Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K)--a large, nationally representative sample of US elementary school students, we employed multilevel analysis to answer the following research questions: (a) Does students' mathematics achievement growth in grades K-3 vary among schools? (b) To what extent does…

A growing number of parents--particularly middle- and upper-middle-class parents--are working to fill budgetary gaps through their fundraising, grant writing, and volunteerism in urban public schools. Yet little is known about how this may shape norms and practices related to parental engagement within particular schools. Drawing from a case study…

A growing body of school choice research has shown that when school choice policies are not designed to racially or socioeconomically integrate schools, that is, are "colorblind" policies, they generally manage to do the opposite, leading to greater stratification and separation of students by race and ethnicity across schools and programs. Since…

In this multicountry analysis, we generate a student-level measure of socioeconomic status (SES) "mixing" to understand the benefits or pitfalls of placing low-SES children with diverse peers. We conduct this analysis separately for equal and unequal countries that provide the same curriculum to all children regardless of ability level, and we…

This study focuses on a contested area of shared governance, intercollegiate athletics. The researchers consider how faculty perceptions of organizational politics shape their orientations toward collaborative decision-making in this domain. The results provide insights into ways social cognitions about campus-level decision-making affect faculty…

Increasingly, regional and/or teaching colleges and universities are striving to assert themselves as national or international research universities. Although such shifts represent significant implications for faculty members, few works address the faculty perspective or experience with this change. In this qualitative, interpretive paper, I…

Using longitudinal data from the 2001 cohort of applicants to the Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) program, the authors examined scaled measures of academic and social engagement in relation to labor market earnings to test whether the economic value of student engagement among high-achieving students of color differs by student characteristics.…

This article proposes a new paradigm to understand recent government policies that pose new barriers to student participation and divert students out of public higher education. We explain how the classic diversion paradigm, exemplified by Clark (1960) and Brint and Karabel (1989), is unable to account for this new form of student diversion. We…

This article uses the life history method to chronicle the challenges of a low-income, first-generation student en route to college. The paper addresses three questions: how Manuel navigates college and related topics such as roommates, family, and money; how he creates social networks; and how he works with adults such as teachers and…

When Jake Baker wrote a violent, sexually themed story about one of his classmates and emailed it to a friend, the case that ensued highlighted how new technologies have created fresh ways for students to harass, oppress, or be oppressed by others. This article examines concepts of violence and cultural imperialism oppression, primarily as defined…

The relationships between faculty and students in graduate school have been found to have a significant effect on most aspects of the doctoral experience. Yet we know little about the emotional landscape of these relationships and what makes them work. This study, which conducted qualitative interviews in one academic department, looks inside…

The quest for institutional prestige in the academic hierarchy has become a common phenomenon among universities in the United States. At the same time, the institutions that choose to embark on such a journey (referred to as striving institutions) have not been closely examined to determine how such efforts influence the different constituencies…

This study examines the sensemaking processes of new college presidents to understand how they develop plausible, working descriptions of the campus and come to understand their role. Semi-structured interviews were completed with 18 presidents who were organizational outsiders and first-time presidents. As newcomers, presidents were found to act…

There is an ample scholarly and popular literature describing the rise in "anxiety" among middle-class parents. This paper draws from a study of urban middle-class parents who were considering sending their children to public school. Focusing on one neighborhood and its school, it describes the impact of anxiety on the choice process. It further…

This ethnographic case study explores how two middle-class Chinese immigrant parents in a southeastern U.S. city facilitate their newcomer adolescents' second language acquisition and social integration. Data show that parents' inadequate English proficiency may not be a fixed constraining factor; their class habitus and cultural capital may…