In this qualitative research study we illustrate how implicit biases held by college personnel hinders the educational success of Latino men attending urban community colleges in Texas. In particular, we identify how often well-intentioned educators are (un)aware of how often they perpetrate racial microaggressions against Latino men. Interviews…

Supporting nontraditional students within the student lifecycle is one of the major challenges faced by urban universities. This study presents a pedagogical intervention in which a group of Hispanic students participated in an engaged learning project with a bilingual newspaper. Findings indicate that this project motivated students to complete…

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,…

Examining linked academic transcripts from urban community colleges and their feeder high schools, we identify math course-taking patterns that span sectors. We highlight stifled mobility and chronic repetition of math coursework in the transition to college, and we identify "math traps" from which students do not escape. Math mobility…

Teacher education programs are increasingly taking up commitments to prepare new teachers for equitable teaching. Despite best intentions, programs feel challenged to help candidates translate these commitments into classroom practice. Using a context-specific teacher education framework, we conducted a mixed-methods study of seven urban-focused…

Funds of Knowledge (FK), Community Cultural Wealth (CCW), and Bourdieu's analysis of capital (BAC) have each been applied in powerful ways to address complex issues of urban education; however, the overlaps and tensions between them have been largely underexplored. When brought together, these three economic metaphors--funds, wealth,…

Postsecondary institutions of education, similar to the broader society in which they are embedded, are steeped in and further trans* oppression. In addition, the knowledge produced at these institutions is inflected with trans* oppression, and continues to reify the notion that trans* lives and experiences are abject, abnormal, unintelligible,…

This case study examines how relationships with staff in a GEAR-UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) pre-college program positively influenced the college-going aspirations of Black ninth-grade students. Critical Race Theory and Possible Selves provide an intersecting analytical framework for understanding the…

Based on ethnographic and archival research, we explore how 10 students asserted their rights to belong and secure a space where they felt safe at UC Davis. We examine the activities and practices of 10 undergraduate Chicanxs and Latinxs students: members of "Radical Academics for Pedagogy" (RAP) and RESISTENCIA. Our interest lies on…

Adopting a Freirean perspective, the purpose of this autoethnography is to reframe the typical relationship between university educators and communities in poverty by highlighting the educative impact of such a community on a university professor's academic, cross-cultural critical and civic learning. By reframing communities in poverty as sources…

Presented in this article is a case study of Black students' enrollment, persistence, and graduation at Cityville University, an urban commuter institution. We combine quantitative data from the University's Office of Institutional Research and the U.S. Department of Education with qualitative insights gathered in interviews with students,…

Publicly engaged scholarship (PES) has emerged as a powerful force, yet institutional policies and cultures have often inhibited its acceptance in the academy. This article considers the benefits of PES for higher education as well as the obstacles to its enactment. It identifies the college level as a critical site for change and offers a rubric…

Drawing on culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) and the development of cultural competence, this study explores how teacher learners in a critical inquiry group narrated and discussed their urban field experiences, particularly in regard to equity-oriented literacy education. More specifically, this study demonstrates both the impact that…

Through a close reading of the talk of a self-identified critical educator of color, we explore the contradictions, possibilities, limitations, and consequences of this identity for teachers and teacher educators. We examine how the performances of particular critical educator of color identities problematically intertwine claims of Freirian…

This article addresses the discourse on career and technical education (CTE) from a multiperspectival approach to challenge the persisting academic-vocational divide. The author illustrates the paradoxical rhetoric in CTE, then shares a personal experience, and draws on ethnographic research to reveal a different understanding of enabling human…