The Common Core State Standards' focus on nonfiction texts has prompted middle schools to include more historical nonfiction, including books that focus on the United States' racialized past (and present) such as "We Are Not Yet Equal" by Carol Anderson (2018) and "Stamped: Racism, Antiracism and You" (2020) by Jason Reynolds…

U.S. libraries and classrooms are under siege by private and governmental entities working to simultaneously ban/remove justice-focused literature and inundate these spaces with reactionary/ultra-conservative materials. It is within this educational crisis that we conducted a critical content analysis of the award-winning, best-selling historical…

School discipline disparities for African American students in urban schools continue to be a topic of contention. While research has rightfully called into question the practices and preparation of teachers and principals, the role that assistant principals serve as disciplinary gatekeepers has gone relatively unnoticed in the literature. The…

Recent racial injustice has prompted school counselors to reexamine how their practices contribute to injustice. Many school counselors seek to engage in antiracism and advocacy. Multitiered systems of support (MTSS) strategies include data utilization, systemic collaboration, and multilevel practices within a school building. This article…

Although race discourse has become increasingly encouraged to address educational inequities, racialized speakers are often expected to accommodate white listening subjects in institutional settings. Building upon multidisciplinary scholarship of race and language, I develop place-based raciolinguistics as an explanatory theory and linguistic…

Despite the unique and pressing needs of Black male students in schools, there has been a significant gap in the availability of culturally responsive group counseling models to support and empower this population. In this commentary article, I discuss the theory and research underlying the ASE group model for Black male middle school youth.…

As middle grades teacher educators, we carry a responsibility to prepare pre-service teachers for the realities of practice ahead in their real-world classrooms. Similarly, middle school instructional coaches and specialists support in-service practitioners within the authentic context of their real world, real time experiences as teachers. In the…

Background/Context: In disability critical race theory (DisCrit) Classroom Ecology, Annamma and Morrison (2018a) offered invaluable direction for teachers by proposing constructs that address racism and ableism within the foundational components of the classroom--curriculum, pedagogy, resistance, and solidarity. These liberatory lenses offered a…

Latino boys' motivational beliefs in STEM remain under-examined in the literature, especially during middle school when building a strong STEM trajectory is critical for future success in STEM. The current study used Expectancy-Value Theory to analyze how Latino boys interpreted their expectancies and values in order to better understand their…

As access to private religious education expands through vouchers, public discourse has positioned these schools as politically neutral spaces. Teachers who seek to ethically care for students are thus placed in a predicament. In this article, we present the fictive case study of a middle school teacher in a suburban Catholic school that has…

The purpose of this study was to examine whether White teachers' trust in their Black students would stimulate positive teacher-student relationships. One question guided my research: How do White teachers build trust with their Black students? This study used interviews of 5 White middle school teachers and 3 Black middle school students for the…

The aim of this paper is to analyze a set of didactic materials developed to teach English as an Additional Language at a Brazilian public school in Rio de Janeiro. Such materials were designed to invite 7th grade students with diverse social, racial, and economic backgrounds to learn about the world and the English language from viewpoints that…

Teachers in the US are increasingly required to use scripted curricula. Such instructional materials often reflect the overwhelming whiteness of the publishing industry through a lack of representation of authors and protagonists outside of white, middle-class normative characters. Implementation of such curricula stands in direct contrast to…

Closing the achievement gap among culturally and linguistically diverse students has been challenging for educators, school leaders, and policymakers. With the growing diversity of the K-12 public school student body, schools must prepare to confront this divide systematically and vigorously. Policies that promote culturally responsive teaching…

In connection with the historical legacy and imaginations of youth of Color advocating for more just and equitable futures, I consider the complex political terrain through which teachers of Color cultivate students' agency for social change within the narrow confines of schooling institutions. In this article, I conceptualize "racial…