Previous research documents Black professors' heavy service commitments and time spent mentoring; yet little work explores how this form of faculty work differs by gender. This intersectional analysis examines narratives of 37 Black professors at three institutions (collected across two studies), focusing on how race and gender shape Black…

Gender stereotypes about math and science do not need to be endorsed, or even available to conscious introspection, to contribute to the sex gap in engagement and achievement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). The authors examined implicit math attitudes and stereotypes among a heterogeneous sample of 5,139 participants.…

Age patterns of secondary certification and college entry differ in complex and surprising ways for traditional graduates and GED recipients. Although GED recipients are less likely to enter college in their late teens, they catch up to traditional graduates in their 20s. Results show that adjusting for differences in the age trajectories of…

Enthusiasm for problem-based learning (PBL) is widespread, yet there exists little rigorous experimental evidence of its effectiveness, especially in K-12 populations. Reported here is a highly controlled experimental study of PBL in a middle school population. Between- and within-subject comparisons are made of students learning the same material…

Value-added models have become popular in research and pay-for-performance plans. While scholars have focused attention on some aspects of their validity (e.g., scoring procedures), others have received less scrutiny. This article focuses on the extent to which value-added scores correspond to other indicators of teacher and teaching quality. The…

This study examined the effects of professional development integrating academic literacy and biology instruction on science teachers' instructional practices and students' achievement in science and literacy. The intervention consisted of 10 days of professional development in Reading Apprenticeship, an instructional framework integrating…

In this paper we analyze longitudinal data from a nationally representative panel of college entrants to test and compare several theoretical explanations of college degree attainment and noncompletion. So far, relatively little emphasis has been placed on determining the relative and combined predictive power of competing explanations or…

The authors investigated patterns of change in three middle grade teachers' beliefs and practices about motivation in mathematics during a yearlong professional development project with a university researcher. Four principles of motivation (and corresponding instructional strategies) were introduced in this sequence: supporting students'…

In this analysis, the authors explore the relationship between the social context of high schools and school-to-school variation in tracking policies. The authors consider three explanations for the implementation of highly elaborated tracking systems: opportunity hoarding, status competition, and a technical-functional explanation. Building on…

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 institutional environment of America's schools has changed substantially as government regulation has focused increasingly on the core technical work of schools--instruction. The authors explore the school administrative response to this changing environment, describing how government regulation becomes embodied in the formal structure of four…

This study attempted to untangle how two dimensions of school racial/ethnic composition--racial/ethnic diversity of the student body and racial/ethnic matching between children and their peers--were related to socioemotional and academic development after the transition into elementary school. Analysis of the Early Childhood Longitudinal…

Recently, educational researchers and practitioners have turned to value-added models to evaluate teacher performance. Although value-added estimates depend on the assessment used to measure student achievement, the importance of outcome selection has received scant attention in the literature. Using data from a large, urban school district, I…

The influence of one teacher's scaffolding moves on children's performance in free-flowing child-led small-group discussions was investigated. Three moves were examined: prompting for and praising the use of evidence, asking for clarification, and challenging. Lag sequential analysis was applied to a corpus of over 5,300 speaking turns during 30…

Using K-8 national longitudinal data, the authors investigate males' and females' achievement in math and reading, including when gender gaps first appear, whether the appearance of gaps depends on the metric used, and where on the achievement distribution gaps are most prevalent. Additionally, teachers' assessments of males and females are…