California High School Research Articles

Targeted Advertising, Promotion, and Price For Menthol Cigarettes in California High School Neighborhoods

To describe advertising, promotions, and pack prices for the leading brands of menthol and nonmenthol cigarettes near California high schools and to examine their associations with school and neighborhood demographics. In stores (n = 407) within walking distance (0.8 km [1/2 mile]) of California high schools (n = 91), trained observers counted ads for menthol and nonmenthol cigarettes and collected data about promotions and prices for Newport and Marlboro, the leading brand in each category. Multilevel modeling examined the proportion of all cigarette advertising for any menthol brand, the proportion of stores with sales promotions, and the lowest advertised pack price in relation to store types and school/neighborhood demographics. For each 10 percentage point increase in the proportion of Black students, the proportion of menthol advertising increased by 5.9 percentage points (e.g., from an average of 25.7%-31.6%), the odds of a Newport promotion were 50% higher (95% CI = 1.01, 2.22), and the cost of Newport was 12 cents lower (95% CI = -0.18, -0.06). By comparison, the odds of a promotion and the price for Marlboro, the leading brand of nonmenthol cigarettes, were unrelated to any school or neighborhood demographics. In high school neighborhoods, targeted advertising exposes Blacks to more promotions and lower prices for the leading brand of menthol cigarettes. This evidence contradicts the manufacturer's claims that the availability of its promotions is not based on race/ethnicity. It also highlights the need for tobacco control policies that would limit disparities in exposure to retail marketing for cigarettes.

School-Based Health Center Access, Reproductive Health Care, and Contraceptive Use Among Sexually Experienced High School Students

The current analyses compared receipt of reproductive health care, contraceptive use, and screening for sexually transmitted diseases (STD) among adolescents who are sexually experienced, with or without access to a school clinic. A total of 12 urban California high schools, selected from areas with high teen pregnancy and STD rates, half with school-based health centers (SBHCs), participated in an intervention study designed to improve sexual health among adolescents. Of the participating students, 44% indicated that they had ever had intercourse and were included in these analyses. Access to an SBHC did not influence receipt of reproductive health care for either males or females and did not influence contraceptive use, either hormonal or condoms, for males. For females, however, those with access to an SBHC had increased odds of having received pregnancy or disease prevention care (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.45, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.16-1.80), having used hormonal contraceptives at last sex (AOR = 1.68, 95% CI = 1.24-2.28), and were more likely to have ever been screened for an STD (AOR = 1.85, 95% CI = 1.43-2.40). Also among female students, those with access to an SBHC were more likely to have used emergency contraception at last sex (AOR = 2.1, 95% CI = 1.08-4.22). Although access to an on-site clinic does not seem to lead to increases in all types of reproductive care in the population as a whole, sexually active females are more likely to have received more specific care and to have used hormonal contraceptives if their school has an SBHC.

Easy A, or Who's Your Daddy?: The Scarlet Letter Once More

Will Gluck's new teen adaptation of Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter stars a perky Emma Stone who steals the film as Olive Penderghast. Like Clueless, the story takes place in a California high school where Olive is enrolled. Hawthorne's novel has been adapted to film numerous times since the beginning of cinema, though never very well, and Easy A enjoys staging its own relation- ship to the most unfaithful adaptations, including the notorious Roland Joffe version with Demi Moore. When we shift our assumption about which character from the novel Olive represents, we discover a hidden theme of the film, one never fully adopted but cunningly introduced through sly references to Leslie Fiedler's reading of another American classic, Huckleberry Finn. Easy A drops the theme of unwanted pregnancy so important to Hawthorne's tale. Yet, the nod towards clos- eted sexuality that this allows is not fully sustained by the drive towards a happy ending.

Teachers as Agents of Reception: An Analysis of Teacher Preference for Immigrant-Origin Second Language Learners

Scholarship on immigrant integration often examines immigrant characteristics and the host society's contexts of reception. This article explores how teachers fit within this framework by presenting findings on teachers' preferences to teach immigrant-origin youth who are classified as “English learners” (ELs) within separate content courses known as “sheltered instruction” (SI). Drawing from an interview sample of 20 mathematics, science, and social studies teachers in urban California high schools as well as survey data (N = 39) that also include English teachers, this article presents evidence that teachers' preferences vary and that preferences are linked to academic subject contexts as well as the underlying structure of the teaching profession.

