The question posed in this analysis is: What is the relationship between text-centered dialogue and reading comprehension? This article examines one student's behaviors while reading challenging texts. This qualitative case study explored the verbal behaviors of Robert (pseudonym), a seventh-grade student receiving reading intervention. As his…

This case study describes how culturally relevant pedagogy can be used in disciplinary rigorous ways in an urban middle school history classroom. The focus is on a unit about the Johnstown Flood of 1889, which provided a setting for teaching about the event as well as the historical thinking practices of contextualizing, sourcing, and…

This exploratory design experiment investigates Black male youth's participation in a science-learning environment designed to conceptualize the practice of critique as improvisational performance. The research highlights the young men's deployment of a linguistic practice, signifying, used to co-construct and enact the practice of collaborative…

This article reports findings from a quasi-experimental study of the impact of a summer robotics program for urban middle-grade students. The study focuses on student engagement, measured by school attendance rate the year following the program. Program students, who were nearly all low-income minority students, were matched to comparison students…

The effects of a mathematical problem-solving intervention on students' problem-solving performance and math achievement were measured in a randomized control trial with 1,059 7th-grade students. The intervention, "Solve It!," is a research-based cognitive strategy instructional intervention that was shown to improve the problem-solving…

The present case study investigated the impact of a short-term summer literacy approach on writing performance and self-perception of writing for young adolescents of low-income families residing in urban housing projects. The approach offered intensive literacy engagement to offset summer achievement loss; assisted ethnic-minority, low…

The lack of achievement of students from high-risk and high-poverty environments necessitates changes in today's middle school environments to create a caring, supportive environment where all middle school students can succeed. This study investigated the classroom learning environments of resilient, average, and nonresilient minority students in…

Investigating variables associated with the school success and educational resilience of urban youth of color should be a high priority because of the persistent achievement gap in the United States. The current study examined individual and peer factors' relation to the school engagement of 132 seventh- and eighth-grade students from a diverse…