriculum-embedded assessments strengthens teaching by providing teachers with models of good curriculum and assessment practice, enhancing curriculum equity within and across schools – as all students have access to the educative tasks, and allowing teachers to see and evaluate student learning in ways that can inform instructional and curriculum decisions.

Such assessments can build students' capacity to assess and guide their own learning, and, through ownership in the learning process, strengthen their interest and motivation.

Motivation and Learning

Closely related to the developmental and cognitive processes we have reviewed above is the issue of motivation for learning. Students will work harder to achieve understanding and will make greater progress when they are motivated to learn something. However, motivation is not just inherent in the individual; it can be developed by skillful teaching.

Motivating Tasks. Researchers have found that student motivation in the classroom is fostered by three major considerations about the tasks and conditions students confront: 1) the nature of the task and its value to the student; 2) the nature of the learner and his or her expectations of success; and 3) the nature of the learning environment and the extent to which it emphasizes learning goals and provides support (Blumenfeld, Puro, & Mergendollar, 1992).

First and foremost, motivation is about the learner’s perceptions of the task. As Lee

(2017) notes, the learner implicitly asks: “What am I being asked to do?” “Am I capable of tackling these tasks?” “Is this task meaningful to me?” “What supports are available to me to

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 65 wrestle with this task?” “Do I feel safe in attempting to wrestle with this task?” “How do I weigh any risks or competing goals?”

A learning task will have more value to students if they believe it is important, if it is relevant to their lives, can be connected to events they have experienced or care about, or focuses on problems that are interesting and realistic (Eccles, 2005). It is helpful if the task offers choices of topics, research strategies, or modes of presentation that allow students to make a connection to their interests. A motivating task is also approachable (i.e. within the zone of proximal development) and structured to provide evidence of progress along the way, so that it offers ongoing incentives to continue. Students are more likely to value learning when intrinsic reasons for learning are emphasized – as when the task potentially benefits others and/or results in products or performances that have an audience beyond the teacher (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Students need to believe they can be successful if they are going to try. Their expectations for success influence their willingness to apply effort toward learning (Eccles,

2005). These expectations depend on students’ perceptions of the task and their likelihood of success, as well as on their inclinations to undertake new learning, tackle difficult tasks, and take risks. These inclinations, in turn, are related to self-perceptions of ability and mindsets.

Students with confidence in their abilities to succeed at a task work harder and persist longer, which leads to better performance (Eccles & Roeser, 2009; Stipek, 1996).

Among the factors shaping this sense of efficacy are students’ beliefs about intelligence and their capacity to improve their intellectual abilities. If students believe that intelligence is a fixed trait and that there is nothing they can do to expand their capacity to learn tend to think that no amount of effort will be worthwhile when they encounter a difficult task. Those who believe

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 66 that intelligence is “incremental” and can be cultivated tend to be willing to try new things and to work harder when they encounter an obstacle, rather than giving up (Dweck, 2000).

Students’ sense of academic identity also matters. If a student feels he is “not good at math,” or a “bad reader,” it will negatively affect his attention, motivation, and learning.

Conversely, if a student sees herself as a mathematician, a reader, a scientist, or a writer, she will be more likely to engage and adopt a growth mindset in that domain. In addition, students who have received societal or school-delivered messages that they are less capable as a function of their race, ethnicity, gender, income, or other status will often translate those views into self- perceptions of ability affecting their performance on school tasks or tests (Steele, 1997).

Schools foster these beliefs to the extent that they group or track students in ways that convey messages about perceived ability, deliver stereotypic messages associated with group status, or emphasize ability rather than effort (e.g., “smartness” vs. “hard work”) in their judgments about students and attributions of causes of success (Dweck, 2000). In the classroom, teachers should avoid labeling students and provide positive affirmations about individual and group competence, emphasize the importance of effort, and encourage students to understand that through effort they will indeed improve. Teachers can also acknowledge improvements through their feedback and the ways their assessment and grading systems credit growth.

To make challenging tasks motivating and enhance expectancies of success, teachers can

“structure information, guide student efforts, scaffold instruction, and provide multiple opportunities for students to grapple with the information and represent their understanding a variety of ways” (Blumenfeld, Puro, & Mergendoller, 1992).

The learning environment supports motivation when learning and mastery goals are emphasized, rather than grades or performance goals. Learning goals are encouraged when

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 67 scaffolding and support are provided, effort and improvement are recognized, mistakes are treated as learning opportunities, students have the opportunity to revise their work, evaluation emphasizes learning, individual competition and comparison are minimized, and students are grouped by topic, interest, or choice rather than by their performance (Blumenfeld et al., 1992).

These classroom features enhance intrinsic motivation, which more often results in high- quality learning and creativity. In contrast, extrinsic motivation based on external rewards that are used to control students’ behavior can reduce students’ intrinsic motivation for the task as well as the quality of performance on the task (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Although extrinsic rewards are sometimes useful to create incentives for a new behavior or practice, their use should be minimal and reduced over time as the desired behavior become commonplace.

Interest-Driven Learning. As we have noted, one driver of intrinsic motivation is interest in a topic, object, or activity. Ecological views of learning and development have focused attention on interest-driven learning, which is particularly important for development because it requires self-regulation, defining and pursuing goals, and reflection on how well one is doing

(Barron, 2006). Neurological data, longitudinal ethnographic studies, naturalistic observational research, and experiments converge to provide evidence of the short and long term benefits of interest for learning (Renninger & Hidi, 2017). In the short term, interest is cognitively energizing and it increases attention, leads the learner to generate questions, and sustains engagement in learning activities. In the longer term, interest can catalyze a consequential series of choices that over time accumulate and help launch pathways to future jobs, educational opportunities, and careers. Interests can also support academic resiliency, for example, in overcoming challenges in processing text or persevering in difficult tasks.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 68

In the four-phase model of interest development (Hidi & Renninger, 2006), earlier phases of interest are dependent on the social environment. As interests become more deeply connected to values, purpose, meaning, and identity, they become increasingly self-sustaining. Choices to learn might include initiating a new project activity, pursuing opportunities for mentoring, deciding to enroll in a formal class, or using technology to engage in personal learning excursions (Barron, 2006; Wigfield & Cambria, 2010). At the same time, consistent with a contemporary understanding of the science of learning and development, interest in any domain is dynamic and can exhibit continuities and discontinuities depending on access to resources, such as welcoming affinity groups, relevant technologies and tools, role models, learning opportunities, and time (Azevedo, 2018, Cantor et al., 2018).

In this ecological view, the origins and evolution of interests are connected to both contextual and individual variables. They are simultaneously socially grounded (Osher et al.,

2018) and influenced by personal relevance based on unique experience, sense of purpose, and goals for the future (Eccles, 2005; Harackiewicz & Hulleman, 2010). Teachers have a significant role to play in developing interests by customizing assignments and offering choices, providing material that sparks curiosity, expressing their own enthusiasm for a topic, designing activities that support exploration and are relevant to student identities, and connecting students with peers and mentors that share interests. When teachers consider the longer term trajectories of learning and development, they are better positioned to help broker future learning opportunities in addition to directly influencing learning through guiding, modeling, and explaining. In this view, interest is both a cause and a consequence of learning.

Interests can develop over long periods of time linked to activities that take place both in and outside of school (Azevedo, 2013). Homes, libraries, museums, camps, and a range of digital

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 69 environments provide social and material resources for interest-driven learning (Barron & Bell,

2015). Teachers can help parents support interests by sharing ideas about ways to collaborate, learn from, or broker opportunities for their children. Meanwhile, parents can share with teachers what they have observed when their children are at home and have free time to explore activities on their own. They are uniquely suited to notice and support a child’s nascent interests.

Digital technologies provide an important catalyst for interest-driven learning, as they can be leveraged for learning across time and settings, with interests launched at school leading to informal learning at home, in summer camps, or in community based contexts (Barron, 2006,

2010). The self-sustaining nature of interest-driven learning with technologies represents an important dimension of personalized learning. For example, technology is expanding opportunities for young people to gain experience with design-oriented activities like movie making, programming, and fabrication. In addition, as the National Research Council (2000) noted in How People Learn, interactive computer technologies can help people visualize difficult-to-understand concepts, give users feedback while they are learning, and learn about students’ approaches to learning so as to personalize opportunities to learn.

While many uses of technology have been found ineffective, uses that support student interests have been found to support achievement. A recent review of 70 studies ranging from large-scale experimental and quasi-experimental designs to smaller case studies noted that most studies found no effect on learning. Ineffective uses of technology featured “individualized” progression through workbook-type activities; phonics, grammar and punctuation exercises; drill on math items; and practice with multiple-choice test questions. Effective uses, on the other hand, featured simulations, games, data analysis, and writing that was part of interactive learning, where the technology was used to engage with data, explore and create, express ideas,

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 70 and develop presentations of learning; and where peer discussions and teacher-led activities were also part of instruction (Darling-Hammond, Zielezinski, & Goldman, 2014).

An example highlighted in the review illustrates the importance of combining interest- driven learning with the use of technology. Educators in Talladega County, Alabama introduced one-to-one computing through a project-based learning program in which students conducted in- depth research projects, recorded podcasts, developed multi-media presentations, and designed and produced publications about their work. The initiative dramatically improved high school graduation and college-going rates (Darling-Hammond, Zielezinski, & Goldman, 2014).

Deep engagement in interest-driven experiences is associated with psychological assets like a sense of confidence in creating novel ideas, confidence in learning about computing, a projected future of continued learning, or feelings of expertise with professional tools; social dispositions, marked by an increased likelihood of teaching others what one knows; and choices to learn more as reflected in efforts to sustain learning, including starting new projects in school or at home, choosing to take elective classes to advance one’s skills, finding mentors or peer- based learning partners, and locating informational resources in books or online (Barron &

Martin, 2016). These types of choices creating generative learning can help students learn to learn independently and set the stage for lifelong learning.

Summary. The research we have reviewed suggests that, to support student learning, curriculum and instruction should be designed so that it helps build mental schema or models that connect ideas central to the discipline or domain. These goals should be pursued in a thoughtful sequence through authentic tasks and understandable representations that build on students’ prior knowledge and capture the key aspects of the content to be learned. To facilitate deep understanding and transfer, teachers should combine explicit instruction with guided

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 71 inquiry that allows students to engage in problem solving in real-world contexts and should promote agency by asking students to evaluate, analyze, and create ideas, products, or solutions

(Bransford & Donovan, 2005).

Finally, to enable increasingly effective learning and the development of productive habits and mindsets, curriculum and assessment should support the acquisition of metacognitive skills, offer feedback throughout the learning process, encouraging students to revise their work so that they can internalize standards and perceive evidence of their growing competence that supports a growth mindset. Providing opportunities for revision along with timely, constructive feedback on a regular basis encourages a mastery oriented approach to learning. Combined with a learning environment that supports individual needs, helping students develop the capacity to monitor their own learning promotes a sense of agency and ownership over their work, which in turn fosters motivation. All of these strategies are designed to help students become more self- sufficient and capable learners.

III. Support for the Development of Social, Emotional,

and Cognitive Skills, Habits, and Mindsets

As we have noted, academic learning is tightly intertwined with social and emotional skills, mindsets, and decisions. Some of these are reinforced by instructional approaches that reduce anxiety and support a growth mindset, for example. Yet more is needed to ensure that students fully develop these abilities to manage their emotions and mental focus, to work well with others, to persevere in the face of obstacles, and to make productive and socially responsible decisions. In this section, we treat the intentional development of the social, emotional, and cognitive skills, beliefs, and mindsets that support academic and life success.

What the Science of Learning and Development Tells Us

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 72

The SoLD synthesis builds on rich developments over the past two decades in social and emotional learning (SEL) (Osher, Kidron, Brackett, Dymnicki, Jones, & Weissberg, 2016).

Cognitive skills like problem-solving, responsible decision making, and perspective taking interact with emotional skills such as emotion recognition, empathy, and emotion regulation, and with social skills including cooperation, helping, and communication (Cantor et al., 2018).

Attitudes, beliefs, and mindsets also matter for school and life success. Holding a growth mindset and connecting academic endeavors to personal values support learning. These capacities are influenced by input from teachers and other adults, and, in turn, they inform higher order skills across cognitive, emotional, and social domains. Social, emotional, and other conditions of cognitive engagement influence the affective salience of instruction, how safe students feel, and how they focus their attention and make decisions (Osher & Kendziora, 2010).

Principles of Practice

Acknowledging the importance and the interaction of these capacities, the science of learning and development suggests the following principles for educational practice:

1) Schools and classrooms should explicitly teach and provide regular opportunities to

integrate social, emotional, and cognitive skills into academic curricula and

throughout the school day.

2) Students should receive guidance and support to develop habits and mindsets that

promote perseverance, resilience, agency, and self-direction (e.g., executive

function, self-regulatory routines, stress management, growth mindset).

3) Schools should offer educative and restorative behavior supports that teach students

skills which enable positive behaviors, encourage them to take responsibility, and, as

needed, make amends to restore relationships and community health.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 73

All of these practices support and derive from a school culture that aims to develop strong relationships, trust, positive interactions, and thoughtful development of student agency.

Promoting Social Emotional Learning with Students

Developing social-emotional skills. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and

Emotional Learning (CASEL) identifies five main areas of social-emotional competence: self- awareness involves identifying emotions and accurate self-perceptions; self-management includes managing stress and controlling impulses, which includes aspects of executive function; social awareness entails perspective taking, empathy, and appreciation for diversity; relationship skills involving communication and cooperation are about establishing and maintaining healthy relationships; and responsible decision making focuses on skills like identifying problems, evaluating, reflecting, and acting with consideration for the well-being of oneself and others.

Some approaches to fostering students’ academic, social, and emotional learning are delivered through stand-alone instruction, while others focus on integration of skills within the core academic curriculum. Formal programs teaching SEL have shown considerable success. A meta-analysis of 213 controlled studies of SEL programs, representing more than 270,000 students from urban, suburban, and rural schools, found participating students showed greater improvements than comparison students in their social and emotional skills; attitudes about themselves, others, and school; social and classroom behavior; test scores and school grades, including an aveage 11 percentile point gain in achievement, with an overall mean effect size of .27 for academic performance and .57 for SEL skills. Students also experienced reductions in misbehavior, aggression, stress and depression (Durlak et al., 2011). Benefits of SEL interventions on skills, attitudes, behavior, and academic performance have been found to endure

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 74 and serve as a protective factor (e.g., preventing conduct problems and drug use) on follow-up measures collected 6 months to 18 years later (Taylor, Oberle, Durlak, & Weissberg, 2017).

Effective SEL programs provide instruction that is sequential, active, focused, and explicit (Durlak et al., 2011). SEL programming is more effective when conducted by school personnel who themselves have opportunities to support and deepen their own skills (Weissberg,

Durlak, Domitrovich & Gullotta, 2015). This highlights the critical need for ongoing professional development around educators’ social-emotional skills as a vital element for promoting these capacities in students. Outcomes can also be enhanced when SEL is embedded throughout the school day, and integrated into other subject matter rather than introduced as stand-alone curriculum (Jones & Bouffard, 2012). More integration allows for strengthening of skills and transfer of learning by capitalizing on teachable moments and opportunities to reinforce and practice skills throughout the school day. Mindfulness practice -- which cultivates greater awareness of one’s experience infused with kindness (Kabat-Zinn, 1994) -- and related contemplative practices have also been linked to more prosocial behavior and reductions in implicit bias (Lim, Condon, & DeSteno, 2015; Kang, Gray, & Dovidio, 2014).

Implementing SEL Practices in Schools. An agenda to develop these critically important skills may begin by implementing efficacious SEL programs and other specific interventions, such as those included in guides provided by Center for Academic, Social, Emotional Learning

(CASEL, 2013) and the U.S. Department of Education. Identifying common ingredients that are shared across effective programs and integrated into schools’ normal routines (e.g. class meetings) and daily pedagogical practice can support a more integrated approach (Jones &

Bouffard, 2012). For example, the American Institutes for Research identified 10 instructional strategies that teachers use throughout the school day that can affect students’ social and

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 75 emotional skills. Examples include the kind of language teachers use, cooperative learning, and student-centered discipline (Yoder, 2014), all practices we treat elsewhere in this article.

In studies of high schools organized to develop socially and emotionally competent students, researchers found that student engagement, achievement, and positive behavior (being collaborative and supportive of their peers, resilient, employing a growth mindset, valuing opportunities to help others) were associated with infusion of social and emotional learning opportunities in every aspect of the school. This ranged from curriculum focused on perspective- taking and empathy in history and English language arts to community and social problem solving in social studies, math, and science; community service projects; and the teaching of specific conflict resolution strategies and the use of restorative practices (Hamedani, Zheng,

Darling-Hammond, Andree, & Quinn, 2015). A whole school approach imbued with a social justice orientation, underscoring themes of interdependence and social engagement in daily activities, enabled students to act as agents of change, which enhanced their motivation and sense of agency, increased achievement and attainment, and reduced educational inequality.

Developing Habits, Beliefs, and Mindsets

A wide range of habits, beliefs, and mindsets influence emotions and learning, shaping how children approach and engage with the world, how they interpret the messages they receive, and how they respond to opportunities and challenges. Here we discuss those related to cultivating executive functions, developing productive mindsets, and reducing stress and trauma.

Cultivating executive functions (EFs). Among the habits important for school success are those associated with the executive functions, which operate in four interrelated executive domains -- attentional control, cognitive flexibility, goal setting, and information processing -- which operate in an integrative manner to enable “executive control” (Anderson, 2002).

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 76

Children are engaged in exercising EF throughout the school day: to focus on their assignment and not get sidetracked by distracting thoughts, to follow multi-step instructions and make adjustments as necessary, and to take turns during play, to name a few examples. Although explicit development of executive functions has often been restricted to special education settings, most children need support to develop these skills optimally.

Teachers can offer explicit opportunities to learn executive functions by providing tools and modeling to help students learn to organize themselves, think ahead, plan their actions, and decide on what behaviors they will pursue, rather than reacting impulsively. As we discussed earlier, these are skills and habits that are reinforced by the development of metacognitive skills which allow children to reflect on and evaluate their plans and decisions. As teachers assign and scaffold complex work, they are building executive functioning and metacognitive skills.

A well-scaffolded environment with strong organizational routines can help promote EF as students learn to model approaches to tasks that can become part of their own organizational structures and self-management later. These reliable approaches to tasks – ranging from organizing one’s notebook to engaging in instructional conversations or collaborative tasks – can reduce cognitive load and promote learning as executive functions develop, while modelling strategies that can become part of the EF repertoire if teachers are explicit about their reasons for different structures and if they gradually reduce scaffolding over time.

Executive functions have been shown to improve through repeated practice coupled with increased challenge via games, aerobics, martial arts, yoga, mindfulness, and school curricula

(Diamond & Lee, 2011). Executive functions training can also be part of broader SEL programs, and has been found to be beneficial to young children from the preschool years to pre- adolescence (Bierman, Nix, Greenberg, Blair, & Domitrovich, 2008; Diamond & Lee, 2011).

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 77

Although explicit EF training is often targeted toward younger student, brain development spurts in adolescence enable young people to think abstractly and become more deeply reflective.

Explicitly fostering higher order executive skills at this age can lead to the greater levels of self- direction needed as students enter secondary school and, later, college and careers.

Developing Productive Mindsets. Students’ beliefs and attitudes have a powerful effect on their learning and achievement. Four key mindsets have been identified as conducive to perseverance and academic success for students: 1) a belief that one belongs at school, 2) belief in the value of the work, 3) belief that effort will lead to increased competence, and 4) sense of self-efficacy and the ability to succeed (Farrington, 2013). The types of messages conveyed by teachers and schools and corresponding attitudes may be especially relevant with adolescents for whom the explicit skills training approaches that work for younger children tend to be less beneficial. Effective programs that promote stronger learning for adolescents involve creating climates in which adolescents feel respected and affirmed, and giving them challenging work on which they are enabled to improve (Dweck, 2017; Yeager & Walton, 2011).

The belief that effort will lead to increased competence constitutes a growth mindset, which has been found to foster greater achievement and well-being across academic, emotional, and social domains (Dweck, 2000; 2017). The core principle, that skills can always be developed, is consistent with the science of neuroplasticity: that the brain is constantly growing and changing in response to experience. Learning this fact alone has been found to help change students’ perspectives on their learning. Providing feedback focused on effort and process encourages students to adopt a growth mindset, whereas feedback that focuses on traits (e.g.,

“smarts”) depresses student motivation and achievement. Providing students with meaningful

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 78 learning challenges, supports, and a clear sense of progress leading to mastery helps students develop a growth mindset (Dweck, 2017).

Students from groups that experience discrimination face particular challenges in feeling confident that their efforts will produce positive outcomes. Teachers can reduce student self- doubt and bolster confirmation by showing that they value students. For examples, affirmation interventions that guided students to share their personal goals for learning with their teachers in notes to which teachers responded were found to reduce the effect of stereotype threat among middle-school students, resulting in higher academic performance for Black students with gains in grades sustained as long as two years later (Cohen et al., 2009). Shaping productive mindsets can set into motion a cascade of effects that accumulate over time to result in more positive school outcomes -- for example, increasing school affiliation and self-concept, resulting in higher levels of academic engagement that becomes self-reinforcing (Yeager & Walton, 2011). A positive racial identity can also buffer societal negative stereotypes (Yip, 2018).

Reducing the effects of stress and trauma. When children or adults are distracted by concerns that flow from their lives outside the classroom or social dynamics within the classroom, their capacity to focus on learning can suffer (Center on the Developing Child at

Harvard University, 2016). Traumatic or strongly emotional events can simultaneously influence the regulation of affect (for example, feelings of depression or anxiety), physical phenomena (such as heart rate or adrenaline production), and cognition (for example, executive functioning and working memory). Chronic stress due to trauma affects cognition and working memory. Cognitive load in the classroom is exacerbated by a lack of safety and belonging.

Teachers’ abilities to maintain a supportive, culturally responsive environment with consistent routines support student learning by reducing hyper-vigilence, anxiety, and extraneous

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 79 cognitive load. School support systems that offer counseling and social supports when children experience adversity, described in section IV below, are also important to enable children to manage their emotions and improve their circumstances so that they are able to learn.

Researchers have also investigated mindfulness as a tool to reduce stress and cultivate calmness and attention. Mindfulness practice strengthens internal and external awareness by bringing deliberate attention to all of one’s experience, including breath, body, thoughts, feelings, and the surrounding environment (Kabat-Zinn, 1994). The practice of mindfulness promotes neural integration, and may be particularly helpful during the period of adolescent brain remodeling, contributing to higher capacities for regulation (Siegel, 2013). The use of mindfulness strategies for monitoring and redirecting attention has begun to show benefits for learning at all ages. A meta-analysis of 24 studies investigating mindfulness training with children in school settings found positive effects, with moderate effect sizes, on cognitive performance (particularly attention), stress reduction, and resilience (Zenner et al., 2014).

Educative and Restorative Approaches to Behavior

A developmentally appropriate approach to behavior management recognizes students’ behaviors as demonstrations of a developmental need and as a set of skills that need to be taught and developed, not demanded. Explicit teaching of self-regulation, conflict resolution, and other skills creates a virtuous circle of responsible behavior. Studies have found, for example, that even in elementary school, when students learn and practice skills of conflict resolution, they become more inclined to work out problems among themselves before the problems escalate

(Johnson, Johnson, Dudley, & Acikgoz, 1994). Students who have been aggressive benefit especially from learning specific skills for managing conflicts peacefully that differ from what they have previously learned at home or from peers (Tyrrell, Scully, & Halligan, 1998). The

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 80 results of such teaching are increased social support, improved relations, higher self-esteem, increases in personal control, and higher academic performance (Deutsch, 1992).

Research also finds that coercive discipline – in which teachers manage student behavior largely through punishments -- inhibits the students’ development of responsibility, ultimately increasing misbehavior, as students increasingly abandon their own self-responsibility for their learning and behavior and develop resistance and opposition to school (Lewis, 2001; Mayer,

1995), while exacerbating discriminatory treatment of students (Townsend, 2000).

A punitive environment undermines learning by heightening anxiety and stress, placing extra demands on working memory and cognitive resources, which drains energy available to address classroom tasks (e.g., Pennington, Heim, Levy, & Larkin, 2016). By contrast, an educative approach supports learning, as teachers’s proactive and positive responses create a safe and empowering classroom environment through reinforcing and reminding language (including verbal and nonverbal cues), approaching students in a nonthreatening manner, presenting students with problem-solving options as a means of deescalating potentially explosive situations, and using non-punitive, restorative consequences (Turnaround for Children, 2016).

Students who learn in such supportive communities have higher levels of self- understanding, commitment, performance, and belongingness, and fewer discipline problems

(Sergiovanni, 1994). These settings reduce the likelihood of disruptive behavior occurring in the first place. Authoritative approaches that strengthen interpersonal supports and connections, establish structures for fair processes, and encourage student voice are especially responsive to the developmental needs of adolescents and in line with a style that is known to be beneficial for parenting, as well as teaching (Gregory, Clawson, Davis & Gerewitz, 2016).

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 81

Educative approaches are also important for addressing the excessive reliance on exclusionary discipline in many schools, which persists in spite of evidence that punishment and exclusion do not work and often have harmful effects (Mayer, 1995; Osher, Bear, Sprague, &

Doyle, 2010). This is particularly the case for many students of color, who are not only disproportionately removed from class and school, but also are removed for longer terms, with disproportionalities being the largest in subjective offenses that are more likely to be affected by implicit as well as explicit bias. Exclusionary discipline does not teach students new strategies they can use to interact and solve problems, nor does it enable teachers to understand how they may unintentionally trigger or escalate problem behavior (Losen, 2015).

School discipline policies that exclude students through suspension and expulsion create a range of dysfunctional consequences: The more time students spend out of the classroom, the more their sense of connection to the school wanes, both socially and academically. This distance promotes disengaged behaviors, such as truancy, chronic absenteeism, and antisocial behavior (Hemphill, Toumbourou, Herrenkohl, McMorris & Catalono, 2006), which in turn exacerbate a widening achievement gap. The frequency of student suspensions is linked to academic declines and an increased likelihood of dropping out (Raffaele Mendez, 2003).

Many schools have started to reduce their suspension and expulsion rates by adopting restorative practices that focus on reflection, communication, community building, relational- based discipline, and making amends instead of relying on punishment (Karp & Breslin, 2001;

Skiba, Arredondo, & Rausch, 2014). Restorative discipline is an approach to dealing with conflict built on relational trust, with systems – including peace circles and peer or adult mediation – by which students reflect on any mistakes, repair damage to the community, restore relationships, and get counseling and other supports where needed. Restorative practices also

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 82 include universal interventions such as daily classroom meetings, discussions of how to manage feelings, and conflict resolution strategies.

Syntheses of research suggest that restorative practices result in fewer and less racially disparate suspensions and expulsions, fewer disciplinary referrals, improved school climate, higher quality teacher-student relationships, and improved academic achievement across elementary and secondary classrooms (Fronius, Persson, Guckenburg, Hurley, & Petrosino,

2016; Gregory, Clawson, Davis & Gerewitz, 2016). The more comprehensive and well-infused the approach, the stronger the outcomes. For example, a continuum model including proactive restorative exchanges, affirmative statements, informal conferences, large group circles, and restorative conferences, substantially changed school culture and outcomes rapidly in one major district, as disparities in school discipline were reduced every year for each racial group, and gains were made in academic achievement across all subjects in nearly every grade level

(Gonzalez, 2015). Creating an environment in which students learn to be responsible and are given the opportunity for agency and contribution can transform social, emotional, and academic behavior and outcomes.

Summary. Student learning and behavior benefit from explicit teaching of social- emotional skills and opportunities to practice those skills throughout the day. As teachers infuse skills such as self-management, empathy, collaboration, and responsible decisionmaking into instruction, and explicitly cultivate executive functions that support SEL through classroom routines and habits, they strengthen students’ abilities to focus and persevere in their learning.

Teachers also play an important role in shaping students’ beliefs about their own abilities, their sense of belonging, and their academic mindset. Self-efficacy is enhanced by a student’s confidence that effort increases competence. A growth mindset enables students to engage more

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 83 productively in academic pursuits and to persevere in the face of challenges. All of these are supported by an inclusive school environment that uses educative and restorative approaches to support behavior rather than relying on punitive methods that exclude and discourage students.

IV. Individualized Supports

As schools develop supportive environments for all children’s learning, they must also be prepared to address individual needs that can create barriers to learning and development. These may be the result of academic challenges or adverse childhood experiences, such as physical or mental illness, abuse, neglect, food or housing insecurity, exposure to violence, divorce, loss of a parent, or other difficulties. School environments that are trauma-sensitive incorporate a personalized approach to identify and address each child’s developmental needs and provide children with psychological safety, adult alertness and responsiveness, and necessary supports.

What the Science of Learning and Development Tells Us

Cognitive, social and emotional competencies develop within a complex system of contexts, interactions and relationships, all of which matter for children’s outcomes. Adversity and trauma occur in all communities, as does healthy development. In the context of adverse childhood experiences, excessive stress at home, school or in other aspects of the community can undermine brain development and learning, and have profound effects on children’s well-being.

Well-designed supports, including strong relationships as well as specific programs that prevent or buffer children against excessive stress, can reduce vulnerability (Spencer, 2007) and enable resilience and success even for children who have faced serious adversity and trauma (Canter et al., 2018; Osher et al., 2018). Teachers and other adults should be trained to work with children who have been traumatized and supported in the development of their skills and the management

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 84 of their own stress so that their actions can be experienced by students as being helpful and compassionate (Osher, Kidron, DeCandia, Kendziora, & Weissberg, 2016).

Principles of Practice

To address children’s needs as they occur, the science of learning and development suggests the following principles for practice:

1) Schools should create a collaborative multi-tiered system of supports to meet student

needs and address learning barriers both in and out of the classroom based on a

shared developmental framework uniting staff, families, and support providers.

2) Schools should develop internal student support structures (e.g. counseling and

student support teams) and coordinate access to integrated services (including

physical and mental health and social service supports) that enable children’s healthy

development, via on-site supports and partnerships with community providers.

3) Extended learning opportunities should be designed to support personalized

instruction and mentoring that nurture positive developmental relationships, support

mastery learning, and close achievement gaps.

Multi-tiered Systems of Support to Address Student Needs

A key aspect of creating a supportive environment is a shared developmental framework among all of the adults in the school, coupled with procedures for ensuring that students receive additional help for social-emotional or academic needs when they need them, without costly and elaborate labelling procedures standing in the way. Multi-tiered systems of support include multi-disciplinary student support teams, on site pupil services personnel (e.g., social workers, school psychologists, counselors, and nurses) who are skilled in culturally competent academic and behavioral assessment, care coordination, and family engagement with support teams.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 85

Most such systems include three tiers of support involving, first, promotion and prevention, selective intervention, and intensive intervention (Adelman & Taylor, 2008). The first tier is universal—everyone experiences it. Ideally, teaching strategies are grounded in universal designs for learning that are broadly successful with children who learn in different ways, as well as positive behavioral support strategies that are culturally and linguistically competent (Osher, Kidron, et al., 2016). Tier 2 services and supports address the needs of individuals who are at some elevated level of risk or who need some additional support in particular areas. The risk may be demonstrated by behavior (e.g., number of absences), by academic struggles (e.g. difficulty reading), or by having experienced a known risk factor (e.g., the loss of a parent). Tier 2 services could include academic supports (e.g. Reading Recovery, math tutoring, extended learning time) or family outreach, counseling, and behavioral supports.

Tier 3 services involve intensive interventions for individuals who are at particulary high levels of risk or whose needs are not sufficiently met by tier 2 interventions. Tier 3 services might include wraparound services and effective special education.

Interventions are tiered, not students, and supports can and should be provided in normative environments. Students are not “tier 2 or 3 students;” they receive services as needed for as long as needed but no longer. Providers should recognize that student have strengths in many areas and build upon student assets, not just focus on deficits. It is particularly important that Tier 2 and 3 services be implemented in a child- and family-driven manner that is culturally competent. This can maximize engagement and minimize errors that occur when students, families, or teachers are not asked about their context and needs. Interventions should minimize removal from the mainstream classroom or extracurricular environments and learning. These supports often benefit from collaboration with local service agencies and community-based

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 86 organizations with communication feedback loops to school-based staff. The key is that a whole child approach is taken whereby students are treated in connected, rather than fragmented ways, and care is personalized to the needs of individuals.

Helping staff and parents better understand child development is critical so that they can use information about children in productive ways to foster their deeper attachment and growth.

When staff and parents work together from a developmentally informed framework, substantial improvements occur for children. The School Development Program (SDP) is an example of this approach and illustrates how to enact many of the other SoLD principles (Comer, in press).

Building upon relationships and school culture to address 6 developmental pathways -- social- interactive, psycho-emotional, ethical, cognitive, linguistic and physical – the program establishes collaborative working relationships among principals, parents, teachers, community leaders, and health-care workers, teaching them about child development and grounding collective action in a shared developmental framework for multi-tiered supports (Darling-

Hammond, Cook-Harvey, Flook, Gardner, & Melnick, 2018). Research on the SDP shows that it helps reduce absenteeism and suspension, improves school climate and relationships among students and teachers, increases student self-competence and self-concept, and strengthens achievement (for reviews, see Darling-Hammond, Cook-Harvey, et al., 2018; Lunenburg, 2011).

Integrated Student Services

Awareness of the pervasiveness of student toxic stress across the income spectrum as well as growth of child poverty in economically traumatized communities has created additional demands for health, mental health, and social service supports that are needed for children’s healthy development and to address barriers to learning. A number of approaches have emerged to creating integrated student services, also called wraparound services, which link schools to a

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 87 range of academic, health, and social services. ISS programs address the reality that children whose families are struggling with poverty—and the housing, health and safety concerns that often go with it—cannot learn most effectively unless their nonacademic needs are also met. The goal is to remove barriers to school success by connecting students and families to service providers in the community, or bringing those services into the school.

Examples include Schools of the 21st Century in New Haven, Connecticut, the Children’s

Aid Society in New York City, the West Philadelphia Improvement Corps, and Communities in

Schools programs in 25 states, all of which have brought social services to schools through community partnerships for over 30 years. These and other models provide on-site child care and early childhood development; job training, transportation, and housing assistance for parents; health care and mental health services, child nutrition, and food assistance programs. A social worker or community school coordinator conducts needs assessments, partners with agencies outside the school, and tracks program data (Moore & Emig, 2014).

A research synthesis that examined 11 experimental and quasi-experimental studies of

ISS models found significant positive effects on student progress in school, attendance, mathematics and reading achievement, and overall grade point averages. These studies also found measurable decreases in grade retention, dropout rates, and absenteeism (Gravel, Opatrny,

& Shapiro, 2007). A study of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary

Education Wraparound Zones program, which set up partnerships with community groups to improve school climate and address students’ non-academic needs, found student outcomes on state English language arts and math assessments in wraparound schools were significantly better than those in matched schools (Gandhi, Slama, Park, Russo, Bzura, & Williamson, 2015).

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 88

Many of these features come together in well-designed community school models.

Community schools represent a place-based school improvement strategy in which “schools partner with community agencies and resources to provide an integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development, and community engagement”

(Coalition for Community Schools). Many operate year-round, from morning to evening, serving both children and adults. A recent review of 125 studies of community schools and their components – which include integrated services, family engagement, expanded learning time, and collaborative partnerships -- found significant evidence for the benefits of these approaches for student outcomes ranging from attendance and behavior to student achievement and graduation (Oakes, Meier, & Daniel, 2017). In these models, schools draw on a wide range of community and cultural resources to strengthen trust and build resilience as children have more support systems and people working together to help address the adversities they may face.

Extended Learning Time

Given the plasticity of the brain, and its experience dependency, the amount and consistency of cognitive stimulation matters. By high school, as much as two-thirds of the difference in achievement between affluent and low-income students is the cumulative result of summer learning loss for those who lack year-round enrichment and learning opportunities

(Alexander, Entwisle, & Olson, 2007), and lose about one month of achievement on average during the summer (Cooper et al., 1996).

Extending learning time is one way to address these gaps. Before and after school and summer programs can expand learning opportunities for students. Examples of out-of-school time (OST) enrichment activities include additional academic instruction, mentoring, and hands- on learning experiences, in music, art, and athletics. Research consistently documents the

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 89 benefits of such programs, with the greatest academic gains associated with frequent attendance in longer duration programs with high quality instruction (Oakes, Meier, & Daniel, 2017).

In a meta-analysis of 93 summer programs, Cooper and colleagues (2000) found positive impacts on knowledge and skills for middle- and low-income students from programs focused on both remediation and enrichment, with an average effect size of 0.25. The strongest effects were found for smaller programs and those that provided more individualized and small-group instruction. However, even the largest programs showed positive effects. Other reviews show similar effects (McCombs et al., 2011), and a review of effects for “at-risk” students found stronger outcomes for longer programs and those with both social and academic foci than for those that were academic alone (Lauer et al., 2006). Furthermore, as in other contexts, programs featuring tutoring in a content field such as reading had very substantial effects.

After school programs can also make a difference. A meta-analysis of 68 studies of afterschool programs – ranging from 21st Century Community Learning Centers, programs conducted by Boys and Girls and 4-H Clubs, and others – found positive impacts of participation on self-perception, bonding to school, social behaviors, school grades and levels of academic achievement, as well as signiﬁcant reductions in problem behaviors, compared with students in a control groups (Durlak, Weissberg, & Pachan, 2010). Notably, the afterschool programs that demonstate the most success implement practices that are consistent with SoLD principles: they build on youth, family, and community assets; build developmental relationships with youth and create a warm and welcoming environment; support skill building, and provide authentic opportunities for youth voice, choice, and leadership (Newman, Moroney, & Osher, in press).

Summary. Individualized supports for students can take many forms, including multi- tiered systems of support, access to an integrated system of services, and extended learning

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 90 opportunities. These supports aim to remove barriers to school success by reaching all students with the kind of support needed. Importantly, they connect students and families to services that promote holistic development, including children’s physical and mental health, as well as needed opportunities to learn, as these capacities are vital to social and academic success.

Conclusion

The foundational knowledge provided by the sciences of learning and development, coupled with decades of insights from educational research, provides a framework for supporting children’s welfare across the wide range of contexts they experience. This knowledge base indicates the importance of rethinking institutions designed a century ago based on factory- model conceptions of organizations that privileged standardization and minimized relationships.

It indicates how schools can be organized around developmentally-supportive relationships; coherent and well-integrated approaches to supports, including home and school connections; well-scaffolded instruction that intentionally supports the development of social, emotional, and academic skills, habits, and mindsets; and culturally competent, personalized responses to the assets and needs that each individual child presents. A summary of the four principles of practices with examples of each facet is provided in Table 1.

Implementing the breadth of practices covered here depends upon policies that enable schools to address the scale of re-organization required. Challenges to implementation include limitations of curriculum available to address the range of goals articulated here and the breadth of knowledge that teachers need to learn to adapt such curricula in ways that address students’ needs; limitations of current assessments for addressing learning aimed at transfer and higher order thinking and performance skills; and insufficient supports for teachers and administrators

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 91 at the school, district and state levels to develop the requisite knowledge base and dispositions to carry out the quality of teaching and organization of schools suggested here.

However, evidence from successful strategies and programs illustrates that it is possible to support productive learning and development for all young people. Analyses of ambitious, integrated approaches to education at the school, district, state, and national levels have shown that with intensive preparation, purposeful curriculum systems, and equitable resources, educators can create supportive environments for children and youth that enable healthy development and powerful learning, even for those who experience the adverse effects of poverty (see, for example, Darling-Hammond, 2010). These examples make it clear that broader application of this knowledge base cannot be the responsibility of teachers and principals alone.

Adequate support and preparation for educators alongside the development of thoughtful curriculum and assessments, as well as sound resource policy based on students’ needs, is required to achieve these goals at scale.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 92

Table 1 Practices Aligned with the Science of Learning and Development

I. Supportive Environment II. Productive Instructional Strategies

Structures for Effective Classroom Learning Connections among Student-centered Conceptual understanding Learning-to-learn Caring Communities staff and families instruction & Motivation Strategies

• Small schools • Intentional • Relational trust • Building on prior • Conceptual map of • Teaching • Small class size community- • Staff experience the domain metacognition + • Advisories building collaboration • Teaching to • Inquiry + explicit learning strategies • Block scheduling • Cultural • Home visits readiness instruction • Formative feedback, • Looping competence • Regular parent • Personalization • Motivating tasks with practice & revision • Teaching teams • Identity safety conferences • Collaborative skillful scaffolding • Mastery-oriented • Longer grade spans • Consistent • Authentic family learning • Interest-driven performance routines engagement • Cognitive supports learning assessment

III. Social and Emotional Development IV. Individualized Supports

Integration of Social Development of Educative & Multi-tiered systems of Extended learning Coordinated access to Emotional Skills Habits & Mindsets Restorative support (MTSS) opportunities integrated services Behavioral Supports • Teach intra- and • Teach executive • Teach students • Tier 1: Use • Before & after school • Wraparound health, inter-personal functions behavioral skills universal designs enrichment, mental health and skills, empathy, • Develop growth & responsibility for learning and mentoring, and social services conflict resolution, mindset, self- • Cultivate knowledge of child academic support • Community collaboration, efficacy, sense of community development • Summer learning partnerships responsibility belonging contributions • Tier 2: opportunities • Family & community • Integrate & • Use mindfulness, • Repair harm by Diagnostically • Tutoring engagement practice skills tools for stress making amends identify additional throughout the day management services needed • Tier 3: Provide intensive interventions

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 93

References

Abedi, J. (2010). Performance Assessment for English Language Learners. In Darling-

Hammond, L., & Adamson, F. (2014). Beyond the bubble test: How performance

assessments support 21st century learning. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Adelman, H.S. & Taylor, L. (2008). School-wide approaches to addressing barriers to learning

and teaching. In B. Doll & J. Cummings (Eds.) Transforming school mental health

services: Population-based approaches to promoting the competency and wellness of

children. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Afflerbach, P., Pearson, P. D., & Paris. S. (2008). Clarifying differences between reading skills

and reading strategies. The Reading Teacher.

Albanese, M.A. and Mitchell, S.A. "Problem-based Learning: A Review of Literature on Its

Outcomes and Implementation Issues." Academic Medicine, 1993; 68(1):52-81.

Alexander, K., Entwistle, D. and Olson, L. (2007). Schools, Achievement, and Inequality: A

seasonal perspective. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23: 171–191.

Alfieri, L., Brooks, P. J., Aldrich, N. J., & Tenenbaum, H. R. (2011). Does discovery-based

instruction enhance learning? Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(1), 1–18.

Ames, C. (1992). Classrooms: Goals, structures, and student motivation. Journal of Educational

Psychology, 84(3), 261.

Anderson, P. (2002). Assessment and Development of Executive Function (EF) During

Childhood. Child Neuropsychology, 8 (2). 71-82.

Aronson, J. (2002). Stereotype threat: Contending and coping with unnerving expectations. In J.

Aronson, Ed. Improving Academic Achievement: Impact of Psychological Factors on

Education (pp. 279-301). New York: Academic Press

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 94

Azevedo, F. S. (2013). The tailored practice of hobbies and its implication for the design of

interest-driven learning environments. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 22(3), 462-

510.

Azevedo, F. S. (2018). An inquiry into the structure of situational interests. Science Education,

102(1), 108-127.

Baker, L. (2002). Metacognition in comprehension instruction. In Block, C. & Pressley, M.

(Eds.). Comprehension instruction: Research-based best practices (pp. 77-95). New

York: The Guilford Press.

Barron, B. (2006). Interest and self-sustained learning as catalysts of development: A learning

ecology perspective. Human Development, 49(4), 193-224.

Barron, B. (2010). Conceptualizing and tracing learning pathways over time and setting.

National Society for the Study of Education Yearbook, 109 (1), 113-127.

Barron. B. & Darling-Hammond, L. (2008). How can we teach for meaningful learning? In

Powerful Learning: What we Know about Teaching for Understanding. San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass.

Barron, B., & Bell, P. (2015). Learning environments in and out of school. Handbook of

Educational Psychology, 323-336.

Barron, B. & Martin, C. K. (2016). Making Matters. A Framework for the Assessment of Digital

Media Citizenship. In K. Peppler, E.R. Halverson, & Y. Kafai (Eds.) Makeology:

Makers as Learners. Pp.45-71. New York: Routledge.

Bereiter, C. & Scardamalia, M. (2014). Knowledge building and knowledge creation: One

concept, two hills to climb. In S. C. Tan, H. J. So, J. Yeo (Eds.) Knowledge creation in

education (pp. 35-52). Singapore: Springer.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 95

Bergin, C., & Bergin, D. (2009). Attachment in the classroom. Education Psychology Review,

21, 141–170. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-009-9104-0

Bierman, K. L., Nix, R. L., Greenberg, M. T., Blair, C., & Domitrovich, C. E. (2008). Executive

functions and school readiness intervention: Impact, moderation, and mediation in the

Head Start REDI program. Development and Psychopathology, 20(3), 821–43.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579408000394

Black, P., & Wiliam, D. (1998). Assessment and classroom learning. Assessment and Education:

Principles, policy and practice, 5(1), 7–75.

Bloom, H.S., & Unterman, R. (2014). Can Small High Schools of Choice Improve Educational

prospects for Disadvantaged Students? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 33

(2): 290-319.

Blumenfeld, P. C., Puro, P., & Mergendoller, J. (1992). Translating motivation into

thoughtfulness. In H. H. Marshall (Ed.) Redefining Student Learning, 207-241, p. 209.

Ablex Publishing Corporation.

Boaler, J. (2002). Learning from teaching: Exploring the relationship between reform curriculum

and equity. Journal for research in mathematics education, 239-258.

Bogart, V. (2002). The Effects of Looping on the Academic Achievement of Elementary School

Students. East Tennessee State University.

Bransford, J. D., Brown, A. L., Cocking, R. R., Donovan, M. S., & Pellegrino, J. W. (2004).

How People Learn. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

Bransford, J. D., & Donovan, M. S. (2005). How students learn: History, mathematics, and

science in the classroom, 397-420.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 96

Bransford, J. D., & Schwartz, D. L. (1999). Rethinking transfer: A simple proposal with multiple

implications. In A. Iran-Nejad & P. D. Pearson (Eds.), Review of research in education,

24, 61–100. Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Brophy, J. (1998). Classroom management as socializing students into clearly articulated roles.

Journal of Classroom Interaction, 33 (1): 1-4.

Bryk, A. & Schneider, B. (2002). Trust in schools: A core resource for improvement. NY:

Russell Sage Foundation.

Bryk, A. S., Sebring, P. B., Allensworth, E., Easton, J. Q., & Luppescu, S. (2010). Organizing

schools for improvement: Lessons from Chicago. University of Chicago Press.

Burke, D. L. (1997). Multi-year teacher/student relationships are a long-overdue arrangement.

Phi Delta Kappan, 77(5), 360-361. EJ 516 053.

Cantor, P., Osher, D., Berg, J., Steyer, L., Rose, T. (2018). Malleability, Plasticity, and

Individuality: How Children Learn and Develop in Context. Applied Developmental

Science. DOI: 10.1080/10888691.2017.1398649

Carter, P. & Darling-Hammond, L. (2016). Teaching Diverse Learners. In Drew H. Gitomer

and Courtney Bell (Eds.), Handbook of Research on Teaching, 5th Edition (pp. 593-638).

Washington, DC: American Educational Research Association.

Center on the Developing Child. (2016). From best practices to breakthrough impacts: A

science-based approach to building a more promising future for young children and

families. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Center on the Developing Child.

Cherng, H.-Y.S. & Halpin, P.F. (2016). The importance of minority teachers: Student

perceptions of minority versus White teachers. Educational Researcher, 45(7): 407–420.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 97

Chi, M. T. H. (2000). Self-explaining expository tests: The dual process of generating inferences

and repairing mental models. In R. Glaser (Ed.), Advances in instructional psychology

(Vol. 161-238). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Chi, M. T., Bassok, M., Lewis, M. W., Reimann, P., & Glaser, R. (1989). Self‐explanations:

How students study and use examples in learning to solve problems. Cognitive science,

13(2), 145-182.

Chi, M. T. H., deLeeuw, N., Chiu, M. H., & LaVancer, C. (1994). Eliciting self-explanations

improves understanding. Cognitive Science(18), 439-477.

Coalition for Community Schools. (n.d.). What is a community school?. Washington, D.C.:

Coalition for Community Schools.

http://www.communityschools.org/aboutschools/what_is_a_community_school.aspx

Cobb, P., & Jackson, K. (2011). Towards an Empirically Grounded Theory of Action for

Improving the Quality of Mathematics Teaching at Scale. Mathematics Teacher

Education and Development, 13(1), 6–33.

Cohen, G. L., Garcia, J., Purdie-Vaughns, V., Apfel, N., & Brzustoski, P. (2009). Recursive

Processes in Self-Affirmation: Intervening to Close the Minority Achievement Gap.

Science, 324(5925), 400–403. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1170769

Cohen, E. G., & Lotan, R. A. (2014). Designing groupwork: Strategies for the heterogeneous

classroom. NY: Teachers College Press.

Cohen, G. L., Steele, C. M., & Ross, L. D. (1999). The Mentor’s Dilemma: Providing Critical

Feedback Across the Racial Divide. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25(10),

1302–1318.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 98

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2013). 2013 CASEL guide:

Effective social and emotional learning programs – Preschool and elementary school

edition. Chicago, IL.

Comer, J. (in press). Relationships, Developmental Contexts, and the School Development

Program, Applied Developmental Science.

Conley, D. (2011). Building on the common core. Educational Leadership, 68(6), 16-20.

Connell, J. P., Spencer, M. B., & Aber, J. L. (1994). Educational risk and resilience in African‐

American youth: Context, self, action, and outcomes in school. Child development, 65(2),

493-506.

Cooper, H., Charlton, K., Valentine, J. C., Muhlenbruck, L., & Borman, G. D. (2000). Making

the most of summer school: A meta-analytic and narrative review. Monographs of the

society for research in child development, 65(1), 1-127.

Cooper, H., Nye, B., Charlton, K., Lindsay, J., & Greathouse, S. (1996). The effects of summer

vacation on achievement test scores: A narrative and meta-analytic review. Review of

Educational Research, 66(3), 227-268.

Darling-Hammond, L. (2010). The flat world and education: How America’s commitment to

equity will determine our future. NY: Teachers College Press.

Darling-Hammond, L., & Adamson, F. (2014). Beyond the bubble test: How performance

assessments support 21st century learning. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

Darling-Hammond, L., Ancess, J., & Ort, S. W. (2002). Reinventing high school: Outcomes of

the coalition campus schools project. American Educational Research Journal, 39(3),

639-673.

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 99

Darling-Hammond, L., Barron, B., Pearson, P. D., Schoenfeld, A. H., Stage, E. K., Zimmerman,

T. D., & Tilson, J. L. (2008). Powerful learning: What we know about teaching for

understanding. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.

Darling-Hammond, L., Cook-Harvey, C., Flook, L., Gardner, M., & Melnick, H. (in press). With

the Whole Child in Mind: Insights and Lessons from the Comer School Development

Program. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Darling-Hammond, L., Ramos-Beban, N., Altamirano, R. P., and Hyler, M.E. (2016). Be the

change: Reinventing school for student success. New York: Teachers College Press.

Darling-Hammond, L., Ross, P., & Milliken, M. (2006). High school size, organization, and

content: What matters for student success? Brookings papers on education policy, 2006

(9), 163-203. Washington, D: Brookings Institution Press.

Darling-Hammond, L., Zielezinski, M.B., & Goldman, S. (2014). Using Technology to Support

At-Risk Students’ Learning. Washington DC: Alliance for Excellent Education.

Deutsch, M. (1992). The effects of training in conflict resolution and cooperative learning in an

alternative high school. Summary Report. Columbia University, New York: Teachers

College International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution.

Diamond, A., & Lee, K. (2011). Interventions shown to aid executive function development in

children 4 to 12 years old. Science, 333(6045), 959–64.

https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1204529

Duke, N. & Pearson, P.D. (2002). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. In

A. Farstrup & J. Samuels (Eds.), What research has to say about reading instruction (3rd

ed.) (pp. 205-242). Newark,DE: International Reading Association

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 100

Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The

impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-

based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405–32.

https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x

Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., & Pachan, M. (2010). A meta-analysis of after-school programs

that seek to promote personal and social skills in children and adolescents. American

Journal of Community Psychology, 45(3-4), 294–309.

Dweck, C. S. (2000). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development.

Psychology Press.

Dweck, C.S. (2017). Mindset, 2nd edition. NY: Brown, Little Book Group.

Eccles, J. S. (2005). Subjective task value and the Eccles et al. model of achievement-related

choices. In A.J. Elliot & C.S. Dweck (Eds.), Handbook of Competence and Motivation

(pp. 105-121). New York: Guilford Press.

Eccles, J. S., & Roeser, R. W. (2009). Schools, academic motivation, and stage‐environment

fit. Handbook of adolescent psychology. Wiley Publishing.

Eqalite, A. J., & Kisida, B. (2017). The Effects of Teacher Match on Students' Academic

Perceptions and Attitudes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.

Egalite, A. J., Kisida, B., & Winters, M. A. (2015). Representation in the classroom: The effect

of own-race teachers on student achievement. Economics of Education Review, 44- 52.

Englert, C. S., Raphael, T. E., & Anderson, L. M. (1992). Socially mediated instruction:

Improving students’ knowledge and talk about writing. The Elementary School Journal,

92(4), 411-449.

100

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 101

Ericsson, K. A. (2006). The Influence of Experience and Deliberate Practice on the Development

of Superior Expert Performance. In K. A. Ericsson, N. Charness, P. J. Feltovich, & R. R.

Hoffman (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 683-

703). New York, NY, US: Cambridge University Press.

Fan, X., & Chen, M. (1999). Parental involvement and students’ academic achievement: A meta-

analysis. Arlington, VA: National Science Foundation, National Center for Education

Statistics. ED430048.

Farrington, C. (2013). Academic Mindsets as a Critical Component of Deeper Learning.

University of Chicago: Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Farrington, C.A., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Keyes, T.S., Johnson, D.W., &

Beechum, N.O. (2012). Teaching adolescents to become learners. The role of

noncognitive factors in shaping school performance: A critical literature review.

Chicago: University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Felner, R.D., Seitsinger, A.M., Brand, S., Burns, A., Bolton, N. (2007). Creating Small Learning

Communities: Lessons From the Project on High-Performing Learning Communities

About “What Works” in Creating Productive, Developmentally Enhancing, Learning

Contexts, Educational Psychologist, 42(4), 209–221.

Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (2006). Dynamic development of action, thought, and emotion. In

W. Damon & R.M. Learner (Eds.), Theoretical Models of Human Development,

Handbook of Child Psychology, (6th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 319-399). New York: Wiley.

Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive–

developmental inquiry. American psychologist, 34(10), 906.

101

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 102

Freiberg, H. J., & Brophy, J. E. (1999). Beyond behaviorism: changing the classroom

management paradigm. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Freiberg, H. J., Huzinec, A.C., & Templeton, S. M. (2009). Classroom Management—a Pathway

to Student Achievement: A Study of 14 Innercity Elementary Schools. Elementary

School Journal, 110(1):63–80.

Friedlaender, D., Burns, D., Lewis-Charp, H., Cook-Harvey, C. M., Zheng, X., & Darling-

Hammond, L. (2014). Student-centered schools: Closing the opportunity gap. Stanford,

CA: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.

Fronius, T., Persson, H., Guckenburg, S., Hurley, N., Petrosino, A. (2016). Restorative Justice

in U.S. Schools: A Research Review. San Francisco: WestEd.

Furtak, E. M., Seidel, T., Iverson, H., & Briggs, D. C. (2012). Experimental and Quasi-

Experimental Studies of Inquiry-Based Science Teaching: A Meta-Analysis. Review of

Educational Research, 82(3), 300–329.

Gandhi, A., Slama, R., Park, S., Russo, P., Bzura, R., & Williamson, S. (2015). Focusing on the

whole student: Final report on the Massachusetts wraparound zones. Waltham, MA:

American Institutes for Research.

Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York, NY:

Teachers College Press.

George, P., & Alexander, W. (1993). Grouping students in the middle school. In The Exemplary

Middle School, 2nd edition, pp. 299-330. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace.

Georghiades, P. (2004). From the general to the situated: Three decades of metacognition.

International Journal of Science Education, 26(3), 365-383.

102

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 103

Gershenson, S., Hart, C.M.D., Lindsay, C.A., Papageorge, N.W. (2017). The Long-Run Impacts

of Same-Race Teachers. IZA Institute of Labor Economics. Retrieved from

http://ftp.iza.org/dp10630.pdf.

Ginsburg-Block, M.D., Rohrbeck, C.A., Fantuzzo, J.W. (2006). A meta-analytic review of

social, self-concept, and behavioral outcomes of peer-assisted learning. Journal of

Educational Psychology, 98, 732-749.

Glass, G.V., & Smith, M. (1979). Meta-analysis of class size and achievement. Educational

Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 1(1), 2-16.

Goldman, S. R., Britt, M. A., Brown, W., Cribb, G., George, M., Greenleaf, C., … READI, P.

(2016). Disciplinary Literacies and Learning to Read for Understanding: A Conceptual

Framework for Disciplinary Literacy. Educational Psychologist, 51(2), 219–246.

Goldman, S. & Pellegrino, J. (2015). Research on Learning and Instruction: Implications for

Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain

Sciences, Vol. 2(1) 33 –41.

Gonzalez, T. (2015). Socializing schools: Addressing racial disparities in discipline through

restorative justice. In D. J. Losen (Ed.), Closing the discipline gap. Columbia, NY:

Teachers College Press.

Gravel, J., Opatrny, L. & Shapiro, S. (2007, February). The intention-to-treat approach in

randomized controlled trials: Are authors saying what they do and doing what they say?.

Clinical Trials, 4(4), 350-356.

Gregory, A., Clawson, K., Davis, A., & Gerewitz, J. (2016). The promise of restorative practices

to transform teacher-student relationships and achieve equity in school discipline.

Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 26(4), 325-353.

103

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 104

Greenough, W., Black, J. E., & Wallace, C. S. (1987). Experience and brain development. Child

Development, 58, 539-559.

Gutierrez, K. & Rogoff, B. (2003). Cultural ways of learning: Individual traits or repertoires of

practice. Educational Researcher, 32(5), 19–25.

Hamedani, M. G., Zheng, X., Darling-Hammond, L., Andree, A., & Quinn, B. (2015). Social

emotional learning in high school: How three urban high schools engage, educate, and

empower youth.. Stanford, CA: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education.

Hammond, Z. (2016). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic

engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Thousand

Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Hampton, F., Mumford, D., & Bond, L. (1997). Enhancing urban student achievement through

family-oriented school practices. Education Research Service.

Harackiewicz, J. M., & Hulleman, C. S. (2010). The importance of interest: The role of

achievement goals and task values in promoting the development of interest. Social and

Personality Psychology Compass, 4(1), 42-52.

Hattie, J. & Gan, M. (2011). Instruction based on feedback. In R.E. Mayer & P.A. Alexander

(Eds.) Handbook of Research on Learning and Instruction (pp. 249-271), New York and

London: Routledge.

Hemphill, S. A., Toumbourou, J. W., Herrenkohl, T. I., McMorris, B. J., & Catalano, R. F.

(2006). The effect of school suspensions and arrests on subsequent adolescent antisocial

behavior in Australia and the United States. Journal of Adolescent Health, 39(5), 736-

744.

104

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 105

Henderson, A.T. & Mapp, K.L. (2002). A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School,

Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement. National Center for

Family & Community Connections with Schools. Retrieved from:

https://www.sedl.org/connections/resources/evidence.pdf

Hidi, S., & Renninger, K. A. (2006). The four-phase model of interest development. Educational

Psychologist, 41(2), 111-127.

Hogarth S, Bennett J, Lubben F., & Campbell B (2004) A systematic review of the use of small-

group discussions in science teaching: Review summary. In Research Evidence in

Education Library. EPPI Review Group for Science, Department of Educational Studies,

University of York.

Hmelo-Silver, C. E. (2004). Problem-based learning: What and how do students learn?

Educational Psychology Review, 16(3), 235-266.

Huberman, M., Bitter, C., Anthony, J., & O’Day, J. (2014). The shape of deeper learning:

Strategies, structures, and cultures in deeper learning network high schools. Report #1

Findings from the Study of Deeper Learning: Opportunities and Outcomes. Washington,

DC: American Institutes for Research.

Immordino‐Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of

affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, brain, and education, 1(1), 3-10.

Irvin, J.L. (1997). What current research says to the middle school practitioner. Columbus, OH:

National Middle Schools Association.

Irvine, J.J. (2003). Educating teachers for diversity: Seeing with a cultural eye. NY: Teachers

College Press.

105

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 106

Jeynes, W. H. (2012). A meta-analysis of the efficacy of different types of parental involvement

programs for urban students. Urban Education, 47(4), 706–742.

Jeynes, W. H. (2017). A meta-analysis: The relationship between parental involvement and

Latino student outcomes. Education and Urban Society, 49(1), 4–28.

Johnson, D. W.; Johnson, R. T.; Stanne, M. E. (2000). Cooperative Learning Methods: A Meta-

Analysis. Cooperative Learning Center website (www.clcrc.com).

Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R., Dudley, B., & Acikgoz, K. (1994). Effects of Conflict Resolution

Training on Elementary School Students. The Journal of Social Psychology, 134 (6),

803-817.

Jonassen, D., & Land, S. (Eds.). (2012). Theoretical foundations of learning environments.

Routledge.

Jones, S.M. & Bouffard, M.B. (2012). Social and emotional learning in schools: From programs

to strategies. Social Policy Report, 26(4), 1-33, Society for Research in Child

Development.

Juvonen, J., Le, V. N., Kaganoff, T., Augustine, C. H., & Constant, L. (2004). Focus on the

wonder years: Challenges facing the American middle school. Rand Corporation.

Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life.

New York: Hyperion.

Kang, Y., Gray, J. R., & Dovidio, J. F. (2014). The nondiscriminating heart: lovingkindness

meditation training decreases implicit intergroup bias. Journal of Experimental

Psychology. General, 143(3), 1306–1313. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034150

Kaplan, A., Gheen, M., & Midgley, C. 2002). Classroom goal structure and student disruptive

behavior. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 72 (2): 191-211.

106

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 107

Karp, D. R., & Breslin, B. (2001). Restorative justice in school communities. Youth &

Society, 33(2), 249-272.

Kim, J. (2006/2007). The relative influence of research on class-size policy. Brookings Papers

on Education Policy, 273-295. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.

Kluger, A. N., & DeNisi, A. (1996). Effects of feedback intervention on performance: A

historical review, a meta-analysis, and a preliminary feedback intervention theory.

Psychological Bulletin, 119(2), 254–284.

Korpershoek, H., Harms, T., de Boer, H., van Kuijk, M., & Doolaard, S. (2016). A Meta-

Analysis of the Effects of Classroom Management Strategies and Classroom

Management Programs on Students’ Academic, Behavioral, Emotional, and Motivational

Outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 86(3), 643–680.

Kuhl, P. (2000). A New View of Language Acquisition. Washington DC: National Academy of

Sciences.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American

Educational Research Journal, 32 (3): 465-491.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2009). The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American

Children, 2nd Edition. San Francisco: Wiley Publishers.

Lauer, P. A., Akiba, M., Wilkerson, S. B., Apthorp, H. S., Snow, D., & Martin-Glenn, M. L.

(2006). Out-of-school-time programs: A meta-analysis of effects for at-risk students.

Review of Educational Research, 76(2), 275–313.

Lazonder, A. W., & Harmsen, R. (2016). Meta-Analysis of Inquiry-Based Learning: Effects of

Guidance. Review of Educational Research, 86(3), 681–718.

107

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 108

Lee, C. D. (2007). Culture, literacy, and learning: Taking bloom in the midst of the whirlwind.

New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Lee, C. D. (2017). Integrating Research on How People Learn and Learning Across Settings as a

Window of Opportunity to Address Inequality in Educational Processes and Outcomes,

Review of Research in Education, pp. 1-24.

Lee, V. E., Bryk, A. S., & Smith, J. B. (1993). The organization of effective secondary schools.

In L. Darling-Hammond (ed.), Review of research in education, 19, 171-267.

Lee, V. E., & Loeb, S. (2000). School size in Chicago elementary schools: Effects on teachers'

attitudes and students' achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 37(1), 3-

31.

Lee, V. E., & Smith, J. B. (1995). Effects of high school restructuring and size on early gains in

achievement and engagement. Sociology of Education, 241-270.

LePage, P., Darling-Hammond, L., Akar, H. (2005). Classroom management. In L. Darling-

Hammond & J. Bransford, (Eds.) Preparing teachers for a changing world: What

teachers should learn and be able to do (pp. 327-357). San Francisco, CA: Wiley.

Lerman, R. (2008). Are skills the problem? Reforming the education and training system in the

United States. In T. Bartik & S. Houseman (Eds.), A future of good jobs? America’s

challenge in the global economy, pp. 17–80. Upjohn Publishers.

Lerner, R.M. & Callina, K. S. (2013). Relational Developmental Systems Theories and the

Ecological Validity of Experimental Designs: Commentary on Freund and Isaacowitz.

Human Development, 56, 372–380. doi: 10.1159/000357179

Lewis, R. (2001). Classroom discipline and student responsibility: The students’ view. Teaching

and Teacher Education, 17(3), 307–319.

108

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 109

Lim, D., Condon, P., & DeSteno, D. (2015). Mindfulness and compassion: an examination of

mechanism and scalability. PloS One, 10(2), e0118221.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118221

López, F. A. (2016). Culturally responsive pedagogies in Arizona and Latino students’

achievement. Teachers College Record, 118(5).

Losen, D.J. (2015). Closing the discipline gap. Columbia, NY: Teachers College Press.

Lunenburg, F. C. (2011). The Comer School Development Program: Improving education for

low-income students. National Forum of Multicultural Issues Journal, 8(1), 1-14.

Luthar, S.S., Barkin, S.H., & Crossman, E.J. (2013). “I can, therefore I must”: Fragility in the

upper-middle classes. Development and Psychopathology 25, 1529–1549

Major, B., & Schmader, T. (2018). Stigma, Social Identity Threat, and Health. The Oxford

Handbook of Stigma, Discrimination, and Health.

Mayer, G. R. (1995). Preventing antisocial behavior in the schools. Journal of Applied Behavior

Analysis, 28, 467–478.

McCombs, J. S., Augustine, C. H., Schwartz, H. L., Bodilly, S. J., McInnis, B. I., Lichter, D. S.,

& Cross, A. B. (2011). Making summer count: How summer programs can boost

children’s learning. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

Moll, L. C., Amanti, C., Neff, D., & Gonzalez, N. (1992). Funds of Knowledge for Teaching:

Using a Qualitative Approach to Connect Homes and Classrooms. Theory Into Practice,

31(2), 132–141.

Monte-Sano, C.& Reisman, A. (2015). Studying Historical Understanding. In L. Corno & E.

Anderman (Eds.), Handbook of Educational Psychology: 3rd Edition. Pp. 281-294.

Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

109

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 110

Moore, K.A. & Emig, C. (2014, February). Integrated student supports: A summary of the

evidence base for policymakers (White Paper #2014-05). Bethesda, MD: Child Trends.

Moreno, R. (2004). Decreasing cognitive load for novice students: Effects of explanatory versus

corrective feedback in discovery-based multimedia. Instructional science, 32(1), 99-113.

Mosteller, F. (1995). The Tennessee study of class size in the early school grades. The future of

children, 113-127.

Naftzger, N., Hallberg, K., & Tang, Y. (2014). Exploring the relationships between afterschool

program quality and youth outcomes: Summary of findings from the Palm Beach County

quality improvement system. Naperville, IL: American Institutes for Research.

Nasir, N.S., Rosebery, A. S., Warren, B., & Lee, C. D. (2014). Learning as a Cultural Process:

Achieving Equity Through Diversity. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of

the learning sciences (pp. 686-706). New York: Cambridge University Press.

National Research Council (NRC) (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable

knowledge and skills in the 21st century. J.W. Pellegrino & M.L. Hilton, Eds.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Research Council (NRC) (2000). How People Learn: Brain, mind, experience, and

school, Expanded edition. J.D. Bransford, A.L. Brown, and R.R. Cocking (Eds.),

Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

National Research Council (NRC) (2005). How students learn History, Mathematics, and

Science in the classroom. Suzanne Donovan & John Bransford (eds.) Washington, DC:

National Academy Press.

110

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 111

Newell, G. E., Beach, R. , Smith, J. and VanDerHeide, J. (2011), Teaching and Learning

Argumentative Reading and Writing: A Review of Research. Reading Research

Quarterly, 46: 273-304. doi:10.1598/RRQ.46.3.4

Newman, J., Moroney, D., & Osher, D. (in press) Out-of-School Programs in Osher, Moroney, &

Williamson, in press.

Nieto, S. (2002). Language, culture, and teaching: Critical perspectives for a new century.

Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Noguera, P., Darling-Hammond, L., & Friedlaender, D. (2017). Equal opportunity for deeper

learning. In R. Heller, R. Wolfe, & A. Steinberg (eds.), Rethinking readiness: Deeper

learning for college, work, and life, pp. 81-104. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.

Oakes, J., Maier, A., & Daniel, J. (2017). Community Schools: An Evidence-Based Strategy for

Equitable School Improvement. Boulder, CO: National Education Policy Center and Palo

Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.

Okonofua, J. A., & Eberhardt, J. L. (2015). Two strikes: Race and the disciplining of young

students. Psychological Science, 26(5), 617-624.

Osher, D., Bear, G., Sprague, J., & Doyle, W. (2010). How we can improve school discipline.

Educational Researcher, 39(1), 48–58.

Osher, D., Cantor, P., Berg, J., Steyer, L., Rose, T. (2018). Drivers of Human Development:

How Relationships and Context Shape Learning and Development. Applied

Developmental Science. DOI: 10.1080/10888691.2017.1398650

Osher, D. & Kendziora, K. (2010). Building conditions for learning and healthy adolescent

development: Strategic approaches. In B. Doll, W. Pfohl, & J. Yoon (Eds.) Handbook of

Youth Prevention Science. New York: Routledge.

111

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 112

Osher, D., Kidron, Y., Brackett, M., Dymnicki, A., Jones, S., & Weissberg, R. P. (2016).

Advancing the science and practice of social and emotional learning: Looking back and

moving forward. Review of Research in Education, 40, 644–681.

Osher, D., Kidron, Y., DeCandia, C. J., Kendziora, K., & Weissberg, R. P. (2016). Interventions

to promote safe and supportive school climate. In K. R. Wentzel & G. B. Ramani (Eds.),

Handbook of Social Influences in School Contexts (pp. 384–404). NY: Routledge.

Paas, F., Renkl, A., & Sweller, J. (2003). Cognitive load theory: Instructional implications of the

interaction between information structures and cognitive architecture. Instructional

science, 32(1-2), 1-8.

Pea, R. D. (1987). Cognitive technologies for mathematics education. In A. Schoenfeld (Ed.),

Cognitive science and mathematics education (pp. 89-122). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence

Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Pearson, P.D., Cervetti, G.N., & Tilson, J.L. (2008). Reading for understanding. In Powerful

Learning: What we Know about Teaching for Understanding. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Pennington, C. R., Heim, D., Levy, A. R., & Larkin, D. T. (2016). Twenty years of stereotype

threat research: A review of psychological mediators. PLoS ONE, 11(1), e0146487.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0146487.

Penuel, W. R., & Fishman, B. J. (2012). Large-scale science education intervention research we

can use. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 49(3), 281–304.

Podolsky, A. & Darling-Hammond, L. (forthcoming). A living laboratory of deeper learning:

The case of Bank Street School of Education. Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.

Podolsky, A., Kini, T., Bishop, J., & Darling-Hammond, L. (2016). Solving the teacher shortage:

How to attract and retain excellent educators. Palo Alto, CA: Learning Policy Institute.

112

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 113

Raffaele Mendez, L. M. (2003). Predictors of suspension and negative school outcomes: A

longitudinal investigation. In J. Wal & D. J. Losen (Eds.), Deconstructing the school-to-

prison pipeline (pp. 17–34). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Renninger, K., Hidi, S. (2017). The Power of Interest for Motivation and Engagement. New

York: Routledge.

Rockoff, J.E. & Lockwood, B.B. (2010). Stuck in the middle: Impacts of grade configuration in

public schools. Journal of Public Economics, 11-12, 1051-1061.

Roderick, M., Kelley-Kemple, T., Johnson, D.W., & Beechum, N.O. (2014). Preventable Failure

Improvements in Long-Term Outcomes when High Schools Focused on the Ninth Grade

Year. Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Roorda, D. L., Koomen, H. M., Spilt, J. L., & Oort, F. J. (2011). The influence of affective

teacher–student relationships on students’ school engagement and achievement: A meta-

analytic approach. Review of Educational Research, 81(4), 493–529.

Rose, T., Rouhani, P., & Fischer, K. W. (2013). The science of the individual. Mind, Brain, and

Education, 7(3), 152–158.

Rosenshine, B., & Meister, C. (1994). Reciprocal teaching: A review of research. Review of

Educational Research, 64, 479-530.

Ryan, R.M. & Deci, E.L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic

motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55 (1): 68-78.

Pressley, M. (1998). Comprehension strategies instruction. In J. Osborn & F. Lehr (Eds.),

Literacy for all: Issues in teaching and learning (pp. 113-133). New York: Guilford

Press.

113

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 114

Scardamalia, M., Bereiter, C., & Lamon, M. (1994). The CSILE project: Trying to bring the

classroom into the world. In K. McGilly (Ed.), Classroom lessons: Integrating cognitive

theory & classroom practice. (pp.201-228). MA: MIT Press.

Schwartz, D. L. (1995). The emergence of abstract representations in dyad problem solving.

Journal of the Learning Sciences, 4(3), 321-354.

Schmader, T., & Johns, M. (2003). Converging evidence that stereotype threat reduces working

memory capacity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 440-452.

Schwab, J. (1978). Education and the structure of the disciplines. In J. Westbury & N. Wilkof

(Eds.), Science, curriculum,and liberal education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Schwerdt, Guido, and Martin R. West. (2013). The impact of alternative grade configurations on

student outcomes through middle and high school. Journal of Public Economics, 97, 308-

326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2012.10.002

Sergiovanni, T. J. (1994). Building community in schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Sheets, R. H., & Gay, G.G. (1996). Student perceptions of disciplinary conflict in ethnically

diverse classrooms. NASSP Bulletin, 80I (580): 84-94.

Shulman, L. (1992, September-October). Ways of seeing, ways of knowing, ways of teaching,

ways of learning about teaching. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 28, 393-396.

Siegel, D. J. (2013). Brainstorm: The power and purpose of the teenage brain. New York, NY:

Penguin Putnam.

Skiba, R. J., Arredondo, M. I., & Rausch, M. K. (2014). New and developing research on

disparities in discipline. Bloomington, IN: The Equity Project at Indiana University.

Simmons, R. G. and D. A. Blyth (1987). Moving Into Adolescence: The impact of pubertal

change and school context. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine.

114

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 115

Spencer, M. B. (2007). Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of

Diverse Groups. In Handbook of Child Psychology. American Cancer Society.

https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470147658.chpsy0115

Spencer, M. B. (2008). Lessons learned and opportunities ignored since Brown v. Board of

education: Youth development and the myth of a color-blind society. Educational

Researcher, 37, 253–266.

Spencer, M.B., Noll, E., Stoltzfus, J., & Harpalani, V. (2001). Identity and school adjustment:

Revisiting the" acting White" assumption. Educational Psychologist, 36(1), 21-30.

Stafford-Brizard, K.B. (2016). Building Blocks for Learning – A Framework for Comprehensive

Student Development. New York: Turnaround for Children.

Stecher, B.M. & Bohrnstedt, G.W. (Eds.). (2002). Class size reduction in California: Findings

from 1999 – 00 and 2000 – 01. Sacramento, CA: California Department of Education.

Steele, C.M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual identity and

performance. American Psychologist, 52(6): 613-29.

Steele, C.M. (2011). Whistling Vivaldi: How stereotypes affect us and what we can do. New

York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Steele, D. M., & Cohn-Vargas, B. (2013). Identity safe classrooms: Places to belong and learn.