Effects of an Adolescent Asthma Education Intervention on Knowledge, Intention, Behavior, Self-Efficacy and Self-Consciousness

In this study, we evaluated the effects of an asthma education intervention, guided by social cognitive theory, on knowledge, intention, behavior, self-efficacy, and self-consciousness. The sample consisted of 87 asthmatic adolescents in six middle and/or high schools in California. A non-equivalent comparison group design, with delayed intervention in the comparison group, was utilized. We implemented a modified version of the American Lung Association’s Kickin Asthma curriculum. Self-report questionnaires assessing the key study variables were administered at baseline, at immediate postintervention, and five weeks after the intervention. There were no statistically significant differences at post-test, controlling for pre-test values, for any of the study variables between the intervention (n = 51) and comparison groups (n = 35). After collapsing across groups, however, there were statistically significant improvements following the intervention for knowledge, intention, selected behavior variables, and self-efficacy. The evaluation of this theory-based asthma education intervention demonstrates the positive impact this curriculum can have on a sample of asthmatic adolescents.

Adolescent smoking risk increases with wider income gaps between rich and poor

Data from a state-wide survey of California middle and high school students (N=20,203) were used to assess whether county income inequality and poverty rates were associated with adolescent smoking. Greater county income inequality, but not poverty rates, was associated with higher established smoking risk (p=0.0019). The association was stronger in males than females, whites than other ethnic groups, and urban than rural settings. Neither county income inequality nor poverty rates were associated with experimental smoking. The findings suggest that it may be important to consider and address economic inequality in the prevention and control of adolescent tobacco use.

From voicing your opinion to politicised voice: a youth-led social justice class at an urban continuation high school

This article examines the work of three urban youths as they designed and taught a social justice class at an urban continuation high school in California, USA. Drawing from a two-year ethnographic study of the project, it shows that youth participants constructed a set of imagined binaries to frame teachers, schoolwork and coercion in opposition to students, voice and liberation. The article examines how the youths distinguished ordinary coercive teaching from their own liberatory teaching, creating a coercive/liberatory binary that served as metaphor for a series of binaries shaping their approach to social justice education: teacher/student, adult/youth and schoolwork/voice. It concludes that although the social justice class accomplished many important aims, the reconstruction of and reliance on a coercive/liberatory binary within the project ultimately limited its effectiveness as a social justice education effort.

Postsecondary preparation and remediation: Examining the effect of the early assessment program at California State University

In this paper we investigate how participation in the Early Assessment Program, which provides California high school juniors with information about their academic readiness for college-level work at California State University campuses, affects their college-going behavior and need for remediation in college. Using administrative records from California State University,–Sacramento and the California Department of Education, we find that participation in the Early Assessment Program reduces the average student's probability of needing remediation at California State University by 6.1 percentage points in English and 4.1 percentage points in mathematics. Rather than discouraging poorly prepared students from applying to Sacramento State, EAP appears to lead students to increase their academic preparation while still in high school. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Food and Beverage Environment Analysis and Monitoring System: A Reliability Study in the School Food and Beverage Environment

States and school districts around the country are developing policies that set nutrition standards for competitive foods and beverages sold outside of the US Department of Agriculture's reimbursable school lunch program. However, few tools exist for monitoring the implementation of these new policies. The objective of this research was to develop a computerized assessment tool, the Food and Beverage Environment Analysis and Monitoring System (FoodBEAMS), ⁎ ⁎ FoodBEAMS is a trademark of Samuels & Associates. FoodBEAMS software © 2009. to collect data on the competitive school food environment and to test the inter-rater reliability of the tool among research and nonresearch professionals. FoodBEAMS was used to collect data in spring 2007 on the competitive foods and beverages sold in 21 California high schools. Adherence of the foods and beverages to California's competitive food and beverage nutrition policies for schools (Senate Bills 12 and 965) was determined using the data collected by both research and nonresearch professionals. The inter-rater reliability between the data collectors was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient. Researcher vs researcher and researcher vs nonresearcher inter-rater reliability was high for both foods and beverages, with intraclass correlation coefficients ranging from .972 to .987. Results of this study provide evidence that FoodBEAMS is a promising tool for assessing and monitoring adherence to nutrition standards for competitive foods sold on school campuses and can be used reliably by both research and nonresearch professionals.

