Students who experience teacher caring and high expectations (i.e., warm demand) are typically more engaged and successful at school. Yet, relative to White students, students of color tend to report lower levels of school social belonging and more distant relationships with their White teachers. Leveraging data from 179 6th-9th grade Measures of…

Purpose: This study explores the community-building practices of a school leader at a middle/high school in a Latino/a and African American community. I analyze how the principal leveraged his immigrant identity and experiences to connect with immigrant families and adapt to their needs to form a sense of belonging in the school and neighborhood.…

Dual enrollment (DE) is one of the fastest growing programs that support the high school-to-college transition. Yet, there is limited empirical evidence about its impact on either students' college application choices or admission outcomes. Using a fuzzy regression discontinuity approach on data from two cohorts of ninth-grade students in one…

This study explores the sense of belonging of rural middle and high school Latinx science students in Wisconsin. Between 2000 and 2015, the Latinx population was the fastest growing ethnic group in Wisconsin and increased by 95%. Yet, little is known about the experiences of these students in rural schools or their engagement in science learning.…

The heterogeneity in the developmental trajectories of math motivational beliefs (i.e., expectancies for success and subjective task value beliefs) was examined among Asian and Latinx male and female students from Southern California across Grades 8 through 10 (n = 2,710; 50% female; 85% Latinx; 15% Asian; M[subscript age] = 13.77). By conducting…

Differences in school choice by race contribute to school segregation and unequal access to effective schools. Conditional on test score and district of residence, Black and Hispanic families consistently choose schools with fewer white and Asian students, lower average achievement, and lower value-added. This paper combines unique survey data and…

This study tests the impact of adding Restorative Practices within secondary schools implementing the Diplomas Now turnaround model in 8 large U.S. urban districts on: (a) the severity of disciplinary problems in these schools, (b) the probability that students would be suspended three days or more during the school year, and (c) the chronic…

In this article, we recount our experiences learning from and with Latinx children of immigrants in urban schools. Highlighting how insights gleaned from our respective ethnographic projects have led us to embrace more explicit commitments to participatory engagement, we consider how young people's perspectives can and should fundamentally shift…

Over the last several decades, "zero-tolerance" policies have been implemented by federal, state, and local educational systems, which have altered the culture of learning. A consequence of this "tough on education" culture is what some scholars have called the "school-to-prison-pipeline" which disproportionately…

Integrating situated expectancy-value and family systems theories, the current study tested the extent to which Latinx adolescents' 9th-grade school-related science conversations with parents and older siblings/cousins positively predicted their 10th-grade science ability self-concepts and task values. We also tested whether these links were…

As states incorporate measures of college readiness into their accountability systems, school and district leaders need effective strategies to identify and support students at risk of not enrolling in college. Although there is an abundant literature on early warning indicators for high school dropout, fewer studies focus on indicators for…

This project creates the first educational pipeline for the state of Texas. It incorporates middle school as a key transition point, differentiates between advanced degree achievement among Latinas/os and Chicanas/os, and fashions a secondary pipeline with a narrower age range. Findings indicate that the move from eighth grade to ninth is a…

Among the many social determinants linked to adolescent alcohol use and depression, racial and ethnic discrimination is a prevalent determinant among Latinx adolescents and adults that is largely overlooked in preventive interventions. This study explored the influence of perceived racial and ethnic discrimination on depressive symptoms and…

Charter schools continue to expand, particularly in urban communities. To critique the civic side of charter schools, we applied Wilson's counter-public framework from a macro level to analyze the 2014 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)- Civics results. We employed a multilevel regression model to ascertain whether Black and…

The problem addressed by this study was the high dropout rate of Latinx students precipitated by academic problems and exacerbated by poor student-teacher relationships. The purpose of this qualitative narrative case study was to understand how student-teacher relationships affected Latinx students' decision to drop out of school. The guiding…