Corwin Press.

Stiggins, R., & Chappuis, J. (2005). Using Student-Involved Classroom Assessment to Close

Achievement Gaps. Theory Into Practice, 44(1), 11–18.

Stipek, D. J. (1996). Motivation and instruction. In D. C. Berliner & R. C. Calfee (Eds.),

Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 85–113). New York: Macmillan.

115

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 116

Taylor, R. D., Oberle, E., Durlak, J. A., & Weissberg, R. P. (2017). Promoting Positive Youth

Development Through School‐Based Social and Emotional Learning Interventions: A

Meta‐Analysis of Follow‐Up Effects. Child development, 88(4), 1156-1171.

Tenenbaum, H. R., & Ruck, M. D. (2007). Are teachers' expectations different for racial

minority than for European American students? A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational

Psychology, 99(2), 253-273.

Tharp, R.G., Estrada, P., Dalton, S., Yamaguchi, L.A. (2000). Teaching transformed: Achieving,

excellence, fairness, inclusion, and harmony. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Thorndike, E. L. (1931/1968). Human learning. New York: The Century Co.

Townsend, B. (2000). The disproportionate discipline of African American learners: Reducing

school suspensions and expulsion. Exceptional Children, 66, 381–392.

Tyrrell, F., Scully, T., & Halligan, J. (1998). Building peaceful schools. Thrust for Educational

Leadership, 28(2), 30–33.

Turnaround for Children (2016). Classroom and Behavior Management (CBM) Unit Overview.

Tyack, D. B. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education (Vol. 95).

Harvard University Press.

Villegas, A. M., & Lucas, T. (2002). Educating culturally responsive teachers: A coherent

approach. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Walshaw, M. & Anthony, G. (2008). Creating Productive Learning Communities in the

Mathematics Classroom: An International Literature Review, Pedagogies: An

International Journal,3:3, 133-149, DOI: 10.1080/15544800802026595

116

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 117

Wasley, P. A., Fine, M., Gladden, M., Holland, N. E., King, S. P., Mosak, E., & Powell, L. C.

(2000). Small schools: Great strides, A study of new small schools in Chicago. Bank

Street College of Education, New York, NY.

Weissberg, R. P., Durlak, J. A., Domitrovich, C. E., & Gullotta, T. P. (2015). Social and

emotional learning: Past, present, and future. In J. A. Durlak, C. E. Domitrovich, R. P.

Weissberg, & T. P. Gullotta (Eds.), Handbook of social and emotional learning:

Research and practice (pp. 3-19). New York: Guilford.

Wigfield, A., & Cambria, J. (2010). Students’ achievement values, goal orientations, and

interest: Definitions, development, and relations to achievement outcomes.

Developmental Review, 30(1), 1-35.

Wineburg, S., Martin, D., & Monte-Sano, C. (2011). Reading Like a Historian: Teaching

Literacy in Middle and High School History Classrooms. Teachers College Press.

See also curriculum materials at https://sheg.stanford.edu/.

Wolters, C.A. (2011). Regulation of motivation: Contextual and social aspects. Teachers

College Record, 113 (2), 265-283.

Woronowicz, S. (1996). Block scheduling in the High School. Researchers Digest. Princeton,

NJ: Educational Research Service.

Yeager, D. S., & Walton, G. M. (2011). Social-psychological interventions in education: They’re

not magic. Review of Educational Research, 81(2), 267–301.

Yip, T. (2018). Ethnic/racial identity—A double-edged sword? Associations with discrimination

and psychological outcomes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(3), 170-

175.

117

Practice that Supports Learning and Development 118

Yoder, N. (2014). Teaching the Whole Child: Instructional Practices That Support Social-

Emotional Learning. American Institutes for Research.

Zenner, C., Herrnleben-Kurz, S., & Walach, H. (2014). Mindfulness-based interventions in

schools-A systematic review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 603.

118

Applied Developmental Science

ISSN: 1088-8691 (Print) 1532-480X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hads20

Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context1

Pamela Cantor, David Osher, Juliette Berg, Lily Steyer & Todd Rose

To cite this article: Pamela Cantor, David Osher, Juliette Berg, Lily Steyer & Todd Rose (2018): Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context1, Applied Developmental Science, DOI: 10.1080/10888691.2017.1398649 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2017.1398649

Published online: 24 Jan 2018.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 104

View related articles

View Crossmark data

none defined Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context1 Pamela Cantora,b, David Osherc, Juliette Bergc , Lily Steyera , and Todd Roseb,d aTurnaround for Children; bHarvard Graduate School of Education; cAmerican Institutes for Research; dCenter for Individual Opportunity

ABSTRACT This article synthesizes foundational knowledge from multiple scientific disciplines regarding how humans develop in context. Major constructs that define human development are integrated into a developmental system framework, this includes—epigenetics, neural malleability and plasticity, integrated complex skill development and learning, human variability, relationships and attachment, self-regulation, science of learning, and dynamics of stress, adversity and resilience. Specific attention is given to relational patterns, attunement, cognitive flexibility, executive function, working memory, sociocultural context, constructive development, self-organization, dynamic skill development, neural integration, relational pattern making, and adverse childhood experiences. A companion article focuses on individual-context relations, including the role of human relationships as key drivers of development, how social and cultural contexts support and/or undermine individual development, and the dynamic, idiographic developmental pathways that result from mutually influential individual-context relations across the life span. An understanding of the holistic, self-constructive character of development and interconnectedness between individuals and their physical, social, and cultural contexts offers a transformational opportunity to study and influence the children’s trajectories. Woven throughout is the convergence of the science of learning – constructive developmental web, foundational skills, mindsets (sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and growth mindset), prior knowledge and experience, motivational systems (intrinsic motivation, achievement motivation, and the Belief-Control-Expectancy Framework), metacognition, conditions for learning , cultural responsiveness and competence, and instructional and curricular design- and its importance in supporting in integrative framework for children’s development. This scientific understanding of development opens pathways for new, creative approaches that have the potential to solve seemingly intractable learning and social problems.

Recent decades have witnessed an explosion of inadequacies in our education systems, other child- knowledge about how children develop into whole serving systems, and the supports that we provide to individuals, how they become learners, and how families, practitioners, and communities. contextual factors nourish or hinder their development. The ability to realize the fullest potential of this This knowledge comes from diverse fields, including knowledge is limited, paradoxically, by both the neuroscience, developmental science, epigenetics, early richness of the knowledge itself as well as the particular childhood, psychology, adversity science, resilience disciplinary structures, paradigms, and traditional science, the learning sciences, and the social sciences. incentives that have supported its creation (e.g., Kuhn, To date, such knowledge has existed largely in separate 1970). On the one hand, recent scientific advances fields of research, and has not been integrated such that include the accumulation of research, theory, and prac- its profound relevance to developmental processes tice-based knowledge about the constructive, socially, becomes both visible and directly applicable to the set- and culturally embedded nature of development tings in which children grow and learn. As a result, (e.g., Osher et al., 2016; Overton, 2015); advances in important knowledge remains underutilized, our ability to model idiographic, nonergodic biological, contributing to persistent disparities, challenges, and human, and social factors (e.g., Lerner, 2015; Rose,

CONTACT Juliette Berg [email protected] American Institutes for Research, 1000 Thomas Jefferson Street NW, Washington, DC, 20007, USA. 1References in this document are illustrative due to space constraints and do not represent all citations used to inform this review. Please see online extended reference list for the full set of citations that helped inform this review. © 2017 Pamela Cantor, David Osher, Juliette Berg, Lily Steyer, and Todd Rose This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc- nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. Published with license by Taylor & Francis 2 P. CANTOR ET AL.

Rouhani, & Fischer, 2013), and advances in the array of use of mathematical methods and models from dynami- methods and measurement tools now available (e.g., cal systems theory that allow for the study of mutually Entwisle, Hofferth, & Moran, 2017; van der Maas & influential individual-context relations across the life Molenaar, 1992). On the other hand, prevailing disci- span, with “context,” including all levels of organization plinary paradigms often reflect and beget delimited ranging from the inter-biological through the designed questions, measures, epistemes, and frameworks; and natural environment, culture, and history research teams often lack disciplinary and/or cultural (Overton, 2015). diversity; publishing in one’s own disciplinary journal is Woven throughout this article and its companion often most highly rewarded; and funders often have nar- article, DST provides a useful, flexible framework for row priorities. As such, there exists a great need to align seeing how multiple factors—both within an individual and synthesize this increasingly vast, field-specific body and his/her micro- and macro-environments—act of knowledge from biology, neuroscience, psychology, together to shape how children learn, change, and and the social sciences (e.g., Fedyk, 2015; Wilson, 1999) systematically grow across the developmental within a dynamic, holistic, contextualized framework. continuum. It enables us to view, as information to study This integration can be accomplished in a manner that and act upon, the variability in behavior and perfor- resolves apparent dichotomies, offers additional perspec- mance that manifests daily in children and adults. DST tives on existing research findings (Fischer & Bidell, underscores such variability as both the norm of human 2006) and supports further research and development developmental processes and a source of valuable insight (R&D) efforts to better understand and support the about the nature of development itself. It also helps us to healthy development and learning of all children. better understand the drivers of that variability, explain Developmental systems theories (DST; e.g., Ford & observed variability in developmental range and the Lerner, 1992; Overton, 2015), and associated dynamic sequencing and pacing of skill acquisition, and identify systems mathematical models and methods, provide a stable patterns in variability that emerge and generalize rich architecture to do so (e.g., Cairns, Elder, & Costello, over time. Ultimately, DST offers a means to organize 1996; Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Mortimer & Shanahan, and explain how complex relations involving our biologi- 2006; Overton, 2015). At its heart, DST is a general cal and physiological systems, social environments, and theoretical perspective on development, heredity, and appraisals, interpretations, and internalizations of our evolution that departs from dichotomous views of experiences shape pathways across life and provide development (Oyama, Griffiths, & Gray, 2001). It goes opportunities to optimize development. beyond “conventional interactionism” between genes Along with its companion article, this article and environment, producing a “truly epigenetic view synthesizes salient research regarding learning and of development” as an ongoing, constructive enterprise development from individual fields, emphasizing where between the individual and multiple biological, there is a convergence of evidence across multiple disci- psychological, and sociocultural systems and agents plines and lines of inquiry as well as where sufficient over time (Griffiths & Hochman, 2015, p. 2; Lickliter convergence does not exist. The findings presented in & Witherington, 2017). DST draws from numerous the article come from a variety of correlational, longi- diverse fields and the work of many researchers, tudinal, and causal studies; our approach was not to rely including those synthesized in this article. solely on causal evidence, but rather to triangulate DST enables an understanding of the rich complexity across multiple sources. First, we solicited and reviewed and “pervasive variability” in human development and recommendations for critical works from experts in the activity that previous stage-based theories could not, identified scientific fields. Next, we systematically and and is a response to the need for a developmental theory comprehensively identified and reviewed meta-analyses, that could explain patterns of both stability and varia- peer-reviewed literature reviews, and handbook chap- bility in children’s performance across diverse contexts ters that synthesized research over the last two decades. (Fischer & Bidell, 2006, p. 314). It is built around two In some cases, we supplemented these sources with basic principles grounded in relational dynamic systems empirical and/or theoretical studies to nuance and theory: (a) multiple characteristics of individuals and validate our findings. Our sources either integrated an context collaborate to produce all aspects of behavior area of research with an established body of knowledge and (b) variability as well as stability in performance or presented findings that have been reproduced in provide important information for understanding multiple studies. We tempered our language where the human development (Rose & Fischer, 2009). To literature shows less consistency because the science generate meaningful, applicable data about patterns of is more nascent and/or pronounced disagreements human stability and variability, DST informs and makes remain. To vet our source selections and validate our APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 3 findings, we sent multiple drafts to experts in relevant can pave the way for substantial innovations in practice; fields and conducted two face-to-face invitational for the supports we provide to teachers, families, and meetings (in October 2016 and June 2017) at which communities; and for the design of our education and we presented the final research report and the com- child-serving systems more broadly. panion manuscripts (Berg, Osher, Cantor, Steyer, & Rose, 2016; Osher, Cantor, Berg, Steyer, & Rose, Key findings 2017a, 2017b). This article and its companion piece update our findings and situate them within a powerful, In synthesizing foundational knowledge from multiple unifying framework that integrates bioecological, scientific disciplines regarding how human beings relational, and contextual factors. develop in context, several overarching themes emerge. In this article, we first summarize the key findings of These themes are captured in Table 1. our study. We then synthesize and integrate a broad and deep literature of how human beings develop, situating Human development and epigenetics this knowledge within a DST frame. We include the role of multilevel adaptive processes in shaping brain and “Positive development” emerges from the integration of complex skill development, with specific attention several individual and contextual systems, from the to the integration of affective, cognitive, social, and biological and physiological to the cultural and emotional dimensions; the progressive, holistic, indivi- historical (e.g., Spencer, 2007). As summarized by dualized processes of learning, including critical foun- Fischer and Bidell (2006): “There is no separation of dational skills2 such as self-regulation; the impact of nature and nurture, biology and environment, or brain adversity; and the opportunities suggested by research and behavior, but only a collaborative coordination on attachment, relationships, and resilience. This article between them” (p. 383). concludes with an integrated summary across these In this contextual and relational developmental lines of research and introduces its companion article. systems framework, the life cycle of an organism is The companion article, “Drivers of Human Develop- not prefigured in a genetic program (Griffiths & ment: How Relationships and Context Shape Learning Hochman, 2015; Moore, 2015; Witherington & and Development,” provides a still deeper exploration Lickliter, 2016). Rather, genes act as followers, not of context-individual relations within a dynamic devel- prime movers, in developmental processes. As packages opmental systems frame. It focuses on the role that rela- of biological instructions, genes require signals to tionships and micro- and macro-contextual relational, determine which processes are carried out, with social cultural, and structural factors play in supporting or and physical contexts influencing if, when, how, and undermining the healthy development of children and which genes are expressed (Keating, 2016; Moore, youth. Specifically, the companion article examines 2015; Slavich & Cole, 2013). This conception of important contexts (e.g., families, schools) and actors development runs counter to genetic reductionist views (e.g., teachers, peers), the characteristics of such con- of evolutionary change that see genes as the primary texts and actors that affect development, social factors mover in human development; to trait theories that that undermine development (e.g., institutionalized posit that temperament, intelligence, and personality racism, poverty, lack of support for adult caregivers), are determined by genes; and to conceptions of develop- and strategies and contextual supports that can prevent ment as a static, fixed-stepped ladder (Fischer & Bidell, or buffer the effects of those undermining factors. We 2006; Lerner & Overton, 2017). believe that greater visibility into and understanding Epigenetic adaptation is the biological process of these dynamic, integrated processes, coupled with through which the ecology of relationships, experiences, the availability of new methods and measurement tools, perceptions, and physical and chemical toxins get “under the skin” and influence lifelong learning, behavior,

2 neural integration, and health (Bernstein, Meissner, & In this article, we define foundational skills according to the definition provided by Stafford-Brizard (2016). Identified through research in the Lander, 2007). Chemical signals derived from environ- fields of neuroscience and child development, such skills are those that all mental influence—“epigenetic signatures”—affect when children need for healthy development and learning, including the bonds that children make with adults, which provide emotional security; the skills and how genes are switched on and off, and whether to cope with and manage stressful conditions; and the regulation of the change is temporary or permanent. This process emotion and attention to effectively engage and accomplish goals. Research has demonstrated that chronic stress and adversity, often begins before conception (via parental experiences) experienced by children growing up in poverty, significantly impacts the and contributes to the transmission of behaviors and development of brain regions responsible for such skills. As a result, many children do not enter school with skills for controlling impulses, focusing experiences to future generations (e.g., Keating, 2016; attention, or organizing thinking in a goal-oriented fashion. Meaney, 2010), as well as to qualitative changes in our 4 P. CANTOR ET AL.

Table 1. Summary of key findings. Science of Learning and Development—Key Findings I. Human development depends upon the ongoing, reciprocal relations between individuals’ genetics, biology, relationships, and cultural and contextual influences. • Human development occurs within nested, interlinked micro- and macro-ecological systems that provide both risks and assets to development and affect development both directly and indirectly. • Epigenetic adaptation is the biological process through which these reciprocal individual-context relations create qualitative changes to the expression of our genetic makeup over time, both within and across generations. • Genes are chemical “followers,” not the prime movers, in developmental processes; their expression at the biological level is determined by contextual influences. • The development of the brain begins prenatally and continues in one developmental continuum well into young adulthood. Opportunities for change, intervention, and growth exist across the developmental continuum, with particularly sensitive periods in both early childhood and adolescence. • Developmental systems theory and associated dynamic systems mathematical models provide a holistic, contextualized framework within which to integrate diverse, field-specific scientific knowledge, enabling a deeper understanding of the developing brain and whole child in context. • Intergenerational transmission is rooted in biological and social processes that begin before a child is born. Preventing the negative impacts of adversity can prevent the transmission of adversity and its many risks to development to future generations. Conversely, building individual and environmental assets can promote the intergenerational transfer of adaptive systems and opportunities. II. Each individual’s development is a dynamic progression over time. a. The human brain is a complex, self-organizing system. b. Neural plasticity and malleability enable the brain to continually adapt in response to experience, which serves as a “stressor” to brain growth across development. c. Each individual’s development is nonlinear; has its own unique pacing and range; features multiple diverse developmental pathways; moves from simplicity to complexity over time; and includes patterns of performance that are both variable and stable. d. Whole child development requires the integration and interconnectivity—both anatomically and functionally—of affective, cognitive, social, and emotional processes. Though these processes—particularly cognition and emotion—have historically been dichotomized, they are inextricably linked, co-organizing and fueling all human thought and behavior. e. The development of complex dynamic skills does not occur in isolation; it requires the layering and integration of prerequisite skills and domain-specific knowledge, as well as the influence of contextual factors. f. Inter- and intra-individual variability in skill construction and performance—both of which are highly responsive to contextual influences and supports—is the norm. The optimization of development requires an understanding of both stability and variability in growth and performance. III. The human relationship is a primary process through which biological and contextual factors mutually reinforce each other. a. The human relationship is an integrated network of enduring emotional ties, mental representations, and behaviors that connect people over time and space. b. Attachment patterns are formed through shared experiences of co-regulation, attunement, mis-attunement, and re-attunement. Though important in shaping future relationship patterns, early patterns remain open to change as children re-interpret, appraise, and re-appraise past experiences in light of new ones. c. Developmentally positive relationships are foundational to healthy development, creating qualitative changes to a child’s genetic makeup and establishing individual pathways that serve as a foundation for lifelong learning and adaptation. d. Developmentally positive relationships are characterized by attunement, co-regulation, consistency, and a caregiver’s ability to accurately perceive and respond to a child’s internal state. These types of relationships align with a child’s social-historical life space and provide protection, emotional security, knowledge, and scaffolding to develop age-appropriate skills. e. The establishment of developmentally positive relationships can be intentionally integrated into the design of early care and educational settings, practices, and interventions. IV. All children are vulnerable. In addition to risks and adversities, micro- and macro-ecologies provide assets that foster resilience and accelerate healthy development and learning. a. Children’s development is nested within micro-ecological contexts (e.g., families, peers, schools, communities, neighborhoods) as well as macro-ecological contexts (e.g., economic and cultural systems). These contexts encompass relationships, environments, and societal structures. b. Adversity, through the biological process of stress, exerts profound effects on development, behavior, learning, and health. c. Resilience is a common phenomenon wherein promotive internal and external systems integrate to facilitate the potential for positive outcomes, even in the face of significant adversity. As no two children draw from the same combination of experiences and supportive resources, resilience pathways are diverse, and yet can lead to equally viable and complex adaptation and, ultimately, well-being and thriving. d. Environments and societal structures include the differential allocation of assets and risks, as well as the impact of differing belief systems about roles, talents, learning, and other factors viewed as driving personal success. While factors such as poverty and institutional racism makes poor outcomes more likely, family and community assets must be recognized, as they can protect children from short- and long-term negative consequences. e. Adult buffering can prevent and/or reduce unhealthy stress responses and the resulting negative consequences for children. As such, building and supporting adult capacities are critically important priorities. f. Early care and educational settings that provide developmentally rich relationships and experiences can buffer the effects of stress and trauma, promote resilience, and foster healthy development. Meanwhile, developmentally unsuitable and/or culturally incongruent contexts can exacerbate stress, hinder the reinforcement of foundational competencies, and impel maladaptive behaviors. V. Students are active agents in their own learning, with multiple neural, relational, experiential, and contextual processes converging to produce their unique developmental range and performance. This holistic, dynamic understanding of learning has important implications for the design of personalized teaching and learning environments that can support the development of the whole child. a. Diverse scientific fields converge to describe the holistic, complex, dynamic, contextualized processes that describe how children develop as learners. b. A powerful organizing metaphor through which to understand the dynamic interrelationships governing children’s development and knowledge and skill construction is that of the “constructive web.” c. Key factors that affect learning are internal attributes (including prior knowledge and experiences; well-developed habits, skills, and mindsets; and motivational and metacognitive competencies) and critical elements of the learning environment (including positive developmental relationships; environmental conditions for learning; cultural responsiveness; and rigorous, evidence-based instructional and curricular design). d. Foundational skills such as self-regulation, executive functions, and growth mindset lay the groundwork for the acquisition of habits skills and mindsets including both higher-order skills (e.g., agency, self-direction) and domain-specific knowledge. e. Motivation and metacognition are important, interrelated skills for effective learning. These competencies enable and encourage students to initiate and persist in tasks, recognize patterns, develop self-efficacy, evaluate their own learning strategies, invest adequate mental effort to succeed, and intentionally transfer knowledge and skills to solve increasingly complex problems. f. Instructional and curricular design can optimize learning. Together, well-scaffolded, engaging, relevant, and rigorous content; personalized contextual supports in multiple modalities; and evidence-based, mastery-oriented pedagogies embedded in well-designed, interdisciplinary projects can balance what students already know with what they need and want to know. (Continued) APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 5

Table 1. Continued. Science of Learning and Development—Key Findings g. Interpersonal and environmental conditions for learning (CFL) impact learning processes both directly and indirectly through their effects on cognition (e.g., cognitive load), student and teacher stress, and the relational dimensions of learning (e.g., attunement, trust). High-support conditions that recognize students’ individual starting points and strengths can facilitate deeper learning while increasing developmental range, performance, and mastery. h. Culture is a critical component of context. Cultural competence and responsiveness can address the impacts of institutionalized racism, discrimination, and inequality; promote the development of positive mindsets and behaviors; and build self-efficacy in all students, particularly those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. i. Skill development occurs in all ecologies, cultures, and social fields. Next to the family, early care and education settings are the most important social contexts in which early development unfolds. j. Research and development (R&D) efforts can be enriched, and progress accelerated, by employing dynamic systems analysis techniques and rapid-cycle improvement science methodologies to identify positive variation in developmental pathways and apply this knowledge at scale. k. The design of education and other child-serving systems—and surrounding policy environments—cannot bet on the resilience of children alone. Rather, such systems must capitalize on the opportunities presented by the translation of developmental science to the design of contexts and practices, therein supporting a fully personalized approach to whole child development and the expression of human potential. l. Dramatic improvements in outcomes and equity depend on public and political will. Sound policies to foster whole child development and practice must be grounded in rigorous science; implemented with quality; measured with an understanding of the formative progression of individual development; and adopted at scale, with cultural competence and equitable outcomes as explicit goals. genetic makeup, both within and across generations of synaptic connections), myelination (which increases (Moore, 2015; Slavich & Cole, 2013). “processing speed”), and the modification of receptor density and sensitivity of “receiving” neurons. As expressed in the Hebbian notion that “neurons that fire Brain structure and function together, wire together” (Hebb, 1949), patterns of coac- The human brain is a dynamic, living system that exists tions with the environment result in the repeated acti- in relation to the other systems of the body. The human vation of certain neural pathways, reinforcing them mind emerges from the development of the brain and through subtle, rapid shifts in synaptic organization exists to guide and interpret human activity (Fischer and strength. As these circuits become increasingly & Bidell, 2006; Siegel, 2012). The development of the stable, they contribute to the emergence of enduring brain is an experience-dependent process; in fact, states of mind and increasingly complex thoughts, skills, neurons and neural tissue are the most susceptible to and behavior in individuals. Meanwhile, such changes are change from experience of any tissue in the body. balanced against pruning or cell death. Whereas pruning Experience is a “stressor” to brain growth—throughout occurs naturally and is typically a healthy process, it can life, interpersonal experiences and relational connec- be disproportionately increased under prolonged stressful tions activate neural pathways, generating energy flow conditions. Enriched environments have the opposite through electrical impulses that strengthen connectivity effect, allowing for healthy pruning and enhanced neural among existing brain structures and create new ones. integration (B. D. Perry, 2001; B. D. Perry & Szalavitz, Experience shapes not only what information enters 2017; Siegel, 2012). the mind but also the mind’s ability to process that The brain receives signals from different its regions, information. If experiences are interpersonally rich, other systems throughout the body, and the outside predictable, and patterned, and if stressful experiences world. The processing functions of the brain integrate are not overwhelming, the brain becomes more connec- information from these diverse sources into templates ted, integrated, and functionally capable over time, —representations of various types of stimuli—so that increasing its adaptivity and resilience to future stress. the brain gains meaning. Templates are drawn from The brain is a complex system whose own internal prior affective, cognitive, social, and emotional processes organize its functioning—a property known experiences, including some that are not remembered as “self-organization.” At birth, the infant’s brain is consciously. The brain tags predicted, patterned the most undifferentiated organ in the body (Siegel, experiences as “normal,” integrates them into existing 1999). Genetic and epigenetic processes, in concert with templates, and does not continue to focus on them. early experience, shape neuronal connections and give Meanwhile, when experiences are unpredictable, rise to neural circuits that enable increasingly complex atypical, and/or unusually harmful, the brain cannot mental activities (Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Moore, easily fit them into existing templates and pays attention 2015; Slavich & Cole, 2013). The differentiation of to them. This tendency is particularly important with neural circuits involves several processes, including respect to templates generated by early traumatic neurogenesis (the formation of new brain cells), axonal experiences and/or other experiences of severe, recur- growth, synaptogenesis (the formation and strengthening rent stress; the brain can become habituated to negative 6 P. CANTOR ET AL. templates, failing to identify them as abnormal (B. D. variation and patterns of order in variation. Consistent Perry, 2001; Siegel, 2012). Templates that are negatively with the notion that “skills beget skills” (Heckman & biased by experiences of trauma and adversity can Masterov, 2007, p. 447), the web metaphor recognizes engender significant alterations in the pathways for com- the interdependent, hierarchical character of skill con- plex skill construction, impacting their developmental struction, with complex skills emerging as earlier skills range and the sequencing of important subskills (for are integrated into an inclusive whole. It enables an further discussion, see section on the Science of Stress; understanding that skills vary within individuals based Ayoub, Fischer, & O’Connor, 2003; Fischer, Bullock, on goals, emotional states, and contextual supports— Rotenberg, & Raya, 1993; Marshall, 2015; Mascolo & producing a child’s developmental range—and that a Fischer, 2015; Vygotsky, 1978). child’s performance within that range can be optimized Environmental and interpersonal experiences under conditions of high, personalized support (e.g., influence the growth of the brain throughout childhood Bloom, 1984; Fischer & Bidell, 2006). Furthermore, it and well into adulthood. Whereas the early period is highlights the way in which skills are constructed for particularly important for self-regulatory processes, participation in specific tasks and contexts, and, over middle childhood and adolescence provide new and time, can and will generalize to other contexts unique opportunities for ongoing growth and reorgani- (e.g., Fischer & Immordino-Yang, 2002). Finally, the zation toward more complex, integrated processes, and web metaphor enables an understanding of individual skills (Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006). and cross-cultural developmental diversity as alternative pathways for growth, rather than as deficits (Mascolo & Fischer, 2015). Developing brain and dynamic skill 3 DST and the related web metaphor stand at variance development to static views of skill development as a ladder of fixed Dynamic skill development refers to the human brain’s steps or stages. Although nomothetic-oriented develop- capacity to act in an organized way in a specific context mental theories (e.g., stage conceptions proposed by (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Mascolo & Fischer, 2015). Its Kohlberg, 1974 and Piaget, 1970) have helped to explain driving force is the movement from simplicity to com- general (i.e., normative or average) features of children’s plexity; rather than emerging fully formed, skills are thinking and behavior, they do not explain the widely built up through practice in context in a constructive observed departures from that consistency, nor do they process over time. The brain’s drive to complexity is present robust conceptions of between-person variation consistent with the principles of nonlinear dynamic in intra-individual change (Emmerich, 1968; Lerner, systems; such systems have self-organizing properties, 2017; Rose, 2016). When these theories are applied to are nonlinear, and are recursive over time (Molenaar children’s development, a child’s competence and & Nessleroade, 2014, 2015; Overton, 2015; Siegel, 1999). performance can only be considered “low” or “high” A powerful metaphor for the development of com- relative to the one pathway deemed “normal.” None- plex dynamic skills is that of the “constructive web” theless, such theories have shaped virtually all research (Bidell & Fischer, 1992; Fischer, Yan, & Stewart, and theory in cognitive development to date (Rose & 2003). Within the web, the strands represent pathways Fischer, 2009). along which a child develops simultaneously, with By contrast, modern neo-Piagetian frameworks, pathways demonstrating responsiveness to emotion which are consistent with the web metaphor, build upon and support, the capacity for resilience, and variability the contributions of the Piagetian perspective to provide in sequence, synchrony, and developmental range. ways to study the longstanding “problem” of “pervasive The web metaphor supports thinking about skill con- variability” in human development and behavior struction as an active process between multiple agents, (Fischer & Bidell, 2006, p. 314; Rose & Fischer, 2009). with the resulting skills and behaviors ultimately joint Using dynamic systems modeling, such frameworks products of the child and the resources and relation- allow us to observe multiple pathways with differential ships that comprise his or her context (Fischer & Bidell, sequencing for the acquisition of a given skill, such as 2006). The metaphor emphasizes other core characteris- reading (Fischer, Rose, & Rose, 2007). Neo-Piagetian tics of skill development, including the fundamental frameworks do not do away with the concept of stages principle of malleability; integration of affective, entirely; indeed, skills may show stage-like jumps in cognitive, social, and emotional dimensions; contextual development over certain time periods, particularly (including cultural) specificity; and existence of both when a person performs at his or her optimal level under conditions of high support (Rose & Fischer, 3This section draws from Fischer and Bidell (2006). 2009). Ultimately, by enabling us to understand the APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 7 variability in pathways for complex skill development increasing ability to autonomously regulate the self and performance, this approach paves the way for and moving the child into progressively complex forms new, diverse educational practices and strategies that of interrelationship with environment and experience are personalized to learners’ specific developmental (Siegel, 2012). trajectories and needs (e.g., Fischer, Bernstein, & The first year of life is especially important, as Immordino-Yang, 2007). sensory, social, and emotional experiences offer opportunities to optimize foundational brain circuits. Early attunement balances excitatory and inhibitory systems The science of relationships and attachment in the brain; establishes templates for coordinated The relationships and experiences that guide the matu- interpersonal behaviors, attitudes, and expectations ration of a child’s developing neurobiological systems about the self, others, and relationships; and enables are themselves nested within larger micro- and macro- the healthy development of neurobiological systems systems (Slavich & Cole, 2013). Relational integration involved in cognition, stress modulation, and self- and —found in strong interpersonal connections that emotional regulation (e.g., Feldman, 2015; Halfon, respect each person’s autonomy and individuality while Shulman, & Hochstein, 2001; Knafo & Jaffee, 2013). linking him/her in empathic communication with Longitudinal research reveals that, absent effective others—promotes neural integration, leading to intervention, early relational patterns between infants strengthened linkages between existing synapses, and parents influence how children later interact with regions, and functions that are critical for the develop- teachers and peers (Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, ment of more intricate brain processes and skills (Siegel, 2005). The child-caregiver relationship continues to be 1999, 2012). Positive developmental relationships are an important influence as children develop (e.g., Sroufe, characterized by warmth, consistency, attunement, 2005), and key adults—parents, teachers, and other reciprocity, and joint activity, including the sharing providers—have the capacity to attune to, reorient and transfer of power and the scaffolding of learning attachment to, and establish positive relationships (Center on the Developing Child, 2016; Li & Julian, with children and youth well into adulthood 2012). In combination with positive (and positively (e.g., Siegel, 2012). perceived) experiences inside and outside the home Three developmental patterns characterize variation (Center on the Developing Child, 2016), such relation- in infants’ attachment: secure, insecure avoidant, and ships build strong brain architecture and are necessary insecure anxious/ambivalent (Ainsworth, Blehar, for developing the affective, cognitive, social, emotional, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Shaver, Collins, & Clark, 1996). and behavioral competencies foundational to develop- Disorganized attachment, which is associated with ment and learning—including development and learn- abuse and trauma, is often included as a fourth pattern ing that we often take for granted, such as language (e.g., Cicchetti, 1990). In each pattern, children develop development (e.g., Sroufe, 2005). Stable, responsive a working model of close relationships grounded in relationships that encourage adaptive epigenetic early experiences (Fischer & Bidell, 2006). Secure signatures—and buffer experiences that contribute to attachment with caregivers supports development maladaptive epigenetic signatures—represent powerful through opportunities to (a) explore surroundings; (b) levers to optimize children’s developmental potential. build language skills, through language-rich and respon- Relational pattern making involves emotional sive interactions; and (c) build social competence, responses, executive functions, reward and motivation through successful social interactions (e.g., Institute of systems, and sensorimotor systems; it occurs through Medicine & National Research Council, 2015). sequences of attunement (sensing what others think Emotional or physical rejection, hostility, lack of and need), mis-attunement, and re-attunement (Kim, appropriate responsiveness, and unpredictability can Strathearn, & Swain, 2016). In the first months of life, threaten healthy attachment, attunement, and relational social synchrony—the coordination of social behavior and neural integration. One particularly significant between caregiver and infant in gaze, vocalization, cause of dysregulation is postpartum depression, which affect, and touch—triggers biological synchrony in heart affects 10 to 20% of new mothers and between 4 and rhythms, oxytocin levels, and neural circuits, helping 26% of new fathers—and can be drastically higher for the caregiver and infant bond. During that time, the caregivers with histories of depression and stress hor- caregiver coregulates both the infant’s and his/her mone dysregulation (e.g., Kim et al., 2016). Caregivers own emotional arousal and physical needs (e.g., Kim experiencing postpartum depression and/or other et al., 2016). At toddler age, coregulation transitions to adversities may demonstrate less capacity to buffer chil- “caregiver-guided” regulation, reflecting the child’s dren’s stress. In turn, prolonged periods of unbuffered, 8 P. CANTOR ET AL. unregulated stress can disrupt the structure and func- metacognitive, and academic development processes; tioning of critical neurobiological systems, including modulate experiences of stress; and enable productive the brain, neuroendocrine system, and immune system engagement with the social and physical world (e.g., (e.g., Bucci, Marques, Oh, & Harris, 2016). In this way, Almlund, Duckworth, Heckman, & Kautz, 2011; Dweck, disorganized attachment endangers the development of Walton, & Cohen, 2011; Farrington et al., 2012; foundational competencies, including executive func- Nagaoka et al., 2015). tions, emotion recognition, and social information Executive functions are the set of neurocognitive processing (e.g., Blair & Raver, 2016). Children with dis- attention-regulation skills involved in the conscious, organized attachment patterns in their families may goal-directed modulation of thought, emotion, and meet needs for later attachment in ways that are positive action (e.g., Blair & Diamond, 2008). Executive func- (e.g., strong adult and peer relations) or negative (e.g., tions involve both top-down, intentional control of early pregnancy). behavior as well as bottom-up, automatic reactions. Though theories of attachment often posit relatively Although precise definitions differ, common concep- fixed, one-way influences of emotions on development, tions of executive function include the following new analytical tools provide greater visibility into more components: attention control (voluntarily focusing on dynamic, complex relations (Fischer & Bidell, 2006) a specific task), cognitive flexibility (also called attention over time. Emotions can act as biasing forces that shape shifting, and commonly combined with attention developmental pathways in both positive and negative control, switching from one task/demand to another, ways (Ayoub et al., 2003). Although there is some and considering others’ perspectives), working memory stability in attachment patterns across individual devel- (holding and manipulating information in the short opment, children’s working models remain open to term), and inhibitory control (mastery and filtering of change as they constantly appraise and reappraise past thoughts and impulses to resist habits, temptations, experiences in light of new relationships and experi- distractions, and thinking before acting) (e.g., Center ences over time (e.g., Waters, Merrick, Treboux, on the Developing Child, 2016; S. M. Jones et al., 2016). Crowell, & Albersheim, 2000). Effective interventions Executive functions are necessary for more complex can help families at risk for poor attachment relation- self-regulation-related skills, such as focus, self-control, ships create positive, reciprocal, and nurturing relation- perspective taking, communication, problem solving, ships with their children (Furlong et al., 2012). making connections, taking on challenges, and self- directed, engaged learning (e.g., S. M. Jones et al., 2016). By preparing children to pay attention, follow Science of self-regulation rules, and actively engage in learning, executive func- Self-regulation skills and attributes—hereafter referred tions are fundamental to learning readiness and school to under the umbrella term “self-regulation”— success (Zelazo, 2015). The development of executive encompass a foundational set of competencies that aid function begins early and, like other elements of in managing cognition, emotion, attention, and action, self-regulation, can be intentionally nurtured in early and support goal-directed behavior (e.g., Blair & childhood, family, and school settings (S. M. Jones Diamond, 2008). They are distinct from attitudes, et al., 2016). beliefs, and mindsets, and involve multiple regulatory- Self-regulation skills and attributes are critical for related processes that range from automated physiologi- success in school and life, and there is a strong evidence cal functions (e.g., circadian rhythm) to effortful, base to support their vital contribution to short- and complex cognitive processes that unfold over time long-term social, emotional, cognitive, academic, finan- (Gestsdottir & Lerner, 2008). In this article, we include cial, and health outcomes (e.g., Blakemore & Bunge, under the umbrella term of self-regulation the skills 2012; D. E. Jones, Greenberg, & Crowley, 2015; Mischel, that comprise executive function (described further in 2014; Murry, Hill, Witherspoon, Berkel, & Bartz, 2015). the following sections) as well as other important Self-regulation skills are important prerequisites for regulation-related skills, such as effortful control, self- skills associated with school readiness and higher-order control, emotion and behavior regulation, and problem learning, including decision making, problem solving, solving (S. M. Jones, Bailey, Barnes, & Partee, 2016). As self-direction and organization, metacognition, learning with other dynamic, complex skills, self-regulation from educational experience and practice, conflict involves the coordination and integration of simpler, resolution, perseverance, and resilience (e.g., Flouri, foundational skills (e.g., S. M. Jones et al., 2016). Separ- Midouhas, & Joshi, 2014; Gardner, Dishion, & Connell, ately and collectively, self-regulation skills contribute to 2008; S. M. Jones et al., 2016; Stafford-Brizard, 2015). adaptive affective, cognitive, social, emotional, Self-regulation-related skills also have powerful APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 9 interpersonal implications, including promoting better Science of individuality relationships with teachers and peers (Raver, Garner, The science of individuality is grounded in dynamic & Smith-Donald, 2007) and being seen by teachers as systems theories (e.g., Thelen & Smith, 2006) and starts evidence of greater academic and social competence with the premises that individuals vary in how they (Blair & Diamond, 2008). More broadly, self-regulation learn, behave, and develop; that these processes vary skills are associated with greater engagement in according to context; and that there are patterns within school, increased likelihood of graduating from that variability (e.g., Rose et al., 2013). The science of college, and better health and wealth in adulthood individuality has implications for diverse areas of (e.g., Zelazo, 2015). research, from the growth of cancer cells to the evol- Self-regulation is a useful example of a complex ution of literacy and social behavior to the develop- dynamic skill. It forms through the many interrelation- mental impact of adversity. Research grounded in ships between and among various subskills and this science enables us to move beyond explanations collaborating internal systems—interrelationships that of global patterns of behavior to examine intra-indi- are visible in the continuous feedback loop between vidual differences in performance across diverse con- emotion regulation, executive functions, motivation, texts, such as why a child can recite the alphabet for and stress management. By stimulating the brain’s her parents at home, but not for her teacher at school self-organizing and reorganizing properties and inte- (Rose & Fischer, 2009). The principles of this science grating subsystems of skills, this feedback loop gives rise are consistent with a range of fields, including research to the capacity to self-regulate and, ultimately, gives on the differential effects of interventions (Kellam, meaning to experiences, including stressful experiences. Koretz, & Mościcki, 1999), the historical and phenom- Indeed, the coordination and mutual reinforcement of enological factors that affect individual responses to these subsystems are thought to underlie the associations adversities (Spencer, 2007), and the neurobiological between self-regulation and important child outcomes, factors involved in individual differences in plasticity such as school readiness and academic competence (e.g., and susceptibility to environmental influences S. M. Jones et al., 2016). (e.g., Johnson, Riis, & Noble, 2016). Intentional self-regulation is initiated when a person A major implication of the science of individuality consciously sets out to attain a goal and/or when routine is that there is no single “ideal” developmental pathway activities are impeded. Intentional self-regulation for everyone; instead, there are multiple pathways to includes well-researched skills such as effortful control, healthy development, learning, academic success, and as well as the abilities to implement goal-related strate- resilience (e.g., Rose et al., 2013). Rather than gies (e.g., delayed gratification), optimize goals to align study averages, research should start with a focus on with personal and social values and desired abilities, and understanding patterns in individual variation compensate in the face of blocked or lost goals. In the across contexts, and then build toward generalizable context of learning, intentional self-regulation is a models of growth and learning—an “analyze, constructive process whereby children set goals for their then aggregate” approach that captures the full learning and then continue to monitor or control their richness and complexity of development (Rose et al., cognition, metacognition, motivation, and behavior 2013). based on the assessment of success or failure in Individual differences in plasticity and susceptibility attaining their goals (Baltes, 1997; Gestsdottir & Lerner, to the environment can work in beneficial and/or harm- 2008; S. M. Jones et al., 2016). ful ways (S. W. Cole, 2014). For example, children with A growing body of evidence highlights the specific greater susceptibility may realize better outcomes when vulnerability of self-regulation skills to experiences of securely attached, yet realize more negative outcomes in prolonged, unbuffered stress, as well as the importance contexts of disorganized attachment (e.g., Bakermans- and efficacy of intervening to intentionally develop Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn, 2007). The notion of dif- self-regulation skills in children with impulsivity and ferential susceptibility highlights powerful opportunities attention issues (e.g., Barkley, 2012; Jimenez, Wade, to intervene in the lives of children who experience the Lin, Morrow, & Reichman, 2016; Shonkoff et al., greatest dysregulation in the face of stress and adversity. 2012). Effective interventions that foster self-regulation These children also may be more malleable and stand to and executive functions can prepare children who have benefit most—in the context of supportive, enriched experienced poverty-related adversities to successfully environmental supports and interventions (e.g., engage in learning and better succeed in school (e.g., Johnson et al., 2016). A similar principle may be Blair & Raver, 2014; Center on the Developing Child, applied to developmental periods in which children 2016; Diamond & Ling, 2016). 10 P. CANTOR ET AL. demonstrate heightened plasticity to environmental feedback), the study of learning has extended in recent influences. years to include influences on the development of the To capture the range of variability in human whole child in context (Lerner, Liben, & Mueller, development and skill acquisition, researchers should 2015). With this focus has come a deeper understand- increasingly assess developmental pathways of different ing of the internal and external factors that co-act to individuals through the Specificity Principle (Bornstein, impact children’s learning readiness, processes, and 2017) and of different groups through dynamic non- performance. This section highlights some of the core linear statistical approaches. The Specificity Principle insights in learning science that emerge from this views development as multidimensional, modular, and dynamic, contextualized, holistic view. Ultimately, by reflective of the interactive context of a child’s life, pro- shedding light on the diverse developmental pathways ducing distinctive pathways across time and at specific through which children acquire increasingly complex points in time. It addresses key questions about the skills, develop motivation, identify intentionality as moderating influence of practices and/or interventions learners, and fully engage and perform, this integrated —including the character of a specific effect, on a perspective can help to align instruction and specific child, at a specific time, under a specific set of school design with children’s individual capacities contextual conditions—to produce a specific set of and needs, therein facilitating developmentally competencies, behaviors, performance activities, or oriented, culturally responsive approaches to domain growth (Fischer & Rose, 2001; Rose et al., 2013). In a mastery, the personalization of learning, and whole complementary manner, structural analyses and child development (Bloom, 1984; Fischer & Rose, dynamic growth modeling enable the precise examin- 1994; Vygotsky, 1978). ation of source(s) of variation within nonlinear systems of hierarchical complexity, particularly when such Revisiting the constructive developmental web methods address intersectionality (Fischer & Kennedy, 1997; Hartelman, van der Maas, & Molenaar, 1998; As described previously, a powerful metaphor and Singer & Willett, 2003; van Geert, 1991, 2003) and do framework through which to understand the dynamic not generalize findings to all human beings or all interrelationships between children’s development, members of a group (M. Cole, 1996, Fischer & Bidell, knowledge, complex skill construction, and environ- 2006; Ghavami, Katsiaficas, & Rogers, 2016; Spencer, mental supports is that of the “constructive web” 2017; Wachs, 2015). (Fischer & Bidell, 2006). Applied specifically to learning processes, this framework positions the student as an active agent in his/her own learning; acknowledges 4 Science of learning the many relational, instructional, curricular, and The diverse scientific fields reviewed for this article environmental factors that support or undermine converge around developmental principles that include learning; recognizes that skills—derived from affect- malleability, variability, integration, specificity, rela- ive, cognitive, social, and emotional processes—do tional support, cognition, emotion, and the importance not emerge in isolation or a complete form, but rather of sociocultural context in the expression of human codevelop hierarchically through multiple domain- potential. This set of ideas is particularly applicable specific practices in context; assumes the need for to the learning sciences, where DST provides a flexible, effective scaffolding, sequencing, and pacing within a coherent organizing framework for integrating and child’s unique developmental range; and ultimately sequencing diverse bodies of scientific work. Although characterizes students’ learning trajectories as joint much is known about the mechanics of learning (e.g., products of their individual attributes (both the benefits of spacing for practice, the use of multiple cognitive and affective) and the dynamic web of modalities, differentiated interventions to address contextual supports surrounding him/her over time domain-specific challenges, and important considera- (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Lerner, in press; Rose et al., tions regarding the type, frequency, and quality of 2013). This framework enables us to understand both inter- and intra-individual variation in skill 4Throughout this section, we define “content” in regard to facts, principles, construction and performance as the norm, not the and ideas. Following the tradition in cognitive developmental theory that exception, and positions us to employ research knowledge involves (and is revealed by) internalized individual-context (e.g., Piaget, 1970) and externalized individual-context actions (e.g., methods, mathematical models, and pedagogical Brandtstädter, 1998, 2006), we define “knowledge” as including the ability practices that honor the diversity and holism of to use such content to decide and do complex tasks. Knowledge infuses learning and continuously reflects the coactions between the individual ongoing, dynamic relations between the child and and his or her world. his/her context and goals. APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 11

The integration of affective, cognitive, social, and Foundational skills and mindsets, such as self- emotional processes in habits, skills, and regulation, executive function, intrapersonal awareness, mindsets to support learning a sense of belonging, self-efficacy, and a growth mindset, contribute to learning success and lay the The constructive web highlights the integrative groundwork for the acquisition of higher-order skills, character of students’ affective, cognitive, social, and such as agency, resilience, and self-direction (Stafford- emotional processes, which are both anatomically Brizard, 2016), all of which underpin the acquisition cross-wired and functionally interrelated (e.g., Overton, of domain-specific skills. Both lower- and higher-order 2015). From this perspective, Overton’s caution to avoid skills are malleable and can be intentionally developed all splits is relevant. Although it is always possible to (Osher et al., 2016). Collectively, the integration of focus at a point in time on a specific feature of the inte- foundational affective, cognitive, social, and emotional grated developmental system, such distinctions should processes into habits, skills, and mindsets that support not be enacted if they pose a risk to reintegrating all learning is critical to students’ school and life success “pasts” into a synthesis that affords an understanding (e.g., Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007). of the whole child. Skill development and acquisition can occur in all Multiple neural systems—not merely those ecologies of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 2005; historically associated with cognition—contribute to Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006), including the school, core processes involved in learning, including atten- family, out-of-school contexts, workplace, and broader tion, concentration, memory, and knowledge transfer social fields and cultural spheres (Boell & Senge, 2016). and application. These molecular and behavioral inter- In a similar way, the fuel for students’ interest in—and relationships are particularly noteworthy in the case of work to master—domain-specific skills can be connections between emotion and cognition, which generated from multiple sources. This understanding many common cultural assumptions have artificially of skill construction acknowledges that although all dichotomized (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Rogoff, 2003, children do not have the same starting point in life, 2011). Cognition typically involves the processing or nor do they follow identical pathways, they can appraisal of information, whereas emotion involves nevertheless succeed in developing higher-order the biasing or constraint of behavior and activities complex skills. Like other complex skills, higher- based on such appraisals (Fischer & Bidell, 2006). In order cognitive skills have pathways that can be this way, emotion and cognition co-organize all human nurtured if grounded in an understanding of the thought and activity, and are inextricably linked. At the importance of foundational skills and the specificity same time, children’s social and affective bonds provide and variability of developmental pathways (Stafford- the “fuel” or energy flow for the development and use of Brizard, 2016). the brain’s self-organizing system and the resulting integration and cross-wiring of neural processes (Siegel, 1999). These interrelationships underlie Prior knowledge and experience research findings demonstrating the powerful influence of affective, social, and emotional processes on lower- These integrated processes and skills influence and are and higher-order cognitive development and skill influenced by other internal resources that children acquisition (e.g., Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007; bring to learning, including prior knowledge and Osher et al., 2016). experience. Students are not “blank slates”—they are Emotions can have powerful effects on developmen- active agents who bring to school prior knowledge tal pathways, including those specific to learning, and experiences (whether correct or incorrect) of how whether caused by cultural norms, acute events such the world works; beliefs about themselves, their as trauma, or coactions among circuits of affective intelligence, and learning; epistemological beliefs; regulation (e.g., anxiety) and systems involved in body domain-specific knowledge; and cultural knowledge, regulation (e.g., heart rate), sensation (e.g., physical skills, and schema that may be incomplete or inconsist- pain), and cognition (e.g., executive control; e.g., Center ent with instruction, language, and discourse practices on the Developing Child, 2016; Fischer & Bidell, 2006). (e.g., Ambrose & Lovett, 2014; Brandtstädter, 1998, Emotions further influence engagement and academic 2006; Yeager et al., 2014). Shaped by earlier develop- performance (Meyer & Turner, 2006) through their mental experiences, prior knowledge encompasses impact on confidence, motivation, persistence, self- automated beliefs, attributions (including attributional control, anxiety, and curiosity (e.g., Immordino-Yang errors) from the past, conscious and unconscious & Damasio, 2007). knowledge (including knowledge that needs to be 12 P. CANTOR ET AL. corrected), and metacognitive and cognitive skills (e.g., control of their learning, they are more motivated to Ambrose & Lovett, 2014; Berliner & Kupermintz, learn and, ultimately, more effective learners (e.g., Deci 2016; Clark, 2006; Clark & Saxberg, 2018). & Ryan, 1985; Dweck & Molden, 2017). Specifically, Prior knowledge, experience, and skill affect how beliefs about personal influence and control impact stu- students receive and process novel information (e.g., dents’ expectations for their own success, which in turn Nihalani, Mayrath, & Robinson, 2011). Teachers can affect their likelihood of succeeding at a given goal (e.g., leverage prior knowledge, experience, and interests to Schunk, Pintrich, & Meece, 2007). enhance motivation, engagement, critical thinking, Other beliefs and values play an essential role in problem solving, and learning more generally; in turn, motivation. Task-related values—students’ beliefs about when such factors are not considered, students may the importance and personal and societal utility of a become less engaged (Ambrose & Lovett, 2014). given task—have been associated with important aca- Neural integration and the mastery of new information demic outcomes, and become more differentiated (and are more likely to occur when scaffolding is informed decline) as students move through school (Marsh, by students’ prior knowledge, allowing for the creation Martin, Yeung, & Craven, 2017; N. Perry, Turner, & of individualized, relevant conditions for growth, Meyer, 2006). Children’s goals for learning and other reflection, and practice to accelerate mastery (Deans activities, interest in learning, and valuing of achieve- for Impact, 2015). ment also are central to achievement motivation (Wigfield et al., 2015). Purpose, defined by Damon, Menon, and Bronk (2003) as “a stable and generalized Motivation intention to accomplish something that is at once mean- Motivation is a psychological process that determines ingful to the self and of consequence to the world whether people begin a task, persist at it once they have beyond the self” (p. 121), contributes to greater proso- begun, and invest adequate mental effort to succeed cial behavior, self-esteem, achievement, and moral com- (e.g., Clark, Howard, & Early, 2006; Larson & Rusk, mitment (Damon et al., 2003). Students who see a 2011; Pintrich & Schunk, 2002). Motivation involves prosocial purpose to a particular academic task are beliefs, values, interests, goals, drives, needs, reinforce- more likely to persist, despite difficulty or boredom ments, and identities (Oyserman & Destin, 2010; (Yeager et al., 2014). Along similar lines, hopeful expec- Wigfield et al., 2015); influences choice, persistence, tations for the future influence how students process and effort (Wigfield et al., 2015); and is essential for information and, in turn, regulate their behavior engagement and learning. Intrinsic motivation is associa- (Schmid, Phelps, & Lerner, 2011). ted with deeper focus, creativity, confidence, and achieve- Motivational beliefs, goals, and identities influence ment (Patrick, Turner, & Strati, 2016). In fact, and are influenced by the contexts in which young conservative estimates posit that for adolescents and people learn and develop (N. Perry et al., 2006; Schmid adults, academic motivation accounts for approximately et al., 2011). Motivational systems are activated when 30% of learning, as well as the transfer and/or application the person-context relationship is adaptive for both of what has been learned (Colquitt, LePine, & Noe, 2000). the individual and the context (Lerner, 2006; Overton, Though relatively little attention has been paid to sup- 2010), and tailored external supports and sense of porting the full range of motivation processes key to belonging can reinforce self-regulated learning beha- learning and achievement (Clark & Saxberg, 2018), inter- viors (e.g., Furrer, Skinner, & Pitzer, 2014; Walton & vention efforts that target motivational systems show Brady, 2017). Identities play a powerful role; students great promise (Lazowski & Hulleman, 2016; Paunesku are motivated to think and act in ways that are congru- et al., 2015; Yeager & Walton, 2011). ent with their identities, which, in turn, are contextually Motivation is a key component of all learning pro- situated (e.g., Oyserman, 2009). cesses, and it shapes and is shaped by foundational skills A useful framework through which to understand the and elements of learning environments. Competency- many factors that contribute to motivational challenges is related beliefs—beliefs about what one is capable of with the Belief-Control-Expectancy (B-C-E) Framework (e.g., regard to a particular task or situation, including self- Clark & Saxberg, 2018; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Schunk efficacy—are key to self-regulated behavior and learn- et al., 2007; Wigfield & Cambria, 2010). Each of the four ing. Such beliefs vary by task and are derived from both factors in the framework—values, self-efficacy, emotions, past experiences with similar tasks and environmental and attribution errors—influences beliefs about control influences (Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). When students feel and expectancies for success, and can impact a student’s a sense of efficacy, believe that their intelligence and ability to start, persist, or apply sufficient mental effort to ability can be improved through effort, and feel in complete and succeed at a task. Using the B-C-E APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 13

Framework to (a) distinguish motivational issues from neural processes, motivation, and metacognitive skills learning strategy problems and (b) identify their specific —are nested within the conditions for learning (CFL) causal factor(s) enables the application of targeted evi- that they experience. CFL encompass the relational dence-based strategies to more effectively address moti- dimensions of learning (including trust, attachment, vational challenges (e.g., Clark et al., 2006). attunement, and congruent perceptions with adults and peers), physical and emotional safety, and a sense of belonging and purpose (Osher & Berg, in press; Metacognition Osher & Kendziora, 2010). Metacognition involves the awareness of one’s own CFL affect learning both directly (e.g., effects on thinking and learning—that is, one’s thoughts about working memory, cognitive load, developmental range) one’s thoughts. Metacognitive skills are complex and indirectly (e.g., effects on teacher stress, student dynamic skills that depend upon foundational self-regu- stress, ability of each to attune to the other; Swearer, lation and executive function skills. Collectively, these Espelage, Vaillancourt, & Hymel, 2010). On the one skills enable students to regulate their bidirectional rela- hand, negative CFL such as perceptions of a lack of tions with their contexts by processing, manipulating, safety can impact learning by heightening anxiety, trig- and refining information; organize and recognize pat- gering the stress response system, and affecting working terns in information; evaluate their thinking and learn- memory, attention, and concentration (Shackman et al., ing strategies; intentionally transfer knowledge to new 2006). On the other hand, positive CFL, such as the situations; and apply knowledge to solve increasingly experience of teacher attunement and support, can complex problems (e.g., Flavell, 1979; Lai, 2011). When enhance engagement and optimize absorption, focus, sufficiently developed, metacognition enables learners and enjoyment (e.g., Schmidt, Shernoff, & Csikszentmi- to select strategies that are situationally appropriate halyi, 2014). Moreover, components of CFL can work and relevant to particular disciplines and learning tasks together to produce classroom climates that welcome (Conley, 2014). Moreover, engagement in metacognitive effort and errors, promote perseverance, and focus on processes actively supports ongoing neural integration mastery as opposed to exclusively short-term perfor- and enables students to learn from their mistakes (e.g., mance (Hattie & Yates, 2014). Students learn best when Marcovitch & Zelazo, 2009). In a way, learners become CFL promote motivation, engagement, and purpose; their own evidence-based instructional designers, with ensure emotional, physical, and identity safety; and fos- increasing abilities to apply knowledge in different ter connection, respect, support, and challenge (Gari- (and not always optimal) learning environments. baldi, Ruddy, Osher, & Kendziora, 2015; Hammond, Metacognitive abilities also can enhance motivation. 2016; Lachini, Berkowitz, Moore, Astor, & Benbenishty, Students are more motivated to learn and be more effective 2016; Steele, 2010; Wentzel & Muenks, 2016). learners when they apply strategies effectively, seek help At the core of CFL are the presence of positive devel- appropriately (e.g., Dweck & Molden, 2017), and identify opmental relationships (defined in the earlier section on strengths and weaknesses in their own learning (Koriat, relationships and attachment; Li & Julian, 2012) 1993). The ability to distinguish between short- and between students and teachers. These mutually reinfor- long-term learning goals also is important for sustaining cing relationships between and among students, tea- motivation over time while remaining responsive to chers, and peers are entwined with the student’s short-term performance pressures (Hattie, 2011). neural response to the experience of learning; the degree Pedagogical strategies that promote metacognition to which students are able to tap their affective, leverage constructivist and curriculum-based opportu- cognitive, social, and emotional resources; and students’ nities, engagement, and self-direction (Conley, 2014; willingness to take academic risks (Hammond, 2016). Ellis, Denton, & Bond, 2014). Such strategies encourage Positive developmental relationships are particularly students to reflect on their affective states, how well they significant for students whose developmental are learning, and how new knowledge fits into existing pathways have been altered due to trauma and/or knowledge, increasing self-awareness, expertise, and chronic stress. the ability to transfer knowledge to new situations and Similarly, students’ mindsets and behaviors are affec- problems (Clark, 2006; Pintrich, 2002). ted by school staff members’ perceptions of them, which, in turn, are influenced by teachers’ own mindsets. Teachers’ language can impact students’ self-con- Conditions for learning cept, engagement, motivation, capacity to take on and The internal resources that children bring to learning— persist though challenging academic tasks, and behavior including prior knowledge and experience, integrated in positive or negative ways (Clark, 2006; Kellam & 14 P. CANTOR ET AL.

Rebok, 1992; Master, Butler, & Walton, 2017). In the and (b) creating supportive environments and personal context of negative perceptions, students find it harder readiness in adults to address cultural disconnects and to engage, become more easily frustrated, develop lower disabling conditions (Perso, 2012). Although necessary, self-concepts and expectations, and lag academically cultural competence is not sufficient to create (Kaplan, Gheen, & Midgley, 2002; Osher & Kendziora, conditions for deeper learning and domain-specific 2010). Such experiences may be particularly common mastery. for culturally and linguistically diverse students from Culturally responsive approaches can support both nondominant or marginalized groups who face school the relational and neurobiological conditions for contexts in which choice and control are limited, the engaged, rigorous leaning through attuned, context- belief that effort matters is undermined, and racial sensitive communications between the teacher and stigma is evoked in ways that reinforce negative racial student (Gay, 2000; Hammond, 2016). These narratives and identities (e.g., Hammond, 2016; approaches counter subtractive approaches (Valenzuela, Oyserman, Destin, & Novin, 2015; Oyserman & Lewis, 1999) that ignore students’ existing assets, fail to 2017; Rogoff, 2003; Steele, 2010). appreciate them, or view them as negative departures from the norm (Mistry & Dutta, 2015). Instead, cultu- Cultural responsiveness and competence rally responsive approaches promote effective infor- Cultural competence and responsiveness can help build mation processing by using cultural knowledge as a CFL that support learning and development for all scaffold to connect existing knowledge to new concepts students. Cultural competence—which in the case of and content (Hammond, 2016; C. D. Lee, 2010), draw- schools involves congruent attitudes, behaviors, and ing on both the learner’s resident long-term-memory policies that enable educators to work effectively in mul- mastery as well as the motivation that comes from using ticultural interactions (King, Sims, & Osher, 2007)—can previously developed expertise. At the same time, cultu- help schools and other child-serving systems to rally responsive approaches support learning by reduc- systematically address the assumptions, disconnects, ing educators’ likelihood of overestimating students’ adversities, and challenges (including those created by prior knowledge or familiarity with context-specific, schools themselves) faced by culturally and linguistically culturally embedded schemas (Crosnoe & Benner, diverse students and families. Critical barriers include 2015; C. D. Lee, 2010; Murry et al., 2015). both institutionalized processes (e.g., resource Like well-designed social-emotional learning (SEL) allocation, rituals, policies) and interpersonal behaviors and CFL, culturally responsive approaches create con- (e.g., harassment, micro-aggressions, negative stereotyp- ditions for engagement in productive, critical struggles ing, assumptions of prior knowledge) that collectively with academic content by creating emotionally, heighten anxiety, negative thinking, and stress; place intellectually, and identity-safe environments. Cultu- extra demands on working memory and cognitive rally responsive strategies can address the impacts of resources; drain energy available to address tasks (e.g., institutionalized racism and discrimination, including Pennington, Heim, Levy, & Larkin, 2016); and impact diminished opportunities to learn (e.g., lack of access health and learning (Artiles, Kozleski, Trent, Osher, & to advanced courses) and dissonance between pedagogy Ortiz, 2010; LeBrón, Schulz, Mentz, & White Perkins, and students’ individual experiences, cultural capital, 2015; Pennington et al., 2016; Solórzano, Ceja, & Yosso, and needs (e.g., Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 2006; 2000). Further challenges can arise when students are Spencer, Swanson, & Harpalani, 2015). Culturally rel- expected to master new content without the explicit or evant pedagogues understand that students must learn implicit culturally embedded knowledge that those from to navigate between home, community, and school dominant groups benefit from and that teachers may and to develop the cultural competence that enables take for granted (e.g., Clark, 2006). Cultural dissonance them to navigate the “within and between” social situa- makes it harder for students to perceive themselves as tions that have culturally embedded role expectations learners (or successful learners) and to visualize the (Goodnow & Lawrence, 2015). Teachers must find ways connection between their schoolwork, current lives, to equip students with the knowledge needed to succeed and promising futures (Ambrose & Lovett, 2014; in a school system that produces inequitable and dispir- Oyserman & Destin, 2010). iting burdens (Delpit, 2006; Ladson-Billings, 2006; Cultural competence contributes to effective learning Urrieta, 2005). Multiple studies suggest that culturally by (a) addressing or preventing factors that directly responsive approaches increase students’ motivation to interfere with students’ learning (e.g., school discipline learn; interest in content across literature, science, polices that exacerbate the impacts of implicit bias), mathematics, and social studies; ability to engage APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 15 content area discourses; and perceptions of themselves developmental range and the path to mastery (Schwartz as capable students (Aronson & Laughter, 2016). et al., 2016; Willingham, 2009). Content choice must be addressed in instructional and curricular design; different curricula domains Instructional and curricular design (e.g., mathematics vs. literature) may involve variation Instructional and curricular design should foster active in actions needed to develop knowledge effectively. student engagement, combat the pedagogy of poverty Nevertheless, across content areas, material that is (e.g., Freire, 1970; Haberman, 1991), and support presented in multiple modalities and contexts allows rigorous academic capacity and efficacy. Such design for greater, more integrative practice, influencing pacing begins where students’ mastery starts, promoting the and the development of fluency (Willingham, 2009). acquisition and retention of knowledge in domain- Importantly, students find it easier to acquire new specific areas and the development of increasingly content knowledge in reference to prior knowledge complex cognitive and metacognitive competencies. (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Deans for Impact, These efforts should acknowledge students’ prior 2015) and benefit from opportunities to explore content knowledge and experiences while expanding over time at their own pace, based on their unique interests and into new areas; foster student voice and agency; and fea- developmental skill level (Rose, 2016). ture engaging, relevant content, well-scaffolded instruc- Integrated instructional design successfully combines tion that supports the personalization of learning affective, cognitive, social, and emotional processes with (including collaborative learning opportunities), and curricular content, and promotes academic growth well-designed interdisciplinary projects. Reflecting the (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger, Aristotelian concept of phronesis (Irwin, 1999),5 2011; S. M. Jones & Bouffard, 2012; Osher et al., instructional design should seek to provide the right 2016). Examples include well-designed project-based amount of challenge, rigor, support, feedback, and learning, in which students may both build and use formative assessment to drive and accelerate the devel- their masteries to create a realistic product and present opmental range and performance of individual students. it to an audience; well-designed service learning, in To achieve such goals, teachers must utilize practices which students contribute to a community; and that balance what a specific student already knows well-designed collaborative learning, in which students he/she wants and needs to learn, and the degree of develop a sense of interdependence and individual challenge presented. Practices of this kind were initially accountability (Hammond, 2016). conceptualized by Vygotsky (1978) as the zone of proxi- Effective instructional design is grounded in an mal development (ZPD), and later expanded upon by understanding of the differing ways in which experts Bloom (1968) through the mastery learning framework and novices learn (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Merrill, (see Bloom, 1968; Guskey, 2005, for further elaboration 2002, 2006). Novice learners benefit from factual of mastery learning). This balance addresses knowledge knowledge and explicit guidance. As such, the develop- acquisition and retention in long-term memory, which ment of effective designs may best begin by identifying are important for the development of both critical think- learning outcomes aligned with how experts decide on ing and mastery (Schwartz et al., 2016; Willingham, and do complex tasks. This information can serve as a 2009). Critical thinking processes (including reasoning basis for data-gathering processes that shed light about and problem solving) are intimately informed by and whether and how specific learners are progressing in interconnected with background knowledge; “thinking directions that are consonant with the actions of well requires knowing facts” (Willingham, 2009, p. 8). experts, and instructional designs that accelerate lear- In addition to supporting and enabling critical thinking, ners’ growth along pathways that increasingly mirror knowledge acquisition and retention in long-term those of experts. memory—connected to instructional practices drawing Novice learners process and retrieve knowledge less upon what is already stored in long-term memory— efficiently than experts (e.g., Kalyuga, Ayres, Chandler, can enable the student to achieve greater fluency in & Sweller, 2003). Nevertheless, if informed by methods the present, free up working memory, provide an such as cognitive task analysis, well-calibrated instruc- enriched base for future learning, and accelerate tional and curricular design can help to reduce cognitive load—the amount of mental effort required in using working memory—as well as expand the limits of 5Aristotle discusses phronesis as “practical wisdom”—knowledge that working memory (Alloway, 2006). Thoughtfully orga- guides a person to enact the right moral virtue, in the right amount, at the right time, and in the right place. Simply, phronesis is knowing what is nized frameworks that combine intentional, explicit best to do, and how to do it, in a specific setting. instruction with hands-on learning experiences also 16 P. CANTOR ET AL. may enable novice learners to see the “whole picture,” Panel, 2001; and practice guides from the Institute of further facilitating the retrieval and application of Education Sciences6 all of which need to be framed in new concepts and deepening knowledge (e.g., Merrill, the context of developmental, motivational, and meta- 2007). Although recognizing novice learners’ unique cognitive considerations when constructing real-world needs and alleviating cognitive load are important, such instruction in context. considerations should not result in ultimate oversimpli- The acquisition of reading skills serves as one example fication; information should be presented over time of dynamic, context-embedded skill construction. Read- with increasing relevance and rigor (Paas, Renkl, & ing skills are embedded in and influenced by the Sweller, 2004). multiple literacies children are exposed to and will need As students build new capacities, support needs to be to acquire, as well as the cultures in which children are calibrated to their changing levels of engagement, goals, situated. As with other skills, there is significant and expertise (Hattie, 2011; Hattie & Donoghue, 2016; variability—and multiple cultural influences—in the Kalyuga, 2007; C. H. Lee & Kalyuga, 2014). Accordingly, pathways by which children develop these literacies. instructional design should simultaneously focus on Although the nature of literacy has since expanded (e.g., the development of foundational cognitive, social, internet-related literacies), Knight and Fischer’s (1992) and emotional competencies (Stafford-Brizard, 2016); identification of multiple pathways remains useful when provide “desirable difficulties” that balance short-term we think about the development of particular literacies. challenges against long-term retention and transfer (Clark When children’s performance is assessed relative to the & Bjork, 2014); and address the distinct brain states sup- most common pathway, it can only be viewed as either porting two different types of learning—one that supports “normal” or “delayed,” with remediation directed toward task orientation, and another that supports imagination, speeding up progress along the “normal” pathway. And, creativity, and meaning making (Gotlieb, Jahner, yet, we now know that slower readers can be viewed as Immordino-Yang, & Kaufman, 2016). following different pathways to become skilled readers, In sum, school and instructional design should capi- rather than as “delayed” based on a premised universal talize on the opportunities presented by the translation pathway. In this way, the constructive web supports re- of developmental science to practice—opportunities conceptualizing of developmental and cultural differences that require much closer, bidirectional collaborations as alternative pathways, rather than deficits. Simul- between researchers and education practitioners taneously, it highlights the opportunity for instructional (Stafford-Brizard, Cantor, & Rose, 2017). Such colla- and curricular designs that address these alternative path- borations also should utilize dynamic quantitative and ways and, in so doing, channel student effort toward the qualitative methods to address the jaggedness of pathway where individual progress will be greatest, learning—the multiple and nonlinear pathways that therein optimizing developmental range and literacy individual children take to develop complex skills and development for all students (Fischer et al., 2007; Knight knowledge (Fischer, 2009; Molenaar & Nessleroade, & Fischer, 1992; Wold & Katzir-Cohen, 2009). 2014, 2015; Rose et al., 2013). Research may be enriched The example of literacy development highlights by employing dynamic systems-based data analytic principles that can generalize to other domain-specific techniques in combination with methods like crowd- learning activities and outcomes, most notably, the sourcing, analyses of positive deviance, and rapid-cycle profound role of developmental variability, including improvement science methodologies. Collectively, these unique pathways, pacing, and range, and the need to situ- approaches can strengthen our ability to understand ate and integrate fundamental neural processes in con- individual variation in students and the developmental texts that promote developmental progression. In turn, pathways toward mastery learning. Bloom’s two sigma finding (Bloom, 1984) provides a compelling illustration of what is possible if we use the principles of developmental variability, individuality, Illustrative example and implications and integration to “design” contexts in which individual There are many possible illustrations of this complex children can thrive as learners. Bloom found that students integration—and, indeed, the multiplicity of examples who received effective one-on-one tutoring through a is precisely the challenge of “learning engineering,” or mastery learning framework performed two standard designing real-world, complete educational environ- deviations better than students who did not. By substan- ments from the wide array of research cited in this tially increasing students’ individual contextual support article. A variety of research syntheses on domain- (Fischer & Kennedy, 1997; Fischer & Yan, 2002) and specific possibilities for instruction exist (e.g., National Mathematics Advisory Panel, 2008; National Reading 6See, https://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuides. APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 17 enabling co-participation and sharing of psychological reinforce each other at multiple levels, including the control of learning tasks (e.g., Shanahan & Shanahan, level of the cell (S. W. Cole, 2014). When we are threa- 2008), high-support, mastery-oriented pedagogical strate- tened, our bodies protect us by a stress response, during gies can thus extend students’ performance (from func- which hormonal and neurochemical systems are acti- tional to optimal) within their developmental range and, vated in the body. The hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal ultimately, heighten achievement. Under the right con- (HPA) axis produces cortisol and the sympathetic- ditions, skills constructed in this way also can stabilize adrenomedullary (SAM) system produces adrenaline, and generalize to new contexts over time (Fischer & Far- two hormones that prepare the body to meet threats rar, 1987; Fischer & Immordino-Yang, 2002). by increasing heart rate, blood pressure, inflammatory The constructive web enables us to better understand reactivity, and blood sugar levels (Center on the and link the principles of proximal development defined Developing Child, 2016). This “fight, flight, or freeze” by Vygotsky (1978), the approach to accelerated response heightens vigilance and alertness while reduc- mastery defined by Bloom (1984), the context depen- ing nonessential functions such as complex thinking. dency described in Bornstein’s specificity principle Although lifesaving in the face of acute danger, these (Bornstein, 2017), and the constructivist approach to responses can cause damage when activated over long developmental variation seen in the work of Fischer, periods of time—particularly to the developing Rose, and colleagues (e.g., Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Mas- limbic and immune systems (Center on the Developing colo & Fischer, 2015; Rose & Fischer, 2009). Each body Child, 2016). of work employs a dynamic developmental lens to The American Academy of Pediatrics has described emphasize the power of context to co-act with the indi- three types of stress responses—positive, tolerable, and vidual child and his/her domain-specific mastery to toxic. A positive stress response is characterized by mild optimize outcomes for all children. and/or brief elevations in stress hormones, heart rate, The learning sciences illustrate convergence and and blood pressure, and is part of healthy child integration of micro-developmental processes—the development. A tolerable stress response activates the construction of new skills for “proximal processes” body’s alert systems to a greater degree due to more (Vygotsky, 1978)—and macro-developmental processes severe or long-lasting threats, but in the presence of —larger scale processes in which many constructive supportive, buffering relationships, it can be brought activities come together to form complex skills that to baseline quickly, preventing long-term physiological stabilize and generalize to new contexts over time. The effects. Toxic stress responses, on the other hand, occur course of individual human development is such that when stress exposure is frequent, prolonged, and although people develop over the long term, critical unbuffered by adequate adult support. The resulting learning occurs over shorter time horizons through an chronic elevation of stress hormones can disrupt accumulation of diverse, context-dependent, nonlinear the maturation of children’s developing brain growth experiences. The range of students’ skills—and, architecture and physiological systems, with major ultimately, their potential as human beings—can be implications for later life health, learning, and well- significantly influenced through the intentional design being (Center on the Developing Child, 2016; Felitti & of learning environments and experiences to optimize Anda, 2010). their development under conditions of high, personalized Exposure to chronic, unbuffered stress is associated support (Fischer & Bidell, 2006). with changes in brain architecture, including smaller Education design and policy cannot bet on the resili- volume of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, ence of individual children alone. It must address the larger volume of the amygdala, altered brain chemistry, key drivers of positive developmental and learning out- and heightened production of inflammatory hormones, comes, which include the intentional development of including cortisol and cytokines. A dysregulated stress integrated habits, skills, and mindsets; effective, rigorous response system is one of the few systems of the body pedagogy, and curricular and instructional design; and that can affect the development of all four brain struc- the creation of classroom and school environments tures—brainstem, diencephalon, limbic system, cortex that support personalization of learning and the —and, in particular, the integration of these structures development of the whole child. (e.g., Siegel, 2012). Indeed, research on the consequences of developmental trauma points to impairments in the growth of key integrative structures, Science of stress including the corpus callosum, hippocampus, and Like the human relationship, stress is a model through prefrontal cortex (e.g., Teicher, Samson, Anderson, & which the biological and contextual influences mutually Ohashi, 2016). 18 P. CANTOR ET AL.

