My apologies to iconic hip-hop artists, De La Soul for I have shamelessly appropriated the title, "Stakes is high" to underscore the importance of the work ahead for educators, students, parents, community members, and researchers as we attempt to develop a generation of what I call "new century" students for a world we can hardly imagine. Through…

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,…

Racially minoritized students attending U.S. colleges and universities are often compared to their White peers in research studies, generally emphasizing their cultural deficits, masking minority group achievement, and homogenizing within group variations. This article reports data for racially minoritized students who participated in the national…

One frequently held assumption found within the school discipline literature suggests that students of color- particularly African American, male, low-income populations- are at an increased risk of receiving exclusionary discipline sanctions. Aside from race, gender, and socioeconomic status; however, less is known about other factors that…

Several theories suggest that African American culture facilitates academic achievement, but others suggest that identifying with Black culture contributes to the achievement gap by undermining the academic performance among youth. These opposing perspectives are labeled "cultural compatibility theories" and "cultural incompatibility theories,"…

While persistence and completion rates in postsecondary education are on the rise, gaps based on racial/ethnic demographics remain. This is particularly evident at predominately White institutions (PWIs), despite increasing enrollment of African Americans at these institutions. Previous studies have linked psychosocial health of African American…

Allegations and assumptions of fiscal mismanagement at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have existed since their founding and continue today. There is little evidence that these claims, fueled by the media, legislatures, and often accrediting agencies, are actually truer than fiscal mismanagement at predominantly White…

This qualitative study examines 26 White middle school teachers' perceptions of their experiences in a predominantly White middle school with a growing African American student population. Utilizing in-depth focus group interviews, teachers elaborated on their experiences with navigating racial, ethnic and cultural boundaries as they attempted to…

Standard setting (the process of establishing minimum passing scores on high-stakes exams) is a highly evaluative and policy-driven process. It is a common belief that standard setting panels should be diverse and representative. There is concern, however, that panelists with varying characteristics may differentially influence the results of the…

There is considerable interest in identifying ways to close the Black-White achievement gap. This study examines race differences in children's participation in after-school programs, an out-of-school time experience that may influence children's achievement. Using nationally representative data spanning 1995-2005, the authors find that African…

To gauge the differential attitudes of faculty members toward student-athletes at a large Division I-A university, a revised version of the Situational Attitude Scale (SAS) Student-Athlete was administered to 464 faculty members. Findings revealed differences in the attitudes of faculty toward student-athletes by race, gender, and college…

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…

This study was an examination of how African American faculty discussed their coping with racially stressful classrooms. Despite aims for racial equality in higher education, the classroom has been a significant site of racial stressors for African American facility. Analysis of interviews with 16 (8 women, 8 men) African American faculty at a…

This study provides empirical support for the Attributions for Scholastic Outcomes Scale-Black (ASO-B) as an instrument for measuring two latent traits that influence causal reasoning about the Black-White achievement gap: culture-blaming and structure-blaming. Within this conceptual framework, culture-blaming refers to the belief that Black…