This study examined how four principals in urban middle and senior high schools with a social justice orientation responded to hypothetical scenarios involving teacher prejudice. The principals in this study did not reference their leadership preparation programs in describing the evolution of their equity-focused leadership philosophies, nor did…

Little is known about the curricular experiences schools provide English learner students (ELs) to meet the dual goals of attaining English language proficiency (ELP) and grade-level achievement. I introduce the concept of "Curricular Streams" to provide a more nuanced comparative analysis of four urban middle schools, focusing on: (a)…

Although it is well established that Black male students are underrepresented in gifted educational programs in the United States, due to a scarcity of longitudinal prospective research, little is known about the protective factors at the child, family, and school level that increase the probability of Black male students being identified as…

Careful examination of the discipline gap reveals growing disproportionality in the use of exclusionary discipline measures with female students of color, particularly African American females. Most often, adolescent girls of color are disciplined for subjectively defined behaviors, or behaviors considered inappropriate by educators. This study…

In this paper, I employ a study of 25 sixth grade teachers of "regular" and "honors" language arts classes in a large urban district as a vehicle for discussing ability grouping. Despite not being asked any questions about grouping or differentiation, differences in students and instruction among the two class levels was a major focus of the…

Community and school violence continue to be a major public health problem, especially among urban children and adolescents. Little research has focused on the effect of school safety and neighborhood violence on academic performance. This study examines the effect of the school and neighborhood climate on academic achievement among a population…

This article looks closely at the ways in which administrators and teachers at an urban middle school worked to create a relational web; that is, a system that supported multiple connection points across the school community. As such, it illustrates and analyzes four strands of this web including codes of practice, grouping strategies,…

Drawing on data collected during the second year of a longitudinal qualitative study that followed over 10 Latino/a bilingual students, this article foregrounds the experiences of participants during their sixth-grade year. The principle data sources included structured and unstructured interviews with teachers and students, school observations,…

In interviews with over 250 urban young adolescents, many students make it clear that they are acutely aware of the educational inequities that exist in their schools and that these inequities are having a negative impact on their education. Student voice is used to highlight urban middle school students' perspectives on the quality of their…

Research lauds the benefits of parent involvement in the schools, yet many schools and communities have not achieved desired levels of involvement. Underlying expectations and methods soliciting parent involvement may be rooted in cultural misperceptions. This study, based on Epstein's (1987) Overlapping Spheres of Influence model, explored the…