In addition to their effects on specific brain 2016; Giovanelli, Reynolds, Mondi, & Ou, 2016). structures and patterns of connectivity, traumatic Although ACEs impact individuals from all socioeco- experiences like abuse and neglect can result in the nomic backgrounds, growing up in poverty heightens emergence of highly distinctive developmental pathways children’s risk for exposure to additional ACEs, as does (Fischer & Bidell, 2006). Contrary to a general global belonging to a historically marginalized racial/ethnic bias toward the positive in thought and action (parti- group (e.g., Giovanelli et al., 2016; Slopen et al., 2016). cularly in attributions toward oneself), children exposed At the same time, ecological risk factors that include to high concentrations of adversity often have develop- and extend beyond poverty and institutionalized racism mental webs that are biased toward the negative (e.g., affect how children experience and respond to ACEs. Ayoub et al., 2003). This negative bias can have pervasive impacts on development, resulting in characteriza- Impact of adversity on health tions of the self, others, and relationship patterns in negative terms, and the use of dissociation skills to cope There is a strong, graded link between exposure to with trauma, among other effects. As children exposed childhood adversity and risk of negative health, social, to adversity continue to develop, their existing working and emotional outcomes, including several major models of relationships—powerfully organized by past categories of chronic disease, lung cancer, various traumas—frequently generalize to future experiences autoimmune diseases, depression and other mental and interactions with others (Fischer & Bidell, 2006). illnesses, and high-risk behaviors (e.g., Felitti et al., Importantly, contrary to some characterizations, such 1998). These associations are mediated by the dysregu- developmental pathways are complex and sophisticated, lated stress response and its corresponding impact on and remain open to change across the course of immune system efficiency and brain architecture (e.g., development (Fischer & Bidell, 2006). Bucci et al., 2016; Walker, 2016). Specific physiological An increasingly common framework for categorizing and neural processes implicated in these outcomes and assessing cumulative risk in children’s exposure to include the overproduction of inflammatory hormones, chronic stressors is that of adverse childhood experi- which underlies the relationship between childhood ences (ACEs; Felitti et al., 1998). The common definition adversity and a range of chronic diseases (including of ACEs involves stressful or traumatic events experi- obesity, asthma, hypertension, heart disease, and dia- enced before age 18 that fall into three broad domains: betes). In a similar way, damage to the ventral tegmental abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction (e.g., Burke area (VTA), a dopamine pathway involved in motiv- Harris & Renschler, 2015). The original ACE categories ation and reward that “numbs” sensitization to risk, are physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; physical and has been shown to contribute to dramatic increases in emotional neglect; parental separation or divorce; risk-taking behaviors, such as substance abuse, smoking, exposure to domestic violence; parental substance abuse; and suicidal behavior (e.g., Brenhouse, Lukkes, & parental mental illness; and incarceration of a relative. Andersen, 2013), as well as reductions in healthy self- More recently, researchers have expanded these cate- modulation behaviors across socioeconomic groups gories to include both additional individual and (e.g., Luthar, Barkin, & Crossman, 2013). Collectively, family-level factors (e.g., personal victimization, hunger, these findings help to explain the heightened risk of disturbances in family functioning, loss of a parent, chal- premature mortality experienced by individuals with lenging peer relationships, poor health) as well as the ACEs; on average, the life span of individuals with six critical importance of ecological risk factors, including or more ACEs is 20 years shorter than that of those with community violence, economic hardship, racial and zero ACEs (Felitti et al., 1998). other forms of discrimination, overemphasis on achievement, and stressful experiences within the school, child Impact of adversity on learning welfare, and juvenile justice systems (e.g., Wade, Shea, Rubin, & Wood, 2014). Collectively, this broader array Chronic stress is associated with impairments in key more explicitly recognizes the role of macrosystemic brain centers, including the limbic system, through structures, such as poverty and institutionalized racism processes that are mediated and modulated by the (e.g., Spencer, 2007). HPA axis. The functioning of such brain regions is Although the original empirical work on ACEs was affected long before children start school and impacts based on a predominately White, middle-class sample, key learning systems, including self-regulation, execu- demonstrating the pervasiveness of ACEs among that tive functions, attention, memory, stress reactivity, and population (Felitti et al., 1998), recent research has language (e.g., Essex et al., 2011). These effects can be employed more diverse samples (e.g., Bucci et al., compounded by other risk factors, such as lower APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 19 cognitive stimulation in the home and the absence of and a fourth—currently ongoing—that reflects revol- high-quality early childhood education, which collec- utionary advances in developmental science and related tively may significantly affect children’s school and technologies (Masten, 2007; Masten & Cicchetti, 2016). learning readiness (e.g., Center on the Developing Such advances include novel methods for studying neu- Child, 2016). robiological and epigenetic processes, as well as new stat- As children get older, previous developmental istical models for analyzing change in individual children challenges can accumulate and trigger a cascade of chal- and identifying specific pathways for building capacity lenges to learning, both directly (through the previously for resilience. In this way, with the support of dynamic described processes) and through negative exchanges systems mathematical methods and models, DST has with others at school (e.g., Blair & Diamond, 2008; come to provide a unifying, central model for the study Portilla, Ballard, Adler, Boyce, & Obradović, 2014). of resilience (Lerner, 2006; Masten & Cicchetti, 2016; Children respond and adapt to these challenges in ways Overton, 2013; Von Bertalanffy, 1968; Zelazo, 2013). that vary both between children and within children A developmental systems perspective on resilience across different settings, resulting in a continuum of involves eight principles (Masten & Cicchetti, 2016): behavior that ranges from reactive and/or impulsive at (a) human adaptation and development in continuous, one end to proactive and/or goal-directed behavior at multilevel coactions with the environment; (b) multiple the other (e.g., Center on the Developing Child, 2016). interacting systems; (c) a capacity for adaptation Children’s responses to chronic stress—including conceptualized at multiple levels; (d) a capacity for hypervigilance, defiance, and a compromised ability to adaptation in challenging circumstances involving regulate behavior—can affect how peers and teachers multiple interacting systems; (e) manifestations of resili- interact with them, further affecting learning readiness ence reflecting both current and historical contexts; and cognitive engagement (e.g., Portilla et al., 2014). (f) self-organizing properties, including some that are For example, young children who lack self-regulation not easily predictable; (g) dynamism (constant change are less likely to develop supportive relationships, and adaptation); and (h) a recognition that resilience engage in school, and pay attention in class, and they is not a fixed trait that an individual categorically pos- are more likely to withdraw and develop antisocial sesses or lacks, but rather it emerges through coaction behavior as they grow older (e.g., S. F. Cole, Eisner, with contextual, supportive, and relational factors. Gregory, & Ristuccia, 2013). Whether of a person, group, or larger system, resili- Chronic stress also is associated with chronic mental ence is best understood as a multilevel, biopsychosocial- health conditions (e.g., mood syndromes, posttraumatic ecological process wherein promotive internal and stress disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), external systems integrate to facilitate the potential for which have replaced chronic physical illness in the top positive outcomes (e.g., Masten & Obradović, 2006). five most significant pediatric health issues affecting In the context of individuals, it is defined as “the learning (e.g., Johnson, Riley, Granger, & Riis, 2013). potential or manifested capacity of an individual to Absent supportive relationships, new traumatic experi- adapt successfully through multiple processes to chal- ences may retraumatize children and result in school lenges that threaten the function, survival, or positive disengagement and failure (Bethell, Newacheck, Hawes, development” (Masten & Cicchetti, 2016, p. 275). & Halfon, 2014). Overcoming the impact of adversity- Importantly, resilience is not rare, but is rather a related stress on learning requires both reducing sources common phenomenon—there is an “ordinariness of of stress and strengthening capabilities in children and resilience” (e.g., Bethell et al., 2014). the adults caring for them. Equally importantly, resilience is not a trait. Biologi- cal and contextual resources contribute to early patterns of adaptation, which provide a foundation for—and Science of resilience thus predict—later, more complex patterns (Yates, Scientists have long recognized the vital importance of Egeland, & Sroufe, 2003). And yet, adaptation is not a understanding why some children do well under high- fixed process, and resilience is not immutable (e.g., risk circumstances while others do not. Recent decades Cicchetti, 2013). Throughout the lifespan, particularly have witnessed four waves in resilience research: a first during periods of transition, internal and external that was primarily descriptive, focused on key individ- factors present new opportunities for adaptation or ual, relational, and environmental correlates; a second maladaptation (e.g., Ungar, Ghazinour, & Richter, 2013). that sought to characterize the processes that Consistent with the principles underlying the meta- bring about resilience; a third centered around its phor of the “developmental web,” resilience is charac- malleability, and related interventions to promote it; terized by substantial heterogeneity (e.g., Bethell et al., 20 P. CANTOR ET AL.

2014), dependence on contextual (e.g., social and Masten & Coatsworth, 1998; Stafford-Brizard, 2015). cultural) supports, and equifinality (e.g., Masten, In addition, when young people at high levels of risk 2011). Children’s long-term responses to adversities are supported by strategic prevention or intervention vary as a function of individual sensitivities and disposi- efforts, these efforts can forestall negative adaptation tions; socialization practices; the type, timing, and (Masten & Cicchetti, 2010). Specific adaptive pathway intensity of adversities; and the countervailing buffering models include periods of stress resistance, breakdown, supports available to them (e.g., Spencer, 2007; Spencer recovery, and normalization (Masten & Reed, 2002). et al., 2015). Though exposure to risk is endemic to the One of the most intriguing pathways involves improve- human species, the nature of risk and the resources ment in adaptive functioning following exposure to available to respond vary among cultural and ecological catastrophes, particularly acute catastrophes, suggesting contexts (C. D. Lee, 2009), and no two individuals an initial breakdown followed by processes of reorgani- draw from the same combination and experience of zation and strengthening (Calhoun & Tedeschi, 2006). these resources (Masten, 2014a). Moreover, notions of Research in this area reinforces the concept—one resilience are defined locally, and are culturally, that has a long history in resilience science—that socially, and historically embedded (Masten, 2011). some exposure to adversity may be better than none The result is diverse pathways that lead to different, (Masten, 2012; Rutter, 1987). At the same time, even but equally viable and complex, development and well: in the context of adaptive functioning, the cumulative being—equifinality. allostatic load associated with chronically harsh Such heterogeneity and variability have important environments can exhaust adaptive resources and implications for future resilience research, highlighting present significant, long-term consequences to health the value of multilevel, person-centered approaches and well-being, with much individual variation as a and within-group, within-gender analyses (e.g., Coll & function of personal attributes and environmental sup- Marks, 2011; Luthar, Crossman, & Small, 2015). ports (e.g., Juster, McEwen, & Lupien, 2010; McEwen, Although productive, research focused on linear models 1998; Miller, Yu, Chen, & Brody, 2015). and indices of cumulative risks (e.g., the ACES survey) Positive adaptation can be found at multiple system and assets can mask the salience of individual experi- levels (e.g., Cicchetti, 2010). Promotive and protective ences and multiple, intersecting factors. Meanwhile, a processes shown to predict variations in adaptation dynamic systems approach has the potential to reveal include adaptive molecular genetic (e.g., Caspi et al., factors and combinations of factors that account for 2002) and neurobiological systems, such as the learning variability in adaptive responses. For example, nonlinear systems of the brain, the stress response systems, and models (e.g., Garmezy, Masten, & Tellegen, 1984; the self-regulatory systems, as well as the integration Masten et al., 1988) suggest that individual experiences of these systems (e.g., Masten & Obradović, 2006). and outcomes result from both stress dosage and the Commonly implicated psychological factors (Masten & quality of the recovery environment. Cicchetti, 2016) include emotional security, attachment, Two key concepts are involved in making inferences and stable, responsive relationships (Luthar, 2006; about resilience—risk/vulnerability criteria (discussed Masten, 2014a); mastery motivation and self-efficacy more thoroughly in the previous section on stress and (e.g., Ryan & Deci, 2000); cognitive development and adversity) and positive adaptation criteria (e.g., Luthar problem solving (e.g., Losel & Farrington, 2012); et al., 2015; Masten, 2014a). Within both sets of criteria, self-regulation and executive function (e.g., Zelazo & the idea is not that a given factor always functions as a Carlson, 2012); meaning making (Frankl, 1959; McLean negative or promotive/protective moderator, but rather & Pratt, 2006; Park, 2010); and positive perspectives on that multiple factors coact in a given context to produce the self and future (e.g., Kirschman, Johnson, Bender, & specific sets of outcomes. Differential sensitivities to Roberts, 2009). Broader contextual factors (Masten & experience, including both risk and adaptive factors, Cicchetti, 2016) include family systems (e.g., Walsh, play an important role (Masten, Best, & Garmezy, 2016), schools (e.g., Masten, 2014b), social and peer 1990; Rutter, 1987), as do ecological factors that avert, networks (e.g., Losel & Farrington, 2012), and cultural moderate, and/or buffer the consequences of risks systems (e.g., Ungar, 2012). (Spencer, 2007; Spencer et al., 2015). Supportive relationships are particularly important. While resilience is not fixed, resilience theory can Research has repeatedly found that children who do highlight positive pathways of adaptation through time. well in the face of adversity have at least one stable Achievements in core developmental tasks in one devel- and responsive relationship with a parent, caregiver, opmental period can engender positive developmental or other adult (Center on the Developing Child, cascades, setting the stage for future competence (e.g., 2016). In one recent example, Brody, Miller, Yu, Beach, APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 21 and Chen (2016) found that supportive family environ- We also thank the following individuals for contributions to ments in adolescence can serve as a protective buffer to this article: J. Lawrence Aber, Arvin Bhana, Natacha Blain, racial discrimination and its effects on premature bio- Mette Böll, Marc Brackett, Catherine Brown, Nadine Burke Harris, Michele Cahill, Annemaree Carroll, Dante Cicchetti, logical weathering. This specific finding—and the larger Sarah Caverly, Micheline Chi, Greg Chung, Richard Clark, pattern within which it fits—highlights the profound Patrick Cushen, Adele Diamond, Carol Dweck, Lisa Dickin- role of intergenerational processes (further analyzed in son, Celene Domitrovich, Angela Duckworth, Helen Duffy, the companion article), and has led resilience research- Camille Farrington, Ron Ferguson, Ellen Galinsky, Adam ers to recommend policies and programs to better Gamoran, Robyn Gillies, Catherine Good, Mark Greenberg, Donna Harris-Aikens, Stephanie Jones, Paul LeBlanc, Carol support the adults in children’s lives (Luthar, 2015). Lee, Patricia Kuhl, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Felice Levine, Suniya Luthar, Jeannette Mancilla-Martinez, Ann Masten, Conclusion Deborah Moroney, Elizabeth Nolan, Pedro Noguera, Edmund Oropez, Daphna Oyserman, Kent Pekel, Jim Pellegrino, Karen This article identifies a convergence of multiple Pittman, Lisa Quay, Cynthia Robinson-Rivers, David Rose, Pankaj Sah, Bror Saxberg, Robert Selman, Peter Senge, sciences around core principles of human develop- Jim Shelton, Russ Shilling, Jack Shonkoff, Dan Siegel, Arietta ment, situating and integrating such principles within Slade, Deborah Smolover, Brooke Stafford-Brizard, Laurence a dynamic, holistic developmental systems framework Steinberg, Jim Stigler, Diane Tavenner, Jessica Tsang, Melina that enables a deeper understanding of the whole child Uncapher, Sheila Walker, Greg Walton, Roger Weissberg, in context. Such principles include the fundamental Martin West, David Yeager, and Philip Zelazo. role of neural malleability and plasticity; the interconnectedness of individuals with their social, cultural, and physical contexts through complex, dynamic coac- Funding tions over time; the role of genes as followers, rather This project was supported by grants awarded by the Chan than drivers, in progressive developmental processes; Zuckerberg Initiative, Raikes Foundation, Ford Foundation, the integration of cognitive, social, emotional, and and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. affective processes in constructive skill development and learning; the pervasive reality of human variability, and profound importance of its study; the stability in ORCID patterns of complex skills that emerge across development; and the dynamics of adversity and resilience. Juliette Berg http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8150-5999 Lily Steyer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5823-4681 Collectively, these principles give rise to an important opportunity to facilitate the design and personalization of child-serving settings such that they are developmen- References tally constructive, interpersonally rich, and attuned to Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. children’s individual capacities, needs, and potential. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of Specifically, in schools, when consideration is given to the strange situation. Infant Mental Health Journal, the key drivers of positive developmental and learning 1(1), 68–70. doi:10.1002/1097-0355(198021)1:1<68::AID- outcomes—including attuned relational supports; IMHJ2280010110>3.0.CO;2-3 buffering of stress; intentional, sequenced development Alloway, T. P. (2006). How does working memory work in the classroom? Educational Research and Reviews, 1(4), of integrated habits, skills, and mindsets; rigorous, 134–139. mastery-oriented pedagogy; and culturally responsive Almlund, M., Duckworth, A. L., Heckman, J. J., & Kautz, instructional and curricular design—the developmental T. D. (2011). Personality psychology and economics (NBER range, performance, success, and, ultimately, potential Working Paper No. 16822). Cambridge, MA: National of all children can be optimized. Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http:// Our companion article, Drivers of Human Develop- www.nber.org/papers/w16822.pdf Ambrose, S. A., & Lovett, M. C. (2014). Prior knowledge is ment, builds upon this convergence of research and more important than content: Skills and beliefs also impact knowledge, providing an in-depth exploration of the learning. In V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, & C. M. Hakala ways in which nested micro- and macro-contextual (Eds.), Applying science of learning in education: Infusing factors affect children’s development across the life span. psychological science into the curriculum (pp. 7–19). Washington, DC: The Society for the Teaching of Psychology, Division 2 of the American Psychological Acknowledgments Association. Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/ asle2014/index.php We thank our partners in this work: The Opportunity Insti- Aronson, B., & Laughter, J. (2016). The theory and practice of tute, The Learning Policy Institute, and EducationCounsel. culturally relevant education: A synthesis of research 22 P. CANTOR ET AL.

across content areas. Review of Educational Research, 86(1), Neuroscience, 2(Suppl. 1), S1–S5. doi:10.1016/j. 163–206. doi:10.3102/0034654315582066 dcn.2012.01.001 Artiles, A. J., Kozleski, E. B., Trent, S. C., Osher, D., & Ortiz, Bloom, B. S. (1968). Learning for mastery. Evaluation A. (2010). Justifying and explaining disproportionality, Comment, 1(2), 1–12. 1968–2008: A critique of underlying views of culture. Bloom, B. S. (1984). The 2 sigma problem: The search for Exceptional Children, 76(3), 279–299. methods of group instruction as effective as one-on-one Ayoub, C. C., Fischer, K. W., & O’Connor, E. E. (2003). teaching. Educational Researcher, 13(6), 4–16. http://web. Analyzing development of working models for disrupted mit.edu/5.95/readings/bloom-two-sigma.pdf attachments: The case of hidden family violence. Attach- Boell, M. M., & Senge, P. (2016). School climate and social ment & Human Development, 5(2), 97–119. doi:10.1080/ fields: An initial exploration. Santa Cruz, CA: 1440 Foun- 1461673031000108478 dation. Retrieved from https://www.garrisoninstitute.org/ Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. wp-content/uploads/2016/05/School-Climate-and-Social- (2007). Research review: Genetic vulnerability or differen- Fields.pdf tial susceptibility in child development: The case of attach- Bornstein, M. H. (2017). The specificity principle in ment. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(12), acculturation science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 1160–1173. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01801.x 12(1), 3–45. doi:10.1177/1745691616655997 Baltes, P. B. (1997). On the incomplete architecture of human Brandtstädter, J. (1998). Action perspectives on human ontology: Selection, optimization, and compensation as development. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child foundation of developmental theory. American Psychologist, psychology, Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human develop- 23, 366–380. ment (pp. 807–863). New York, NY: Wiley. Baltes, P. B., Lindenberger, U., & Staudinger, U. M. (2006). Brandtstädter, J. (2006). Action perspectives on human Life span theory in developmental psychology. In R. M. development. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 1. psychology, Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human develop- Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., ment (6th ed., pp. 516–568). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. pp. 569–664). New York, NY: Wiley. Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (Eds.). (2000). How Barkley, R. A. (2012). Executive functions: What they are, how they people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school (Expanded work, and why they evolved. New York, NY: Guilford Press. ed.). Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Berg, J., Osher, D., Cantor, P., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2016). Brenhouse, H. C., Lukkes, J. L., & Andersen, S. L. (2013). The science of learning and development: A synthesis. Early life adversity alters the developmental profiles of Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research, addiction-related prefrontal cortex circuitry. Brain Science, Turnaround for Children, The Opportunity Institute, The 3(1), 143–158. doi:10.3390/brainsci3010143 Learning Policy Institute, and EducationCounsel. Brody, G. H., Miller, G. E., Yu, T., Beach, S. R. H., & Chen, E. Berliner, D. C., & Kupermintz, H. (2016). Changing institu- (2016). Supportive family environments ameliorate the link tions, environments, and people. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. between racial discrimination and epigenetic aging: Bernstein, B. E., Meissner, A., & Lander, E. S. (2007). The A replication across two longitudinal cohorts. Psychological mammalian epigenome. Cell, 128(4), 669–681. Science, 27(4), 530–541. doi:10.1177/0956797615626703 doi:10.1016/j.cell.2007.01.033 Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Making human beings human. Bethell, C. D., Newacheck, P., Hawes, E., & Halfon, N. (2014). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Adverse childhood experiences: Assessing the impact on Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2006). The bioecological health and school engagement and the mitigating role of model of human development. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), resilience. Health Affairs, 33, 2106–2115. Handbook of child psychology, Vol. 1. Theoretical models Bidell, T. R., & Fischer, K. W. (1992). Beyond the stage debate: of human development (6th ed., pp. 793–828). New York, Action, structure, and variability in Piagetian theory and NY: Wiley. research. In C. A. Berg & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), Intellectual Bucci, M., Marques, S. S., Oh, D., & Harris, N. B. (2016). development (pp. 100–140). New York, NY: Cambridge Toxic stress in children and adolescents. Advances in University Press. Pediatrics, 63(1), 403–428. doi:10.1016/j.yapd.2016.04.002 Blair, C., & Diamond, A. (2008). Biological processes in preven- Burke Harris, N., & Renschler, T. (2015). Center for Youth tion and intervention: The promotion of self-regulation as a Wellness ACE-Questionnaire (CYW ACE-Q Child, Teen, means of preventing school failure. Development & Psycho- Teen SR). San Francisco, CA: Center for Youth Wellness. pathology, 20(3), 899–911. doi:10.1017/S0954579408000436 Cairns, R. B., Elder, G. H., & Costello, E. J. (1996). Developmen- Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2014). Closing the achievement gap tal science. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. through modification of neurocognitive and neuroendo- Calhoun, L. G., & Tedeschi, R. G. (Eds.). (2006). The crine function: Results from a cluster randomized con- handbook of posttraumatic growth: Research and practice. trolled trial of an innovative approach to the education of Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. children in kindergarten. PLOS ONE, 9(11), e112393. Caspi, A., McClay, J., Moffitt, T. E., Mill, J., Martin, J., Craig, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0112393 I. W., … Poulton, R. (2002). Role of genotype in the cycle of Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2016). Poverty, stress, and brain violence in maltreated children. Science, 297(5582), 851– development: New directions for prevention and inter- 854. doi:10.1126/science.1072290 vention. Academic Pediatrics, 16(3, Suppl.), S30–S36. Center on the Developing Child. (2016). From best practices to doi:10.1016/j.acap.2016.01.010 breakthrough impacts: A science-based approach to building Blakemore, S.-J., & Bunge, S. A. (2012). At the nexus of a more promising future for young children and families. neuroscience and education. Developmental Cognitive Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Center on the APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 23

Developing Child. Retrieved from https://developingchild. epiconline.org/learning-strategies-as-metacognitive-factors- harvard.edu/resources/from-best-practices-to-breakthrough- a-critical-review/ impacts/ Crosnoe, R., & Benner, A. (2015). Children at school. In R. M. Cicchetti, D. (1990). Developmental psychopathology and the Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and develop- prevention of serious mental disorders: Overdue détente mental science: Vol. 4. Ecological settings and processes and illustrations through the affective disorders. In (7th ed., pp. 268–304). New York, NY: Wiley. P. Meuhrer (Ed.), Conceptual research models for Damon, W., Menon, J., & Bronk, K. C. (2003). The develop- prevention of mental disorders (pp. 123–141). Rockville, ment of purpose during adolescence. Applied Developmental MD: National Institute of Mental Health. Science, 7(3), 119–128. Retrieved from https://web.stanford. Cicchetti, D. (2010). Resilience under conditions of extreme edu/group/adolescence/cgi-bin/coa/sites/default/files/ stress: A multilevel perspective. World Psychiatry, 9(3), devofpurpose_0.pdf. 145–154. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ Deans for Impact. (2015). The science of learning. Austin, TX: pmc/articles/PMC2948722/ Author. Cicchetti, D. (2013). Annual research review: Resilient func- Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self- tioning in maltreated children—Past, present, and future determination in human behavior. New York, NY: Plenum. perspectives. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, Delpit, L. (2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in 54(4), 402–422. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02608.x the classroom (2nd ed.). New York, NY: New Press. Clark, R. E. (2006). Not knowing what we don’t know: Diamond, A., & Ling, D. S. (2016). Conclusions about inter- Reframing the importance of automated knowledge for ventions, programs, and approaches for improving execu- educational research. In G. Clarebout, & J. Elen (Eds.), tive functions that appear justified and those that, despite Avoiding simplicity, confronting complexity: Advances in much hype, do not. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, studying and designing (computer based) powerful learning 18, 34–48. doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2015.11.005 environments (pp. 3–14). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., Sense Publishers. & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing Clark, C. M., & Bjork, R. A. (2014). When and why introdu- students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis cing difficulties and errors can enhance instruction. In of school-based universal interventions. Child Develop- V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, & C. M. Hakala (Eds.), Applying ment, 82(1), 405–432. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624. the Science of Learning in Education: Infusing psychological 2010.01564.x science into the curriculum (pp. 20–30). Washington, DC: Dweck, C. S., & Molden, D. C. (2017). Mindsets: Their impact The Society for the Teaching of Psychology, Division 2 of on competence motivation and acquisition. In A. J. Elliot, the American Psychological Association. Retrievable C. S. Dweck, & D. S. Yeager (Eds.), Handbook of from the Society for the Teaching of Psychology website: competence and motivation (pp. 122–140). New York, teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php NY: Guilford Press. Clark, R. E., Howard, K., & Early, S. (2006). Motivational Dweck, C., Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2011). Academic challenges experienced in highly complex learning environ- tenacity: Mindsets and skills that promote log-term learning. ments. In J. Elen, & R. E. Clark (Eds.), Handling complexity Seattle, WA: Gates Foundation. in learning environments: Research and theory (pp. 27–43). Eccles, J. S., & Wigfield, A. (2002). Motivational beliefs, Oxford, England: Elsevier. values, and goals. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, Clark, R. E., & Saxberg, B. (2018). Engineering motivation 109–132. Retrieved from http://outreach.mines.edu/ using the belief-control-expectancy framework. Manuscript cont_ed/Eng-Edu/eccles.pdf submitted for publication. Ellis, A. K., Denton, D. W., & Bond, J. B. (2014). An analysis Cole, M. (1996). Culture in mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard of research on metacognitive teaching strategies. Procedia— University Press. Social and Behavioral Sciences, 116, 4015–4024. Cole, S. F., Eisner, A., Gregory, M., & Ristuccia, J. (2013). Help- doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.883 ing traumatized children learn: Creating and advocating for Emmerich, W. (1968). Personality development and concepts trauma-sensitive schools. Retrieved from http:// of structure. ETS Research Bulleting Series, 1968(1), i–35. nysteachs.org/media/TLPI_Creating.and.Advocating.for. doi:10.1002/j.2333-8504.1968.tb00378.x Trauma.Sensitive.Schools.pdf Entwisle, B., Hofferth, S. L., & Moran, E. F. (2017). Quilting a Cole, S. W. (2014). Human social genomics. PLOS Genetics, time-place mosaic: Concluding remarks. Annals of the 10(8), e1004601. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1004601 American Academy of Political and Social Science, 669(1), Coll, C. G., & Marks, A. K. (2011). The immigrant paradox in 190–198. doi:10.1177/0002716216683698 children and adolescents: Is becoming American a develop- Essex, M. J., Shirtcliff, E. A., Burk, L. R., Ruttle, P. L., Klein, M. mental risk? Washington, DC: American Psychological H., Slattery, M. J., … Armstrong, J. M. (2011). Influence of Association. early life stress on later hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal Colquitt, J. A., LePine, J. A., & Noe, R. A. (2000). Toward an axis functioning and its covariation with mental health integrative theory of training motivation: A meta-analytic symptoms: A study of the allostatic process from childhood path analysis of 20 years of research. The Journal of Applied into adolescence. Development and Psychopathology, 23(4), Psychology, 85(5), 678–707. Retrieved from https://www. 1039–1058. doi:10.1017/S0954579411000484 ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11055143 Farrington, C. A., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Conley, D. (2014). Learning strategies as metacognitive factors: Keyes, T. S., Johnson, D. W., … Beechum, N. O. (2012). A critical review. Portland, OR: Educational Policy Teaching adolescents to become learners. The role of noncog- Improvement Center. Retrieved from https://www. nitive factors in shaping school performance: A critical 24 P. CANTOR ET AL.

literature review. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Con- in reading disorders (pp. 101–132). Cambridge, England: sortium on Chicago School Research. Cambridge University Press. Fedyk, M. (2015). How (not) to bring psychology and biology Fischer, K. W., & Yan, Z. (2002). The development of together. Philosophical Studies, 172(4), 949–967. dynamic skill theory. In D. Lewkowicz, & R. Lickliter doi:10.1007/s11098-014-0297-9 (Eds.), Conceptions of development: Lessons from the labora- Feldman, R. (2015). The adaptive human parental brain: tory (pp. 279–312). Hove, England: Psychology Press. Implications for children’s social development. Trends in Fischer, K. W., Yan, Z., & Stewart, J. (2003). Adult cognitive Neurosciences, 38(6), 387–399. doi:10.1016/j.tins.2015. development: Dynamics in the developmental web. In 04.004 J. Valsiner, & K. Connolly (Eds.), Handbook of developmen- Felitti, V. J., & Anda, R. F. (2010). The relationship of adverse tal psychology (pp. 491–516). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. childhood experiences to adult medical disease, psychiatric Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: disorders, and sexual behavior: Implications for healthcare. A new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry. American In R. Lanius, & E. Vermetten (Eds.), The hidden epidemic: Psychologist, 34(10), 906–911. doi:10.1037/0003-066X. The impact of early life trauma on health and disease 34.10.906 (pp. 77–87). London, England: Cambridge University Press. Flouri, E., Midouhas, E., & Joshi, H. (2014). Family poverty Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., and trajectories of children’s emotional and behavioural Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., … Marks, J. S. (1998). Relation- problems: The moderating roles of self-regulation and verbal ship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to cognitive ability. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse 42(6), 1043–1056. Retrieved from https://link.springer.com/ Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of article/10.1007/s10802–013-9848–3. Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258. Ford, D. L., & Lerner, R. M. (1992). Developmental systems Fischer, K. (2009). Mind, brain and education: Building a theory: An integrative approach. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. scientific groundwork for learning and teaching. Inter- Frankl, V. E. (1959). Man’s search for meaning. New York, national Mind, Brain, and Education Society, 3(1), 3–16. NY: Beacon Press. Fischer, K. W., Bernstein, J. H., & Immordino-Yang, M. H. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: (Eds.). (2007). Mind, brain and education in reading disor- Herder & Herder. ders. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. Furlong, M., McGilloway, S., Bywater, T., Hutchings, J., Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (2006). Dynamic development Smith, S. M., & Donnelly, M. (2012). Behavioural and of action, thought, and emotion. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), cognitive-behavioural group-based parenting programmes Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models for early-onset conduct problems in children aged 3 to of human development (6th ed., pp. 313–399). New York, 12 years. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2, NY: Wiley. CD008225. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD008225.pub2 Fischer, K. W., Bullock, D., Rotenberg, E. J., & Raya, P. (1993). Furrer, C. J., Skinner, E. A., & Pitzer, J. R. (2014). The The dynamics of competence: How context contributes influence of teacher and peer relationships on students’ directly to skill. In R. H. Wozniak, & K. W. Fischer classroom engagement and everyday motivational (Eds.), Development in context: Acting and thinking in resilience. In D. Shernoff, & J. Bempechat (Eds.), National specific environments (pp. 93–120). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Society for the Study of Education yearbook: Engaging youth Fischer, K. W., & Farrar, M. J. (1987). Generalizations about in schools: Evidence-based models to guide future generalization: How a theory of skill development explains innovations (pp. 101–123). New York, NY: Teachers both generality and specificity. International Journal of Psy- College Record. chology, 22, 643–677. doi/org:10.1080/00207598708246798 Gardner, T. W., Dishion, T. J., & Connell, A. M. (2008). Fischer, K. W., & Immordino-Yang, M. H. (2002). Cognitive Adolescent self-regulation as resilience: Resistance to anti- development and education: From dynamic general struc- social behavior within the deviant peer context. Journal of ture to specific learning and teaching. In E. Lagemann Abnormal Child Psychology, 36(2), 273–284. doi:10.1007/ (Ed.), Traditions of scholarship in education (pp. 2–55). s10802-007-9176-6 Chicago, IL: Spencer Foundation. Garibaldi, M., Ruddy, S., Osher, D., & Kendziora, K. (2015). Fischer, K. W., & Kennedy, B. (1997). Tools for analyzing Assessment of climate and conditions for learning. In J. the many shapes of development: The case of self-in- Durlak, T. Gulotta, & R. Weissberg (Eds.), The handbook relationships in Korea. In E. Amsel, & K. A. Renninger of social and emotional learning (pp. 348–359). New York, (Eds.), Change and development: Issues of theory, method, NY: Guilford Press. and application (pp. 117–152). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Garmezy, N., Masten, A. S., & Tellegen, A. (1984). The study Fischer, K. W., & Rose, T. (1994). Dynamic development of of stress and competence in children: A building block for coordination of components in brain and behavior: developmental psychopathology. Child Development, 55, A framework for theory and research. In G. Dawson, & 97–111. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Human behavior and the developing pubmed/6705637 brain (pp. 3–66). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, Fischer, K. W., & Rose, L. T. (2001). Webs of skill: How research, and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College students learn. Educational Leadership, 59(3), 6–12. Press. Fischer, K. W., Rose, T., & Rose, S. P. (2007). Growth cycles of Gestsdottir, S., & Lerner, R. M. (2008). Positive development mind and brain: Analyzing developmental pathways of in adolescence: The development and role of intentional learning disorders. In K. W. Fischer, J. H. Bernstein, & self-regulation. Human Development, 51, 202–224. M. H. Immordino-Yang (Eds.), Mind, brain, and education doi:10.1159/000135757 APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 25

Ghavami, N., Katsiaficas, D., & Rogers, L. O. (2016). Toward neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain, and Education, an intersectional approach in developmental science: The 1(1), 3–10. role of race, gender, sexual orientation, and immigrant Institute of Medicine, & National Research Council. (2015). status. Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 50, Transforming the workforce for children birth through 31–73. doi:10.1016/bs.acdb.2015.12.001 age 8: A unifying foundation. Washington, DC: National Giovanelli, A., Reynolds, A. J., Mondi, C. F., & Ou, S.-R. Academies Press. (2016). Adverse childhood experiences and adult well- Irwin, T. (1999). Nicomachean ethics. Indianapolis, IN: being in a low-income, urban cohort. Pediatrics, 137(4). Hackett Publishing. doi:10.1542/peds.2015-4016 Jablonka, E., & Lamb, M. J. (2005). Evolution in four dimen- Goodnow, J. J., & Lawrence, J. A. (2015). Children and sions: Genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic variation cultural context. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child in the history of life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. psychology and developmental science, Vol. 4. Ecological Jimenez, M. E., Wade, R., Lin, Y., Morrow, L. M., & Reichman, settings and processes (7th ed., pp. 746–788). New York, N. E. (2016). Adverse experiences in early childhood and NY: Wiley. kindergarten outcomes. Pediatrics, 137(2), e20151839. Gotlieb, R., Jahner, E., Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Kaufman, doi:10.1542/peds.2015-1839 S. B. (2016). How social-emotional imagination facilitates Johnson, S. B., Riis, J. L., & Noble, K. G. (2016). State of the deep learning and creativity in the classroom. In R. A. art review: Poverty and the developing brain. Pediatrics, Beghetto, & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), Nurturing creativity in 137(4), 1–16. doi:10.1542/peds.2015-3075 the classroom (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge Johnson, S. B., Riley, A. W., Granger, D. A., & Riis, J. (2013). University Press. The science of early life toxic stress for pediatric practice Griffiths, P. E., & Hochman, A. (2015). Developmental and advocacy. Pediatrics, 131(2), 319–327. doi:10.1542/ systems theory. eLS, 2, 1–7. doi:10.1002/9780470015902. peds.2012-0469 a0003452.pub2 Jones, D. E., Greenberg, M., & Crowley, M. (2015). Guskey, T. R. (2005). Formative classroom assessment and Early social-emotional functioning and public health: Benjamin S. Bloom: Theory, research, and implications. The relationship between kindergarten social Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American competence and future wellness. American Journal of Educational Research Association, Montreal, Quebec, Public Health, 105(11), 2283–2290. doi:10.2105/ Canada. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ AJPH.2015.302630 ED490412.pdf Jones, S. M., Bailey, R., Barnes, S. P., & Partee, A. (2016). Haberman, M. (1991). The pedagogy of poverty versus good Executive function mapping project: Untangling the terms teaching. Phi Delta Kappan, 73(4), 290–294. and skills related to executive function and self-regulation Halfon, N., Shulman, E., & Hochstein, M. (2001). Brain devel- in early childhood (OPRE Report 2016-88). Washington, opment in early childhood. In N. Halfon, E. Shulman, & DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, M. Hochstein (Eds.), Building community systems for young Administration for Children and Families, Office of children (pp. 1–26). Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Center for Planning, Research and Evaluation. Healthier Children, Families and Communities. Jones, S. M., & Bouffard, S. M. (2012). Social and emotional Hammond, Z. (2016). Culturally responsive teaching and the learning in schools: From programs to strategies. Social Pol- brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among icy Report, 26(4), 1–33. Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed. culturally and linguistically diverse students. Thousand gov/fulltext/ED540203.pdf Oaks, CA: Corwin. Juster, R.-P., McEwen, B. S., & Lupien, S. J. (2010). Allostatic Hartelman, P. A. I., van der Maas, H. L. J., & Molenaar, P. C. load biomarkers of chronic stress and impact on health and M. (1998). Detecting and modelling developmental transi- cognition. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(1), tions. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 16(1), 2–16. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2009.10.002 97–122. doi:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1998.tb00751.x Kalyuga, S. (2007). Expertise reversal effect and its implica- Hattie, J. (2011). Which strategies best enhance teaching and tions for learner-tailored instruction. Educational learning in higher education? In M. Mashek, & E. Y. Psychology Review, 19, 509–539. doi:10.1007/s10648-007- Hammer (Eds.), Empirical research in teaching and learning: 9054-3 Contributions from social psychology (pp. 130–142). Kalyuga, S., Ayres, P., Chandler, P., & Sweller, J. (2003). The Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. expertise reversal effect. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), Hattie, J., & Yates, G. C. R. (2014). Visible learning and the 23–31. doi:10.1207/S15326985EP3801_4 science of how we learn. New York, NY: Routledge. Kaplan, A., Gheen, M., & Midgley, C. (2002). Classroom goal Hattie, J. A. C., & Donoghue, G. M. (2016). Learning structure and student disruptive behavior. British Journal of strategies: A synthesis and conceptual model. Nature Educational Psychology, 72(2), 191–211. doi:10.1348/ Partner Journals Science of Learning, 1, 16013. doi:10.1038/ 000709902158847 npjscilearn.2016.13 Keating, D. P. (2016). Transformative role of epigenetics in Hebb, D. O. (1949). The organization of behavior. New York, child development research: Commentary on the special NY: Wiley. section. Child Development, 87(1), 135–142. doi:10.1111/ Heckman, J. J., & Masterov, D. V. (2007). The productivity cdev.12488 argument for investing in young children. Applied Kellam, S. G., Koretz, D., & Mościcki, E. K. (1999). Core Economic Perspectives and Policy, 29(3), 446–493. elements of developmental epidemiologically based preven- Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, tion research. American Journal of Community Psychology, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social 27(4), 463–482. doi:10.1023/A:1022129127298 26 P. CANTOR ET AL.

Kellam, S. G., & Rebok, G. W. (1992). Building developmental Lee, C. D. (2009). From DuBois to Obama: The education of and etiological theory through epidemiologically based pre- peoples of African descent in the United States in the 21st ventive intervention trials. In J. McCord, & R. E. Tremblay century. Journal of Negro Education, 78, 367–385. (Eds.), Preventing antisocial behavior: Interventions from Lee, C. D. (2010). Soaring above the clouds, delving the ocean’s birth through adolescence (pp. 162–195). New York, NY: depths: Understanding the ecologies of human learning and Guilford Press. the challenge for education science. Educational Researcher, Kim, P., Strathearn, L., & Swain, J. E. (2016). The maternal 39(9), 643–655. doi:10.3102/0013189x10392139 brain and its plasticity in humans. Hormones and Behavior, Lee, C. H., & Kalyuga, S. (2014). The expertise reversal effect 77, 113–123. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2015.08.001 and its instructional implication. In V. Benassi, C. Overson, King, M. A., Sims, A., & Osher, D. (2007). How is cultural & C. Hakala (Eds.), Applying the science of learning in edu- competence integrated into education?. Washington, DC: cation: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum American Institutes for Research, Center on Effective (pp. 31–44). Washington, DC: American Psychological Collaboration and Practice. Association. Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/ Kirschman, K. J. B., Johnson, R. J., Bender, J. A., & Roberts, asle2014/index.php M. C. (2009). Positive psychology for children and adoles- Lerner, R. M. (2006). Editor’s introduction: Developmental cents: Development, prevention, and promotion. In S. J. science, developmental systems, and contemporary the- Lope, & C. R. Snyder (Eds.), Oxford handbook of ories. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: positive psychology (pp. 133–148). New York, NY: Oxford Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., University Press. pp. xxii–xxv). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Knafo, A., & Jaffee, S. R. (2013). Gene–environment corre- Lerner, R. M. (Ed.). (2015). Handbook of child psychology and lation in developmental psychopathology. Development developmental science (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. and Psychopathology, 25(1), 1–6. doi:10.1017/S0954579412 Lerner, R. (2017). Promoting positive development, health, and 000855 social justice through dismantling genetic determinism. In Knight, C. C., & Fischer, K. W. (1992). Learning to read K. Bogard, V. M. Murry, and C. M. Alexander (Eds.) words: Individual differences in developmental sequences. Perspectives on health equity and social determinants of Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 13, 377–404. health. Washington, DC: National Academy of Medicine. doi:10.1016/0193-3973(92)90037-I Lerner, R. M. (in press). Concepts and theories of human Kohlberg, L. (1974). Education, moral development and faith. development (4th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Journal of Moral Education, 4(1), 5–16. doi:10.1080/ Lerner, R. M., Liben, L. S., & Mueller, U. (2015). Handbook 0305724740040102 of child psychology and developmental science: Vol. 2. Koriat, A. (1993). How do we know that we know? The Cognitive processes (7th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. accessibility model of the feeling of knowing. Psychological Lerner, R. M., & Overton, W. F. (2017). Reduction to Review, 100(4), 609–639. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.100.4.609 absurdity: Why epigenetics invalidates all models involving Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The structure of scientific revolutions. genetic reduction. Human Development, 60, 107–123. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. doi:10.1159/000477995 Lachini, A., Berkowitz, R., Moore, H., Astor, R. A., & Li, J., & Julian, M. M. (2012). Developmental relationships as Benbenishty, R. (2016). A research synthesis of the the active ingredient: A unifying working hypothesis of associations between socio-economic background, “what works” across intervention settings. American inequality, school climate, and academic achievement. Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 82(2), 157–166. doi:10.1111/ Review of Educational Research, 20(10), 1–45. doi:10.1093/ j.1939-0025.2012.01151.x acrefore/9780199975839.013.1195 Lickliter, R., & Witherington, D. C. (2017). Towards a truly Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). “Yes, but how do we do it?” developmental epigenetics. Human Development, 60(2–3), Practicing culturally relevant pedagogy. In J. G. Landsman, 124–138. & C. W. Lewis (Eds.), White teachers diverse classrooms: Losel, F., & Farrington, D. P. (2012). Direct protective Creating inclusive schools, building on students’ diversity, and buffering protective factors in the development of and providing true educational equity (pp. 33–46). Sterling, youth violence. American Journal of Preventive VA: Stylus. Medicine, 43(2, Suppl. 1), S8–S23. doi:10.1016/j.amepre. Lai, E. (2011). Motivation: A literature review. London, England: 2012.04.029 Pearson. Retrieved from http://images.pearsonassessments. Luthar, S. S. (2006). Resilience in development: A synthesis of com/images/tmrs/Motivation_Review_final.pdf research across five decades. In D. Cicchetti, & D. J. Cohen Larson, R. W., & Rusk, N. (2011). Intrinsic motivation and (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Risk, disorder, and positive development. In R. M. Lerner, J. V. Lerner, & J. B. adaptation (pp. 739–795). New York, NY: Wiley. Benson (Eds.), Advances in child development and behavior, Luthar, S. S. (2015). Mothering mothers. Research in Human Vol. 41 (pp. 89–130). Burlington, VT: Academic Press. Development, 12(3–4), 295–303. doi:10.1080/15427609. Lazowski, R. A., & Hulleman, C. S. (2016). Motivation 2015.1068045 interventions in education: A meta-analytic review. Review Luthar, S. S., Barkin, S. H., & Crossman, E. J. (2013). of Educational Research, 86(2), 602–640. doi:10.3102/ “I can, therefore I must”: Fragility in the upper-middle 0034654315617832 classes. Development and Psychopathology, 25(4, Pt. 2), LeBrón, A. M. W., Schulz, A. J., Mentz, G., & White Perkins, 1529–1549. doi:10.1017/S0954579413000758 D. (2015). John Henryism, socioeconomic position, Luthar, S. S., Crossman, E. J., & Small, P. J. (2015). Resilience and blood pressure in a multi-ethnic urban community. and adversity. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psy- Ethnicity & Disease, 25(1), 24–30. chology and developmental science: Vol. 3. Socioemotional APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 27

processes (pp. 247–277). New York, NY: Wiley. Masten, A. S., & Reed, M. G. (2002). Resilience in develop- doi:10.1002/9781118963418.childpsy307/full ment. In C. R. Snyder, & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), The handbook Marcovitch, S., & Zelazo, P. D. (2009). The need for reflection of positive psychology (pp. 74–88). New York, NY: Oxford in the development of executive function: Reply to University Press. commentaries. Developmental Science, 12, 24–25. Master, A., Butler, L. P., & Walton, G. M. (2017). How the Marsh, H. W., Martin, A. J., Yeung, A. S., & Craven, R. G. subjective relationship between the self, others, and a task (2017). Competence self-perceptions. In A. J. Elliot, C. S. drives interest. In P. A. O’, Keefe, & J. M. Harackiewicz Dweck, & D. Yeager (Eds.), Handbook of competence and (Eds.), The science of interest (pp. 209–226). New York, motivation (2nd ed., pp. 85–115). New York, NY: Guilford NY: Springer. Press. McEwen, B. S. (1998). Protective and damaging effects of Marshall, P. J. (2015). Neuroscience, embodiment, and stress mediators. The New England Journal of Medicine, development. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child 338(3), 171–179. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm. psychology and developmental science: Vol. 1. Theory and nih.gov/pubmed/9428819 method (7th ed., pp. 244–283). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. McLean, K. C., & Pratt, M. W. (2006). Life’s little (and big) Mascolo, M. F., & Fischer, K. W. (2015). Dynamic develop- lessons: Identity statuses and meaning-making in the turn- ment of thinking, feeling, and acting. In R. M. Lerner ing point narratives of emerging adults. Developmental Psy- (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental chology, 42(4), 714–722. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.42.4.714 science: Vol. 1. Theory and method (7th ed., pp. 113–161). Meaney, M. J. (2010). Epigenetics and the biological definition Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. of gene � environment interactions. Child Development, Masten, A. S. (2007). Resilience in developing systems: 81(1), 41–79. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01381.x Progress and promise as the fourth wave rises. Development Merrill, M. D. (2002). First principles of instruction. and Psychopathology, 19(3), 921–930. doi:10.1017/ Educational Technology Research and Development, 50(3), S0954579407000442 43–59. Masten, A. S. (2011). Resilience in children threatened by Merrill, M. D. (2006). Levels of instructional strategy. Edu- extreme adversity: Frameworks for research, practice, and cational Technology, 46(4), 5–10. Retrieved from http:// translational synergy. Development and Psychopathology, mdavidmerrill.com/Papers/Levels_of_Strategy.pdf 23, 141–154. doi:10.1017/S0954579411000198 Merrill, M. D. (2007). The future of instructional design: The Masten, A. S. (2012). Risk and resilience in the educational proper study of instructional design. In R. A. Reiser, & J. V. success of homeless and highly mobile children: Intro- Dempsey (Eds.), Trends and issues in instructional design duction to the special section. Educational Researcher, 41, and technology (2nd ed., pp. 336–341). Upper Saddle River, 363–365. doi:10.3102/0013189x12467366 NJ: Pearson Education. Masten, A. S. (2014a). Ordinary magic: Resilience in develop- Meyer, D., & Turner, J. (2006). Re-conceptualizing emotion ment. New York, NY: Guilford Press. and motivation to learn in classroom contexts. Educational Masten, A. S. (2014b). Global perspectives on resilience in Psychology Review, 18(4), 377–390. doi:10.1007/s10648- children and youth. Child Development, 85, 6–20. 006-9032-1 doi:10.1007/s10567-013-0150-2 Miller, G. E., Yu, T., Chen, E., & Brody, G. H. (2015). Self- Masten, A. S., Best, K. M., & Garmezy, N. (1990). Resilience control forecasts better psychosocial outcomes but faster and development: Contributions from the study of children epigenetic aging in low-SES youth. Proceedings of the who overcome adversity. Development and Psychopath- National Academy of Sciences, 112(3), 10325–10330. ology, 2(4), 425–444. doi:10.1017/S0954579400005812 doi:10.1073/pnas.1505063112 Masten, A. S., & Cicchetti, D. (2010). Developmental cascades. Mischel, W. (2014). The marshmallow test: Mastering self- Development and Psychopathology, 22(3), 491–495. control. New York, NY: Brown. doi:10.1017/S0954579410000222 Mistry, J., & Dutta, R. (2015). Human development and Masten, A. S., & Cicchetti, D. (2016). Resilience in develop- culture: Conceptual and methodological Issues. In W. F. ment: Progress and transformation. In D. Cicchetti (Ed.), Overton, & P. C. Molenaar (Eds.), Handbook of child Developmental Psychopathology, Vol. 4: Risk, resilience, psychology and developmental science: Vol. 1. Theory and and intervention (3rd ed., pp. 271–333). New York, NY: method (7th ed., pp. 369–406). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Wiley. Molenaar, P. C., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2014). New trends in Masten, A. S., & Coatsworth, J. D. (1998). The development of the inductive use of relation developmental systems theory: competence in favorable and unfavorable environments: Ergodicity, nonstationarity, and heterogeneity. In P. C. Lessons from research on successful children. The Ameri- Molenaar, R. M. Lerner, & K. M. Newell (Eds.), Handbook can Psychologist, 53(2), 205–220. Retrieved from https:// of developmental systems theory and methodology (pp. 442– www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9491748 462). New York, NY: Guilford Press. Masten, A. S., Garmezy, N., Tellegen, A., Pellegrini, D. S., Molenaar, P., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2015). Systems methods Larkin, K., & Larsen, A. (1988). Competence and stress in for developmental research. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), school children: The moderating effects of individual Handbook of child psychology and developmental science and family qualities. Journal for Child Psychiatry and (7th ed., pp. 652–682). New York, NY: Wiley. Psychology, 29(6), 745–764. Retrieved from https://www. Moore, D. S. (2015). The developing genome: An introduction ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3235488 to behavioral epigenetics. New York, NY: Oxford University Masten, A. S., & Obradović, J. (2006). Competence and resili- Press. ence in development. Annals of the New York Academy of Mortimer, J. T., & Shanahan, M. J. (Eds.) (2006). Handbook of Sciences, 1094(1), 13–27. doi:10.1196/annals.1376.003 the life course. New York, NY: Springer. 28 P. CANTOR ET AL.

Murry, V. M., Hill, N. E., Witherspoon, D., Berkel, C., & behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19(3), 250–260. Bartz, D. (2015). Children in diverse social contexts. In doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2009.05.008 R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology and devel- Oyserman, D., & Destin, M. (2010). Identity-based opmental science, Vol. 4. Ecological settings and processes motivation: Implications for intervention. The Counsel- (7th ed., pp. 416–454). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. ing Psychologist, 38(7), 1001–1043. doi:10.1177/ Nagaoka, J., Farrington, C. A., Ehrlich, S. B., Heath, R. D., 0011000010374775 Johnson, D. W., Dickson, S., … Hayes, K. (2015). Founda- Oyserman, D., Destin, M., & Novin, S. (2015). The context- tions for young adult success: A developmental framework. sensitive future self: Possible selves motivate in context, Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Consortium on not otherwise. Self and Identity, 14(2), 173–188. Chicago School Research. doi:10.1080/15298868.2014.965733 Nihalani, P. K., Mayrath, M., & Robinson, D. H. (2011). Oyserman, D., & Lewis, N. (2017). Seeing the destination and When feedback harms and collaboration helps in computer the path: Using identity-based motivation to understand and simulation environments: An expertise reversal effect. reduce racial disparities in academic achievement. Social Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(4), 776–785. Issues and Policy Review, 11(1), 159–194. Retrieved from doi:10.1037/a0025276 https://dornsife.usc.edu/assets/sites/782/docs/Oyserman_ National Mathematics Advisory Panel. (2008). Foundations for Lewis-2017-Social_Issues_and_Policy_Review_1.pdf. success: The final report of the National Mathematics Advis- Paas, F., Renkl, A., & Sweller, J. (2004). Cognitive load theory: ory Panel. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. Instructional implications of the interaction between infor- National Reading Panel. (2001). Teaching children to read: An mation structures and cognitive architecture. Instructional evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature Science, 32(1), 1–8. on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Park, C. L. (2010). Making sense of the meaning literature: an Washington, DC: National Institutes of Health. integrative review of meaning making and its effects on Osher, D., & Berg, J. (in press). Conditions for learning and adjustment to stressful life events. Psychological Bulletin, social and emotional learning: The integration of two 136(2), 257–301. approaches. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Patrick, H., Turner, J., & Strati, A. (2016). Classroom- and University, Edna Bennet Pierce Prevention Research school-level influences on student motivation. In K. R. Center. Wentzel, & G. B. Ramani (Eds.), Handbook of social Osher, D., Cantor, P., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2017a). influences in school contexts: Social-emotional, motivation, Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children and cognitive outcomes (pp. 241–257). New York, NY: learn and develop in context. Applied Developmental Routledge. Science, Manuscript submitted for publication. Paunesku, D., Walton, G. M., Romero, C., Smith, E. N., Osher, D., Cantor, P., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2017b). Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2015). Mind-set interven- Drivers of human development: How relationships and tions are a scalable treatment for academic underachieve- context shape learning and development. Applied Develop- ment. Psychological Science, 26, 784–793. doi:10.1177/ mental Science. Manuscript submitted for publication. 0956797615571017 Osher, D., & Kendziora, K. (2010). Building conditions for Pennington, C. R., Heim, D., Levy, A. R., & Larkin, D. T. learning and healthy adolescent development: Strategic (2016). Twenty years of stereotype threat research: approaches. In B. Doll, W. Pfohl, & J. Yoon (Eds.), Hand- A review of psychological mediators. PLoS ONE, 11(1), book of youth prevention science (pp. 121–140). New York, e0146487. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0146487 NY: Rutledge. Perry, B. D. (2001). The neurodevelopmental impact of violence Osher, D., Kidron, Y., Brackett, M., Dymnicki, A., Jones, S., & in childhood. In D. Schetky, & E. Benedek (Eds.), Textbook of Weissberg, R. P. (2016). Advancing the science and practice child and adolescent forensic psychiatry (pp. 221–238). of social and emotional learning: Looking back and moving Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press. forward. Review of Research in Education, 40(1), 644–681. Perry, B. D., & Szalavitz, M. (2017). The boy who was raised as Overton, W. F. (2010). Life-span development: Concepts and a dog: And other stories from a child psychiatrist’s notebook issues. In R. M. Lerner, W. F. Overton, A. M. Freund, & —What traumatized children can teach us about loss, love, M. E. Lamb (Eds.), The handbook of life-span development and healing (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Basic Books. (pp. 1–29). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Perry, N., Turner, J. C., & Meyer, D. K. (2006). Student Overton, W. F. (2013). A new paradigm for developmental engagement in the classroom. In P. Alexander, & P. Winne science: Relationism and relational-developmental-systems. (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 327–348). Applied Developmental Science, 17(2), 94–107. doi:10.1080/ New York, NY: Erlbaum. 10888691.2013.778717 Perso, T. F. (2012). Cultural responsiveness and school education: Overton, W. F. (2015). Processes, relations and relational- With particular focus on Australia’s First Peoples: A review & developmental-systems. In W. F. Overton, & P. C. M. synthesis of the literature. Spring Hill, Queensland, Molenaar (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and develop- Australia: Menzies School of Health Research, Centre for mental science: Vol. 1. Theory and method (7th ed., pp. Child Development and Education, Darwin Northern 9–62). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Territory. Oyama, S., Griffiths, P. E., & Gray, R. D. (Eds.). (2001). Cycles Piaget, J. (1970). Science of education and the psychology of the of contingency: Developmental systems and evolution. child. New York, NY: Orion Press. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pintrich, P. R. (2002). The role of metacognitive knowledge in Oyserman, D. (2009). Identity-based motivation: Implications learning, teaching, and assessing. Theory into Practice, 41 for action-readiness, procedural-readiness, and consumer (4), 219–225. doi:10.1207/s15430421tip4104_3 APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 29

Pintrich, P. R., & Schunk, D. H. (2002). Motivation in Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 40–59. doi:10.17763/ education: Theory, research, and applications. Upper Saddle haer.78.1.v62444321p602101 River, NJ: Pearson. Shaver, P. R., Collins, N., & Clark, C. L. (1996). Attachment Portilla, X. A., Ballard, P. J., Adler, N. E., Boyce, W. T., & styles and internal working models of self and relationship Obradović, J. (2014). An integrative view of school func- partners. In G. J. O. Fletcher, & J. Fitness (Eds.), Knowledge tioning: Transactions between self-regulation, school structures in close relationships: A social psychological engagement, and teacher–child relationship quality. Child approach (pp. 25–62). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Development, 85(5), 1915–1931. doi:10.1111/cdev.12259 Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., Siegel, B. S., Dobbins, M. I., Raver, C. C., Garner, P. W., & Smith-Donald, R. (2007). The Earls, M. F., McGuinn, L., … Wood, D. L. (2012). The roles of emotion regulation and emotion knowledge for lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic children’s academic readiness: Are the links causal? In stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), e232–e246. doi:10.1542/ R. C. Pianta, M. J. Cox, & K. L. Snow (Eds.), School readi- peds.2011-2663 ness and the transition to kindergarten in the era of account- Siegel, D. J. (1999). The developing mind: Toward a neurobiology ability (pp. 121–148). Baltimore, MD: Brookes. of interpersonal experience. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. Siegel, D. J. (2012). The developing mind: How relationships New York, NY: Oxford University Press. and the brain interact to shape who we are (2nd ed.). Rogoff, B. (2011). Developing destinies. New York, NY: Oxford New York, NY: Guilford Press. University Press. Singer, J. D., & Willett, J. B. (2003). Applied longitudinal data Rose, T. (2016). The end of average: How to succeed in a world analysis: Modeling change and event occurrence. Oxford, that values sameness. New York, NY: Harper Collins. England: Oxford University Press. Rose, T., & Fischer, K. (2009). Dynamic development: A Neo- Slavich, G. M., & Cole, S. W. (2013). The emerging field of Piagetian approach. In U. Müller, J. I. M. Carpendale, & human social genomics. Clinical Psychological Science, 1 L. Smith (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Piaget (pp. (3), 331–348. 400–422). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Slopen, N., Loucks, E. B., Appleton, A. A., Kawachi, I., Press. Dubzansky, L. D., Non, A. L., … Gilman, S. E. (2016). Early Rose, T., Rouhani, P., & Fischer, K. W. (2013). The science origins of inflammation: An examination of prenatal and of the individual. Mind, Brain, and Education, 7(3), childhood social adversity in a prospective cohort study. 152–158. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 51, 403–413. doi:10.1016/j. Rutter, M. (1987). Psychosocial resilience and protective psyneuen.2014.10.016 mechanisms. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 57, Solórzano, D., Ceja, M., & Yosso, T. (2000). Critical race 316–331. theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate: Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory The experiences of African American college students. and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social Journal of Negro Education, 69, 60–73. development, and well-being. American Psychologist, Spencer, M. B. (2007). Phenomenology and ecological systems 55(1), 68–78. theory: Development of diverse groups. In R. M. Lerner Schmid, K., Phelps, E., & Lerner, R. M. (2011). Constructing (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical positive futures: Modeling the relationship between adoles- models of human development. New York, NY: Wiley. cents’ hopeful future expectations and intentional self regu- Retrieved from doi:10.1002/9780470147658.chpsy0115/ lation in predicting positive youth development. Journal of abstract Adolescence, 34(6), 1127–1136. Spencer, M. B. (2017). Privilege and critical race perspectives’ Schmidt, J. A., Shernoff, D. J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). intersectional contributions to a systems theory of Individual and situational factors related to the experience human development. In N. Budwig, E. Turiel, & P. Zelazo of flow in adolescence: A multilevel approach. In (Eds.), New perspectives on human development M. Csikszentmihalyi (Ed.), Applications of flow in human (pp. 258–286). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University development and education: The collected works of Mihaly Press. Csikszentmihalyi (pp. 379–405). Rotterdam, The Nether- Spencer, M. B., Swanson, D. P., & Harpalani, V. (2015). lands: Springer. Conceptualizing the self: Contributions of normative Schunk, D. H., Pintrich, P. R., & Meece, J. L. (2007). Motiv- human processes, diverse contexts and opportunity. ation in education: Theory, research, and applications. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall. and developmental science (pp. 750–793). New York, NY: Schwartz, H. A., Sap, M., Kern, M. L., Eichstaedt, J. L., Wiley. Kapelner, A., Agrawal, M., … Ungar, L. H. (2016). Predict- Sroufe, L. A. (2005). Attachment and development: ing individual well-being through the language of social A prospective, longitudinal study from birth to adulthood. media. Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing, 21, 516–527. Attachment & Human Development, 7(4), 349–367. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ doi:10.1080/14616730500365928 26776214 Sroufe, L. A., Egeland, B., Carlson, E. A., & Collins, W. A. Shackman, A. J., Sarinopoulos, I., Maxwell, J. S., Pizzagalli, D. (2005). The development of the person: The Minnesota study A., Lavric, A., & Davidson, R. J. (2006). Anxiety selectively of risk and adaptation from birth to adulthood. New York, disrupts visuospatial working memory. Emotion, 6(1), NY: Guilford Press. 40–61. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.6.1.40 Stafford-Brizard, K. (2015). Building blocks for learning: A Shanahan, T., & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary framework for comprehensive student development. New literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy. York, NY: Turnaround for Children. 30 P. CANTOR ET AL.

Stafford-Brizard, K. B. (2016). Nonacademic skills are the Walker, S. O. (2016). Where education meets medicine: necessary foundation for learning. Education Week. The science of adversity, resilience and human potential. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2016/ Unpublished manuscript. 07/21/nonacademic-skills-are-the-necessary-foundation- Walsh, F. (2016). Strengthening family resilience. New York, for.html NY: The Guilford Press. Stafford-Brizard, K. B., Cantor, P., & Rose, T. (2017). Building Walton, G. M., & Brady, S. T. (2017). The many questions of the bridge between science and practice: Essential charac- belonging. In A. Elliot, C. Dweck, & D. Yeager (Eds.). teristics of a translational framework. Mind, Brain, and Handbook of competence and motivation: Theory and Education, 11(4), 155–165. doi:10.1111/mbe.12153 application (2nd ed., pp. 272–293). New York, NY: Steele, C. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: And other clues to how Guilford Press. stereotypes affect us. New York, NY: Norton. Waters, E., Merrick, S., Treboux, D., Crowell, J., & Swearer, S. M., Espelage, D. L., Vaillancourt, T., & Hymel, S. Albersheim, L. (2000). Attachment security in infancy (2010). What can be done about school bullying? Linking and early adulthood: A twenty-year longitudinal study. research to educational practice. Educational Researcher, Child Development, 71(3), 684–689. doi:10.1111/1467- 39(1), 38–47. 8624.00176 Teicher, M. H., Samson, J. A., Anderson, C. M., & Ohashi, K. Wentzel, K. R., & Muenks, K. (2016). Peer influence on (2016). The effects of childhood maltreatment on brain students’ motivation, academic achievement and social structure, function, and connectivity. Nature Reviews behavior. In K. R. Wentzel, & G. B. Ramani (Eds.), Hand- Neuroscience, 17(10), 652–666. book of social influences in school contexts: Social-emotional, Thelen, E., & Smith, L. B. (2006). Dynamic systems theories. motivation, and cognitive outcomes (pp. 13–30). New York, In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: NY: Routledge. Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (6th ed., Wigfield, A., & Cambria, J. (2010). Students’ achievement pp. 258–312). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. values, goal orientations, and interest: Definitions, Ungar, M. (Ed.) (2012). The social ecology of resilience: development, and relations to achievement outcomes. A handbook of theory and practice. New York, NY: Developmental Review, 30(1), 1–35. doi:10.1016/j. Springer. dr.2009.12.001 Ungar, M., Ghazinour, M., & Richter, J. (2013). Annual Wigfield, A., & Eccles, J. S. (2000). Expectancy—value theory research review: What is resilience within the social ecology of achievement motivation. Contemporary Educational of human development? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychology, 25(1), 68–81. Psychiatry, 54(4), 348–366. doi:10.1111/jcp.12025 Wigfield, A., Eccles, J. S., Fredricks, J. A., Simpkins, S., Roeser, Urrieta, L., Jr. (2005). “Playing the game” versus “selling out”: R. W., & Schiefele, U. (2015). Development of achievement Chicanas and Chicanos relationship to Whitestream schools. motivation and engagement. In R. M. Lerner, & M. Lamb In G. L. Anderson, & B. Gallegos (Eds.), Performance the- (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental ories in education: Power, pedagogy, and the politics of science, Vol. 3: Socioemotional processes (7th ed., identity (pp. 173–196). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. pp. 657–700). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling. Albany, NY: Willingham, D. T. (2009). Why don’t students like school? A SUNY Press. cognitive scientist answers questions about how the mind van der Maas, H. L., & Molenaar, P. C. (1992). Stagewise cog- works and what it means for the classroom. San Francisco, nitive development: An application of catastrophe theory. CA: Jossey-Bass. Psychological Review, 99(3), 395–417. Retrieved from Wilson, E. O. (1999). Consilience: The unity of knowledge. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1502272 New York, NY: Random House. van Geert, P. (1991). A dynamic systems model of cognitive Witherington, D. C., & Lickliter, R. (2016). Integrating and language growth. Psychological Review, 98(1), 3–53. development and evolution in psychological science: doi:10.1037/0033-295X.98.1.3 evolutionary developmental psychology, developmental van Geert, P. (2003). Dynamic systems approaches and systems, and explanatory pluralism. Human Development, modeling of developmental processes. In J. Valsiner, & 59, 200–234. K. J. Conolly (Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychology Wold, M., & Katzir-Cohen, T. (2009). Reading fluency and its (pp. 640–672). London, England: Sage. intervention. Scientific Studies of Reading, 5(3), 211–239. Von Bertalanffy, L. (1968). General system theory: Founda- doi:10.1207/S1532799XSSR0503_2 tions, development, applications. New York, NY: George Yates, T. M., Egeland, L. B., & Sroufe, A. (2003). Rethinking Braziller. resilience: A developmental process perspective. In S. S. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Interaction between learning and Luthar (Ed.), Resilience and vulnerability: Adaptation in development. In M. Gauvain, & M. Cole (Eds.), Readings the context of childhood adversities (pp. 243–266). New on the development of children (pp. 29–35). Cambridge, York, NY: Cambridge University Press. MA: Harvard University Press. Yeager, D. S., & Walton, G. M. (2011). Social-psychological Wachs, T. D. (2015). Assessing bioecological influences. In interventions in education: They’re not magic. Review of R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology and devel- Educational Research, 81(2), 267–301. doi:10.3102/ opmental science (7th ed., Vol. 4, pp. 811–846). Hoboken, 0034654311405999 NJ: Wiley. Yeager, D. S., Johnson, R., Spitzer, B. J., Trzesniewski, K. H., Wade, R., Jr., Shea, J. A., Rubin, D., & Wood, J. (2014). Powers, J., & Dweck, C. S. (2014). The far-reaching effects Adverse childhood experiences of low-income urban youth. of believing people can change: Implicit theories of Pediatrics, 134(1), e13–e20. personality shape stress, health, and achievement during APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE 31

adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Developmental Review, 38, 55–68. doi:10.1016/j.dr. 106(6), 867–884. doi:10.1037/a0036335 2015.07.001 Zelazo, P. D. (Ed.) (2013). The Oxford handbook of Zelazo, P. D., & Carlson, S. M. (2012). Hot and cool developmental psychology (Vol. 2). New York, NY: Oxford executive function in childhood and adolescence: University Press. Development and plasticity. Child Develop- Zelazo, P. D. (2015). Executive function: Reflection, iterative ment Perspectives, 6(4), 354–360. doi:10.1111/j.1750- reprocessing, complexity, and the developing brain. 8606.2012.00246.x

Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis

January 2017

David Osher, PhD, American Institutes for Research (AIR) Pamela Cantor, MD, Turnaround for Children Juliette Berg, PhD, AIR Lily Steyer, Turnaround for Children Todd Rose, EdD, The Center for Individual Opportunity

With contributions from: Elizabeth Nolan, AIR

The Opportunity Institute The Learning Policy Institute EducationCounsel

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank the following individuals for their contributions to this paper:

Brigid Ahern Suniya Luthar Arvin Bhana Ann Masten Marc Brackett Deborah Moroney Catherine Brown Pedro Noguera Nadine Burke Harris Edmund Oropez Michele Cahill Scott Palmer Annemaree Carroll Kent Pekel Dante Cicchetti Jim Pellegrino Channa Cook-Harvey Karen Pittman Adele Diamond Lisa Quay Carol Dweck Cynthia Robinson-Rivers Linda Darling-Hammond Leila Rock Lisa Dickinson David Rose Angela Duckworth Pankaj Sah Helen Duffy Bror Saxberg Chris Edley Jim Shelton Camille Farrington Jack Shonkoff Ellen Galinsky Dan Siegel Robyn Gillies Arietta Slade Mara Goby Deborah Smolover Catherine Good Brooke Stafford-Brizard Mark Greenberg Laurence Steinberg Donna Harris-Aikens Diane Tavenner Stephanie Jones Sheila Walker Paul LeBlanc Greg Walton Carol Lee Roger Weissberg Richard Lerner Jess Wood Felice Levine David Yeager Bethany Little Patrick Cushen

Contents Page

Acknowledgments...... i

Executive Summary ...... 1

Introduction ...... 3

Key Findings ...... 4

Organization ...... 5 A Primer on Brain Structure and Function ...... 5

Theories of Human Development ...... 7 The Science of Human Development ...... 7 The Science of Attachment ...... 9 The Science of Self-Regulation ...... 11 The Science of Individuality ...... 14 The Science of Learning ...... 15 Student Background and Knowledge ...... 16 Cognitive Load and the Limits of Working Memory ...... 16 Metacognition ...... 17 Social and Emotional and Cognitive Development ...... 17 Motivation ...... 18 Interpersonal Factors That Affect Learning ...... 18 Social and Emotional Conditions for Learning ...... 19 Cultural Responsiveness and Competence ...... 20 Design Considerations ...... 21 The Science of Resilience ...... 27

Relationships as Drivers of Human Development: Positive Supportive Contexts ...... 29 Parents ...... 30 Teachers ...... 32 Peers ...... 33

The Neurobiology of Stress ...... 34 Impact of Adversity on Health ...... 36 Impact of Adversity on Learning ...... 37

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—ii

Intergenerational Transmission of Adversity ...... 38

Ecological Contexts of Development: Illustrative Examples ...... 40 Microsystem Contexts ...... 41 Families ...... 42 Early Care and Childhood Settings ...... 43 Schools ...... 44 Macrosystem Factors ...... 47 Poverty ...... 48 Racism ...... 49

Individual–Context Relations Across Development ...... 50 The First Three Years ...... 50 Early Childhood ...... 51 Middle Childhood ...... 52 Adolescence ...... 53

Organizing Translational Frameworks ...... 55

Conclusion ...... 56 Measurement Considerations ...... 56 Measuring Social and Emotional Competencies and Attributes ...... 58 Measuring Academic Skills ...... 59 Toward a Translational R&D Agenda: Gaps in Knowledge and Practice ...... 59 Human Plasticity ...... 60 Intergenerational Transmission ...... 60 Causality ...... 61 Susceptibility ...... 61 Resilience and Thriving ...... 61 Culture ...... 61 Learning ...... 61 Assessment ...... 61 Beyond K–12 ...... 62

References ...... 64

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—iii

Executive Summary

Human development derives from the continuous interaction between the individual and the context of each individual’s relationships and experiences. Development is shaped by a convergence of individual, biological, contextual, cultural, and historical factors.

Key Findings

In synthesizing the research across diverse disciplines, some overarching themes emerge that are important to a science of learning and human development and that can support the realization of better outcomes for all children. This scientific understanding of development opens a path for new, creative approaches that have the potential to solve seemingly intractable chronic learning and social problems. By applying this knowledge to new more personalized educational models and approaches, we can not only prevent the effects of adversity on development, we can promote excellence and equity in educational and developmental opportunity from cradle to career. The following themes emerge: • The ongoing, reciprocal relations between individuals’ biology, their relationships, and the ecologies and contextual influences in which they are embedded determine the expression of their genetic endowment and ultimately their development as individuals. • Genes are chemical “followers”; their expression is determined by contextual influences at the biological level. • Epigenetic adaptation determines the expression of our genetic makeup and is part of a system of ongoing two-way exchanges between human beings and the physical and social world that create qualitative changes over time. • Malleability and neural plasticity are the core principles of human development. • Each child’s development as a learner is nonlinear, has its own unique pacing, and is highly responsive to context. • Development of children’s skills is progressive, and does not occur in isolation; it requires the integration and layering of prerequisite skills. • Neural integration and interconnectivity of children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development is essential for well-being—both anatomically and functionally.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—1

• Contextual influence and ecology cannot be ignored. • Adversity can affect development, mental and physical health, and learning. • Resilience and thriving in the face of adversity is possible, and is a product of children’s internal assets and supports from individuals within a child’s social environment. • Adults’ buffering of stress plays a central role in healthy child development; therefore, building and supporting adult capacity are critically important tasks. • Schools and other child-serving systems are potentially powerful contexts through which stress can be buffered, neural integration and connectivity supported, and individual development nurtured. • Culture, cultural responsiveness, and cultural competence are critical components of context and are profoundly important in shaping the experiences through which children grow. This paper aims to synthesize generally accepted knowledge and strong theory in multiple disciplines and indicate how these areas of research converge. The paper has four purposes. First, it synthesizes and aligns the scientific literature from diverse fields, and explores the role of context and its positive and negative dimensions, including micro and macro examples— highlighting key points of agreement as well as areas for further study. Second, where the research agrees, it provides a foundation for the development of an urgent R&D agenda to translate these sciences into actionable, evidence-based practices for schools and for all child- serving systems. Third, it provides a scientific background for a related practice document that the Learning Policy Institute is preparing to make this research useful and useable for practitioners. Fourth, it intends to catalyze the creation of a supportive policy context to enable widespread adoption of scientifically informed practices and to promote a robust R&D agenda in areas requiring additional exploration.

