As people with power in schools, teachers and administrators make instructional decisions that shape opportunities in classrooms for students to learn. Educators' words and actions, especially related to the treatment of students and their ideas, are foundational for creating equitable learning communities in our classrooms and schools. David…

While issues of (in)justice in K12 STEM learning have garnered increasing attention, limited research has attended to learning as "social-spatial transformation." We draw upon a justice-oriented framework of equitably consequential learning to call attention to how learning and engagement in K12 STEM is rooted in the history and…

In spring 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic collided with a national reckoning on racial injustice and ruptured our country's core. The effects of this collision necessitated something other than business as usual in school leadership: it called for the kind of courageous leadership rooted in equity and justice we describe in this paper. In this…

In middle grades education, advisory programs are structured, intentional, and supportive environments that assign 10 to 20 students to an adult advisor (most often a teacher) who serves as a mentor, advocate, and guide throughout their middle school years. Advisory programs promote community and personalized support in middle schools. In addition…

This study reports on the feasibility and acceptability of a social justice infused service-learning (S-L) program to promote Black adolescent mental health and educational equity. We convened a community advisory board to help adapt and pilot test, via open trial mixed method design, an evidence-based service-learning program for Black middle…

Traditional notions of learning, teaching, schooling, and leading, contribute to the inequity and injustice found in schools. In this study, autoethnography was used as a process and product to explore one leader's journey opening and leading a new "alternative" school as the school's principal. These experiences create the backdrop of a…

Education systems in "Canada" are increasingly highlighting the structural and material inequities faced by First Nations' peoples. However, most practices within formal education tend to focus on awareness campaigns and/or examining injustice as a historical event, as opposed to challenging the structural and systemic forces that…

Research-practice partnerships play an important role in critically examining racial disparities in schools, as well as supporting the immediate adoption of practice improvement. This article outlines the results of a multisite case study with students, teachers, and administrators across two racially and ethnically diverse middle schools in the…

This essay combines an ecological perspective with a mobility justice theoretical framework to reconceptualize the relationship between school transportation and educational access. Authors Sarah Winchell Lenhoff, Jeremy Singer, Kimberly Stokes, James Bear Mahowald, and Sahar Khawaja document the problem of "getting to school" that is at…

Background: Transgender children are known to face a wide range of barriers, difficulties and injustices at school. Few studies have focused on the educational experiences of trans pupils who socially transition at or before primary school, with no such studies in the UK. Aims: To learn about the at-school experiences of transgender children who…

The work of racial justice advocacy in the field of education is fraught with responsibility and challenge. The impact of historical racism on social policy within the United States has had an enduring effect in the educational realm, which is maintained in part by the prevailing white supremacy culture (WSC). Recent middle level education…

As historically construed, both engineering culture and school science culture marginalize girls. With the focus on engineering in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), engineering education researchers have called for a more targeted investigation of how girls at the K-12 level engage in engineering. This study investigates, through…

Much of the extant literature regarding middle grades teachers centers on interventions to improve the quality or effectiveness of their teaching: studies that identify a particular instructional strategy, curricular support, or disposition, and conclude with recommendations that teachers improve their practice by adopting said thing. In contrast,…

An essential understanding of the uses and practices of algebra remain out of reach for many students. In this book, award-winning researcher Dr. Nicole Fonger addresses the issue of how to support all learners to experience algebra as meaningful. In a highly visual approach, the book details four research-based lenses with examples from 9th-grade…

This article examines contextual factors that impact inclusive education in the Rio Grande Valley region of South Texas, United States. Based on the analysis of teachers' narratives, the study concluded that teachers perceive inclusive special education as a student's right primarily grounded in the social justice context of education. While…