1st Edition

High-Risk Children In Schools Constructing Sustaining Relationships

By Robert Pianta, Daniel Walsh Copyright 1996

    High Risk Children in Schools offers a way for psychologists and educators to see and talk about the growing population of "at-risk" children--those likely to fail at formal schooling--while helping to redefine the relationship between schools and families.

    Using systems theory and developmental psychology, the authors present a new framework for the study and education of children who are at-risk. This framework--the Contextual Systems Model--creates a dialogue between the child and schooling through which meaning, goals, and experiences are shared and accepted.

    Introduction; Part 1 Risk; Chapter 1 Contemporary Children And Risk; Chapter 2 The Discourse On Risk And Early Schooling; Chapter 3 The Invidious Triangle; Part 2 Systems; Chapter 4 A New Lens; Chapter 5 General Systems Approaches To Understanding Early Schooling And Risk; Chapter 6 The Child As A Developing System; Chapter 7 Life Hazards Contributing To Educational Risk; Part 3 Schooling; Chapter 8 What Do High-Risk Children Come To?; Chapter 9 Conversations Between Children And Schools;

    Biography

    Robert C. Pianta is Associate Professor of Clinical and School Psychology in the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia. Daniel J. Walsh is Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

    "...I applaud this volume's emphases and hope that these ideas will become more prevalent and more practiced...the more general context point of view is well highlighted and should be a part of every well informed mental health consultant's awareness." -- Irving H. Berkovitz, Clinical Professor in Psychiatry, UCLA
    "In this gem of a book, Pianta and Walsh offer a fresh and stimulating perspective on children's schooling, the nature of risk, and the importance of the relationship between the child/family system and schools/schooling. ...This volume would be an excellent supplementary text in coursesin child development, child psychopathology, exceptional children, educational foundations, and school consultation." -- School Psychology Quarterly