In the United States, recent research has indicated an increase in adolescent stress, and higher levels of stress are associated with a negative impact on the mental health of adolescents. However, there is currently limited research about effective interventions to target stress in adolescents, particularly within high-achieving high school…

Intellectual giftedness is commonly associated with a high level of intellectual functioning, an identification process whereby individuals are labeled as "gifted," and adjustments in schools such as grade skipping. During adolescence, all these factors are prone to reduce peer connectedness and school life satisfaction. The aim of the…

Static reading labels are problematic not only because youths demonstrate varying reading skills and identities across secondary classrooms but also because being labeled as "struggling" can undermine literacy learning. Little research has investigated how "struggling" and "proficient" readers' interactions with…

Alternative education provides different and powerful opportunities for learning. In this article, the author focuses on students who resist stereotypes that are produced and maintained by dominant powers and ideologies, and who share their knowledge and experiences with systemic marginalization. Drawing from classroom videos, qualitative…

Lidia and Josephina, although living vastly different lives, both represent Hispanic teen mothers. Pregnancies like theirs have been an issue of central concern in the U.S. for decades, with Hispanic teens considered most at risk. Despite vast recent declines in teen childbearing across all racial and ethnic groups, the U.S. continues to have the…

This on-going ethnographic study examines how a counter-space, La Libertad, introduces Latin@ students to a liberating pedagogy of praxis which counters dehumanization they experience in their high school. This study used Paulo Freire's dehumanization concept as a guide to reveal how Latin@ youth encounter oppression, injustice, and exploitation…

Researchers have largely ignored students' creative works as a source of insight into their everyday experiences. This study is a hermeneutic analysis of 23 works written by talented writers on the topic of academics. The findings include depictions of students as detached from their teachers and their curriculum. In these stories and poems,…

The goals of this study were to highlight the often stigmatized and invisible identities of six female participants who identify as multiracial/biracial-bisexual/pansexual, focusing on the pre-college context. Findings, using in-depth interviews, indicated that the primary socializing agents within the pre-college context strongly influenced…

Poorer outcomes for youth labeled with learning disabilities (LDs) are often attributed to the student's own deficiencies or cumulative disadvantage; but the more troubling possibility is that special education placement limits rather than expands these students' opportunities. Labeling theory partially attributes the poorer outcomes of…

The educational transition process experienced by adolescents with disabilities and their parents was examined in this study. The results of the qualitative study can be interpreted to conclude that students rarely were engaged in transition planning, and when they were engaged, it came too late in their high school careers. Students with…

An important question for the acculturation of adolescents from immigrant families is whether they retain ethnic labels that refer to their national origin (e.g., Mexican, Chinese) or adopt labels that are dominant in American society (e.g., Latino, Asian American, American). Approximately 380 adolescents from Asian and Latin American immigrant…

In this study, the authors explore English as a Second Language (ESL) placement as a measure of how schools label and process immigrant students. Using propensity score matching and data from the Adolescent Health and Academic Achievement Study and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the authors estimate the effect of ESL…