As this synthesis suggests, our knowledge in multiple disciplines is converging and congruent. Advances in research, the coalescence within bodies of science, and the convergence across bodies of science and disciplines has the potential to be transformative. We are now positioned to draw upon an immensely relevant and diverse body of research to influence instructional and school design, and child-serving, family support, community, and health systems. This knowledge will enable us to improve the conditions in which children grow and develop by providing activating contexts for learning and for the fullest realization of each child's individual potential. Practices designed with the knowledge of human development as a foundation can enable us to more deeply personalize learning and the learner experience—going well beyond the traditional definitions that have been applied to these terms. This work must build upon the personal and cultural assets that children, families, and communities have, and must be interdisciplinary by its very nature—mirroring the nature of development itself—and applied at the individual student level and within the social contexts that affect child development.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—2

Introduction

The story of human potential presented by the human sciences—biological, psychological, and developmental—gives reason for optimism. How we express and fulfill our potential depends on complex relations between nature (our genes, biology, and physiological systems) and nurture (the physical and social environments we are exposed to), and how these are interpreted and internalized, all of which vary across time, place, and among individuals (Elder, Shanahan, & Jennings, 2015; Knafo & Jaffee, 2013; Lester, Conradt, & Marsit, 2016; Overton, 2015; Spencer, 2007). Development is a cascade of changes over time that emerge through increasingly novel and complex transactions between an individual and his or her social and physical contexts (Bierman & Sasser, 2014; Cox, Mills-Koonce, Propper, & Gariepy, 2010; Dumas, Prinz, Smith, & Laughlin, 1999; Lavigne, Gouze, Hopkins, & Bryant, 2016; Masten & Cicchetti, 2010). In this way, the developing brain draws on relationships and environments to build layer upon layer of representational templates over time (Siegel, 2012).

An understanding of neural malleability and plasticity, the dynamics of resilience, and the interconnectedness of individuals with their social and physical contexts offers a transformational opportunity to influence the trajectories of children’s lives. It enables us to appreciate the interpersonal, micro- and macro-contextual influences on children’s development at the cellular level. This scientific understanding of development opens a path for new, creative approaches that have the potential to solve seemingly intractable learning and social problems.

Two areas in which this understanding is ripest for translation into practice and policy are our nation’s education and early childhood systems. In recent years, there has been growing agreement that children are often ill-served by the factory model of K–12 education and the babysitting model of some early childhood programs. Simultaneously, our understanding of the sciences of learning and individuality has advanced. We know more than ever about how to design relationship-rich environments and teaching methods and practices to develop individuals, buffer students’ stress, accommodate the diverse ways in which children learn, and foster the skills and mindsets needed for healthy development and academic achievement. We know more about the importance of supporting adult wellness and competence in support of children’s development and learning. We also know more about the environments that contribute to unhealthy development and undermine engagement and learning. By applying this knowledge to new, more personalized educational models and approaches, we can not only prevent adversity from harming development, but promote excellence and equity in educational and developmental opportunity from cradle to career.

This paper aims to synthesize generally accepted knowledge and strong theory in multiple disciplines and indicate how these areas of research converge. The paper has four purposes. First, it synthesizes and aligns the scientific literature from diverse fields, and explores the role of context and its positive and negative dimensions, including micro and macro examples— highlighting key points of agreement as well as areas for further study. Second, where the research agrees, it provides a foundation for the development of an urgent R&D agenda to translate these sciences into actionable, evidence-based practices for schools and for all child- serving systems. Third, it provides a scientific background for a related practice document that the Learning Policy Institute is preparing to make this research useful and useable for

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—3

practitioners. Fourth, it intends to catalyze the creation of a supportive policy context to enable widespread adoption of scientifically informed practices and to promote a robust R&D agenda in areas requiring additional exploration.

This synthesis and the proposed R&D agenda, together with the supportive policy context we aim to foster, can help bring about profound changes in our 21st century education system and in the ways other child-serving systems and health systems are designed. Key Findings

In synthesizing the research across diverse disciplines, some overarching themes emerge: • The ongoing, reciprocal relations between individuals’ biology, their relationships, and the ecologies and contextual influences in which they are embedded determine the expression of their genetic endowment and ultimately their development as individuals. • Genes are chemical “followers”; their expression is determined by contextual influences at the biological level. • Epigenetic adaptation determines the expression of our genetic makeup and is part of a system of ongoing two-way exchanges between human beings and the physical and social world that create qualitative changes over time. • Malleability and neural plasticity are the core principles of human development. • Each child’s development as a learner is nonlinear, has its own unique pacing, and is highly responsive to context. • Development of children’s skills is progressive and does not occur in isolation; it requires the integration and layering of prerequisite skills. • Neural integration and interconnectivity of children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development is essential for well-being—both anatomically and functionally. • Contextual influences and ecology cannot be ignored. • Adversity can affect development, mental and physical health, and learning. • Resilience and thriving in the face of adversity is possible, and is a product of children’s internal assets and supports from individuals within a child’s social environment. • Adults’ buffering of stress plays a central role in healthy child development; therefore, building and supporting adult capacity are critically important tasks. • Schools and other child-serving systems are potentially powerful contexts through which stress can be buffered, neural integration and connectivity supported, and individual development nurtured. • Culture, cultural responsiveness, and cultural competence are critical components of context and are profoundly important in shaping the experiences through which children grow.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—4

Organization

Although individual and contextual factors are interconnected, they are analytically distinct (Overton, 2015). We present them sequentially in this synthesis for precision and clarity. Beginning with the individual factors, we discuss the following: • What we can learn from research on human development, attachment, individuality, self-regulation, learning, and resilience • The importance of relationships and stress in the mutual reinforcement, protective or harmful, of biological and contextual influences • How relationships and stress interact in key microsystems and how they are affected by macrosystem factors such as poverty and racism • How individuals and contexts interact across developmental stages • The importance of frameworks for organizing developmental constructs

We conclude by discussing existing gaps in knowledge and measurement of these individual and contextual factors and the ways in which these gaps can shape an ambitious R&D agenda.

A Primer on Brain Structure and Function1

The brain is organized from the inside out. There are four major parts: the brainstem, the diencephalon, the limbic system, and the cortex. The lower, more central regions of the brainstem and the diencephalon are the simplest. They evolved first and they develop first in children, followed by the limbic system, and finally the cortex—the structure that defines us as humans. The brainstem maintains our core regulatory functions, like heart rate and temperature. The diencephalon and the limbic system handle emotions and regulation. The cortex regulates the most complex and highly human functions, like speech and abstract thinking. All of these functions become progressively more integrated and complex as we grow.

The brain has an estimated 100 billion neurons, which are collectively over two million miles long. Each neuron has an average of 10 thousand connections that directly link it to other neurons. Thus there are about one million billion of these connections, making the brain “the

1 This section is a synthesis of work by Dan Siegel, M.D., and Bruce Perry, M.D., who have synthesized their own and the work of many other researchers, using the following sources: Perry, B. D., Pollard, R. A., Blaicley, T. I., Baker, W. I., & Vigilante, D. (1995). Childhood trauma, the neurobiology of adaptation and “use dependent” development of the brain: How states become traits. Infant Mental Health Journal, 16(4), 271–292. Perry, B. D., & Szalavitz, M. (2006). The boy who was raised as a dog: And other stories from a child psychiatrist's notebook: What traumatized children can teach us about loss, love, and healing. New York, NY: Basic Books. Siegel, D. J. (2010). Mindsight: The new science of personal transformation. New York, NY: Bantam. Siegel, D. J. (2012). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford. Siegel, D. J. (2013). Brainstorm: The power and purpose of the teenage brain. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—5

most complex structure, natural or artificial, on earth” (Siegel, 2012, p. 15). Electrical impulses transmitted over these connections create the interconnections in the brain; this web of interconnections means that activation of one neuron can influence an average of 10,000 neurons, creating an immense number of “on/off” patterns.

The brain’s development is an “experience-dependent” process. In fact, neurons and neural tissue are the most susceptible to change from experience of any tissue in the body. Experience is a “stressor” to brain growth. Relational connections activate neural pathways, generating “energy flow” through electrical impulses, strengthening the connectivity among brain structures and creating new ones. This energy flow is driven by interpersonal experiences throughout life. Neurons change is based on repetitive experience; the importance of this molecular gift in children’s development cannot be overestimated. Experiences can shape not only what information enters the mind, but the mind’s ability to process that information. Experience creates representations, and those representations stimulate the brain’s ability to process and make meaning out of new information. If experiences are interpersonally rich, predictable, and patterned, stress makes the brain stronger and more functionally capable, increases connectivity and integration, and increases resilience to stress.

At birth, an infant’s brain is the most undifferentiated organ in the body. Genes and early experience shape the way neurons connect to one another and form the circuits that give rise to increasingly complex mental processes. The differentiation of circuits within the brain involves a number of different processes, including the growth of axons, the establishment of new and more extensive synaptic connections among neurons, the growth of myelin along the length of the neuron (which increases “processing speed”), and the modification and sensitivity of receptor density for the “receiving neuron.” All of this is balanced against the amount of “pruning” (cell death). This pruning occurs naturally, but is greatly increased under prolonged stressful conditions. Enriched environments do the opposite—they lead to enhanced synaptic connections. Interpersonal experience influences the growth of the brain throughout childhood and early adulthood; the early period is particularly important for self-regulatory processes.

From an information-processing perspective, signals come to the brain from inside the body, from other parts of the brain, and from the outside world. The sending areas include deep physiological structures inside the body; limbic structures, including memory; and neocortical structures processing language, emotion, sensation, and perception. The processing function of the brain is to integrate this information so that it becomes more and more useful and gains meaning. To accomplish this, the brain creates templates—“representations”—of these types of stimuli. Templates are drawn increasingly from prior experience, including both emotional and cognitive experience (including some experiences that are not remembered consciously). If an experience is predicted and follows a pattern, the brain tags it as normal and does not continue to focus on it. But if something is not normal or predictable, or is hurtful, the brain pays attention to it. This is particularly important with respect to the templates caused by early traumatic experiences: the brain can become “habituated” to negative templates from prior experience and not recognize them as abnormal.

The brain is a complex system whose own internal processes organize its functioning. This property is called “self-organization.” Subtle and rapid shifts in synaptic strength come about because of new learning from experience. The driving force of development is the movement

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—6

from simplicity toward complexity. Think about the baby that rolls over, maintains a sitting position, stands, and ultimately walks, runs, or dances. The brain’s drive to complexity is consistent with the principles of nonlinear dynamic systems: such systems have self-organizing properties, are nonlinear, and are recursive. Patterns emerge constantly in interaction with the environment, and some become reinforced and continue to influence future experiences, consistent with Donald Hebb’s notion that “neurons which fire together, wire together” (Siegel, 1999). This is how repeated states of activation shape neuronal circuits, which then form enduring states of mind for individuals. These systems are stable and predictable, but also malleable and flexible, having the capacity for variability, novelty, and uncertainty. It is the healthy balance between stability and flexibility that allows us to use experience for adaptation and growth. Pathological states like severe recurrent stress bring greater rigidity in the system. Theories of Human Development

The Science of Human Development

Our genes are inseparable from other dynamic developmental systems that involve individuals, social contexts, culture, and history (Lerner, in press). “Positive development” emerges from the integration of a number of individual and contextual systems, from the biological and physiological to the cultural and historical (Bundick, Yeager, King, & Damon, 2010; Spencer, 2007). Experience, gene expression, gene regulation, neurobiological systems, biological systems, perceptions, and behavior are interconnected. The neural circuitry in the brain is intricately linked with the other physical systems of the body—the immune, endocrine, metabolic, cardiovascular, and musculoskeletal systems—as well as with ecological systems. Consequently, factors that affect one system also affect the rest (Overton, 2015; Siegel, 2012). For example, factors that affect physical development include the presence or absence of environmental toxins, and access to appropriate nutrition, sleep, and exercise (Kendziora, Osher, & Carey, 2014; Ruiz, Quackenboss, Tulve, 2016). These, in turn, are affected by structural and historical factors (Ard, 2015; Ruiz et al., 2016).

In this relational developmental systems framework, our genes are followers, not the prime movers, in developmental processes (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Slavich & Cole, 2013). Genes are packages of biological instructions, requiring signals to determine which processes are carried out (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016). Genes determine the number of neurons we are born with, but social and physical contexts influence which genes are expressed, how, and when (Jaffee, Price, & Reyes, 2013; Keating, 2016).

Epigenetic signatures (chemical signals derived from environmental influence) affect how easily genes are switched on and off and whether the change is temporary or permanent. This process is called epigenetic adaptation, and it shapes how our brains and our bodies develop. Epigenetic adaptation is part of a system of ongoing, two-way exchanges between human beings and the physical and social world that create qualitative changes to our genetic makeup over time within and across generations (Lerner, in press). Epigenetic adaptation is the biological process through which the environment of relationships, experiences, perceptions, and physical and chemical toxins get under the skin and influence lifelong learning, behavior, neural integration, and health (Bernstein, Meissner, & Lander, 2007). Epigenetic adaptation

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—7

can begin during pregnancy and even preconception (through the mother’s experiences), and contributes to the transmission of behaviors and experiences to future generations (Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Keating, 2016; Siegel, 2012). Encourage adaptive epigenetic signatures and buffering the factors that contribute to maladaptive epigenetic signatures are powerful levers to realize children’s genetic potential.

The brain is built from the bottom up. “Skills beget skills” (Heckman & Masterov, 2007, p. 447), with increasingly complex circuits building on simpler circuits, and increasingly complex adaptations emerging over time. Foundational social, emotional, and cognitive competencies accumulate in a cascading way, and interact with individual and environmental risk factors and assets to allow children to act in ways that optimize or interfere with their development and their physical and emotional wellbeing (Cox et al., 2010; Nagaoka et al., 2015).

Critical neurobiological processes, including neural integration (the perpetual experience- dependent remodeling of the brain) and neurogenesis (the formation of new brain cells), drive the growth and adaptability that are essential to healthy development and learning. Synaptic connections can grow in number and strength, and neural integration can increase through strong interpersonal connections, development of reflective skills, and focused attention (Siegel, 2010). This developmental integration occurs when the strengths of children and youth are aligned with the resources for positive growth in families, schools, and communities (Benson, Scales, Hamilton, & Sesma, 2007; Lerner, Lerner, Bowers, & Geldhof, 2015). These resources are promotive when they are developmentally appropriate, culturally competent, and a good fit with the child (Allen & Kelly, 2015; Eccles & Roeser, 2009; O’Connell, Boat, & Warner, 2009; Simmons & Blyth, 1987).

Relationships and experiences are the signals to which our genes respond. They are of primary importance for shaping the genetically programmed maturation of the nervous system, which shapes the structure and function of the developing brain (Meaney, 2010; Siegel, 2012). These relationships take place within proximal, bidirectional, interpersonal contexts that are themselves nested within larger micro- and macrosystems. Taken together, these contexts powerfully influence how the adults in a setting interpret and respond to the needs of children and youth (e.g., Brody, Miller, Yu, Beach, & Chen, 2016; Dreier, Mollenkopf, & Swanstrom, 2004; Jennings, Frank, Snowberg, Coccia, & Greenberg, 2013; Massey, 2007; Peterson & Krivo, 2010; Sampson, 2012; Sharkey, 2013).

Three relationship characteristics have the potential to build strong brain architecture: (1) warm, consistent, and attuned relationships in which learning is fostered and scaffolded; (2) positive experiences inside and outside the home; and (3) positive perceptions of these experiences (Brody et al., 2016; Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Chen, McLean, & Miller, 2015; Chen, Miller, Lachman, Gruenewald, & Seeman, 2012; Masten, 2007; Spencer & Swanson, 2013). Relationships that have these characteristics are necessary for developing the foundational emotional, social, behavioral, and cognitive competencies critical to learning and development—including those we often take for granted, such as learning a language and literacy (Halfon, Shulman, & Hochstein, 2001; Ramey, McGinness, Cross, Collier, & Barrie-Blackley, 1982; Ramey, Yeates, & Short, 1984; Sroufe, 2005). Developmental research suggests that these foundational competencies are malleable, and that the importance of the role each plays changes throughout different developmental periods. These competencies include cognitive processes,

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—8

emotional processes, social skills, knowledge, and dispositions (attitudes, beliefs, values, mindsets, and orientations toward self and others) (e.g., Jones & Bouffard, 2012; Osher, Kidron, Brackett, Dymnicki, Jones, & Weissberg, 2016). Over time, a combination of skills, knowledge, dispositions, and social and self-awareness, as well as physical and mental wellness, work together to enhance children’s wellbeing and opportunities for success in learning and life (Masten, 2014; Nagaoka et al., 2015).

These foundational competencies are individual assets that can interact with environmental factors in a positive cascade. However, there can also be negative cascades, where risk factors interact in ways that impair adaptive socialization (Sasser, Beekman, & Bierman, 2015). Adverse early experiences, including chronic stress and under-stimulating caregiver and child care experiences, make it more difficult for children to develop foundational developmental competencies to navigate the challenges posed by such environments, and can also elicit unhelpful responses from other individuals.

Epigenetic adaptation is not confined to a finite period in childhood. Nor is development a progression of fixed stages, like a ladder. The epigenetic-adaptation perspective views the developing brain and emerging mind as constantly organizing and integrating experience and building connectivity and mental representations of experience and identity across time (Siegel, 2013). The process continues into adolescence and adulthood, allowing malleability in development and behavior for far longer than once believed possible. We know today that there are several periods of brain “remodeling,” such as in adolescence, during which fundamental brain processes become more and more integrated through increased connectivity among brain structures (NRC, 2015; Siegel, 2012). This development is exquisitely sensitive to the relationships and experiences that are present when it is taking place, as well as being exquisitely sensitive to the presence of chronic stress.

The contemporary model of epigenetic adaptation runs counter to the genetic reductionist view of evolutionary change that sees genes as the primary mover in human development (see Lerner, in press), and counter to trait theories that posit that temperament and personality are determined by genes (see Lerner & Callina, 2014). Dynamic developmental theory (Fischer & Bidell, 2006) suggests that human attributes are only partially biological; they are affected by multiple and constant relations with people and contexts (Almlund, Duckworth, Heckman, & Kautz, 2011; Davidson & McEwen, 2012; NRC, 2015; Osher, Kidron, Brackett et al., 2016; Spencer, 2007).

The reciprocal and dynamic interactions that support the development of the brain provide something that nothing else in the world can provide—experiences that become individualized to, and ultimately shape, a child’s unique personality and potential. Such interactions are a product of individual and environmental assets, and create multiple experiences of and opportunities for success. These dynamic and reinforcing experiences shape children’s identities, awareness of self and others, and potential (Heckman, 2008; Rose, Rouhani, & Fischer, 2013).

The Science of Attachment

The early child–caregiver attachment relationship is particularly influential on development in infancy, and continues to be important as children develop (Moss & St-Laurent, 2001; Sroufe, 2005). Although prenatal development is important, a significant part of the mammalian brain

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—9

emerges after a child is born, and becomes organized over time through social context (Siegel, 2012). The first year of life is especially important, as sensory, social, and emotional interactions provide learning opportunities for the optimization of low-level brain circuits, which are the foundation for increasingly complex circuits that emerge in later years, particularly for self- regulation (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; IOM & NRC, 2015; Knudsen, 2004). Early interactions, which take place in the context of the early child–caregiver relationship, create patterns of organization as neural circuits and hormone levels change in both the infant and caregiver. This establishes blueprints for coordinated interpersonal behavior, attitudes, and expectations about the self, others, and relationships that become the foundation for short-term and long-term functioning (Kim, Strathearn, & Swain, 2016; Knafo & Jaffe, 2013; Sroufe, 2005). Shared experiences, attunement (the capacity of each to sense what the other needs and thinks), and co-regulation provide a foundation for a healthy early caregiver–child relationship. Longitudinal research on attachment reveals that early relational patterns between infants and parents, absent effective intervention, greatly influence how children will interact later on with teachers and with peers (Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, 2005). However, key adults—parents, teachers, and other providers—have the capacity to attune to, reorient attachment to, and establish positive relationships with children and youth into adulthood (Dymnicki, Wandersman, Osher, & Pakstis, in press; Hershberg, DeSouza, Warren, Lerner, & Lerner, 2014; Liebenberg et al., 2016; Siegel, 2012).

Pattern-making is thought to occur through sequences of attunement, misattunement, and reattunement that involve emotional responses, attention, executive functions, the reward and motivation system, and sensorimotor systems (Kim et al., 2016; Schore & Schore, 2008). In the first months of life, social synchrony—the coordination of social behavior between caregiver and infant in gaze, vocalization, affect, and touch—triggers biological synchrony (via heart rhythms and oxytocin levels), which helps parent and infant bond. During that time, the caregiver co-regulates her own and her infant’s emotional arousal and physical needs (Feldman, 2015; Kim et al., 2016). Attunement creates a resonance between adult and child. At toddler age, co-regulation gives way to a “caregiver-guided” form of regulation, and this then transitions to more and more ability to autonomously regulate the self. Emotion and the development of the ability to regulate emotional states moves the self, over time, into increasingly complex forms of interrelationship with environment and experience (Siegel, 1999).

Co-regulation, which is important throughout development, is particularly important in the first years of life, as the child develops the capacity to self-regulate (Halfon et al., 2001; Murray, Rosanbalm, Christopoulos, & Hamoudi, 2015). Researchers believe that attachment relationships with parents, family members, and other caregivers build self-confidence through opportunities to: (1) explore surroundings; (2) build language skills, through language-rich and responsive interactions; and (3) build social competence, through successful social interactions (Fernald, 2015; Golinkoff, Can, Soderstrom, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2015; IOM & NRC, 2015; Kuhl, 2010). Neurobiological research suggests that attuned communication between caregiver and child balances excitatory and inhibitory systems in the brain. This balance is critical for the development of the neurobiological systems involved in processing emotion, cognition, modulating stress, and self-regulation, all of which provide the foundation for later healthy functioning (Feldman, 2015; Galbally, Lewis, van IJzendoorn, & Permezel, 2011; Schore & Schore, 2008; Sroufe, Duggal, Weinfield, & Carlson, 2000).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—10

Certain characteristics of the caregiver–child relationship and the home environment can threaten attunement as well as relational and neural integration, and can result in disorganized attachment patterns. Some of the characteristics of the caregiver–infant relationship that result in disorganized attachment are emotional or physical rejection, hostility, lack of appropriate responsiveness, and unpredictability. One cause of this dysregulation is postpartum depression, which affects 10 percent to 20 percent of new mothers and somewhere between 4 percent and 26 percent of new fathers. The percentage can be drastically higher in parents with histories of depression and stress hormone dysregulation (Couto et al., 2015; Kim et al., 2016). Maternal depression threatens the mother’s emotional regulation and maternal sensitivity, and can contribute to over-controlling, intrusive, or disengaged parenting, as well as to irritability, anger, and sadness (Halfon et al., 2001; Petterson & Albers, 2001).

Prolonged periods of unregulated child stress, which are associated with compromised caregiver–infant interactions, can affect a child’s capacity to learn to self-regulate and disrupt the structure and processes of the child’s brain, neuroendocrine system, and immune system (Bucci, Marques, Oh, & Harris, 2016; Halfon et al., 2001; Johnson, Riis, & Noble, 2016). Disorganized attachment endangers the development of foundational competencies (e.g. executive functions, emotion recognition, and social information processing) critical for learning, interpersonal interactions, and school success in later years (Blair & Raver, 2016; Cicchetti, Rogosch, & Toth, 2006; Hoeve et al., 2012; Sroufe, 2005). Children with disorganized attachment patterns in their families can meet their needs for later attachment in ways that are positive (e.g., strong adult and peer relations) or negative (e.g., early pregnancy and gang involvement). Positive adaptations may be hindered by poor self-regulatory and attachment skills and inadequate social support, while negative responses can be prevented by the intentional development of self-regulatory skills, increasing self-awareness and social awareness, and new opportunities for adequate social support (e.g., Beijersbergen, Juffer, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2012).

There are many interventions that can help families at risk for poor attachment relationships create positive, reciprocal, and nurturing relationships with their young children (Furlong et al., 2012). Some examples include the ABC Intervention (Bernard, Hostinar, & Dozier, 2015), the Positive Parenting Program (Triple P) (Sanders, Kirby, Tellegen, & Day, 2014), and the Regional Intervention Program (Strain & Timm, 2002: Strain, Steele, Ellis, & Timm, 1982).

The Science of Self-Regulation

Self-regulation skills and attributes, referred to here under the umbrella term self-regulation, have a strong base of correlational and causal evidence to support their malleability, developmental progression, and vital contribution to short-term and long-term social, emotional, cognitive, academic, financial, and health outcomes (Blakemore & Bunge, 2012; Siegel, 2013). There is a large base of research showing the importance of the intentional development—from the beginning of life—of self-regulation skills such as executive functions and effortful control. In addition, there is a robust body of research showing that exposure to prolonged, unbuffered stress can disrupt the development of these critical skills (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Jones, Bailey, Barnes, & Partee, 2016).

Self-regulation encompasses a set of foundational skills that involves interrelated emotional, cognitive, social, and attentional systems that aid in managing cognition, attention, behavior, and

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—11

emotions, and support goal-directed behaviors. These systems interact to promote learning and development under healthy conditions, but under conditions of sustained stress they can hinder learning and development (Blair & Diamond, 2008; McClelland & Cameron, 2012; Moffitt et al., 2011; Stevens & Bavelier, 2012). Self-regulation, including executive functions and effortful control, involves complex skills that integrate multiple simpler skills from cognitive and emotional domains. Self-regulation allows one to manage cognition, motivation, emotion, behavior, and attention. Self-regulation encompasses many different regulatory-related attributes that range from basic, automated, physiological functions (e.g., circadian rhythm) to more complex, intentional processes (Gestsdottir & Lerner, 2008). Intentional self-regulated behavior, motivation, and cognition are initiated when a person consciously sets out to attain a goal or when routine activities are impeded. Intentional self-regulation includes well-researched skills such as “delay of gratification” and effortful control, as well as the ability to implement goal- related strategies, optimize goals to meet personal and social values and desired abilities, and compensate in the face of blocked or lost goals (Baltes, 1997; Gestsdottir & Lerner, 2008; Jones et al., 2016). Intentional self-regulation, in learning, is a constructive process whereby people set goals for their learning and then continue to monitor or control their cognition, motivation, and behavior based on the assessment of success or failure in attaining their goals.

Executive functions are part of the intentional self-regulatory system. They are the set of neurocognitive attention-regulation skills involved in the conscious goal-directed modulation of thought, emotion, and action (Blair & Diamond, 2008; Diamond, 2013; Zelazo, Blair, & Willoughby, 2016). As conceptualized, executive functions involve top-down, intentional control of behavior, as well as bottom-up, automatic reactions. They are commonly defined as having three components: cognitive or mental flexibility (switching from one demand to another and considering others’ perspectives), working memory (holding and manipulating information in the short term), and inhibitory control (mastery and filtering of thoughts and impulses to resist habits, temptation, distractions, and thinking before acting) (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2011; Zelazo, 2015). Executive functions are necessary for a number of more complex self-regulation-related skills such as problem-solving, focus and self-control, perspective-taking, communication, making connections, critical thinking, taking on challenges, and self-directed and engaged learning (Blair & Razza, 2007; Farrington et al., 2012; Galinsky Bezos, McClelland, Carlson, & Zelazo, in press; Jones et al., 2016). Executive functions are so fundamental to learning that some experts have argued they may be even more important for school readiness and success than early literacy and numeracy skills, because they prepare children to be engaged learners, to pay attention, and to follow rules, all of which are essential for school success (Zelazo, 2015).

Self-regulation skills and attributes are themselves critical for success in school and life, but they also underlie or are intricately linked with a number of other foundational competencies, such as attention, memory, and stress management (Blakemore & Bunge, 2012; Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2011; Dweck, Walton, & Cohen, 2011; Murray et al., 2015). They are among the more important prerequisites for developing (with some contextual support) perseverance and contribute to resilience (Flouri, Midouhas, & Joshi, 2014; Gardner, Dishion, & Connell, 2008; Masten, 2007; Stafford-Brizard, 2015).They are considered responsible for many of the skills necessary for higher-order learning and social competence, including impulse control, managing strong feelings, problem solving, decision making, organizing behavior, self-direction, learning from educational experiences and practice, and

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—12

conflict resolution (Murray et al., 2015, Stafford-Brizard, 2015). Self-regulation-related skills and attributes underlie interpersonal competencies, and are a critical component of school readiness (Raver, Garner, & Smith-Donald, 2007). Children who are better able to self-regulate have better relationships with teachers and peers and are seen by teachers as more academically and socially competent (Blair & Diamond, 2008). These factors are associated with greater engagement in school (Farrington et al., 2012; Murray et al., 2015; Zelazo, 2015). Self- regulation-related skills and attributes are associated with greater likelihood of graduating from college, and better health and wealth in adulthood (Blair & Diamond, 2008; Diamond & Lee, 2011; Gathercole, Pickering, Knight, & Stegmann, 2004; Seguin, Nagin, & Tremblay, 2004; Vitaro, Brendgen, Larose, & Tremblay, 2005; Zelazo, 2015).

A growing body of research suggests that self-regulation, including executive functions, is a particularly important target for intervention for children who are challenged by attentional issues and impulsivity (Jimenez, Wade, Lin, Morrow, & Reichman, 2016; Loeber et al., 2012; Menting, van Lier, Koot, Pardini, & Loeber, 2016; Polderman, Boomsma, Bartels, Verhulst, & Huizink, 2010; Sijtsema, Verboom, Penninx, Verulst, & Ormel, 2014). Research in diverse fields has found that effective interventions that address self-regulation can help children who have experienced a variety of poverty-related adversities to be better prepared to successfully engage in learning and better succeed in school (Blair & Raver, 2014; Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Diamond & Ling, 2016; Masten, 2007).

Self-regulation of emotion, in particular the regulation and synchrony of emotional states, is central to the overall regulatory and integrative processes of the developing brain (Siegel, 1999; Damasio, 1994). As “the highest order direct expressions of bioregulation in complex organisms,” emotion and the experiences of emotion are crucial components of the developing brain’s integrative processes, and are key to understanding “the relation between an organism and the most complex aspects of an environment: society and culture” (Siegel, 1999). To accomplish this, the developing brain exists in a continuous feedback loop between emotion regulation (emotional self-regulation), executive functions (response inhibition, attention shifting, and working memory), motivation, and the stress response. This feedback loop helps these systems mutually organize each other and establish increasingly complex representations of the meaning of experiences, and thus creates the resulting balance among these systems to facilitate healthy human development (Blair & Diamond, 2008; Cole, Martin, & Dennis, 2004; Siegel, 2013). Indeed, the associations between self-regulation and important child outcomes such as school readiness and academic competence are thought to be due to the coordination and mutual reinforcement of these subsystems (Blair & Diamond, 2008; Jones et al., 2016).

Self-regulation is distinct from attitudes, beliefs, mindsets and values, and from orientation to individuals, informal and formal institutions, and groups. Alone and together, all of these factors contribute to healthy social, emotional, cognitive, metacognitive, and academic development, enable productive engagement with the social and physical world, and modulate the experience of stress (Almlund et al., 2011; Dweck et al., 2011; Farrington, 2013; Farrington et al., 2012; Heckman & Kautz, 2012; Jones & Bouffard, 2012; Nagaoka et al., 2015; Osher, Kendziora, Spier, & Garibaldi, 2014; Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Scales, Roehlkepartain, & Schramko, 2016; Trilling & Fadel, 2009).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—13

Self-regulatory capabilities interact continuously within the microsystems of relationships in which children develop. Transactions between biological and social processes over time, and the balance among the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral self-regulatory systems, are thought to determine the acquisition and strengthening of a child’s overall self-regulation system (Murray et al., 2015; McCabe, Cunnington, & Brooks-Gunn, 2004). The neurological and behavioral systems involved in self-regulation continue to develop from birth to young adulthood. Early childhood and adolescence are considered highly sensitive periods for their development (Johnson et al., 2016).

The Science of Individuality

The science of individuality is grounded in dynamic systems theories (Fischer & Bidell, 1998; Kelso, 2000; Thelen & Smith, 2006), and starts with the premise that individuals vary in how they learn, behave, and develop; that these processes vary according to the context; and that there are patterns within that variability (Mischel, 1968; Rose et al., 2013). The individual–context interaction is part of a holistic, integrated, and self-constructing system that includes actions that take place at the cellular level (in cells within microenvironments in the body), the genetic level (in gene–context interactions), and the neurobiological, phenomenological, emotional, and behavioral levels (Overton, 2015). Although individual patterns exist, these patterns change according to context, which includes microenvironments within the same overall context (e.g., schools or families) (Bahns, Pickett, & Crandall, 2012; Osher, Kendziora, Spier, & Garibaldi, 2014; Osher, Kidron, DeCandia et al., 2016). The science of individuality has implications for diverse areas of research, from exploring development of cancer cells to the development of literacy and social behavior in children. Its principles are consistent with a range of fields of study, including research on the differential effects of interventions (Kellam, Koretz, & Mościcki, 1999) and on the historical and phenomenological factors that affect and differentiate individual responses to the experience of adversity (Spencer, 2007), as well as research that suggests that individual differences in developmental plasticity and susceptibility to environmental influences are part of an integrated system that includes a neurobiological component (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn, 2007; Johnson et al., 2016; Kolb & Gibb, 2011).

A major implication of the science of individuality and the idea of relative plasticity is that there is not one ideal developmental pathway for everyone; there are multiple pathways to healthy development, learning, academic success, and resilience (Ford & Lerner, 1992; Hattie, 2009; Rose et al., 2013; Ungar, Ghazinour, & Richter, 2013). Rather than study averages, research should start with a focus on understanding patterns in individual variation across contexts, and from there build toward generalizable models of growth and learning (Rose et al., 2013).

Plasticity and susceptibility to the environment can work in beneficial or harmful ways (Cole, 2014). Some children (and certain developmental periods) are more vulnerable to adversity and stress, but those same children may also benefit the most from support and enrichment in their environment. For example, more susceptible children can realize better outcomes when securely attached, and more negative outcomes with disorganized attachment (Bakermans-Kranenburg & Van IJzendoorn, 2007; Roisman & Fraley, 2008). The idea of differential susceptibility implies that great opportunity exists in intervening in the lives of children who experience the most dysregulation in the face of stress and adversity. It also implies that although children may be

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—14

more susceptible to adversity in the first few years of life (and other sensitive periods), they also are likely more malleable in the context of interventions (Blair & Raver, 2016; Johnson et al., 2016).

The Science of Learning

Education can benefit from the accumulation of research in neuroscience, cognitive science, and the learning sciences; research on social, emotional, and academic learning; and research on the social and emotional conditions for learning. Experts in the learning sciences have used this cumulative body of knowledge to develop a set of principles of how students learn, to guide the design of curriculum, instruction, and assessment (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Goldman & Pellegrino, 2015). These principles can help align instruction with the way the brain works and help personalize learning. The principles address the following: • Student background and knowledge • Cognitive load and the limits of working memory • Metacognition • Social and emotional and cognitive development • Motivation • Interpersonal factors that affect learning • Social and emotional conditions for learning • Cultural responsiveness and competence

While these principles are distinct, they are experienced interactively by learners. Ideally, they are operationalized by educators with attention to their interdependence. Learning depends on relations and supports within and among individuals, classroom and school contexts, and other opportunities to learn. Theoretical and empirical research evidence on the interconnection among emotional, cognitive, social, and affective functioning suggests that students learn most deeply when they are in environments that promote their intrinsic motivation to learn and master material; where they see themselves as competent and capable learners; where they have high expectations for themselves as learners and achievers; where they have the capacity to persist at challenging tasks; and where they feel they can take risks, reflect on and learn from their mistakes, and persist through challenges (Deci & Ryan, 2008; Dweck & Master, 2009; Goldman & Pellegrino, 2015; Good, Aronson, & Inzlicht, 2003; Marcovitch & Zelazo, 2009a; Marcovitch & Zelazo, 2009b; Osher & Kendziora, 2010; Rattan, Good, & Dweck, 2012; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). Hattie and Donoghue’s (2016) learning strategies discuss the importance of “skill, will, and thrill.” Skill involves student’s prior or subsequent achievement; will relates to students’ various dispositions towards learning; and thrill refers to students’ motivations to learn. Timely, clear, and specific feedback that is focused on the task and on improvement, and is experienced as supportive, can link the social, emotional, and cognitive aspects of learning (Deans for Impact, 2015; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Steele, 2010). Ecological resources such as social networks, cultural beliefs, cultural assets, and institutional practices shape all of these variables (Lee, 2009).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—15

Neural plasticity is important for the neural connections that directly and indirectly affect learning. The neural systems that underlie learning exhibit plasticity throughout the lifespan, vary between individuals, and respond to environmental stressors, culture, societal norms, and social interactions (Blair & Diamond, 2008; Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Rose et al., 2013; Tomasello, 1999). In addition, consistent with the science of individuality, cognitive development occurs through the acquisition of new knowledge and experiences, and not through a linear age-related progression (Deans for Impact, 2015; Flynn, O’Malley, & Wood, 2004). Neural integration and the mastery of new information is more likely to occur when different parts of the brain are strengthened and exercised through appropriate learning opportunities (avoiding cognitive overload), social support for learning, modeling, scaffolding, reflection, and practice (Deans for Impact, 2015).

There are many examples of the interconnections among these principles. For example, students who are learning to read and comprehend texts are likely to consider what the teacher thinks of them, the importance to them of making sense of the text, their ability to understand the text, and their interpretation of success or failure, all of which are influenced by their prior knowledge, their experiences with reading at school and at home, and their social and academic identities (Lee et al., 2015). Reading comprehension also depends on classroom and school factors—most notably relationship-building and instructional strategies that are developmentally appropriate and personalized (Lee, 2010).

Student Background and Knowledge

Students are not “blank slates.” From prior experiences and interactions, students bring to school beliefs about themselves and learning; epistemological beliefs; prior knowledge of how the world works; content-specific knowledge; beliefs about their own intelligence; and cultural knowledge, skills, and schema that are sometimes incomplete or inconsistent with instruction, language, and discourse practices (Ambrose & Lovett, 2014; Bransford et al., 2000; Hoffman, 2009; Yeager, Johnson et al. 2014). Prior knowledge includes conscious and unconscious knowledge, including incorrect knowledge that needs to be unlearned, and automated beliefs and attributions from negative as well as positive experiences (Clark, 2006, 2009). Students also bring intellectual and metacognitive skills (Ambrose & Lovett, 2014). Students’ levels of knowledge and skill affect how they receive and process information, as well as how and when they benefit from direct instruction and feedback (e.g., Nihalani, Mayrath, & Robinson, 2011). When interests and prior knowledge are not taken into account, students may be less engaged. Teachers can leverage prior knowledge, engage students, and support learning (Ambrose & Lovett, 2014).

Cognitive Load and the Limits of Working Memory

Effective instruction must deal with our cognitive load (i.e., the amount of mental effort being used in working memory) and the limits of working memory (Alloway, 2006). The presentation of knowledge affects how knowledge is retained and transferred. This may be particularly important for novice learners, who process and retrieve knowledge less efficiently than experts (Chase & Simon, 1973; Kalyuga, Ayres, Chandler, & Sweller, 2003). Teachers can help novice learners build new knowledge in a discipline most effectively by providing intentional and explicit instruction about key ideas, and combining it with hands-on learning experiences. A

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—16

thoughtfully organized framework that helps novice learners see the whole picture can facilitate retrieval and application of new concepts, and deepening of knowledge. Alleviating cognitive load should not mean oversimplifying content: information should be presented in such a way that it is as germane as possible (Paas, Renkl, & Sweller, 2004)

Metacognition

Evidence suggests that most learning is non-conscious and automated, and that students often do not know what and how much they learn from instruction (Clark, 2006, 2008). Metacognition, an active process of reflection, sense-making, and self-assessment, helps students become active participants in the learning process, supports neural integration, and helps students learn from their mistakes, all of which are integral to learning (Marcovitch & Zelazo, 2009b; Müller, Lieberman, Frye, & Zelazo, 2008). Student self-awareness is an important aspect of metacognition (Ehrlinger & Shain, 2014). Strategies that encourage metacognition push students to reflect on the process of learning, including how well they are learning, their affective states, and how new knowledge fits into their existing knowledge. These strategies help students become expert learners (Clark, 2009; De Corte, 2003). Metacognitive approaches to instruction have been shown to increase the degree to which students transfer knowledge to new situations without explicit guidance (Bransford et al., 2000).

Social and Emotional and Cognitive Development

A host of emotional, affective, social, and cognitive processes affect the ability of students to learn (including knowledge acquisition and retention, transfer and application of knowledge beyond the classroom, and performance on standardized tests). Social and emotional competence affects learning and instruction (Arndt, 2012; Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007; Osher , Kidron, Brackett et al., 2016) and is critical to students’ school and life success (Brackett, Rivers, & Salovey, 2011; Bransford et al., 2000; Fischer, 2009; Immordino-Yang, 2015; Immordino- Yang & Damasio, 2007; OECD, 2015; Rychen & Salganik, 2003). These skills are malleable. They can be taught and developed through cognitive-readiness and social-and-emotional- learning strategies (Osher, Kidron, Brackett et al, 2016).

Contrary to the generally held belief that cognitive functions are separate from emotional, affective, and social functions, research in neuroscience and the behavioral sciences provides evidence that these functions are intricately interrelated (Immordino-Yang, 2011; National Research Council, 2012; Zimmerman, 2008). The interrelationships between emotional, cognitive, social, and affective functioning are apparent at the molecular and behavioral levels (Blair & Diamond, 2008 Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Immordino-Yang, 2011). At the neurobiological level, neural circuits involved in regulating emotions (e.g., anxiety) overlap with those that affect body regulation (e.g., heart rate) and sensation (e.g., physical pain) and support cognition (e.g., executive control). These functions sometimes reinforce each other and sometimes interfere with each other (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Dalgleish, 2004; Immordino-Yang, 2011). At the behavioral level, emotion affects motivation, engagement (e.g., flow), and academic performance (Meyer & Turner, 2006). The interrelationship between functions helps explain why the cognitive processes that contribute to learning, memory, and knowledge transfer and application cannot be separated from the emotional, social, and affective processes that also contribute to

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—17

learning—such as confidence, motivation, persistence, self-control, anxiety, and curiosity (Clark, 1998; Davidson, Amso, Anderson, & Diamond, 2006; Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Immordino-Yang & Damasio, 2007).

The social and cultural contexts of learning affect emotions in important ways. The neurobiological processes involved in learning are interconnected with a nest of peer and adult relationships and opportunities that shape personal experience and cultural knowledge, and can affect learning, engagement, motivation, challenge, boredom, and frustration (Hagenauer, Hascher, & Volet, 2015; Hammond, 2016; Immordino-Yang, 2011; Osher et al., 2014). Each internal and external system contributes uniquely to an individual’s ability and motivation to formulate ideas, perceptions, and understandings about his or her environment. Within the student, this process occurs through self-assessment, self-reflection, and self-regulation— processes that are affected by children’s social and emotional competencies.

Motivation

Motivation affects engagement and performance (Clark, 1998; Colquitt, LePine, & Noe, 2000). Although encouraging motivation is challenging in many settings, it is particularly challenging in school contexts where participation is compulsory, where learning opportunities lack personalization, and where the benefits of learning are unclear to students. Three factors that appear to increase or decrease motivation are (1) perceived ability to accomplish a task, (2) value of the goals, and (3) mood and emotion (Clark, 1998; Hattie & Donoghue, 2016). Students are more motivated to learn and are more effective learners when they believe that their intelligence and ability can be improved through hard work (Burnette, O’Boyle, VanEpps, Pollack, & Finkel, 2013; Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003), when they are able to identify strengths and weaknesses in their own learning and understanding (Koriat, 1993), and when they see value in the task (Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2003). Intrinsic motivation is powerful (Davis, Winsler, & Middleton, 2006) and has been associated with deeper engagement, focus, creativity, confidence, and achievement (Patrick, Turner, & Strati, 2016). Students are more motivated to learn when they feel a sense of control and efficacy in their learning (Elliott & Dweck, 1988; Ryan & Deci, 2000; Zusho, Pintrich, & Coppola, 2003). Students are also more motivated when they have a sense of purpose (Dweck et al., 2014). Research suggests that when students see a prosocial purpose to an academic task, they are more likely to persist despite difficulty or boredom (Yeager, Henderson et al., 2014). Research also shows that students are more motivated when they experience support and belonging (Deans for Impact, 2015; Martin & Rim-Kaufman, 2015; Midgley, Feldlaufer, & Eccles, 1989; Yeager, Walton, & Cohen, 2013).

Interpersonal Factors That Affect Learning

Learning has strong interpersonal components, which include interactions with teachers and classroom members. The most effective instruction and learning experiences acknowledge the fundamentally interpersonal nature of learning. Both peers and teachers are key for students to work within their zones of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978). The quality of teacher- student and peer relationships affects learning independent of pedagogical strategy (Dupéré, Leventhal, Crosnoe, & Dion, 2010; Wentzel & Muenks, 2016; Wubbels, Brekelmans, Mainhard, den Brok, & van Tartwijk, 2016). However, some instructional strategies explicitly leverage these relationships. Teacher-driven examples include explicit modeling, scaffolding, and

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—18

reciprocal teaching. Student-driven examples include cooperative learning and cross-age peer tutoring. Another example is situated learning when knowledge is co-constructed with others and dependent on the specific context and situation (e.g., Boaler, 2002; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008).

Social and Emotional Conditions for Learning

The social and emotional conditions for learning (called conditions for learning) are those aspects of the learning environment that are most proximal to learning and development (e.g., safety, connectedness, and support; challenge and engagement). These conditions are a subset of school and classroom climate, and a product of interactions among all members of a class or school community, how these interactions are interpreted, and the school’s culture (Garibaldi, Ruddy, Osher, & Kendziora, 2015; Pianta & Hamre, 2009). The conditions for learning are related to the emotional and affective salience of instruction and how students view the meaning and purpose of education, how safe and comfortable students feel, and students’ willingness to take academic risks. They provide conditions that support the development of critical foundational skills such as self-regulation, the fostering of academic persistence, and students’ self-direction (Osher & Kendziora, 2010).

Conditions for learning and opportunities to learn affect learning directly (e.g., through their effects on working memory and engagement) and indirectly (e.g., through effects on teacher stress and ability to teach). For example, anxiety, which can be affected by a lack of safety, impairs working memory (Shackman et al., 2006). Engagement, which can be enhanced by academic challenge and teacher support, can facilitate flow, which involves optimizing absorption, focus, and enjoyment (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2002; Schmidt, Shernoff, & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). Feedback is powerful when the classroom climate welcomes errors and focuses on learning and mastery as opposed to performance (Hattie & Yates, 2014). Similarly, interpersonal relationships within learning environments affect learning directly (e.g., cooperative learning) and indirectly (e.g., through the effects of bullying on learning) (Swearer, Espelage, Vaillancourt, & Hymel, 2010). Research has repeatedly demonstrated positive associations between classroom and school conditions for learning and achievement (Allen et al., 2013; Berkowitz, Moore, Astor, & Benbenishty, 2016; Bryan et al., 2012; Fall & Roberts, 2012; Fan, 2012; Reyes, Brackett, Rivers, White, & Salovery, 2012; Thapa, Cohen, Guffey, & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2013; Wang & Holcombe, 2010).

Students’ social behaviors within learning environments affect and are affected by school staff members’ perceptions of students and students’ perceptions of teachers. Staff function as natural raters who reward or sanction students’ behaviors (Kellam & Rebok, 1992). Teacher expression of explicit expectations of and behaviors toward students affect students’ self-concept, engagement, motivation to succeed, and school-related behaviors (Osher, Kidron, DeCandia, Kendziora, & Weissberg, 2016; Rattan et al., 2012). Interpersonal relationships between and among students and their teachers, in particular students’ perceptions of teacher empathy and trust, also play an important role in student engagement and capacity to persist through challenging academic tasks (Master, Butler, & Walton, 2017; Okonofua, Paunesku, & Walton, 2016). The mutually reinforcing interactions between and among students and teachers are entwined with the way the nervous system responds to learning; the degree to which students tap

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—19

their cognitive, emotional, social, and affective resources; and even special education diagnoses and placements (Bransford et al., 2000).

When students perceive conditions for learning as unfavorable (e.g., a lack of safety, connection, or challenge) students find it harder to engage and can become frustrated, have lower self- concepts and expectations, and lag behind academically (Claro, Panunesku, & Dweck, 2016; DiLalla, Marcus, & Wright-Phillips, 2004; Good et al., 2003; Hammond, 2016; Osher et al., 2014). This process can be internalized and unconscious, and can affect how students approach new learning challenges (Clark, 2006).

Cultural Responsiveness and Competence

Cultural responsiveness and competence can help address the challenges faced by culturally and linguistically diverse students from non-dominant or marginalized groups by providing emotional supports that allow them to feel that the school and classroom are places for learning and that they belong. Culturally and linguistically diverse students often experience disconnects between curricula and pedagogy on the one hand, and their experience, cultural capital, and needs on the other (Cartledge, 2008; Gay, 2010). These disconnects place particular cognitive and emotional demands on students, who have to master new knowledge without the benefits of culturally embedded explicit or implicit prior knowledge that teachers may take for granted (Clark, 2006; Lee, 2007)—knowledge that helps students from dominant groups master material. English learners provide an example of students who may experience these disconnects (Campbell, Adams, Davis, 2007; DeKeyser & Juffs, 2005). Studies of college students provide another example of the effects of these disconnects: when students were taught new facts about familiar individuals they retained twice as much as students who were taught the same number of facts about unfamiliar individuals (Ambrose & Lovett, 2014). These cultural disconnects make it harder for students to perceive themselves as learners (or as successful learners) and to visualize the connection between their schoolwork, their lives, and promising futures (Oyserman, Bybee, & Terry, 2006; Oyserman & Destin, 2010; Oyserman & Fryberg, 2006).

Culturally responsive approaches can use culturally mediated and situated pedagogy to address the emotional, motivational, interpersonal, and learning needs of culturally and linguistically diverse students to build upon their strengths and create a learning environment where they feel they belong and where they are emotionally and intellectually safe, supported, and challenged (Gay, 2010; Powell, Cantrell, Malo-Juvera, & Correll, 2016; Rickford, 2001). Rather than ignoring the assets that students bring with them (e.g., their cultural knowledge) or viewing it as a deficit (Valenzuela, 1999), culturally responsive approaches leverage cultural resources additively. These approaches acknowledge students’ cultural displays of learning and meaning- making, and use teaching methods that use cultural knowledge as a scaffold to connect what students know to new concepts and content in order to promote effective information processing (Hammond, 2016; Lee, 2007; Lee, Spencer, & Harpalani, 2003). Culturally responsive approaches can also support learning by reducing the chances that educators will overestimate students’ prior knowledge or students’ familiarity with culturally embedded schemas. Strategies such as cultural modeling (Lee, 2007), which make this prior knowledge explicit and incorporate it into daily instruction and other learning experiences, can help students integrate new knowledge and connect in-school and out-of-school learning. For example, in the case of reading, cultural modeling can help identify and build upon students’ everyday knowledge,

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—20

including their perceptions of their competencies and their interests, while scaffolding discipline- specific reading skills (Lee, 1995, 1997, 2000, 2004).

Cultural competence has been defined as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that enables schools, agencies, or providers to work effectively (ideally proficiently) in bicultural and multicultural interactions (King, Sims, & Osher, 2007). Cultural competence can help schools and agencies systematically address the disconnects, challenges, and adversities that culturally and linguistically diverse students and their families routinely face due to their culture, race, ethnicity, gender, and social class. These barriers include institutionalized processes and individual behaviors, and are related to disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes (Artiles, Kozleski, Trent, Osher, & Ortiz, 2010; Osher, Dwyer, & Jackson, 2004). Institutionalized processes include resource allocation, rituals, policies, protocols, and practices. Individual behaviors include harassment, macroaggressions, and negative stereotyping. These processes negatively affect student goals, attention, effort, and self-efficacy (Lane, Nadel, & Ahern, 2000; Solórzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000; Spencer, Fegley, & Dupree, 2006; Zajonc & Marcus, 1984), and drain the psychic energy available to address particular tasks (Brondolo et al., 2003; Pennington, Heim, Levy, & Larkin, 2016; Sue et al., 2007). Stereotype threat provides an example: it can increase feelings of anxiety, negative thinking, and mind-wandering, and can impair working memory and other executive resources required for successful task execution (Appel, Weber, & Kronberger, 2015; Johns, Inzlicht, & Schmader, 2008; Pennington et al., 2016 Steele, 2010; Szymanski, Kashubeck-West, & Meyer, 2008). While many individuals persevere, these barriers can create stress, place extra demands on working memory, drain cognitive resources, and impact health (LeBrón, Schulz, Mentz, & Perkins, 2015; Smith, Hung, & Franklin, 2011).

Design Considerations

Education can benefit from the translation and application of the scientific principles regarding learning and development elaborated in this paper in efforts to improve short- and long-term learner outcomes through deeper personalization of learning and the learner experience. This process has started to happen, as educators and researchers have started to mine the knowledge about social, emotional, cognitive, and contextual influences on engagement and learning generated by the evolution of the science of learning and development over the last two decades. Key aspects of this knowledge include research on how instruction can support learning and knowledge construction by (1) focusing on supporting learners’ capacities to attend to, organize, elaborate, and remember knowledge; (2) supporting the development of the fundamental and complex concepts and skills involved in thinking, decision making, analysis and problem solving; and (3) applying a cultural and contextual lens to learning (Mayer, 1996; Murphy & Knight, 2016; Hoy, Davis, & Anderman, 2013).

This knowledge can be employed to increase the personalization, relevance, and meaning of learning while building important affective and cognitive competencies, skills, and mindsets. These competencies address the demand from employers for graduates with 21st century problem-solving and interpersonal skills and with educational backgrounds that emphasize communication, collaborative problem-solving, and the development of an academic growth mindset (Demming, 2015; Heckman, Stixrud, & Urzua, 2006; Miller, 2015). Evidence suggests that educational activities that focus on interrelated aspects of student development can result in

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—21

deeper understanding of core academic content, higher graduation rates, and higher rates of postsecondary enrollment and persistence (Rickles, Zeiser, Mason, & Garet, 2016; Yang, Zeiser, Siman, 2016; Zeiser, Taylor, Rickles, Garet, & Segeritz, 2014).

Applying the Science of Learning (and Development) to Instructional and School Design

Research in cognitive psychology, social-affective neuroscience, education, and special education point to a set of factors that curricula and instructional design need to address. These factors include knowledge about: • Personalizing and differentiating learning by addressing individuality and difference • Addressing the different stages of learning • Distinguishing between and addressing short- and long-term learning goals.

Addressing Individuality and Difference. Variation in learning and attention is the norm, not the exception. Children’s s developmental and learning trajectories vary as a product of the interactions of their attributes and social contexts as well as in their development over time (Fischer & Bidell, 2006; Lerner, in press; Rose et al., 2013). Instructional design can identify and develop culturally and ecologically grounded practice that can support deep personalization of learning and the learner experience at the individual and group levels.

Instructional design should utilize statistical and qualitative techniques and methods to address the jaggedness of learning—the multiple and nonlinear pathways individual children take to develop their skills and knowledge (Fischer, 2009; Rose et al., 2013). Research, which can strengthen our ability to understand individual variation in students and diversity of learning, can be enriched by employing sophisticated data analytic techniques in combination with crowd- sourcing, analyses of positive deviance, and rapid-cycle improvement science methodologies.

Education design and policy cannot bet on individual resilience alone. It must address the key drivers of positive learning outcomes, which include effective pedagogy, curricular design, and the creation of classroom and school environments that support personalization and learning. Educational design should be informed by what is known about the science of human development; a full appreciation of context; the research on cognitive, social, and emotional development; and the research on resilience. Design and policy should also build upon what can be learned from research approaches that employ cultural and ecological lenses to identify strategies that work for children, families, teachers, schools, and agencies (Lee, 2009). This can include building upon knowledge regarding how people who face multiple adversities leverage resources to intentionally promote individual and collective resilience (Lee, 2009; Masten, 2007 Spencer, 2007). The use of these cultural and ecological lenses can help address the challenges of attribution biases created by observer perspectives that do not address or understand the ecological and phenomenological factors that affect adversities, adaptations to those adversities, and learning and development (Jones & Nisbett, 1972; Lee, 2010; Ryan, 1972; Steele, 2010). Using cultural and ecological lenses can also help combat negative mindsets of students who experience adversity and their families (e.g., Bohner & Dickel, 2011; Bomer, Dworin, May, &

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—22

Semingson, 2008; Lee, 2010), and some of the perceptual factors that contribute to implicit bias (Warikoo, Sinclair, Fei, & Jacoby-Senghor, 2016).

A consideration of instructional and school design approaches based on the Science of Learning and Development principles could include: • Creating student-centered environments and pedagogical approaches (Murphy & Knight, 2016). • Establishing small, personalized inquiry-based learning communities (Brown & Campione, 1996). • Ensuring that every student is known and has strong, trustful, and supportive connections to adults, including one specific advisory and mentoring relationship (Ancess, 2003; Braddock & McPartland, 1993; Darling-Hammond, Ramos-Beban, Altamirano, & Hyler, 2016; Eccles et al., 1993; Friedlaender et al., 2014; Lee, Bryk, & Smith, 1993). • Ensuring that expectations and belief in students are explicitly expressed and enacted through meaningful challenge (Osher & Kendziora, 2010; Steele, 2010), so that students believe they are capable of a high level of achievement. • Providing, and supporting the ongoing development of, a school staff that is high performing, well prepared, culturally responsive, and knowledgeable about the science of learning, individual child development, and individual variability (Gay, 2010; Ladson- Billings, 1994), and has the capacity to care for and attune with every student (Quinn, Osher, Hoffman, & Hanley, 1998). • Ensuring that all students have an individualized and personalized learning plan and opportunities that include instructional and personal development goals, and support for realizing these goals. • Aligning, embedding, and intentionally teaching cognitive readiness skills such as self- regulation, including executive functions and social and emotional learning—universally and also intentionally for students who are at various levels of risk (Dymnicki, Kendziora, & Osher, 2012; Jones & Bouffard, 2012; Osher, Sprague et al., 2008). • Explicitly valuing self-direction, engagement, intrinsic motivation, curiosity, and citizenship. • Using problem-based and experiential learning and cognitive apprenticeships (Bouck, Okolo, Englert & Heutsche, 2008; Murphy & Knight, 2016; Schoenfeld, 1998). • Employing a disciplined use of data that includes consistent bidirectional student and teacher feedback as well as data on how students and others are experiencing the social and emotional conditions for learning. • Addressing the needs of students who have experienced trauma through a universal trauma-sensitive approach combined with student-specific trauma-informed approaches (Cole, Eisner, Gregory, & Ristuccia, 2013; Osher, Kidron, DeCandia et al., 2016).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—23

• Using a whole-school approach to student support that builds upon a rich foundation (Osher et al., 2004) that is trauma sensitive, culturally competent, and consistent with approaches to multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS) principles (Kingston, Mihalic, & Sigel, 2016), including Positive Behavioral Interventions & Supports (PBIS) (Bradshaw, Pas, Debnam, & Johnson, 2015; Bradshaw, Reinke, Brown, Bevans, & Leaf, 2008); and that aligns instruction, PBIS, and social and emotional learning (Bear, Whitcomb, Elias & Blank, 2015; Bradshaw, Bottiani, Osher, & Sugai, 2013; Osher, Sprague et al., 2008). • Preventing discipline disparities and the use of exclusionary practices, rules, norms, policies, or discipline codes (Anyon et al., 2016; Hawkins, Smith, & Catalano, 2004).

Deeper learning and project-based learning provide examples of instructional and curriculum design that successfully combine cognitive, affective (social and emotional), and academic development in service of the science of learning and development. They represent pedagogical approaches that develop the skills students need to succeed in today’s complex world. The Hewlett Foundation (2013) defines these competencies as mastery of academic content, thinking critically to solve complex problems, working collaboratively, communicating effectively, learning how to learn, and developing academic mindsets. Others, such as the New Pedagogies for Deep Learning partnership have defined these skills as character, citizenship, collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking (Fullan, McEachen, & Quinn, 2016). These approaches represent more than a list of discrete practices, such as the integration of digital technology (Hattie & Donoghue, 2016); deeper learning approaches involve fundamentally different partnerships in which teachers, students, families, and community members work in partnership to co-design learning activities. Students experience multiple opportunities to reflect upon their growth and learning and use peer and adult feedback along with other criteria to evaluate their progress.

Project-based learning involves completing tasks that result in a realistic product or presentation to the audience, and draws from multiple approaches: design-based instruction, inquiry-based learning, service learning, and collaborative learning. Design-based instruction asks students to create products that require them to apply their knowledge, go through multiple stages of revisions, and collaborate with their peers. Inquiry-based learning involves cooperative small- group learning to complete a collective task. Service learning projects give students the chance to contribute to their communities as they learn (Darling-Hammond et al., 2015; McKay-Jackson, 2014; Villegas & Lucas, 2002; Willis-Darpoh, 2013). Collaborative learning is another strategy that is most effective when it is well planned and actively facilitated by teachers, and when it encourages and builds on positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face interaction, social skills, and group processing (Gillies, 2014; Hattie & Yates, 2014; Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 1999). Both service learning and collaborative learning integrate the teaching and reinforcement of student social and emotional competencies, which supports academic growth (Durlak et al., 2011; Jones & Bouffard, 2012; Dynarski et al., 2008; Osher, Kidron, Brackett et al., 2016).

Stages of Learning. Several instructional strategies and learning experiences are grounded in what we know about how novices and experts learn. Merrill (2002, 2006) recommends a cycle of instructional phases that includes activation, demonstration, application, and integration of learning in addressing real-world problems or tasks. Merrill recommends making this cycle

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—24

visible to students and teachers, and using the cycle to provide practice opportunities and feedback to help students become fluent in a subject (Anderson & Schunn, 2000).

Some specific strategies focus on enabling students who are novice in particular areas of knowledge to receive declarative (i.e., factual) knowledge and explicit guidance on procedural (i.e., performance) knowledge in order to avoid misconceptions, partial understandings, and ineffective problem-solving strategies (National Research Council, 2005), and to ultimately learn to apply the knowledge to new situations. Research suggests that experts are only aware of about 30 percent of their own decision-making and analysis tasks (Feldon, 2007); as experts, teachers may not provide students with sufficient guidance. Cognitive task analysis (CTA) is a method that uses structured interviews and observations to extract procedures and knowledge that may have become routine or tacit (Clark & Elen, 2006; Clark, Feldon, & Yates, 2006; Feldon & Clark, 2006). This information can help teachers provide an accurate and complete demonstration of how to perform a task or solve a type of problem, provide immediate corrective feedback, and provide declarative and procedural knowledge to help learners apply their new understanding to future novel problems (Sweller, Kirschner, & Clark, 2007; Tofel-Grehl & Feldon, 2013). The use of CTA to improve instruction and guidance has been demonstrated to improve student performance and perceptions of success (Feldon, Timmerman, Stowe, & Showman, 2010; Tofel-Grehl & Feldon, 2013).

Students’ needs for support change as they become more cognitively engaged and develop expertise (Hattie, 2011; Hattie & Donoghue, 2016). The expertise reversal effect provides an example: instructional techniques that reduce cognitive load for low-knowledge learners may be less effective or even have negative effects for more knowledgeable learners (Kalyuga, 2007; Lee & Kalyuga, 2014). These principles can be applied to project-based learning. When teachers employed explicit strategic questioning strategies with students who were involved in collaborative learning, students were engaged in more elaboration and obtained significantly higher scores on follow-up reasoning and problem-solving tasks (Gillies & Haynes, 2011). For learning to occur, students must receive feedback that will take them to the next stages of learning. This should include information that can facilitate more efficient cognitive processing (Hattie & Timperley, 2007).

Distinguishing Between Short- and Long-Term Learning Goals. Teachers and schools are often under pressure to produce short-term results quickly. That is not always the way to support long-term learning. Instructional design needs to address this in a manner that attends to the pressures on students, teachers, and schools, as well as the motivational challenges that occur when payoffs are longer term. Three examples of this are (1) the importance of developmental progress and the importance of establishing foundational competencies like self-regulation, including executive functions, (2) the impacts of desirable difficulties, and 3) the function of different brain states.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—25

• Developmental progression and integration. Acquisition of deeper learning competencies such as problem solving and metacognition (Hattie, 2011) often requires the establishment of foundational competencies like self-regulation (Siegel, 1999), which some students may lack. The students most affected will be those whose development of foundational skills and mindsets has been affected by the context of adversity and by the lack of preparedness of adults. Hence design should develop ways to support the acquisition of foundational cognitive, social, emotional, and academic skills like self- regulation in age-appropriate ways that also support the student’s participation in deeper learning. • Desirable difficulties. Design should also address the implications of the desirable- difficulties framework that distinguishes between short-term and longer term learning and growth. Desirable difficulties intentionally create difficulties and challenge for learners, which enhance long-term retention and transfer, but at the cost of increased short-term errors (Clark & Bjork, 2014). However, difficulties need to be by design, while many difficulties are undesirable during instruction (and beyond): “Desirable difficulties, versus the array of undesirable difficulties, are desirable because they trigger encoding and retrieval processes that support learning, comprehension, and remembering. If, however, the learner does not have the background knowledge or skills to respond to them successfully, they become undesirable difficulties” (Bjork & Bjork, 2011, p. 58). • Brain states. Curricula and instructional design should also address findings from the field of neuroscience that there are two interdependent but distinct brain states that support two different types of learning (Gotlieb, Jahner, Immordino-Yang, & Kaufman, in press). One brain state supports task-oriented focus, an action-oriented mindset, and contextualized cognition. The other, the default mode network (DMN), supports imagination, creativity, meaning-making, personally relevant cognition, retrospection, and prospective thinking (Andrews-Hanna, Smallwood, & Spreng, 2014; Immordino- Yang, Christodoulou, & Singh, 2012). Teachers, due to accountability pressures and other aspects of job press, often want students to be task and productivity focused. Research suggests that DMN and DMN-related mind-wandering decreases efficiency and productivity in the moment (Mooneyham & Schooler, 2013; Smallwood & Schooler, 2015). However, DMN and DMN-related mind-wandering play essential roles in creativity and meaning making and are (in relationship to neural networks that support attentional control) critical to the development of cognitive control, self-regulation, memory suppression, mindfulness, and meta-awareness (Gotlieb et al., in press). Hence, exclusively activating an outward task focus may bias students’ minds away from integrating academic experiences into their own personal understanding—a bias that could potentially undermine long-term learning, retention, and persistence. In the words of Gotlieb and colleagues, “preparing students to undertake creative intelligence tasks means scaffolding them in the ability to focus intently on a task at hand and also in consciously, appropriately, and temporarily disengaging from the task to situate its broader purpose in a larger, personally meaningful goal” (Gotlieb et al., in press).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—26

The Science of Resilience

Resilience is a common phenomenon—there is an “ordinariness of resilience” (Bethell Newacheck, Hawes, & Halfon, 2014; Lerner, Agans, DeSouza, & Hershberg, 2014; Masten, 2001). Resilience at the individual level is sometimes viewed as a personality trait. Genetic makeup may enable some individuals to exhibit resilience (Yehuda et al., 2006). But resilience can be better understood as a bio-social-ecological process characterized by equifinality, differential impact, and contextual and cultural moderation (Ungar et al., 2013). Diverse proximal processes lead to different, but equally viable, development and well-being— equifinality. Proximal processes affect development through the nature of the risks and supports available (Spencer, 2007; Ungar et al., 2013). Exposure to risk is endemic to the human species. However, the nature of risk and the resources available to respond to risk vary according to cultural and ecological contexts (Lee, 2009). Resilience is defined locally, and different contexts and cultures provide varied access to varied processes and resources that support resilience— contextual and cultural moderation (Tol, Song, Jordans, 2013; Ungar et al., 2013). Resilience is not immutable (Cicchetti, 2013; Rutter, 2002); resilience (whether of a person, group, or organization) is the use of internal and external resources as a positive adaptation mechanism when confronted with significant internal or environmental adversity (Luthar, Crossman, & Small, 2015; Masten & Obradović, 2006; Rutter, 2013; Ungar, 2011; Yehuda, Flory, Southwick, & Charney, 2006). Positive adaptation is a process that relies on flexibility and adaptive capacity for change in internal and external systems (Masten & Obradović, 2008). Resilience encompasses not only positive adaptation in the face of adverse conditions but also seizing learning opportunities in the face of short- and long-term setbacks (Claro et al., 2016).

There is a neurobiological component to resilience. Internal adaptive systems include the learning systems of the brain, the mastery motivation system, the stress response systems, and the self-regulatory systems, as well as the integration of these internal systems (e.g., integration of neural circuitry involved in cognition, emotion, and behavior) (Masten & Obradović, 2006). The mastery motivation system compels individuals to master tasks and skills, including finding people who will help them do so, and is thought to be a driver of resilience from an early age (Anthony & Cohler, 1987; Masten, 2014). The stress response system involves the regulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis through oxytocin and cortisol levels in response to external stimuli (Ozbay, Fitterling, Charney, & Southwick, 2008). Research into the neural and psychobiological roots of resilience and resilience-promoting relationships is an emergent area of resilience research (Khanlou & Wray, 2014). However, evidence suggests that resilience is a bio-psychosocial-ecological process wherein promotive internal and external systems facilitate a child’s potential for positive outcomes (Jaffee, Caspi, Moffitt, Polo-Tomas, & Taylor, 2007; Masten & Obradović 2006).

Early biological and contextual supports contribute to early patterns of adaptation, which predict—and provide a foundation for—later, more complex patterns of adaptation (Yates, Egeland, & Sroufe, 2003). Adaptation is not a fixed process; internal and external factors, particularly during periods of transition, present new opportunities for adaptation or maladaptation throughout the lifespan (Klika & Herrenkohl, 2013; Ungar, 2011; Jaffee et al., 2007). Resilience is also culturally, socially, and historically embedded (Masten, 2011). For example, economic activity such as child labor or gang activity may be viewed as facilitating

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—27

resilience in contexts that are lacking in other promotive contexts, such as high-quality schools or prosocial peers (Ungar, 2011).

Researchers have documented substantial heterogeneity in resilience (Bethell et al., 2014; Southwick, Bonanno, Masten, Panter-Brick, & Yehuda, 2014; Theron, Liebenberg, & Malinidi, 2014) and how it relates to social support and context (Luthar, Sawyer, & Brown, 2006; Masten, 2011). Children’s responses to adversity in their environment will vary as a function of individual dispositions, socialization practices, the type and timing of the adversity, and the countervailing supports available to them in those same or other environments (Goldstein & Brooks, 2012; Masten & Tellegen, 2012; Rutter, 1987; Spencer, 2007). While multiple systems contribute to the development of resilience, it is unlikely that every individual will draw from the same exact combination and experience of these systems. For example, one child might draw upon secure adult attachment, peer systems, and bonding to school in service of resilience, while another might draw from stress management and self-regulation skills in addition to spiritual/religious systems (Masten, 2007). This has important implications for the intentional development of resilience.

Resilience is shaped by multilevel dynamics—interactions across levels of analysis, including interactions between the gene and its environment, the individual and his or her relationships, and the individual and the media (Jaffee et al., 2007; Masten, 2007; Ungar, 2011). Internal assets (Benson, Scales, & Syvertsen, 2011) associated with coping are thought to contribute to adaptation. Internal assets include social and emotional competencies, self-regulation, growth mindsets, cognitive functioning, ego control, self-efficacy, agency, internal perceptions of control, perceptions of whether a stressor is stressful, and the ability to develop healthy relationships with individuals who can provide support (Claro et al., 2016; Lavoie, Pereira, & Talwar, 2016; Masten & Obradović, 2008; McEwen, 2006; Masten, Gewirtz, & Sapienza, 2013; Rutter, 1987).

External assets are located in a child’s microsystem—supportive individuals and relationships in families, schools, informal settings, and community resources such as religious and cultural organizations (Lee, 2009). External supportive (adaptive) systems include the attachment system (i.e., consistent and supportive adult relationships inside and outside the home) and the family (e.g., expectations), the school (e.g., school culture, cultural sensitivity, staff attunement to the needs of students, teaching practices that involve scaffolding, reflection, and encouraging peer interaction), peer relations (e.g., reciprocal friendships), community (e.g., cohesiveness, support in the face of child and community experiences of adversity), cultural resources (e.g., spiritual connections), and societal systems (e.g., media-based resources) (Anthony & Cohler, 1987; Blair & Raver, 2014; Cicchetti, 2013; Masten et al., 2013; Masten & Obradović, 2006; Quintana et al., 2006; Sampson Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997; Spencer & Swanson, 2013). Research has repeatedly found that children who do well in the face of adversity have had at least one stable and responsive relationship with a parent, caregiver, or other adult (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016). This finding has led resilience researchers to recommend policies and programs to better support parents—especially mothers, but increasingly fathers (Luthar, 2015; Luthar & Zelazo, 2003).

The research on resilience has also established a strong link between stress and psychological resilience (i.e., mental health), but psychological and physiological resilience are distinct from

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—28

each other (Lavoie et al., 2016). Children and youth who do not exhibit the psychological symptoms associated with adversity may in fact experience compromised physical health, yet this component of development often goes unseen and unmeasured (Brody et al., 2013; Lavoie et al., 2016). Relationships as Drivers of Human Development: Positive Supportive Contexts

Relationships between and among children and adults are one of the primary processes through which the biological and the contextual influence and mutually reinforce each other (e.g., Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Secure and responsive relationships with adults, along with high-quality, positive learning interactions (and environments), are foundational to healthy development (NRC, 2015). Attachment, social synchrony, and attunement allow caregivers to care for the physical and emotional needs of infants and children. These processes start with early attachment relationships but continue as children become increasingly self-sufficient, interdependent, and independent. Children continue to benefit from readily available relationships with peers and other adults (e.g., teachers) to the degree that the relationships continue to be attuned to their emotional needs (Bergin & Bergin, 2009; Cornelius-White, 2007). These early and ongoing relationships contribute to the child’s balanced capacity to regulate emotions, to feel connected to other people, and to establish an autobiographical narrative (Siegel, 2012). Warm and responsive interactions with caregivers at home and at school that involve support, coaching, co-regulation, and modeling promote balance between self-regulatory systems and allow children to learn to regulate emotions, behavior, and cognition (Elias, Parker, Kash, Weissberg, & O’Brien, 2007; Hamre & Pianta, 2005; McCabe et al., 2004; McClelland & Cameron, 2012; Murray et al., 2015). As children get older, early organizational patterns of social behaviors in the attachment relationship build on previous patterns of interactions with caregivers, and extend to behavioral patterns with peers and teachers.

