This article reports on an inquiry that explored how a school management team (SMT) in a rural school in Limpopo Province, South Africa, understood their role in creating a school climate conducive for improving teaching and learning. I used a qualitative case study design to investigate how their understanding informed their practices. A single…

Background: Student engagement is a cognitively complex domain that is often oversimplified in theory and practice. Reliance on a single model overlooks the sophisticated nature of student engagement and can lead to misconceptions and limited understandings that hinder teachers' ability to engage all of their students. Assessing varied models…

This investigation explores the critical reflection of two urban high school science teachers as they participate in cogenerative dialogues--weekly discussions with focus groups of students that are held outside of instructional hours and that center on identifying and addressing problem areas of classroom teaching and learning. The study finds…

Purpose: The purpose of the present study is to explore the process, routines, and structuration at successful schools leading their students to high achievements. Method: The approach of building a theory from case study research together with process perspective and an organizational routines model were applied to analyzing seven successful…

Background: Using Social Cognitive Theory as a framework, we examined opportunities for promoting local produce consumption among high school students in a lower-income, ethnically diverse, urban community. Methods: Six focus groups (N = 53) were conducted with students. Using Atlas.ti qualitative software, data were coded and reviewed to identify…

Teens' own thoughts on fostering safe sexual practice are important perspectives in promoting adolescent sexual health yet are relatively absent in the literature. This focus group study explored teens' perceptions about the supports and challenges that exist as teens strive to engage in healthy sexual practices. Seventy-five teens participated in…

The contemporary education system in the United States is inadequate in the provision of services to assure that all students exit high school with the knowledge and skills necessary to enter postsecondary education or the workforce. This is particularly true for indigenous youth (Tanabe & Mobley, 2011). According to scholars, dual enrollment…

Dating is a highly desirable experience during adolescence and serves as an important developmental milestone. This study explored healthy and unhealthy dating as a step toward improving adolescent well-being. Six focus group interviews were conducted with high school-aged girls and boys (N = 35). Interviews were audio recorded, transcribed…

The international agenda for assessment continues to convey a growing interest in assessment for learning (AfL) as a tool to support learning and enhance teaching. Complementing this, the recent literature on assessment in physical education acknowledges the need for physical educators to integrate AfL into their teaching and assessment practice…

This mixed methods study assessed the appropriateness of an "aged-up," brief bullying bystander intervention (STAC) and explored the lived experiences of high school students trained in the program. Quantitative results included an increase in knowledge and confidence to intervene in bullying situations, awareness of bullying, and use of…

Commonsense understandings of school practices have historically painted parents of color as inattentive and non-participatory actors in public school settings. Racist implementations of policy and individual actions, based on teacher ideology and deficit paradigms of race, force parents of color to take an oppositional stance in public school…

This study examines how school structures and policies shape school culture to ultimately influence student success in one urban high school. We develop a model that explains how caring and personalized connections between students and teachers, coupled with a focus on academic press and support, interact with teacher efficacy to influence student…

Stemming from my personal encounter with what I consider a racial affliction imposed by a White female teacher, I provide a glimpse of my racial narrative as a young Black male to illustrate a reference point for thinking through how racism functions in homes and schools. It touches on the importance of race-based conversations within school and…

The purpose of this transcendental phenomenological study was to investigate the factors that contribute to the retention of urban, Hispanic high school male graduates in East Harlem, New York. Originated through the works by W. E. B. Du Bois (1968), Gloria Ladson-Billings (1998) and Derrick Bell (1992) pioneered Critical Race Theory (CRT), which…

Few research studies listened to the voices of high school students with disabilities' regarding their lived experiences during placement in an inclusion setting and a resource setting. The purpose of this qualitative, phenomenological study was to understand the central phenomenon of the study for 10 ninth grade students with disabilities served…