The Critical Literacy (CritLit) project promotes using critical texts to engage readers in examining their lived experiences and understanding of social justice issues. This study used a qualitative participatory approach with a narrative design to research the students' engagement in a book club using critical texts. Participants were fourth- and…

Principals' beliefs and actions have powerful outcomes in the lives of the students and families they serve. In this article, we offer the portrait of a long-standing principal of a diverse urban school where the student body is 90% Latinx, 65% English learners (ELs), and 87% eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. We explore many key practices…

In an attempt to confront monolithic perceptions of achievement and an educational narrative that defines communities of Color by their supposed deficits, the current study presents asset mapping as an example of culturally relevant pedagogy in action. Asset mapping is a pedagogical tool for students to visually represent personalized stories of…

This article combines interview data from a group of boys of color at an urban single-sex school and content analysis of "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" to demonstrate the complexities of readers' responses to literature. Textual relevance, or the ability to construct personal…

In this study, we collected and analyzed data to examine the extent to which the achievement gap between urban and suburban children extended to their knowledge of digital literacies. Findings indicated that the suburban children outperformed the urban students in each of the performance areas, and that suburban children reported greater…

Grow Your Own (GYO) educator programs are a potential strategy for districts and universities to employ to help recruit and retain teachers of color. When designed within an asset-based framework, they emphasize equitable approaches and critical perspectives that combine the powerful roles of "homegrown" teachers, culturally-relevant…

In this article, we argue that preparing and maintaining a cadre of culturally responsive teachers is critical to improving urban education and achieving educational equity. We discuss a collaborative, social-justice-oriented approach to teacher preparation committed to developing a stable and effective teaching force reflective of the student…

In this paper, I explore the experiences of fourth and fifth grade students engaged in Beyond Today, an urban after school program, that aimed to enact a social reconstructionist multicultural curriculum. The program gathered White, Black, and Latino/a youth to explore issues of discrimination and social justice and develop leadership towards…