This study investigates the perceptions of multicultural awareness and inclusivity among teachers across various urban middle schools, aiming to understand the impact of school leadership on promoting an educational environment that values diversity. Employing a quantitative analysis of survey data collected from 217 teachers in 16 schools, the…

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…

The research study was conducted to analyze effect of an attendance support team in urban middle schools. The study utilized a six-month time window using students in three middle schools that accumulated five unexcused absences. The attendance support team was comprised of a school social worker, a family resource student support coordinator, a…

Whole-school reform models frequently include instructional coaching, yet instructional coaches typically spend relatively little time working with teachers on instruction. Using survey and interview data from district leaders, school administrators, and instructional coaches in one urban school district, this mixed-methods analysis asks how…

Homework is a pervasive pedagogical practice worldwide, and somewhat neglected as a research topic. This study aims to provide a comprehensive account of teachers' homework practices, an aspect of teachers' work about which relatively little is known. We seek to explore what constitutes teachers' homework practices, illuminate their complexity,…

Research on recently adopted methods for teacher evaluation are largely focused on issues of validity and pay less attention to the consequences of implementation for the everyday practices of teaching and learning in schools. This paper draws on an ethnographic case-study to argue that the joint tasks demanded by neoliberal teacher evaluation…

Although Black and Latinx students disproportionately face exclusionary school discipline, prior research finds that the likelihood of suspension for Black students decreases when they are taught by greater proportions of Black teachers. Little prior work, however, has examined whether these effects generalize to large, diverse, urban school…

This study sought to understand the extent to which elementary or middle school mobility was associated with adverse middle school academic achievement and mental health and whether youth or contextual characteristics moderated associations. I contrasted elementary and middle school mobility to consider whether a recent school move or elementary…

Although Black and Latinx students disproportionately face exclusionary school discipline, prior research finds that the likelihood of suspension for Black students decreases when they are taught by greater proportions of Black teachers. Little prior work, however, has examined whether these effects generalize to large, diverse, urban school…

Professional learning communities (PLCs) have become a popular strategy in various forms (e.g., data teams, grade-level teams) and with various champions (e.g., district leaders, university researchers, teacher advocates). Although well-implemented PLCs have been shown to distribute leadership, the tension between democratic inquiry processes and…

In this article, tensions in teacher community arose when the school's "rainy day" policy was invoked in the middle of a class period, disturbing instruction on the athletic field and subsequently in the gymnasium. The narrative inquiry takes a multiperspectival stance towards competing commitments to educational policy, on one hand, and…

Drawing on research investigating the impact of health imperatives around obesity, diet and exercise on the actions of teachers and pupils in schools, this paper offers a reflexive account of the relationships between the "noise" of obesity discourse in the public domain, policies forged to tackle health issues and the realities of…

Purpose: Physical activity participation in physical education is compromised when students nonsuit. We investigated: (a) reasons for nonsuiting/support of policy change and whether they differed by gender, ethnicity, or grade; and (b) the likelihood of nonsuiting based on the same demographics. Method: Participants ("N" = 627) were 6th…

This article investigates how Michigan's charter school policy influences the composition of students by race and socioeconomic status in urban traditional public schools. Using 2 years of student-level data in Michigan' urban elementary and middle schools, the dynamic student transfers between charter schools and TPSs are analyzed through a…

The No Child Left Behind federal mandate to improve student achievement in reading and math resulted in several initiatives related to educational leadership. However, these initiatives have yet to improve student achievement. Therefore, the research question focused on how school leaders used Senge's five disciplines of a learning…