After-School Programs for High School Students: An Evaluation of After School Matters

Evaluates outcomes for teens in Chicago's After School Matters apprenticeship-like program, finding statistically significant benefits on some measures of youth development and reduced problem behaviors but not in job skills or school performance

An asset-based approach to social risk management : a conceptual framework

There is increasing concern about the vulnerability of poor and near-poor rural households, who have limited capabilities to manage risk and often resort to strategies that can lead to a vicious cycle of poverty. Household-related risk is ususally considered individual or private, but measures to manage risk are actually social or public in nature. Furthermore, various externality issues are associated with household-related risk, such as its links to economic development, poverty reduction, social cohesion, and environmental quality. Hence the need for a holistic approach to risk management, or"social risk management,"which encompasses a broad spectrum of private and public actions. An asset-based approach to social risk management is presented, which provides an integrated approach to considering household, community, and extra-community assets and risk-management strategies. The conceptual framework for social risk management focuses on rural Sub-Saharan Africa. The report concludes with several suggestions on moving from concepts to actions.Health Economics&Finance,Insurance&Risk Mitigation,Banking Law,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform

How does money influence health?

This study looks at hundreds of theories to consider how income influences health. There is a graded association between money and health – increased income equates to better health. But the reasons are debated.<p></p> Researchers have reviewed theories from 272 wide-ranging papers, most of which examined the complex interactions between people’s income and their health throughout their lives.<p></p> Key points<p></p> This research identifies four main ways money affects people’s wellbeing:<p></p> Material: Money buys goods and services that improve health. The more money families have, the better the goods they can buy.<p></p> Psychosocial: Managing on a low income is stressful. Comparing oneself to others and feeling at the bottom of the social ladder can be distressing, which can lead to biochemical changes in the body, eventually causing ill health.<p></p> Behavioural: For various reasons, people on low incomes are more likely to adopt unhealthy behaviours – smoking and drinking, for example – while those on higher incomes are more able to afford healthier lifestyles.<p></p> Reverse causation (poor health leads to low income): Health may affect income by preventing people from taking paid employment. Childhood health may also affect educational outcomes, limiting job opportunities and potential earnings

Measures of Student Non-cognitive Skills and Political Tolerance after Two Years of the Louisiana Scholarship Program

This report examines the short-term effects of the Louisiana Scholarship Program (LSP) on students’ non-cognitive skills and civic values. While a growing number of studies have evaluated K-12 school voucher programs along academic dimensions, few have focused on the development of non-cognitive skills and civic values. This study aims to address that gap by providing the first analysis of differences in self-reported measures of grit, locus of control, self esteem, and political tolerance associated with the LSP. Using results from a phone survey of applicants to the program, we find little evidence of differences between LSP scholarship recipients and non-recipients. Nevertheless, diagnostics assessing the precision of our instruments to detect differences between subjects indicate that several of the scales measuring non-cognitive skills performed poorly in our sample. Moreover, our relatively low survey response rate of 11 percent raises concerns about the representativeness of our sample. Given these issues, we caution that our results are best understood as descriptive and not necessarily conclusive: they do not represent reliable estimates of the causal impact of the LSP on student non-cognitive skills and political tolerance

A Handbook for Wellbeing Policy-Making

Around the world, governments are starting to directly measure the subjective wellbeing of their citizens and to use it for policy evaluation and appraisal. What would happen if a country were to move from using GDP to using subjective wellbeing as the primary metric for measuring economic and societal progress? Would policy priorities change? Would we continue to care about economic growth? What role would different government institutions play in such a scenario? And, most importantly, how could this be implemented in daily practice, for example in policy evaluations and appraisals of government analysts, or in political agenda-setting at the top level? This book provides answers to these questions from a conceptual to a technical level by showing how direct measures of subjective wellbeing can be used for policy evaluation and appraisal, either complementary in the short run or even entirely in the long run. It gives a brief history of the idea that governments should care about the happiness of their citizens, provides theories, makes suggestions for direct measurement, derives technical standards, shows how to conduct wellbeing cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit analyses, and gives examples of how real-world policy evaluations and appraisals would change if they were based on subjective wellbeing. In doing so, the book serves the growing interest of governments as well as non-governmental and international organizations in how to put subjective wellbeing metrics into policy practice

