Students' opportunities to learn how to think are embedded in the instructional tasks with which they are invited to engage in the classroom. Prior research has revealed that the selection and use of cognitively demanding tasks does not guarantee high-level student thinking during their enactment. To address this challenge, we designed and…

The internal/external frame of reference (I/E) model and dimensional comparison theory posit paradoxical relations between achievement (ACH) and self-concept (SC) in mathematics (M) and verbal (V) domains; ACH in each domain positively affects SC in the matching domain (e.g., MACH to MSC) but negatively in the nonmatching domain (e.g., MACH to…

Rendering visible African immigrants' shared and differing experiences of civic learning and action, the authors present findings from in-depth semi-structured interviews with second- and 1.5-generation African immigrants in New York City. Drawing on an interdisciplinary framework of African immigrant identities constructions and civic…

After-school community-based spaces are often recognized in political and educational discourse as institutions that "save" and "rescue" Black youth. Such rhetoric perpetuates an ethos of pathology that diminishes the agency of youth and their communities. Through ethnographic research with 20 youth workers at a college…

We examine whether the legal decision to grant unitary status to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district, which led to the end of race-conscious student assignment policies, increased the probability that families with children enrolled in the district would move to neighborhoods with a greater proportion of student residents of the same race as…

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…

An extended body of research has documented the outmigration of the "best and brightest" youth from rural areas. Some of this scholarship has suggested that rural schools and educators may be complicit in this process as they devote extra attention and resources to the highest achieving students--those most likely to leave their rural…

"Te Kotahitanga" is a research and professional development project that seeks to reduce educational disparities between indigenous Maori students and their non-Maori peers in New Zealand secondary schools. While evidence of the impact of the project on teachers' practice and the associated gains made by Maori students has been…

We examine adolescents' interpretations of instructional interactions to understand the academic and developmental implications of pedagogy for urban youth of color. In doing so, we seek to advance existing knowledge regarding student engagement in two ways--enhancing the ecological validity of such theories and making the links to teacher…

Boarding school has been a feature of education systems for centuries. Minimal large-scale quantitative data have been collected to examine its association with important educational and other outcomes. The present study represents one of the largest studies into boarding school conducted to date. It investigates boarding school and students'…

Advancement to postsecondary education for English language learners (ELLs) can be seriously constrained by a lack of academic preparation during high school. Currently, ELLs lag behind their non-ELL peers in their level of access to advanced college-preparatory courses. Through a qualitative case study of ELL education at a large public high…

The Arizona legislature passed HB 2281, which eliminated Tucson Unified School District's (TUSD's) Mexican American Studies (MAS) program, arguing the curriculum was too political. This program has been at the center of contentious debates, but a central question has not been thoroughly examined: Do the classes raise student achievement?…

We conducted a randomized field trial to test an academic vocabulary intervention designed to bolster the language and literacy skills of linguistically diverse sixth-grade students (N = 2,082; n = 1,469 from a home where English is not the primary language), many demonstrating low achievement, enrolled in 14 urban middle schools. The 20-week…

All teachers (N = 32) at one middle school participated in a university-led intervention to improve student engagement. Teachers discussed four principles of motivation and related instructional strategies. Teachers enacted instructional strategies in their classrooms. We observed six randomly selected teachers and their students over 3 years.…

Recent efforts to define qualities of effective teaching practice have done little to capture the role of play, imagination, and creativity in classroom teaching. Drawing on theories of play and data from a two-year case study that included classroom observations, interviews, artifact collection, and surveys, the author examines the ways in which…