This article focuses on teachers' identity construction in the context of a "failing" inner-city high school. Framing teachers' student stories as narrative resources for solving both the practical and identity problems that confront them in an underresourced, inner-city school, the article argues that these stories can serve…

Few studies explore teachers' involvement in school feeding, questioning gendered implications within a feminine and feminized profession. Ethnographic data from one public high school in Metropolitan Buenos Aires suggest that teachers' efforts to address student hunger added new work roles: food advocates/activists, food managers, and…

This article presents a critical race theory analysis of teachers' and students' language policy negotiation. It draws on an ethnographic study in a high-school English as a Second Language (ESL) program. Results demonstrate how race-language processes create conditions that traumatize immigrant and bilingual youth of color through…

Drawn from a two-year critical ethnography, the author explores how Mexican-origin students in a U.S. southwest charter high school resisted Spanish heritage language instruction. Resistance was rooted in students' perception that their teacher unfairly characterized their linguistic and social identities. Students also constructed their…

Newcomer young men confront numerous obstacles that limit their chances for attainment and achievement. Using social and cultural capital frameworks and a case study methodology, this article examines how four Latino newcomer young men navigated an urban U.S. high school. It reveals how teachers and a counselor cultivated capital and how the young…

This article explores the process and impact of women organizing for educational justice in Northern California by documenting the efforts of a committed group of mothers who sought to address the disproportionate underachievement of Latino and African American students within their city's high school. Using a combined methodology of…

A "native" Christian ethnographer finds religious education at this church-sponsored school to pursue two distinct, and occasionally conflicting, curricula: "love" and "purity." The curriculum of love draws on what Turner called liminality and communitas in an effort to promote spiritual "encounters with…

This article investigates how Moroccan public high-school students experience religious pedagogy. Probing the linguistic ideology that underpins their religious training, the article exposes the ambiguities inherent in educational Arabization, a project set on safeguarding the state's sacredness while mediating an agenda of indigenous…

This article examines how students and teachers at an urban public high school embodied and understood various social categories of difference. Although ascriptions and experiences of racial and gender identities varied, these identities were often viewed as biological in origin and static in nature. The complexities and contradictions evident in…

This ethnographic study of a high school gay-straight alliance club examines unintended consequences of silence during the Day of Silence, a day of action aimed at addressing anti-LGBTQ bias in schools. While this strategy calls for students to engage in intentional silences to raise awareness of anti-LGBTQ bias, it does not necessarily lead…

Increasing numbers of immigrant youth are coming of age within global cities that are characterized by growing inequalities and few opportunities for social mobility. These youth face numerous educational obstacles that complicate college and labor market access. This article draws from an ethnographic study of public high schools serving…

Research suggests that Cambodian students often endure conflicting ethnic stereotypes from larger society and their school and communities. We examine the ways in which Cambodian youth negotiated their ethnic identities in response to these stereotypes and argue that Cambodian students adopted, rejected, and affirmed certain ethnic identities in…

This article extends Appadurai's notion of "scapes" to delineate what we see as "iScapes." We contend that iScapes captures the way online technologies shape interactions that invariably filter into offline contexts, giving shape and meaning to human actions and motivations. By drawing on research on high school students' online activities we…

The unofficial "diversity curriculum" of an urban high school and how it is negotiated by prospective teachers during field experience and student-teaching experiences are examined. The school setting, including the people within it, communicate messages such as "who we are" and "how we do things here." The intermediary construct of institutional…

In this article, I examine how black students construct their racial and achievement self-concepts in a predominantly white high school to enact a black achiever identity. By listening to these students talk about the importance of race and achievement to their lives, I came to understand how racialized the task of achieving was for them even…