This dissertation examines how children make sense of the boundaries of technology and nature through a case study of thirty students in the sixth through seventh grade, attending a public charter school in the Ohio River Valley region of the United States of America (US). Using data collected via a range of ethnographic methods including…

Sarah Mostow was hired to provide professional development to a group of 10 elementary art teachers who worked at a charter school network in New York City. Searching for what she could offer the charter school teachers, who possessed diverse backgrounds and teaching styles, she wanted to find a structure they could adapt. She decided to distill…

Principals and superintendents operating in high-choice environments are often faced with enrollment challenges as they compete for students. This case study examines the experience of a principal at Crossroads Elementary--a high-performing, culturally responsive, and innovative traditional public school that struggles to retain many of its older…

Family involvement has been shown to have positive effects on the academic and socio-emotional and behavioral outcomes of school-aged children across all age ranges, but most especially among elementary-aged students. The Family Involvement Questionnaire-Elementary (FIQ-E) has been validated for use with students in grades 1-6 across public and…

Parental involvement is well-documented in the literature. Although research suggests a strong positive association between parental involvement and children's educational outcomes, few studies have examined parental involvement at home with children who attend charter schools, especially with small immigrant groups such as the Hmong. Therefore,…

This paper examines two activities in a weeklong Professional Development (PD) focused on implementing mathematical play in kindergarten classrooms. Though the weekly activities all had different goals, the two focal activities (Pattern Blocks and Create-a-Monster) were designed specifically to be both playful and mathematically engaging for the…

Charter schools are public schools that operate free from some government regulations in return for a commitment to achieve a set of student outcomes specified in their charter. Nearly 8,000 public charter schools enrolled 3.7 million students in the U.S. in 2020-21. In major cities, charter schools receive less funding per pupil compared to…

The work of teachers has historically been highly controlled, but one area teachers have been granted considerable autonomy is in instruction and planning. Teacher autonomy is a complex concept with important implications for both the quality of instruction and teacher persistence in the field. The rise of charter management organizations (CMOs)…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether there were achievement and behavior differences between three groups of students: (1) African American males from single-parent homes who had a mentor, (2) African American males from single-parent homes who did not have a mentor, and (3) African American males from a two-parent home that includes…

Researchers have considered how school choice policies affect student achievement, but less inquiry explores how the organization of schools may change in the presence of choice. This descriptive and exploratory paper analyzes a state representative sample of school mission statements at two time points: before the enactment of choice policies in…

This grounded theory study explored how primary-grade teachers perceive and enact dialogic English Language Arts (ELA) comprehension pedagogy in the novel context of pandemic-induced digital learning. The study involved nine diverse rural primary teachers teaching digitally during the coronavirus disease pandemic. The researchers followed a…

A quality learning space provides students with an optimal environment for social relations, collaborative work and participation, thus fostering innovation and incorporating active methodologies. The aim of this study is to analyze whether the design of existing learning environments is suitable for incorporating innovation in classrooms. The…

This article examines the pedagogical potential of art-based, early critical literacy as a space in which young bilingual children can explore the issues of human diversity and uniqueness. Adopting a qualitative case study approach, this study focused on 12 five-year-old children of Mexican origin at a charter school located in Texas.

Municipal governments have long looked to gentrification in hopes of addressing social problems, including poverty concentration, crime, and more recently, school segregation. Yet, little is known about the educational implications of neighborhood gentrification. This article examines the process of "school gentrification" exploring…

This activist research story describes the use of research by an urban multi-racial, multi-SES, citywide grassroots coalition in Indianapolis. This coalition was formed when a small group of local education activists, Black ministers, and community folks met in 2015 to resist the neoliberal takeover of the Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS), a…