While much has been studied addressing the topic of academic resilience, few researchers have examined adolescent perceptions of the factors that contribute to school success. This qualitative interpretive study explored individual protective factors that can promote academic resilience in urban middle school students. One-on-one interviews (N=20)…

Since the turn of the century, China has shown its determination to change its examination-oriented tradition. It started assessment reforms and raised a series of expectations regarding teacher assessment literacy. At the same time, China experienced rapid internal migration, with urban public schools accepting huge numbers of migrant students in…

This teaching case study aims at encouraging meaningful conversations about discipline. The case illustrates the increasing need for school leaders to adopt discipline approaches that foster support, equity, inclusion, and advocacy for cultural differences rather than punishment and the exclusion of marginalized students. This scenario takes place…

There are significant inconsistencies in the levels of preparation of teachers placed in high-need urban schools and those placed in suburban, middle-class schools. In this qualitative research study, I surveyed, interviewed, and observed three highly qualified teachers and one principal from an urban-intensive, high-need school community.…

The present study examined both mothers' reports and adolescents' perceptions of parents' educational involvement and their effects on the adolescents' functioning in school. The sample was drawn from 5 urban schools in Israel. Participants were 449 eighth grade students/adolescents (Female = 47%) and 126 mothers. Adolescents and their mothers…

Despite calls for both research and curricular implementations that support underrepresented students' exploration of STEM topics, curricula that apply principles of embodied cognition, such as the use of sports to teach science, are still needed. Further research may also serve to clarify how underrepresented students construct knowledge over…

Exploring students' systems thinking (ST) is essential in enhancing science learning, but existing studies have failed to understand students' ST fully as it relates to ecological issues. This study aimed to fill the aforementioned literature gap by exploring lower-secondary school students' ST regarding ecological issues. The Systems Thinking…

While group projects are popular in middle school classrooms, limited research has been conducted on how to grade them. Teachers usually assign the same score to all group members, which hardly reflects the achievement level of any student. This study explores the feasibility of utilizing peer and self-assessments for grading group projects for…

In response to a critical need for culturally inclusive pedagogy for multicultural, urban classrooms, this study describes a project in which 43 in-service and preservice teachers and 175 multicultural urban public school students participated. This study found that the culturally relevant pedagogy significantly enhanced the student attitude…

Past research suggests that a sense of belonging to a community is developmentally important for adolescents and affects their engagement in school, especially during the transition to high school. However, little research examines the teaching practices that simultaneously foster classroom belonging and behavioral engagement to create a classroom…

A qualitative multiple-case study explored the perceptions of science teachers, administrators, and specialists on instructional strategies used in urban STEM schools to decrease the science achievement gap among African American students. The problem addressed in this study was the science achievement gap for African American students in urban…

This study explores teachers' use of Spanish in sixth-grade bilingual science classrooms at an urban middle school in Texas. We used a case study approach to study how two Spanish-English bilingual teachers utilized Spanish during instruction in a unit on space exploration and their beliefs on Spanish use in English-dominant science classrooms.…

Secondary school administrators are prone to experience stressors that stem from role conflict, accountability standards, student and parental relationships, staff development, and managerial issues. Through the research foundations of McGrath (Stress Cycle), Gmelch (Administrator Stress Cycle), Allison (Coping Preference Scale) and Maslach's…

While many researchers have addressed the topic of academic resilience, studies on the individual protective factors in high-risk middle school students from urban settings are limited. In this qualitative interpretive study, we interviewed and obtained academic records from 20 eligible students in grades 7-8 to delve into the perceptions and…

This study focused on a problem of practice at Mystic River School (MRS), a kindergarten through eighth grade school in an urban district in New England. Schoolwide diagnostic data showed a significant gap between multilingual learners (MLs) and their native English speaking peers in literacy. An analysis of this data, interviews with staff and…