Emotion Self-Regulation, Psychophysiological Coherence, and Test Anxiety: Results from an Experiment Using Electrophysiological Measures

This study investigated the effects of a novel, classroom-based emotion self-regulation program (TestEdge) on measures of test anxiety, socioemotional function, test performance, and heart rate variability (HRV) in high school students. The program teaches students how to self-generate a specific psychophysiological state--psychophysiological coherence--which has been shown to improve nervous system function, emotional stability, and cognitive performance. Implemented as part of a larger study investigating the population of tenth grade students in two California high schools (N = 980), the research reported here was conducted as a controlled pre- and post-intervention laboratory experiment, using electrophysiological measures, on a random stratified sample of students from the intervention and control schools (N = 136). The Stroop color-word conflict test was used as the experiment's stimulus to simulate the stress of taking a high-stakes test, while continuous HRV recordings were gathered. The post-intervention electrophysiological results showed a pattern of improvement across all HRV measures, indicating that students who received the intervention program had learned how to better manage their emotions and to self-activate the psychophysiological coherence state under stressful conditions. Moreover, students with high test anxiety exhibited increased HRV and heart rhythm coherence even during a resting baseline condition (without conscious use of the program's techniques), suggesting that they had internalized the benefits of the intervention. Consistent with these results, students exhibited reduced test anxiety and reduced negative affect after the intervention. Finally, there is suggestive evidence from a matched-pairs analysis that reduced test anxiety and increased psychophysiological coherence appear to be directly associated with improved test performance--a finding consistent with evidence from the larger study.

Social Reproduction of Inequality: The Racial Composition of Feeder Schools to the University of California

Background/Context Previous research has pointed to the dismal state of secondary education in California and its implications for college access. These studies identified the extent to which disparities in access and outcomes in California are correlated with school demographics and the relative levels of segregation that exist in California's public high schools. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study Our research advances understandings of this association within California's most selective sector of public higher education: the University of California. Three research questions guided our study: (1) In what ways, if any, are the racial compositions of high schools different for first-time freshmen (FTF) at different UC campuses? (2) How are the racial compositions of high schools that are the source of underrepresented minorities (URMs) at each UC campus different, if at all, from the racial compositions of high schools that are the source of White FTF? (3) Do the racial compositions of public high schools in California have an independent net effect on the likelihood that a school will send graduates to the University of California and individual UC campuses, controlling for other school characteristics? Research Design To answer our research questions, this quantitative study used descriptive correlations and multiple regressions to examine the high school source of FTF for 8 out of 9 UC campuses for the 2000–2001 academic year. Findings/Results Although the University of California as a whole may appear to be making gains in providing opportunities for students of color, accessibility to individual UC campuses for Black and Latino students varied depending on URM or White high school attendance. At 5 of the 8 campuses in this study, a greater proportion of URM FTF originated from White schools, as opposed to URM schools, where they were most concentrated. Conclusions and Recommendations Educational policies and practices in the UC system that hold some campuses accountable for goals of equity yet allow other campuses to exclude whole groups of students based primarily on the high school they attended are neither effective nor equitable. Researchers, policy makers, and educational leaders should examine the ways in which admissions policies may inherently privilege one group (those from White schools) and disadvantage other groups (those from URM schools). This problem needs to be addressed by both policy makers and practitioners in higher education and the K–12 system.

