News Bureau

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Two studies in mice add to the evidence that the phthalate DEHP, a plasticizing agent used in auto upholstery, baby toys, building materials and many other consumer products, can undermine female reproductive health, in part by disrupting the growth and function of the ovaries.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - More than one in five youth in middle school has experienced physical sexual violence such as being inappropriately touched against their will while at school, a new study suggests.

CHAMPAIGN,Ill. - Catherine P. Corr, a doctoral student in special education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been named a recipient of a Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Well-Being.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Many characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorders can be identified by the age of 2 and are predictive of which children will be diagnosed with these disorders when they're older, a new study suggests.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - More than 40 years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down sponsored prayer and scripture readings in the nation's public schools, the role of religion in education remains a sharply divisive topic in many communities.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Service-learning projects have become popular in U.S. public schools for teaching citizenship values.

A Minute With™... Peter Schiffer, a professor of physics and the vice chancellor for research

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Preschoolers who engage in challenging behaviors - patterns of behavior that interfere with learning and social interaction - are at increased risk of academic failure and peer rejection, among other poor outcomes.

CHAMPAIGN,Ill. - Officials from Jiangxi Normal University in Nanching, China, and the University of Illinois will sign an agreement establishing a Confucius Institute at the Urbana campus during an event Nov. 21 (Thursday).

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A new book challenges popular assumptions about the superiority of private-school education and raises questions about the political imperatives behind current school-reform and policy initiatives that are based on market theory.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - New research from the University of Illinois indicates that elementary school students and their teachers often don't agree on who bullies whom in their classrooms. And researchers say that intervention and prevention programs need to both heighten teachers' awareness of bullying and provide support for victims that mitigate its impact on their academic achievement.

A Minute With™...  former coach Don Hardin and sports economist Scott Tainsky, both  faculty members in recreation, sport and tourism

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - When school bells began ringing a few weeks ago to convene a new academic year, thousands of novice teachers embarked upon their first teaching assignments in Illinois. However, statistics show that within five years, about 30 to 40 percent of these new teachers will leave the profession, often as a result of a perceived lack of support from their schools' administrations.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Illinois officials need to re-examine enrollment and funding policies for the state's public early childhood education programs to eliminate barriers that may keep the neediest of children from attending.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The formal and informal learning opportunities provided by multigenerational black communities in the South - and how similar grassroots efforts can turn around racial disparities in academic achievement in the U.S. today - are the focus of a new book by educational researcher Saundra Murray Nettles.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Boys exposed to familial violence, including conflict between siblings, become increasingly aggressive toward their peers at school, and this aggression is associated with greater levels of alcohol and drug use over time, a new study by a University of Illinois researcher suggests.

A Minute With™... Chris Roegge, the executive director of the Council on Teacher Education

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Middle school children who completed a social-emotional skills learning program at school were 42 percent less likely to engage in physical fighting a year later, according to a new study in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The presence of gangs in the vicinity of schools creates a pervasive climate of fear and victimization among students, teachers and administrators that escalates the level of aggression in bullying incidents and paralyzes prevention efforts, suggests a new study in the journal Psychology of Violence.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - The quality of the social relationships that newly hired people develop with other employees in their work groups is critical to newcomers' job satisfaction, learning their responsibilities and their ability to fit in to the workplace culture, a new study suggests.

CHAMPAIGN,Ill. - The role of culture in educational and social interventions will be the focus of a conference in Chicago to be hosted by the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - U.S. high school "sink or swim" placement policies that propel immigrant students into courses that they're linguistically and academically unprepared for - or conversely, that funnel all newcomers into remedial courses or service-oriented vocational programs - may undermine these students' academic success and their motivation to learn, new research suggests.

A Minute With™... education professor Linda Herrera

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth and those questioning their sexuality are at significantly greater risk of truancy and of considering and attempting suicide than their heterosexual classmates - even when bullying isn't involved, according to a new study of more than 11,000 middle and high school students.

CHAMPAIGN,Ill. - Karen Erickson, a literacy expert, will give the annual Goldstick Family Lecture in the Study of Communication Disorders at the University of Illinois on Nov. 8. Erickson's talk is titled "Conditions of Literacy Learning Success for Students With Significant Disabilities."

A Minute With™... James D. Anderson, the Gutgsell Professor of Educational Policy Studie

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - As Greece struggles to rebuild its shattered economy, humanitarian agencies worry about the impact that the nation's stringent reductions in wages and social services may have on vulnerable populations such as the Roma (also known as Romani, gypsies and travelers), many of whom live in extreme poverty on society's fringes.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Today's teachers face classrooms of students who cut their teeth using electronic communications, and two education scholars at the University of Illinois have just released both a software application and a new book that they believe will profoundly change the teaching of literacy for this technology-savvy group and generations to come.