Examining Title I Elementary Schools in Tennessee: A Quantitative Study of Predicted Outcomes

The purpose of this predictive, correlational study was to determine how accurately Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) English Language Arts (ELA) achievement scores can be predicted from a linear combination of Lottery for Education Afterschool Programs (LEAPs) participation, geographic location, and Community Eligibility Participation (CEP) at Title I elementary schools in Tennessee: A quantitative research method using a linear multiple regression analysis was used to assess these variables. Data was gathered from publicly available records. For the sample, 100 Title I elementary schools participated in LEAPs and 100 Title I elementary schools did not participate in LEAPs. One hundred and one have adopted CEP, and 99 have not adopted CEP. Additionally, in regards to geographic location, 55 were city, 26 were suburb, 17 were town, and 102 were rural. The results of this regression indicated that the model explained 15.6% of the variance, and the model was a significant predictor of CEP participation. Past research on the significance of after school programs has been equivocal, and Title I students do not achieve to their full potential due to their low socioeconomic status. Perhaps, more research that evaluates socioeconomic status or poverty percentages in schools are worth investigating because it seems as if they may serve as key indicators of what schools may be struggling the most in regards to lack of meeting students’ needs. Educators will need to continue to research and evaluate ways to address these challenges in hopes to remedify the achievement gap in low-achieving schools

School Climate in the School Choice Era: A Comparative Analysis of District-Run Public Schools and Charter Schools

Comparative analyses of district-run public schools and charter schools are limited to performance outcomes. There is a dearth of research on how the school-types vary on factors consequential to performance such as school climate. Public-private distinctions, such as in organizational autonomy, value orientations, funding structures, and management practices, could result in school climate dissimilarities between district-run public schools and charter schools. The aim of this dissertation is to assess the influence organizational factors have on school climate and determine if school-type affects school climate. Student and staff school climate survey data from the Miami-Dade school district were utilized for this dissertation. Structural equation modeling was employed to test theoretical models of students’ and staffs’ perceptions of school climate using data from 2001-2002 through 2015-2016 academic years. Within-between effects panel regression was utilized to test the effect of school-type on school climate constructs over time using data from 2005-2006 through 2015-2016 academic years. The structural equation results demonstrate that milieu, ecology, culture, and organizational structure influence students’ and staffs’ perceptions of their schools’ climates. Ecology has the strongest association with students’ perceptions of school climate. Job satisfaction, a part of milieu and culture, has the strongest association with staffs’ perceptions of school climate. The results indicate that the theoretical models of school climate employed by this study are sound. The within-between effects panel regression results demonstrate that characteristics inherent to school-type have a plausible influence on students’ perceptions of school climate, but not for staff. Charter school students rated their school climates more favorably than traditional public schools, but when other factors are controlled, traditional public schools and magnet schools had more favorable ratings. Public-sector values, collective bargaining, and school district oversight may be beneficial to schools’ climates. This dissertation underscores the impact management and funding structures have on school climate. The author recommends that the school climate concept and evaluations of schools’ organizational practices be incorporated into school improvement policies. The milieu, culture, ecology, and organizational structures of schools should be reviewed when assessing school quality

Exploring the role of ICT-enabled social innovation for the active inclusion of young people

This Report presents the final results of the study ‘ICT-enabled social innovation services for active inclusion of young people’ (IESI-Youth) which has been commissioned by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC-IPTS) and implemented by Arcola Research in 2014. The overall objective of the study was to review the state of the art in the domain of active inclusion services for young people, with a specific focus on how ICTs can support active inclusion of disadvantaged youth to strengthen their skills and capacities and support them to participate fully in employment and social life. The study was conducted as preparatory activity contributing to the development of the broader research project on 'ICT enabled Social Innovation in support of the Implementation of the Social Investment Package (IESI) being implemented by JRC-IPTS in collaboration with DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL).JRC.J.3-Information Societ