Black and Latinx adolescent boys from economically stratified communities face pervasive societal inequities and, therefore, deserve more responsive school supports to determine and actualize postsecondary pathways. For insights into how such students conceptualize their futures and their school's role in facilitating this process, this…

With racial inequalities plaguing the U.S. school system, educators have recognized the importance of establishing inclusive, equitable, and diverse school environments where students from different ethnic-racial backgrounds can feel respected and supported. This study examined the longitudinal links between adolescents' experiences of school…

Black students face hyper-disciplining and high levels of social control when they enter American schools. The cultural mismatch hypothesis attempts to explain this hyper-disciplining by arguing that the mostly White teaching force misinterprets the attitudes and behaviors of Black students, which leads to their hyper-disciplining. Utilizing a…

Police stops often perpetuate racial disparities in academic outcomes, yet few studies have examined factors that mitigate these negative consequences. Using two longitudinal studies (Study 1: n = 483, M-age = 12.88, 53% males; Study 2: n = 131, M-age = 15.11, 34% males), this article tests whether parental and school cultural socialization…

We use data from the Stanford Education Data Archive to describe district-level trends in average academic achievement between 2009 and 2019. Although on average school districts' test scores improved very modestly (by about 0.001 standard deviations per year), there is significant variation among districts. Moreover, we find that average test…

Although Black students may share race-related experiences at predominantly White institutions (PWIs), they are a heterogeneous community with diverse identity beliefs, goals, and expectations about college. In the current study, we foreground how Black students at PWIs understand their racialized identities in relation to one another and within…

A growing number of schools are adopting restorative justice (RJ) practices that de-emphasize exclusionary discipline and aim for racial equity. We examine student discipline as RJ programs matured in Meadowview Public Schools from 2008 to 2017. Our difference-in-difference estimates show that students in RJ schools experienced a profound decline…

Nationally, educators suspend Black students at greater rates than any other group. This disproportionality is fueled by stereotypes casting Black students as "troublemakers"--a label students too often internalize as part of their identities. Across two independent double-blind randomized field trials involving over 2,000 seventh…

This study explores how the college-going culture at a no-excuses charter school with high college enrollment rates shaped students' worldviews and trajectories. Drawing on 7 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I found that the school boosted college enrollment through student compliance to the college accountability policies rather than through the…

Black queer undergraduates experience invisibility at the juncture of anti-Black racism and cisheteropatriarchy in their campus environments. With the absence of research on queer students of color in undergraduate STEM, it has been unexplored how Black queer invisibility is reinforced and disrupted in uniquely racialized and cisheteronormative…

Many Black educators in the United States demonstrate a political clarity about white supremacy and the racialized harm it cultivates in and out of schools. We highlight the perspectives of some of these educators and ask, (1) How do they articulate the need to protect Black children? and (2) What mechanisms of protection do they enact in their…

The rapid expansion of school choice is restructuring public education in the United States. This study examines associations between charter and magnet school enrollment, White-Black and White-Hispanic segregation, and test score gaps at the district level from 2009 to 2015 in third to eighth grade using the Stanford Education Data Archive and…

Drawing on a 3-year interpretive study that followed a cohort of children from prekindergarten to Grade 1, this article presents results of a multiple case study, which demonstrated that although two children had the same teachers, classmates, and curricula over 3 years, their experiences in the three successive mathematics classrooms were quite…

We characterize the extent to which Black-White gaps for multiple educational outcomes are linked across school districts in the United States. Gaps in disciplinary action, grade-level retention, classification into special education and Gifted and Talented, and Advanced Placement course-taking are large in magnitude and correlated. Racial…

National data trends underscore the "problem" of Black male achievement. Beneath the causes and consequences are the ideologies used to frame the problem and its solutions. The ideology of meritocracy is routinely employed to rationalize educational disparities. This article examined how White male teachers, in a charter school designed…