Section 1: Academic Achievement - National Center for School ...

Literature Background
Many educators can tell story after story of students they have taught (or maybe even
personally) who had strike after strike against them, yet found a way to not only to succeed at
school, but possibly even excel. Why is it they have this success? How have they overcome
all the risk factors and proven researchers wrong? What risk factors do H&HM students face?
How can I as a classroom teacher address these risk factors?
The research on Homeless and Highly Mobile students shows that their needs and situations
can have an impact on their school achievement many times before they even reach school
age. Homeless children are less likely to attend preschool (Stern & Nunez, 1999). Even
when homeless children are in a caring environment, their educational needs can take a back
seat to the parents’ need to provide for the basics such as food and shelter (Better Homes
Fund, 1999).
So what are the issues that can be addressed in the classroom to increase the academic
achievement of H&HM students? Some researchers believe that resiliency may be a
characteristic that H&HM students develop in order to beat the odds. Werner and Smith
(2001) determined that resilient people tend to demonstrate some common characteristics:
caring, competent, communicative, good at problem solving, and optimistic. Werner and
Smith defined resiliency as an interaction between the individual, the environment, and
situational factors. While as an educator I don’t have much control over the individual that
appears in my classroom, I can have an impact on the environment and situational factors that
occur in my school and my classroom. Werner and Smith identified ten factors which they
fostered resiliency, most of which I believe can be addressed within a school setting. These
factors include ability to read, high expectations, strong role models, bonding with adults,
family role model of the same gender, a sense of helpfulness, faith, making and keeping
friends, connecting with school, and meaningful participation in the community. Although
Werner and Smith’s work studied a general population of at risk people, I think their findings
are also appropriate for H&HM students.
In addition, researcher Bonny Bernard, (2004) has studied resiliency in relation to education.
She found that a mix of caring and respectful relationships, high expectations, and
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