This critical article provides insights into how media frames influence our understandings of school reform in urban spaces by examining images of students during the 2013 school closings in Chicago. Using visual framing analysis and informed by framing theory and critiques of neoliberalism we seek to explore two questions: (1) What role do media…

In Chicago's public school system, LGBT students were three times more likely than straight peers to miss school because of threats to their safety, according to 2003 districtwide survey; and students who face regular harassment were more like to drop out. In this article, the author shares her thoughts on the move of Chicago school officials to…

The high school art unit "Embracing Diversity" was the author's principal work towards the completion of a Masters thesis. The objective was to learn whether or not teaching an art unit that focused on sexual diversity could have a positive impact on the current culture one finds in high schools. The unit was found to have a positive…

Network position ("isolate," "member," "liaison"), peer-group substance use, and their interaction were examined as predictors of cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use in a sample of 163 urban sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Two measures of peer substance use were compared: one based on social network analysis…

As student populations in K-12 schools in the United States continue to diversify and the teaching force remains largely White, cross-cultural teaching is an increasingly common phenomenon. In this article, a White teacher educator draws upon interviews with four teachers of color who work in Chicago public schools to examine ways White teachers…

Previous research indicated that Catholic high schools in the United States were not addressing the topic of homosexuality in any significant and systematic way prior to the mid-1990s, though practitioners in Catholic high schools have begun to address the topic in recent years. This study, in sampling seven Catholic schools in the greater Chicago…

Two dozen 18-year-olds from across Illinois sit circled inside a classroom on DePaul University's main campus, nestled among the pricey greystones and trendy taverns of Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood. All are fresh out of high school, plan to become teachers, and are there to participate in a six-week summer institute--part of a scholarship…

In this speech, given at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) College of Education on April 22, 2005, Professor Payne discusses the complexity of race relations in the Chicago School System. He begins by defining the racial baggage carried by both white and black individuals in the school system, and continues to address the following…