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Research documents an income-based achievement gap in mathematics, yet children from lower-income backgrounds do not lag behind their more advantaged peers in high-level social reasoning tasks. The purpose here was to investigate whether modifying mathematics word problems to make them more socially based would impact the mathematics performance and/or mathematics self-efficacy of lower- versus higher-income children. Research questions regarding (1) the relative difficulty of symbolic equations versus word problems, (2) the impact of socially modifying word problems on children's accuracy and self-efficacy, and (3) the relation between children's mathematics performance and mathematics self-efficacy were explored. Participants were 164 5th graders. Children completed a mathematics problem-solving test comprised of multiplication problems representing four different problem formats (two social, two abstract). Three types were word problems, and one was a symbolic (abstract) presentation. The three word problem types were everyday activity (social), social-cognitive (social), and traditional textbook (abstract). Participants also completed a mathematics self-efficacy measure. Children performed better on symbolic problems than on any of three word problem types. The lower-income group performed better on innovative social-cognitive word problems than on decontextualized word problems. Word problem variations did not have an effect for the higher-income group. Overall, mathematics self-efficacy was shown to predict mathematics performance. While problem format is only one aspect of a highly complex instructional system, findings suggest that capitalizing on social-cognitive strengths in mathematics may be valuable for improving the academic achievement of lower-income children.

1Boy Crusoe

By Allan Eric

Also published as" A Yankee Crusoe" . A 15 year old hard working and studious farm boy finds the lure of adventure on the seas as a merchant seaman more than he can resist. This is his story. " I was born in a little town in the State of Maine, near the close of the Civil War. My boyhood life did not differ materially from that of the average farmer's son in the remote country districts of New England--except, perhaps, that I read more and thought more. Hard work on the rugged soil, two terms each year in the little yellow country schoolhouse, a day's fishing now and then filled the early years of my life full to over-flowing. " What he gets is enough excitement and adventure to overflow his wildest dreams. How he experiences disaster and uses his wits and knowledge to overcome every problem makes for a great read. - Summary by Phil Chenevert