Previous research has consistently found a relationship between student race and discipline. For example, African Americans are more likely than whites to be sent to the office or suspended. However, much of this work is limited by a lack of student behavior and school-level variables. This study examined the effect of student race on office…

Expanding the sources of leadership in schools has been a reform theme since the mid 1980s. Using exploratory factor analysis and regression, we examine the following questions: (1) How does leadership style affect principals' openness to community involvement? (2) Is a principal's openness to community involvement related to student achievement?…

The recommitment of public education to its civic roots has revived discussion on how to engage younger generations of citizens in electoral politics and civic life. This randomized trial of 1,670 high school students in 80 social studies classrooms evaluates the impact of an election-based civics program on students' civic knowledge, skills, and…

This study expands research on an academic and social turning point for adolescents, the transition to high school, by analyzing how students' level of social integration into school can affect high school academic performance. Using nationally representative data, three different pathways emerged as students transition to high school,…

In this article, I argue that the expansion of higher education worldwide has had important effects in restructuring the political system of affluent democracies. A large literature has developed that describes how democracy has been "downsized" (e.g., lower voting rates). This, I argue, is one impact of expanded higher education. But there is…

The findings on the social distribution of the immediate and lasting benefits of small classes have been mixed. We used data from Project STAR and the Lasting Benefits Study to examine the long-term effects of small classes on the achievement gap in mathematics, reading, and science scores (Stanford Achievement Test). The results consistently…

If we are to fully understand the demand side of school choice, we have to understand geography. But geography is not simply distance and commute time. It is also neighborhood and community. Using two conceptions of geography--space and place--I investigate how and when geography factored into parents' thinking. Drawing on spatial analyses of…

Home buyers exercise school choice when shopping for a private residence due to its location in a public school district or attendance area. In this quantitative study of one Connecticut suburban district, we measure the effect of elementary school test scores and racial composition on home buyers' willingness to purchase single-family homes over…

There has been a great deal of research into school choice and the education quasi-market that has dominated compulsory school provision in the United Kingdom since the early 1980s. Much of this research fails to address the context in which processes of choice exist alongside the patterns and outcomes of choice and competition, leading to…

We examine whether student enrollment in nonneighborhood schools changes levels of racial segregation in public schools across urban school districts by comparing the racial composition of schools and their corresponding attendance area. This comparison was made possible by using geographic information systems (GIS) to link maps of elementary,…

Competition sparked by school choice is expected to generate greater educational opportunities, particularly for disadvantaged students. The premise is that competitive incentives will change the organizational behavior of schools (and districts, dioceses, etc.) in ways that will lead to more equitable access for students across varied and often…

A particularly controversial aspect of teacher preparation is the increasing number of teacher preparation programs that emphasize "social justice" as part of the curriculum. This article examines how students in a program with a social justice agenda understood the concept and how their understandings played out in practice. Using interviews and…

In this article, I argue that there has been a basic continuity between what immigrants historically have sought from American schools and what contemporary immigrants seek. In neither case have immigrants sought to utilize the schools to "reproduce" or to "preserve" cultures separate from the American mainstream. Rather, immigrants have…

This article examines the process of adults and students collaborating in school-based learning communities. Drawing on interview data from youth and adults participating in student voice initiatives in the San Francisco Bay Area, this study examines contexts that enable "youth-adult partnerships" in schools, including (1) fostering trust and…

This study evaluates the impact of the privatization of education services in the Philadelphia School District, using an interrupted time series design. The sample observes 88 middle-grades schools, beginning with the 1996-97 school year, and finds that, by 2006, four years postintervention, the achievement growth rate of schools run by…