The practice of temporarily removing students from school as a form of punishment (i.e., suspensions) remains quite common. This study uses longitudinal data from a large, urban school district in California to assess whether the use of suspensions improves school safety in the following school year. Additional analyses by student race and…

This study examined the extent to which disparities in Black and White students' risks of receiving office discipline referrals (ODRs), and out-of-school suspensions (OSSs) were related to differences in implicit and explicit racial biases assessed at the community level. The sample consisted of discipline records for 1,354,010 students enrolled…

This case study explores how a group of Grade 9 students engaged in sociopolitical discourses and actions in a science class in a mostly indigenous student school in Nepal. The study used sociopolitical consciousness (SPC) as a framework to document and understand indigenous students' SPC-oriented science interactions and subsequent social change…

The present empirical study seeks to explore the perceptions novice educators have toward the use of controversial public issues (CPI) in the secondary classroom. The research attempts to do this by examining the following research questions: (a) To what extent do new teachers associate the use of CPI in the classroom with broad principles of…

The achievement gap for students of color has existed in this country for decades. Previous research has shown that even when controlling for factors such as socio-economic status, Black and Hispanic students still underperform White students by a significant margin. This study sought to determine if teacher social justice attitudes are related to…

This qualitative case study examines how fifth graders and their teachers participated in critical literacy instruction grounded in systems thinking on the topic of slavery. Systems thinking seeks to discover relationships and patterns in diverse underlying systems; critical literacy examines everyday texts, focuses on social justice and change,…

This study examined Asian American elementary students' experience with victimization. Data were collected from 313 fourth and fifth graders from an ethnically diverse elementary school in southern California. Most participants self-identified as Asian/Asian American and spoke an Asian language at home. Results indicated that Asian American…

Few studies have investigated school-based, positive development for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ) youth, despite knowledge of their heightened negative school experiences compared to heterosexual youth (e.g., school victimization). This study examines associations among participation in Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA)--related social…

The purpose of this action research was to explore and describe the relationship between middle school teachers' reports of their empathy and their reports of their likelihood of intervening in a bullying situation. Teacher volunteers from a single middle school within a suburban school district in a northeastern state were asked to complete…

Whole child education is the process of supporting the social and emotional needs of students. By supporting the various non-academic needs of students, the social distractions and disadvantages are reduced and the academic needs have a greater opportunity to flourish. Whole child education is designed to foster a sense of social justice as the…

The purpose of this project was to gain a better understanding of dimensions of trust and inter-relationships between those dimensions during the adolescent years. Drawing from survey data collected at the beginning and end of a semester in eighty middle- and high-school social studies classes, relationships were assessed between: social trust,…