(1999). Advocating Social Justice and Cultural Affirmation: Ethnically Diverse Preservice Teachers’ Perspectives on Multicultural Education. Equity & Excellence in Education: Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 66-76.

The authors examined whether motivational goals influenced the participation and performance of low-achieving students during collaborative problem solving with a high-achieving partner. Thirty-five pairs of 4th- and 5th-grade students were randomly assigned a set of instructions designed to induce students to adopt a learning goal or a performance goal. The following day, the students were individually given a posttest on problems similar to those worked on collaboratively. The low-achieving students given learning-goal instructions performed better on the posttest problems and perceived their partner's competence as more similar to their own than did the low-achieving students given performance-goal instructions. No differences in overall amount or level of low achievers' participation during collaborative problem solving were observed. Implications of the findings for the use of peer learning in heterogeneous classrooms are discussed.

In a context characterised by triple sources of accountability demands, principals in Chile are required to mobilise change to raise performance indicators. School improvement is a complex endeavour—a complexity that is intensified for newly appointed principals, particularly when placed in a high-poverty, ineffective school. This article explores changes introduced by newly appointed principals placed in elementary public schools that were struggling (n = 4) and in schools that were sinking (n = 5). Findings show that all participants converged on actions to promote changes in: staffing, redesigning the organisation, and managing instruction. The quality of the actions, however, differed by type of school, highlighting the importance of defining policies for strengthening school leadership that take into account differences among schools. Induction will provide needed support at the individual level, but it might be insufficient support if other measures at the district level fail to create conditions, such as staffing, so the arrival of a new principal is indeed an opportunity to reverse a downward trajectory of an ineffective, high-poverty school.