Bullying prevention and intervention are ongoing challenges for all educators, school psychologists included. A lack of research exists regarding the potential role of middle school students as direct actors in bullying prevention and intervention. This article describes a novel student leadership group for seventh graders in which the primary…

This article explores student empowerment in a restructured urban Title I middle school. The study includes data from eight participants in an action research project that involved a critical inquiry unit in an eighth-grade language arts class that asked students, "How are you empowered and disempowered by school?" Findings reveal that…

Fostering Opportunities is an innovative student engagement program for middle school and high school students who have experienced foster care. The goal of the program is to help youth who have experienced foster care be successful in school and ultimately earn a high school credential. Fostering Opportunities was developed because of the clear…

Youth organizing work benefits young people in myriad ways, equipping them with the skills and dispositions to organize around the systemic inequities and policy decisions that threaten their communities. The findings from this life histories study in the Philadelphia Student Union (PSU) reveal that the organization's collectivist leadership model…

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which a 12-week after-school science and engineering program affected middle school students' motivation to engage in science and engineering activities. We used current motivation research and theory as a conceptual framework to assess 14 students' motivation through questionnaires,…

The focus in this paper is on a student voice initiative at an English secondary school designed to improve the quality of teaching and learning. The initiative invites Year 8 students to train and work as "lesson observers" who provide feedback to teachers about their practice. The possibilities of this initiative to reflect a rich and…

This case study reports on a student with special education needs in an inclusive seventh grade life science classroom using a framework of disability studies in education. Classroom data collected over 13 weeks consisted of qualitative (student and classroom observations, interviews, student work samples and video-taped classroom teaching and…

Delving into the "black box" of schooling can help us better understand the paradoxical reality that schooling for girls can be simultaneously empowering and disempowering. Despite recent interest in developing innovative research methodologies within the field of comparative education, there has been less attention to and reflexivity…

Although there is a common result in recent research and practice that digital skills are important for every educated citizen, little is known of how these skills are evolving over a long period of time. Our study looks into the development and use of digital skills in former middle school students who had an individual access to the laptops a…

Using a participatory and collaborative approach, we developed, implemented, and evaluated a culturally responsive school counseling group, "Boys II Men," for 11 low-income diverse male students of color at an urban public school. The content of the group focused on five areas: social connections and support, exploring gender roles,…

Through a Foucauldian lens, this article examines the affordances and constraints of an online peer-review program in four special education English language arts classes in two New York City middle schools. Data from classroom observations, teacher interviews, and online student spaces and artifacts provide insight into the technologies of power…

The article draws on work in Critical Geography Studies and Photovoice methodology, to illustrate the ways in which youth in an inner city conceptualize neighborhoods and public spaces. We utilize youth's photographs, narratives, and maps to tell a story of youth's lived experiences and argue that these experiences are vital sources of knowledge…

Adolescents have a unique perspective on their own development. However, educators have not fully considered the role of students' meaning making in the provision and receipt of school-based supports. To address this gap, this article draws on photographs and in-depth interviews that explore urban middle school students' experiences with learning…

In schools the participation of students, parents and paraprofessionals is important because it increases ownership and improves performance. Here the focus is on students' and paraprofessionals' learning and a sense of community when leaders try to develop a professional learning community in a new school in Iceland. An action research project…

Action research, particularly done by teachers, has had a contentious, decades-long history. As a form of social inquiry, action research has been designed to make it easier for members of social groups to create social change within their communities. Rather than conducting research that focuses on an outcome, action researchers focus on the…