Urban community leaders describe their perceptions of critical issues in education and offer recommendations for the creation of a college-going culture (CGC). This qualitative study employed a maximum entropy analysis. Results demonstrate critical issues with increasing educational attainment including complexity of the urban school system,…

Background: Youth of color from low-income urban communities are crucial participants in research, as their involvement can shape effective, culturally responsive interventions and policy to promote youth health and well-being. These young people, however, are an often-neglected research population, due in part to perceived challenges associated…

In this paper, the authors examine how information that students receive about their academic performance affects their decisions to enroll in post-secondary education. In particular, they look at one specific piece of data--student performance on the state standardized mathematics test in grades 8 and 10 in Massachusetts. One key feature of such…

This case study examines José, a bilingual Latino fifth-grader, and his complex and dynamic engagements in "travesuras" (mischievous behaviors). José's "travesuras" served to disassociate him from being labeled a "schoolboy." This disassociation was evident in how José: (1) renounced "school-like" work and…

With interest in university-college partnerships increasing, this paper presents an example of an effective college-church partnership. A Christian college partnered with 19 urban churches to offer precollege activities for urban youth in grades 7 through 12. As expected, the level of poverty associated with young people's neighborhoods (i.e.,…