According to the field of interpersonal neurobiology, relational integration, which is the linkage of different parts of the relational system, is established through attuned, compassionate communication with the caregiver. The caregiver’s perceptions of and responses to the child’s mental state, which are distinct from the child’s behavior, are important for building shared experiences and emotions (Siegel, 2012). Research suggests that the ability to use mental-state language and to sense the child’s mental state is related to attachment patterns and to the metacognitive monitoring capacity necessary for the development of self-regulation (Fonagy, Steele, & Steele, 1991; Fonagy, Steele, Steele, Moran, & Higgit, 1991; Main, 1991). Relational integration facilitates the growth of neural integration—the linkage of different parts of the brain through the development of the affective regulatory functions in the child (i.e., development of emotion, memory, behavior, and relationality) (Schore & Schore, 2008; Siegel, 2012). Neural integration is important for developing interconnectivity and synaptic strength, and is associated with the development of higher order cortical functions and near-term and later well-being (Di Martino et al., 2014; Smith et al., 2015; Teicher & Samson, 2016; Teicher, Samson, Anderson, & Ohashi, 2016).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—29

Parents

Decades of research demonstrate that the parent–child dyad and the family (which includes all primary caregivers) play a foundational role in the development of children’s social, emotional, and cognitive skills (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine, 2016). While the parental role is particularly pronounced in early childhood, it continues throughout the life course. Parents are both structurally and psychologically important. Structurally, they have rights (unless terminated), can direct and allocate the resources they control, and can structure and manage the environment around children (Grusec & Davidov, 2016; Huston & Bentley, 2010). Psychologically, parents play a key role in five relational domains, each of which has its own developmental course and set of regulatory mechanisms: protection, mutual reciprocity, control, guided learning, and group participation. Each domain is activated under different conditions, involves a different parent-child relationship, requires different parenting responses, and is associated with different outcomes (Grusec & Davidov, 2016; Grusec & Davidov, 2010). While every interaction matters, a recent NRC Consensus Panel identified six key parenting practices as particularly important (IOM & NRC, 2015): • Contingent responsiveness—adult behavior that occurs immediately after a child’s behavior and is related to the child’s focus of attention • Showing warmth and sensitivity • Routines and reduced household chaos • Shared book reading and talking to children • Practices that promote children’s health and safety • Use of appropriate (less harsh) discipline

Parents affect, are affected by, and respond to, their children. At the same time, children are selective in what they hear, see, and do. The impact of parenting interventions depends on the meaning children assign to those interventions, and these meanings are affected by parental attunement with the child and the child’s earlier experiences with the parents. There are some universally harmful practices, which include harsh punishment, lack of psychological support, and, as children mature, lack of autonomy. Parental inputs are effective when children feel that their parents care for them, are sensitive to their needs, understand them, and have their best interests at heart (Grusec & Davidov, 2016).

The role of parents continues to be important through adolescence and young adulthood, though the range and depth of parental control are affected by the child’s extending and more complex engagement in social fields that include school, peers, and, in some cases, work. For example, youth have more teachers than they did in elementary school and they are more likely to interact with peers in more distant and less supervised settings. For many adolescents, the opinions of those peers become more important than those of family during middle adolescence (Berndt, 1979; Blakemore & Mills, 2014), and this happens at a time when youth perception of risk is lower than that of adults. Still, parental monitoring and guidance during adolescence may be particularly important as opportunities for participation in risky behaviors that can affect social,

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—30

emotional, cognitive, and health outcomes increase (Brizio, Gabbatore, Tirassa, & Bosco, 2015; Hoeve et al., 2009; NRC & IOM, 2001; Steinberg, 2008; IOM & NRC, 2015).

Adults can have a large impact on the social cognitive development and life course trajectories of adolescents through attachment support, by monitoring their children’s behavior and by creating and supporting their children’s access to healthy social environments (Blakemore & Mills, 2014; (Hoeve et al., 2009; Hoeve et al., 2012; Laursen, Coy, & Collins, 1998). Doing this well requires skill (and in some cases, support). Adolescents want and strive for autonomy, their own identity, and a more important role in family decision making (Beveridge & Berg, 2007). Since parents and children may perceive risk and their children’s competence differently (Holmbeck & O’Donnell, 1991), parents who are more accurate in their ability to understand their adolescents’ thought processes are likely to experience better outcomes in conflicts (Hastings & Grusec, 1998). In addition, parents who have better relationships with their children also realize better results from monitoring (Abar, Jackson, & Wood, 2014; Hoeve et al., 2009).

Both structural factors and differences among children affect the outcomes of parental behavior. Poverty (discussed elsewhere) is a key structural factor that can affect parents’ levels of control. However, many families that struggle with poverty are able provide their children with effective care in the five key relational domains, leveraging both their skills and social capital (Smith, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1997; Stack, 1974). At the same time, parents who struggle with poverty may have fewer social, cultural, and liquid financial assets than more affluent parents, who can leverage those resources to improve learning and health outcomes for their children (Matthews & Gallo, 2011; Osher & Chasin, 2016). Although cognitive stimulation and positive parenting (operationalized as warmth and lack of harsh discipline) are both important, these two relational processes may vary in their relative importance for education and mental health. Cognitive stimulation in the home may have a stronger impact on intellectual development than parental warmth and non-harsh discipline, while warm and non-harsh discipline has a greater relative impact on children’s behavior and psychological adjustment (Guo & Harris, 2000; Huston & Bentley, 2010; Kohen, Leventhal, Dahinten, & McIntosh, 2008;Yeung, Linver, & Brooks-Gunn, 2002). Parental conflict, which occurs across classes, can be harmful, because it leads to decreased monitoring of children, less expressed warmth and affection, and inconsistent communication and discipline styles (Katz & Woodin, 2002; Troxel & Matthews, 2004). Parents may need additional support to parent effectively, whether due to stress, motivational issues, skills, or resources (e.g., Semke, Garbacz, Kwon, Sheridan, & Woods, 2010), and there is an array of effective parenting interventions that address some or all of these needs. Examples from early childhood include variations of home visiting, multidimensional treatment foster care, and conjoint behavioral therapy approaches (Avellar & Supplee, 2009; Clarke, Sheridan & Woods, 2010; Leve, Fisher, & Chamberlain, 2009). Examples for adolescents include multi- systemic components that, when delivered with fidelity and in a way that is family driven and culturally competent, can address the multiple social fields that an adolescent may be involved in (Furlong et al., 2012; Osher, Osher, & Blau, 2008; Osher et al., 2011; Sandler, Schoenfelder, Wolchik, & MacKinnon, 2011; Szapocznik, Muir, Duff, Schwartz & Brown, 2015).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—31

Teachers

A substantial body of research converges on the benefits to students of having positive relationships with teachers; these relationships have the same characteristics as positive caregiver attachment relationships: sensitivity, attunement, consistency, trustworthiness, cognitive stimulation, and scaffolded learning. Relationships with teachers and other adults that include adult modeling of appropriate behavior can help modulate children’s stress reactivity, as well as provide working models for students (about the process of learning, and about teachers as reliable and trustworthy), and for teachers (about students as learners) (Hamre & Pianta, 2005; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Jones, Bub, & Raver, 2013; Mayer, 2014). Students who have close relationships with teachers are more confident and positive in their approaches to learning (IOM & NRC, 2015); positive student–teacher relationships can help students better achieve, become engaged, regulate their emotions, build social competence, and be willing to take on academic challenges. Having a high-quality relationship with a teacher can also protect students who are at higher levels of risk for poor outcomes (Bergin & Bergin, 2009; Berry & O’Connor, 2010; Roorda, Koomen, Spilt, & Oort, 2011), and buffer the effects of victimization and other adversity (Gutman, Sameroff, & Eccles, 2002; Hamm, Farmer, Dadisman, Gravelle, & Murray, 2011; Hamre & Pianta, 2005; Hong & Espelage, 2012; Norwalk, Hamm, Farmer, & Barnes; 2016). A high-quality relationship may also contribute (with other teacher behaviors) to reducing stereotype threat (Steele, 2010).

Teaching is a high-stakes profession in which success depends upon teacher capacity, which is a product of teacher skills and the support provided to teachers. Teachers need the capacity to understand subject matter and pedagogy; organize classes; engage students; provide useful feedback; establish strong, positive, trustful relationships with culturally and linguistically diverse students; and manage their classrooms—factors that involve technical, pedagogical, and social and emotional skills. For example, the inability to manage a classroom can escalate student behavioral problems (Kellam, Ling, Merisca, Brown, & Ialongo, 1998) and affect academic engagement by breaking consistent patterns of academic activities (Osher, Bear, Sprague, & Doyle, 2010). Teacher effects on student outcomes appear to be driven by the quality of their relationships with students and by the extent to which they create opportunities to learn (including time on task), emotional security, student concepts of themselves as learners, motivation, and positive peer interactions (Gregory & Korth, 2016; Wubbels et al., 2016).

Teaching is also a high-stress profession. Teacher stress is affected by the teacher’s ecology, which includes the level of principal support, job press, and teacher ability to manage student feelings and behaviors (Brackett, Palomera, Moja-Kaja, Reyes, & Salovey, 2010; Johnson, Kraft, & Papay, 2012; Montgomery & Rupp, 2005). Findings from evaluations of school-based interventions, including ones that monitor students and teacher cortisol levels, suggest that teachers’ stress affects their interaction with students, student stress levels, teacher behavior, and student academic outcomes (Flook, Goldberg, Pinger, Bonus, & Davidson, 2013; Jennings et al., 2013). Teacher stress can be reduced through intervention. Mindfulness interventions provide an example. Notably, well-designed research has demonstrated that changing teacher stress levels also reduces student stress biomarkers (i.e., their cortisol levels) (Jennings et al., 2013; Oberle & Schonert-Reichl, 2016; Roeser et al., 2013).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—32

Peers

Peers are important socializing agents for children and adolescents—directly through social learning, and indirectly though their effects on teachers and other adults. Peers socialize each other through social learning, reference group effects, and peer pressure. Peer socialization has been studied at the play group, classroom, school, and community levels (Dishion & Tipsord, 2011; Snyder, Schrepferman, Bullard, McEachern, & Patterson, 2012; Stearns, Dodge, & Nicholson, 2008). Peer interactions can provide opportunities to practice and refine self- regulation, executive functions, interpersonal skills, and communication skills in ways that adult interactions do not. Children respond both behaviorally and neurobiologically to their peers (Kingery, Erdley, Marshall, Whitaker, & Reuter, 2010; Silk et al., 2014; Will, van Lier, Crone, & Güroğlu, 2016). Peer interactions reinforce risk-taking and antisocial behaviors through modeling and reinforcement. Negative peer experiences, including peer victimization and peer rejection, affect and are affected by dysregulation of the stress response, and can therefore have long-term consequences on physical and mental health (Vaillancourt, Hymel, & McDougall, 2013). Peer support can buffer the negative effects of adversities such as being bullied. Teachers and other adults intentionally and unintentionally play a role in structuring peer relationships, and this is affected by their ability to attune to students (Farmer, Lines, & Hamm, 2011; Hamm, Farmer, Dadisman, & Gravelle, 2016).

Scaffolded peer interactions, including social dramatic play, can be important for the development of executive function skills (Blair & Raver, 2014; Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Milteer, Ginsburg, Council on Communications and Media & Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health, 2012; Vygotsky, 1967). Preschool tends to be the time when young children begin to spend time in groups and begin to develop peer relations outside of one-on-one interactions (Hay, Payne, & Chadwick, 2004). Peer acceptance or rejection at this early stage is formative, and rejection may lead to behavioral disorders later in childhood and adolescence. Making a friend during the early childhood stage appears to protect young children from both later rejection and a tendency toward aggression (Hay et al., 2004). In contrast, young aggressive children who are rejected by peers are at greater risk for later antisocial behavior than similarly aggressive youth who are not rejected (Coie, Terry, Lenox, Lochman, & Hyman, 1995).

As children get older, peer relationships become even more central and complex, and serve as venues to acquire socially relevant behavioral norms, perspective taking, social communication, and concepts of self in relationships (Goldstein, Kaczmarek, & English, 2002; Rubin, Coplan, Chen, Buskirk, & Wojslawowicz, 2005). Peer relationships help adolescents understand themselves and their values, and are therefore important for identity development during this stage (Parker, Rubin, Price, & DeRosier, 1995). At the same time, harmful peer relationships, including experiences with peers who engage in antisocial behavior and victimization, can have negative influences on learning and development. Research has repeatedly found associations between negative peer affiliation and adolescent risk-taking; these associations have sometimes been stronger than other factors in the family, school, and community (Albert, Chein, & Steinberg, 2013; Gardner & Steinberg, 2005).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—33

The Neurobiology of Stress

As with relationships, stress is a process through which the biological and the contextual influence and mutually reinforce each other, literally at the level of the cell (Cole, 2014). When we are threatened, our bodies protect us via a stress response system. The Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has described three types of stress responses (Burke Harris & Renschler, 2015; Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016). A positive stress response “is characterized by brief increases in heart rate and blood pressure, and mild or brief elevations in stress hormone levels.” A tolerable stress response “activates the body’s alert systems to a greater degree as a result of a more severe or longer-lasting threat,” and with the presence of buffering relationships likely does not have long-term effects on development. A toxic stress response can occur when stress is frequent, prolonged, and unbuffered. Toxic stress “can disrupt the development of brain architecture and other developing organs” if not buffered by supportive, responsive relationships (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016, p. 12). Toxic stress responses can compromise children’s potential to manage the developmental tasks of a sociocultural context, and increase the likelihood of failure to meet the expectations of society for one or several domains of development (Masten, 2014).

Advances in neuroscience allow scientists to understand how stress affects the development of the brain. During the stress response, hormone and neurochemical systems are activated in the body. The HPA system produces cortisol and the sympathetic-adrenomedullary (SAM) system produces adrenaline, both of which help the body prepare for stress (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2005/2014). Stress hormones increase our heart rate, blood pressure, inflammatory reactivity, and blood sugar levels (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016). To prepare our minds and our bodies to meet a threat, this “fight or flight” response triggers increased vigilance and alertness and reduces non-essential functions such as complex thinking. These responses can be life-saving in the face of an acute threat but damaging when activated for long periods of time—particularly on the developing limbic system and immune systems of the body (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016).

Chronic stress-induced changes in neural signaling patterns and physical brain structures set off a complex biological cascade that affects learning and mental and physical health. Exposure to chronic, unbuffered stress is associated with changes in brain architecture, including smaller volume of the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, larger volume in the amygdala, altered brain chemistry, and inflammation associated with higher risk of chronic diseases such as obesity, asthma, hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes (Bucci et al., 2016; Burke, Hellman, Scott, Weems, & Carrion, 2011; Danese & McEwen, 2012). The brain, neuroendocrine stress response, cardiovascular system, and immune system can adapt to early adversity even before a child is born (Evans, Kim, Ting, Tesher, & Shannis, 2007; Johnson et al., 2016). In these ways, chronic stress becomes biologically embedded in a child (Bucci et al., 2016; Walker, 2016).

A dysregulated stress response system is one of the few systems of the body that can affect the development of all four structures—brainstem, diencephalon, limbic system, cortex—in the brain and, in particular, the integration of these structures (Perry & Szalavitz, 2006; Siegel, 2012; Teicher et al., 2016). Indeed, research on the consequences of developmental trauma has found that the major neural impact on the brain is the impairment in the growth of the integrative

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—34

regions that promote the connectivity of the connectome—in other words, the integrative regions that promote neural integration (Di Martino et al., 2014; Teicher & Samson, 2016; Teicher et al., 2016). These studies show, for example, impairments in the growth of the corpus callosum, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex—regions that link differentiated areas to each other. These impairments may be the origin of the process by which trauma (itself an impairment to relational integration) leads to impaired neural integration, which is needed for self-regulatory functions to develop (Teicher & Samson, 2016). Recent reports from the Human Connectome project suggest associations between a range of measures of well-being and the interconnectivity of the connectome—i.e., how linked the differentiated areas of the brain are to each other (Collins, 2015; Smith et al., 2015).

Learning to cope with stress and adversity is an important part of healthy child development, and when the stress response is activated within the context of strong, supportive, buffering relationships, it can be brought to baseline quickly and long-term physiological effects blocked entirely. When this happens, children can develop a positive stress response. When stress is unbuffered, children’s development and coping can become overwhelmed. Under these circumstances, children’s stress responses move rapidly to fear, defense, and self-protection (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016).

Increasing and cumulative stress, as is experienced by children who face a build-up of “adverse childhood experiences” (ACEs), can be “toxic” to development, health, and learning. The common definition of ACEs involves stressful or traumatic events experienced before age 18 that fall into three broad domains: abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction (Burke Harris & Renschler, 2015). The traditional ACE categories that have informed much of the work in this area are physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; physical and emotional neglect; divorce or separation; mother treated violently; substance abuse; parental mental illness; and incarceration of a relative (Bucci et al., 2016). In recent related work, experts have expanded these categories to include ecological risk factors that include community stressors; personal victimization; economic hardship; hunger; disturbances in family functioning; loss of a parent; challenging peer relationships; discrimination; poor health; overemphasis on achievement; and stressful experiences at school, with the child welfare system, and with juvenile justice (Burke et al., 2011; Luthar, Barkin, & Crossman, 2013; Wade, Shea, Rubin, & Wood, 2014); these risk factors are related to macrosystem factors such as poverty and institutionalized racism (Cutler & Glaeser, 1997; Lee, 2010; Spencer, 2007).

ACEs cut across socioeconomic lines, and the original empirical work on ACEs used a largely middle class sample (Felitti et al., 1998). Later research employed a more diverse sample (Giovanelli, Reynolds, Mondi, & Ou, 2016). Poverty places individuals at greater levels of risk for ACEs due to the myriad related adversities (Giovanelli, et al., 2016; Mersky, Topitzes, & Reynolds, 2013; Shonkoff et al., 2012; Slopen, McLauglin, & Shonkoff, 2014; Thompson & Haskins, 2014; Wade et al., 2016), but ecological risk factors that include and extend beyond poverty affect how children experience and respond to ACEs. Together, these factors may contribute to the finding that in some urban school districts up to 70 percent of children have had personal exposure to violence, and 80 percent have been direct witnesses to violence (PTSD in our nation's classrooms, 2015). For these children, exposure is less of a one-time “incident,” and more of a “constant presence,” or a trigger activating a toxic stress response. Children adapt to

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—35

these settings—in ways that are sometimes adaptive, sometimes maladaptive, and sometimes a mix (Bennett & Olugbala, 2010).

ACEs produce a dysregulation of the stress response, the recovery and healing (from) which is context-dependent (Park & Schepp, 2015; Perry & Szalavitz, 2006). Stable, responsive relationships with adults buffer children from developmental disruption, help build key capabilities, and enable them to manage stress and thrive in the future (Bennett & Olugbala, 2010). Positive experiences, supportive relationships, and adaptive skills build the foundation for lifelong resilience (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016).

Impact of Adversity on Health

There is a strong and graded link between childhood adversity and long-term health outcomes, including several major categories of chronic disease, lung cancer, diabetes, various autoimmune diseases, depression, and elevated rates of high-risk behavior (Felitti et al., 1998). These associations, which stem from a dysregulated stress response and inflammatory hormones such as cortisol and cytokines, can reshape brain structure and function and immune system efficiency (Walker, 2016). The most sobering statistic relates to premature mortality in individuals affected by multiple traumas: individuals with six or more ACEs had a life span that was shorter by an average of 20 years (Felitti et al., 1998).

Over time, dysregulation in the stress response can affect biological functions associated with immune function, growth, cardiovascular function, metabolism, and sleep (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016). Chronic stress is associated with chronic mental health conditions, which have replaced chronic physical illness in the top five most significant pediatric health issues that affect learning (Walker et al., 2007). These include mood syndromes, such as depression, anxiety, and somatic disorders; PTSD; and learning difficulties such as ADHD (Johnson, Riley, Granger, & Riis, 2013; Luthar et al., 2013; Shonkoff et al., 2012).

There is also evidence of a compounding effect of trauma that has been found to increase the risk of health, social, and emotional problems associated with a toxic stress response (Felitti et al., 1998). Among the pathways, there is the potential for damage to the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of the brain, which is a dopamine pathway involved in motivation, reward, and “numbing” sensitization to risk, contributing to dramatic increases in risk-taking behaviors like substance abuse and suicidal behavior (Brenhouse, Lukkes, & Andersen, 2013; Hosking & Winstanley, 2011; Krishnan et al., 2007; Lovic et al., 2013; Wei et al., 2012). Chronic stress may have a direct impact on physical health and well-being, but it also is associated with unhealthy self-modulation adjustments such as smoking and substance misuse, as well as social isolation, unemployment, and inactivity, all of which contribute to poor physical health and well-being (Batley, 1994; Brunner & Marmot, 2006; Davidson, Devaney, & Spratt, 2010; Felitti & Anda, 2010; Perry & Szalavitz, 2006. Research shows that, for middle class youth, chronic stress is related to drug and alcohol abuse, internalizing and externalizing symptoms, somatic disorders, and low rates of female abstinence (Luthar et al., 2013).

Over the long term, early intervention has powerful implications for educational outcomes and healthcare costs. Studies have revealed that high-quality early intervention can bolster later life educational outcomes, yielding a return on investment in excess of the stock market (Campbell et

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—36

al., 2014; Heckman, Moon, Pinto, Savelyev, & Yavitz, 2010a, 2010b). Chronic diseases, as a category, account for roughly 86 percent of U.S. healthcare expenditures, despite being preventable with early identification and proper treatment (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2016). Research reveals improved health outcomes in some of the costliest categories of chronic non-communicable illness: cardiovascular and metabolic disease (Campbell et al., 2014; Heckman et al., 2010a, 2010b).

Impact of Adversity on Learning

The structure and function of brain centers affected by chronic stress, in particular the limbic system, are modulated by the activities of the HPA axis, and are involved in key learning systems, including self-regulation, attention, memory, stress reactivity, and language (Essex et al., 2011; Gunnar & Quevedo, 2007; Tottenham & Sheridan, 2009). Chronic stress is associated with impairments in the functioning of these systems even before children start school. In the absence of intervention, lower cognitive stimulation in the home and anxiety can significantly affect children’s school and learning readiness (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Shackman et al., 2006; Hackman & Farah, 2009; Raver, 2004; Walker et al., 2011).

Self-regulation is one of the most important capabilities vulnerable to stress and adversity (Blair & Raver, 2012; Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Goodman, Miller, & West-Olatunji, 2012). Self-regulation is affected by the level and frequency of stress, the availability of protective buffering supports, and underlying health and mental health issues (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016). As children get older, previous developmental challenges can accumulate and set off a cascade of challenges to learning, both directly and through transactions with others at school (Blair & Diamond, 2008). This results in a continuum that ranges from reactive or impulsive behavior at one end to proactive or goal-directed behavior at the other (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Perry, 2001).

Children’s responses to chronic stress, such as hypervigilance, defiance, and a compromised ability to regulate behavior, can affect how peers and teachers interact with them, further affecting learning readiness and cognitive engagement. For example, young children who lack self-regulation are less likely to develop supportive relationships, engage in school, and pay attention in class, and they are more likely to withdraw and to develop antisocial behavior as they grow older (Cole et al., 2013; Raver & Knitzer, 2002). Absent supportive relationships, new traumatic experiences may re-traumatize children and result in school disengagement and failure (Bethell et al., 2014). This feedback loop can result in a prolonged reinforcement of a dysregulated stress response, elevating the risk for other mental, emotional, behavioral, health, and academic problems (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2011).

Overcoming the effects of adversity on learning requires attention to both reducing sources of stress and strengthening capabilities in children and the adults caring for them. Resilience can be socially constructed (Kendziora & Osher, 2004; Ungar, 2004a, 2004b) and developed (Masten, 2007), and practices that follow theories of interpersonal neurobiology, such as mindfulness practices, create opportunities to reorient patterns of connectivity and adaptation well into adulthood (Siegel, 2013). Classrooms and schools designed to be rich in interpersonal connection

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—37

and to promote individual developmental assets can change the trajectory of children’s learning and their lives.

Intergenerational Transmission of Adversity

The role of intergenerational transmission of both adaptive and maladaptive systems is rooted in biological and social processes that begin even before the child is born, when the neurons in the brain that build the foundation for synaptic connections are still developing (Halfon et al., 2001; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). These processes are related to changes in maternal brain structure and function, including elevated stress hormones and oxytocin levels (Kim et al., 2016; Walker et al., 2011). These changes, in turn, influence the development of the fetus and the attachment relationship in infancy (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Kim et al., 2016), which is dependent on sensitive responsiveness to the child’s signals (Fearon et al., 2006; Feldman, 2015). In the first year of life, the physical and behavioral interactions between caregiver and infant trigger a process of bio-behavioral synchrony (i.e., sensitivity to each other) that involves the release of oxytocin and physical contact. This process builds a child’s capacity for social development and mediates socialization, stress management, emotion regulation, and well-being (Feldman, 2015; Galbally et al., 2011).

Caregiver adversity can disrupt this synchrony by weakening the emotional response system of the brain and lowering the caregiver’s sensitivity to the child’s social cues (Kim & Watamura, 2015). Disruptions are linked to social psychopathologies, including autism, social anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia (Feldman, 2015). As children grow, exposure to trauma and adversity in the home and in other settings continues to affect biology and behavior. Children who experience trauma and adversity show biomarker and brain structure and activation differences that increase their vulnerability to risk behaviors (e.g., being a perpetrator or victim of violence, suicide, drug addiction) later in life (Dixon, Browne, & Hamilton-Giachritsis, 2005; Park & Schepp, 2015; Patterson, DeBaryshe, & Ramsey, 1990). Some children exposed to trauma, such as parental mental illness or alcohol abuse, physical or emotional neglect, or violence, show cognitive impairments, attention problems, language deficits, academic difficulties, withdrawn behavior, externalizing problems, mental health problems, and difficulty with interpersonal relationships (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Park & Schepp, 2015).

Early dysregulation in emotions, cognition, and behavior at school entry can contribute to unsupportive interactions that reinforce negative beliefs about belonging and intelligence, and questions about the purpose of school itself. Absent appropriate intervention with both the child and school staff, these factors can contribute to disciplinary problems, grade repetition, dropping out, incarceration, substance abuse, mental disorder, and long-term physical health problems (e.g., diabetes, lung cancer), all of which can place the next generation at risk (Chandler, 2016; Hawkins, Catalano, & Miller, 1992; Kellam & Rebok, 1992; Kellam et al., 2008; NRC & IOM, 2009).

Children can adapt to hostile environments in ways that can undermine learning and support their involvement in unhealthy or high-risk behaviors (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Some of the proximal contributors to chronic stress and the intergenerational transmission of adversity are the family, the neighborhood, and the school. For instance, neighborhood disadvantage is associated with a

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—38

build-up of biological “wear and tear” (i.e., allostatic load) over the life course, especially in men (Danese & McEwen, 2012; Fisher, Busch-Rossnagel, Jopp, & Brown, 2012; Geronimus, Hicken, Keene, & Bound, 2006; Gustafsson et al., 2014).

Parents and families can make a positive difference—for example, through monitoring and authoritative discipline—even under disadvantageous conditions. Research documents how parents leverage their social and cultural capital to promote adaptive behavior, and prevent engagement in high-risk behavior and buffer its effects (Furstenberg, 2003, 2004; Furstenberg, Cook, Eccles, Elder, & Sameroff, 1999). However, this is not possible for all parents, and research documents its effects: ineffective parental behaviors and disruptive family management styles mediate the onset of health-compromising behaviors such as smoking and obesity (Anderson, Butcher, & Levine, 2003; Park & Schepp, 2015; Patterson et al., 1990). Examples are a lack of supervision of a child’s nutrition and energy intake, harsh parenting, irritability, and lack of supervision. These outcomes are related to macrosystem factors. Education and health disparities, housing segregation, economic disadvantage and the lack of sufficient support for families contribute to the increased likelihood of caregivers’ poor mental and physical health outcomes, intimate partner violence, malnutrition, and exposure to known toxins such as tobacco, alcohol, and mercury—during pregnancy, but even dating back to the mother’s own childhood (Cutler & Glaeser, 1997; Jargowsky, 1996; Massey, 1985).

Policies and structural factors contribute to the intergenerational transmission of adversity. For example, the disproportionately high level of arrests of African-American males (Chandler, 2016) creates adverse childhood experiences and affects (1) children of incarcerated parents, through such factors as the absence of supportive males in the household and male role models in the community, but also (2) the students who go to school with them (Foster & Hagan, 2015; Hagan & Foster, 2012). Both students who have incarcerated parents and students who attend schools with children who have incarcerated parents experience poorer behavioral and academic outcomes (Eddy, Cearley, Bergen, & Stern-Carusone, 2014; Haskins, 2016; Murray, Farrington, & Sekol, 2012; Parke & Clarke-Stewart, 2001; Turney & Haskins, 2014). Similarly, the disproportionate use of exclusionary and harsh discipline in schools can affect lifelong outcomes for black males, including their beliefs about themselves, increased disengagement from school and dropping out, increased likelihood of fathering a child in adolescence, diminished likelihood of postsecondary school attainment and employment, and diminished ability to support a family emotionally and financially (Aizer & Doyle, 2013; American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force, 2008; Bertrand & Pan, 2011; Osher, Woodruff, & Sims, 2002; Skiba et al., 2011; Skiba, Michael, Nardo, & Peterson, 2002). These factors, in turn, affect generations to come (Foster & Hagan, 2015; Osher et al., 2002; Pettit & Western, 2004; Wakefield & Uggen, 2010).

Preventing the negative impacts of chronic stress on children and the adults who care for them can prevent the intergenerational transmission of adversity. The societal cost and benefit is enormous, and therefore requires intervention at the level of family, society, and policy, including culturally competent and family-driven approaches (Johnson et al., 2013; Osher, Sprague, et al., 2008; Osher & Osher, 2002). Evidence suggests that well-designed developmental contexts, with the right intervention and prevention strategies, can provide the level of support, enrichment, and stimulation needed to buffer the effects on adults and children

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—39

of chronic stress and other ecological challenges (Cox et al., 2010; Gestsdottir, Urban, Bowers, Lerner, & Lerner, 2011; Klika & Herrenkohl, 2013; Sawhill & Karpilow, 2014). Ecological Contexts of Development: Illustrative Examples

Human behavior and development take place in nested ecological systems, which affect development both directly and indirectly (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Garbarino, 1992). Ecological contexts include settings that both (1) place individuals at risk and (2) provide assets that can protect individuals from those risks, buffer their effect, or promote positive learning and development. Bronfenbrenner (1989, 1994) identified nested ecological systems: • Microsystem—Development takes place within social contexts where the developing child directly interacts with others face to face (e.g., home and school) • Mesosystem—Development is affected by the interaction between and among primary systems (e.g., between the school and families) • Exosystem—Development is affected by events that are not directly connected to the child but that affect what happens in the microsystem settings (e.g., the effects of job stress on parents) • Macrosystem—Development is affected, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly, by cultural and structural factors that affect the microsystem, mesosystem, and exosystem (e.g., the effects of institutionalized racism)  Chronosystem—Development is affected both immediately and ultimately by historical changes (e.g., the effects of the great depression) (Elder, 1998). Ecological contexts encompass an array of environments and societal structures that include schools, families, poverty, racism, and the juvenile justice system (Durlak, Weissberg, & Pachan, 2010; Evans, 2004; Greenberger, Chen, & Beam, 1998; Holman, Garfin, & Silver, 2014; Osher et al., 2014; Steinberg, 2009; Repetti, Taylor, & Seeman, 2002; Tseng & Seidman, 2007; Waldfogel, Craigie, & Brooks-Gunn, 2010; Zimmerman, Salem, & Maton, 1995). Ecological contexts and the individuals embedded in the contexts are characterized by continual interactions within and across levels and by great variation of internal as well as external risk and protective factors. In Margaret Beale Spencer’s language: “Risks and protective factors may take a variety of forms given variations in race/ethnicity, gender, faith community, body type, immigration status, skin color, privilege, health quality or disability status, cultural traditions, social class, and temperament. All are linked to the character of the context and the individual’s history of experiences and even the group’s history in the nation” (Spencer, 2007, p. 840). For each individual there is a net level of stress experienced that is the effect of the stresses experienced and the supports available to deal with those stresses (Spencer, 2007).

Research on epigenetic adaptation illuminates the effects of microsystems on development (e.g., Cole, 2014; Slavich & Cole, 2013). Sociological studies show how contexts (e.g., exosystem contexts such as job or neighborhood stressors and macrosystem contexts such as racism) relate to parental behavior (e.g., Brody et al., 2006; Brooks-Gunn, Duncan, Leventhal, & Aber, 1997; Kohen et al., 2008; Odgers et al., 2012; Perkins & Sampson, 2015). Prevention science provides

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—40

empirical evidence of the importance of contextual factors by showing that intervention-related changes in contexts are related to intervention-related changes in outcomes, as well as how local contexts can shape the successful implementation of interventions (e.g., Dymnicki et al., in press; Han & Weiss, 2005; Jones, Brown, & Aber, 2008).

Developmentally rich social contexts provide enriching opportunities and healthy relationships with adults, practice and reinforcement of foundational competencies, and opportunities to take on leadership roles and participate in collaborative and productive peer interactions. As with other developmental contexts, structural and social features of schools and early childhood educational settings can heighten human potential and buffer the effects of poverty and other adversity on development through positive relationships and by direct targeting of self- regulation, executive functions, and social and behavioral skills (Jones et al., 2016; Osher et al., 2014; Osher et al., 2015). Developmentally unsuitable contexts exacerbate stress; hinder the reinforcement of foundational competencies; and impel maladaptive behaviors by failing to foster healthy relationships with adults, lacking developmental fit, limiting enrichment and stimulating experiences, and reducing the chances of interacting with peers who are positive influences (Farmer, Dawes, Alexander, & Brooks, 2016; Jones & Molano, 2016; Osher et al., 2002). Educational settings, for example, that are not engaging, motivating, safe, and filled with attuned, committed adults and opportunities for enriching experiences can place children and youth at risk or amplify existing risk (Osher et al., 2014; Cairns & Cairns, 1994; Kellam et al., 2008). If a negative context is recurring and continuous, the brain ceases to recognize it as abnormal and habituates to it (Siegel, 1999).

Complex interconnections between and within ecological contexts are explored in Spencer’s phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory (2007), and have been documented in longitudinal studies of youth development (e.g., Alexander, Entwisle, & Olson, 2014). For example, children and youth cope with stress and adversity in ways that may be adaptive or maladaptive. The adaptations young people make to one context carry over to other contexts in ways that can be beneficial or harmful. The result will depend on the degree to which the contexts are aligned with each other, as well as the capacity of adults to understand the origin of the behavior and to provide the child with attuned, developmentally appropriate, and culturally competent support (Ungar, 2004b). This support can help children and youth to, for example, develop a capacity to code switch, which can help them adapt to environments that have differing behavioral expectations and pose differing challenges (Jakonen, 2016; Molinsky, 2007; Sharkey, 2006).

The following sections discuss three key microsystem contexts (families, early care and childhood settings, and schools) and two macrosystem factors (poverty and racism).

Microsystem Contexts

Bronfenbrenner (1994) defined a microsystem as “a pattern of activities, social roles, and interpersonal relations, experienced by the developing person in a given face-to-face setting … that invite, permit, or inhibit engagement in sustained, progressively more complex interaction with, and activity in, the immediate environment” (p. 39). Microsystems include families, early care and learning settings, schools, peers, religious institutions and faith communities, afterschool programs, youth development programs, drop-in centers, recreational activities,

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—41

camps, cultural institutions and settings, gangs, health institutions, social service institutions, and juvenile justice institutions. Each of these provides opportunities for social learning and can affect social, emotional, and cognitive development through the quality of relationships and the extent to which children and youth experience safety, connectedness, engagement, challenge, and opportunities to develop competencies and access supports—both positively (e.g., enrichment and social and emotional learning) and negatively (e.g., bullying and engagement in high-risk behaviors). The three most universal or normative contextual settings are families, early care and childhood settings, and schools.

Families

Research on families has traditionally focused on the biologically linked nuclear family, with a particular emphasis on the role of parents—especially the mother. However, family configurations vary, and there are many different players who provide parent-like support. Regardless of family structure, family members fulfill common functions—they provide bonding, safety, and connection.

Family structure has become more fluid and heterogeneous in the last half century. In 2014, 26 percent of children younger than age 18 lived with a single parent—up from 9 percent in 1960 (Pew Research Center, 2015). Parents may be monoracial or interracial, may be same-sex or different-sex, and may be adoptive, biological, or a mixture of both (Powell, Hamilton, Manago, & Cheng, 2016). Parents also vary in terms of age and culture. Children’s residences also vary; some children live in foster care or custodial care as a result of caregiver maltreatment and abuse, adjudication or conviction, disability or incapacity, incarceration, or death.

The factors that determine successful parenting are not family structure, but rather the family’s resources, social supports, emotional climate, and stability, and the quality of caregiver-child interactions and relationships—the prerequisites for successful family functioning that provide bonding, connection, and safety necessary for healthy development (Grusec & Davidov, 2010; Patterson & Hastings, 2007). Housing features, such as insufficient space or privacy and environmental toxins, and housing insecurity are examples of resource-related factors that can affect the quality of social, emotional, and cognitive developmental context insecurity (Bassuk et al., 1997; Diette & Ribar, 2015; Kipke, Simon, Montgomery, Unger, & Iversen, 1997; Matthews & Gallo, 2011; Wigle, Arbuckle, Walker et al., 2007; Wigle, Arbuckle, Turner et al., 2008). These resource-related factors can contribute to increases in student mobility and challenges with self-regulation (e.g., Herbers, Reynolds, & Chen, 2013; Masten & Tellegen, 2012). Although family structure does not drive impacts directly, in some situations, family structure can contribute to a caregiver’s ability to parent. For example, all other factors being equal, it is easier to spend time with and monitor children in two-parent homes. Single parents, on the other hand, typically have less time to spend with their children because they often juggle more competing demands for their time (Carlson & Corcoran, 2004; Cenegy & Brewer, 2013; Grusec & Davidov, 2010). While the challenge is greater, many single parents use their personal and social assets to address this challenge—for example, by leveraging support from their families and social networks (Gerstel, 2011; Perry-Jenkins, Newkirk, & Ghunney, 2013).

Although research focuses primarily on parents, other household members play a key role. Three key players are grandparents, siblings, and other kin. In 2010, 7 percent of children lived in

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—42

households headed by a grandparent (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Seventeen percent of these children living with grandparents were being raised in homes with no biological or adoptive parent present. Some of these children were children of incarcerated parents, who often face social, emotional, and academic challenges (Eddy et al., 2014; Parke & Clarke-Stewart, 2001). Grandparents can offer important support systems, including stability for parents and their children in times of need (Powell, Hamilton et al., 2016). Research on grandparents is limited. Some research identifies behavioral or cognitive challenges in children living with grandparents (e.g., Pittman, 2007; Pittman & Boswell, 2007; Smith & Palmieri, 2007), but these findings may be confounded with the effects of children’s experiences with parents, as in the case of children whose parents are incarcerated (e.g., Arditti & Salva, 2015; Murray et al., 2012; Ruiz & Kopak, 2014). The preponderance of available research on the effects of grandparents suggests that they can be positive influences on their grandchildren (Powell, Hamilton et al., 2016). Siblings can also be important sources of support. As children, siblings may spend more time with one another than with their parents (Lucey, 2010), and they can be strong influences on each other’s development (Brody, Kim, Murry, & Brown, 2003; Dunn, 1988; McHale, Updegraff, & Whiteman 2012). Sibling effects can be positive or negative, can be direct or indirect (through effects on parents and teachers), and may affect social, emotional, and cognitive development. Kin who do not live in the household may affect family capacity and extend its boundaries by providing social, cultural, and financial capital (Stack, 1974).

Effective ecological approaches to intervention exemplify ways of reaching out to the extended family network and to other social networks (Henggeler & Sheidow, 2012). For example, high-fidelity wraparound leverages the role of grandparents, siblings, other kin, and friends in supporting healthy family functioning and child development in order to provide immediate as well as sustainable social supports (Bruns, Pullmann, Sather, Brinson, & Ramey, 2015; Kendziora, Bruns, Osher, Pacchiano, & Mejia, 2001; Suter & Bruns, 2009).

Early Care and Childhood Settings

Early care and education settings are, next to the family, the most important social contexts in which early development unfolds. Child care experiences are enormously important. Child care settings affect development through interactions with the child's individual developmental attributes and experiences in the child’s home (Bradley & Vandell, 2007). Early childhood education (ECE) programs provide young children with opportunities to learn and grow during a highly sensitive period of brain development. Research demonstrates that children tend to enter early care within the first few months of life and spend approximately 36 hours a week there, and that parents change arrangements fairly frequently prior to school entry due to changes in maternal employment (Phillips & Lowenstein, 2011). Experiencing quality ECE is a function of access and economic status, and research suggests that the magnitude and sometimes the direction of child-care effects on development may be markedly different for children from higher risk contexts (Berry et al., 2014).

ECE quality varies around an average that is mediocre with regard to the capacity to promote positive developmental outcomes (IOM & NRC, 2015; Phillips & Lowenstein, 2011). Several factors are implicated in this variation. The big driver of quality is the adult–child interaction, as ECE providers are important influences on the development of young children (IOM & NRC, 2015; Phillips & Lowenstein, 2011). Adult–child interactions are a product of provider quality,

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—43

training and preparation, staff turnover, and staffing ratios. Investment in a well-recruited, well- trained, and well-compensated staff is important (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, 2007), as is teacher training and support. Another factor that affects (and reflects) quality is the high rates of suspensions and expulsions from ECE programs (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, 2014): Expulsion rates are 13 times higher in federally funded child care centers than in K–12 classrooms (Gilliam & Shahar, 2006). These rates are particularly high among African-American children, who are 3.6 times more likely to receive one or more suspensions than white preschoolers, and for boys, who are 3 times as likely to be suspended as girls. While there is some evidence to suggest that mental health consultation in early childhood settings can help staff address students who are behaviorally troubling (Brennan, Bradley, Allen, & Perry, 2008), implicit bias has been implicated as a cause (Gilliam, Maupin, Reyes, Accavitti, & Shic, 2016; NAEYC, 2016).

Effective child-care settings provide social and structural supports needed for children to learn and grow. They provide ample opportunities for frequent, warm, and responsive interactions with adults through language-rich, relationship-rich, and safe learning environments (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Espinosa, 2002; Hamre & Pianta, 2005). This often includes experiential learning (such as pretend play), which is thought to enable children to incorporate and use knowledge (Blair & Raver, 2014). Pretend play, when combined with other instructional strategies, such as child-centered classrooms and playful learning that brings joy to the learning process, is an important context for learning and development in early childhood (Lillard et al., 2013; Snow, 2016).

An increasing body of research suggests that child care settings that have a clear focus on social and emotional learning and on developing self-regulatory skills (including executive functions) can build greater school readiness, and that these efforts can be enhanced by more intensive, targeted social interaction and social and cognitive skills training (Bassok, Latham, & Rorem, 2015; Diamond & Lee, 2011; Flook, Goldberg, Pinger, & Davidson, 2015; Schindler et al., 2015). Evidence from the evaluation of Tools of the Mind, for example, suggests that among kindergarten-age children in high-poverty schools, practices that encourage self-regulatory skills (here including teacher-led scaffolding and peer interactions, weekly individualized learning plans, child-directed activities, sociodramatic play, and a comprehensive curriculum) improve executive functions, attention, and stress-response physiology, as well as academic ability (Blair & Raver, 2014).

While interventions are important, science points to two key characteristics of high-quality ECE that can help meet children’s needs. These are human factors that promote language-rich environments and warm and responsive adult-child interactions to build “receptive and expressive language and interpersonal skills,” and structural factors such as high adult–child ratios, small group sizes, developmentally appropriate curriculum, and safe physical environments to support positive interactions and effective instruction (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016, p. 25).

Schools

Student achievement is affected by the interaction between individual student and teacher attributes and the conditions of learning and teaching (Osher et al., 2014). Learning is a social

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—44

process, and has affective, phenomenological, and cultural dimensions. Learners differ in their experiences, strengths, and needs. Relationships between and among teachers and students, which are shaped by their social and emotional competencies and the cultural congruence of their interactions, affect all learners’ academic engagement, learning, and performance.

Schools create positive conditions for learning when students experience emotional, intellectual, and physical safety; connectedness; support; challenge; engagement; respect; agency; learner- centered instruction; and learner-friendly classrooms and facilities (Arndt, 2012; Berkowitz et al., 2016; Blair, 2002; Blair & Razza, 2007; Cornelius-White, 2007; Osher & Kendziora, 2010). Schools can address the specific needs of the most vulnerable children to improve and leverage their strengths, while simultaneously creating conditions and opportunities that support the engagement and learning of all children, through targeted universalism (Powell, 2008).

Emotionally close, trustful relationships with nurturing adults and high teacher responsiveness foster positive development and learning (Hamre & Pianta, 2005; Ladd, Birch, & Buhs, 1999; Jones et al., 2013). Teachers’ explicit expression of high expectations and belief in students’ capabilities correlate with successful achievement (Osher & Kendziora, 2010; Steele, 2010). Positive relationships with teachers help promote self-regulation, which supports children’s classroom behavior, which in turn contributes to positive classroom climates. Positive classroom climates are associated with a host of student skills and dispositions, including greater cognitive and academic competence, self-esteem, school satisfaction and engagement, and less acting out, as well as positive school-oriented behaviors, including higher attendance (Hamre & Pianta, 2005). These same processes occur outside the classroom with other school staff.

Strong relationships with adults and positive classroom climates can counter the effects of chronic stress. Conversely, negative interpersonal transactions that include infrequent positive teacher support and attention during academic learning, teacher praise, and opportunities to respond (Gunter & Continuo, 1997; Sutherland & Morgan, 2003; Sutherland & Oswald, 2005; Van Acker, Grant, & Henry, 1996; Wehby, Symons, & Shores, 1995), as well as teacher stereotype priming (Steele, 2010), can increase stress and reduce the potential for buffering. Heightened stress and anxiety can reduce working memory, and lead to trouble paying attention in class, completing work, and inhibiting behavior, especially for students with repeated difficulty regulating behavior in social situations in school and at home. These social and classroom behaviors lead to negative perceptions and expectations on the part of both the student and the teacher regarding the student being poorly regulated and unable to learn. This can contribute to negative reinforcement, negative student self-identities, student learned helplessness, and a teachers’ sense of inefficacy (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995; Patterson et al., 1990). Psychological distress or appraisals of events as stressful or challenging are, in turn, associated with impairments in self-regulation (Duckworth, Kim, & Tsukayama, 2013; Monroe, 2008).

Classroom climates characterized by conflict aggravate this feedback loop and are associated with poor peer relations, more aggression, and poorer academic focus (Jones et al., 2013; Jones et al., 2008; Osher et al., 2014). Over time, negative experiences in school can lead children to withdraw and become less motivated, leading to greater gaps in school performance and achievement (Spier, Garibaldi, & Osher, 2012; Ursache, Blair, & Raver, 2012). This process of disengagement can contribute to poor attendance and grades in core classes, repeating grades,

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—45

and discipline problems, including suspension, that can, in turn, lead to dropout and school failure (Kendziora et al., 2014).

Instructional supports that foster enjoyment of learning and strategies to promote social and emotional competencies in the classroom can lead to better regulation, positive self- representations, and more positive responses from others (Blair & Diamond, 2008; Hamre & Pianta, 2005; Murray et al., 2015). Classroom management strategies that promote the use of language and positive interactions as a way to increase engagement and maintain appropriate levels of arousal, as well as intentional practice with self-regulation skills, are conducive to the development of emotion regulation, executive functions, and academic skills (Ursache et al., 2012; Zelazo et al., 2016). For example, reflective reprocessing of information prior to responding is thought to be necessary for the development of executive functions, and can be encouraged through instructional practices (Zelazo, 2015). Research shows that training of executive function skills through meditation, problem-solving tasks, and video gaming can induce changes in brain structure and function (including neural activation patterns, resting state functional connectivity, and neurochemistry), in behavior, and in the likelihood that executive function skills will be activated in the future (Blakemore & Bunge, 2012; Galinsky et al., in press; McDermott, Westerlund, Zeanah, Nelson, & Fox, 2012; Schmitt, McClelland, Tominey & Acock, 2015; Stevens & Bavelier, 2012).

Institutional practices such as exclusionary and disciplinary policies and practices run counter to strategies to support young people’s development, particularly when there are discipline disparities. The use of exclusionary discipline contributes to student disengagement, grade retention, dropout, and arrests (Fabelo et al., 2011; Mallett, 2015). Exclusionary discipline can also have negative consequences for learning and engagement of students who are not suspended (Hagan & Foster, 2012; Perry & Morris, 2014; Wakefield & Wilderman, 2013). Harsh discipline also can increase young African-American women’s vulnerability to harassment, sense of safety, and disengagement from school (Crenshaw, Ocen, & Nanda, 2015). Even one suspension increases the risk of repeating grades, school dropout, and incarceration, and reduces the likelihood of postsecondary success (Arcia, 2006).

Disproportionalities are pronounced in schools and child-serving systems for children and families of color, and these contribute to disproportionately poor outcomes for children and youth (Chapin Hall Center for Children, 2008; Hines, Lemon, Wyatt, & Merdinger, 2004)—as does the excessive use of seclusion, restraint, punishment, institutional placement, and placement changes (Bullard, Fulmore, & Johnson, 2003; Burrell, 2013; Fox, 2004). These problems start early. For example, the Civil Rights Data Collection reported that 48 percent of African- American preschool students have been suspended (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, 2014).

But school leaders can shape physical structures, policies that segregate and group students, rules, norms, and social relations to reduce disproportionality and opportunities for victimization, bullying, violence, racism, and intolerance. School leaders can engender a sense of safety, trust, and support; encourage prosocial behaviors; (Eccles et al., 1993; Henry, 2008; Henry, Farrell, Schoeny, Tolan, & Dymnicki, 2011; Osher et al., 2014).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—46

These same ideas apply to the other child-serving systems, which interact with schools and also affect children’s learning outcomes (either at the level of the microsystem or mesosystem). A growing body of research suggests that schools should be a part of community-wide collaborative efforts to provide developmental consistency across contexts and address the mental health needs (including help with stress and coping) and physical needs of children to facilitate learning (Osher, 2002; Osher & Chasin, 2016; Walker et al., 2011). Research documents and policy calls for a focus on well-being and positive youth development (Bonnie, Johnson, Chemers, & Schuck, 2013; Children’s Bureau, 2014; Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs, 2016).

Many staff in these agencies are challenged by adult stress and capacity, cultural and linguistic competence, lack of attunement to the development needs of children, and an inability to respond to the impacts of trauma on children and adults (Baird & Kracen, 2006; Nelson-Gardell & Harris, 2003; Regehr, Hemsworth, Leslie, Howe, & Chau, 2004). Adults, both in schools and other agencies, need effective preparation, training, and support. They, too, benefit from respectful and supportive leadership, and from strategies that address stress and provide guidance on managing classroom and other setting dynamics (Brackett & Rivers, 2014; Farmer et al., 2016; Greenberg et al., 2003; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Roeser et al., 2013).

Macrosystem Factors

Research often neglects to analyze the impact of macro-level factors at the microsystem and exosystem levels (Spencer, 2007). However, children experience macrosystem factors regularly and directly, as do the people they interact with. The macrosystem is both cultural and structural. Macrosystem factors are institutionalized and operationalized through rituals, policies, protocols, routinized practices, and opportunity structures. Macrosystem factors affect, and are experienced through, attitudes, behaviors, and practice routines that affect how children experience and react to environments. Children react both consciously as they interpret experiences and unconsciously through neurobiological processes. Structural macrosystem factors include labor market segmentation and early childhood policy. Cultural macrosystem factors include individualist concepts of child development and victim-blaming approaches to understanding social problems (e.g., Ryan, 1972)—both of which ignore or deemphasize the impacts of history and context on family resources and child outcomes (Lee, 2010).

Two key macrosystem factors are poverty and racism. Both separately and together, these factors make the experience of stress and adversity more likely for children and adults who must deal regularly with the consequences of poverty and racism in their daily lives (e.g., racial microaggressions). These effects may be visible in the moment (e.g., a racial slur) or they may be emergent and only visible analyses (e.g., racial disparities that are the product of multiple small and often subtle steps) (Osher, 2015). They can also be indirect, such as the impacts of housing segregation on resources available for schools under local funding formulas and the creation of cohort affects among and between students and teachers. However, indirect does not mean unimportant. For example, an analysis of the impacts of housing segregation by two economists who accounted for family background co-variates found that a one-standard-deviation reduction in housing segregation would eliminate about one third of the difference between black and white urban Americans in high school graduation, employment, and single-parent status (Cutler & Glaeser, 1997).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—47

Poverty

Poverty is an ecological risk factor that makes it less likely that children will benefit from appropriate experience and enrichment opportunities and makes it more likely that they will experience stress-producing adversity and health challenges. Poverty is only a distal risk factor for multiple proximal contextual drivers that have been conceptualized as ACEs (Felitti et al., 1998). They include fewer opportunities for positive stimulation and more frequent exposure to negative stimulation at home, in child care, at school, and in the community (Blair & Raver, 2016; Yates et al., 2003). Poverty gets under the skin through the response to stress, and affects social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development (Blair & Raver, 2012, 2016; Thompson & Haskins, 2014). Poverty may make poorer outcomes more likely both through deprivation and threat (McLaughlin, Sheridan, & Lambert, 2014). Examples of the array of proximal contextual drivers include food insecurity, which can affect the immune system and brain development (Johnson et al., 2016; Walker et al., 2011), homelessness, which can affect executive functions (Masten, Fiat, Labella, & Strack, 2015), and exposure to neighborhood-based risk factors (Osypuk, 2013).

Factors that contribute to fewer opportunities for positive stimulation include caregiver stresses, a lack of child development knowledge, and a lack of the resources to provide cognitive stimulation (Duncan, Magnuson, & Murnane, 2016; Johnson et al., 2016; Osher & Chasin, 2016). Children are less cognitively stimulated when they experience fewer books in the home and less directive speech, prompting, and positive language, and when they are exposed to fewer words (Blair & Raver, 2016). A lack of money to buy learning tools and activities and to obtain help with housework and maintenance activities can constrain the enriching interactions between caregiver and child. Crowded homes can limit parental responsiveness and speech (Evans, 2004). ECE settings and schools may amplify these effects, as economically disadvantaged children are more likely to be exposed to less access to robust academic opportunities (Gustafsson et al., 2014), a disproportionate number of underprepared teachers (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, 2014; Tennessee Department of Education, 2009), and policies that run counter to how children learn and develop (Chongmin & Gottfredson, 2011; Goldhaber, Gross, & Player, 2011; Hanushek, 2004; Kupchik & Ward, n.d.; Nance, 2013).

When children experience high levels of stress and that stress is not adequately buffered, the consequences to development and learning can be great. Neural and behavioral responses to stimulation cause children to be reactive and defensive rather than reflective and approach- oriented (Lee, Siegle, Dahl, Hooley, & Silk, 2015; Marusak, Martin, Etkin, & Thomason, 2015). The stresses of poverty can also contribute to lowered caregiver warmth and sensitivity among some parents who experience multiple stressors and lack access to support in dealing with these adversities (Blair & Raver, 2016). A lack of caregiver warmth and sensitivity can reduce opportunities for buffering stress and heighten the stress response in children and undermine the development of foundational competencies such as self-regulation (Blair & Raver, 2016), as children adapt to harsh or inconsistent parenting, particularly in chaotic environments (Deater- Deckard, Wang, Chen & Bell, 2012; Mills-Koonce et al., 2016; Patterson et al., 1990). Poverty- related risk factors increase the odds that children will demonstrate more behavioral problems and less social and emotional competence (West, Denton & Reaney, 2001). The effects of poverty on the stress response are thought to underlie findings that show an association between

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—48

poverty and diminished self-regulation including executive functions (Blair & Raver, 2016; Hackman & Farah, 2009). Animal studies suggest that deprivation can disrupt developmental integration in ways that affect the brain at the molecular, neural, cognitive, and behavioral levels (Johnson et al., 2016; Siegel, 2012).

While poverty makes poor outcomes more likely, family assets and families’ leveraging of other assets such as religious institutions can protect children from the negative consequences of poverty. Family assets include social networks (DiMaggio & Garip, 2012) and cultural resources that help families address the impacts of poverty. The seminal examination of parenting in Philadelphia by Furstenberg and colleagues (1999) identified the diversity of parenting strategies in high-need neighborhoods and how parents used their knowledge and social capital to protect their children and maximize their success. Warmth and sensitivity in the caregiver relationship can act as a critical buffer of the effects of poverty on the stress response (see section on the neurobiology of stress).

Racism

Racism, which affects people of color in manifold ways, is both ubiquitous and omnipresent. It is operationalized across ecological systems (Lee et al., 2003) and experienced both directly and indirectly. Institutionalized racism drives (and has driven) structural inequalities that are related to poverty, inequality, and an absence of wealth accumulation (Massey & Pren, 2012; Pager & Shepherd, 2015; Reardon & Bischoff, 2011). Processes that lead to associations between racism and children’s learning and development are historical, and occur at the individual level as well as in the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem (Dupree, Spencer, & Spencer, 2015 Swanson, Cunningham, Youngblood, & Spencer, 2009). The stresses created by the experience of racial aggressions and microagressions can become embedded in a child. They can affect children and adolescents’ perceptions of themselves and others, and how they deal with what they feel and experience. However, many children and their families demonstrate instrumental and psychological resilience by building on individual, family, and cultural strengths (Lee, 2009; Spencer, 2007).

Racism affects students directly through the identities they create, stereotype threat, and microaggressions, as well as through the adjustments they make in order to succeed and maintain a sense of dignity (Anderson, 1999; Steele, 2010; Stevenson & Stevenson, 2013). Racism affects the microsystem through structural inequities in child-serving institutions. The Civil rights data collection (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, 2014) data demonstrate the impacts of structural inequities in education, which include not only disparities in discipline but disparities in opportunities to learn and enrichment. Racism affects the education-related aspects of the mesosystem when there are problematic interactions between educators and families of color (e.g., Harry, Klinger, & Hart, 2005). It affects the exosystem through well-documented disparities in health care, mental health, housing, child welfare, educational resources, work opportunities, opportunities for civic participation, justice, and policing (e.g., Fisher et al., 2012). It affects the macrosystem when policies and cultural forces sustain or legitimize racial privilege (Pager & Shepherd, 2008).

Institutionalized racism creates contextual factors that enhance the likelihood that children, adolescents, and young adults will experience compounded deprivation, which Perkins and

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—49

Sampson (2015) operationalize as the combination of individual deprivation (e.g., poverty) and social emotional deprivation (e.g., low collective efficacy). These experiences can have durable effects on verbal abilities (Sampson, Sharkey, & Radenbush, 2008), if they are not effectively buffered by internal and external assets (Spencer, 2007). They can affect individual and social identities, which can contribute both to positive and negative adaptations.

In addition to threatening the physical well-being of children and their caregivers, victims of inequities and racism face the effects of implicit biases (Amodio & Devine, 2009; Hannon, DeFina, & Bruch, 2013) which can subject them to stress (Albert et al., 2010) and undermine confidence and self-concept, as well as expose them to professional and administrative decisions that lead to poorer, more punitive, and more exclusionary services (Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2010; Smedley, Stith, & Nelson, 2003). In addition, they face the effects of explicit bias (which limits job and housing opportunities), racial microaggressions, and the regular experiences of discrimination (Pager & Shepherd, 2008).

Together, structural and cultural inequities and racism create adverse conditions for promoting healthy development for minority children, and increase both parental and child stress (Stevenson & Stevenson, 2013). Although many individuals develop adaptive strategies and demonstrate resilience, research suggests that the physiological burden of allostatic load remains (Chen, Miller, Body, & Lei, 2015). These conditions can limit opportunities and negatively affect outcomes, and have been associated with stress-related mental and physical illnesses across the lifespan (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Fisher et al., 2012). Individual–Context Relations Across Development

Child development progresses along a continuum, and varies widely between individuals and developmental tasks. At the same time, some brain functions do predictably undergo rapid change in certain developmental periods. Rapid improvements in certain brain functions such as executive functions, for example, occur in early childhood; more complex executive function skills continue to develop through childhood and into adulthood (Davidson et al., 2006). Similarly, some interactions between the individual and the context occur more prominently at certain points in development, which can trigger more rapid improvements in specific functions. The next section highlights some of the most important developmental milestones in the first three years of life, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. These culturally determined phases of the life span involve both biological changes and differential participation in a variety of social fields that have their own behavioral demands (Kellam & Rebok, 1992).

The First Three Years

Early life experiences can have longstanding influences on learning and development. In the first three years of life, infants and toddlers devote their time to forming attachment relationships (including developing trust of others), learning to function autonomously (including developing trust in themselves), and acquiring self-regulatory attributes that allow them to be flexible problem-solvers (Yates et al., 2003). The first three years of life are widely believed to be a sensitive period for the developing brain. In the early years the brain’s plasticity is strongest; 700–1,000 new neural connections form every second, and the volume of gray matter increases

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—50

rapidly (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016). This early period of formation and pruning of neural circuits shapes the architecture of the developing brain before the circuits are fully mature and stabilized (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016; Fox, Levitt, & Nelson, 2010). Emotional development, including the ability to experience, express, and manage emotions and impulses, begins in this stage, in conjunction with motor control and cognition (Tarullo, Obradović, & Gunnar, 2009; Fox et al., 2010). The early years are also a sensitive period for the development of language and visual systems (Dawson Ashman, & Carver, 2000). Even though the first three years of life are considered a sensitive period for changes in neural networks, developmental systems, including the brain and relationships, continue to be malleable beyond these years (Dawson et al., 2000).

Early childhood is an important time to build resilience within and across developmental systems at multiple levels in the child, family, and community (Cicchetti & Curtis, 2007; Masten & Cicchetti, 2010; Reynolds & Ou, 2003). Parent responsiveness, proper nutrition, and early interventions to address cognitive, social, and academic concerns during this period are associated with long-term benefits; parental depression and maltreatment, social deprivation, and exposure to toxic substances are associated with long-term challenges (Dawson, et al., 2000). Early caregiver relationships are the most proximal and prominent contextual influences on development in these years, and can serve to promote optimal brain function and behavior. Attunement is associated with executive function, early language processing skills and vocabulary growth, and other immediate and long-term outcomes (Bindman, Pomerantz, & Roisman, 2015; Weisleder & Fernald, 2014).

Early Childhood

The preschool period has garnered a great deal of attention following evidence presented by James Heckman (Heckman & Masterov, 2007) and others showing that early investments that address social, emotional, and cognitive deficits even before kindergarten entry can have large payoffs for individuals and society. Indeed, neurobiological, emotional, and behavioral foundations in very early childhood set the stage for the development of school readiness skills and for positive developmental outcomes over the life course (Campbell, Ramey, Pungello, Sparling, & Miller-Johnson 2002; Schweinhart et al., 2005). With the proper supports, early childhood marks a period of dramatic increase in executive functions and cognition–emotion integration (Blair & Diamond, 2008; Espinet, Anderson, & Zelazo, 2012).

The cognitive, emotional, and behavioral integration at this stage helps children successfully navigate the social demands of preschool. As children begin preschool, they enter into relationships with teachers and peers that can mutually reinforce social behavior (Hay et al., 2004; Raver, 2004; Newman, 2000). The skills necessary to be accepted by peers—emotion regulation, executive functions, social understanding, and prosocial behaviors (such as helpfulness and sharing)—are the same skills that afford children opportunities to form positive relationships with teachers and to learn (Carlson & Moses, 2001; Hay et al., 2004; McDowell, O’Neil, & Parke, 2000; McElwain & Volling, 2002). Early experiences can set off a cascade of relationships, behaviors, self-perceptions, stress responses, and emotions that mutually reinforce each other over time in sometimes adaptive, sometimes maladaptive ways (Fox et al., 2010; Ladd, 1999; Nagaoka et al., 2015; Newman, 2000).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—51

Antisocial behaviors (such as aggressiveness and impulsivity) and attention deficits, often associated with chronic stress, as well as affective responses (e.g., shyness) undermine opportunities to connect with others, thereby diminishing opportunities to learn and depreciating the child’s and teacher’s perception of the child as a learner. For example, children who exhibit antisocial behavior in preschool participate in fewer classroom activities and teachers provide them with less instruction and less positive feedback, potentially setting off a cascade of less engagement, learning, and attention that can lead to poor academic performance and early dropout (Raver & Knitzer, 2002). As a result, emotional, social, and behavioral competence can be more important for early school success than cognitive competence or family background (Raver & Knitzer, 2002), and intentional efforts to promote these skills have been found to be successful (Menting, Orobio de Castro, & Matthys, 2013). An intentional focus on the development of self-regulation in young children through activities such as scaffolded social and emotional learning, creative play, and the encouragement of positive social connections can build brain functions involved in self-regulation and support the deepening of cognitive functions (Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2016).

Middle Childhood

Research often treats middle childhood, the period roughly between ages 6 and 12, as a transitional period. Pruning continues through middle childhood (Halfon et al., 2001). By middle childhood, other brain circuits, including certain key memory processes, are relatively mature (Sander, Werkle-Bergner, Gerjets, Shing, & Lindenberger, 2012, in Blakemore & Bunge, 2012). Yet middle childhood is marked by its own meaningful changes in brain development and social contexts: brain structures and functions, predominantly in the prefrontal cortex (which supports cognitive self-regulation and executive function), undergo rapid growth between ages 7 and 9 (Johnson et al., 2016).

Middle childhood is a time when children are experiencing increasing independence in new and challenging contexts, and changes in the nature of their social interactions. In the United States, the typical key developmental tasks during middle childhood are self-regulation, acquiring skills and knowledge related to learning, and developing interpersonal skills (Nagaoka et al., 2015). These tasks emerge out of the formation and development of friendships, increasing autonomy and behavioral expectations, and increasing academic demands. As children become self- regulated and the caregiver–child relationship becomes more collaborative, the nature of the attachment relationship changes from proximity to availability (Bosmans & Kerns, 2015). Attachment relationships also expand to other adults, especially teachers. These adults expect children to learn critical academic skills such as reading and writing and basic mathematics, and to develop contextually appropriate behavioral and attention skills. From these experiences and expectations, children learn and are expected to practice social and emotional competencies, including empathy, emotional expressiveness, interpersonal negotiation strategies, and cooperation with rules. These competencies facilitate relationships with adults and peers, afford increasingly diverse opportunities in the home, school, and other structured settings, and drive academic success (NRC & IOM, 2009). These competencies become more sophisticated as children develop social skills and knowledge through friendships, and develop social perspective-taking abilities—understanding that a single event may have multiple interpretations (Goldstein et al., 2002; Parker & Gottman, 1989; Selman, 1980).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—52

Children who do not develop social, emotional, and cognitive competencies and representations of self as successful learner are more likely to exhibit poor social skills, such as impulsivity, aggressive behaviors, poor social problem-solving skills, and school disengagement (IOM & NRC, 2009). Fortunately, an increasing body of research indicates that social and emotional learning strategies can help many elementary and middle school students develop these competencies (Durlak et al., 2011; Gestsdottir et al., 2011; Jones & Bouffard, 2012; Osher, Kidron, Brackett et al., 2016).

Middle childhood also is a time when mental health disorders and antisocial behaviors begin to emerge that have consequences for later outcomes (NRC & IOM, 2009; Patterson et al., 1990). Research suggests that middle childhood marks the first symptoms of conduct and anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, and depression (NRC & IOM, 2009). For example, boys arrested between the ages of 10 and 12 have twice as many lifetime convictions as those whose first arrest occurs later in adulthood (Farrington, Gallagher, Morley, St. Ledger, & West, 1986). Feedback loops between maturational shifts in the child, such as social cognitive abilities, and between an expanding social environment that reinforces representations of self and others, help explain divergence in developmental trajectories during these years (Berry & O’Connor, 2010; Eisenberg et al., 1987; Mah & Ford-Jones, 2012;). However, research on the iatrogenic effects of punitive, reactive, and segregating interventions suggests that some of the poor long- term outcomes may be a product of developmentally inappropriate responses to troubling and antisocial behavior (Dishion & Dodge, 2005; Dishion, McCord, & Poulin, 1999; Gatti, Tremblay, & Vitaro, 2009; Petitclerc, Gatti, Vitaro, & Tremblay, 2013).

Adolescence

After early childhood, adolescence is the time of the brain’s most dramatic growth spurt. Adolescence is the period from age 10 to 24 (Siegel, 2013), during which many changes in developmental systems occur. These include co-occurring changes in brain development, hormone levels, physical health, and contextual demands and opportunities. For many, adolescence is a time for risk taking, social reward seeking, and novelty seeking (Chambers, Taylor, & Potenza, 2003; Chein, Albert, O’Brien, Uckert, & Steinberg, 2011; Crone & Dahl 2012; Dishion, 2000; Gifford- Smith, Dodge, Dishion, & McCord, 2005; Steinberg, 2008; Yeager, Fong, Lee, & Espelage, 2015); it is also a time of opportunity, creativity, exploration, and optimism about one’s role in the world (Geisz & Nakashian, 2016). It is a period of great plasticity and malleability, and thus a time to optimize individual development and potential—a time for honing decision-making skills, expanding processing skills and self-evaluation, managing emotions, and embracing new forms of abstract thinking. It also brings changes in physical and skeletal health that have implications for later cardiovascular and bone health (Patton, Renn, Guido, & Quaye, 2016).

During adolescence, intentional skill development is particularly important and effective. It is a period in which environments and relationships, particularly those outside the family, in the school and community, play a uniquely important role in integration and development. One of the greatest misconceptions of this period is that adolescents do not need adults; adolescents crave relationship and connection, to both peers and adults. Peers can influence each other in promotive and inhibitory ways. They can encourage a sense of connection, model positive behaviors, and encourage prosocial norms (Patton et al., 2016). Peers can also encourage each other to engage in risk-taking and problem behaviors, particularly when in groups

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—53

unaccompanied by adults (Gardner & Steinberg, 2005; Gifford-Smith et al., 2005; Hoeve et al., 2012; Hoyt & Scherer, 1998; Kroneman, Loeber, & Hipwell, 2004; Silva, Chein, & Steinberg, 2016).

Adolescence is a highly sensitive period for the development of regions of the brain involved in social cognition and self-awareness (Blakemore, 2010; Blakemore & Mills, 2014; Fuhrmann, Knoll, & Blakemore, 2015; Nagaoka et al., 2015; Steinberg, 2005). The part of the brain associated with social and emotional functioning experiences a surge around puberty that creates changes in social motivation, including a focus on social status and social rewards (Crone & Dahl, 2012). The frontal lobe, which governs cognitive control, continues to mature and is still developing in adolescence and early adulthood. A remodeling of the brain’s dopaminergic system occurs around the time of puberty, in which amounts of dopamine fall sharply from levels in the early development phases (Sisk & Foster, 2004; Sisk & Zehr, 2005; Teicher, Andersen, & Hostetter, 1995). The dopaminergic system overlaps and interacts with the brain’s social networks and the networks for processing affective and motivational stimuli (Nelson, Leibenluft, McClure, & Pine, 2005).

One way of viewing the adolescent period of brain remodeling is through the lens of neural integration. Research suggests that the brain has two fundamental processes: one of pruning in early adolescence, the other of myelin formation in middle to late adolescence (Giedd, 2008; Pfeifer et al., 2013; Shaw et al., 2011; Sherman et al., 2014). Pruning enables regions of the brain to become more differentiated; myelin enables these remaining regions to become more linked. With myelin, for example, conduction speed of the action potential is 100 times faster, while the refractory period (i.e., resting time after firing) is 30 times shorter, making the overall communication among neurons 3,000 times more coordinated. The implication of this research is that pruning and myelination lead to increases in differentiation and linkage, and in this way adolescent brain remodeling leads to greater integration in the brain. This adolescent brain remodeling is thought to contribute to higher capacities for regulation and other higher order cortical functions through neural integration (Stevens, Skudlarski, Pearlson, & Calhoun, 2009).

As discussed, the various risks of adolescence include the onset of serious psychiatric disorders (Johnson, Kemp, Heard, Lennings, & Hickie, 2015). One view is that the pruning process may reveal underlying vulnerabilities in the neural connectivity of the individual. When stress arises from this diminished functioning, even more pruning may occur, as cortisol, the stress hormone released with prolonged stressors, can be neurotoxic. Shifts in the dopaminergic reward system may also be at play in the risk of developing addictive problems and other risk-taking behaviors during this period (Ross & Peselow, 2009). The functioning of these sub-systems in the brain and neural integration depend upon adolescents’ developmental contexts.

Although there is variation in the contextual demands placed on individual children, the specific tasks of adolescence move many children from the dependencies of childhood to the emerging identities and responsibilities of adulthood. Brain and hormonal changes, along with contextual changes, allow many adolescents to more intentionally contribute to adaptive regulation with their context. For example, they can select positive goals, use cognitive and behavioral skills to optimize their own potential, and compensate for challenges and failures (Baltes & Baltes, 1990; Freund & Baltes, 2002; Gestsdottir & Lerner, 2008). Consequently adolescence is a time of increasingly goal-oriented learning, identity formation, autonomy assertion, and a growing sense

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—54

of values (Boots, 2016; Erikson, 1968; Nagaoka et al., 2015). Adolescents are also flooded by emotion, whether it is driven by puberty, social anxiety, or memories. As a result, many of the tasks of adolescence are about the balance between honing attributes like self-regulation, sense of purpose, and belonging (pre-frontal cortex) versus handling some of the overwhelming emotions that drive risk taking and impulsive behavior (amygdala).

Unfortunately, middle schools and high schools often are organized in a way that does not fit the developmental needs of youth in this age group (Eccles & Roeser, 2009; Juvonen, Le, Kaganoff, Augustine, & Constant, 2004; Lee & Smith, 1997). Although adolescents need more autonomy and connectedness, they often experience a loss of autonomy, as rules become harsher and connections to adults—who now must work with more students—become more difficult to maintain.

Providing enriching opportunities in homes, schools, and communities helps adolescents fulfill their potential and experience increasing independence. In addition, investing in adolescence means investing in the next generation of parents and other adults who will be contributing to the positive development of young children. All adolescents need positive and sustained relationships with competent and caring adults who can provide exposure to life-skill-building activities; opportunities to actively participate and take leadership in family, school, and community activities; and provide clear standards for behavior and norms (Bond, 1999; Geisz & Nakashian, 2016; Lerner, 2004). In addition, studies of young adults suggest that mindfulness training may promote increases in neural integration. These studies have found that mindfulness training is correlated with increased interconnectivity of the connectome, and growth of the corpus callosum, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal region (Cole, 2014). Organizing Translational Frameworks

Translational developmental frameworks are essential for organizing and applying developmental constructs at the individual level as well as at the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem levels. Frameworks can help prioritize the developmental constructs that are most promotive at different stages of development universally, as well as for specific contexts, settings, tasks, and situations, with attention to variation among children.

Human development theorists across fields and areas of study have already come up with many ways of organizing development into frameworks that define the individual factors that help children grow and learn. These organizing frameworks can help support the translation and application of the science. The constructs that make up these frameworks are not trait-like in character and have common core principles. They include the following: • Malleable and measurable • Scientifically grounded in a strong research base • Acknowledge the developmental impact of adversity • Integrated (develop together) • Nonlinear • Progressive and refined by the acquisition of important developmental skills

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—55

• Delineated where there are dependencies between lower and higher skills • Linked with important developmental outcomes (e.g., academic achievement, social competence) whose associations are grounded in a strong research base

This should be reflected in a translational framework design that embraces two key principles: context dependency and a nonlinear developmental continuum (Stafford-Brizard, Cantor & Rose, under review). Frameworks designed around these principles should represent the complexity of the developing child and adolescent; they should avoid the assumption that a developmental path is linear and defined by a perspective of fixed ages and stages, and they should not exclude relevant contextual factors like time and environment because individuals cannot develop independently.

Context dependency should be a critical component of any translational framework. The context around a developing child or adolescent influences behavior, development, and even biological makeup (Knafo & Jaffee, 2013; Lester et al., 2016). Children’s performance varies in relation to the amount of support they are given (Fischer, Yan, & Stewart, 2003), their emotional state (Fischer, Bullock, Rotenberg, & Raya, 1993), and the culture and climate around them (Haynes & Comer, 1993; Hoy, Tarter, Woolfolk Hoy, 2006). Variability occurs in individual development due to contextual and environmental factors.

Knowledge of developmental patterns will provide explanations for variations in student performance and will shed light on critically important pathways that students follow to achieve higher order developmental skills and greater performance on multiple dimensions. Using methods and tools grounded in dynamic systems theory, the order and patterns can be identified within this variability and can ultimately be measured. A context-dependent translational framework should more fully represent the dynamic nature of development as opposed to a fixed ladder of stages that is often modeled on averages and void of context. Conclusion

The future of our education and child-serving systems needs to be built upon what we now know about the development of the brain, and the power of contextual factors in that development. Both systems were designed without knowledge of the forces that drive the neural processes that shape the emergence of our uniquely human mind. This knowledge, when understood and applied, contribute to positive adaptation, resilience, learning, health, and well-being. Although much research still needs to be done, it is now possible to offer a scientifically grounded view of the mind as an emergent, self-organizing, embodied, and relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information (Siegel, 2013) in interaction with other minds at home, at school, and in the community. Looked at this way, it is possible to visualize a powerful role for early childhood centers, schools, and child-serving systems in modeling, shaping, modulating, and monitoring this developmental process collaboratively with children and their families.