The Path to Inclusion

The Path to Inclusion

A Structural Model of Teacher Role Stress, Satisfaction, Commitment, and Intentions to Leave: A Comment on Conley and you (2009)

Conley and You assessed the plausibility of three alternative model specifications of the relations between role stressors (i.e., role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload) and organizational commitment, satisfaction, and turnover intentions among a sample of 178 teachers employed in four Southern California high schools. Using structural equations modeling procedures to evaluate their data, the authors reported the best fit for their "fully mediated effects" model wherein there was a "strong causal path from role ambiguity and role conflict --> satisfaction --> commitment --> intentions to leave" (p. 781). This note addresses methodological issues with the present study and provides suggestions for follow-up efforts designed to replicate and/or extend this line of research.

Evaluation of California's in-school tobacco use prevention education (TUPE) activities using a nested school-longitudinal design, 2003–2004 and 2005–2006

BackgroundCurrent legislative language requires the California Department of Public Health, California Tobacco Control Program, to evaluate the effectiveness of the school-based Tobacco Use Prevention Education (TUPE) programme in California every...

Teaching and Learning Guide for: A Glimpse into the Sociology of White Antiracism and White Nationalism

Teaching and Learning Guide for: A Glimpse into the Sociology of White Antiracism and White Nationalism

Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963 (review)

Reviewed by: Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963 Charles L. Crow, Professor Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963. By Kevin Starr. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009. 576 pages, $34.95. In the previous volume of his California Dream cycle, Kevin Starr went out of sequence, vaulting ahead to the 1990s and the first decades of the twenty-first century. That work, Coast of Dreams (2004), was apparently intended to mark the terminus of the series. It was by far the darkest of the California Dream books, the dream turning toward nightmare, and was the only one not published by Oxford. Now, with Golden Dreams, Starr returns to his original publisher, to the regular sequence of decades, and to what is for him a more congenial era. Picking up the tale from Embattled Dreams (2002), the history of the war and its aftermath, Starr now tells the story of the 1950s, which (as many will agree) did not end until 1963. Describing this extended decade, Starr often loops back into the past to remind us of, for example, the literary culture of San Francisco in the time of Frank Norris or of earlier plans or education, highways, and water development that preceded the great works of the ’50s. These backward glances are always useful and welcome, as is the reappearance of Ishi, last of his tribe, who in this volume is seen as prophetic of environmentalists of the ’50s, like David Brower. The 1950s were of special significance to California, as in this decade it became the first state of the nation in population and size of its economy. California, moreover, came to define the style and mythology of the ’50s so that we now recall the era in terms of ranch house, suburbs, surfing, hot rods, drive-in restaurants and movies, and other typical California images and products. In this era, a generation, the Silent Generation, Starr’s own, grew to maturity: a small generation, overshadowed by the GI Generation before, and destined to be overshadowed by the Baby Boomers, yet by the end of the decade no longer silent. The apparent conformity of the time would be belied by the great tectonic shifts soon to be felt, and Starr calls the roll of ’50s California high school students who would shape politics and arts of coming decades: Joan Baez, Jerry Brown, Joan Didion, Dianne Goldman (later Feinstein), Anthony Kennedy, Richard Rodriguez, Carolyn See, Richard Serra, Susan Sontag, James Q. Wilson, and many others. (He misses Frank Zappa, Antelope Valley ’58). The 1950s also represented the last flowering of the Progressive Movement in California. Earl Warren, Godwin Knight, and Edmund (Pat) Brown, though of different parties, shared the Progressive vision, and the vast social and physical constructions of the era—the multi-campus UC and CSU systems, California’s network of freeways and aqueducts—are the last great works of Progressivism. Yet by the early 1960s, the Progressive agenda had been defeated by a strange combination [End Page 395] of environmental activism and a newly energized and highly partisan political right, represented here by Richard Nixon, which would elect Ronald Reagan governor in 1966—a story doubtless to be part of Starr’s next volume. Kevin Starr’s ability to synthesize libraries of material and range over the scale of culture, to produce a compelling narrative from hot rods to the Civil Rights Movement, from city planning to surfing, from Caryl Chessman to the Beach Boys, is without parallel. Each volume in the series demonstrates again that this is one of the commanding achievements of American letters, and of the state he celebrates. Charles L. Crow, Professor Bowling Green State University, Ohio Copyright © 2010 The Western Literature Association

