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Employing descriptive and interpretive analyses of classroom videos and focus group data, this study details how the provision of choice was enacted in instruction, and the subsequent messages students perceived. Participants included six teachers (fourth to eighth grade) and 114 students (age true X ¯ = 11.28 years, 60% African American). Survey data indicated students perceived high levels of choice in the focal classrooms (Time 1 true X ¯ = 3.32, SD = 0.91; Time 2 true X ¯ = 3.25, SD = 0.94). Results suggest five differentiating dimensions of providing choice: strategy, pace, format, topic, and mobility as well as differences in the structure of how choice was provided—a single event versus a generative sequence of autonomy-supportive adolescent-teacher interactions. Analysis of student focus group transcripts indicated the enactment of choice communicated messages around trust, respect, and worth that influenced student engagement. Overall, results suggest the provision of choice can be a context for meeting young adolescents’ developmental needs and fostering students’ motivational resources.

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M adam Justice Elaine Adair of the BC Supreme Court has begun hearing a class-action lawsuit involving 7000 doctors, including the province's former health minister, who are trying to recover fees they claim British Columbia owes them. Dr. James Halvorson, the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, is suing the Medical Services Commission over fees the doctors say they should have received from 1992 to 1996, when the province cancelled the enrolment of BC residents who did not pay Medical Service Plan premiums.