As this synthesis suggests, we are positioned now to draw upon an immensely relevant and diverse body of research to influence instructional and school design and child-serving community and health systems, to improve the conditions in which children grow and develop, and to create activating contexts for learning and the fullest expression of each child's individual

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—56

potential. At its core, the use of practices designed with the knowledge of human development as a foundation can realize a deep personalization of learning and the learner experience, going well beyond the traditional definitions that have been applied to these terms. This personalization must build upon the assets that children, families, and communities have, and must be interdisciplinary—mirroring the nature of development itself—and applied at the individual level.

Dramatic improvements in outcomes and equity depend on public and political will, sound policy in service to whole-child practices based on rigorous science, implemented with quality, measured with an understanding of formative progression, and adopted at scale with cultural competence and equitable outcomes as explicit goals. To ensure that approaches to whole-child personalization are scaled successfully, we must develop a comprehensive set of strategies to drive demand for and adoption of successful tools, methods, and measures, which must include a common taxonomy of definitions and measures across the continuum of ages into young adulthood and support for effective implementation across diverse contexts.

It is important to develop a robust translational R&D agenda that supports a synthesis and integration of current scientific knowledge within and across disciplines, while addressing important gaps in knowledge, practice, methods, and measures. This agenda can help ensure that the new knowledge and its potential translates into improved outcomes at scale. This agenda should promote examples of successful translation of science to practice, describe the research or policy agenda that previously brought these examples about, address remaining large gaps for further translation, and identify collaborative opportunities for application and piloting.

Measurement Considerations

There are limitations in our ability to measure the array of individual and contextual factors that influence child development. First, we do not take into account the individuality of how a child develops in our decisions about what we study and measure. Second, we do not understand the complex interactions among the child, his or her setting, and the adults and other children in that setting—and the intertwined role of these in the child’s development. Third, we do not adequately measure or understand the effects of stress on learning and development. Fourth, we do not adequately measure or understand the ways in which resiliency is supported by cultural resources and informal supports. These three limitations affect our ability to use measurement to inform intervention, practice, and policy.

First, we must return to the fundamental principle that children differ in their strengths and needs and in their developmental trajectories: researchers’ increasingly refined ability to measure individual variability allows them to change course from studying statistical averages to understanding patterns of individual variation. In addition, the specificity principle states that specific contexts exert influence on specific aspects of children’s development at specific times and in specific ways (Bornstein, 2006). Recent advances in statistical methodologies make studying individual and contextual variability more accessible, and allow us to analyze patterns of variability. To capitalize on these statistical methodologies and to understand how interventions and practices differentially affect children at different times, researchers need reliable data on individuals in more than one context and on multiple occasions. Decisions about when outcomes are measured and how often (i.e., the temporal metric of change) should be

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—57

considered carefully and based on a theoretical understanding of a particular change process (Lerner, Schwartz, & Phelps, 2009). Existing measures have often been normed on dominant groups and have not sufficiently attended to cultural variation, the intersection of multiple identities, and measuring cultural resources that support resilience. Research to validate measures and attend specifically to measurement invariance is needed.

Second, there are gaps in our understanding of the features of settings that are most relevant to child development and learning—and in our understanding of how these features interact and their malleability. Measures of settings (e.g., preschool quality, school climate) do currently exist. For example, the U.S. Department of Education developed a publicly available measure of school climate to measure the learning environment, and provides other vetted measures of school climate. We also lack understanding of the transactional and synchronous associations between individuals, their peers, and the adults in their lives. Social network analysis is one tool that is useful for measuring social dynamics beyond individual perceptions. But we lack the tools to measure these complex interactions, lack an understanding of the change sensitivity of existing measures, and have not adequately explored the differences in temporal metrics of change across individuals and contexts. Lerner and colleagues (2009) discuss this issue and propose some solutions.

Third, measuring chronic stress can be useful in understanding whether interventions succeed in restoring physiological homeostasis to a dysregulated nervous system. Although there are screening tools for adverse childhood experiences (e.g., Purewal et al., 2016), we do not yet have a valid and reliable measure for the gradient of stress, including toxic stress. Acknowledging this limitation, an effort by a working group out of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University to develop such a tool is currently underway. This tool may also include biomarker panels for toxic stress that can inform risk assessment before it is visible to the human eye (http://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/the-jpb-research-network-on-toxic-stress/).

Measuring Social and Emotional Competencies and Attributes

Measurement of social, emotional, and cognitive competencies that go beyond the learning of content, mindsets, and dispositions is relatively new, and still lacks conceptual clarity, alignment, common taxonomy, reliability, validity, and evidence of measurement invariance. Even the terms "non-academic” or “non-cognitive,” which are frequently used, are inadequate descriptor for these critical dimensions of human development (Osher, Kidron, Brackett et al., 2016). Those who advocate for assessing nonacademic skills2 are beginning to design more practical, reliable, valid, and conceptually clear measures. Prompted by general agreement that these skills are crucial, educators and policymakers are striving to assess them despite the inherent difficulties. Still, some experts have strong reservations about the use of existing measures for accountability (Duckworth & Yeager, 2015, Osher, Kidron, Brackett et al., 2016) rather than for formative assessment and continuous quality improvement.

One challenge is issues related to the reliability and validity of existing measures. Self-report measures and performance tasks are two methods for assessing nonacademic skills. Self-report

2 These skills are also referred to by other names, such as noncognitive, social and emotional, 21st century, soft, life, executive function-based, and character skills.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—58

and teacher questionnaires are subject to misinterpretation by the reporter, lack of insight into students’ internal states, have reference bias, and are vulnerable to faking, particularly as they are applied across cultures and language groups (Denham, Bassett, Sirotkin, Brown, & Morris, 2015; Jones, Zaslow, Darling-Churchill, & Halle, 2016; Miller, 2012; Scales et al., 2016; West et al., 2015). But performance tasks are subject to misinterpretation by the researcher as well, and often do not reflect typical behavior in real-life situations (Duckworth & Yeager, 2015). A second challenge is the lack of alignment between constructs. A third challenge is a lack of conceptual clarity about what is being measured. The field conceptualizes, describes, and measures competencies, mindsets, and dispositions in ways that vary with the discipline, context, developmental stage, and purpose that prompted their development. Competencies and skills often are conflated with mindsets and dispositions and with related constructs such as trauma, resilience, youth development, and developmental assets (Osher, Kidron, Brackett et al., 2016). This lack of conceptual clarity leads researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and other stakeholders in various fields to grapple with how to identify which competencies to target, how to measure their success, and how to identify which competencies, interventions, and programs may or may not be targeted and changed. A fourth challenge is a lack of sensitivity (i.e., sensitivity to integration and sequencing) in existing measures. This issue calls for research techniques that draw on triangulation and mixed methods.

Researchers can improve the current measurement tools—especially formative tools—to address these concerns before educators and policymakers decide to use them for accountability. Acknowledging the limitations in current measurement tools, the multidisciplinary work group for Establishing Practical Social-Emotional Competence Assessments of Preschool to High School Students is collaborating to make key advancements in student social and emotional competence assessment. At minimum, researchers, educators, and policymakers alike should be explicit about the limitations and use the results with caution. The absence of high-quality, effective measurement of whole-child development is one of the greatest limitations in applying the extensive scientific knowledge we have about children's growth and learning. This requires urgent prioritization as part of an R&D agenda (see below).

Measuring Academic Skills

Although performance-based assessments of academic subjects are usually spared the scrutiny given to “nonacademic” assessments, researchers, educators, and policymakers often underestimate the degree to which achievement tests are subject to similar limitations. In fact, emotion and affect are central to test-taking, and the research shows that context affects success on these tests (Aronson, 2002; Bruner, 1996; Hickey, 1980; Hong, 1999; Masten et al., 2005; Wolf & Smith, 1995). For example, negative stereotypes and perceptions of authority figures as unreliable undermine performance (Duckworth & Yeager, 2015; Good et al., 2003; Steele & Aronson, 1995). Moreover, current achievement tests do not reflect the previously described principles put forth by the learning science community today.

Part of the issue is that educators lack the training to efficiently, validly, and reliably administer less familiar and newer assessments such as performance task evaluations, and do not have sources for obtaining valid and reliable formative probes of important and complex learning outcomes. But there are also other limitations. Proponents of the evidence-centered design (ECD) framework (Mislevy, Steinberg, & Almond, 2002) argue that assessment should, but

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—59

currently largely do not, follow the principle that assessments should be thought of as “the broad set of processes and instruments by which we arrive at inferences about learner proficiency” (Riconscente, Mislevy, & Corrigan, 2015, p. 41), and that “assessment is the process of reasoning from particular things people make, say or do to draw inferences about their knowledge, skills, and abilities” (p. 40). Advances in assessment design that follow this principle and capitalize on technology, such as simulations and digital games, are being developed, and show promise for putting the science into practice (Riconscente et al., 2015). But more assessments that follow this principle need to be designed and validated using longitudinal data. Researchers are beginning to advance this work, which will be critical to the field of assessment and evaluation of learning and learner progress moving forward.

Toward a Translational R&D Agenda: Gaps in Knowledge and Practice

Human Plasticity

We still have much to learn about neural and behavioral plasticity, including the specific time of sensitive periods and how and when stress affects them. These sensitive periods are not just a function of age; rather than focusing on developmental stages, there needs to be more of a focus on the multiple influences on the processes by which individuals grow and learn (Raeff, 2017). Different neural systems have different sensitive periods, and these vary as a function of individual experiences (Johnson et al., 2016). Although most scientists would agree that intervening early is better, there may be some interventions that act more efficiently on the brain in later years. For example, providing school-age children and adolescents with anemia with iron supplements has been shown to yield greater benefits on cognitive functions than providing iron supplements to infants and young children (Johnson et al., 2016). Having a better understanding of the developmental sequencing of biological processes and skill acquisition is necessary for understanding plasticity. This question has implications for the translation of research into policy and for the translation of science into practice. For example, there is a debate in the research and policy fields about whether adolescents’ brains are mature enough to provide the inhibitory control needed for managing high levels of emotional arousal and reward seeking, and whether adolescents can learn control through experience (Johnson et al., 2009; Murray et al., 2015). In addition, more studies are needed in later childhood and adolescence, with specific attention paid both to culture and to the complex social networks that children operate in during these developmental periods (Berg, Osher, Moroney, & Yoder, n.d.; Hay et al., 2004).

Intergenerational Transmission

There is a need for more research on the neural plasticity of the maternal brain and factors that affect this plasticity (Kim et al., 2016). In addition, a small body of research has studied the paternal brain and identified an understudied phenomenon: paternal postpartum depression (Kim & Swain, 2007). Research on how the paternal brain and the father–infant attachment relationship affects child development can provide a better understanding of how to improve the early care environment to inform intervention (Kim et al., 2014).

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—60

Causality

Because the brain is so intricate and has so many parts working together, and because environmental stressors are so often co-occurring, we do not have a good understanding of causal processes, including what parts of the brain are causing what behaviors and whether intervention is affecting biology, behavior, or both. We also need to learn more about how settings, implementation readiness, and the quality of implementation moderate and mediate intervention effectiveness. We can gain this knowledge through precise interventions when they are combined with well-designed qualitative studies of implementation.

Susceptibility

We do not have a thorough understanding of the genetic and environmental relations that make a child more or less vulnerable or susceptible to characteristics of his or her environment, including the causes and variation in stress responsivity (Johnson et al., 2016). To better understand this, we need to better understand the feedback loops and dynamic links between exposures to chronic stress and outcomes—including models for how self-regulation and stress interact over time and how this interaction affects the promotion of resilience.

Resilience and Thriving

Childhood resilience is complex and multifaceted. We need to take a multilevel and multisystem approach to research and policy to better understand how to build a comprehensive approach to resilience in children (Lavoie et al., 2016; Luthar et al., 2015; Masten, 2007). This approach can draw upon social neuroscience (Cacioppo, 2002), as well as culturally sensitive phenomenological approaches (Spencer, 2007). We need to identify simple, scalable ways to minimize maltreatment and promote enrichment by primary caregivers. We need to take to scale actionable interventions we already know create and sustain developmentally nurturing child environments (Luthar et al., 2015).

Culture We also have to learn more about the impact of culture and cultural moderators on learning and development. For example we need to know more about how culturally and linguistically diverse students develop positive academic and racial/ethnic identities (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003; Langer-Osuna & Nasir, 2016) as well as how we can better address the neurobiological consequences of discrimination (e.g., Berger & Sarnyai, 2015). We also need to know how and why culture and cultural resources as well as discrimination contribute to risk and protection, resilience, and neurobiological processes in the caregiver and child (Cacioppo, 2002; Feldman, 2015; Lee, 2010).

Learning

Although studies of cognitive science and deeper learning point to some promising directions, more needs to be learned about the conditions for learning and precisely how and under what conditions cognitive, social and emotional, and metacognitive skill-building can be developed, which pathways for adaptive integration of skills are most fruitful, and how to combine such practices with rigorous, personalized instructional practices. It will be important to embed this

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—61

knowledge in the training and preparation of leaders and teachers, including providing opportunities for personal skill development, apprenticeship, coaching, and practice. In education, there is a need for researchers and educators to develop ways to balance multiple priorities that include: individualized learning within cohesive classrooms, setting high standards for teachers without standardizing practice, taking time to build strong trustful relationships, and incorporating culturally responsive practices. There continues to be a need for further research on universal trauma-sensitive approaches, community schools, and community-wide approaches to supporting learning, positive youth development, and whole-child development. This knowledge base will help us design 21st century schools that personalize both context and learning, and do so in ways that intentionally promote cognitive engagement, social and emotional skills and mindsets, and deeper learning competencies.

Assessment

There is a need for novel and innovative measures that follow the learning principles outlined in this paper. These must be scalable and must reconcile accountability with the importance of measuring formative growth, human development dimensions, and deeper learning (Sawyer, 2008). In academic subjects, this means assessing the extent to which knowledge is integrated, coherent, and contextualized (Sawyer, 2008). More needs to be done to develop and implement formative assessments that capture individual pathways to cognitive and emotional engagement and social, emotional, and academic learning over time. Especially for academic assessment, this includes assessments administered repeatedly over time that are sensitive to individual differences and that capture the process of reasoning (Riconscente et al., 2015). There is still much more work to be done to measure settings (including the classroom, home, the afterschool environment, and others), in a valid, reliable way that includes simultaneous measurement of social interactions. There is also a need for greater attention to how to capture interactions between individuals and settings using appropriate temporal metrics (Lerner et al., 2009). Finally, we do not yet have a scalable assessment of the whole child, despite increasing attention to the whole child in schools and local efforts. Capturing whole-child development in formative measures is potentially one of the most fruitful areas for R&D.

Beyond K–12

The science of learning and development is not only relevant for preK–12 education. Because neural plasticity continues into adulthood, opportunities for skill development and behavioral adaptation remain open throughout early adulthood. What the science tells us about learning and development beyond preK–12 is beyond the scope of this paper. Further, our current understanding of the specific needs, risks, and opportunities for learning and development among 18-to-24-year-olds—particularly those who experience chronic stress—is underdeveloped. Of particular interest is the topic of “opportunity youth”—young people between the ages of 16 and 24 who are neither enrolled in school nor participating in the labor market. Deepening and leveraging the science of learning and development for this population represents a ripe area for future study, and is essential to promoting learning and development in children who will become parents and providing them a pathway back to school or toward active participation in the workforce.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—62

As this synthesis suggests, our knowledge in multiple disciplines is converging and congruent. Advances in research advances, the coalescence within bodies of science, and the convergence across bodies of science and disciplines has the potential to be transformative. We are now positioned to draw upon an immensely relevant and diverse body of research to influence instructional and school design, child-serving, family support, community, and health systems. This knowledge will enable us to improve the conditions in which children grow and develop by providing activating contexts for learning and for the fullest realization of each child's individual potential. Practices designed with the knowledge of human development as a foundation can enable us to more deeply personalize learning and the learner experience—going well beyond the traditional definitions that have been applied to these terms. This work must build upon the personal and cultural assets that children, families, and communities have, and must be interdisciplinary by its very nature—mirroring the nature of development itself—and applied within the social contexts that affect child development and at the individual student level.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—63

References

Abar, C. C., Jackson, K. M., & Wood, M. (2014). Reciprocal relations between perceived parental knowledge and adolescent substance use and delinquency: The moderating role of parent-teen relationship quality. Developmental Psychology, 50(9), 2176–2187. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037463

Aizer, A., & Doyle, J. J. (2013). Juvenile incarceration, human capital and future crime: Evidence from randomly-assigned judges. (NBER Working Paper No. 19102). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w19102.pdf

Albert, D., Chein, J., & Steinberg, L. (2013). The teenage brain peer influences on adolescent decision making. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(2), 114–120. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721412471347

Albert, M. A., Cozier, Y., Ridker, P. M., Palmer, J. R., Glynn, R. J., Rose, L., . . . Rosenberg, L. (2010). Perceptions of race/ethnic discrimination in relation to mortality among Black women: Results from the Black Women’s Health Study. Archives of Internal Medicine, 170(10), 896–904. https://doi.org/10.1001/archinternmed.2010.116

Alexander, K. L., Entwisle, D. R., & Olson, L. S. (2014). The long shadow: Family background, disadvantaged urban youth, and the transition to adulthood. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Allen, J., Gregory, A., Mikami, A., Lun, J., Hamre, B., & Pianta, R. (2013). Observations of effective teacher–student interactions in secondary school classrooms: Predicting student achievement with the classroom assessment scoring system-secondary. School Psychology Review, 42(1), 76-98.

Allen, L., & Kelly, B. (2015). Transforming the workforce for children birth through age 8: A unifying foundation. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Alloway, T. P. (2006). How does working memory work in the classroom? Educational Research and Reviews, 1(4), 134-139.

Almlund, M., Duckworth, A. L., Heckman, J. J., & Kautz, T. D. (2011). Personality psychology and economics (NBER Working Paper No. 16822). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.proxy.library.vanderbilt.edu/docview/1687830854?rfr_id=info %3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo

Ambrose, S. A., & Lovett, M. C. (2014). Prior knowledge is more important than content: Skills and beliefs also impact learning. In V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, & C. M. Hakala (Eds.), Applying science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum (pp. 7–19). Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—64

American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force. (2008). Are zero tolerance policies effective in schools? An evidentiary review and recommendations. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from https://www.apa.org/pubs/info/reports/zero-tolerance.pdf

Amodio, D., & Devine, P. G. (2009). On the interpersonal functions of implicit stereotyping and evaluative race bias: Insights from social neuroscience. In R. E. Petty, R. H. Fazio, & P. Briñol (Eds.), Attitudes: Insights from the new implicit measures (pp. 193–226). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Ancess, J. (2003). Beating the odds: High schools as communities of commitment. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Anderson, E. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Anderson, P. M., Butcher, K. F., & Levine, P. B. (2003). Maternal employment and overweight children. Journal of Health Economics, 22(3), 477–504. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167- 6296(03)00022-5

Anderson, J. R., & Schunn, C. D. (2000). Implications of the ACT-R learning theory: No magic bullets. In R. Glaser, (Ed.), Advances in instructional psychology: Educational design and cognitive science (Vol. 5, pp. 1–34). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Andrews-Hanna, J. R., Smallwood, J., & Spreng, R. N. (2014). The default network and self- generated thought: Component processes, dynamic control, and clinical relevance. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1316, 29–52.

Anthony, E. J., & Cohler, B. J. (1987). The invulnerable child. New York, NY: Guilford.

Anyon, Y., Gregory, A., Stone, S., Farrar, J., Jenson, J. M., McQueen, J., ... & Simmons, J. (2016). Restorative interventions and school discipline sanctions in a large urban school district. American Educational Research Journal, 53(6), 1663-1697.

Appel, M., Weber, S., & Kronberger, N. (2015). The influence of stereotype threat on immigrants: Review and meta-analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(900). http://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00900

Arcia, E. (2006). Achievement and enrollment status of suspended students: Outcomes in a large, multicultural school district. Education and Urban Society, 38(3), 359–369.

Ard, K. (2015). Trends in exposure to industrial air toxins for different racial and socioeconomic groups: A spatial and temporal examination of environmental inequality in the U.S. from 1995 to 2004. Social Science Research, 53, 375–390. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2015.06.019

Arditti, J., & Savla, J. (2015). Parental incarceration and child trauma symptoms in single caregiver homes. Journal of Child & Family Studies, 24(3), 551–561. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-013-9867-2

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—65

Arndt, P. A. (2012). Design of learning spaces: Emotional and cognitive effects of learning environments in relation to child development. Mind, Brain, and Education, 6(1), 41–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-228X.2011.01136.x

Aronson, J. (2002). Stereotype threat: Contending and coping with unnerving expectations. In J. Aronson (Ed.), Improving academic achievement: Impact of psychological factors on education (pp. 279–301). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Artiles, A. J., Kozleski, E. B., Trent, S. C., Osher, D., & Ortiz, A. (2010). Justifying and explaining disproportionality, 1968–2008: A critique of underlying views of culture. Exceptional Children, 76(3), 279–299.

Avellar, S. A., & Supplee, L. H. (2013). Effectiveness of home visiting in improving child health and reducing child maltreatment. Pediatrics, 132(Supplement 2), S90-S99.

Bahns, A. J., Pickett, K. M., & Crandall, C. S. (2012). Social ecology of similarity: Big schools, small schools, and social relationships. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 15, 119–131. https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430211410751

Baird, K., & Kracen, A. C. (2006). Vicarious traumatization and secondary traumatic stress: A research synthesis. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 19(2), 181–188.

Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2007). Research review: Genetic vulnerability or differential susceptibility in child development: the case of attachment. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(12), 1160–1173. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01801.x

Baltes, P. B. (1997). On the incomplete architecture of human ontology: Selection, optimization, and compensation as foundation of developmental theory. American Psychologist, 23, 366–380.

Baltes, P. B., & Baltes, M. M. (1990). Psychological perspectives on successful aging: The model of selective optimization with compensation. In P. B. Baltes & M. M. Baltes (Eds.), Successful aging: Perspectives from the behavioral sciences (pp. 1–34). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Bassok, D., Latham, S. & Rorem A. (2015). Is kindergarten the new first grade? (EdPolicyWorks Working Paper Series, No. 20). Retrieved from http://curry.virginia.edu/uploads/resourceLibrary/20_Bassok_Is_Kindergarten_The_New _First_Grade.pdf

Bassuk, E. L., Buckner, J. C., Weinreb, L. F., Browne, A., Bassuk, S. S., Dawson, R., & Perloff, J. N. (1997). Homelessness in female-headed families: Childhood and adult risk and protective factors. American Journal of Public Health, 87(2), 241–248.

Batley, R. (1994). The consolidation of adjustment: Implications for public administration. Public Administration and Development, 14(5), 489–505. https://doi.org/10.1002/pad.4230140505

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—66

Bear, G. G., Whitcomb, S., Elias, M., & Blank, J. (2015). SEL and schoolwide positive behavioral interventions and supports. In R. P. Weissberg & C. E. Domitrovich (Eds.), Handbook of social and emotional learning (pp. 453–467). New York, NY: Guilford.

Beijersbergen, M. D., Juffer, F., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & van IJzendoorn, M. H. (2012). Remaining or becoming secure: Parental sensitive support predicts attachment continuity from infancy to adolescence in a longitudinal adoption study. Developmental Psychology, 48(5), 1277–1282. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027442

Bennett, M. D., & Olugbala, F. (2010). Don’t bother me, I can’t cope: Stress, coping and problem behaviors among young African American males. In W. E. Johnson (Ed.), Social work with African American males: Health, mental health, and social policy: New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Hamilton, S. F., & Sesma, A. (2007). Positive youth development: Theory, research, and applications. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology (6th ed., Vol. 1). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470147658.chpsy0116/abstract

Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., & Syvertsen, A. K. (2011). The contribution of the developmental assets framework to positive youth development theory and practice. In R. M. Lerner, J. V. Lerner, & J. B. Benson (Eds.), Advances in child development and behavior: Positive youth development research and applications for promoting thriving in adolescence (pp. 198–232). London, UK: Elsevier.

Berg, J., Osher, D., Moroney, D., & Yoder, N. (n.d.). The intersection of school climate and social and emotional learning. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research.

Berger, M., & Sarnyai, Z. (2015). “More than skin deep”: Stress neurobiology and mental health consequences of racial discrimination. Stress, 18(1), 1–10.

Bergin, C., & Bergin, D. (2009). Attachment in the classroom. Educational Psychology Review, 21, 141–170. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-009-9104-0

Berkowitz, R., Moore, H., Astor, R. A., & Benbenishty, R. (2016). A research synthesis of the associations between socio-economic background, inequality, school climate, and academic achievement. Review of Educational Research, 20(10), 1–45.

Bernard, K., Hostinar, C., & Dozier, M. (2015). Intervention effects on diurnal cortisol rhythms of CPS-referred infants persist into early childhood: Preschool follow-up results of a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Pediatrics, 169(2), 112–119. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.2369

Berndt, T. J. (1979). Developmental changes in conformity to peers and parents. Developmental Psychology, 15(6), 608–616. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.15.6.608

Bernstein, B. E., Meissner, A., & Lander, E. S. (2007). The mammalian epigenome. Cell, 128(4), 669–681.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—67

Berry, D., & O’Connor, E. (2010). Behavioral risk, teacher–child relationships, and social skill development across middle childhood: A child-by-environment analysis of change. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 31(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2009.05.001

Berry, D., Blair, C., Ursache, A., Willoughby, M., Garrett-Peters, P., Vernon-Feagans, L., . . . Granger, D. A. (2014). Child care and cortisol across early childhood. Developmental Psychology, 50(2), 514–525. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033379

Bertrand, M., & Pan, J. (2011). The trouble with boys: Social influences and the gender gap in disruptive behavior. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 5(1), 32–64.

Bethell, C. D., Newacheck, P., Hawes, E., & Halfon, N. (2014). Adverse childhood experiences: Assessing the impact on health and school engagement and the mitigating role of resilience. Health Affairs, 33, 2106–2115.

Beveridge, R. M., & Berg, C. A. (2007). Parent–adolescent collaboration: An interpersonal model for understanding optimal interactions. Clinical Child and Family Psychological Review, 10(1), 25–52.

Bierman, K. L., & Sasser, T. R. (2014). Conduct disorder. In M. Lewis & K. Rudolph (Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychopathology (3rd ed., pp. 467–488). New York, NY: Springer.

Bindman, S. W., Pomerantz, E. M., & Roisman, G. I. (2015). Do children’s executive functions account for associations between early autonomy-supportive parenting and achievement through high school? Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(3), 756–770. https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000017

Bjork, E. L., & Bjork, R. A. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. In M. A. Gernsbacher, R. W. Pew, L. M. Hough, & J. R. Pomerantz (Eds.), Psychology and the real world: Essays illustrating fundamental contributions to society (pp. 55-64). FABBS Foundation. New York, NY: Worth.

Blair, C. (2002). School readiness: Integrating cognition and emotion in a neurobiological conceptualization of children’s functioning at school entry. American Psychologist, 57(2), 111–127. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.2.111

Blair, C., & Diamond, A. (2008). Biological processes in prevention and intervention: The promotion of self-regulation as a means of preventing school failure. Development & Psychopathology, 20(3), 899–911. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579408000436

Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2012). Child development in the context of adversity: Experiential canalization of brain and behavior. American Psychologist, 67(4), 309–318. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027493

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—68

Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2014). Closing the achievement gap through modification of neurocognitive and neuroendocrine function: Results from a cluster randomized controlled trial of an innovative approach to the education of children in kindergarten. PLOS ONE, 9(11), e112393. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0112393

Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2016). Poverty, stress, and brain development: New directions for prevention and intervention. Academic Pediatrics, 16(3, Suppl.), S30–S36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2016.01.010

Blair, C., & Razza, R. P. (2007). Relating effortful control, executive function, and false belief understanding to emerging math and literacy ability in kindergarten. Child Development, 78, 647–663. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1467-8624.2007.01019.x

Blakemore, S.-J. (2010). The developing social brain: Implications for education. Neuron, 65(6), 744–747. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2010.03.004

Blakemore, S.-J., & Bunge, S. A. (2012). At the nexus of neuroscience and education. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2, S1–S5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2012.01.001

Blakemore, S.-J., & Mills, K. L. (2014). Is adolescence a sensitive period for sociocultural processing? Annual Review of Psychology, 65(1), 187–207. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115202

Boaler, J. (2002). The development of disciplinary relationships: Knowledge, practice and identity in mathematics classrooms. For the learning of mathematics, 22(1), 42–47. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40248383

Bohner, G., & Dickel, N. (2011). Attitudes and attitude change. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 391–417. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131609.

Bomer, R., Dworin, J. E., May, L., & Semingson, P. (2008). Miseducating teachers about the poor: A critical analysis of Ruby Payne's claims about poverty. Teachers College Record, 110(12), 2497–2531. Retrieved from https://blogs.nd.edu/poverty- cap/files/2012/07/TCRecord_Payne_Critique.pdf

Bond, A. (1999). Student mentoring: Promoting high achievement and low attrition in education and training. Leabrook, Australia: National Centre for Vocational Education Research. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED433426

Bonnie, R. J., Johnson, R. L., Chemers, B. M., & Schuck, J. (Eds.). (2012). Reforming juvenile justice: A developmental approach. Washington, DC: National Research Council of the National Academies Press.

Boots, S. W. (2016). Using the developmental sciences to address inequality. Consultancy to Hilary Pennington, Vice President for Education, Creativity, and Free Expression, The Ford Foundation. Unpublished report.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—69

Bornstein, M. H. (2006). Parenting science and practice. In K. A. Renninger & I. E. Sigel (Vol. Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (6th ed., Vol. 4: Child psychology in practice, pp. 893–949). New York, NY: Wiley.

Bosmans, G., & Kerns, K. A. (2015). Attachment in middle childhood: Progress and prospects. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2015(148), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1002/cad.20100

Bouck, E. C., Okolo, C. M., Englert, C. S., & Heutsche, A. (2008). Cognitive apprenticeship into the discipline: Helping students with disabilities think and act like historians. Learning Disabilities, 6(2), 21–40.

Brackett, M. A., & Rivers, S. E. (2014). Transforming students’ lives with social and emotional learning. In R. Pekrun & L. Linnenbrink-Garcia (Eds.), International handbook of emotions in education (pp. 368–388). New York: Taylor & Francis.

Brackett, M. A., Palomera, R., Moja-Kaja, J., Reyes, M. R., & Salovey, P. (2010). Emotion- regulation ability, burnout, and job satisfaction among British secondary-school teachers. Psychology in the Schools, 47(4), 406–417.

Brackett, M. A., Rivers, S. E., & Salovey, P. (2011). Emotional intelligence: Implications for personal, social, academic, and workplace success. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5, 88–103.

Braddock, J. H., & McPartland, J. M. (1993). Education of early adolescents. Review of Research in Education, 19(1), 135–170.

Bradshaw, C. P., Pas, E. T., Debnam, K. J., & Johnson, S. L. (2015). A focus on implementation of positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) in high schools: Associations with bullying and other indicators of school disorder. School Psychology Review, 44(4), 480–498.

Bradshaw, C. P., Reinke, W. M., Brown, L. D., Bevans, K. B., & Leaf, P. J. (2008). Implementation of school-wide positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) in elementary schools: Observations from a randomized trial. Education & Treatment of Children, 31(1), 1–26.

Bradshaw, C. P., Bottiani, J., Osher, D., & Sugai, G. (2013). Integrating positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) and social emotional learning. In M. D. Weist, N. A. Lever, C. P. Bradshaw, & J. Owens (Eds.), Handbook of school mental health: Advancing practice and research (2nd ed., pp. 101–118). New York, NY: Springer.

Bradley, R. H., & Vandell, D. L. (2007). Child care and the well-being of children. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 161(7), 669–676. https://doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.161.7.669

Bransford, J., Brown, A., & Cocking, R. (Eds.). (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school—expanded edition. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—70

Brenhouse, H. C., Lukkes, J. L., & Andersen, S. L. (2013). Early life adversity alters the developmental profiles of addiction-related prefrontal cortex circuitry. Brain Science, 3(1), 143–158.

Brennan, E. M., Bradley, J. R., Allen, M. D., & Perry, D. F. (2008). The evidence base for mental health consultation in early childhood settings: Research synthesis addressing staff and program outcomes. Early Education and Development, 6, 982–1002. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10409280801975834

Brizio, A., Gabbatore, I., Tirassa, M., & Bosco, F. M. (2015). “No more a child, not yet an adult”: Studying social cognition in adolescence. Frontiers in Psychology, 6(1011). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01011

Brody, G. H., Kim, S., Murry, V. M., & Brown, A. C. (2003). Longitudinal direct and indirect pathways linking older sibling competence to the development of younger sibling competence. Developmental Psychology, 39(3), 618–628.

Brody, G. H., Miller, G. E., Yu, T., Beach, S. R. H., & Chen, E. (2016). Supportive family environments ameliorate the link between racial discrimination and epigenetic aging: A replication across two longitudinal cohorts. Psychological Science, 27(4), 530–541. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615626703

Brody, G. H., Murry, V. M., Kogan, S. M., Gerrard, M., Gibbons, F. X., Molgaard, V., . . . Wills, T. A. (2006). The Strong African American Families Program: A cluster-randomized prevention trial of long-term effects and a mediational model. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74(2), 356–366. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.74.2.356

Brody, G. H., Yu, T., Chen, E., Miller, G. E., Kogan, S. M., & Beach, S. R. H. (2013). Is resilience only skin deep? Rural African Americans’ Preadolescent socioeconomic status- related risk and competence and age 19 psychological adjustment and allostatic load. Psychological Science, 24(7), 1285–1293. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612471954

Brondolo, E., Rieppi, R., Erickson, S. A., Bagiella, E., Shapiro, P. A., McKinley, P., . . . Sloan, R. P. (2003). Hostility, interpersonal interactions, and ambulatory blood pressure. Psychosomatic Medicine, 65(6), 1003–1011.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1989). Ecological systems theory. In R. Vasta (Ed.), Annals of Child Development, 6 (pp. 187–249). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1994). Ecological models of human development. In International encyclopedia of education (2nd ed., Vol. 3). Oxford, UK: Elsevier.

Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. A. (2006). The bioecological model of human development. In W. Damon & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (6th ed., Vol. 1: Theoretical models of human development, pp. 793–828). New York, NY: Wiley.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—71

Brooks-Gunn, J., Duncan, G. J., Leventhal, T., & Aber, J. L. (1997). Lessons learned and future directions in research, In J. Brooks-Gunn, G. J. Duncan, & J. L. Aber (Eds.), Neighborhood poverty (Vol. 1: Context and consequences for children, pp. 279–298). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Brown, A. L., & Campione, J. C. (1996). Psychological theory and the design of innovative learning environments: On procedures, principles, and systems. In L. Schauble & R. Glaser (Eds.), Innovations in learning: New environments for education (pp. 289–325). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Bruner, J. (1996). The culture of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Brunner, E., & Marmot, M. (2006). Social organization, stress and health. In M. Marmot & | R. G. Wilkinson (Eds.), Social determinants of health (2nd ed., pp. 6–30). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Bruns, E. J., Pullmann, M. D., Sather, A., Brinson, R. D., & Ramey, M. (2015). Effectiveness of wraparound vs. case management for children and adolescents: Results of a randomized study. Administration and Policy in Mental Health, 42(3), 309–322. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-014-0571-3

Bryan, J., Moore-Thomas, C., Gaenzle, S., Kim, J., Lin, C.-H., & Na, G. (2012). The effects of school bonding on high school seniors’ academic achievement. Journal of Counseling & Development, 90(4), 467–480. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1556-6676.2012.00058.x

Bucci, M., Marques, S. S., Oh, D., & Harris, N. B. (2016). Toxic stress in children and adolescents. Advances in Pediatrics, 63(1), 403–428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yapd.2016.04.002

Bullard, L., Fulmore, D., & Johnson, K. (2003). Reducing the use of restraint and seclusion: Promising practices and successful strategies. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America.

Bundick, M. J., Yeager, D. S., King, P. E., & Damon, W. (2010). Thriving across the life span. In R. M. Lerner & W. F. Overton (Eds.), The handbook of life-span development (Vol. 1: Cognition, biology, and methods, pp. 882–926). New York, NY: Wiley. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470880166.hlsd001024/abstract

Burke Harris, N., & Renschler, T. (2015). Center for Youth Wellness ACE-Questionnaire (CYW ACE-Q Child, Teen, Teen SR). San Francisco, CA: Center for Youth Wellness.

Burke, N. J., Hellman, J. L., Scott, B. G., Weems, C. F., & Carrion, V. G. (2011). The impact of adverse childhood experiences on an urban pediatric population. Child Abuse & Neglect, 35(6), 408–413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2011.02.006

Burnette, J. L., O’Boyle, E. H., VanEpps, E. M., Pollack, J. M., & Finkel, E. J. (2013). Mind-sets matter: A meta-analytic review of implicit theories and self-regulation. Psychological Bulletin, 139, 655–701. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029531

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—72

Burrell, S. (2013). Trauma and the environment of care in juvenile institutions. Los Angeles, CA: National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Cacioppo, J. T. (2002). Social neuroscience: understanding the pieces fosters understanding the whole and vice versa. American Psychologist, 57(11), 819-831.

Cairns, R. B., & Cairns, B. D. (1994). Lifelines and risks: Pathways of youth in our time. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Campbell, A., Adams, V., & Davis, G. (2007). Cognitive demands and second-language learners: A framework for analyzing mathematics instructional contexts. Mathematical Thinking & Learning, 9(1), 3–30.

Campbell, F., Conti, G., Heckman, J. J., Moon, S. H., Pinto, R., Pungello, E., . . . Pan, Y. (2014). Early childhood investments substantially boost adult health. Science, 343(6178), 1478–1485.

Campbell, F., Ramey, C., Pungello, E., Sparling, J., & Miller-Johnson, S. (2002). Early childhood education: Young adult outcomes from the Abecedarian project. Applied Developmental Science, 6(1), 42–5.

Carlson, M. J., & Corcoran, M. E. (2004). Family structure and children's behavioral and cognitive outcomes. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63(3), 779–792.

Carlson, S. M., & Moses, L. J. (2001). Individual differences in inhibitory control and children’s theory of mind. Child Development, 72(4), 1032–1053.

Cartledge, G. (2008). Culturally responsive classrooms for culturally diverse students with and at risk for disabilities. Exceptional Children, 74(3), 351–371.

Cenegy, L. F., & Brewer, M. (2013). Family matters: Links between family structure and early child health. Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk, 4(1, article 6). Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1117&context=childre natrisk

Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (2011). Building the brain’s “air traffic control” system: How early experiences shape the development of executive function: Working Paper No. 11. Retrieved from http://46y5eh11fhgw3ve3ytpwxt9r.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp- content/uploads/2011/05/How-Early-Experiences-Shape-the-Development-of-Executive- Function.pdf

Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University. (2016). From best practices to breakthrough impacts: A science-based approach to building a more promising future for young children and families. Retrieved from http://www.developingchild.harvard.edu

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—73

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2016). Chronic disease pevention and health promotion. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/

Chambers, R. A., Taylor, J. R., & Potenza, M. N. (2003). Developmental neurocircuitry of motivation in adolescence: A critical period of addiction vulnerability. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 160(6), 1041–1052.

Chandler, A. (2016). A life course framework for improving the lives of boys and men of color. Retrieved from http://www.gih.org/files/AudioConf/Building%20a%20Movement%20(Abbreviated).pdf

Chapin Hall Center for Children. (2008). Understanding racial and ethnic disparity in child welfare and juvenile justice. Chicago, IL: Author.

Chase, W.G . & Simon, H. A. (1973). Perception in chess. Cognitive Psychology, 1, 33–81.

Chein, J., Albert, D., O’Brien, L., Uckert, K., & Steinberg, L. (2011). Peers increase adolescent risk taking by enhancing activity in the brain’s reward circuitry. Developmental Science, 14(2), F1–F10. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2010.01035.x

Chen, E., McLean, K. C., & Miller, G. E. (2015). Shift-and-persist strategies: Associations with socioeconomic status and the regulation of inflammation among adolescents and their parents. Psychosomatic Medicine, 77(4), 371–382. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000157

Chen, E., Miller, G. E., Brody, G. H., & Lei, M. (2015). Neighborhood poverty, college attendance, and diverging profiles of substance use and allostatic load in rural, African American youth. Clinical Psychological Science, 3, 675-685. Retrieved from http://sites.northwestern.edu/foundationsofhealth/files/2016/04/15-Clin-Psych-Sci-skin- deep-resilience-2-1nvcoi9.pdf

Chen, E., Miller, G. E., Lachman, M. E., Gruenewald, T. L., & Seeman, T. E. (2012). Protective factors for adults from low childhood socioeconomic circumstances: The benefits of shift-and-persist for allostatic load. Psychosomatic Medicine, 74(2), 178. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0b013e31824206fd

Children’s Bureau. (2014). Integrating safety, permanency, and well-being in child welfare. Washington, DC: Author.

Chongmin, N., & Gottfredson, D. C. (2011). Police officers in schools: Effects on school crime and the processing of offending behaviors, Justice Quarterly, 30(4), 619–650. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2011.615754

Cicchetti, D. (2013). Annual research review: Resilient functioning in maltreated children—Past, present, and future perspectives. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 54(4), 402–422. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02608.x

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—74

Cicchetti, D., & Curtis, W. J. (Eds.). (2007). A multilevel approach to resilience. Development and Psychopathology, 19(3), 627–655.

Cicchetti, D., Rogosch, F. A., & Toth, S. L. (2006). Fostering secure attachment in infants in maltreating families through preventive interventions. Development and Psychopathology, 18(3), 623–649. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579406060329

Clark, C. M., & Bjork, R. A. (2014). When and why introducing difficulties and errors can enhance instruction. In V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, & C. M. Hakala (Eds.), Applying the science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum (pp. 20-30). Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php

Clark, R. E. (1998). Motivating performance. Performance Improvement, 37(8), 39–47.

Clark, R. E. (2006). Not knowing what we don’t know: Reframing the importance of automated knowledge for educational research. In G. Clarebout & J. Elen (Eds.), Avoiding simplicity, confronting complexity: Advances in studying and designing (computer based) powerful learning environments (pp. 3-14). Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Clark, R. E. (2008). Resistance to change: Unconscious knowledge and the challenge of unlearning. In D. C. Berliner & H. Kupermintz (Eds.), Changing institutions, environments and people (pp. 75–94). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Clark, R. E. (2009). How much and what type of guidance is optimal for learning from instruction? In S. Tobias & T. M. Duffy (Eds.), Constructivist theory applied to instruction: Success or failure? (pp. 158–183). New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis. Retrieved from http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/clark_guidance_chapter_2009.pdf

Clark, R. E., & Elen, J. (2006). When less is more: Research and theory insights about instruction for complex learning. In J. Elen & R. E. Clark (Eds.), Handling complexity in learning environments: Research and theory (pp. 283–297). Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science Limited.

Clark, R. E., Feldon, D., & Yates, K. (2011, April). Using cognitive task analysis to capture expert knowledge and skills for research and instructional design. Workshop presented at the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

Clarke, L. B., Sheridan, M. S., & Woods, E. K. (2010). Elements of healthy family school- relationships. In S. L. Christenson, & A. L. Rechley (Eds), Handbook of family partnerships (pp. 61-79). New York, NY: Routledge Publications.

Claro, S., Paunesku, D., & Dweck, C. S. (2016). Growth mindset tempers the effects of poverty on academic achievement. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(31), 8664–8668. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1608207113

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—75

Coie, J. D., Terry, R. A., Lenox, K., Lochman, J. E., & Hyman, C. (1995). Childhood peer rejection and aggression as predictors of stable patterns of adolescent disorder. Development and Psychopathology 7, 697–713.

Cole, P. M., Martin, S. E., & Dennis, T. A. (2004). Emotion regulation as a scientific construct: Methodological challenges and directions for child development research. Child Development, 75(2), 317–333.

Cole, S. F., Eisner, A., Gregory, M., & Ristuccia, J. (2013). Helping traumatized children learn: Creating and advocating for trauma-sensitive schools. Boston, MA: Massachusetts Advocates for Children Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative.

Cole, S. W. (2014). Human social genomics. PLOS Genetics, 10(8), e1004601. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1004601

Collins, F. (2015). Making the connections: Study links brain’s wiring to human traits. Retrieved from https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2015/10/06/making-the-connections-study-links- brains-wiring-to-human-traits/

Colquitt, J. A., LePine, J. A., & Noe, R. A. (2000). Toward an integrative theory of training motivation: A meta-analytic path analysis of 20 years of research. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(5), 678–707.

Cornelius-White, J. (2007). Learner-centered teacher–student relationships are effective: A meta- analysis. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 113–143. https://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298563

Couto, T. C., Brancaglion, M. Y. M., Alvim-Soares, A., Moreira, L., Garcia, F. D., Nicolato, R., . . . Corrêa, H. (2015). Postpartum depression: A systematic review of the genetics involved. World Journal of Psychiatry, 5(1), 103–111.

Cox, M. J., Mills-Koonce, R., Propper, C., & Gariépy, J.-L. (2010). Systems theory and cascades in developmental psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 22(3), 497–506. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579410000234

Crenshaw, K. W., Ocen, P., & Nanda, J. (2015). Black girls matter: Pushed out, overpoliced, and underprotected. New York, NY: African American Policy Forum & Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies.

Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information- processing mechanisms in children’s social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 74–101. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.115.1.74

Crone, E. A., & Dahl, R. E. (2012). Understanding adolescence as a period of social–affective engagement and goal flexibility. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 13(9), 636–650. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3313

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—76

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

Cutler, D. M., & Glaeser, E. L. (1997). Are ghettos good or bad? The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 112(3), 827–872.

Dalgleish, T. (2004). The emotional brain. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, 5(7), 583–589.

Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason, and the human brain. New York, NY: Putnam.

Danese, A., & McEwen, B. S. (2012). Adverse childhood experiences, allostasis, allostatic load, and age-related disease. Physiology and Behavior, 106(1), 29–39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2011.08.019

Darling-Hammond, L., Barron, B., Pearson, P. D., Schoenfeld, A. H., Stage, E. K., Zimmerman, T. D., . . . & Tilson, J. L. (2015). Powerful learning: What we know about teaching for understanding. New York, NY: Wiley.

Darling-Hammond, L., Ramos-Beban, N., Altamirano, R. P., & Hyler, M. E. (2016). Be the change: Reinventing school for student success. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Davidson, G., Devaney, J., & Spratt, T. (2010). The impact of adversity in childhood on outcomes in adulthood. Journal of Social Work, 10(4), 369–390. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468017310378783

Davidson, M. C., Amso, D., Anderson, L. C., & Diamond, A. (2006). Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4 to 13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching. Neuropsychologia, 44(11), 2037–2078. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.02.006

Davidson, R. J., & McEwen, B. S. (2012). Social influences on neuroplasticity: Stress and interventions to promote well-being. Nature Neuroscience, 15(5), 689–695. http://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3093

Davis, K. D., Winsler, A., & Middleton, M. (2006). Students’ perceptions of rewards for academic performance by parents and teachers: Relations with achievement and motivation in college. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 167(2), 211–220.

Dawson, G., Ashman, S. B., & Carver, L. J. (2000). The role of early experience in shaping behavioral and brain development and its implications for social policy. Development and Psychopathology, 12(4), 695–712. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11202040

De Corte, E. (2003). Transfer as the productive use of acquired knowledge, skills, and motivations. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12, 142–146.

Deans for Impact. (2015). The science of learning. Austin, TX: Author.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—77

Deater-Deckard, K., Wang, Z., Chen, N., & Bell, M. A. (2012). Maternal executive function, harsh parenting, and child conduct problems. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines, 53(10), 1084–1091. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469- 7610.2012.02582.x

Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Self-determination theory: A macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie Canadienne, 49(3), 182–185.

DeKeyser, R., & Juffs, A. (2005). Cognitive considerations in L2 learning. In E. Nhinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 437–454). Mahwah, NJ: Earlbaum.

Demming, D. J. (2015). The growing importance of social skills in the labor market (Working Paper no. 21473). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from http://www.nber.org/papers/w21473

Denham, S. A., Bassett, H. H., Sirotkin, Y. S., Brown, C., & Morris, C. S. (2015). No-ooo peeking: Preschoolers’ executive control, social competence, and classroom adjustment. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 29(2), 212–225.

Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135–168. http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143750

Diamond, A., & Lee, K. (2011). Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children 4–12 years old. Science, 333(6045), 959–964. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1204529

Diamond, A., & Ling, D. S. (2016). Conclusions about interventions, programs, and approaches for improving executive functions that appear justified and those that, despite much hype, do not. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 34–48. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2015.11.005

Diette, T. M., & Ribar, D. C. (2015). A longitudinal analysis of violence and housing insecurity (SSRN Scholarly Paper No. ID 2678794). Rochester, NY: Social Science Research Network. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=2678794

DiLalla, L. F., Marcus, J. L., & Wright-Phillips, M. V. (2004). Longitudinal effects of preschool behavioral styles on early adolescent school performance. Journal of School Psychology, 42, 385–401. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2004.05.002

Di Martino, A., Fair, D. A., Kelly, C., Satterthwaite, T. D., Castellanos, F. X., Thomason, M. E., . . . Milham, M. P. (2014). Unraveling the miswired connectome: A developmental perspective. Neuron, 83(6), 1335–1353.

DiMaggio, P., & Garip, F. (2012). Network effects and social inequality. Annual Review of Sociology, 38(1), 93–118. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.012809.102545

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—78

Dishion, T. J. (2000). Cross-setting consistency in early adolescent psychopathology: Deviant friendships and problem behavior sequelae. Journal of Personality, 68(6), 1109–1126. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6494.00128

Dishion, T. J., & Dodge, K. A. (2005). Peer contagion in interventions for children and adolescents: Moving towards an understanding of the ecology and dynamics of change. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 33(3), 395–400.

Dishion, T. J., McCord, J., & Poulin, F. (1999). When interventions harm: Peer groups and problem behavior. American Psychologist 54, 755–764.

Dishion, T. J., & Tipsord, J. M. (2011). Peer contagion in child and adolescent social and emotional development. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 189–214. http://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100412

Dixon, L., Browne, K., & Hamilton-Giachritsis, C. (2005). Risk factors of parents abused as children: A mediational analysis of the intergenerational continuity of child maltreatment (Pt. I). Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 46(1), 47–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2004.00339.x

Dreier, P. J., Mollenkopf, J. H., & Swanstrom, T. (2004). Place matters: Metropolitics for the twenty-first century (2nd ed.). Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

Duckworth, A., Kim, B., & Tsukayama, E. (2013). Life stress self-control in early adolescence. Frontiers in Psychology, 3(608), 1–12.

Duckworth, A. L., & Yeager, D. S. (2015). Measurement matters assessing personal qualities other than cognitive ability for educational purposes. Educational Researcher, 44, 237–251.

Dumas, J. E., Prinz, R. J., Smith, E.P., & Laughlin J. (1999). The early alliance prevention trial: An integrated set of interventions to promote competence and reduce risk for conduct disorder, substance abuse, and school failure. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 2, 37–53.

Duncan, G. J., Magnuson, K., & Murnane, R. J. (2016). Reforming preschools and schools. Academic Pediatrics, 16(3), S121–S127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acap.2015.12.003

Dunn, J. (1988). Sibling influences on childhood development. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 29(2), 119–127. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.1988.tb00697.x

Dupree, D., Spencer, T. R., & Spencer, M. B. (2014). Stigma, stereotypes and resilience identities: The relationship between identity processes and resilience processes among Black American adolescents. In L. C. Theron, L. Liebenberg, & M. Ungar (Eds.), Youth Resilience and Culture (pp. 117–129). Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Springer.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—79

Dupere, V., Leventhal, T., Crosnoe, R., & Dion, E. (2010). Understanding the positive role of neighborhood socioeconomic advantage in achievement: The contribution of the home, child care, and school environments. Developmental Psychology, 46(5), 1227–1244. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0020211

Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., & Pachan, M. (2010). A meta-analysis of after-school programs that seek to promote personal and social skills in children and adolescents. American Journal of Community Psychology, 45(3–4), 294–309. Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B. (2011). The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1), 405–432. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01564.x

Dweck, C. S., & Master, A. (2009). Self-concept. In W. Carey, A. Crocker, E. Elias, H. Feldman, & W. Coleman (Eds.), Developmental-behavioral pediatrics (4th ed., pp. 427–435). St. Louis, MO: Elsevier.

Dweck, C., Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2011). Academic tenacity: Mindsets and skills that promote log-term learning. Seattle, WA: Gates Foundation.

Dweck, C. S., Walton, G. M., & Cohen, G. L. (2014). Academic tenacity: Mindsets and skills that promote life-long learning. [Brief] Seattle, WA: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Retrieved from https://ed.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/manual/dweck-walton-cohen- 2014.pdf

Dymnicki, A. B., Kendziora, K. T., & Osher, D. M. (2012). Adolescent development for students with learning disabilities and behavioral disorders: The promise of social emotional learning. In B. G. Cook, M. Tankersley, & T. J. Landrum (Eds.), Classroom management (Vol. 25: Advances in learning and behavioral disabilities, pp. 131–166). Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Group.

Dymnicki, A., Wandersman, A., Osher, D., & Pakstis, A. (In press). Bringing interventions to scale. In C. Keyes & M. Bond, eds., Handbook of community psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Dynarski, M., Clarke, L., Cobb, B., Finn, J., Rumberger, R., & Smink, J. (2008). Dropout prevention: A practice guide (NCEE 2008–4025). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/IES_Dropout_Practice_Guide_293427_7.pdf

Eccles, J. S., Midgely, C., Wigfield, A., Buchanan, C. M., Reuman, D., Flanagan, C., & Mac Iver, D. (1993). Development during adolescence: The impact of stage-environment fit on young adolescents’ experiences in school and in families. American Psychologist, 48(2), 90–101.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—80

Eccles, J. S., & Roeser, R. W. (2009). Schools, academic motivation, and stage-environment fit. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (pp. 125– 153). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. http://doi.wiley.com/10.1002/9780470479193.adlpsy001013

Eddy, J. M., Cearley, J., Bergen, J., & Stern-Carusone, J. (2014). Children of incarcerated parents. In D. L. DuBois & M. J. Karcher (Eds.), Handbook of youth mentoring (pp. 369–382). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Retrieved from http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/hdbk_youthmentor2ed/n25.xml

Eisenberg, N., Shell, R., Pasternack, J., Lennon, R., Beller, R., & Mathy, R. M. (1987). Prosocial development in middle childhood: A longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 23, 712–718.

Elder, G. H. (1998). The life course as developmental theory. Child Development, 69(1), 1-12. https//doi.org/10.2307/1132065

Elder, G. H., Shanahan, M. J., & Jennings, J. A. (2015). Human development in time and place. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science (7th ed., Vol. 4, pp. 6–54). New York, NY: Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118963418.childpsy402

Elias, M. J., Parker, S. J., Kash, V. M., Weissberg, R. P., & O’Brien, M. U. (2007). Social and emotional learning, moral education, and character education: A comparative analysis and a view toward convergence. In L. P. Nucci & D. Narvaez (Eds.), Handbook of moral and character education (pp. 248–266). New York, NY: Routledge.

Elliott, E. S., & Dweck, C. S. (1988). Goals: An approach to motivation and achievement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(1), 5–12. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022- 3514.54.1.5

Ehrlinger, J., & Shain, E. A. (2014). How accuracy in students’ self-perceptions relates to success in learning. In V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, & C. M. Hakala (Eds.). Applying science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum (pp. 142-151). Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York, NY: Norton.

Espinet, S. D., Anderson, J. E., & Zelazo, P. D. (2012). N2 amplitude as a neural marker of executive function in young children: An ERP study of children who switch versus perseverate on the dimensional change card sort. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2(Suppl. 1) S49–S58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2011.12.002

Espinosa, L. M. (2002). High-quality preschool: Why we need it and what it looks like (Brief). NIEER Preschool Policy Matters, 1. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed480816

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—81

Essex, M. J., Shirtcliff, E. A., Burk, L. R., Ruttle, P. L., Klein, M. H., Slattery, M. J., . . . Armstrong, J. M. (2011). Influence of early life stress on later hypothalamic–pituitary– adrenal axis functioning and its covariation with mental health symptoms: A study of the allostatic process from childhood into adolescence. Development and Psychopathology, 23(4), 1039–1058. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579411000484

Evans, G. W. (2004). The environment of childhood poverty. American Psychologist, 59(2), 77–92. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.2.77

Evans, G. W., Kim, P., Ting, A. H., Tesher, H. B., & Shannis, D. (2007). Cumulative risk, maternal responsiveness, and allostatic load among young adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 43(2), 341–351. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.43.2.341 Fabelo, T., Thompson, M., Plotkin, M, Carmichael, D., Marchbanks III, M., & Booth, E. (2011). Breaking schools’ rules: A statewide study of how school discipline relates to students’ success and juvenile justice involvement. Council of State Governments Justice Center. Retrieved December 15, 2016, from http://knowledgecenter.csg.org/drupal/system/files/Breaking_School_Rules.pdf Fall, A. M., & Roberts, G. (2012). High school dropouts: Interactions between social context, self-perceptions, school engagement, and student dropout. Journal of Adolescence, 35, 787–798. Fan, F. A. (2012). Teacher-students’ interpersonal relationships and students’ academic achievements in social studies. Teachers and Teaching, 18(4), 483-490. Farmer, T. W., Dawes, M., Alexander, Q., & Brooks, D. S. (2015). Challenges associated with applications and interventions: Correlated constraints, shadows of synchrony, and teacher/institutional factors that impact social change. In K. Wentzel and G. Ramani (Eds.), Handbook of social influences on social-emotional, motivation, and cognitive outcomes in school contexts (pp. 423–435). New York, NY: Routledge Taylor & Francis. Farmer, T. W., Lines, M. M., & Hamm, J. V. (2011). Revealing the invisible hand: The role of teachers in children’s peer experiences. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 32(5), 247–256. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2011.04.006 Farrington, C. A. (2013). Academic mindsets as a critical component of deeper learning. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research. Retrieved from http://www.hewlett.org/uploads/documents/Academic_Mindsets_as_a_Critical_Compone nt_of_Deeper_Learning_CAMILLE_FARRINGTON_April_20_2013.pdf Farrington, C. A., Roderick, M., Allensworth, E., Nagaoka, J., Keyes, T. S., Johnson, D. W., . . . Beechum, N. O. (2012). Teaching adolescents to become learners. The role of noncognitive factors in shaping school performance: A critical literature review. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—82

Farrington, D. P., Gallagher, B., Morley, L., Ledger, R. J. S., & West, D. J. (1986). Unemployment, school leaving, and crime. British Journal of Criminology, 26(4), 335–356. Retrieved from http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/4/335.abstract Fearon, R. M. P., van IJzendoorn, M. H., Fonagy, P., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Schuengel, C., & Bokhorst, C. L. (2006). In search of shared and nonshared environmental factors in security of attachment: A behavior-genetic study of the association between sensitivity and attachment security. Developmental Psychology, 42(6), 1026–1040. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.42.6.1026 Feldman, R. (2015). The adaptive human parental brain: Implications for children’s social development. Trends in Neurosciences, 38(6), 387–399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2015.04.004 Feldon, D. F. (2007). Implications of research on expertise for curriculum and pedagogy. Educational Psychology Review, 9(2), 99–110.

Feldon, D. F., & Clark, R. E. (2006). Instructional implications of cognitive task analysis as a method for improving the accuracy of experts’ self-report. In G. Clarebout & J. Elen (Eds.), Avoiding simplicity, confronting complexity: Advances in studying and designing (computer-based) powerful learning environments (pp. 109–116). Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Feldon, D. F., Timmerman, B. C., Stowe, K. A., & Showman, R. (2010). Translating expertise into effective instruction: The impacts of cognitive task analysis (CTA) on lab report quality and student retention in the biological sciences. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 47(10), 1165–1185. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.20382

Felitti, V. J., & Anda, R. F. (2010). The relationship of adverse childhood experiences to adult medical disease, psychiatric disorders, and sexual behavior: Implications for healthcare In R. Lanius & E. Vermetten (Eds.), The hidden epidemic: The impact of early life trauma on health and disease (pp. 77–87). London, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., . . . Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258.

Fernald, J. (2015). Productivity and potential output before, during, and after the Great Recession.” In J. A. Parker and M. Woodford (Eds.), NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2014 (pp.1-51). Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Fischer, K. (2009). Mind, brain and education: Building a scientific groundwork for learning and teaching. International Mind, Brain, and Education Society, 3(1), 3–16.

Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (1998). Dynamic development of psychological structures in action and thought. In R. M. Lerner & W. Damon (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (5th ed., pp. 467–561). New York, NY: Wiley.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—83

Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R.. (2006). Dynamic development of action, thought, and emotion. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (6th ed., Vol. 1: Theoretical models of human development, pp. 313–399 ). New York, NY: Wiley.

Fischer, K. W., Bullock, D., Rotenberg, E. J., & Raya, P. (1993). The dynamics of competence: How context contributes directly to skill. In R. H. Wozniak & K. W. Fischer (Ed.), Development in context: Acting and thinking in specific environments (pp. 93–117). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Fischer, K. W., Yan, Z., & Stewart, J. (2003). Adult cognitive development: Dynamics in the developmental web. In J. Valsiner & K. Connolly (Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychology (pp. 491–516). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Fisher, C. B., Busch-Rossnagel, N. A., Jopp, D. S., & Brown, J. L. (2012). Applied developmental science, social justice, and socio-political well-being. Applied Developmental Science, 16(1), 54–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2012.642786

Flook, L., Goldberg, S. B., Pinger, L., Bonus, K., & Davidson, R. J. (2013). Mindfulness for teachers: A pilot study to assess effects on stress, burnout and teaching efficacy. Mind, Brain and Education: The Official Journal of the International Mind, Brain, and Education Society, 7(3), 182-195. https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12026

Flook, L., Goldberg, S. B., Pinger, L., & Davidson, R. J. (2015). Promoting prosocial behavior and self-regulatory skills in preschool children through a mindfulness-based kindness curriculum. Developmental Psychology, 51(1), 44–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038256

Flouri, E., Midouhas, E., & Joshi, H. (2014). Family poverty and trajectories of children’s emotional and behavioural problems: The moderating roles of self-regulation and verbal cognitive ability. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 42(6), 1043–1056. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-013-9848-3

Flynn, E., O’Malley, C., & Wood, D. (2004). A longitudinal, microgenetic study of the emergence of false belief understanding and inhibition skills. Developmental Science, 7(1), 103–115. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15323122

Ford, D. L., & Lerner, R. M. (1992). Developmental systems theory: An integrative approach. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Fonagy, P., Steele, M., Steele, H., Moran, G. S., & Higgitt, A. (1991). The capacity for understanding mental states: The reflective self in parent and child and its significant for security of attachment. Infant Mental Health Journal, 12(3), 201–218.

Fonagy, P., Steele, H., & Steele, M. (1991). Maternal representations of attachment during pregnancy predict the organization of infant–mother attachment at one year of age. Child Development, 62(5), 891–905. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1991.tb01578.x

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—84

Foster, H., & Hagan, J. (2015). Punishment regimes and the multilevel effects of parental incarceration: Intergenerational, intersectional, and interinstitutional models of social inequality and systemic exclusion. Annual Review of Sociology, 41(1), 135–158.

Fox, L. E. (2004). The impact of restraint on sexually abused children and youth. Residential Group Care Quarterly, 4(3), 1–5.

Fox, S. E., Levitt, P., & Nelson, C. A., III. (2010). How the timing and quality of early experiences influence the development of brain architecture. Child Development, 81(1), 28–40. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01380.x

Freund, A. M., & Baltes, P. B. (2002). Life-management strategies of selection, optimization, and compensation: Measurement by self-report and construct validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 642–662. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11999929

Friedlaender, D., Burns, D., Lewis-Charp, H., Cook-Harvey, C. M., Zheng, X., & Darling- Hammond, L. (2014). Student-centered schools: Closing the opportunity gap. Stanford, CA: Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education. Retrieved from https://edpolicy.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/scope-pub-student-centered-research- brief.pdf

Fuhrmann, D., Knoll, L. J., & Blakemore, S.-J. (2015). Adolescence as a sensitive period of brain development. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19(10), 558–566. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2015.07.008

Fullan, M., McEachen, J. & Quinn, J. (2016). New Pedagogies for Deep Learning global report. Ontario, Canada: New Pedagogies for Deep Learning.

Furlong, M., McGilloway, S., Bywater, T., Hutchings, J., Smith, S. M., & Donnelly, M. (2012). Behavioural and cognitive-behavioural group-based parenting programmes for early- onset conduct problems in children aged 3 to 12 years. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2, CD008225. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008225.pub2

Furstenberg, F. (2003). Reflections on the future of the life course. In J. T. Mortimer & M. J. Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the life course (pp. 661–670). New York, NY: Kluwer Academic, Plenum Publishers. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-0-306-48247-2_30

Furstenberg, F. (2004). Values, policy, and the family. In D. P. Moynihan, L. Rainwater, & T. Smeeding (Eds.), Future of the family (pp. 267–275). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Furstenberg, F. F., Cook, T. D., Eccles, J., Elder, G. H., Jr., & A. Sameroff. (1999). Managing to make it: Urban families and adolescent success. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—85

Galbally, M., Lewis, A. J., van IJzendoorn, M., & Permezel, M. (2011). The role of oxytocin in mother–infant relations: A systematic review of human studies. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 19(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.3109/10673229.2011.549771

Galinsky, E., Bezos, J., McClelland, M., Carlson, S. M., & Zelazo, P. D. (In press). Civic science for public use: Mind in the Making and Vroom. In K. Hirsh-Pasek, M. Schlesinger, R. M. Golinkoff, & R. Grob (Eds.), Bringing developmental science into the world.

Garbarino, J. (1992). Children and families in the social environment (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.

Gardner, M., & Steinberg, L. (2005). Peer influence on risk taking, risk preference, and risky decision making in adolescence and adulthood: An experimental study. Developmental Psychology, 41(4), 625–635. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.41.4.625

Gardner, T. W., Dishion, T. J., & Connell, A. M. (2008). Adolescent self-regulation as resilience: Resistance to antisocial behavior within the deviant peer context. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 36(2), 273–284. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-007-9176-6

Garibaldi, M., Ruddy, S., Osher, D., & Kendziora, K. (2015). Assessment of climate and conditions for learning. In J. Durlak, T. Gulotta, & R. Weissberg (Eds.), The handbook of social and emotional learning (pp. 348–359). New York, NY: Guilford.

Gathercole, S. E., Pickering, S. J., Knight, C., & Stegmann, Z. (2004). Working memory skills and educational attainment: Evidence from national curriculum assessments at 7 and 14 years of age. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.934 Gatti, U., Tremblay, R. E., & Vitaro, F. (2009). Iatrogenic effect of juvenile justice. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 50(8): 991–998. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2008.02057.x

Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Geisz, M. B., & Nakashian, M. (2016). Adolescent wellness: Current perspectives and future opportunities in research, policy, and practice. Princeton, NJ: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Unpublished report.

Geronimus, A. T., Hicken, M., Keene, D., & Bound, J. (2006). “Weathering” and age patterns of allostatic load scores among blacks and whites in the United States. American Journal of Public Health, 96(5), 826–833.

Gerstel, N. (2011). Rethinking families and community: The color, class, and centrality of extended kin ties. Sociological Forum, 26(1), 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2010.01222.x

Gestsdottir, S., & Lerner, R. M. (2008). Positive development in adolescence: The development and role of intentional self-regulation. Human Development, 51, 202–224.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—86

Gestsdottir, S., Urban, J. B., Bowers, E. P., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2011). Intentional self-regulation, ecological assets, and thriving in adolescence: A developmental systems model. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2011(133), 61–76. https://doi.org/10.1002/cd.304

Giedd, J. N. (2008). The teen brain: Insights from neuroimaging. The Journal of Adolescent Health: Official Publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, 42(4), 335–343. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2008.01.007

Gifford-Smith, M., Dodge, K. A., Dishion, T. J., & McCord, J. (2005). Peer influence in children and adolescents: Crossing the bridge from developmental to intervention science. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 33(3), 255–265.

Gilliam, W. S., Maupin, A. N., Reyes, C. R., Accavitti, M., & Shic, F. (2016, September). Do early educators’ implicit biases regarding sex and race relate to behavior expectations and recommendations of preschool expulsions and suspensions? (Brief). New Haven, CT: Yale Child Study Center.

Gilliam, W. S., & Shahar, G. (2006). Preschool and child care expulsion and suspension: Rates and predictors in one state. Infants & Young Children, 19(3), 228–245.

Giovanelli, A., Reynolds, A. J., Mondi, C. F., & Ou, S.-R. (2016). Adverse childhood experiences and adult well-being in a low-income, urban cohort. Pediatrics, 137(4). https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2015-4016

Gillies, R. (2014). Cooperative learning: Developments in research. International Journal of Educational Psychology, 3(2), 125–140. https://doi.org/10.4471/ijep.2014.08

Gillies, R. M., & Haynes, M. (2011). Increasing explanatory behaviour, problem-solving, and reasoning within classes using cooperative group work. Instructional Science, 39(3), 349–366. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11251-010-9130-9

Goldhaber, D., Gross, B., & Player, D. (2011). Teacher career paths, teacher quality, and persistence in the classroom: Are public schools keeping their best? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 30(1), 57–87.

Goldman, S. R., & Pellegrino, J. W. (2015). Research on learning and instruction implications for curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2(1), 33–41.

Goldstein, H., Kaczmarek, L. A., & English, K. M. (Eds.). (2002). Promoting social communication: Children with developmental disabilities from birth to adolescence. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

Goldstein, S., & Brooks, R. (Eds.). (2012). Handbook of resilience in children (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Springer.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—87

Golinkoff, R. M., Can, D. D., Soderstrom, M., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2015). (Baby) talk to me: The social context of infant-directed speech and its effects on early language acquisition. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(5), 339–344.

Good, C., Aronson, J., & Inzlicht, M. (2003). Improving adolescents’ standardized test performance: An intervention to reduce the effects of stereotype threat. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24(6), 645–662. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2003.09.002

Goodman, R. D., Miller, M. D., & West-Olatunji, C. A. (2012). Traumatic stress, socioeconomic status, and academic achievement and among primary school students. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 4, 252–259. doi:10.1037/a0024912.

Gotlieb, R., Jahner, E., Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Kaufman, S. B. (In press). How social- emotional imagination facilitates deep learning and creativity in the classroom. In R. A. Beghetto & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), Nurturing creativity in the classroom (2nd ed). New York, NY: Cambridge.

Gottfredson, G. D., & Daiger, D. C. (1979). Disruption in 600 schools. Baltimore, MD: Center for Social Organization of Schools, Johns Hopkins University.

Greenberg, M. T., Weissberg, R. P., O’Brien, M. U., Zins, J. E., Fredericks, L., Resnik, H., & Elias, M. J. (2003). Enhancing school-based prevention and youth development through coordinated social, emotional, and academic learning. American Psychologist, 58, 466–474.

Greenberger, E., Chen, C., & Beam, M. R. (1998). The role of “very important” nonparental adults in adolescent development. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 27(3), 321–343.

Gregory, A., & Korth, J. (2016). Teacher–student relationships and behavioral engagement in the classroom. In K. Wentzel & G. Ramani (Eds.) Handbook of social Influences in school contexts: Social-emotional, motivation, and cognitive outcomes (pp. 178–191). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

Gregory, A., Skiba, R. J., & Noguera, P. A. (2010). The achievement gap and the discipline gap: Two sides of the same coin? Educational Researcher, 39, 59-68.

Grusec, J. E., & Davidov, M. (2010). Integrating different perspectives on socialization theory and research: A domain-specific approach. Child Development, 81(3), 687–709. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01426.x

Grusec, J. E., & Davidov, M. (2016). Socialization in the family: The role of parents. In J. E. Grusec & P. D. Hastings (Eds.), Handbook of socialization: Theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 284–308). New York, NY: Guilford.

Gunnar, M., & Quevedo, K. (2007). The neurobiology of stress and development. Annual Review of Psychology, 58(1), 145–173. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085605

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—88

Gunter, P. L., & Coutinho, M. J. (1997). Negative reinforcement in classrooms: What we’re beginning to learn. Teacher Education and Special Education, 20(3), 249–264. https://doi.org/10.1177/088840649702000306

Guo, G., & Harris, K. M. (2000). The mechanisms mediating the effects of poverty on children’s intellectual development. Demography, 37(4), 431–447. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11086569

Gustafsson, P. E., San Sebastian, M., Janlert, U., Theorell, T., Westerlund, H., & Hammarström, A. (2014). Life-course accumulation of neighborhood disadvantage and allostatic load: Empirical integration of three social determinants of health frameworks. American Journal of Public Health, 104(5), 904–910. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301707

Gutiérrez, K. D., & Rogoff, B. (2003). Cultural ways of learning: Individual traits or repertoires of practice. Educational Researcher, 32(5), 19–25.

Gutman, L. M., Sameroff, A. J., & Eccles, J. S. (2002). The academic achievement of African American students during early adolescence: An examination of multiple risk, promotive, and protective factors. American Journal of Community Psychology, 30(3), 367–399.

Hackman, D. A., & Farah, M. J. (2009). Socioeconomic status and the developing brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(2), 65–73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2008.11.003

Hagan, J., & Foster, H. (2012). Children of the American prison generation: Student and school spillover effect of incarcerating mothers. Law and Society Review 46(1), 37–69.

Hagenauer, G., Hascher, T., & Volet, S. E. (2015). Teacher emotions in the classroom: Associations with students’ engagement, classroom discipline and the interpersonal teacher-student relationship. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 30(4), 385–403. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-015-0250-0

Halfon, N., Shulman, E., & Hochstein, M. (2001). Brain development in early childhood. In N. Halfon, E. Shulman, & M. Hochstein (Eds.), Building community systems for young children (pp. 1–26). Los Angeles, CA: UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities.

Hamm, J. V., Farmer, T. W., Dadisman, K., Gravelle, M., & Murray, A. R. (2011). Teachers’ attunement to students’ peer group affiliations as a source of improved student experiences of the school social-affective context following the middle school transition. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 32(5), 267–277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2010.06.003

Hammond, Z. (2016). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—89

Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2005). Can instructional and emotional support in the first‐grade classroom make a difference for children at risk of school failure? Child Development, 76(5), 949–967.

Han, S. S., & Weiss, B. (2005). Sustainability of teacher implementation of school-based mental health programs. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 33(6), 665–679.

Hannon, L., DeFina, R., & Bruch, S. (2013). The relationship between skin tone and school suspension for African Americans. Race and Social Problems, 5, 281. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-013-9104-z

Hanushek, E. A. (2004). Some simple analytics of school quality (NBR Working Paper 10229). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

Harry, B., Klingner, J. K., & Hart, J. (2005). African American families under fire: Ethnographic views of family strengths. Remedial and Special Education, 26(2), 101–112. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/07419325050260020501

Haskins, A. R. (2016). Beyond boys’ bad behavior: Paternal incarceration and cognitive development in middle childhood. Social Forces, 95(2), 861–892. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/sow066

Hastings, P. D., & Grusec, J. E. (1998). Parenting goals as organizers of responses to parent– child disagreement. Developmental Psychology, 34(3), 465–479. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.34.3.465

Hattie, J. A. C., & Yates, G. C. R. (2014). Using feedback to promote learning. In V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, & C. M. Hakala (Eds.), Applying the science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum (pp. 45–58). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hattie, J. (2011). Which strategies best enhance teaching and learning in higher education? In M. Mashek & E. Y. Hammer (Eds.), Empirical research in teaching and learning: Contributions from social psychology (pp. 130–142). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of feedback. Review of Educational Research, 77(1), 81–112. https://doi.org/10.3102/003465430298487

Hattie, J., & Yates, G. C. R. (2014). Visible learning and the science of how we learn. New York, NY: Routledge.

