Studies of when youth classify academic achievement in racial terms have focused on the racial classification of behaviors and individuals. However, institutions--including schools--may also be racially classified. Drawing on a comparative interview study, we examine the school contexts that prompt urban black students to classify schools in…

Schools with very few and relatively low-performing marginalized students may be most likely to trigger social identity threats (including stereotype threats) that contribute to racial disparities. We test this hypothesis by assessing variation in the benefits of a self-affirmation intervention designed to counteract social identity threat in a…

Relational theories of gender conceptualize masculinity and femininity as mutually constitutive. Using a relational approach, I analyzed ethnographic and interview data from male and female black adolescents in Grades 8 through 10 enrolled in ''Diversify,'' an urban-to-suburban racial integration program ("n" = 38).…

We investigate class differences in youth activity participation with interview, survey, and archival data from a diverse sample of parents (n = 51) in two schools. Findings point toward structural rather than cultural explanations. Working- and middle-class parents overlap in parenting logics about participation, though differ in one respect:…

This article examines two critical questions related to equality of educational opportunity. First, does the academic advantage that was observed in Catholic high schools more than two decades ago continue to hold for contemporary students in Catholic middle schools? Second, how closely do different school sectors adhere to the common school…

Students in the United States change schools often, and frequent changes are associated with poor outcomes along numerous dimensions. These moves occur for many reasons, including both promotional transitions between educational levels and nonpromotional moves. Promotional student mobility is less likely than nonpromotional mobility to suffer from…

Studies of parental involvement and children's education in a variety of contexts can provide valuable insights into how the relationships between parental involvement and student outcomes depend upon specific local contexts of family and education. Korean education is distinctive with its high prevalence of private tutoring, which not only…

Widespread use of "shadow education" is a major policy issue in East Asia, especially South Korea, where officials view it as harmful to educational and fiscal equity. Although previous research emphasizes functional explanations, this study takes an institutional approach, exploring how students' desire for prestigious matriculation influences…

This study makes two contributions to the literature. First, it bridges the sociological discussion of social class habitus with psychological notions of adolescents' educational expectations, locus of control, and self-concepts. Second, it empirically examines the relationships between early employed parental practices and expectations and…

Among early adolescents (10-12 years) in the Netherlands, this study examined the academic self-concept in terms of the big-fish-little-pond effect (BFLPE). The BFLPE implies that students in classes where the average achievement is low will have a higher academic self-concept than equally achieving students in classes where the average…

The transition to high school is a critical stage in students' academic trajectories and can be especially difficult for middle school students who struggle academically. Starting high school on a low academic track and with low academic performance often leads to dropping out of high school. This study investigates what might protect academically…

The author reviews three books that provide complementary and thought-provoking insights. The three books under review are: (1) "Reproducing class: education, neoliberalism, and the rise of the new middle class in Istanbul," by Henry J. Rutz and Erol M. Balkan; (2) "Technology, culture, family: influences on home life," by Elizabeth B. Silva; and…

This analysis of data from the Partnership for Literacy Study investigates the relationship among achievement, effort, and grades. Certainly, grades reward achievement, the mastery of material by students. Research has also suggested that grades are used to reward students for exerting effort to learn material, even if students fall short of…

The perspectives of indigenous science learners in developed nations offer an important but frequently overlooked dimension to debates about the nature of science, the science curriculum, and calls from educators to make school science more culturally responsive or "relevant" to students from indigenous or minority groups. In this paper the…

The study analyses the extent to which the sociological message transmitted by the Official Pedagogic Discourse of the curriculum for Portuguese middle schools contains the ideological and pedagogical principles of its authors. The research is epistemologically and sociologically grounded, placing particular emphasis on Bernstein theory of…