There is a growing emphasis on social justice pedagogy as a predominantly White teacher labor force infiltrates classrooms in urban schools. Using "critical race theory" (CRT)--and the construct of interest convergence--this study examines how White teachers working in an urban school apply and enact teaching for social justice during…

This quantitative comparison study was conducted to determine if there is a significant difference in multicultural and social justice competencies (MSJCC) between urban and rural school counselors in Pennsylvania. The purpose of the study was to discover how school counselors in different geographical areas assess their work within a…

The Critical Literacy (CritLit) project promotes using critical texts to engage readers in examining their lived experiences and understanding of social justice issues. This study used a qualitative participatory approach with a narrative design to research the students' engagement in a book club using critical texts. Participants were fourth- and…

This article examines the "Track Series", a compilation of four works of contemporary realistic young adult fiction that reflect the diverse experiences of four middle school, African-American elite track runners whose names correspond with the title of each novel: "Ghost" (Reynolds, 2016), "Patina" (Reynolds, 2018a),…

The Atlanta Schools Critical Education Network for Distinction (ASCEND) is an ongoing interdisciplinary coalition supporting the critical consciousness of social justice educators. ASCEND partners include: (1) activist faculty from two university departments: Middle and Secondary Education and African American Studies; (2) a justice-oriented…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine two teachers' beliefs and practices on teaching writing at an urban, high-performing middle school to determine: What discourses of writing are being taught in an urban, high-performing US public middle school? What factors prevent or enable particular discourses? Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on case…

Increasingly, teachers are using consciousness raising pedagogies such as culturally relevant, responsive, sustaining, and social justice pedagogies. However, little attention has been paid to teachers engaging in this work with students of privileged backgrounds (e.g., white, affluent students) and in mathematics. The present study addresses this…

This article surfaces the functions, possibilities, and problems that emerged during the triple pandemic for a public school teacher in an urban school. The author weaves research, narrative, autoethnographic excerpts and timeline to represent the imagined and unimagined spaces that she and her students occupied from 2019 to 2020. How the teacher…

Participatory action research (PAR) with youth holds potential to spur social justice-oriented change due to its explicit orientation to transform systemic inequity. Whereas youth in PAR projects embody agency in their actions, they hold less institutional power than adults in positions of authority. In addition, youth who have been marginalized…

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…

A primary goal of teacher preparation programs should be to develop the reflective and critical problem-solving capacities of preservice teachers, especially social justice-oriented programs that prepare teachers to work in urban schools with historically underserved youth. Through an analysis of participants' biweekly posts to discussion boards,…

This work analyzes a Grade 9 English Language Arts classroom discussion for moments of resistance and asks, What does student resistance accomplish when viewed as racial wisdom? Drawing from "posts" traditions, we analyzed the discussion's intra-actions or entanglements in order to more clearly understand how students draw from their…

This study explores the impact of attending optional professional learning events on the critical consciousness development of Ready to Learn (RtL) mentors over the course of one program year. Ready to Learn is an out of school time math tutoring and mentoring program that seeks to address opportunity gaps in math learning for middle school…

This study examines how school-based personnel (i.e., principals, assistant principals, and school social workers) defined and engaged in collective leadership to support undocumented students. This instrumental, comparative case study explores their roles, relational processes, and the extent to which school-based personnel's relationships…

This mixed-methods research study explored the impact of restorative disciplinary practices on Latino students in an urban middle school. There is a significant need to eradicate the racial disparity on the discipline of Latino students when compared to their white counterparts. School districts are experiencing a rising number of EL students and…