Hattie, J. A. C., & Donoghue, G. M. (2016). Learning strategies: A synthesis and conceptual model. Nature Partner Journals Science of Learning, 1(16013). https://doi.org/10.1038/npjscilearn.2016.13

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—90

Hawkins, J. D., Catalano, R. F., & Miller, J. Y. (1992). Risk and protective factors for alcohol and other drug problems in adolescence and early adulthood: Implications for substance abuse prevention. Psychological Bulletin, 112(1), 64-105.

Hawkins, J. D., Smith, B. H., & Catalano, R. F. (2004). Social development and social and emotional learning In J. E. Zins, R. P. Weissberg, M. C. Wang, & H. J. Walberg (Eds.), Building academic success on social and emotional learning: What does the research say? (pp. 135–150). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Hay, D. F., Payne, A., & Chadwick, A. (2004). Peer relations in childhood. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 45(1), 84–108. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.0021- 9630.2003.00308.x

Haynes, N. M., & Comer, J. P. (1993). The Yale School Development Program process, outcomes, and policy implications. Urban Education, 28(2), 166–199.

Heckman, J. J. (2008). Schools, skills, and synapses. Economic Inquiry, 46(3), 289-324.

Heckman, J. J., & Kautz, T. (2012). Hard evidence on soft skills. Labour Economics, 19(4), 451–464.

Heckman, J. J., & Masterov, D. V. (2007). The productivity argument for investing in young children. Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, 29(3), 446–493.

Heckman J. J, Moon S. H., Pinto R., Savelyev P. A, & Yavitz, A. (2010a). Analyzing social experiments as implemented: A reexamination of the evidence from the HighScope Perry Preschool Program. Quantitative Economics, 1(1), 1–46.

Heckman J. J., Moon S. H., Pinto R., Savelyev P. A., & Yavitz, A. (2010b). The rate of return to the HighScope Perry Preschool Program. Journal of Public Economics, 94(1–2), 114–128.

Heckman, J. J., Stixrud, J., & Urzua, S. (2006). The effects of cognitive and noncognitive abilities on labor market outcomes and social behavior (Working Paper no. 12006). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12006

Henggeler, S. W., & Sheidow, A. J. (2012). Empirically supported family-based treatments for conduct disorder and delinquency in adolescents. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 38(1), 30–58. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1752-0606.2011.00244.x

Henry, D. (2008). Changing classroom social settings through attention to norms. In B. Shinn & H. Yoshikawa (Eds.), Changing schools and community organizations to foster positive youth development (pp. 40–57). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Henry, D. B., Farrell, A. D., Schoeny, M. E., Tolan, P. H., & Dymnicki, A. B. (2011). Influence of school-level variables on aggression and associated attitudes of middle school students. Journal of school psychology, 49(5), 481–503.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—91

Herbers, J. E., Reynolds, A. J., & Chen, C.-C. (2013). School mobility and developmental outcomes in young adulthood. Development and Psychopathology, 25(2), 501–515.

Hershberg, R. M., DeSouza, L. M., Warren, A. E. A., Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (2014). Illuminating trajectories of adolescent thriving and contribution through the words of youth: qualitative findings from the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43(6), 950–970. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-014-0102-2

Hewlett Foundation. (2013). Deeper learning competencies. Retrieved from http://www.hewlett.org/wp- content/uploads/2016/08/Deeper_Learning_Defined__April_2013.pdf

Hickey, K. S. (1980). Anxiety and test performance. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED197264

Hines, A. M., Lemon, K., Wyatt, P., & Merdinger, J. (2004). Factors related to the disproportionate involvement of children of color in the child welfare system: A review and emerging themes. Children and Youth Services Review, 26(6), 507–527.

Hoeve, M., Dubas, J. S., Eichelsheim, V. I., van der Laan, P. H., Smeenk, W., & Gerris, J. R. M. (2009). The relationship between parenting and delinquency: A meta-analysis. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 37(6), 749–775. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-009-9310-8

Hoeve, M., Stams, G. J. J. M., van der Put, C. E., Dubas, J. S., van der Laan, P. H., & Gerris, J. R. M. (2012). A meta-analysis of attachment to parents and delinquency. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 40(5), 771–785. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-011-9608-1

Hoffman, D. M. (2009). Reflecting on social emotional learning: A critical perspective on trends in the United States. Review of Educational Research, 79, 533–556.

Holman, E. A., Garfin, D. R., & Silver, R. C. (2014). Media’s role in broadcasting acute stress following the Boston Marathon bombings. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(1), 93–98. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1316265110

Holmbeck, G. N., & O’Donnell, K. (1991). Discrepancies between perceptions of decision making and behavioral autonomy. New Directions for Child Development, 51, 51–69.

Hong, E. (1999). Test anxiety, perceived test difficulty, and test performance: Temporal patterns of their effects. Learning and Individual Differences, 11(4), 431–447. doi:10.1016/S1041-6080(99)80012-0

Hong, J. S., & Espelage, D. L. (2012). A review of research on bullying and peer victimization in school: An ecological system analysis. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17(4), 311–322.

Hosking, J., & Winstanley, C. A. (2011). Impulsivity as a mediating mechanism between early- life adversity and addiction: Theoretical comment on Lovic et al. (2011). Behavioral Neuroscience, 125(4), 681–686. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024612

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—92

Hoy, A. W., Davis, H. A., & Anderman, E. M. (2013). Theories of learning and teaching in TIP. Theory into Practice, 52(sup1), 9–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2013.795437

Hoy, W. K., Tarter, C. J., & Woolfolk Hoy, A. (2006). Academic optimism of schools: A force for student achievement. American Educational Research Journal, 43(3) 425–446.

Hoyt, S., & Scherer, D. G. (1998). Female juvenile delinquency: Misunderstood by the juvenile justice system, neglected by social science. Law and Human Behavior, 22(1), 81.

Huston, A. C., & Bentley, A. C. (2010). Human development in societal context. Annual Review of Psychology, 61, 411–437. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.093008.100442

Immordino-Yang, M. H. (2011). Implications of affective and social neuroscience for educational theory. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 43(1), 98–103. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00713.x

Immordino-Yang, M. H. (2015). Why emotions are integral to learning. From Emotions, learning and the brain: Exploring the educational implications of affective neuroscience. New York, NY: Norton & Company. Retrieved from hyyps://www.noodle.com/articles/why-emotions-are-integral-to-learning-mary-helen- immordino-yang

Immordino-Yang, M. H., & Damasio, A. (2007). We feel, therefore we learn: The relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), 3–10.

Immordino-Yang, M. H., Christodoulou, J. A., & Singh, V. (2012). Rest is not idleness: Implications of the brain’s default mode for human development and education. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 7(4), 352–364.

Institute of Medicine (IOM) & National Research Council (NRC) (2015). Transforming the workforce for children birth through age 8: A unifying foundation. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs. (2016). Pathways for youth: A strategic plan for federal collaboration. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://youth.gov/pathways-youth-strategic-plan-federal-collaboration

Jablonka, E., & Lamb, M. J. (2005). Evolution in four dimensions: Genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic variation in the history of life. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Jaffee, S. R., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Polo-Tomas, M., & Taylor, A. (2007). Individual, family, and neighborhood factors distinguish resilient from non-resilient maltreated children: A cumulative stressors model. Child Abuse & Neglect, 31(3), 231–253.

Jaffee, S. R., Price, T. S., & Reyes, T. M. (2013). Behavior genetics: Past, present, future. Development and Psychopathology, 25(4, Pt. 2), 1225–1242. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095457941300058

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—93

Jakonen, T. (2016). The integration of content and language in students’ task answer production in the bilingual classroom. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, published online, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2016.1267694

Jargowsky, P. A. (1996). Take the money and run: Economic segregation in U.S. metropolitan areas. American Sociological Review, 61(6), 984–998. https://doi.org/10.2307/2096304

Jennings, P. A., Frank, J. L., Snowberg, K. E., Coccia, M. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2013). Improving classroom learning environments by cultivating awareness and resilience in education (CARE): Results of a randomized controlled trial. School Psychology Quarterly, 28, 374–390. https://doi.org/10.1037/spq0000035

Jennings, P. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (2009). The prosocial classroom: Teacher social and emotional competence in relation to student and classroom outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 79(1), 491–525. doi:10.3102/0034654308325693

Jimenez, M. E., Wade, R., Lin, Y., Morrow, L. M., & Reichman, N. E. (2016). Adverse experiences in early childhood and kindergarten outcomes. Pediatrics, 137(2), e20151839. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2015-1839

Johns, M., Inzlicht, M., & Schmader, T. (2008). Stereotype threat and executive resource depletion: Examining the influence of emotion regulation. Journal of Experimental Psychology General, 137(4), 691–705. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0013834

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1989). Cooperation and competition: Theory and research. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1999). Learning together and alone: Cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Johnson, S. B., Blum, R. W., & Giedd, J. N. (2009). Adolescent maturity and the brain: The promise and pitfalls of neuroscience research in adolescent health policy. Journal of Adolescent Health, 45(3), 216–221. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2009.05.016

Johnson, S. B., Riis, J. L., & Noble, K. G. (2016). State of the art review: Poverty and the developing brain. Pediatrics, 137(4), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2015-3075

Johnson, S. B., Riley, A. W., Granger, D. A., & Riis, J. (2013). The science of early life toxic stress for pediatric practice and advocacy. Pediatrics, 131(2), 319–327. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2012-0469

Johnson, S. M., Kraft, M. A., & Papay, J. P. (2012). How context matters in high-need schools: The effects of teachers’ working conditions on their professional satisfaction and their students’ achievement. Teachers College Record, 114, 1–39.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—94

Johnson, V. A., Kemp, A. H., Heard, R., Lennings, C. J., & Hickie, I. B. (2015). Childhood- versus adolescent-onset antisocial youth with conduct disorder: Psychiatric illness, neuropsychological and psychosocial function. PLOS ONE, 10(4), e0121627. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0121627

Jones, E. E., & Nisbett, R. E. (1972). The actor and the observer: Divergent perceptions of the causes of behavior. In E. E. Jones, D. E. Kanouse, H. H. Kelley, R. E. Nisbett, S. Valins, & B. Weiner (Eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the causes of behavior (pp. 79–94). Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press.

Jones, S. M., Bailey, R., Barnes, S. P., & Partee, A. (2016). Executive function mapping project: Untangling the terms and skills related to executive function and self-regulation in early childhood. (OPRE Report #2016-88). Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Jones, S. M., & Bouffard, S. M. (2012). Social and emotional learning in schools: From programs to strategies. Social Policy Report, 26(4), 1–33. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED540203

Jones, S. M., Brown, J. L., & Aber, J. (2008). Classroom settings as targets of intervention and research. In M. Shinn & H. Yoshikawa (Eds.), Toward positive youth development: Transforming schools and community programs (pp. 58–77). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Jones, S. M., Bub, K. L., & Raver, C. C. (2013). Unpacking the black box of the Chicago School Readiness Project Intervention: The mediating roles of teacher–child relationship quality and self-regulation. Early Education & Development, 24(7), 1043–1064.

Jones, S. M., & Molano, A. (2016). Seasonal and compositional effects of classroom aggression: A test of developmental-contextual models. Journal of Cognitive Education and Psychology, 15(2), 225–247. https://doi.org/10.1891/1945-8959.15.2.225

Jones, S. M., Zaslow, M., Darling-Churchill, K. E., & Halle, T. G. (2016). Assessing early childhood social and emotional development: Key conceptual and measurement issues. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 45, 42–48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2016.02.008

Juvonen, J., Le, V. N., Kaganoff, T., Augustine, C. H., & and Constant, L. (2004). Focus on the wonder years: Challenges facing the American middle school. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation. Retrieved from http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG139.html.

Kalyuga, S. (2007). Expertise reversal effect and its implications for learner-tailored instruction. Educational Psychology Review, 19, 509–539. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-007-9054- 3

Kalyuga, S., Ayres, P., Chandler, P., & Sweller, J. (2003). The expertise reversal effect. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 23–31.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—95

Katz, L. F., & Woodin, E. M. (2002). Hostility, hostile detachment, and conflict engagement in marriages: Effects on child and family functioning. Child Development, 73(2), 636–651.

Keating, D. P. (2016). Transformative role of epigenetics in child development research: Commentary on the special section. Child Development, 87(1), 135–142. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12488

Kellam, S. G., Brown, C. H., Poduska, J., Ialongo, N., Wang, W., Toyinbo, P., . . . Wilcox, H. C. (2008). Effects of a universal classroom behavior management program in first and second grades on young adult behavioral, psychiatric, and social outcomes. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 95(Suppl 1), S5–S28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2008.01.004

Kellam, S. G., Koretz, D., & Mościcki, E. K. (1999). Core elements of developmental epidemiologically based prevention research. American Journal of Community Psychology, 27(4), 463–482. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022129127298

Kellam, S. G., Ling, X., Merisca, R., Brown, C. H., & Ialongo, N. (1998). The effect of the level of aggression in the first grade classroom on the course and malleability of aggressive behavior into middle school. Development and Psychopathology, 10(2), 165–185.

Kellam, S. G., & Rebok, G.W. (1992). Building developmental and etiological theory through epidemiologically based preventive intervention trials. In J. McCord & R. E. Tremblay (Eds.), Preventing antisocial behavior: Interventions from birth through adolescence (pp. 162–195). New York, NY: Guilford.

Kelso, J. A. S. (2000). Principles of dynamic pattern formation and change for a science of human behavior. In L. R. Bergman & R. B. Cairns (Eds.), Developmental science and the holistic approach (pp. 63–83). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Kendziora, K., & Osher, D. (2004) Fostering resilience among youth in the juvenile justice system. In C. C. Clauss-Ehlers & M. Weist (Eds.), Community planning to foster resiliency in children (pp. 177–196). New York: Kluwer Academic.

Kendziora, K., Osher, D., & Carey, M. (2014). Say yes to education student monitoring system: Updated literature review. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research.

Kendziora, K. T., Bruns, E., Osher, D., Pacchiano, D., & Mejia, B. (2001). Wraparound: Stories from the field. Washington, DC: Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice, American Institutes for Research.

Khanlou, N., & Wray, R. (2014). A whole community approach toward child and youth resilience promotion: A review of resilience literature. International Journal of Mental Health Addiction, 12, 64–79. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-013-9470-1

Kim, P., Rigo, P., Mayes, L. C., Feldman, R., Leckman, J. F., & Swain, J. E. (2014). Neural plasticity in fathers of human infants. Social Neuroscience, 9(5), 522–535. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470919.2014.933713

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—96

Kim, P., Strathearn, L., & Swain, J. E. (2016). The maternal brain and its plasticity in humans. Hormones and Behavior, 77, 113–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yhbeh.2015.08.001

Kim, P., & Swain, J. E. (2007). Sad dads. Psychiatry (Edgmont), 4(2), 35–47.

Kim, P., & Watamura, S. E. (2015). Two open windows: Infant and parent neurobiological change. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute. Retrieved from www.ascend.aspeninstitute.org/pages/two-open-windows-infant-and-parent- neurobiologic-change#sthash.dRS95Dt0.dpuf

King, M.A., Sims, A., & Osher, D. (2007). How is cultural competence integrated into education? Washington, DC: Center on Effective Collaboration and Practice, American Institutes for Research. Retrieved from http://cecp.air.org/cultural/Q_integrated.htm

Kingery, J. N., Erdley, C. A., Marshall, K. C., Whitaker, K. G., & Reuter, T. R. (2010). Peer experiences of anxious and socially withdrawn youth: An integrative review of the developmental and clinical literature. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 13(1), 91–128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-009-0063-2

Kingston, B. E., Mihalic, S. F., & Sigel, E. J. (2016). Building an evidence-based multitiered system of supports for high-risk youth and communities. The American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 86(2), 132–143. https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000110

Kipke, M. D., Simon, T. R., Montgomery, S. B., Unger, J. B., & Iversen, E. F. (1997). Homeless youth and their exposure to and involvement in violence while living on the streets. Journal of Adolescent Health, 20(5), 360–367

Klika, J. B., & Herrenkohl, T. I. (2013). A review of developmental research on resilience in maltreated children. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 14(3), 222–234. https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838013487808

Knafo, A., & Jaffee, S. R. (2013). Gene–environment correlation in developmental psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology, 25(1), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579412000855

Knudsen, E. I. (2004). Sensitive periods in the development of the brain and behavior. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(8), 1412–1425. https://doi.org/10.1162/0898929042304796

Kohen, D. E., Leventhal, T., Dahinten, V. S., & McIntosh, C. N. (2008). Neighborhood disadvantage: Pathways of effects for young children. Child Development, 79(1), 156– 169. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2007.01117.x

Kolb, B., & Gibb, R. (2011). Brain plasticity and behaviour in the developing brain. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 20(4), 265–276.

Koriat, A. (1993). How do we know that we know? The accessibility model of the feeling of knowing. Psychological Review, 100(4), 609–639. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033- 295X.100.4.609

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—97

Krishnan, V., Han, M.-H., Graham, D. L., Berton, O., Renthal, W., Russo, S. J., . . . Nestler, E. J. (2007). Molecular adaptations underlying susceptibility and resistance to social defeat in brain reward regions. Cell, 131(2), 391–404. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2007.09.018

Kroneman, L., Loeber, R., & Hipwell, A. E. (2004). Is neighborhood context differently related to externalizing problems and delinquency for girls compared with boys? Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 7(2), 109–122.

Kuhl, P. K. (2010). Brain mechanisms in early language acquisition. Neuron, 67(5), 713–727.

Kupchik, A., & Ward, G. K. (n.d.). Reproducing social inequality through School Security: Effects of race and class on School Security measures. Irvine, CA: University of California–Irvine.

Ladd, G. W. (1999). Peer Relationships and social competence during early and middle childhood. Annual Review of Psychology, 50(1), 333–359. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.50.1.333

Ladd, G. W., Birch, S. H., & Buhs, E. S. (1999). Children’s social and scholastic lives in kindergarten: Related spheres of influence? Child Development, 70, 1373–1400.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dreamkeepers: Successful teachers of African American children. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Lane, R., Nadel, L., & Ahern, G. L. (Eds.) (2000). Cognitive neuroscience of emotion: Series in affective science. Cambridge, UK: Oxford University Press.

Langer-Osuna, J. M., & Nasir, N. I. S. (2016). Rehumanizing the “other” race, culture, and identity in education research. Review of Research in Education, 40(1), 723–743.

Laursen, B., Coy, K. C., & Collins, W. A. (1998). Reconsidering changes in parent–child conflict across adolescence: A meta-analysis. Child Development, 69(3), 817–832.

Lavigne, J. V., Gouze, K. R., Hopkins, J., & Bryant, F. B. (2016). A multidomain cascade model of early childhood risk factors associated with oppositional defiant disorder symptoms in a community sample of 6-year-olds. Development and Psychopathology, 28(4, pt. 2), 1547–1562. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579415001194

Lavoie, J., Pereira, L. C., & Talwar, V. (2016). Children’s physical resilience outcomes: Meta- analysis of vulnerability and protective factors. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 31, 701–711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2016.07.011

LeBrón, A. M. W., Schulz, A. J., Mentz, G., & White Perkins, D. (2015). John Henryism, socioeconomic position, and blood pressure in a multi-ethnic urban community. Ethnicity & Disease, 25(1), 24–30.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—98

Lee, C. D. (1995). A culturally based cognitive apprenticeship: Teaching African American high school students skills in literary interpretation. Reading Research Quarterly, 30(4), 608–631. https://doi.org/10.2307/748192

Lee, C. D. (1997). Bridging home and school literacies: Models for culturally responsive teaching, a case for African American English. In S. B. Heath & D. Lapp (Eds.), A handbook for literacy educators: Research on teaching the communicative and visual arts (pp. 334–345). New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing.

Lee, C. D. (2000). Signifying in the zone of proximal development. In C. D. Lee & P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), Vygotskian perspectives on literacy research: Constructing meaning through collaborative inquiry (pp. 191–225). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lee, C. D. (2004). African American students and literacy. In D. Alvermann & D. Strickland (Eds.), Bridging the gap: Improving literacy learning for pre-adolescent and adolescent learners grades 4-12 (pp. 70-85). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Lee, C. D. (2007). Culture, literacy, and learning. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Lee, C. D. (2009). From DuBois to Obama: The education of peoples of African descent in the United States in the 21st century. Journal of Negro Education, 78, 367–385.

Lee, C. D. (2010). Soaring above the clouds, delving the ocean’s depths: Understanding the ecologies of human learning and the challenge for education science. Educational Researcher, 39(9), 643–655. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X10392139

Lee, C. D., Spencer, M. B., & Harpalani, V. (2003). Every shut eye ain’t sleep: Studying how people live culturally. Educational Researcher, 32(5), 6–13.

Lee, C. H., & Kalyuga, S. (2014). The expertise reversal effect and its instructional implication. In V. Benassi, C. Overson, & C. Hakala (Eds.), Applying the science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum (pp. 31–44). Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php

Lee, K. H., Siegle, G. J., Dahl, R. E., Hooley, J. M., & Silk, J. S. (2015). Neural responses to maternal criticism in healthy youth. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10(7), 902–912. http://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsu133

Lee, V. E., Bryk, A. S., & Smith, J. B. (1993). The organization of effective secondary schools. Review of Research in Education, 19, 171–267.

Lee, V. E., & Smith, J. B. (1997). High school size: Which works best, and for whom? Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 19(3), 205–227.

Lerner, R. M. (2004). Liberty: Thriving and civic engagement among American youth. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—99

Lerner, R. M. (In press). Promoting positive development, health, and social justice through dismantling genetic determinism. National Academy of Sciences.

Lerner, R. M., Agans, J. P., DeSouza, L. M., & Hershberg, R. M. (2014). Developmental science in 2025: A predictive peview. Research in Human Development, 11(4), 255–272. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427609.2014.967046

Lerner, R. M. & Callina, K. S. (2014). The study of character development: Toward tests of a relational developmental systems model. Human Development, 57, 322–346.

Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., P. Bowers, E., & Geldhof, G. J. (2015). Positive youth development and relational-developmental systems. In Handbook of child psychology and developmental science (pp. 293–308). New York, NY: Wiley. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118963418.childpsy116/abstract

Lerner, R. M., & Overton, W. F. (2008). Exemplifying the integrations of the relational developmental system: Synthesizing theory, research, and application to promote positive development and social justice. Journal of Adolescent Research, 23(3), 245–255. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558408314385

Lerner, R. M., Schwartz, S. J., & Phelps, E. (2009). Problematics of time and timing in the longitudinal study of human development: Theoretical and methodological issues. Human Development, 52(1), 44–68.

Lester, B. M., Conradt, E., & Marsit, C. (2016). Introduction to the special section on epigenetics. Child Development, 87(1), 29–37.

Leve, L. D., Fisher, P. A., & Chamberlain, P. (2009). Multidimensional treatment foster care as a preventive intervention to promote resiliency among youth in the child welfare system. Journal of Personality, 77(6), 1869–1902.

Liebenberg, L., Theron, L., Sanders, J., Munford, R., van Rensburg, A., Rothmann, S., . . . Ungar, M. (2016). Bolstering resilience through teacher-student interaction: Lessons for school psychologists. School Psychology International, 37(2), 140–154.

Lillard, A. S., Lerner, M. D., Hopkins, E. J., Dore, R. A., Smith, E. D., & Palmquist, C. M. (2013). The impact of pretend play on children’s development: A review of the evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 139(1), 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029321

Linnenbrink, E. A., & Pintrich, P. R. (2003). The role of self-efficacy beliefs in student engagement and learning in the classroom. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 19(2), 119–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/10573560308223

Loeber, R., Menting, B., Lynam, D. R., Moffitt, T. E., Stouthamer-Loeber, M., Stallings, R., … Pardini, D. (2012). Findings from the Pittsburgh Youth Study: Cognitive impulsivity and intelligence as predictors of the age-crime curve. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 51(11), 1136–1149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2012.08.019

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—100

Lovic, V., Belay, H., Walker, C.-D., Burton, C. L., Meaney, M. J., Sokolowski, M., . . . Fleming, A. S. (2013). Early postnatal experience and DRD2 genotype affect dopamine receptor expression in the rat ventral striatum. Behavioural Brain Research, 237, 278–282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2012.09.046

Lucey, H. (2010). Families, siblings, and identities. In M. Wetherell & C. Talpade Mohanty, The SAGE handbook of identities (pp. 476–491). London, UK: SAGE. Retrieved from http://sk.sagepub.com/reference/hdbk_identities/n26.xml

Luthar, S. S. (2015). Mothering mothers. Research in Human Development, 12(3–4), 295–303. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427609.2015.1068045

Luthar, S. S., Barkin, S. H., & Crossman, E. J. (2013). “I can, therefore I must”: Fragility in the upper-middle classes. Development and Psychopathology, 25(4, Pt. 2), 1529–1549. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579413000758

Luthar, S. S., Crossman, E. J., & Small, P. J. (2015). Resilience and adversity. Handbook of child psychology and developmental science. New York, NY: Wiley. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118963418.childpsy307/full

Luthar, S. S., Sawyer, J. A., & Brown, P. J. (2006). Conceptual issues in studies of resilience. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1094(1), 105–115.

Luthar, S. S., & Zelazo, L. B. (2003). Research on resilience: An integrative review. In S. S. Luthar (Ed.), Resilience and vulnerability (pp. 510–550). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ref/id/CBO9780511615788A031

Mah, V. K., & Ford-Jones, E. L. (2012). Spotlight on middle childhood: Rejuvenating the “forgotten years.” Paediatrics and Child Health, 17(2), 81–83.

Main, M. (1991). Metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive monitoring, and singular (coherent) vs. multiple (incoherent) model of attachment: Findings and directions for future research. In C. M. Parkes, J. Stevenson-Hinde, & P. Marris (Eds.), Attachment Across the Life Cycle (pp. 127–159). New York, NY: Tavistock/Routledge.

Mallett, C. A. (2015). The school-to-prison pipeline: A critical review of the punitive paradigm shift. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal, 33(1), 15–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-015-0397-1

Marcovitch, S., & Zelazo, P. D. (2009a). A hierarchical competing systems model of the emergence and early development of executive function. Developmental Science, 12(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2008.00754.x

Marcovitch, S., & Zelazo, P. D. (2009b). The need for reflection in the development of executive function: Reply to commentaries. Developmental Science, 12, 24–25.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—101

Martin, D. P., & Rimm-Kaufman, S. E. (2015). Do student self-efficacy and teacher-student interaction quality contribute to emotional and social engagement in fifth grade math? Journal of School Psychology, 53(5), 359–373.

Marusak, H. A., Martin, K. R., Etkin, A., & Thomason, M. E. (2015). Childhood Trauma Exposure Disrupts the Automatic Regulation of Emotional Processing. Neuropsychopharmacology, 40(5), 1250–1258. http://doi.org/10.1038/npp.2014.311

Massey, D. S. (1985). Ethnic residential segregation: A theoretical synthesis and empirical review. Sociology and Social Research, 69, 315–350.

Massey, D. S. (2007). Categorically unequal: The American stratification system. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Massey, D. S. & Pren, K. A. (2012). Origins of the new Latino underclass. Race and Social Problems, 4(1), 5-17.

Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American Psychologist, 56(3), 227–238. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.227

Masten, A. S. (2007). Resilience in developing systems: Progress and promise as the fourth wave rises. Development and Psychopathology, 19(3), 921–930. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579407000442

Masten, A. S. (2011). Resilience in children threatened by extreme adversity: Frameworks for research, practice, and translational synergy. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 141–154. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579411000198

Masten, A. S. (2014). Ordinary magic: Resilience in development. New York, NY: Guilford.

Masten, A. S., & Cicchetti, D. (2010). Developmental cascades. Development and Psychopathology, 22(3), 491–495. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579410000222

Masten, A. S., Fiat, A. E., Labella, M. H., & Strack, R. A. (2015). Educating homeless and highly mobile students: Implications of research on risk and resilience. School Psychology Review, 44, 315–330.

Masten, A. S., Gewirtz, A. H., & Sapienza, J. K. (2013). Resilience in development: The importance of early childhood. In A. S. Masten (topic ed.) section on Resilience, in R. E. Tremblay, M. Voivin, & R. DeV. Peters (Eds.), Encyclopedia of early childhood development, (pp. 1-6). Retrieved from http://www.child- encyclopedia.com/resilience/according-experts/resilience-development-importance-early- childhood

Masten, A. S., Herbers, J. E., Desjardins, C. D., Cutuli, J. J., McCormick, C. M., Sapienza, J. K., . . . Zelazo, P. D. (2012). Executive function skills and school success in young children experiencing homelessness. Educational Researcher, 41(9), 375–384. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X12459883

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—102

Masten, A. S., & Obradović, J. (2006). Competence and resilience in development. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1094(1), 13–27. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1376.003

Masten, A. S., & Obradović, J. (2008). Disaster preparation and recovery: Lessons from research on resilience in human development. Ecology and Society, 13(1): 9. [online] URL: http://www. ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss1/art9/

Masten, A. S., Roisman, G. I., Long, J. D., Burt, K. B., Obradovic, J., Riley, J. R., . . . Tellegen, A. (2005). Developmental cascades: Linking academic achievement and externalizing and internalizing symptoms over 20 years. Developmental Psychology, 41(5), 733–746. https://doi.org/ 10.1037/0012-1649.41.5.733

Masten, A. S., & Tellegen, A. (2012). Resilience in developmental psychopathology: Contributions of the Project Competence Longitudinal Study. Development and Psychopathology, 24(2), 345–361. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095457941200003X

Master, A., Butler, L. P., & Walton, G. M. (2017). How the subjective relationship between the self, others, and a task drives interest. In P. A. O’Keefe & J. M. Harackiewicz (Eds.), The science of interest. New York, NY: Springer.

Matthews, K. A., & Gallo, L. C. (2011). Psychological perspectives on pathways linking socioeconomic status and physical health. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 501–530. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.031809.130711

Mayer, R. C., Davis, J. H., & Schoorman, F. D. (1995). An integrative model of organizational trust. The Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 709–734. https://doi.org/10.2307/258792

Mayer, R. E. (1996). Learning strategies for making sense out of expository text: The SOI model for guiding three cognitive processes in knowledge construction. Educational Psychology Review, 8, 357–371.

Mayer, R. E. (2014). Research-based principles for designing multimedia instruction. In V. A. Benassi, C. E. Overson, & C. M. Hakala (Eds.), Applying science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum (pp. 7–19). Retrieved from http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php

McCabe, L. A., Cunnington, M., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2004). The development of self-regulation in young children: Individual characteristics and environmental contexts. In R. F. Baumeister & K. D. Vohs (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation: Research, theory, and applications (pp. 340–356). New York, NY: Guilford.

McClelland, M. M., & Cameron, C. E. (2012). Self-regulation in early childhood: Improving conceptual clarity and developing ecological valid measures. Child Development Perspectives, 6(2), 136–142.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—103

McDermott, J. M., Westerlund, A., Zeanah, C. H., Nelson, C. A., & Fox, N. A. (2012). Early adversity and neural correlates of executive function: Implications for academic adjustment. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2(Suppl. 1), S59–S66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2011.09.008

McDowell, D. J., O’Neil, R., & Parke, R. D. (2000). Display rule application in a disappointing situation and children’s emotional reactivity: Relations with social competence. Merrill- Palmer Quarterly, 46(2), 306–324.

McElwain, N. L., & Volling, B. L. (2002). Relating individual control, social understanding, and gender to child–friend interaction: A relationships perspective. Social Development, 11(3), 362–385. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9507.00205

McEwen, B. S. (2006). Protective and damaging effects of stress mediators: Central role of the brain. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 8(4), 367–381.

McHale, S. M., Updegraff, K. A., & Whiteman, S. D. (2012). Sibling relationships and influences in childhood and adolescence. Journal of Marriage and Family, 74(5), 913–930. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2012.01011.x

McKay-Jackson, C. (2014). A critical approach to social emotional learning instruction through community-based service learning. Journal of Transformative Education, 12(3), 292–312. https://doi.org/10.1177/1541344614543191

McLaughlin, K. A., Sheridan, M. A., & Lambert, H. K. (2014). Childhood adversity and neural development: Deprivation and threat as distinct dimensions of early experience. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 47, 578–591. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2014.10.012

Meaney, M. J. (2010). Epigenetics and the biological definition of gene × environment interactions. Child Development, 81(1), 41–79. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467- 8624.2009.01381.x

Menting, A. T. A., Orobio de Castro, B., & Matthys, W. (2013). Effectiveness of the Incredible Years parent training to modify disruptive and prosocial child behavior: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 33(8), 901–913. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2013.07.006

Menting, B., van Lier, P. A. C., Koot, H. M., Pardini, D., & Loeber, R. (2016). Cognitive impulsivity and the development of delinquency from late childhood to early adulthood: Moderating effects of parenting behavior and peer relationships. Development and Psychopathology, 28(1), 167–183. https://doi.org/10.1017/S095457941500036X

Merrill, M. D. (2002). First principles of instruction. Educational Technology Research and Development, 50(3), 43–59.

Merrill, M. D. (2006). Levels of instructional strategy. Educational Technology 46(4), 5–10. Retrieved from http://mdavidmerrill.com/Papers/Levels_of_Strategy.pdf

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—104

Mersky, J. P., Topitzes, J., & Reynolds, A. J. (2013). Impacts of adverse childhood experiences on health, mental health, and substance use in early adulthood: A cohort study of an urban, minority sample in the U.S. Child Abuse & Neglect, 37(11), 917–925.

Meyer, D., & Turner, J. (2006). Re-conceptualizing emotion and motivation to learn in classroom contexts. Educational Psychology Review, 18(4), 377–390. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-006-9032-1

Midgley, C., Feldlaufer, H., & Eccles, J. S. (1989). Student/teacher relations and attitudes toward mathematics before and after the transition to junior high school. Child Development, 60(4), 981–992.

Miller, A. L. (2012). Investigating social desirability bias in student self-report surveys. Educational Research Quarterly, 36(1), 30–47.

Miller, C. C. (2015, October 16). Why what you learned in preschool is crucial at work. The New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/how-the- modern-workplace-has-become-more-like-preschool.html?_r=1

Mills-Koonce, W., Willoughby, M., Garrett-Peters, P., Wagner, N., & Vernon-Feagans, L. (2016). The interplay among socioeconomic status, household chaos, and parenting in the prediction of child conduct problems and callous-unemotional behaviors. Development & Psychopathology, 28(3), 757–771.

Milteer, R. M., Ginsburg, K. R., Council On Communications and Media, & Committee On Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. (2012). The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bond: Focus on children in poverty. Pediatrics, 129(1), e204–e213. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2953

Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York, NY: Wiley.

Mislevy, R. J., Steinberg, L. S., & Almond, R. G. (2002). On the roles of task model variables in assessment design. In S. Irvine & P. Kyllonen (Eds.), Generating items for cognitive tests: Theory and practice (pp. 97–128). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Moffitt, T. E., Arseneault, L., Belsky, D., Dickson, N., Hancox, R. J., Harrington, H., . . . Sears, M. R. (2011). A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(7), 2693–2698.

Molinsky, A. (2007). Cross-cultural code-switching: The psychological challenges of adapting behavior in foreign cultural interactions. The Academy of Management Review, 32(2), 622–640. https://doi.org/10.2307/20159318

Monroe, S. M. (2008). Modern approaches to conceptualizing and measuring human life stress. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 4, 33–52.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—105

Montgomery, C., & Rupp, A. A. (2005). A meta-analysis exploring the diverse causes and effects of stress in teachers. Canadian Journal of Education, 28, 458–486.

Mooneyham, B. W., & Schooler, J. W. (2013). The costs and benefits of mind-wandering: a review. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67(1), 11–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031569

Moss, E., & St-Laurent, D. (2001). Attachment at school age and academic performance. Developmental Psychology, 37(6), 863–874.

Müller, U., Lieberman, D., Frye, D., & Zelazo, P. D. (2008). Executive function, school readiness, and school achievement. In S. K. Thurman & C. A. Fiorello (Eds.), Applied cognitive research in K-3 classrooms (pp. 41–84). New York, NY: Routledge.

Murphy, P. K., & Knight, S. L. (2016). Exploring a century of advancements in the science of learning. Review of Research in Education, 40(1), 402–456.

Murray, D. W., Rosanbalm, K., Christopoulos, C., & Hamoudi, A. (2015). Self-regulation and toxic stress: Foundations for understanding self-regulation from an applied developmental perspective (OPRE Report #2015-21). Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Murray, J., Farrington, D. P., & Sekol, I. (2012). Children’s antisocial behavior, mental health, drug use, and educational performance after parental incarceration: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 138(2), 175-210.

NAEYC. (2016). Statement from the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) regarding new research on implicit bias and early childhood educators from Dr. Walter Gilliam and the Yale Child Study Center. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/content/statement-naeyc-implicit-bias-research

Nagaoka, J., Farrington, C. A., Ehrlich, S. B., Heath, R. D., Johnson, D. W., Dickson, S., . . . Hayes, K. (2015). Foundations for young adult success: A developmental framework. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago, Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Nakamura, J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2002). The concept of flow. In C. R. Snyder & S. J. Lopez (Eds.), Handbook of positive psychology (pp. 89–105). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Nance, J. P. (2013). Students, security, and race. Emory Law Journal, 63(1), 1–57. Retrieved from http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/facultypub/372

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2016). Parenting matters: Supporting parents of children ages 0–8. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Retrieved from https://www.nap.edu/catalog/21868/parenting-matters-supporting- parents-of-children-ages-0-8

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—106

National Research Council. (2005). How students learn: History, mathematics, and science in the classroom. Committee on How People Learn, A targeted report for teachers, M. S. Donovan and J. D. Bransford (Eds.), Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Research Council. (2012). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. Committee on Defining Deeper Learning and 21st Century Skills, J.W. Pellegrino and M.L. Hilton (Eds). Board on Testing and Assessment and Board on Science Education, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Research Council (NRC) & Institute of Medicine (IOM). (2001). Adolescent risk and vulnerability: Concepts and measurement. Board on Children, Youth, and Families, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Baruch Fischhoff, Elena O. Nightingale, and Joah G. Iannotta (Eds). Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

National Research Council (NRC) & Institute of Medicine (IOM). (2009). Preventing mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders among young people: Progress and possibilities. Mary Ellen O’Connell, Thomas Boat, and Kenneth E. Warner (Eds.), Board on Children, Youth, and Families, Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (2005/2014). Excessive stress disrupts the architecture of the developing brain (Working Paper 3, updated ed.). Retrieved from http://www.developingchild.harvard.edu

National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. (2007). Excessive stress disrupts the architecture of the developing brain. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Nelson, E. E., Leibenluft, E., Mcclure, E. B., & Pine, D. S. (2005). The social re-orientation of adolescence: A neuroscience perspective on the process and its relation to psychopathology. Psychological Medicine, 35(2), 163–174.

Nelson-Gardell, D., & Harris, D. (2003). Childhood abuse history, secondary traumatic stress, and child welfare workers. Child Welfare, 82(1), 5–26.

Newman, R. S. (2000). Social influences on the development of children’s adaptive help seeking: The role of parents, teachers, and peers. Developmental Review, 20(3), 350–404. https://doi.org/10.1006/drev.1999.0502

Nihalani, P. K., Mayrath, M., & Robinson, D. H. (2011). When feedback harms and collaboration helps in computer simulation environments: An expertise reversal effect. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(4), 776–785. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0025276

Norwalk, K., Hamm, J., Farmer, T., & Barnes, K. (2016). Improving the school context of early adolescence through teacher attunement to victimization. Journal of Early Adolescence, 36(7), 989–1009.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—107

Oberle, E., & Schonert-Reichl, K. A. (2016). Stress contagion in the classroom? The link between classroom teacher burnout and morning cortisol in elementary school students. Social Science & Medicine, 159, 30–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.04.031

O’Connell, M. E., Boat, T., & Warner, K. E. (2009). Preventing mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders among young people: Progress and possibilities. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. Retrieved from http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12480

Odgers, C. L., Caspi, A., Russell, M. A., Sampson, R. J., Arsenault, L., & Moffitt, T. E. (2012). Supportive parenting mediates widening neighborhood socioeconomic disparities in children’s antisocial behavior from ages 5 to 12. Development and Psychopathology, 24(3), 705–721. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579412000326

Okonofua, J. A., Paunesku, D., & Walton, G. M. (2016). Brief intervention to encourage empathic discipline cuts suspension rates in half among adolescents. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 113, 5221–5226.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2015). Skills for social progress: The power of social and emotional skills. Paris, France: OECD Skills Studies, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264226159-en

Osher, D. (1990). More than needs and services: The antecedent and concurrent social conditions that influenced the human services movement. In S. Fullerton & D. Osher, (Eds.), History of the human services movement (pp.30–39). Knoxville, TN: Council for Standards in Human Services Education.

Osher, D. (2002). Creating comprehensive and collaborative systems. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 11(1), 91–101. Osher, D. (2015). The pedagogy of real talk and the promotion of student well-being and success. In P. Hernandez (Ed.), The pedagogy of real talk: Engaging, teaching, and connecting with students at risk (pp. viii–ix). New York, NY: Corwin.

Osher, D., Bear, G., Sprague, J., & Doyle, W. (2010). How we can improve school discipline? Educational Researcher, 39(1), 48–58.

Osher, D., & Chasin, E. (2016). Bringing together schools and the community: The case of Say Yes to Education. In J. F. Zaff, E. Pufall Jones, A. E. Donlan, & S. A. Anderson (Eds.), Optimizing child and youth development through comprehensive community initiatives (pp. 72–104). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Osher, D., Dwyer, K., & Jackson, S. (2004). Safe, supportive, and successful schools: Step by step. Longmont, CO: Sopris West.

Osher, D., Fisher, D., Amos, L., Katz, J., Dwyer, K., Duffey, T., . . . Colombi, G. D. (2015). Addressing the root causes of disparities in school discipline: An educator’s action planning guide. Washington, DC: National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environment.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—108

Osher, T., Garay, L., Jennings, B., Jimerson, D., Markus, S., & Martinez, K. (2011). Closing the gap: Cultural perspectives on family driven care. Washington, DC: Technical Assistance Partnership for Child and Family Mental Health.

Osher, D., & Kendziora, K. (2010). Building conditions for learning and healthy adolescent development: Strategic approaches. In B. Doll, W. Pfohl, & J. Yoon (Eds.), Handbook of youth prevention science (pp. 121–140). New York, NY: Rutledge.

Osher, D., Kendziora, K., Berg, J., Bailey, P., Brown, L., Lee, M., . . . Chung, S. (2016). CASEL/NoVo Collaborating Districts Initiative: 2015 cross-district outcome evaluation report. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research.

Osher, D., Kendziora, K., Spier, E., & Garibaldi, M. L. (2014). School influences on child and youth development. In Z. Sloboda & H. Petras (Eds.), Advances in prevention science (Vol. 1: Defining prevention science, pp. 151–169). New York, NY: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7424-2_7

Osher, D., Kidron, Y., Brackett, M., Dymnicki, A., Jones, S., & Weissberg, R. P. (2016). Advancing the science and practice of social and emotional learning: Looking back and moving forward. Review of Research in Education, 40(1), 644–681.

Osher, D., Kidron, Y., DeCandia, C. J., Kendziora, K., & Weissberg, R. P. (2016). Interventions to promote safe and supportive school climate. In K. R. Wentzel & G. B. Ramani (Eds.), Handbook of social influences in school contexts (pp. 384–404). New York, NY: Routledge.

Osher, D., Sprague, J., Weissberg, R. P., Axelrod, J., Keenan, S., Kendziora, K., & Zins, J. E. (2008). A comprehensive approach to promoting social, emotional, and academic growth in contemporary schools. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology V (Vol. 4, pp. 1263–1278). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists.

Osher, D., Woodruff, D., & Sims, A. E. (2002). Schools make a difference: The overrepresentation of African American youth in special education and the juvenile justice system. In D. J. Losen & G. Orfield (Eds.), Racial inequity in special education (pp. 93–116). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Osher, T. W., & Osher, D. (2002). The paradigm shift to true collaboration with families. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 11(1), 47–60.

Osher, T. W., Osher, D., & Blau, G. M. (2008). Families matter. In T. P. Gullotta & G. M. Blau (Eds.), Family influences on child behavior and development: Evidence-based prevention and treatment approaches (pp. 39–63). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

Osypuk, T. L. (2013). Future research directions for understanding neighborhood contributions to health disparities. Revue d'Épidémiologie et de Santé Publique, 61(2), S61–S68.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—109

Overton, W. F. (2015). Processes, relations and relational-developmental-systems. In W. F. Overton & P. C. M. Molenaar (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science (7th ed., Vol. 1: Theory and method, pp. 9–62). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

Oyserman, D., Bybee, D., & Terry, K. (2006). Possible selves and academic outcomes: How and when possible selves impel action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91(1), 188–204. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.91.1.188

Oyserman, D., & Destin, M. (2010). Identity-based motivation: Implications for intervention. The Counseling Psychologist. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000010374775

Oyserman, D., & Fryberg, S. (2006). The possible selves of diverse adolescents: Content and function across gender, race and national origin. In C. Dunkel & J. Kerpelman (Eds.), Possible selves: Theory, research, and application (pp. 17–39). Hauppage, NY: Nova.

Ozbay, F., Fitterling, H., Charney, D., & Southwick, S. (2008). Social support and resilience to stress across the life span: A neurobiologic framework. Current Psychiatry Reports, 10(4), 304–310.

Paas, F., Renkl, A., & Sweller, J. (2004). Cognitive load theory: Instructional implications of the interaction between information structures and cognitive architecture. Instructional Science, 32(1), 1–8.

Pager, D., & Shepherd, H. (2008). The sociology of discrimination: Racial discrimination in employment, housing, credit, and consumer markets. Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 181–209.

Park, S., & Schepp, K. G. (2015). A systematic review of research on children of alcoholics: Their inherent resilience and vulnerability. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 24(5), 1222–1231. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-014-9930-7

Parke, R. D., & Clarke-Stewart, K. A. (2001, December). Effects of parental incarceration on young children. Paper presented at From Prison to Home: The Effect of Incarceration and Reentry on Children, Families, and Communities. Washington, DC. Retrieved from https://aspe.hhs.gov/basic-report/effects-parental-incarceration-young-children

Parker, J. G., & Gottman, J. M. (1989). Social and emotional development in a relational context: Friendship interaction from early childhood to adolescence. In T. J. Berndt & G. W. Ladd (Eds.), Peer relations in child development (pp. 95–131). New York, NY: Wiley.

Parker, J. G., Rubin, K. H., Price, J. M., & DeRosier, M. E. (1995). Peer relationships, child development, and adjustment: A developmental psychopathology perspective. In D. Cicchetti & D. J. Cohen (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology (Vol. 2: Risk, disorder, and adaptation, pp. 96–161). Oxford, England: Wiley.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—110

Patrick, H., Turner, J., & Strati, A. (2016). Classroom- and school-level influences on student motivation. In K. R. Wentzel & G. B. Ramani (Eds.), Handbook of social influences in school contexts: Social-emotional, motivation, and cognitive outcomes (pp. 241–257). New York, NY: Routledge.

Patterson, C. J., & Hastings, P. D. (2007). Socialization in the context of family diversity. In J. E. Grusec & P. D. Hastings (Eds.), Handbook of socialization (pp. 328–351). New York, NY: Guilford.

Patterson, G. R., DeBaryshe, B., & Ramsey, E. (1990). A developmental perspective on antisocial behavior. Readings in the Development of Children, 44, 329–335.

Patton, L. D., Renn, K. A., Guido, F. M., & Quaye, S. J. (2016). Student development in college: Theory, research, and practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer.

Pennington, C. R., Heim, D., Levy, A. R., & Larkin, D. T. (2016). Twenty years of stereotype threat research: A review of psychological mediators. PLoS ONE, 11(1), e0146487. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0146487

Perkins, K. L., & Sampson, R. J. (2015). Compounded deprivation in the transition to adulthood: The intersection of racial and economic inequality among Chicagoans, 1995–2013. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 1(1), 35–54.

Perry, B., & Morris, E. (2014). Suspending progress: Collateral con sequences of exclusionary punishment in public schools. American Sociological Review, 79(6), 1067–1087.

Perry, B. D. (2001). The neurodevelopmental impact of violence in childhood. In D. Schetky & E. Benedek (Eds.), Textbook of child and adolescent forensic psychiatry (pp. 221-238). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press.

Perry, B. D., & Szalavitz, M. (2006). The boy who was raised as a dog: And other stories from a child psychiatrist's notebook—What traumatized children can teach us about loss, love and healing. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Perry-Jenkins, M., Newkirk, K., & Ghunney, A. K. (2013). Family work through time and space: An ecological perspective. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 5(2), 105–123. https://doi.org/10.1111/jftr.12011

Peterson, R. D., & Krivo, L. J. (2010). Divergent social worlds: Neighborhood crime and the racial-spatial divide. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Petterson, S. M., & Albers, A. B. (2001). Effects of poverty and maternal depression on early child development. Child Development, 72(6), 1794–1813. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467- 8624.00379

Pettit, B., & Western, B. (2004). Mass imprisonment and the life course: Race and class inequality in U.S. incarceration. American Sociological Review, 69(2), 151–169.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—111

Petitclerc, Gatti, Vitaro, & Tremblay. (2013). Effects of juvenile court exposure on crime in young adulthood. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 54(3), 291-297. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02616.x

Pew Research Center. (2015). Parenting in America: Outlook, worries, aspirations are strongly linked to financial situation. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from file:///C:/Users/enolan/Downloads/2015-12-17_parenting-in-america_FINAL.pdf

Pfeifer, J. H., Kahn, L. E., Merchant, J. S., Peake, S. J., Veroude, K., Masten, C. L., . . . Dapretto, M. (2013). Longitudinal change in the neural bases of adolescent social self- evaluations: Effects of age and pubertal development. The Journal of Neuroscience : The Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 33(17), 7415-7419. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4074-12.2013

Phillips, D. A., & Lowenstein, A. E. (2011). Early care, education, and child development. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 483–500. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.031809.130707

Pianta, R. C., & Hamre, B. K. (2009). Classroom processes and positive youth development: Conceptualizing, measuring, and improving the capacity of interactions between teachers and students. New Directions for Youth Development, 121, 33–46. https://doi.org/10.1002/yd.295

Pittman, L. D. (2007). Grandmothers’ involvement among young adolescents growing up in poverty. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 17(1), 89–116. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2007.00513.x

Pittman, L. D., & Boswell, M. (2007). The role of grandmothers in the lives of preschoolers growing up in urban poverty. Applied Developmental Science, 11(1), 20–42.

Polderman, T. J. C., Boomsma, D. I., Bartels, M., Verhulst, F. C., & Huizink, A. C. (2010). A systematic review of prospective studies on attention problems and academic achievement. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 122(4), 271–284. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1600-0447.2010.01568.x

Powell, J. (2008). Post-racialism or targeted universalism? Denver University Law Review, 86, 785-806.

Powell, B., Hamilton, L., Manago, B., & Cheng, S. (2016). Implications of changing family forms for children. Annual Review of Sociology, 42(1), 301–322. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-081715-074444

Powell, R., Cantrell, S. C., Malo-Juvera, V., & Correll, P. (2016). Operationalizing culturally responsive instruction: Preliminary findings of CRIOP research. Teachers College Record, 118(1), 1–46. Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=18224

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—112

Purewal, S. P., Bucci, M., Gutiérrez Wang, L., Koita, K., Silvério Marques, S., Oh, D., & Burke Harris, N. (2016). Screening for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in an integrated pediatric care model. Zero to Three, 36(3), 10–17. Retrieved from https://dk-media.s3.amazonaws.com/media/1lq96/downloads/299688/2016-01-ztt- journal-s.pdf#page=12

Quinn, M. M., Osher, D., Hoffman, C. C., & Hanley, T. V. (1998). Safe, drug-free, and effective schools for all students: What Works! Washington, DC: Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice, American Institutes for Research.

Quintana, S. M., Aboud, F. E., Chao, R. K., Contreras-Grau, J., Cross, W. E., Hudley, C., . . . Vietze, D. L. (2006). Race, ethnicity, and culture in child development: Contemporary research and future directions. Child Development, 77(5), 1129–1141. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00951.x

Raeff, C. (2017). Going where the action is to conceptualize the person. New Ideas in Psychology, 44, 7–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2016.11.006

Ramey, C. T., McGinness, G. D., Cross, L., Collier, A. M., & Barrie-Blackley, S. (1982). The Abcedarian approach to social competence: Cognitive and linguistic intervention for disadvantaged preschoolers. In K. Borman (Ed.), The social life of children in a changing society (pp. 145–174). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Ramey, C. T., Yeates, K. O., & Short, E. J. (1984). The plasticity of intellectual development: Insights from preventive intervention. Child Development, 55(5), 1913-1925.

Rattan, A., Good, C., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). “It’s OK—not everyone can be good at math”: Instructors with an entity theory comfort (and demotivate) students. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(3), 731–737. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2011.12.012

Raver, C. C. (2004). Placing emotional self-regulation in sociocultural and socioeconomic contexts. Child Development, 75(2), 346–353.

Raver, C. C., Garner, P. W., & Smith-Donald, R. (2007). The roles of emotion regulation and emotion knowledge for children’s academic readiness: Are the links causal? In R. C. Pianta, M. J. Cox, & K. L. Snow (Eds.), School readiness and the transition to kindergarten in the era of accountability (pp. 121–148). Baltimore, MD: Brookes.

Raver, C. C., & Knitzer, J. (2002). Ready to enter. Emotions matter: Making the case for the role of young children’s emotional development for early school readiness among three- and four-year-old children. New York, NY: National Center for Children in Poverty.

Reardon, S. F., & Bischoff, K. (2011). Income inequality and income segregation. American Journal of Sociology, 116(4), 1092–1153.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—113

Regehr, C., Hemsworth, D., Leslie, B., Howe, P., & Chau, S. (2004). Predictors of posttraumatic distress in child welfare workers: A linear structural equation model. Children and Youth Services Review, 26(4), 331–346.

Repetti, R. L., Taylor, S. E., & Seeman, T. E. (2002). Risky families: Family social environments and the mental and physical health of offspring. Psychological bulletin, 128(2), 330.

Reyes, M. R., Brackett, M. A., Rivers, S. E., White, M., & Salovey, P. (2012). Classroom emotional climate, student engagement, and academic achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(3), 700–712. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027268

Reynolds, A. J., & Ou, S. R. (2003). Promoting resilience through early childhood intervention. In S. S. Luthar (Ed.), Resilience and vulnerability: Adaptation in the context of childhood adversities (pp. 436–459). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Rickford A. (2001). The effect of cultural congruence and higher order questioning on the reading enjoyment and comprehension of ethnic minority students. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 6(4), 357.

Rickles, J., Zeiser, K. L., Mason, J., & Garet, M. S. (2016). Deeper learning and high school graduation: Is there a relationship? Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research.

Riconscente, M. M., Mislevy, R. J., & Corrigan, S. (2015). Evidence-centered design. In S. Lane, M. R. Raymond, & T. M. Haladyna (Eds.), Handbook of test development (pp. 40–64). London, UK: Routledge. Retrieved from https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/doi/10.4324/9780203102961.ch3

Roeser, R. W., Schonert-Reichl, K. A., Jha, A., Cullen, M., Wallace, L., Wilensky, R., . . . Harrison, J. (2013). Mindfulness training and reductions in teacher stress and burnout: Results from two randomized, waitlist-control field trials. Journal of Educational Psychology, 105(3), 787–804. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032093

Roisman, G. I., & Fraley, R. C. (2008). A behavior-genetic study of parenting quality, infant attachment security, and their covariation in a nationally representative sample. Developmental Psychology, 44(3), 831–839. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.44.3.831

Roorda, D. L., Koomen, H. M., Spilt, J. L., & Oort, F. J. (2011). The influence of affective teacher–student relationships on students’ school engagement and achievement: A meta- analytic approach. Review of Educational Research, 81(4), 493–529.

Rose, L. T., Rouhani, P., & Fischer, K. W. (2013). The science of the individual. Mind, Brain, and Education, 7(3), 152–158.

Ross, S., & Peselow, E. (2009). The neurobiology of addictive disorders. Clinical Neuropharmacology, 32(5), 269–276.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—114

Rubin, K. H., Coplan, R. J., Chen, X., Buskirk, A., & Wojslawowicz, J. C. (2005). Peer relationships in childhood. Developmental Science: An Advanced Textbook, 5, 469–512.

Ruiz, D., & Kopak, A. (2014). The consequences of parental incarceration for African American mothers, children, and grandparent caregivers. Journal of Pan African Studies, 7(6), 9– 24. Retrieved from https://www.homeworkmarket.com/sites/default/files/qx/15/10/20/10/the_consequences_ of_parental_incarceration_for_african_american_mothers_children_and_grandparent_car egivers.pdf

Ruiz, J. D. C., Quackenboss, J. J., & Tulve, N. S. (2016). Contributions of a child’s built, natural, and social environments to their general cognitive ability: A systematic scoping review. PLOS ONE, 11(2), e0147741. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0147741

Rutter, M. (1987). Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 57, 316–331.

Rutter, M. (2002). Nature, nurture, and development: From evangelism through science toward policy and practice. Child Development, 73(1), 1–21. Retrieved from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3382/b5e63bdfdf28390295924d4fb4d3424b0c2c.pdf

Rutter, M. (2013). Annual research review: Resilience—Clinical implications. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 54(4), 474–487. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-7610.2012.02615.x

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.

Ryan, W. (1972). Blaming the victim. New York, NY: Vintage Books.

Rychen, D. S., & Salganik, L. H. (Eds.). (2003). Key competencies for a successful life and a well-functioning society. Boston, MA: Hogrefe.

Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, cognition and personality, 9(3), 185–211

Sampson, R. J. (2012). Moving and the neighborhood glass ceiling. Science, 337(6101), 1464–1465. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1227881

Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S. W., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighborhoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277(5328), 918–924.

Sampson, R. J., Sharkey, P., & Raudenbush, S. (2008). Durable effects of concentrated disadvantage on verbal ability among African-American children. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105, 845–852. Retrieved from http://www.patricksharkey.net/images/pdf/Sampson_PNAS_2008.pdf

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—115

Sander, M. C., Werkle-Bergner, M., Gerjets, P., Shing, Y. L., & Lindenberger, U. (2012). The two-component model of memory development, and its potential implications for educational settings. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2(Suppl. 1), S67–S77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2011.11.005

Sanders, M. R., Kirby, J. N., Tellegen, C. L., & Day, J. J. (2014). The Triple P-Positive Parenting Program: A systematic review and meta-analysis of a multi-level system of parenting support. Clinical Psychology Review, 34(4), 337–357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2014.04.003

Sandler, I. N., Schoenfelder, E. N., Wolchik, S. A., & MacKinnon, D. P. (2011). Long-term impact of prevention programs to promote effective parenting: Lasting effects but uncertain processes. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 299–329. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.121208.131619

Sasser, T. R., Beekman, C. R., & Bierman, K. L. (2015). Preschool executive functions, single- parent status, and school quality predict diverging trajectories of classroom inattention in elementary school. Development and Psychopathology, 27(03), 681-693.

Sawhill, I. V., & Karpilow, Q. (2014, July). How much could we improve children’s life chances by intervening early and often? (CCF Brief no. 54). Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institute. Retrieved from https://peerta.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/public/uploaded_files/improve_child_life_cha nces_interventions_sawhill.pdf6_.pdf

Sawyer, R. K. (2008). Optimising learning: Implications of learning sciences research. In OECD (Ed.), Innovating To Learn, Learning To Innovate (pp. 45-65). Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/40805146.pdf

Scales, P. C., Roehlkepartain, E. C., & Shramko, M. (2016). Aligning youth development theory, measurement, and practice across cultures and contexts: Lessons from use of the developmental assets profile. Child Indicators Research, 9(1), 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-016-9395-x

Schindler, H. S., Kholoptseva, J., Oh, S. S., Yoshikawa, H., Duncan, G. J., Magnuson, K. A., & Shonkoff, J. P. (2015). Maximizing the potential of early childhood education to prevent externalizing behavior problems: A meta-analysis. Journal of School Psychology, 53(3), 243–263. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2015.04.001

Schmidt, J. A., Shernoff, D. J., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2014). Individual and situational factors related to the experience of flow in adolescence: A multilevel approach. In editors’ names (Eds.), Applications of flow in human development and education: The collected works of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pp. 379–405). Rotterdam, the Netherlands: Springer.

Schmitt, S. A., McClelland, M. M., Tominey, S. L., & Acock, A. C. (2015). Strengthening school readiness for Head Start children: Evaluation of a self-regulation intervention. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 30(A), 20–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2014.08.001

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—116

Schoenfeld, A. H. (1998). Toward a theory of teaching-in-context. Issues in Education, 4(1), 1– 94. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1080-9724(99)80076-7

Schore, J. R., & Schore, A. N. (2008). Modern attachment theory: The central role of affect regulation in development and treatment. Clinical Social Work Journal, 36(1), 9–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10615-007-0111-7

Schweinhart, L., Montie, J., Xiang, Z., Barnett, W. S., Belfield, C., & Nores, M. (2005). Lifetime effects: The High/Scope Perry Preschool Study through age 40. Ypsilanti, MI: High/Scope.

Seguin, J. R., Nagin, D., & Tremblay, R. E. (2004). Cognitive-neuropsychological function in chronic physical aggression and hyperactivity. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 113, 603–613.

Selman, R. L. (1980). The growth of interpersonal understanding. New York, NY: Academic Press.

Semke, C. A., Garbacz, S. A., Kwon, K., Sheridan, S. M., & Woods, K. E. (2010). Family involvement for children with disruptive behaviors: The role of parenting stress and motivational beliefs. Journal of School Psychology, 48(4), 293–312.

Shackman, A. J., Sarinopoulos, I., Maxwell, J. S., Pizzagalli, D. A., Lavric, A., & Davidson, R. J. (2006). Anxiety selectively disrupts visuospatial working memory. Emotion, 6(1), 40– 61. https://doi.org/10.1037/1528-3542.6.1.40

Shanahan, T. & Shanahan, C. (2008). Teaching disciplinary literacy to adolescents: Rethinking content-area literacy. Harvard Educational Review, 78(1), 40–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.17763/haer.78.1.v62444321p602101

Sharkey, P. T. (2006). Navigating dangerous streets: The sources and consequences of street efficacy. American Sociological Review, 71, 826–846.

Sharkey, P. (2013). Stuck in place: Urban neighborhoods and the end of progress toward racial equality. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Shaw, P., Gilliam, M., Liverpool, M., Weddle, C., Malek, M., Sharp, W., … Giedd, J. (2011). Cortical development in typically developing children with symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity: Support for a dimensional view of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 168(2), 143–151. http://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2010.10030385

Sherman, L. E., Rudie, J. D., Pfeifer, J. H., Masten, C. L., McNealy, K., & Dapretto, M. (2014). Development of the default mode and central executive networks across early adolescence: A longitudinal study. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 10, 148–159. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2014.08.002

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—117

Shonkoff, J. P., Garner, A. S., Siegel, B. S., Dobbins, M. I., Earls, M. F., McGuinn, L., . . . Wood, D. L. (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), e232–e246. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2011-2663

Shonkoff, J. P., & Phillips, D. A. (2000). (Eds.) From neurons to neighborhoods: The science of early childhood development. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Siegel, D. J. (1999). The developing mind: Toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience. New York, NY: Guilford.

Siegel, D. J. (2010). Mindsight: The new science of personal transformation. New York, NY: Bantam.

Siegel, D. J. (2012). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Guilford.

Siegel, D. J. (2013). Brainstorm: The power and purpose of the teenage brain. New York, NY: Penguin Putnam.

Sijtsema, J., Verboom, C., Penninx, B., Verhulst, F., & Ormel, J. (2014). Psychopathology and academic performance, social well-being, and social preference at school: The TRAILS study. Child Psychiatry & Human Development [serial online], 45(3), 273–284. Available from: Academic Search Alumni Edition, Ipswich, MA. Accessed January 7, 2017.

Silk, J. S., Siegle, G. J., Lee, K. H., Nelson, E. E., Stroud, L. R., & Dahl, R. E. (2014). Increased neural response to peer rejection associated with adolescent depression and pubertal development. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 9(11), 1798–1807. http://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nst175

Silva, K., Chein, J., & Steinberg, L. (2016). Adolescents in peer groups make more prudent decisions when a slightly older adult is present. Psychological Science, 27(3), 322–330. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615620379

Simmons, R. G., & Blyth, D. A. (1987). Moving into adolescence: The impact of pubertal change and school context. Hawthorne, NJ: Aldine.

Sisk, C. L., & Foster, D. L. (2004). The neural basis of puberty and adolescence. Nature Neuroscience, 7(10), 1040–1047. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1326

Sisk, C. L., & Zehr, J. L. (2005). Pubertal hormones organize the adolescent brain and behavior. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 26(3–4), 163–174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yfrne.2005.10.003

Skiba, R. J., Horner, R. H., Chung, C. G., Rausch, M. K., May, S. L., & Tobin, T. (2011). Race is not neutral: A national investigation of African American and Latino disproportionality in school discipline. School Psychology Review, 40(1), 85-107.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—118

Skiba, R. J., Michael, R. S., Nardo, A. C., & Peterson, R. L. (2002). The color of discipline: Sources of racial and gender disproportionality in school punishment. The Urban Review, 34(4), 317–342.

Slavich, G. M., & Cole, S. W. (2013). The emerging field of human social genomics. Clinical Psychological Science, 1(3), 331–348.

Slopen, N., McLaughlin, K. A., & Shonkoff, J. P. (2014). Interventions to improve cortisol regulation in children: A systematic review. Pediatrics, 133(2), 312–326.

Smallwood, J., & Schooler, J. W. (2015). The science of mind wandering: Empirically navigating the stream of consciousness. Annual Review of Psychology, 66, 487–518. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-015331

Smedley, B. D., Stith, A. Y., & Nelson, A. R. (Eds.). (2003). Unequal treatment: Confronting racial and ethnic disparities in health care. Washington, DC: National Academies Press.

Smith, G. C., & Palmieri, P. A. (2007). Risk of psychological difficulties among children raised by custodial grandparents. Psychiatric Services 58(10), 1303–1310. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.58.10.1303

Smith, J., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Klebanov, P. (1997). The consequences of living in poverty on young children’s cognitive development. In G. J. Duncan & J. Brooks-Gunn (Eds.), Consequences of growing up poor (pp. 132–189). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.

Smith, S. M., Nichols, T. E., Vidaurre, D., Winklers, A. M., Behrens, T. E., Glasser, M. F., . . . Miller, K. L. (2015). A positive-negative mode of population covariation links brain connectivity, demographics and behavior. Nature Neuroscience, 18(10), 1565–1567.

Smith, W. A., Hung, M., & Franklin, J. D. (2011). Racial battle fatigue and the miseducation of Black men: Microaggressions, societal problems, & environmental stress. The Journal of Negro Education, 80(1), 63–82. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41341106

Snow, K. (2016). Research news you can use: Pretend play is important but its role in learning is complex. Retrieved from http://www.naeyc.org/content/research-news-pretend-play-is- important

Snyder, J. J., Schrepferman, L. P., Bullard, L., McEachern, A. D., & Patterson, G. R. (2012). Covert antisocial behavior, peer deviancy training, parenting processes, and sex differences in the development of antisocial behavior during childhood. Development and Psychopathology, 24(3), 1117–1138.

Solórzano, D., Ceja, M., & Yosso, T. (2000). Critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate: The experiences of African American college students. Journal of Negro Education, 69, 60–73.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—119

Southwick, S. M., Bonanno, G. A., Masten, A. S., Panter-Brick, C., & Yehuda, R. (2014). Resilience definitions, theory, and challenges: Interdisciplinary perspectives. European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 5, 25338. https://doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v5.25338

Spencer, M. B. (2007). Phenomenology and ecological systems theory: Development of diverse groups. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology. New York, NY: Wiley. Retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9780470147658.chpsy0115/ abstract

Spencer, M. B., Fegley, S., & Dupree, D. (2006). Investigating and linking social conditions of minority children and adolescents with emotional well-being. Ethnicity & Disease, 16(2, Suppl. 3), S3-67–70.

Spencer, M. B., & Swanson, D. P. (2013). Opportunities and challenges to the development of healthy children and youth living in diverse communities. Development and Psychopathology, 25(4, Pt. 2), 1551–1566.

Spier, E., Garibaldi, M., & Osher, D. (2012). Alaska school climate and connectedness: Listening to the voices of connected and disconnected Alaskan Native and Non-Alaskan Native youth. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research.

Sroufe, L. A. (2005). Attachment and development:mA prospective, longitudinal study from birth to adulthood. Attachment & Human Development, 7(4), 349–367. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616730500365928

Sroufe, L. A., Duggal, S., Weinfield, N., & Carlson, E. (2000). Relationships, development, and psychopathology. In A. J. Sameroff, M. Lewis, & S. M. Miller (Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychopathology (pp. 75–91). New York, NY: Springer. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4615-4163-9_5

Sroufe, L. A., Egeland, B., Carlson, E. A., & Collins, W. A. (2005). The development of the person: The Minnesota study of risk and adaptation from birth to adulthood. New York, NY: Guilford.

Stack, C. B. (1974). All our kin. New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Stafford-Brizard, K. (2015). Building blocks for learning: A framework for comprehensive student development. New York, NY: Turnaround for Children.

Stafford-Brizard, K., Cantor, P., & Rose, T. (under review). Building the bridge between science and practice: Essential characteristics of a translational framework. Mind, Brain, & Education.

Stearns, E., Dodge, K. A., & Nicholson, M. (2008). Peer contextual influences on the growth of authority-acceptance problems in early elementary school. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 54(2), 208–231. http://doi.org/10.1353/mpq.2008.0018

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—120

Steele, C. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: And other clues to how stereotypes affect us. New York, NY: Norton.

Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intellectual test performance of African Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(5), 797–811. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7473032

Steinberg, L. (2005). Cognitive and affective development in adolescence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(2), 69–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2004.12.005

Steinberg, L. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Review, 28(1), 78–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2007.08.002

Steinberg, L. (2009). Adolescent development and juvenile justice. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 5(1), 459–485. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.032408.153603

Stevens, C., & Bavelier, D. (2012). The role of selective attention on academic foundations: A cognitive neuroscience perspective. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 2(Suppl. 1), S30–S48. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2011.11.001

Stevens, M. C., Skudlarski, P., Pearlson, G. D., & Calhoun, V. D. (2009). Age-related cognitive gains are mediated by the effects of white matter development on brain network integration. NeuroImage, 48(4), 738–746. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2009.06.065

Stevenson, J., & Stevenson, H. C. (2013). Promoting racial literacy in schools: Differences that make a difference. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Strain, P. S., Steele, P., Ellis, T., & Timm, M. A. (1982). Long-term effects of oppositional child treatment with mothers as therapists and therapist trainers. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 15(1), 163–169. http://doi.org/10.1901/jaba.1982.15-163

Strain, P. S., & Timm, M. A. (2001). Remediation and prevention of aggression: An evaluation of the Regional Intervention Program over a quarter century. Behavioral Disorders, 26(4), 297–313.

Sue, D. W., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life: Implications for clinical practice. American Psychologist, 62(4), 271–286.

Suter, J. C., & Bruns, E. J. (2009). Effectiveness of the wraparound process for children with emotional and behavioral disorders: A meta-analysis. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 12(4), 336–351. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-009-0059-y

Sutherland, K. S., & Morgan, P. (2003). Implications of transactional processes in classrooms for students with EBD. Preventing School Failure, 48, 32–37.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—121

Sutherland, K. S., & Oswald, D. (2005). The relationship between teacher and student behavior in classrooms for students with emotional and behavioral disorders: Transactional processes. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 14, 1–14.

Swanson, D. P.. Cunningham, M., Youngblood, J., II., & Spencer, M. B. (2009). Racial identity development during childhood. In. H. A. Neville, B. M. Tynes, & S. O. Utsey (Eds.), Handbook of African American psychology (pp. 269–281). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Swearer, S. M., Espelage, D. L., Vaillancourt, T., & Hymel, S. (2010). What can be done about school bullying? Linking research to educational practice. Educational Researcher, 39(1), 38–47.

Sweller, J., Kirschner, P. A., & Clark, R. E. (2007). Why minimally guided teaching techniques do not work: A reply to commentaries. Educational Psychologist, 42(2), 115–121.

Szymanski, D. M., Kashubeck-West, S., & Meyer, J. (2008). Internalized heterosexism: A historical and theoretical overview. The Counseling Psychologist, 36(4), 510–524. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000007309488

Szapocznik, J., Muir, J. A., Duff, J. H., Schwartz, S. J., & Brown, C. H. (2015). Brief strategic family therapy. Psychotherapy Research, 25(1), 121–133.

Tarullo, A. R., Obradović, J., & Gunnar, M. R. (2009). Self-control and the developing brain. Zero to Three, 29(3), 31-37.

Teicher, M. H., Andersen, S. L., & Hostetter, J. C. (1995). Evidence for dopamine receptor pruning between adolescence and adulthood in striatum but not nucleus accumbens. Developmental Brain Research, 89(2), 167–172.

Teicher, M. H., & Samson, J. A. (2016). Annual research review: Enduring neurobiological effects of childhood abuse and neglect. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, and Allied Disciplines, 57(3), 241–266. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12507

Teicher, M. H., Samson, J. A., Anderson, C. M., & Ohashi, K. (2016). The effects of childhood maltreatment on brain structure, function, and connectivity. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 17(10), 652–666.

Tennessee Department of Education. (2009). Distribution of effective teachers in Tennessee schools.

Thapa, A., Cohen, J., Guffey, S., & Higgins-D’Alessandro, A. (2013). A review of school climate research. Review of Educational Research, 83(3), 357–385.

Thelen, E., & Smith, L. B. (2006). Dynamic systems theories. In R. M. Lerner & W. Damon (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (6th ed., pp. 258–312). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—122

Theron, L. C., Liebenberg, L., & Malinidi, M. J. (2014). When schooling experiences are respectful of children’s rights: A pathway to resilience. School Psychology International, 35(3), 253–265. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723713503254

Thompson, R. A., & Haskins, R. (2014). Early stress gets under the skin: Promising initiatives to help children facing chronic adversity (Policy Brief for Princeton-Brookings: The Future of Children). Princeton, NJ: The Future for Children. Retrieved from http://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/docs/24_01_Policy_Brief.pdf

Tofel-Grehl, C., & Feldon, D. F. (2013). Cognitive task analysis-based training: A meta-analysis of studies. Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision-making, 7, 293–304.

Tol, W. A., Song, S., & Jordans, M. J. (2013). Annual research review: Resilience and mental health in children and adolescents living in areas of armed conflict—A systematic review of findings in low- and middle-income countries. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 54(4), 445–460. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12053

Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Tottenham, N., & Sheridan, M. A. (2009). A review of adversity, the amygdala and the hippocampus: A consideration of developmental timing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 3, 68. http://doi.org/10.3389/neuro.09.068.2009

Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st century skills: Learning for life in our times. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Pfeiffer.

Troxel, W. M., & Matthews, K. A. (2004). What are the costs of marital conflict and dissolution to children’s physical health? Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 7(1), 29–57.

Tseng, V., & Seidman, E. (2007). A systems framework for understanding social settings. American Journal of Community Psychology, 39, 217–228.

Turney, K., & Haskins, A. R. (2014). Falling behind? Children’s early grade retention after paternal incarceration. Sociology of Education, 87, 241–258. https://doi.org/10.1177/0038040714547086

Ungar, M. (2011). The social ecology of resilience: Addressing contextual and cultural ambiguity of a nascent construct. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 81(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-0025.2010.01067.x

Ursache, A., Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2012). The promotion of self-regulation as a means of enhancing school readiness and early achievement in children at risk for school failure: Promotion of self-regulation in school. Child Development Perspectives, 6(2), 122–128. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1750-8606.2011.00209.x

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—123

U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). American Community Survey, 2010 1-year estimates: Grandparent characteristics. (Table S1001). Retrieved from https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_ 10_1YR_S1001&prodType=table

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights. (2014). Civil rights data collection data snapshot: Early childhood education (Issue Brief No. 2). Retrieved from http://ocrdata.ed.gov

Ungar, M. (2004a). The importance of parents and other caregivers to the resilience of high-risk adolescents. Family Process, 43(1), 23–41.