Finding a Common Yardstick: Implementing a National Student Assessment and School Accountability Plan through State-Federal Collaboration

Copyright ? 2010 California Law Review, Inc. California Law Review, Inc. (CLR) is a California nonprofit corporation. CLR and the authors are solely responsible for the content of their publications. t J.D., University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, 2009; M.Ed., University of California, Los Angeles, 2005; B.A., University of California, Los Angeles, 2001.1 would like to thank Professor Goodwin Liu for his guidance and support. I also appreciate the careful editing and insightful suggestions of Jennifer Kim, Ben Sitter, and the staff members of the California Law Review. 1. California students take annual subject tests from second to eleventh grade. Cal. Dep't of Educ, California Assessment System, http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sa/caassessment.asp (last visited Sept. 14, 2009). Mathematics and English-language arts are tested in each grade, writing in grades four and seven, history-social science in grades eight through eleven, and science in grade five and grades eight through eleven. Id. These tests, in addition to the California High School Exit Examination, make up thirty-two tests. See id.; Cal. Dep't of Educ, California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE), http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/hs/ (last visited Apr. 13,2010). 2. A school's testing period must occur "10 days before and 10 days after the day on which 85 percent of the instructional year is completed." See Cal. Dep't of Educ, 2009-10 Student Testing Dates, http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/sa/0910testdates.asp (last visited Sept. 14, 2009). This testing period typically falls in May for schools on a traditional academic calendar that runs from September to June. See, e.g., Memorandum from the L.A. Unified Sch. Dist. on 2008-2009 Testing Calendar for Single-Track Schools 3 (Oct. 17, 2008), available at http://www.lausd.kl2.ca.us/lausd/offices/ bulletins/2008m4251.1 .pdf. 3. The Los Angeles Unified School District, among others, uses standardized test scores as a factor in placing students in Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) classes. See L.A. Unified Sch. Dist. Gifted/Talented Programs, Major Categories of Identification, http://www.lausd.net/

The Education of Immigrant Youth: Some Lessons From the U.S. and Spain

The United States and Spain have had radically different immigration histories, and they also have very different education systems and policies, yet there are similarities. Despite official efforts to welcome immigrant youth, both education systems operate, paradoxically, in ways that are unwelcoming, relegating immigrant youth to the margins of school life. The authors draw on their ongoing comparative ethnographic research in high schools in California (U.S.) and Catalonia (Spain). The article highlights some contradictions between the strengths and shortcomings identified in each education system. In light of immigrant students' experiences in both countries, the authors provide suggestions for the improvement of educational practice for the children of immigrants.

An Empirical Analysis of Alternative Assessment Strategies in the High School Economics Class

Three different assessment methods are used to determine the effectiveness of the curriculum package Open and Operating: The Federal Reserve Responds to September 11 in improving the economic knowledge of 1291 California high school students. Student performance is found to vary by race and gender depending on the assessment method used: multiple choice questions, an essay question, or a group creative poster activity. Consistent with prior studies, white male students perform better on the multiple choice questions. However, these gender and racial differences disappear for the essay instrument, and females and Asians outperform others on the group creative activity. Economists who work training high school teachers are encouraged to recommend that teachers use different assessment methods to encourage the success of different types of students.

Promising Practice of Technology Integration in Math and Science Instruction: A Case of California Charter High School

This study was conducted to examine the promising practice of using technology in teaching math and science in a charter high school in California. The research employed an in-depth qualitative case study method. The main participants were principals, lead teachers, teachers, and support staff. Interviews, observations, and archival documents were the main data collection tools. The study found that the practice of using technology in teaching by the school, Center for Advanced Research and Technology (CART), has lead to positive educational outcomes. These include increased student achievement in standardized test scores, increased motivation, growth in mean GPA, less behavior problems from students, and improved school attendance by students. Implications for policy and practice were discussed.