han girls, although low-SES girls tend not to pursue careers in math and science.
Physical, Social, and Emotional Health Concerns
Szilagyi (2003) reported that society must care for its children and this standard is important in all systems, to include education. While all children require this care, up to 18.2% of children have special needs requiring additional care. Children with chronic physical, mental, developmental, or behavioral needs require special services and pubic health programs must meet the needs of these children.
Baxter (1998) reported that children attend public schools almost seven hours per day, 180 days per year and during this time they receive social development which even promotes the foods they eat and resulting health. Children are taught what to eat, why to eat, and they receive reinforcements for eating. The social context of eating provides positive reinforcement for certain preferences.
Morais and Rocha (2000) studied the cognitive and socio-affective competencies in children ages 6-8 years in a sample of 83 children. Pedagogic practices were investigated for the teaching of help (collaboration and cooperation), respect (rule following), responsibility (competence regarding taking care of something), and autonomy (competence to do things on their own). Social class and gender of the child were also considered as mediating variables. Class observations yielded data that could be counted; the number of interventions that corresponded to each content of the variable was counted and the frequency was compared to the whole sample. Rules are sociologically acquired and therefore a child's behavior related to "help," for example, was considered a social competence. Findings showed that children of all social levels demonstrated better performance initially in the simpler social competencies of help and respect compared to the complex competencies of responsibility and autonomy but peda...