Ungar, M. (2004b). Nurturing hidden resilience in troubled youth. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Ungar, M., Ghazinour, M., & Richter, J. (2013). Annual research review: What is resilience within the social ecology of human development? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 54(4), 348–66. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcp.12025

Vaillancourt, T., Hymel, S., & McDougall, P. (2013). The biological underpinnings of peer victimization: Understanding why and how the effects of bullying can last a lifetime. Theory Into Practice, 52(4), 241–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405841.2013.829726

Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Van Acker, R., Grant, S. H., & Henry, D. (1996). Teacher and student behavior as a function of risk for aggression. Education and Treatment of Children, 19(3), 316–334.

Villegas, A. M., & Lucas, T. (2002). Preparing culturally responsive teachers: Rethinking the curriculum. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(1), 20–32.

Vitaro, F., Brendgen, M., Larose, S., & Tremblay, R. E. (2005). Kindergarten disruptive behaviors, protective factors, and educational achievement in early adulthood. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97, 617–629.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1967). Play and its role in the mental development of the child. Soviet Psychology, 5, 6–18.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. In M. Gauvain & M. Cole (Eds.), Readings on the development of children (pp. 29–35). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wade, R., Cronholm, P. F., Fein, J. A., Forke, C. M., Davis, M. B., Harkins-Schwarz, M., . . . Bair-Merritt, M. H. (2016). Household and community-level adverse childhood experiences and adult health outcomes in a diverse urban population. Child Abuse & Neglect, 52, 135–145.

Wade, R., Jr., Shea, J. A., Rubin, D., & Wood, J. (2014). Adverse childhood experiences of low- income urban youth. Pediatrics, 134(1), e13–e20.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—124

Wakefield, S., & Uggen, C. (2010). Incarceration and stratification. Annual Review of Sociology, 36, 387–406.

Wakefield, S., & Wilderman, C. (2013). Children of the prison boom: Mass incarceration and the future of American inequality. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Waldfogel, J., Craigie, T. A., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2010). Fragile families and child wellbeing. The Future of Children, 20(2), 87–112.

Walker, S. O. (2016). Where education meets medicine: The science of adversity, resilience and human potential. Unpublished report.

Walker, S. P., Wachs, T. D., Gardner, J. M., Lozoff, B., Wasserman, G. A., Pollitt, E., & Carter, J. A. (2007). Child development: Risk factors for adverse outcomes in developing countries. Lancet, 369(9556), 145–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(07)60076-2

Walker, S. P., Wachs, T. D., Grantham-McGregor, S., Black, M. M., Nelson, C. A., Huffman, S. L., & Richter, L. (2011). Inequality in early childhood: Risk and protective factors for early child development. The Lancet, 378(9799), 1325–1338. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60555-2

Wang, M. T., & Holcombe, R. (2010). Adolescents’ perceptions of school environment, engagement, and academic achievement in middle school. American Educational Research Journal, 47, 633–662. http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0002831209361209.

Warikoo, N., Sinclair, S., Fei, J., & Jacoby-Senghor, D. (2016). Examining racial bias in education: A new approach. Educational Researcher, 45(9), 508–514.

Wehby, J. H., Symons, F., & Shores, R. E. (1995). A descriptive analysis of aggressive behavior in classrooms for students with emotional and behavioral disorders. Behavioral Disorders, 20, 87–105.

Wei, Q., Fentress, H. M., Hoversten, M. T., Zhang, L., Hebda-Bauer, E. K., Watson, S. J., . . . Akil, H. (2012). Early-life forebrain glucocorticoid receptor overexpression increases anxiety behavior and cocaine sensitization. Biological Psychiatry, 71(3), 224–231. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2011.07.009

Weisleder, A., & Fernald, A. (2014). Social environments shape children’s language experiences, strengthening language processing and building vocabulary. In I. Arnon, M. Casillas, C. Kurumada, & B. Estigarribia (Eds.), Language in interaction: Studies in honor of Eve V. Clark (pp. 29–0). Trends in Language Acquisition Research. Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Wentzel, K. R., & Muenks, K. (2016). Peer influence on students’ motivation, academic achievement and social behavior. Handbook of Social Influences in School Contexts: Social-Emotional, Motivation, and Cognitive Outcomes, 13-30.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—125

West, J., Denton, K., & Reaney, L. M. (2001). The kindergarten year: Findings from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, kindergarten class of 1998–1999 (Publication No. NCES2001-023). Washington, DC: U. S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics.

West, M. R., Kraft, M. A., Finn, A. S., Martin, R. E., Duckworth, A. L., Gabrieli, C. F. O., . . . Gabrieli, J. D. E. (2015). Promise and paradox measuring students’ non-cognitive skills and the impact of schooling. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373715597298

Wigfield, A., & Eccles, J. S. (2000). Expectancy—value theory of achievement motivation. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 25(1), 68–81.

Wigle, D. T., Arbuckle, T. E., Turner, M. C., Bérubé, A., Yang, Q., Liu, S., . . . Krewski, D. (2008). Epidemiologic evidence of relationships between reproductive and child health outcomes and environmental chemical contaminants. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, Critical Reviews, 11(5–6), 373–517. https://doi.org/10.1080/10937400801921320

Wigle, D. T., Arbuckle, T. E., Walker, M., Wade, M. G., Liu, S., & Krewski, D. (2007). Environmental hazards: Evidence for effects on child health. Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part B, Critical Reviews, 10(1–2), 3–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/10937400601034563

Will, G.-J., van Lier, P. A. C., Crone, E. A., & Güroğlu, B. (2016). Chronic childhood peer rejection is associated with heightened neural responses to social exclusion during adolescence. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 44, 43–55. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-015-9983-0

Willis-Darpoh, G. (2013, November). Creating culturally responsive learning environment for students of color. Paper presented at the 23rd Annual National Association of Multicultural Education Conference, Oakland, CA.

Wolf, L. F., & Smith, J. K. (1995). The consequence of consequence: Motivation, anxiety, and test performance. Applied Measurement in Education, 8(3), 227–242. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15324818ame0803_3Wubbels, T., den Brok, P., van Tartwijk, J., & Levy, J. (Eds.). (2012). Interpersonal relationships in education: An overview of contemporary research. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense.

Wubbels, T., Brekelmans, J. M. G., Mainhard, T., den Brok, P. J., & van Tartwijk, J. W. F. (2016). Teacher–student relationships and student achievement. In K. Wentzel & G. Ramani (Eds.), Handbook of social influences in school contexts (pp. 127–142). New York, NY: Taylor & Francis.

Yang, R., Zeiser, K. L., & Siman, N. (2016). Deeper learning and college enrollment: What happens after high school? Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research.

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—126

Yates, T. M., Egeland, L. B., & Sroufe, A. (2003). Rethinking resilience: A developmental process perspective. In S. S. Luthar (Ed.), Resilience and vulnerability: Adaptation in the context of childhood adversities (pp. 243–266). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Yeager, D. S., Fong, C. J., Lee, H. Y., & Espelage, D. L. (2015). Declines in efficacy of antibullying programs among older adolescents: Theory and a three-level meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 37, 36–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2014.11.005 Yeager, D. S., Henderson, M., Paunesku, D., Walton, G., Spitzer, B., D’Mello, S., & Duckworth, A. L. (2014). Boring but important: A self-transcendent purpose for learning fosters academic self-regulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107, 559–580. Yeager, D. S., Johnson, R., Spitzer, B. J., Trzesniewski, K. H., Powers, J., & Dweck, C. S. (2014). The far-reaching effects of believing people can change: Implicit theories of personality shape stress, health, and achievement during adolescence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(6), 867–884. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036335 Yeager, D. S., Walton, G., & Cohen, G. L. (2013). Addressing achievement gaps with psychological interventions. Phi Delta Kappan, 94(5), 62–65. Yehuda, R., Flory, J. D., Southwick, S., & Charney, D. S. (2006). Developing an agenda for translational studies of resilience and vulnerability following trauma exposure. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1071(1), 379–396. Yeung, W. J., Linver, M. R., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2002). How money matters for young children’s development: Parental investment and family processes. Child Development, 73(6), 1861–1879. Zajonc, R.B., & Markus, H. (1984). Affect and cognition: The hard interface. In C. E. Izard, J. Kagan, & R. B. Zajonc (Eds.), Emotions, cognition, and behavior (pp. 63–103). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Zeiser, K. L., Taylor, J., Rickles, J., Garet, M. S., & Segeritz, M. (2014). Evidence of deeper learning outcomes. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research. Zelazo, P. D. (2015). Executive function: Reflection, iterative reprocessing, complexity, and the developing brain. Developmental Review, 38, 55–68. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2015.07.001 Zelazo, P. D., Blair, C. B., and Willoughby, M. T. (2016). Executive function: Implications for education (NCER 2017-2000). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Research, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Zimmerman, B. J. (2008). Investigating self-regulation and motivation: Historical background, methodological developments, and future prospects. American Educational Research Journal, 45(1), 166–183. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831207312909

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—127

Zimmerman, M. A., Salem, D. A., & Maton, K. I. (1995). Family structure and psychosocial correlates among urban African‐American adolescent males. Child development, 66(6), 1598–1613.

Zusho, A., Pintrich, P. R., & Coppola, B. (2003). Skill and will: The role of motivation and cognition in the learning of college chemistry. International Journal of Science Education, 25(9), 1081–1094. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0950069032000052207

American Institutes for Research Science of Learning and Development: A Synthesis—128 Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Running Head: Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Building Conditions for Learning and Healthy Adolescent Development: A

Strategic Approach

David Osher and Kimberly Kendziora

American Institutes for Research

Chapter to appear in B. Doll, W. Pfohl, & J. Yoon (Eds.) Handbook of Youth

Prevention Science. New York: Routledge.

Authors’ Acknowledgements:

The research presented in this chapter was funded by a grant from the Spencer

Foundation. The development and initial implementation of the school survey was funded by the Children First Fund: Chicago Public Schools Foundation and the

American Institutes for Research. We are also grateful for the collaboration and support of our colleagues at the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and

Emotional Learning and the Consortium on Chicago School Research. The work of many of our colleagues at AIR—especially Drs. Marjorie Chinen and Allison

Gandhi—is reflected in this report.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Building Conditions for Learning and Healthy Adolescent Development: A

Strategic Approach

Schools can play a key role in promotion, prevention, and adolescent development. In schools, students confront major developmental challenges, are judged by important natural raters, interact with prosocial and antisocial peers, and acquire (or fail to acquire) important capacities and credentials that may enable them persevere or thrive. From the perspective of risk and protection, schools may function as a protective factor, creating a safe harbor and sense of safety, offering challenges and a sense of mission, fostering positive relationships with adults and prosocial peers, developing competencies and a sense of efficacy, and providing students with access to social capital, mental health supports and youth-development opportunities. Unfortunately, schools—particularly many serving students of color—may also be stressful places that function as a risk factor, as youth adapt their behaviors to relatively inflexible bureaucratic structures and adult-driven demands within a high-stakes environment (e.g.,

Eccles & Midgely, 1989). Instead of safe harbors, schools can be treacherous whirlpools, exposing students to physical and emotional violence, boredom, alienation, and academic frustration, negative relationships with adults and peers, teasing, bullying, gangs, public humiliation and failure, segregation with antisocial peers, harsh punishment, and expulsion from the school community and its resources. In this chapter, we outline the role of schools in student

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

3 development, describe an intervention that has been implemented successfully, describe the intervention’s development, and discuss the implications of the intervention, including research findings that emphasize the importance of improving the social and emotional conditions for learning to prevention initiatives.

Conditions for Learning in Schools

Schools can be “lifelines… opportunities which potentially lead from pathways associated with deviant or destructive outcomes” (Cairns & Cairns,

1994, p.6). For schools to play this role they need to protect and hold on to all their students and to help them develop the academic, social, and emotional competencies that they will need to succeed as adults. Longitudinal analyses from the Woodlawn study of 1,000 African American children found that early school performance and school (as well as family) attachment were related to adolescent substance use, delinquency, and school dropout (Ensminger, Kellam, & Rubin

1983; Ensminger & Slusarcick 1992) and that strong school (as well as family bonds) were protective for African American children who grew up in poverty in

Chicago (Ensminger & Juon, 1998)

Successful schools create and maintain what we refer to as effective conditions for learning. Such conditions typically include high-quality pedagogy, well-trained teachers, adequate resources, and effective leadership. Another equally, if not more important set of conditions is called the social and emotional

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

4 conditions for learning. Students who feel “connected” to school across these social/emotional indicators are more likely to have improved attitudes towards school, learning, and teachers; heightened academic aspirations, motivation, and achievement; and more positive social attitudes, values, and behavior

(Allensworth & Easton, 2007; McNeeley, Nonnemaker, & Blum, 2002; Resnick et al., 1997). Recent research emphasizes the view that learning is optimized only after students’ social, emotional, and physical needs have been successfully met

(CASEL, 2003; Learning First Alliance, 2001; Osher, Dwyer, & Jackson, 2004).

The social and emotional conditions for learning include a number of factors that are essential for ensuring that students feel safe and supported in school. Specifically, four components define the social and emotional conditions for learning: (a) school safety, (b) challenge, (c) student support, and (d) social and emotional learning. Research and practical experience demonstrate that a high level of school safety and student discipline that comes as a result of challenging curriculum and instruction and effective supports reduces administrative burdens and allows teachers to spend more time on the task of raising academic performance (Osher, Dwyer, & Jackson, 2004).

School safety refers to an overall school climate in which students feel physically and emotionally safe. There is little to no violence, fighting, bullying, crime, substance abuse, or gang presence. Overall, there is a climate of mutual respect and trust among all members of the school community, and students feel

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

5 comfortable in taking personal and academic risks. Failure to support academic achievement is related to students’ disengagement from school and increased risk- taking behavior (Blum, Beuhring, & Rinehard, 2000). A safe and supportive learning environment fulfills students’ basic psychological needs for belonging, autonomy, influence, competence, and physical security. As these needs are met, students tend to become increasingly committed to the school community’s norms, rules, and values (Learning First Alliance, 2001).

Research also shows that the physical environment can have a profound effect on the ability of students to learn efficiently (National School Boards

Association, 1996). An analysis in schools of such areas as bathrooms, cafeterias, hallways, and isolated areas can determine if safety “hot spots” exist. With this information, a school improvement team can change the environment to minimize opportunities for inappropriate behavior (Osher, Dwyer, & Jimerson, 2006). In addition, providing teachers and other staff with opportunities to influence decisions on school safety policy (as well as other student connection indicators) can help to create a more cohesive, well functioning professional community

(Smylie, 1994). Finally, students who participate in structured extracurricular activities are less likely to engage in negative and risky behaviors and have better attendance, lower dropout rates, lower rates of drug use, higher academic achievement, and higher aspirations than nonparticipants (Brown & Theobald,

1998; Mahoney, 2000).

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

A second key component to the social and emotional conditions of learning is challenge. Schools may be safe and orderly, but if they fail to build a supportive, engaging community and press for high academic expectations, students learn little (Learning First Alliance, 2001; Lee & Smith, 1999). Teachers should challenge students in terms of the level of effort they put forth, as well as the academic and behavioral standards to which they are expected to achieve.

Ideally, teachers and other school staff provide rigorous academic support to all students, and work to ensure that the curriculum has direct relevance to students’ life goals. In addition, all students should have access to high-level, demanding courses, as well as service learning opportunities, extra-curricular activities, and internships that allow them to explore their postsecondary options. Research has shown that when students feel that teachers and other adults challenge them, they are likely to do better in school (Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak, & Hawkins,

2004). Examinations of the NELS: 88 survey, which collected data from students in high school, established that students were more likely to perform well on tests when they believed that their teachers cared about them and that this relationship was stronger for students who were judged to be at risk for dropping out of high school (Muller, 2001; Ryan & Patrick, 2001). In the classroom, cooperative learning strategies (e.g., group discussions, presentations, projects) have been shown to promote the development of social learning in students, sense of the classroom as a community, and academic achievement (Johnson & Johnson,

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

1989; Slavin, 1990). Finally, students who perceived their teachers as warm, caring and supportive had higher classroom participation rates which in turn positively affected their academic achievement (Voelkl, 1995).

In addition to appropriately challenging students, an overall sense of student support is a critical condition for learning. When coupled with a consistent emphasis on academic performance, a strong sense of support and school community boosts academic achievement (Lee, Smith, Perry, & Smylie,

1999). There is also evidence that these effects may be most pronounced for students who are considered to be at-risk (Shouse, 1996). Establishing effective student supports involves ensuring that children’s basic needs are met and that the significant adults in their lives work collaboratively to encourage, support, and nurture them. Students work with and receive support from teachers who are able to establish a connection with them, personalize their experience, and engage them in the learning process. For example, examinations of national data have shown that positive student beliefs about how much their teachers support their efforts to succeed in school can reduce the probability of their dropping out by half (Croninger & Lee, 2001). A study of 167 sixth-grade students found that student support was associated with increased grade-point-averages, through its effects on interest in class, interest in school, and social responsibility (Wentzel,

1998). Goodenow (1993) found teacher support to be predictive of a students’ expectancy of success, which in turn predicted their class effort and resulting

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

8 grades. Other studies of interventions designed to build relationships between adults and students in school have also shown a positive impact of these programs on school-related attitudes and motives (Battistich, 2001; Sinclair, Christenson &

Thurlow, 2005).

Finally, schools that provide sufficient conditions for learning ensure that students learn and exhibit the social and emotional learning they need to succeed. Social and emotional learning is the process of developing the ability to recognize and manage emotions, develop caring and concern for others, make responsible decisions, establish positive relationships, and handle challenging situations effectively. Related skills that can be developed and reinforced in schools include relationship building, anger management, and responsible decision-making (CASEL, 2003; U.S. Department of Education, 2000). Students with strong social and emotional learning are able to maintain healthy interpersonal relationships with peers and adults, and have access to a multitude of coping strategies to manage stress and difficult situations. Moreover, social and emotional learning is strongly tied to learning and performance at school.

Evidence from social and emotional learning programs suggests that social and emotional learning increase students’ capacity to cope with emotional experiences that interfere with learning, to work effectively with other students in the classroom, to face barriers to academic achievement, and to set and strive towards academic goals. Several studies have found that early evidence of pro-social

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

9 behaviors (e.g., effective problem-solving, effective decision-making, and effective interpersonal relationships) predicts better academic outcomes later on.

For example, one study found that good behavioral conduct during late childhood

(ages 8–12) had a direct positive impact on academic success during late adolescence (ages 17–23) (Masten, et al., 1995). Another recent study found that higher levels of social and emotional learning in 7th grade significantly predicted higher academic achievement in 10th grade (Fleming et al., 2005). This research strongly suggests that social and emotional learning has an enduring impact on outcomes related to school achievement.

Schools can promote social and emotional learning through regular practice and modeling among adults and students in the school, and by placing a high value on conflict resolution, communication, caring, appreciation for diversity, problem solving, and teamwork. Research on social and emotional programming suggests that maximizing students’ opportunities for participation and choice is essential for fostering student decision-making abilities, self- efficacy, self-expression, personal responsibility and accountability (Greenberg et al., 2003; Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg, 2004). School interventions that have focused on creating a caring learning environment and providing students with the skills and supports to manage school transitions have proven effective in increasing attendance, GPA and stability of self-concept, and decreasing drop-out, emotional and behavioral problems (Felner & Adan, 1988; Reyes & Jason, 1991).

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Mentoring programs provide the relational context for promoting social and academic competence, and in research have resulted in improvements in school attendance, parental relations, academic performance and peer emotional support, as well as decreases in conduct problems in youth (Catalano et al., 2004). Diverse instructional and classroom management practices, including cooperative group learning, service learning strategies and positive behavioral supports, can have a significant impact on improving student relations, academic gains, prosocial attitudes and behavior, cognitive problem-solving abilities, empathy, sense of civic responsibility and sense of contributing to the community (Billig, 2000;

Elias, Zins, Graczyk, & Weissberg, 2003; Johnson, Johnson, Maruyama, 1983). In addition, social and emotional learning can significantly improve learning in the classroom when they are integrated into different subject matter (CASEL).

Involving parents and community members in teaching and reinforcing the development of social and emotional learning appears to be a cornerstone of many effective youth development programs (Zins et al., 2004). Specifically, research suggests that when parents are involved in implementing social and emotional interventions, students benefit more and the effects of participation are more lasting and pervasive (Elias et al., 2003).

Building a comprehensive plan for improving student connection across the critical components of safety, challenge, student support, and social and emotional learning takes time and requires input, planning, and commitment from

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

11 students, teachers, administrators, school counselors, psychologists, parents, and relevant community agencies (CASEL, 2003). There are barriers to addressing the social and emotional conditions for learning in schools, including inadequate resources; lack of information about the importance of social emotional development and how to address it; as well as the enormous pressure on staff, principals, superintendents, and school board members to produce short-term gains on high-stakes tests. We believe the maxim that what gets assessed gets addressed, and unless social and emotional conditions for learning are assessed and acted upon, it is unlikely that schools will become a protective factor for all students. A fully functioning process for addressing these factors includes three parts: (a) an efficient assessment process, (b) transformation of data into actionable information, which connects to key school metrics, and (c) tools to respond to that information in a deliberate manner.

The Intervention: Surveying the Social and Emotional Conditions for

Learning for Performance Management and Continuous Improvement

The intervention has six objectives (a) changing discourse within districts, as school and district staff discuss the conditions for learning; (b) orienting the behavior of principals, school staff, and district personnel to addressing the social and emotional conditions for learning in a strategic manner; (c) monitoring how subgroups of students and schools are doing; (d) providing data for continuous improvement; and (e) creating conditions where schools, districts, and states can

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

12 learn about the importance of addressing the social and emotional conditions for learning.

The intervention has three components. The first is a psychometrically robust survey of the social and emotional conditions for learning, which can be incorporated into school, district, or state score cards. This contains four scales and takes 15–25 minutes to complete. Data from the survey populate 4 of the 20 metrics on the Chicago School Report Card (http://www.cps.k12.il.us/). The second component is an 8-page customized report for each school that provides information on how subgroups of students responded as well as explanations of the significance of the responses (see Error! Reference source not found. for images of the cover and a sample page of the report). The third component is an online toolkit (www.cpstoolkit.com) available to support schools that use the survey. The toolkit, which is linked to the individual school reports, is designed to help school teams use the survey information by presenting the school’s survey results, housing a database of evidence-based programs and strategies for addressing student connection issues, providing advice for how to look at data, implement programs, and take the next steps, and providing a forum for offering comments or quotes about personal experiences with a program or strategy. The programs and strategies identified include universal, selective/targeted, and indicated/intensive programs, which have been demonstrated to work with similar groups of students in similar contexts.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Insert Figure 1 about here

Developing the Intervention

An increasing body of research provides the basis for conceptualizing the social and emotional conditions for learning (Osher et al., 2008). In 2003, AIR joined with the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning

(CASEL) and the Learning First Alliance (LFA) to develop a strategy for overcoming the barriers to creating safe and supportive schools. This led to an invitational conference sponsored by the Fetzer Institute in 2004, which brought together nationally recognized experts in youth development, cognitive psychology, and education. The basic premise was that the approach to standards- based reform, which has been effective in focusing educators on advancing academic achievement—establishing standards, measuring progress toward meeting those standards, and supporting a continuous improvement process for making corrections and aligning resources to meet standards—should be expanded to explicitly address personal, social, and organizational facilitators of learning, and that doing so would, in turn, support greater academic and life success for more students.

Our initiative progressed substantially in July 2005 when Chicago Public

Schools (CPS) asked AIR to demonstrate that conditions for learning could be

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

14 assessed and to identify three or four indicators for CPS’ high school scorecards that reflect the conditions for learning in a school, such as school climate or student engagement. The indicators had to be (a) practical to measure, (b) scientifically valid, (c) easy to communicate to diverse audiences, and (d) actionable by school personnel. In August 2005, AIR convened a meeting with many of the same national experts and CPS staff. Again, their paradigms were diverse, and their work focused on a variety of factors (social emotional learning, positive behavioral support, student connection, drug prevention, violence prevention, dropout prevention, engagement, educational intervention, clinical psychology, survey research, and measurement). The group came to a strong, clear consensus on the most important factors that schools should address if they wanted to improve student attendance, achievement, graduation, and post secondary success, as well as actionable indicators of these factors. The indicators identified as most critical were (a) students are safe, (b) students are challenged,

Each of these indicators has extensive research to support its importance for schools and its link to students’ academic success, graduation, and postsecondary success. Together they constitute what has been conceptualized as the social and emotional conditions for learning (Osher et al., 2008).

AIR conducted 22 structured focus groups with students, parents, and teachers to inform the survey with the authentic input of stakeholders. Based on

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

15 expert consensus, stakeholder input, and a review of existing school climate surveys, the AIR team developed the survey. The initial high school survey was pilot tested with 1,700 students in 24 high schools to identify psychometrically strong scales. We administered the survey to students in 115 Chicago high schools and attained a response rate (77%; 74,602 valid surveys) approaching the average daily attendance rate of 84%. For the 2006–07 school year, Chicago asked AIR to include students in grades 6–8 in the survey and to modify some of the items to increase the range of responses on items and to attain greater between-school variance. AIR revised items and tested the new scales in cognitive laboratory interviews with diverse students in grades 6–12. We pilot tested the new version in 21 high schools (n=1,359) and 24 elementary schools (n=1,685), resulting in a stronger survey instrument. The 2007 operational administration, which was combined in the same form with the Consortium on Chicago School

Research’s survey, obtained 60,802 valid surveys from 119 high schools (at a

64% response rate) and 76,187 valid surveys from 484 elementary schools (at an

83% response rate). CPS administered the survey in 2008 on its own. The results of the survey are published annually, and are intended to be used by parents and youth to choose schools. These reports have started to change discourse in the district. For example, they have been used by district staff for planning, and are drawn upon for discussion at regional meetings with principals and at district training events.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Research on the Survey

While the survey can be viewed as an intervention, it also provides data that can be used to understand more about the social and emotional conditions for learning. With support from the Spencer Foundation and collaboration from CPS and the Consortium on Chicago School Research, AIR studied the conditions for learning in Chicago middle and high schools analyzing data from the 136,989 students who completed the 2007 survey to understand which student and school characteristics are associated with conditions for learning, including achievement.

Analytic strategy

We combined data from different sources and years: at the student level the 2007 survey data were combined with district data on each student’s race, gender, English language learner (ELL) status, grade level, cumulative GPA, and achievement scores. Additionally, we obtained a constructed “on track” variable that the Consortium developed and CPS uses to predict timely graduation (the variable indicates whether a student has earned at least five full-year course credits and no more than one semester F in a core course in their first year of high school).

At the school level, data were merged from different sources. First, some of the 2007 student level variables were aggregated to the school level, such as achievement test results, to obtain indicators of the context of schoolwide

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

17 achievement. Second, some data were retrieved from the CPS website,1 such as high school dropout and graduation rates, enrollment data, suspension, and average class size. Third, 2005 data from Common Core of Data were used to obtain some descriptive characteristics of the schools such as school type. Finally, some neighborhood data were also obtained from the Consortium on Chicago

School Research at the University of Chicago. These variables include various measures of crime from the school or students census block (which summarizes information from November 2005 to October 2007), and poverty indicators from the census.

Characteristics of the Conditions for Learning Survey Participants

Insert Table 1 about here

presents demographic characteristics for the CPS students overall, compared to those who completed the survey. Because not every eligible student participated, it is important to understand the ways in which the surveyed sample is different from the district overall. Results indicate that the two groups are very similar on some, but not all, demographic characteristics. Both groups have similar percentage of females, Whites, Asian and Hispanics, students who are classified as having limited English proficiency (LEP), and students in the Free or

Reduced Price Lunch Program. In the surveyed sample, however, African

1 http://research.cps.k12.il.us/cps/accountweb/Reports/download.html

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Americans are slightly underrepresented (47%) compared to the whole population

(52%). Also there is a minor tendency for students in the middle grades2 to be slightly over-represented and for high school students to be somewhat underrepresented. In addition, the proportion of grade 9 students “on track” is overrepresented in the surveyed sample. While in Chicago this percentage is around 53%, in the surveyed sample it is 66%. This result might be expected in a survey which depended upon students being in school. Still, it is important to consider that the surveyed sample—at least for grade 9—is more representative of

“better” or “on track” academic achievement students.

Insert Table 1 about here

Correlations among the Conditions for Learning Survey Constructs

What is the relationship between the four conditions for learning? Table 2 presents the correlations among the Conditions for Learning survey for middle grade students; Table 3 presents results for high school students.

Insert Tables 2 and 3 about here

2 In this report, we refer to “middle grade” students rather than “middle school” students because approximately 80% of the students in grades 6, 7, and 8 who completed the survey were in fact enrolled in K–8 elementary schools.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

As expected, all the scales were positively correlated with each other. In the middle grades, the correlations between School Safety and Challenge and

Safety and Student Support were small, which suggests that these are separate constructs. The correlation between School Safety and Social Emotional Learning was moderate, suggesting that students who felt safer at school tended to rate the social emotional learning of their peers more highly. This makes sense because some of the items on the Safety Scale assess “emotional safety”—the extent to which students are picked on or bullied. Challenge is highly correlated with

Student Support (r=.62), which is logical because both scales ask students to rate teacher or school factors such as whether teachers “Think all students can do challenging school work” and whether they “Often connect what I am learning to life outside the classroom.” Challenge was less correlated with Social Emotional

Learning (r = .20) which focuses on the behavior of other students. Finally,

Student Support had a small correlation with Social Emotional Learning (r = .34).

The same pattern of results was observed among high school students, although on average the magnitude of the correlations was slightly higher.

Conditions for Learning in Middle Grades vs. High School

Are there differences in how middle grade and high school grade students experience the conditions for learning? The following figures present the mean values on the scales by different student demographic characteristics. It is important to remember when examining these figures that the ranges of the

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

20 constructs were to some extent different. Therefore, comparisons are more meaningful when done within the same construct.

Insert Figure 2 about here

The results show that middle grade students tended to provide higher scores on all the Conditions for Learning scales than high school students. All differences were statistically significant. It may be that older students’ perceptions of their surroundings were more critical than those of their younger peers; on the other hand, it may be that the actual conditions for learning were worse in high schools.

Perhaps high schools in Chicago were less safe, teachers were less challenging, students received less support, and they were less likely to have socially and emotionally skilled peers compared to middle grade students. Additional data would need to be collected to explain these effects. Nonetheless, the finding of lower ratings for variables, such as school climate, that are similar to conditions for learning is consistent with a broader body of research and experience that shows that both students and staff report progressively less satisfaction as they advance higher in grade levels (Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Spier, Cai, Kendziora, &

Osher, 2007).

Correlations between Achievement and Conditions for Learning

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

What are the relationships between the conditions for leaning and academic achievement? In the following figures, we present the correlation coefficients between Prairie State Achievement Examination (PSAE) scores and conditions for learning. The PSAE measures the achievement of grade 11 students relative to the Illinois Learning Standards for Reading, Mathematics, and Science.

Each correlation value is illustrated using a bar, where the size of the bar represents the linear strength between the two variables and the vertical axis shows the range of the correlation. Therefore, the taller the bar, the larger the correlation. The school Safety scale showed the highest correlations with the subscales from the PSAE test. All the correlations were statistically significant and suggest the importance of school safety and academic achievement.

Insert Figure 3 about here

Although not presented here, results of achievement tests administered to students in grades eight, nine, and ten showed a similar pattern of results, with safety having the highest correlation with achievement.

Exploring Correlations between GPA and Conditions for Learning

Cumulative GPA data from the spring semester of 2007 were obtained to cross with the Conditions for Learning survey responses. In contrast to the pattern of correlations observed between achievement scores and the conditions for

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

22 learning scales, the students’ GPAs were highly correlated with the Challenge construct. These correlations were above .23 for the four grade levels, whereas the correlations between the School Safety and GPA across the different grades were approximately .18.

Insert Figure 4 about here

It may be the case that GPA was more strongly related to Challenge than achievement test scores because Challenge taps the proximal teacher behaviors that are hypothesized to be associated with greater academic success (e.g., “my teachers often assign homework that helps me learn,” “In my classes, we often discuss different interpretations of things we read”). Because grades were a more proximal indicator of teacher ratings of this success than achievement test scores, the higher correlation with GPA may indicate that a student is meeting a teacher’s expectations, whether or not these are aligned with the standards assessed on the achievement tests.

Conditions for Learning by On Track Index (9th Grade)

What are the relationships between the conditions for learning and students being on tract to graduate? The Chicago on Track to Graduate index is computed for 9th grade students to identify students who are at risk of not graduating on time. The index was developed by the Consortium on Chicago

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

School Research, and is thought to be a better indicator of graduation than achievement test scores or student demographic characteristics. Students are “on track to graduate” if they have earned at least five full-year course credits in their freshman year, and received no more than one semester F in a core course. Error!

Reference source not found. shows that “on track” students tended to score higher than “off track” students on the School Safety, Challenge, and Student

Support. No differences are observed between the two groups in the Social

Emotional Learning scale.

Insert Figure 5 about here

Conditions for Learning and School Enrollment

Does school size appear to affect the conditions for learning? Enrollment size ranged from 41 to 2,005 students in schools with middle grades and from 67 to 4,248 students in high schools. The distributions of enrollment in both levels were highly positively skewed; schools with more than 2,000 students were not very common. Because of the skewness, simple Pearson correlations are not very meaningful. To approximate the relation between enrollment size and the responses on the Conditions for Learning survey, the enrollment distribution was divided into quintile categories: the lowest 20%, between 20% and 40%; between

40% and 60%; between 60% and 80% and above 80%.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Especially in high school, there seemed to be a tendency for Conditions for Learning to be negatively associated with enrollment. These negative relations were more evident for the Challenge, Student Support Scales, and Social

Emotional Learning scores. The correlations between the Conditions for Learning constructs and the logarithm of enrollment are shown in the following table.

Insert Table 4 about here

Particularly for students in high school, larger enrollment is associated with worse conditions for learning, especially student ratings of support from teachers. These specific data, which are consistent with data that we analyzed for another city

(Lampron, Brown, Osher, Poirier, 2008), suggest that smaller high schools are perceived by students as being safer, more challenging, much more supportive, and having a more socially and emotionally skilled peer group.

Specific Correlations for Conditions for Learning Scales

What are the relationships between student perceptions and other data that can be collected at schools? To examine the utility of Conditions for Learning for performance management, we investigated the extent to which student perceptions of the conditions for learning in their school related to objective data available to principals for decision-making. Answering this question involved

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

25 testing the distributions of variables (and transforming where necessary) and calculating bivariate correlations. Results for each of the scales follow.

School Safety, School Disruption, and Neighborhood Crime. Students’ ratings of perceived Safety in their schools should be associated with objective measures of school disruption. Results for correlations with school suspensions and number of suspended students are presented below. Both suspension variables needed to be logarithmically transformed. The high school variable was still somewhat skewed, which likely attenuated the very high correlations presented below.

Insert Table 5 about here

The numbers of school suspensions and suspended students were almost perfectly correlated; both were very strongly associated with School Safety as assessed on the Conditions for Learning survey.

Additionally, we examined the relationship between School Safety and neighborhood crime, testing the logic that schools in neighborhoods with more crime would feel less safe to students. Crime in students’ home census blocks was more strongly related to school safety than crime in the school’s own census

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

26 block (“imported disorder”), supporting the finding by Clark and Lab (2000) that the school’s neighborhood characteristics do not strongly influence in-school crime. However, Welsh, Stokes, and Greene (2000) have reported findings that the school’s surrounding neighborhood is more influential for in-school victimization than students’ home neighborhoods.

Recent analyses conducted by the lead author using data from Cleveland may help illuminate some of the relationships among student and school environments, the conditions for learning, and school academic achievement.

Along with colleagues from Kent State University’s Institute for the Study and

Prevention of Violence, we linked conditions for learning with data on neighborhood disadvantage and school performance We found that neighborhood disadvantage predicted the School Performance Index (PI) score for elementary and high schools and that school safety explained the neighborhood disadvantage effect: more disadvantaged neighborhoods had less-safe schools, accounting for significant variation in lower academic performance scores. Further, when we controlled for neighborhood disadvantage, attendance and discipline events, we found that student perception of school safety alone predicted the PI score for both K–8 schools and high schools (Osher et al. 2008).

Insert Table 6 about here

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Challenge and Dropout. To examine the strength of the relationship between perceptions of high expectations and school variables, we sought to correlate Conditions for Learning scores for Challenge with dropout. Dropout data were available for high school students. Our hypothesis was that the schools that were perceived as the most challenging and engaging would have the lowest levels of dropout. This is in fact what we found. We log-transformed the dropout variable to improve its distribution, and found that dropout correlated significantly with Challenge, but correlations between dropout and other

Conditions for Learning scores (Safety and Social Emotional Learning) were also significant. Results are presented in the table below.

Insert Table 7 about here

Student Support and Class Size. In the previous section on school characteristics, we explored the relationship between Conditions for Learning constructs and school enrollment. We found that Student Support was significantly related to the log-transformation of student enrollment in both middle grades and in high schools (-0.15 for middle grades and -0.59 for high school). This indicates that smaller enrollment is strongly associated with higher perceptions of support, especially in high school.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

The Student Support construct did not covary with many other educational variables, but it related strongly to proxy measures of personalization (as it should). We had data on average class size for high schools; the only Conditions for Learning construct with which it was significantly associated was Student

Support.

Insert Table 8 about here

Peer Social Emotional Learning and Graduation. For the 2007 Conditions for Learning survey, students rated their peers’ levels of social emotional learning. We hypothesized that students’ collective social emotional learning should be associated with measures of persistence in school, which could be indexed by the graduation rate. Graduation rates for high schools ranged from 21 to 100. Correlations are presented in the table below.

Insert Table 9 about here

As expected, the correlation between social emotional learning and graduation was significant. However, it was not quite as high as the correlation between safety and graduation.

Overall, the constructs that compose the Conditions for Learning survey have demonstrated evidence of validity. They are associated with variables that

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

29 they should be associated with, and are not associated with variables that they should not be.

The Implications of this Work

The challenge for schools and communities is to create environments where students are supported in developing the skills and capacities to thrive. This involves interventions in three domains: health; social/emotional/behavioral; and cognitive/academic (Kendziora, Osher, & Schmitt-Carey, 2007). Schools play a key role in this process. For example, a meta-analysis of more than 200 universal school-based studies showed significant improvements in students’ social- emotional learning; attitudes towards self, school, and others; social behaviors; conduct problems; emotional distress; and academic performance. Notably, SEL programming yielded an average gain on achievement test scores of 11 to

17 percentile points (Payton et al., 2008).

Schools can develop the social emotional and cognitive capacities that enable students not just to survive but to thrive. Doing this successfully involves leveraging and disseminating information about the connections between learning and academic performance. For example, in Alaska, where AIR developed a survey to assess the impact of a youth development initiative across 18 school districts, we found that not only were several aspects of school climate and connectedness related to student achievement, but positive change in school climate and connectedness was related to significant gains in student scores on

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

30 statewide achievement tests. Our findings showed that whether a school started with high or low school climate and connectedness, or high or low achievement scores, changing that school’s climate and connectedness for the better was associated with increases in student performance in reading, writing, and mathematics (Spier et al., 2007). Similarly work we have done in previously troubled schools in the South Bronx suggested that mental health supports, when coupled with family engagement and organizational efficacy, were effective in creating conditions for learning in these schools (Kendziora et al., 2008).

The Chicago work does not stand alone. Work on the measurement of conditions for learning, by AIR and others, has extended to additional sites:

• The survey and school report are likely to be piloted in a large state to help

monitor its progress toward educational equity;

• Two of the four survey scales will be used this year in San Diego to help

monitor its Gates-funded small high schools. (It already collected survey

information on challenge and support);

• A number of large cities are currently exploring use of the AIR survey;

• New York City has used a similar student survey to monitor how students

(among other stakeholders) are experiencing schools, and will use these

surveys as part of their principal accountability process;

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

• Individuals connected with school mental health have identified the report

card strategy as a vehicle for promoting school mental health (Hunter et

al., 2005);

• The state of Illinois and the city of Anchorage, Alaska have developed

social emotional learning standards, and New York State legislation calls

for its Departments of Education and Mental Health create voluntary

social emotional learning standards;

• Say Yes to Education, an organization focused on dramatically increasing

high school and college graduation rates for our nation’s inner-city youth

has targeted social emotional and behavioral factors and health, along with

cognitive and financial factors as key to realizing it s goals;

• The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development has

initiated a major campaign that focuses on addressing the whole child,

which focuses on health, physical and emotional safety, caring adults,

engagement, and challenge; and

• United Voices for Education, an organization of over 42 educational

stakeholder organizations, has called for school report cards that focus on

the conditions for learning.

In spite of the examples of progress in this area noted above, barriers remain. The first is to demonstrate the importance of social-emotional factors in education.

Although more research is accumulating, it will be important to demonstrate

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

32 dramatically the impact of the social emotional conditions for learning and of addressing these conditions effectively. The second is financial; doing good surveys and providing support for responding to these surveys is not inexpensive.

Paradoxically, as long as social emotional factors are marginalized, it will be hard to generate the resources for such surveys. The third barrier is making sure that interventions enter the classroom, affect the learning process, and reach the individual child. This is a struggle in all systems change, including education.

Steps are being taken in this direction. For example, Say Yes to Education has developed, and is piloting in five Harlem Elementary Schools, a monitoring process, linked to individual growth plans, that look at whether students are off track, on track, or on track to thrive in the domains of health, social-emotional, and cognitive/academic development.

Although these barriers exist, the middle school and high school “crises” and the continuing inability to transform educational outcomes for disadvantaged students create a window of opportunity for scaling up an intervention that can contribute significantly to improving attendance, learning, performance, graduation rates, and post-secondary outcomes in multiple cities and states.

In conclusion, there are three major recommendations or action steps that should be taken to create emotionally safe and supportive school that promote students’ positive social, emotional, and academic learning: (a) help districts and states develop the capacity to assess and monitor the social and emotional

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

33 conditions for learning; (b) ensure that stakeholders understand the importance of the social and emotional conditions for learning; and (c) and provide schools and communities with effective tools and strategies to improve the social and emotional conditions for learning.

References

Allensworth, E. M., & Easton, J. Q. (2007). What matters for staying on-track and

graduating in Chicago Public High Schools: A close look at course grades,

failures, and attendance in the freshman year. Chicago, IL: University of

Chicago, Consortium on Chicago School Research.

Battistich, V. (2001, April). Effects of an elementary school intervention on

students’ “connectedness” to school and social adjustment during middle

school. In J. Brown (Chair), Resilience education: Theoretical, interactive,

and empirical applications. Symposium conducted at the annual meeting

of the American Educational Research Association, Seattle, WA.

Billig, S. (2000). The effects of service learning. School Administrator, 57, 14–18.

Blum, A. L., Beuhring, T., and Rinehard, P. M. (2000). Protecting teens: Beyond

race, income and family structure. Minneapolis, MN: Center for

Adolescent Health, University of Minnesota.

Brown, B. B., & Theobald, W. (1998). Learning contexts beyond the classroom:

Extra curricular activities, community organizations, and peer groups. In

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

K. Borman & B. Schneider (Eds.), The adolescent years: Social influences

and educational challenges: Ninety-seventh yearbook of the National

society for the Study of Education (Part 1) (pp. 109–141). Chicago, IL:

University of Chicago Press.

Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (2003).

Safe and sound: An educational leader’s guide to evidence-based social

and emotional learning programs. Chicago: Author.

Cairns, R. B. & Cairns, B. D. (1994). Lifelines and Risks: Pathways of Youth in

our Time. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Catalano, R. F., Berglund, M. L, Ryan, J. A. M., Lonczak, H. S. & Hawkins, J. D.

(2004). Positive youth development in the United States: Research

findings on evaluations of positive youth development programs. The

ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591,

98–124.

Clark, R. D., & Lab, S. P. (2000). Community characteristics and in-school

criminal victimization. Journal of Criminal Justice, 28, 33–42.

Croninger, R. & Lee, V. E. (2001). Social capital and dropping out of high school:

Benefits to at-risk students of teacher’s support and guidance. Teachers

College Record, 103, 548–581.

Eccles, J. S., & Midgley, C. (1989). Stage/environment fit: Developmentally

appropriate classrooms for early adolescents. In R. E. Ames & C. Ames

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

(Eds.), Research on Motivation in Education, 3,139–186). New York:

Academic.

Elias, M. J., Zins, J. E., Graczyk, P. A., & Weissberg, R. P. (2003).

Implementation, sustainability, and scaling up of social-emotional and

academic innovations in public schools. School Psychology Review 32,

303–319.

Ensminger, M. E., & Juon, H. S. (1998). Transition to adulthood among high risk

youth. In R. Jessor (Ed.), New perspectives on adolescent risk behavior (pp.

365–391). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Ensminger, M. E., Kellam, S. G., & Rubin, B. R. (1983). School and family

origins of delinquency: Comparisons by sex. In K. T. Van Dusen & S. A.

Mednick (Eds.), Prospective studies of crime and delinquency (pp. 73–97).

Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff.

Ensminger, M. E., & Slusarcick, A. L. (1992). Paths to high school graduation or

dropout: A longitudinal study of a first-grade cohort. Sociology of Education,

65, 95–113.

Felner, R. D., & Adan, A.M. (1988). The school transitional project: An

ecological intervention and evaluation. In R.H. Price, E.L. Cowen, R.P.

Lorion, & J. Ramos-McKay (Eds.), 14 ounces of prevention: A casebook

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

for practitioners (pp. 111–122). Washington, DC: American

Psychological Association.

Fleming, C. B., Haggerty, K. P., Catalano, R. F., Harachi, T. W., Mazza, J. J., &

Gruman, D. H. (2005). Do social and behavioral characteristics targeted

by preventive interventions predict standardized test scores and grades?

Journal of School Health, 75, 342–349.

Goodenow, C. (1993). Classroom belonging among early adolescent students:

Relationships to motivation and achievement. Journal of Early

Adolescence, 13(1), 21–43.

Greenberg, M. T., Weissberg, R. P., O’Brien, M. U., Zins, J. E., Fredericks, L.,

Resnik, H., & Elias, M. J. (2003). Enhancing school-based prevention and

youth development through coordinated social, emotional, and academic

learning. American Psychologist, 58, 466–474.

Hunter, L., Hoagwood, K., Evans, S., Weist, M., Smith, C., Paternite, C., Horner,

R., Osher, D., Jensen, P., & the School Mental Health Alliance (2005).

Working together to promote academic performance, social and emotional

learning, and mental health for all children. New York: Center for the

Advancement of Children’s Mental Health at Columbia University

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1989). Cooperation and competition: Theory

and research. Edina, MN: Interaction Book Company.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T., & Maruyama, G. (1983). Interdependence and

interpersonal attraction among heterogeneous and homogeneous

individuals: A theoretical formulation and a meta-analysis of the research.

Review of Educational Research, 53, 5–54.

Kendziora, Jones, W., Brown, D., Osher, D., Rudolph, M., King, K., Trivedi, S.,

& Cantor, P. (2008, October). Safe Schools, Successful Students Initiative:

Final report to the United Way. [Unpublished report.] New York: United

Way of New York City.

Kendziora, K. Osher, D., & Schmitt-Carey, M. A. (2007). Say Yes to Education

Student Monitoring System: Research report. [Unpublished document.]

New York: Say Yes to Education Foundation.

Lampron, S., Brown, L., Osher, D., & Poirier, J. (2008). High School Size and

High School Mean Scores on the Conditions for Learning. Unpublished

Research Memorandum. Washington, DC: American Institutes for

Research.

Learning First Alliance (2001). Every child learning: Safe and supportive schools.

Washington, DC: Association for Supervision and Curriculum

Development.

Lee, V. E., & Smith, J. B. (1999). Social support and achievement for young

adolescents in Chicago: The role of school academic press. American

Educational Research Journal, 36(4): 907–945.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Lee, V. E., Smith, J. B., Perry, T. E., & Smylie, M. A. (1999). Social support,

academic press and student achievement: A view from the middle grades

in Chicago. Chicago: Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

Mahoney, J. L. (2000). School extracurricular activity participation as a

moderator in the development of antisocial patterns. Child Development,

71, 502–516.

Masten, A., Coatsworth, J., Neemann, J., Gest, S., Tellegen, A., & Garmezy, N.

(1995). The structure and coherence of competence from childhood

through adolescence. Child Development, 754–763.

McNeeley, C. A., Nonnemaker, J. M., & Blum, R. W. (2002). Promoting school

connectedness: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Study of

Adolescent Health. Journal of School Health, 72, 138–146.

Muller, C. (2001). The role of caring in the teacher-student relationship for at-risk

students. Sociological Inquiry, 71, 241–255.

National School Boards Association (1996). Learning by design: A school

leader’s guide to architectural services. Alexandria, VA: National School

Boards Association.

Osher, D. (2008). Cleveland Metropolitan School District Human Ware Audit:

Findings and recommendations. Washington, DC: American Institutes for

Research.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Osher, D., Dwyer, K., & Jackson, S. (2004). Safe, Supportive, and Successful

Schools Step by Step Longmont, CO: Sopris West.

Osher, D., Dwyer, K., & Jimerson, S. (2006). Foundations of school violence and

safety. In S. Jimerson and M. Furlong (Eds.) Handbook of School Violence

and School Safety: From Research to Practice (pp.51–71). Mahwah, NJ:

Lawrence Erlbaum.

Osher, D., Sprague, J., Weissberg, R. P., Axelrod, J., Keenan, S., Kendziora, K.,

& Zins, J. E. (2008). A comprehensive approach to promoting social,

emotional, and academic growth in contemporary schools. In A. Thomas

& J. Grimes (Eds.) Best practices in school psychology V, Vol. 4 (pp.

1263–1278). Bethesda, MD: National Association of School

Psychologists.

Payton, J., Weissberg, R. P., Durlak, J. A., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D.,

Schellinger, K. B., & Pachan, M. (2008, December). The positive impact

of social and emotional learning for kindergarten to eighth-grade

students: Findings from three scientific reviews: Technical Report.

Chicago, IL: Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.

Resnick, M. D., Bearman, P. S., Blum, R. W., Bauman, K. E., Harris, K. M.,

Jones, J., Tabor, J., Beuhring, T., Sieving, R. E., Shew, M., Ireland, M.,

Bearinger, L. H., & Udry, J. R. (1997). Protecting adolescents from harm:

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Findings from the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health.

Journal of the American Medical Association, 278, 823–832.

Reyes, O. & Jason, L. A. (1991). An evaluation of a high school dropout

prevention program. Journal of Community Psychology, 19, 221–230.

Ryan, A. M., & Patrick, H. (2001). The classroom social environment and

changes in adolescents’ motivation and engagement during middle school.

American Educational Research Journal, 38, 437–460.

Shouse, R. C. (1996). Academic press and sense of community: Conflict,

congruence, and implications for student achievement. Social Psychology

of Education, 1, 47–68.

Sinclair, M. F., Christenson, S. L., & Thurlow, M. L. (2005). Promoting school

completion of urban secondary youth with emotional or behavioral

disabilities. Exceptional Children, 71, 465–482.

Slavin, R. E. (1990). Cooperative learning: Theory, research, and practice.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Smylie, M.A. (1994). Redesigning teachers’ work: Connections to the classroom.

In L. Darling-Hammond (Ed.), Review of research in education (Vol. 20,

pp. 129–177). Washington, DC: American Educational Research

Association.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Spier, E., Cai, C., Kendziora, K., & Osher, D. (2007). School climate,

connectedness, and student achievement. [Unpublished report.] Juneau,

AK: Association of Alaska School Boards.

U.S. Department of Education (2000). Safeguarding our children: An action

guide. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

Voelkl, K. A. (1995). School warmth, student participation, and achievement.

Journal of Experiential Education, 63, 127–138.

Wayne N., Welsh, W. N., Stokes, R., & Greene, J. R. (2000). A macro-level

model of school disorder. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency,

37, 3, 243–283.

Wentzel, K. R. (1998). Social relationships and motivation in middle school: The

role of parents, teachers, and peers. Journal of Educational Psychology,

90, 202–209.

Zins, J. E., Weissberg, R. P., Wang, M. C., & Walberg, H. J. (2004). Building

academic success on social and emotional learning: What does the

research say? New York: Teachers College Press.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Table 1. Number and Percentage of Students in the Chicago School District and in the Surveyed Sample by Student Demographics All Middle Grade & Surveyed Students High School Students

N % N % Male 100,508 50% 63,174 48% Female 101,611 50% 68,558 52% Gender White 17,946 9% 13,033 10%

African American 104,190 52% 62,007 47% Native American 308 0.2% 210 0.2% Asian/Pacific 7,186 4% 5,563 4% Ethnicity Hispanic 72,482 36% 50,919 39% Grade 6 32,371 15% 25,088 19%

Grade 7 32,424 15% 25,074 19% Grade 8 30,991 15% 22,883 17% Grade 9 38,639 18% 20,301 15% Grade 10 30,073 14% 16,074 12% Grade level Grade Grade 11 24,166 12% 12,633 10% Grade 12 20,675 10% 9,679 7% Not LEP 192,916 95% 126,514 96%

LEP LEP LEP 9,203 5% 5,218 4% status

No Disability 166,880 83% 112,721 86%

Ed With Disability 35,239 17% 19,011 14% Special Special Not in Lunch 33,837 17% 20,326 15% In Lunch 168,282 83% 111,406 85% status Lunch

Off track to 14,223 47% 6,432 34% graduate On track to 16,169 53% 12,238 66% status*

On track On track graduate Total 202,339 131,732 *Note: On track information is available only for grade 9 students. Source: 2007 Chicago Public School district data

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Table 2. Middle Grades: Correlations among Conditions for Learning Constructs

Middle level 1 2 3 4 1 School Safety 1 2 Challenge 0.17 1 3 Student Support 0.25 0.62 1 Social & Emotional 4 0.48 0.20 0.34 1 Learning Note: All the correlations are statistically significant.

Table 3. High School: Correlations among Conditions for Learning Constructs

High school 1 2 3 4 1 School Safety 1 2 Challenge 0.25 1 3 Student Support 0.26 0.65 1 Social & Emotional 4 0.52 0.25 0.32 1 Learning Note: All the correlations are statistically significant.

Table 4. School Level Correlations between Conditions for Learning Constructs and the Logarithm of Enrollment

Middle School High School

log(enrollment) log(enrollment) School Safety 0.01 -0.21 Challenge -0.07 -0.35 Student Support -0.15 -0.59 Social & Emotional Learning 0.02 -0.37 Note: Values in bold are statistically significant.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Table 5. Correlations between School Safety, School Suspensions, and the

Number of Suspended Students

Middle Level 1 2 3 1 School Safety 1 2 ln school suspensions -0.43 1 3 ln N suspended students -0.43 0.99 1 High School 1 2 3 1 School Safety 1 2 ln school suspensions -0.65 1 3 ln N suspended students -0.62 0.99 1 Note: All correlations are statistically significant.

Table 6. Correlations between School Safety and Neighborhood Crime

Middle Grades 1 2 3 4 1 School Safety 1 logarithm of crime count in 2 -0.47 school's census block ln of per capita crime in 3 -0.61 0.65 1 school's own census block Average ln of per capita 4 crime from students' home -0.70 0.58 0.78 1 census blocks High School 1 2 3 4 1 School Safety 1 logarithm of crime count in 2 -0.26 1 school's census block ln of per capita crime in 3 -0.39 0.56 1 school's own census block Average ln of per capita 4 crime from students' home -0.45 0.46 0.70 1 census blocks

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Note: All correlations are statistically significant.

Table 7. Correlations between Challenge (and other Conditions for Learning

Constructs) and Dropout

High School ln dropout percent School Safety -0.31 Challenge -0.33 Student Support -0.13 Social & Emotional Learning -0.32 Note: Values in bold are statistically significant. Note: Dropout percent data are from 2006.

Table 8. School Level Correlation between Conditions for Learning Constructs and the Average Class Size in High School

Average Class Size

HS School Safety 0.15 Challenge 0.01 Student Support -0.24 Social & Emotional 0.13 Learning Note: Values in bold are statistically significant.

Conditions for Learning and Adolescent Development

Table 9. Correlations between Graduation Rates and Conditions for Learning

Constructs

High School Graduation Rate School Safety 0.41 Challenge 0.25 Student Support -0.03 Social & Emotional Learning 0.36 Correlations obtained for graduation rates higher than 40 Note: Graduation percent from 2006 dataset. Note: Values in bold are statistically significant.

List of Figure Captions (see attached jpg files)

Figure 1. “Student Connection Survey” (aka Conditions for Learning Survey)

Score Report to Schools

Figure 2. Mean Conditions for Learning Scores for Middle Grades and High

School

Figure 3. Correlation between PSAE subscales and Conditions for Learning

Scales (Grade 11)

Figure 4. Correlation between Conditions for Learning and GPA Scores (High

School)

Figure 5. Conditions for Learning Scores by On Track Status (Grade 9 Students)

The Sciences of Learning and Development: Some Thoughts from the Learning Sciences

James W. Pellegrino

Learning Sciences Research Institute

University of Illinois at Chicago

The combined papers by Cantor, Osher, Berg, Steyer and Rose (in press) and Osher, Cantor,

Berg, Steyer and Rose (in press) represent an extraordinary synthesis of research and theory from multiple disciplines concerned with understanding and promoting human development and learning. As such, they constitute an important compilation of key ideas from the sciences of learning and development along with implications for understanding and promoting the healthy development of all individuals, especially those most at risk, and achieving equity. As stated in

Cantor et al. (in press), “This scientific understanding of development opens pathways for new, creative approaches that have the potential to solve seemingly intractable learning and social problems.” I am in complete concurrence with this proposition given their exposition of what we now know and understand about the complexity and integrated nature of human development.

One of the key ideas that runs throughout this synthesis is an epigenetic view of development

“as an ongoing, constructive enterprise between the individual and multiple biological, psychological, and sociocultural systems and agents over time.” Situating the understanding of development within a developmental systems theory framework allows us to consider various aspects of development, at multiple levels, and their interaction and integration. The Cantor et al.

(in press) synthesis plays out this theme across multiple topic areas, one of which is labeled The

Science of Learning. As a learning scientist, it is here that I want to focus my remarks, hopefully adding to the important points highlighted by Cantor et al. (in press) in that major section of their paper. My goal is to extend and amplify aspects of their discussion about what we know about 2 the nature of learning and its many implications for how we educate students across the span from early childhood through advanced levels of formal education.

One of the most important “contexts” for development, where complex interactions between individuals unfold on timescales that range from minutes to days to months to years, is the process of formal education and the societal creation we call school. Much of what can be both a positive and negative driver of development occurs in this context where individuals interact with multiple reference groups including peers, older and younger youth, and adults fulfilling various roles. In the brief sections that follow my goal is to consider some of what we know about learning and instruction. There are three topics of discussion, the first of which focuses on the evolution of theories of learning as they relate to theories of development and the connection between the two. The second topic is a consideration of current targets of learning and development, including so-called 21st century competencies and deep disciplinary learning. The third topic is concerned with principles for the design of powerful and equitable environments for learning and development.

Evolution of Theories of Learning

Cantor et al. (in press) discuss the evolution of theories of development and it should come as no surprise that coincident to the evolution of developmental theory there has been a corresponding evolution of theory and research on the nature of learning. This includes general theories regarding the nature of human learning and development as well as particularized, discipline-specific models of learning in practice (see e.g., Bransford, Brown, Cocking, Donovan

& Pellegrino, 2000; Pellegrino, Chudowsky, & Glaser, 2001). Various reference sources have identified “grand theories” which include the behaviorist, cognitive, and sociocultural framing of learning. Each of these grand theories makes quite different assumptions about the nature of 3 knowledge, about the means for coming to know, and about the nature and role of interest, engagement, and motivation in learning. As a consequence, these theories also offer quite different conceptualizations of curriculum, effective instructional practices, and related forms of assessment, as well as how these are coordinated in the design of powerful and equitable learning environments.

The behaviorist perspective holds that learning occurs through the accumulation of stimulus- response associations, which can be reinforced by the administration of external rewards and punishments. Much has been written about the influence of behaviorism on the history of curriculum, instruction and assessment, the main concerns being its tendency to decontextualize and decompose content learning into tiny bits, its reliance on extrinsic motivation, and its inattention to thinking and reasoning processes. Cognitive theories, in fact, provided an answer to behaviorism by focusing on learning as a process of sense-making, that is, how individuals develop knowledge structures, construct mental representations, and in turn access these resources to answer questions, solve problems and develop new understandings. A limitation of cognitive theories is that they focus only on what goes on inside the head of the individual learner. Like behaviorist theories, cognitive theories treat social interactions as contexts for learning, and not as helping to constitute what individuals are able to know, do, and become.

They also ignore the wider historical and cultural contexts in which these interactions take place and that shape what kinds of knowledge are judged worthy of knowing or assessing.

The sociocultural perspective emerged in response to the perception that research and theory within the cognitive perspective was too narrowly focused on individual thinking and learning.

In the sociocultural perspective, learning takes place as individuals participate in the practices of a community, using the tools, language and other cultural artefacts of the community. From this 4 perspective, learning is “situated” within, and emerges from, the practices in different settings and communities. A community may be large or small and may be located inside or outside of a traditional school context. It might range, for example, from colleagues in a company’s

Information Technology department to a single elementary school classroom or a global society of plant biologists.

It has been argued that sociocultural theories are the more compelling general theories needed to understand and design coherent curriculum, instruction, assessment, and teacher professional development. This is not to say that all aspects of prior theories are to be discarded.

Reinforcement theory from behaviorism, for example, still works for some behavioral change efforts, and the concept of cognitive structures can still be used to think about how individuals make sense of new information. But, these theories are insufficient by themselves to explain how human beings become more adept at thinking and doing. For this reason, more up-to-date and authoritative summaries of research in the learning sciences recognize the extent to which cultural practices and intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions of learning are completely entwined with cognitive development (see e.g., Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012). Thus, social models of learning are to be preferred because they provide a more complete account of how meanings, purpose, values, and motivation are jointly developed as part of deeper learning.

Sociocultural learning theory: The significance of participation and identity

All learning is fundamentally social, involving the individual’s use of shared language, tools, norms and practices in interaction with his or her social context. It’s not that behaviorism doesn’t work by rewarding or “incentivizing” desired behaviors, but stimulus-response associations have not been found to lead to deeper understandings, complex reasoning, or knowledge use beyond initial training contexts. The sense-making focus of cognitive models is still a valued aspect of 5 contemporary learning theory; but cognitive theory is limited to the extent that it considers only what goes on in the mind of individuals and requires separate theories of motivation to explain effort and investment in learning. Cognitivists have previously recognized social influences on learning, but sociocultural theory goes further in acknowledging how it is that one’s cognitive development and social identity are jointly constituted through participation in multiple social worlds of family, community, and school.

Following many other contemporary interpreters of Vygotsky’s work, we have come to view learning as the transformation of participation in valued sociocultural activities that are themselves changing (Holland & Lave, 2009; Lave, 1993b; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff,

Baker-Sennett, Lacasa, & Goldsmith, 1995; Rogoff et al., 2007; Rogoff, Paradise, Arauz,

Correa-Chavez, & Angelillo, 2003). Participation in sociocultural activity necessarily involves more than simply acquiring knowledge; it involves processes of identification that, in turn, present opportunities for participants to become certain kinds of people in activity (Lave, 1993a;

Lave & Wenger, 1991). This more encompassing view of learning became possible when anthropologists and sociologists joined cognitivists and developmental psychologists and importantly began to study learning in contexts outside of school. In real world settings, so- called cognitive learning and identity development are inextricably connected. Street vendors

(Saxe, 1988) and basketball players (Nasir, 2000), for example, develop repertoires of practice and a sense of who they are as members of their community that are inextricably tied up with their knowledge of mathematics called upon in each setting. In this way, engaging in purposeful activity leads to one’s increasingly proficient contributions to a community of practice without having to be separately or artificially induced. 6

Sociocultural theory offers a powerful, integrative account of how motivational aspects of learning -- such as self-regulation, self-efficacy, sense of belonging, and identity -- are completely entwined with cognitive development. Unlike the social psychological and developmental psychology literatures, where each of these variables and related interventions have been studied separately, sociocultural theory helps us see how knowledge and self-beliefs are jointly developed in communities of practice, and correspondingly how sense of self and meaningful participation may be harmed in unsupportive learning environments where children may be positioned as unable or deficient learners.

Sociocultural approaches make it possible to design for equity in educational settings by attending both to who learners are when they join a community and who they might become.

That is, they consider what is at stake for learners when they invest in developing new knowledge or skill in practice in a particular context. Countless studies have documented the lack of learning that occurs when students are treated as deficient or when members of nondominant communities by race, language, or gender identity are asked to park their identities at the door to join the mainstream school or college culture. In contrast, sociocultural approaches such as funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992) and cultural modeling (Lee,

1995) pay attention to students’ everyday practices and find ways to connect “varied repertoires of practice” with academic disciplinary practices (Nasir, Rosebery, Warren, and Lee, 2014).

Going forward, providing young people with broad access to valued sociocultural activities is a key condition for new learning. A major challenge, however, is that Western societies purposefully segregate children from the mature activities of their communities by placing them in schools during work hours (Cole, 2010; Rogoff, 2003). School learning, as a consequence, becomes “encapsulated” or separated from other meaningful activities and subservient to larger 7 societal goals of certifying the accomplishment of some (but not all) learners (Engeström, 1991).

Rendering school learning meaningful and engaging for students requires strategies for breaking down the barriers between school activities and mature sociocultural activities, for making visible, accessible, and personally relevant the knowledge, skills, and practices of those mature activities. It makes the learning that can go on in school more meaningful and purposeful.

Such a perspective has important implications for how academic disciplines are taught in school. From the sociocultural perspective, the disciplines are distinct communities that engage in shared practices of ongoing knowledge creation, understanding and revision. It is now widely recognised that science is both a body of established knowledge and a social process through which individual scientists and communities of scientists continually create, revise, and elaborate scientific theories and ideas (National Research Council, 2007, 2012).

The idea that each discipline is a community with its own culture, language, tools, and modes of discourse, has influenced teaching and learning. For example, Moje (2008) has called for re- conceptualising high school literacy instruction to develop disciplinary literacy programmes, based on research into what it means to write and read in mathematics, history and science and what constitutes knowledge in these subjects. Moje (2008) argues that students’ understanding of how knowledge is produced in the subject areas is more important than the knowledge itself.

These ideas have been extended and amplified in more recent work by Goldman et al. (2016) with respect to the nature and development of disciplinary literacies, including features of the learning environment that promote and sustain deep disciplinary learning.

It is also important to recognize that sociocultural perspectives are reflected in recent disciplinary frameworks and standards for primary and secondary education. These conceptions go well beyond the framing of disciplinary learning and instruction found in the writings of the 8

National Math Panel or the National Reading Panel discussed as content examples in Cantor et al. (in press). For example, the NRC Framework for primary and secondary Science Education

(NRC, 2012) calls for integrated development of science practices, crosscutting concepts and core ideas. The Common Core State Standards in English language arts (Common Core State

Standards Initiative, 2010a) reflect an integrated view of reading, writing, speaking/listening, and language and also respond to call from Moje’s (2008) and Goldman et al. (2016) for disciplinary literacy by providing separate English language arts standards for areas such a literature, history and science. Based on the view of each discipline as a community engaged in ongoing discourse and knowledge creation, the science framework and the standards in mathematics and English language arts include expectations for learning and development of interpersonal and intrapersonal knowledge and skills along with cognitive knowledge and skills.

It should be apparent that current theory and research on the nature of learning view it as a deeply sociocultural activity that has considerable overlap with the conceptions of development discussed in Cantor et al. (in press) and the multiple factors impacting development and learning.

As stated in Cantor et al. (in press), “The web metaphor supports thinking about skill construction as an active process between multiple agents, with the results skills and behaviour ultimately joint products of the child and the resources and relationships that comprise his or her context.” In the next section we briefly consider some of the contemporary discussion of the nature of the knowledge and skills that are the targeted “end products” of the process of formal schooling.

The Targets of Learning and Development: Multiple Domains of Competency

Many countries have long recognised that investments in public education can contribute to the common good (namely by enhancing national prosperity and supporting stable families, 9 neighbourhoods and communities). Likewise, current economic, environmental and social challenges illustrate that education is even more critical today than it has been in the past.

Today’s children can only meet future challenges if they have opportunities to prepare for their future roles as citizens, employees, managers, parents, volunteers and entrepreneurs. Business leaders, educational organisations and researchers have begun to call for new education policies that target the development of broad, transferable skills and knowledge, often referred to as

“deeper learning” and/or “21st century skills” (e.g., see Bellanca, 2014).

As a way to conceptualize and organise the various terms related to deeper learning and 21st century skills and provide a starting point for considering empirical evidence as to their meaning and value, the NRC Report Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012) identified three broad domains of competence: Cognitive, Intrapersonal and Interpersonal. Recognising areas of overlap between and among the skills and skill clusters within each domain, the report developed the following initial classification scheme (see Chapter 2 of Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012 for additional details of the elements within each cluster):

• The Cognitive Domain includes three clusters of competencies: cognitive processes and

strategies; knowledge; and creativity. These clusters include skills such as critical

thinking, reasoning and argumentation, and innovation.

• The Intrapersonal Domain includes three clusters of competencies: intellectual

openness; work ethic and conscientiousness; and self-regulation. These clusters include

skills such as flexibility, initiative, appreciation for diversity and metacognition. 10

• The Interpersonal Domain includes two clusters of competencies: teamwork and

collaboration; and leadership. These clusters include skills such as co-operation and

communication, conflict resolution and negotiation.

These three domains represent distinct facets of human learning and development and build on previous efforts to identify and organise dimensions of human behaviour. For example,

Bloom’s (1956) taxonomy of learning objectives included three broad domains: cognitive, affective and psychomotor. Following Bloom, the cognitive domain is viewed as involving thinking and related abilities, such as reasoning, problem solving and memory. The intrapersonal domain, like Bloom’s affective domain, involves emotions and feelings and includes self- regulation—the ability to manage one’s emotions and set and achieve one’s goals (Hoyle &

Davisson, 2011). The interpersonal domain, however, is not included in Bloom’s taxonomy.

Distinctions among the three domains are also reflected in how they are delineated, studied, and measured. In the cognitive domain, knowledge and skills are typically measured with tests of general cognitive ability or with more specific tests focusing on school subjects or work-related content. Research on interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies often uses measures of broad personality traits or of child temperament. Psychiatrists and clinical psychologists studying mental disorders use various measures to understand the negative dimensions of the interpersonal and intrapersonal domains (Almlund et al., 2011).

Although the three domains are differentiated for the purpose of understanding and organising 21st century skills, it is recognised that they are intertwined in human development and learning. Research on teaching and learning has begun to illuminate how interpersonal and intrapersonal skills support learning of academic content (e.g. National Research Council, 1999) and how to develop these valuable supporting skills (e.g. Yeager & Walton, 2011). For example, 11 we now know that learning is enhanced by the intrapersonal skills used to reflect on one’s learning and adjust learning strategies accordingly—the process called “metacognition”

(Pellegrino, Chudowsky & Glaser, 2001; Hoyle & Davisson, 2011) and discussed in Cantor et al.

At the same time, research has shown that development of cognitive skills, such as the ability to stop and think objectively about a disagreement with another person, can increase positive interpersonal skills and reduce anti-social behaviour (Durlak et al., 2011). The interpersonal skill of effective communication is supported by the cognitive skills used to process and interpret complex verbal and nonverbal messages and formulate and express appropriate responses

(Bedwell, Salas, & Fiore, 2011).

In many respects, the foregoing use of “competencies” reflects terminology used in an international project to identify key competencies required for life and work in the current era where a competency is defined as: “more than just knowledge and skills. It involves the ability to meet complex demands, by drawing on and mobilising psychosocial resources (including skills and attitudes) in a particular context. For example, the ability to communicate effectively is a competency that may draw on an individual’s knowledge of language, practical IT skills, and attitudes towards those with whom he or she is communicating” (OECD, 2005, p. 4).

Although research on how these 21st century competencies are related to desired outcomes in education, work and other areas of life has been limited, there are some promising findings.

Cognitive competencies, which have been the most extensively studied, show consistent, positive correlations of modest size with students’ achieving higher levels of education, higher earnings and better health. Among intrapersonal competencies, conscientiousness, which includes such characteristics as being organised, responsible, and hardworking, shows the strongest relationship with the same desirable outcomes. Conversely, antisocial behaviour, which reflects 12 deficits in both intrapersonal skills (such as self-regulation) and interpersonal skills (such as communication) is related to poorer outcomes. More research is needed to increase our understanding of relationships between particular 21st century competencies and desired adult outcomes—and especially to look at whether the competencies are causing the desired outcomes rather than simply correlated with them.

Three important themes can be seen in the recent attempts to specify a more broad-based conception of the targets for learning and development and their relationship to education and the design of learning environments that support development of such competencies. First, as discussed in Cantor et al. (in press), we have moved towards a more integrated conception of healthy and productive human development that integrates affective, cognitive, social and emotional processes and competencies. This is also consistent with a sociocultural view of learning and development as discussed in the prior section. Second, rather than thinking about the goals of education as strictly fostering development of cognitive competencies, including deep disciplinary learning and knowledge, we are coming to understand that the productive development of such competencies is intertwined with and supported by the development of competencies in the intrapersonal and interpersonal domains. Third, we are now recognizing the need to consciously and deliberately design learning environments that foster the co- development of all three domains of competency. Some of the research-based principles for doing so are briefly highlighted in the next section.

The Design of Powerful and Equitable Learning Environments: Teaching for Transfer

The broad call for “deeper learning” and “21st century skills” reflects a long-standing issue in education and training – the difficult task of equipping individuals with transferable knowledge and skills. The link between deeper learning and 21st century competencies lies in the 13 classic concept of transfer—the ability to use prior learning to support new learning or problem solving in culturally relevant contexts. We can define “deeper learning” not as a “product”, but rather as the process through which transferable knowledge (i.e., 21st century competencies) develops (Pellegrino & Hilton, 2012). Through deeper learning, individuals not only develop expertise in a particular discipline, they also understand when, how and why to apply what they know. They recognise when new problems or situations are related to what they have previously learned, and they can apply their knowledge and skills to solve them.

Along with this comes the challenge of creating learning environments that support deeper learning and development of the cognitive, interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies that enable learners to transfer what they have learned to new situations and new problems. How can teachers aid students’ deeper learning of subject matter and promote transfer? Addressing this seemingly simple question has been a central task of researchers for more than a century, and in the past several decades they have made progress toward evidence-based answers. Applying the instructional principles below will aid students’ deeper learning of subject-matter content in any discipline. Because deeper learning takes time and repeated practice, instruction aligned with these principles should begin in preschool and continue across all levels of learning, from kindergarten through college and beyond. Teaching in these ways will make it more likely that students will come to understand the general principles underlying the specific content they are learning and be able to transfer their knowledge to solve new problems in the same subject area.

These principles and practices are based largely on research in the cognitive domain but evidence suggests that they are applicable with respect to the interpersonal and interpersonal competency domains and their integration. Several of the principles discussed below align with the discussion of instruction in Cantor et al. 14

Use multiple and varied representations of concepts and tasks. Doing so helps students understand how different representations of the same concept are “mapped” or related to one another. Research has shown that adding diagrams to a text or adding animation to a narration that describes how a mechanical or biological system works can increase students’ performance on a subsequent problem-solving transfer test. In addition, allowing students to use concrete objects to represent arithmetic procedures has been shown to increase their performance on transfer tests.

Encourage elaboration, questioning, and self-explanation. The techniques of elaboration, questioning, and self-explanation require students to actively engage with the material—going beyond memorising to process the content in their own words. Some specific techniques that have been shown to aid deeper learning include:

• prompting students who are reading a text to explain the material to themselves aloud, in

their own words, as they read;

• asking students certain questions about material they have just read or been taught—such

as why, how, what if, what if not, and so what;

• using teaching practices that establish classroom norms of students’ questioning each