The authors analyzed the multimodal presentation of one student in a seventh-grade social studies class situated in an urban charter school in the Northeastern United States. The student researched a specific problem that existed in his community and located solutions using web-based sources. The authors analyzed the student's classwork, focus…

A safe environment is a prerequisite for productive learning. Using a unique panel data set of survey responses from New York City middle school students, the article provides insight into the relationship between feelings of safety in the classroom and academic achievement. The survey data include the reported feelings of safety for more than…

High rates of trauma exposure can impede school functioning, which is predictive of many negative long-term outcomes. This study examined school functioning in Latinx children with clinically elevated levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms. We found that child gender, parent language use, and parent school involvement were associated with school…

This paper presents a case study of a yearlong research-based peace education program at one urban K-8 private Catholic school situated in a community plagued by structural violence in an enclave of a large Midwestern city. To frame the analysis, the author employs concepts central to culturally responsive pedagogy (including cultural competence,…

This article examines the relationship between exposure to violence, fear of exposure to violence, and sexual risk among a sample of urban middle school youth. The sample included 911 seventh-grade students who completed self-report surveys. Approximately 20% of the sample reported at least one direct threat or injury with a weapon in the past 3…

Interpersonal traumas experienced early in life adversely impact psychological well-being in children and adolescents, yet the specific role that social support can have in reducing negative outcomes following trauma exposure is unclear. Using a general population sample of seventh-grade students in an urban public school district in the South…

A successful middle school team of teachers employed effective middle level philosophy to structure a curriculum around themes that were relevant, challenging, integrative, and engaging for their particular students and community. Realizing that their young adolescents were involved in tough, delicate issues in their out-of-school lives, the…

Background: Whereas dating violence among high school students has been linked with sexual risk-taking and substance use, this association has been understudied among early adolescents. We estimated the prevalence of physical and nonphysical dating violence in a sample of middle school students and examined associations between dating violence,…

This article argues that metal detectors bestow an organizational stigma to schools. One symptom of this is students' heightened level of fear at school. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) and a matched-pair design, this study finds that metal detectors are negatively correlated with students' sense…

Background: Problems related to gangs have been noted in large cities and in many schools across the United States. This study examined the patterns of alcohol, drug use, and related exposures among male and female high school students who were gang members. Methods: Analyses were based on the Youth Violence Survey, conducted in 2004, and…

Within urban elementary schools are Black students who continue to challenge the normative deficit characterization of the educational opportunities of students like them. This study attempts to provide a more holistic picture of the scholarly trajectories of 13 African American males who are particularly talented in mathematics and who attended…

Improving the long-term life outcomes of disadvantaged youth remains a top policy priority in the United States, although identifying successful interventions for adolescents--particularly males--has proven challenging. This paper reports results from a large randomized controlled trial of an intervention for disadvantaged male youth grades 7-10…

Over the past few decades, service-learning has surged in popularity. Although most programs are implemented in high school and college classrooms, service-learning has the potential for great impact in middle school. The present article evaluates a pilot service-learning program for fifth- and seventh-grade (N = 86) children in a large, urban,…

Community and school violence continue to be a major public health problem, especially among urban children and adolescents. Little research has focused on the effect of school safety and neighborhood violence on academic performance. This study examines the effect of the school and neighborhood climate on academic achievement among a population…

This paper examines the effect of exposure to violent crime on students' standardized test performance among a sample of students in New York City public schools. To identify the effect of exposure to community violence on children's test scores, we compare students exposed to an incident of violent crime on their own blockface in the week prior…