The Latina/Latino population is the largest minority group in the United States and has the highest high school dropout rate of any ethnic group. Nationally, just over one-half of Latina/Latino students graduate on time with a regular diploma, compared to nearly 80% of Whites. Because of the growing population and the wide achievement gap, there…

Declining Catholic school enrollment rates coupled with increasing numbers of Latino Catholics (in the US) have prompted Catholic leaders to interrogate how they can best engage and meet the needs of the Latino community (Alliance for Catholic Education, 2009; Ospino, 2014). Much of this work focuses on how Catholic schools can attract Latino…

Drawing from critical theories in education, this article empirically examines the role that public schools can play as conduits for critical peace education, particularly for young people who have been historically marginalized from school. Based on two years of ethnographic data collection at a public high school in New York City, I explore how…

The purpose of this study was to examine transfer high schools within the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) and the instructional cultures developed by their principals. Transfer high schools reengage students who were previously truant and at risk of discontinuing their education. Four NYCDOE transfer high schools were studied…

In this paper, I describe the academic dilemma experienced by Tamara (pseudonym), a mathematically high-achieving high school sophomore. Raised in an economically strapped neighborhood, Tamara had the opportunity to attend a prestigious private high school, tuition free. Confronted by being viewed as an affirmative action student Tamara uses this…

This study seeks to understand the reasons that allow a parent, a principal and a teacher to maintain silence when young girls under their care are sexually abused. Put another way, it attempts to explain what it is about sexual abuse that makes these parties relinquish their role as protectors of innocent children. This paper, based on a larger…

Forum Theatre (FT), a participatory improvised theatre form, raises consciousness, enables debate and critical reflection, and encourages a democratic form of knowledge production that engages the audience in their own learning and unlearning. I used FT as a platform to understand how 15- to 18-year-old learners, in a co-educational school in the…

The narrative of gendered White savior in urban classrooms is ubiquitous not only in film (Smith, 1995, LaGravenese, 2007), but also in popular and academic literature. White female teachers are at the front of the majority of increasingly privatized U.S. classrooms (Pickower, 2009, Cochran-Smith, 2004). This article ethnographically critiques the…

Behavior issues in the classroom directly relate to the teaching style and the type of interactions between the teacher and students. In particular, Latino/a students need to be engaged in the curriculum content if they are to be successful, both academically and emotionally. If this does not occur, then behavioral issues will arise, which will…

This qualitative, narrative study explored experiences of six successful African American male high school students. Findings suggested that barriers prior to high school were negative elements in the home and community. To be successful in high school, they overcame barriers of absent fathers, disruptive homes, negative community, and peers, and…

The professional school counseling literature has proposed innovative frameworks for practice including social justice/multicultural approaches, school-wide counseling initiatives, and school-community partnerships. In this article, we propose a programmatic intervention that can be a vehicle for all three: the implementation of school-based youth…

As one of the most prestigious high schools in the nation, St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire, has long been the exclusive domain of America's wealthiest sons. But times have changed. Today, a new elite of boys and girls is being molded at St. Paul's, one that reflects the hope of openness but also the persistence of inequality. In…

In public high schools across the country young people deal with issues of discrimination and bullying that are often the result of intolerance and misunderstandings across social identities. Progressive educators who advocate for critical multicultural and critical pedagogical approaches have proposed that young people need to have educational…

Students are bombarded daily with print, visual, and digital media. Whether it is on a billboard, listening to an iPod on the way to school, or text messaging a friend during class, youth culture is hardwired into these multiple forms of communication technologies. Nonetheless, the daily life and respective experiences of students are often still…

It's funny how a single lucid moment can change so many things; a single video can light a spark for justice. That reality hit the author when her teacher, Devin Carberry, played a YouTube clip of UNIDOS, a group of students fighting to keep ethnic studies alive in Arizona. Devin brought in the documentary "Precious Knowledge," an…