The transition from school to the workplace has been identified as challenging for at-risk youth who have already disengaged from learning and feel disenfranchised in the context of school. Work-based education (WBE), including co-operative education, has been recognized in recent years as an effective strategy for enabling at-risk youth to re-engage with learning and to make more successful transitions to the workplace and to further education. Not all at-risk youth thrive in WBE, even in programs that are judged to be effective for most. What remains unclear is what changes for those previously disengaged youth, as a product of participation in WBE, that enables them to shift their perspective and re-engage with learning. The purpose of this paper is to describe the experiences and changes in perspectives, in their own words, of seven previously disengaged youth while they were participating in WBE. Their teachers recommended these youth because they had made a “turnaround” since beginning WBE. The experiences and changed perspectives reported by these seven youth suggest that they found work hope through their success in WBE, and were beginning to set goals, view themselves as agents, and seek pathways to reach their goals. We discuss implications for increasing the effectiveness of WBE to re-engage even greater numbers of at-risk youth and to facilitate their transition to work by enhancing work hope.

Objective: This paper describes and compares exemplary work-based education (WBE) programs in Ontario Canada designed to meet the needs of two groups of vulnerable youth -at-risk youth and youth with severe disabilities. Participants: Two focus group interviews were held, one with professionals from exemplary programs designed to meet the needs of at-risk youth and one with professionals from exemplary programs for youth with severe disabilities. Method: Standard qualitative analyses were conducted on each focus group transcript to generate themes which were subsequently grouped into larger patterns. Then cross-case analyses identified consistencies and unique features within the two types of WBE programs. Results: Two major patterns that characterize the WBE programs emerged from the analyses: the first pattern described the programmatic approaches to WBE appropriate for each type of type of student (which included themes such as the need for an alternative learning environment for at-risk youth), and the second pattern highlighted the rationale for each kind of program (which included themes like ensuring equity for youth with severe disabilities). Conclusions: The findings suggest that schools should continue to provide distinct WBE programs for each of these groups of vulnerable youth -at-risk youth and youth with severe disabilities.

Mild or moderate hearing loss (MMHL) is a communication disability that im-pacts speech and language development and academic performance. Students with MMHL also have threats to their social-emotional well-being and self-identity formation, and are at risk for psychosocial deficits related to cognitive fa-tigue, isolation, and bullying. While the body of research on deaf and culturally Deaf students is considerable, educational literature on students with MMHL is much less extensive, especially when considering their prevalence in regular classrooms (Niskar et al., 2001). This paper investigates the social-emotional challenges of hard of hearing students using self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) as an organizing framework and highlights how classroom teachers can support relatedness, competence, and autonomy for students with MMHL.

This mixed-methods study reports on the perspectives of 208 teacher candidates on teaching children with developmental disabilities and delays (DD) in inclusive classrooms from Kindergarten to Grade 6. The questionnaire included items on demographics, experience, knowledge, and feelings of competence, advocacy, and sense of efficacy. Open-ended questions addressed challenges and successes experienced when including children with DD. Findings suggest that qualitative items elicited more positive responses than traditional questionnaire items and elicited more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of the challenges and successes associated with social inclusion. In the qualitative data, respondents showed understanding of dilemmas associated with inclusive education. Feelings of competence about teaching children with DD and about collaborating with colleagues predicted general sense of efficacy scores; those with experience advocating for individuals with disabilities reported greater knowledge, experience, and confidence related to teaching students with DD. Knowledge, experience, and confidence were highly correlated. Implications for teacher education are discussed.

Research has shown the benefits of parent involvement for student participation in education. Parent advocacy is a critical form of involvement by parents for children who are young, have disabilities, and are making transitions. Studies have classified forms of parent advocacy but have not illuminated the components necessary for effective parent advocacy. In this study of three families of children with developmental disabilities making the transition to kindergarten, we examined the applicability of Test's conceptual framework of self-advocacy (CFSA) for guiding research and interventions for parent advocacy. The four components of CFSA were all reported in the parents' experiences of advocacy. These cases highlight how parent advocacy is similar to, and more complex than, self-advocacy and suggest that parent advocacy is also influenced by the parent's perceptions of the child's needs and is context specific. In these cases, advocacy during transition reflects the parent's priorities for the child's inclusion.