Context: Generalization is a critical concept in all research designed to generate knowledge that applies to all elements of a unit (population) while studying only a subset of these elements (sample). Commonly applied criteria for generalizing focus on experimental design or representativeness of samples of the population of units. The criteria…

Background: Advising students on the transition from high school to college is a central part of school counselors' professional responsibility. The American School Counselor Association recommends a school counselor caseload of 250 students; however, prior work yields inconclusive evidence on the relationship between school counseling and…

Background/Context: Many strategies to improve failing urban schools rest on efforts to improve leadership within the school. Effective school-based leadership depends not only on the activities of the principal, but also on teachers' efforts to address school-wide challenges. Research has shown that the principal is pivotal in such ventures,…

Background/Context: Past research has examined many factors that contribute to the black-white achievement gap. While researchers have shown that teacher perceptions of students' academic ability is an important contributing factor to the gap, little research has explored the extent to which teacher perceptions of students' academic…

Background/Context: Teach For America (TFA) affiliates with universities in most of its 40 regions nationally; however, few researchers intentionally study the content and processes of a partnership between TFA and a college of education. Purpose/Research Question/Focus of Study: To ensure that investments both organizations were making had a…

Background: Over the past decade, most of the quantitative studies on teacher preparation have focused on comparisons between alternative and traditional routes. There has been relatively little quantitative research on specific features of teacher education that might cause certain pathways into teaching to be more effective than others. The vast…

Background/context: In an era of accountability and standardization, elementary social studies is consistently losing its curricular foothold to English/language arts, math, and science instruction. Purpose: This article examines the relationship between elementary teachers' perceptions of instructional autonomy, teaching context, state…

Background/context: Over the past 40 years, the composition of the professoriate has changed substantially across all institutional types. Once predominantly tenure track, now nontenure-track faculty (NTTF) constitute more than 70% of the faculty. While these major changes have occurred, we know little about key stakeholders' views…

Background/Context: Asian Americans have recently been reported as the largest incoming immigrant population and the fastest growing racial group. Diverse in culture, tradition, language, and history, they have unique immigrant stories both before and after the Immigration Act in 1965. Historians, sociologists, educators, and other experts inform…

Background/Context: Pierre Bourdieu's concept of cultural capital has been employed extensively in sociological, educational, and anthropological research. However, Bourdieu's conceptualization of cultural capital has often been misread to refer only to "high status" or dominant cultural norms and resources at the cost of…

Background/Context: Facilitating dialogues about racial issues in higher education classroom settings continues to be a vexing problem facing postsecondary educators. In order for students to discuss race with their peers, they need skilled facilitators who are knowledgeable about racial issues and able to support students in these difficult…

Background/Context: Across the United States, secondary school curricula are intensifying as a growing proportion of students enroll in high-level academic math courses. In many districts, this intensification process occurs as early as eighth grade, where schools are effectively constraining their mathematics curricula by restricting course…

Background/Context: Charter school policy has evolved into a major component of the current education reform movement in the United States. As of 2012, all but nine U.S. states allowed charter schools, and in one of those nine, Washington State, charter school legislation was passed by popular vote in November 2012. There is a substantial, if…

Background/Context: Research on Chinese immigrant parents tends to focus on their high levels of educational involvement and its positive impact on their children's exceptional educational performances. Relatively little research has been conducted to understand the challenges Chinese immigrant parents face in helping their children with…

Background: In this paper we call for studying school leadership and its relationship to instruction and learning through approaches that highlight the role of configurations of multiple organizational supports. A configuration-focused approach to studying leadership and other essential supports provides a valuable addition to existing tools in…