Efforts to support children in schools require addressing not only academic issues, but also out-of-school factors that can affect students' ability to succeed. This study examined academic achievement of students participating in City Connects, a student support intervention operating in high-poverty elementary schools. The sample included…

In 2003, Chicago schools required students entering ninth grade with below-average math scores to take two periods of algebra. This led to higher test scores for students with both above- and below-average skills, yet failure rates increased for above-average students. We examine the mechanisms behind these surprising results. Sorting by incoming…

The big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE) was evaluated with 4,461 seventh to ninth graders in Singapore where a national policy of ability streaming is implemented. Consistent with the BFLPE, when prior achievement was controlled, students in the high-ability stream had lower English and mathematics self-concepts (ESCs and MSCs) and those in the…

The underrepresentation of girls from nondominant backgrounds in the sciences and engineering continues despite recent gains in achievement. This longitudinal ethnographic study traces the identity work that girls from nondominant backgrounds do as they engage in science-related activities across school, club, and home during the middle school…

Using panel data from a census of public school students in the state of Florida, the authors examine the associations between students' high school course-taking in various subjects and their 10th-grade test scores, high school graduation, entry into postsecondary institutions, and postsecondary performance. The authors use propensity score…

The reciprocal internal/external frame of reference model (RI/EM) combines the internal/external frame of reference model and the reciprocal effects model. The RI/EM predicts positive effects of mathematics and verbal achievement and academic self-concepts (ASC) on subsequent mathematics and verbal achievements and ASCs within domains and negative…

Students from minority segregated schools tend to achieve and attain less than similar students from White segregated schools. This study examines whether peer effects can explain this relationship using normative models and frog-pond models. Normative models (where peers become alike) suggest that minority schoolmates are a liability. Frog-pond…

The authors conducted an experimental study to examine the effects of collaborative strategic reading and metacognitive strategic learning on the reading comprehension of students in seventh- and eighth-grade English/language arts classes in two sites (Texas, Colorado) and in three school districts. Students were randomly assigned to classes and…

Using longitudinal data on a nationally representative U.S. cohort, this study examined the roles of language minority (LM) status and English proficiency in English reading growth across the elementary and middle school years. Piecewise growth modeling was used to compare English reading growth trajectories for native English speakers and LM…

This study examines trends in American students' growth trajectories in reading and math achievement over the past three decades. Drawing upon multiple sources of national assessment data, cohort analyses provide new evidence on the stability and change of national academic growth curves. The emerging trends imply a tripartite pattern where…

This short-term longitudinal research examined the relationships among middle school students' perceptions of school environment, school engagement, and academic achievement. Participants were from a representative, ethnically diverse, urban sample of 1,046 students. The findings supported the theoretical conceptualization of three different, but…

Student opposition in school is traditionally cast in terms of individual dispositions, whereby particular students or groups of students are said to "resist" or "oppose" school structures and identities aligned with the dominant cultural group. The author examined instead how the teacher and students in a low-track mathematics classroom jointly…

Recent analyses of state-level proficiency standards under No Child Left Behind indicate that states' benchmarks for determining whether a child is proficient in reading and math are widely divergent. This article explores whether the capacity of states to employ different proficiency standards imposes different performance standards across…

In 2000, Cook, Murphy, and Hunt published a multilevel study of Chicago inner-city schools in order to evaluate James Comer's School Development Program (SDP). One main finding was that SDP reduced the rate of change and final posttest mean when delinquency was assessed annually between Grades 5 and 8 using a self-report measure of acting out. The…

Emergent ethnographic research disentangles "social capital" from other components of social class (e.g., material and human capital) to show how class-stratified parental social networks exacerbate educational inequality among schoolchildren. The authors build upon this research by using survey data to reexamine whether certain forms of parental…