National reports recognize a growing gender gap in postsecondary enrollment as a major challenge impacting the lives of young men, particularly African Americans. Previous gender and race specific research is largely inconclusive. It is, for example, unclear from previous research how persistent the gender gap is across various school contexts,…

Public elite and specialized high schools in New York City have a very low enrollment of Black and Latino students. Project 2011 is an intensive preparatory instructional program to improve acceptance rates for Black and Latino children to the eight specialized public high schools in New York City. Initiated and funded by District 17 and 18 of the…

The study is one of few to examine how living in rural, suburban, or urban settings may alter factors supporting African Americans adolescents' math performance. The study examines the relationship of math self-concept and perceptions of friends' academic behaviors to African American students' math performance. Participants (N = 1,049) are…

For the data presented in this report, the author analyzed 17,587 Black, Hispanic, and White male and female students (Black males; N = 1,149) who completed the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (Ingels et al., 2011). This is a brief report from a larger study completed under the auspices of the National Dropout Prevention Center for Students…

According to the "acting White" hypothesis, African American students who do well in school are negatively sanctioned by their peers, leading them to withdraw future academic engagement. No study to date has tested the entire causal process posited by the hypothesis. This article uses the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002, nationally…

This case study examines Black-Latino/a relations at a public university in California, which has a 31% Black and 40% Latino/a student population. In-depth interviews with students and administrators indicate that Black and Latino/a students do recognize that they share similar educational and socioeconomic obstacles; however, there is little to…

Data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction archive are used to assess the joint effect of race and gender on advanced academic (advanced placement and honors) course enrollment within a school district with an open enrollment policy. Using student SAT scores; the authors compare expected levels of advanced course enrollment for…

Racial inequality in education is a serious problem in the United States. The latest government attempt to address this problem was the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB). This study used the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS: 2002) to examine the relationship between race and composite reading and math scores among Black and White…

The grim statistics are well known, but bear repeating: in Chicago, close to 60% of Black boys do not graduate from high school, and only one in forty receive a bachelor's degree by age 25. In the fall of 2006, Urban Prep Charter Academy for Young Men-Englewood Campus, the nation's first all-male charter public high school, was opened. In 2010 and…

The need for African American male teachers is clear; however their pathway to teaching is in disrepair. This article shares research findings and a description of a pre-collegiate course designed to encourage high school students of color, including African American males, to explore teaching. More specifically, drawing from survey and interview…

This phenomenological investigation examines the perceptions of the teaching profession as a viable career option by high-achieving high school-aged African American boys. Researchers used random sampling to identify high schools in one large urban school district and criterion sampling to examine the perceptions of 63 African American 11th-grade…

African American high school students are performing behind their White classmates regardless of whether they are in majority or minority populations at school. Teacher expectations, among school-related factors that can impact the academic achievement of African American high school students, are the focus of this study. Interviews were conducted…

This article provides a vicarious experience in the classrooms of two teachers who successfully facilitated engagement in urban schools. With practices grounded in culturally responsive classroom management, the teachers created classroom environments in which students were motivated to participate, met high behavioral expectations, and remained…

Data from 2008 Monitoring the Future were used to test how well religious, family, and cultural social capital influenced 8th and 10th grade student aspirations, future plans, and prior academic experience. This study focused only on a sample of 4,273 African American students. Results indicated a strong association between family social capital…

This qualitative case study probes one African American school leader with a conservative religious upbringing as she works in a high school with a self-identified population of African American lesbian, guy, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students. The findings demonstrate that the participant's leadership practices were guided by her spiritual…