CHAMPAIGN,Ill. - Celebrated authors of books for children and adults will share their enthusiasm for their craft in a series of events as part of the College of Education's annual Youth Literature Festival, to be observed Thursday-Saturday (Oct. 4-6).

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Incidents such as the one that took place at Normal Community High School on Friday (Sept. 7), during which a student armed with a gun briefly took classmates and a teacher hostage at the Illinois school before being subdued, provide sobering reminders that crisis plans are as imperative as lesson plans in U.S. schools today.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Children's social goals at the beginning of a school year may predict whether they'll be more popular - or less popular - by the end of that academic year, a new study conducted at the University of Illinois suggests.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Photos of happy, smiling faces on patient education websites may engage readers, but they also may have a negative impact on older adults' comprehension of vital health information, especially those elderly patients who are the least knowledgeable about their medical condition to begin with, suggests a new study.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Students with cognitive and learning disabilities who engaged in a self-directed learning program were more likely to access mainstream instruction and achieve their academic or other goals, suggests research by Karrie A. Shogren, a special education expert at the University of Illinois.

A Minute With™... Angela Lyons, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics and the director of the Center for Economic and Financial Education

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Brainiacs of all ages are invited to explore the mysteries of the brain and nervous system March 11 during an afternoon of games and activities at the Orpheum Children's Science Museum in Champaign. The event, F.I.N.D. Orphy, will kick off a new science education outreach program jointly sponsored by the Orpheum and the University of Illinois that highlights the research of the university's neuroscientists.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - No matter how many hours a day young women spend tweeting and texting, downloading electronic media or communicating online with co-workers or friends, many of them believe they're not as competent at using computer technology as the men around them. Since the Internet's infancy, researchers have observed a distinct gender divide in attitudes toward and adoption of computer technology, with many women tending to feel intimidated by it, a phenomenon called computer anxiety.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Companies that want to motivate workers to use electronic-based or digital training programs need to make training modules fun and stimulating whenever they can, and offer extrinsic incentives, such as wage increases and user support, when employees need extra enticement, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Illinois.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Hispanics living in the Midwest have the highest obesity rates among Latinos in the U.S., and in Illinois, the percentage of obese Latino children 6-11 years of age has doubled since 2001, standing now at 24 percent.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A new study of more than 346 middle-school children indicates that boys are less likely than girls to intervene to protect a bullying victim, especially if the boy is a member of a peer group in which bullying is the norm. The study also suggests that anti-bullying programs that focus on bystander intervention and empathy training aren't likely to have much impact unless attention is given to reducing bullying perpetration within children's peer groups.

A Minute With™... Katherine Ryan, a professor of education

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - With an increasing number of children "wired" from an early age, adept at playing computer games and surfing the Web by elementary school, future teachers need to know how to integrate educational games into their teaching practice, according to Wen-Hao (David) Huang, a professor in the department of education policy, organization and leadership in the College of Education at the University of Illinois. Huang wants to "game-ify" the classroom by teaching future educators how to develop engaging interactive games that they can use as effective instructional tools.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth are at greater risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, bullying by their peers and truancy, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Illinois.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Policymakers may want to rethink how they determine when children with limited English skills are fluent enough to learn in English-only classrooms, says a new study by an education professor at the University of Illinois.

CHAMPAIGN,Ill. - John Q. Easton will discuss his most recent book, "Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons From Chicago," in two lectures at the University of Illinois next week.

A Minute With™... Evangeline (Vanna) Pianfetti, a faculty member in the department of educational psychology

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - African American children who have mainly African American friends may be viewed as "cool" and more popular by their classmates - but white students who affiliate mostly with other white students may be perceived less positively, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Illinois.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Policymakers may want to rethink how they determine when children with limited English skills are fluent enough to learn in English-only classrooms, says a new study by an education professor at the University of Illinois.

A Minute With™... Chris Lubienski, a professor of education policy, organization and leadership

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Children who bully others are more likely to perpetrate sexual violence when they enter adolescence, according to a new study led by bullying expert Dorothy Espelage at the University of Illinois.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - A new study by a scholar at the University of Illinois suggests that the U.S. may not be falling as far behind its industrialized peers in educating future generations of scientists as previously thought. Significantly more female and minority college students are majoring in and obtaining degrees in science, technology, engineering and math fields than reports have indicated if these disciplines, known by the acronym STEM, are viewed broadly.