Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning (LGBTQ) students often face considerable isolation, discrimination, and violence at school, which can exacerbate the acute psychosocial and academic problems they already encounter. The purpose of this article is to introduce gay-straight alliances (GSAs) as a social justice and advocacy approach…

The author has spent six years teaching high school science in Southeast Portland. It is located in the heart of the largest immigrant area in the city, and at least 80 percent of the students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Every day she witnesses how poverty and language barriers create serious challenges in her students' lives. Many students…

In this article, I consider the literacy practices that emerged in an in-school elective course centered in the literacy tradition of African American women. Drawing from spatial perspectives (Leander& Sheehy, 2004), I explore what it means to consider this course an "Other space" (Foucault,1986), as a space created without the constraints of a…

Background/Context: The term racial diversity is interchangeably used in the literature with other terms such as racially mixed, integration, and desegregation in reference to policies to design and practices to implement racially heterogeneous communities, districts, and schools. Scholarship that promotes the democratic potential of racially…

The aim of the current study was to explore bystander experiences during bullying episodes among children and youth attending a residential summer camp by investigating rates of witnessing and intervention, as well as individual motivations and characteristics associated with bystander intervention. The majority of children had witnessed bullying…

This qualitative case study probes one African American school leader with a conservative religious upbringing as she works in a high school with a self-identified population of African American lesbian, guy, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students. The findings demonstrate that the participant's leadership practices were guided by her spiritual…

This study highlights one semester of ongoing research reflecting how preservice English students performed dispositions for social justice. This work draws on a postmethod approach, observing participants' artifacts and participation in a variety of classroom activities. By tapping into participants' funds of social justice knowledge, it explored…

Critical pedagogy, combined with partnerships with adults at school, enabled the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) advisor to create the foundation for reflective, activist-oriented learning at one Midwestern high school. Underreported in current literature, the use of critical pedagogy in school clubs and/or organizations has broad implications for…

Becoming a social justice teacher, for high-poverty urban settings, is fraught with emotional ambivalence related to personal, professional, relational, political, and cultural social justice issues. Prospective teachers must navigate their sense of justice, grapple with issues of educational disparity, engage with theories of critical,…

Few studies have investigated school-based, positive development for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) youth, despite knowledge of their heightened negative school experiences compared to heterosexual youth (e.g., school victimization). This study examines associations among participation in Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA)--related social…

Students in public schools serving poor and working-class students are inundated by the effects of high-stakes examinations. Teachers are demoralized and students suffer substandard curricular and pedagogical experiences. These effects are articulated by students and teachers in the high school that provided the setting for the critical…

This mixed methods study investigated the impact of learning about homelessness on the civic development of privileged adolescents. Pre-post surveys, classroom observations, and qualitative interviews revealed that the participating adolescents developed a more complex understanding of the factors that contribute to homelessness; however, this…

This article investigates how affluent students made sense of social justice issues that were embedded in mathematics learning activities. I present 2 case studies of such activities at the intermediate and secondary levels in 2 different schools. The analysis draws on video records and classroom artifacts and applies the theoretical framework of…

While collegiate fraternity and sorority hazing are well documented problems that receive prominent attention, hazing at the high school level is also a serious issue. Across the nation, media headlines offer a continual reminder that high school hazing is not a phenomenon of the past. As high school principals seek ways to discourage and…

This investigation uncovered the conditions of learning, both positive and negative, that students in an alternative school experienced both in and out of the classroom setting. Eleven students at an alternative high school in a large suburban school district in the Pacific Northwest were interviewed using methods of narrative inquiry and…