This research examines how urban adolescents of color who are placed at risk of academic and social failure interpret and respond to noble and ignoble purposes constructed in media texts. Drawing from New Literacy Studies, which provide impetuses for educators and researchers to explore youth's literacy practices and media engagements as they…

Using a collaborative program evaluation of a bridge program at a state flagship university, the authors argue that contradictions in student perceptions of their literacy learning are endemic to the effects of the structure of urban schooling. Overcrowding and underfunding of particular schools, in contrast with successful academic magnet…