Teaching and learning with history and philosophy of science (HPS) has been, and continues to be, supported by science educators. While science education standards documents in many countries also stress the importance of teaching and learning with HPS, the approach still suffers from ineffective implementation in school science teaching. In order…

I advance some novel arguments for the use of historical experiments in science education. After distinguishing three different types of historical experiments and their general purposes, I define "complementary experiments", which can recover lost scientific knowledge and extend what has been recovered. Complementary experiments can help science…

In this article, the author argues that urban school reform falters, in part, because of the lack of an organized political constituency among the stakeholders with the most direct interest in school improvement, that is, parents whose children attend urban schools. The author examines community organizing as a potential strategy to build such a…

Research showed that children's school-entry academic skills are strong predictors of their later achievement, thereby highlighting the importance of children's achievement at kindergarten entry. This article defines a particular type of parental involvement in children's education and uses a representative sample of American urban kindergarteners…

The Gates Foundation has given more than US$100 million to establish approximately 160 early college high schools (ECHSs) across the nation. The ECHS goal, to send traditionally low-performing students to college early and graduate them with 2 years of college credit, has been widely recognized for its constructive potential. However, not all EHCS…

For over a century after the 1896 "Plessy v. Ferguson" decision, researchers have been grappling with how to effectively implement educational reform policies to provide students with an equal education in American schools. This literature review examines previous school desegregation cases and school desegregation plans to investigate how schools…

School districts that offer bilingual education often find it difficult to hire enough teachers for their growing Latino populations. To expand the pool of bilingual teachers, some districts recruit teachers from Spanish-speaking countries. Yet there has been little research on how these teachers fare or what supports they need to succeed. This…

The authors use womanist caring (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2002) as a framework for analyzing data from an oral history project of Douglass School, an all-Black school that existed in the small town of Parsons, Kansas, from 1908-1958. In-depth interviews were conducted with 55 former students who attended the school during the 1920s through when it…

In an attempt to operationalize an equitable educational program, a dual immersion program was established. After 2 years of field observations, a series of focus group interviews was conducted to examine the perceptions and viewpoints of parents whose children had participated in the program for 2 years. These interviews offered parents an…

This qualitative study identifies the ways in which teachers in an urban school district responded to the specialized educational needs of Somali Bantu refugee students who have recently been relocated to the United States and who have had limited and interrupted access to education prior to their enrollment in public schools in the United States.…

This article reports on the development and initial validation of the multidimensional Multicultural Teaching Competency Scale (MTCS). Data from 506 pre- and in-service teachers were collected in three interrelated studies. Exploratory factor analysis results suggested a 16-item, two-factor solution: (a) multicultural teaching skill and (b)…

This article demonstrates how a well-designed and collaboratively supported program engages school faculty in improving at-risk student retention and transition to college. Using the "power of the site" principle, the program designers envisioned a very different high school culture that focuses on a collaborative and supportive relationship…

Disparate outcomes resulting from economic segregation in public primary schools have been the subject of much debate and litigation. Little research, however, examines whether negative outcomes may be exacerbated by inequities in the distribution of housing across metropolitan areas. This article explores connections between residential land use…

This qualitative case study explores the cultural impact the Piney Woods School, a historically Black independent boarding school, had on the social and academic experiences of four of its graduates in attendance at two traditionally White universities. The article discusses the collegiate experiences of four students: Samantha, Ira, Tony, and…

Twenty-five years ago the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) held its conference in Chicago. The president of NCSS that year, and the last New Yorker to hold this office, was Donald Bragaw, who was the head of the Social Studies Bureau of the New York State Education Department. In this article, the author shares the salient points of…