The 1968 Spainhower Commission planned extensive changes in the organization of public education in Missouri, proposing larger, comprehensive districts throughout the state. Intended to increase efficiency and reduce inequities, its reform proposals spurred widespread opposition from both rural and suburban communities. In the suburbs hostility…

In today's urban schools, foreign-born children and children of immigrants are the fastest growing sector of the student population and as a result of this changing demographic, our schools are more ethnically, racially and religiously diverse than they have ever been (Suárez-Orozco et al. in "Thriving and spirituality among youth:…

Through a critical cultural assets model, the authors use the methodological practices of collaboration, community site visits, document analysis, and interviews with cultural insiders to explore schools' continued rejection of academic belonging for people from "othered" communities. They explore the case of Samoan youth--a…

This paper examines the history of welfare policy discourse in the United States since the publication of the "Moynihan Report" (1967) and traces its implications for contemporary education policy research. The central thesis is that an overemphasis on "parents" historically invites unwarranted assumptions about autonomy and…

This study explores the impact of reading "Huckleberry Finn" through the lens of critical race theory for both teacher and students in a racially diverse urban high school environment. The teacher/researcher used narrative inquiry and creative non-fiction to examine student language usage, white privilege (including her own), and student…

Hope is positively correlated with educational attainment and health. Interventions based on project-based learning (PBL) may increase youth hope. This study examined how a PBL intervention affected hope among urban students of color. Students in health classes were invited to participate. A PBL health class was implemented in four classrooms. The…

The goal of this article is to examine the racially hostile environment of U.S. public schooling towards Black males. Drawing on the work of Foucault ("Discipline and punish. The birth of the prison," Penguin Books, London, 1977; "Michel Foucault: beyond structuralism and hermeneutics," The Harvester Press, Brighton, 1982)…

Drawing from a larger ethnographic study, in this research I examine how a group of newcomer Mexican immigrant high school students counteracted a hostile school climate, educational practices and adverse relationships with mainstream peers and adults. The purpose of this study is to help educators and policy makers understand how engaging in…

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) this study compares if and how neighborhood effects on the likelihood to drop out and be "disconnected" from school and work in young adulthood change when schools are taken into account. As widely documented, I find that neighborhood socioeconomic status…

To effectively help urban pre-service teachers to provide civic education opportunities in their future classrooms, teacher educators should know how urban pre-service teachers themselves conceptualize citizenship and civic engagement. Through the research question--how do urban K-6 pre-service teachers currently enrolled in an urban education…

Using Holland et al.'s ("Identity and agency in cultural worlds," Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1998) theory of identity and their concept of figured worlds, this article provides an overview of how twenty-five undergraduates of color came to produce a Multiracial identity. Using Critical Race Theory methodology with…

In this article, I attempt to elucidate some key intersections between critical race theory (CRT) in synthesis with English language learning as a way to examine linguistic and racial identity in English language teaching. I ask: How does critical race theory apply to English language learners when language rather than race is fore-grounded? What…

Reform efforts like the urban, arts-based initiative Project ARTS are designed to provide intentional, equitable methods of improving students' learning, yet few urban educators have been sufficiently trained to recognize differences in habitus between themselves and their students. For equitable reform to occur teachers must understand their…

Educational borderlands are the physical and/or conceptual landscapes where one must negotiate notions of cultural difference as she or he lives and learns--landscapes that envelop an array of pedagogical and cultural spaces, yet are typically guarded by exclusionary tactics. In this article, we examine how US immigrant youth navigate three…

Considering the current structural challenges that exist for students of color (SOC) in accessing a higher education, an epistemology is needed that better represents the complex process SOC endure in this pursuit. College access literature either proposes stages (Hossler and Gallagher in "Coll Univ" 62(3):207-221, 1987), contextual…