Drs. Roxanne Henkin and Janis Harmon, researchers with the UTSA College of Education and Human Development (COEHD), recently scoured young adult fiction published in the last 10 years to understand how bullying is portrayed.
Bullying is a pervasive theme in young adult fiction. Henkin and Harmon have long been interested in how modern literature handles such a sensitive subject.
In 2011, the Pew Research Center wrote that nearly one in five teens reported they had experienced bullying either in-person, by phone or by text, or online. Henkin estimates, however, that the number of children who observe peers experiencing bullying is even greater.
Henkin and Harmon read through 21 books published in the last decade and identified how the authors presented bullying, the characters involved, the context in which the bullying occurred, reactions to the bullying by others within the story, parental relationships, and outcomes.
Henkin is the author of two books that focus on literacy as a tool to promote social justice issues, including “Confronting Bullying: Literacy as a Tool for Character Education.” Her research focuses on the intersection of social justice and literacy. She is the director of the San Antonio Writing Project.
Harmon is a professor and associate dean for undergraduate student success in the UTSA Department of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching. Her research interests include educational theory and practice, reading and language arts, and children’s literature.
The Texas Foreign/Second Language Education Student Organization in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies is helping to bridge the gap between undergraduate students and education research through their project, “Developing Undergraduate Researchers and Leaders.”
The project will focus on increasing undergraduate student research and participation in the 18th Texas Language Education Research Conference, which is hosted annually by the organization. With a grant received from the UTSA Family Fund, the organization will be able to waive registration fees for undergraduate students and award prizes for the top undergraduate research presentations.
Graduate students from the Department of Educational Psychology presented their research at the fifth annual UTSA School Psychology Symposium and Reception on Wednesday, May 4, 2016 at the Downtown Campus.
A new case study by Crystal Kalinec-Craig, assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching, explores the benefits and challenges of using Mariachi music to introduce math concepts to elementary school students.
In the study, Kalinec-Craig describes her observation of a third grade math teacher in Tucson, Arizona who introduced the concept of equivalent fractions to her primarily Hispanic students with the help of a Mariachi instructor and his students. The Mariachi music helped the students gain the ability to distinguish between whole numbers and fractions. It also helped them understand the relative value of fractions, such as 1/2 versus 1/4. Kalinec-Craig believes that the students better grasped the idea of fractions because the concepts were presented to them in a way that helped the children to model their understanding of fractions while connected to their out-of-school experiences with music.
Daphne Villarreal, a graduate student in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies, received the inaugural Dr. Miguel Alvarez Research Award. The award was named in honor of Dr. Miguel Alvarez, a doctoral student and bilingual educator who passed away last fall. While a student at UTSA, Alvarez dedicated his time to his research on educational equity. Alvarez’s wife and sons presented the award to Villarreal for her dedication to Latina/o education research.
TUTSA and University of Texas at Austin researchers have received a five-year, $3.1 million federal grant from the National Institutes of Health and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to study local obesity prevention efforts.
Zenong Yin, Loretta J. Lowak Clarke Distinguished Professor in Health and Kinesiology of the Department of Kinesiology, Health and Nutrition at the UTSA College of Education and Human Development, and Deborah Parra-Medina, director of the Latino Research Initiative at UT Austin, will co-lead a multidisciplinary team of researchers. UTSA COEHD faculty members Erica Sosa and Meizi He will also contribute to the research.
Conducted in partnership with the Family Service Association of San Antonio, Yin and his team will focus on evaluating Head Start program “¡Míranos! Look at Us, We are Healthy!” ¡Míranos! is a multifaceted obesity intervention program meant to promote healthy growth in preschool-aged children enrolled at Head Start Centers. The ¡Míranos! study will enroll 523 preschool-aged children in 21 Head Start centers across Bexar County and track their health progress for two years.