One middle school principal stemmed the flight of white and middle-class black citizens from a Chattanooga school district and reopened a magnet middle school. Using staff development, she encouraged her teachers to learn how to work effectively to motivate students. (SM)

Shares the responses of seven urban, male, African-American fifth graders to contemporary realistic fiction, discussing how the tying of this literature to the events in the boys' lives had the potential to move them toward social action. The paper examines the following: literature as a catalyst, reader responses to texts, critical literacy, and…

This paper addresses the study of children's reading interests and their attitudes toward reading as these factors relate to leisure-time reading. The problem of poor performances on measures of reading achievement by African-American children from low-income families has been studied for over 3 decades. Additionally, sociocultural and…

Presents an "Africentric" approach to mathematics education built on the thinking and realities of African American children. The article explains what constitutes a foreign pedagogy to African American students and describes a three-year collaborative project with a middle school teacher who has implemented a pedagogy of social change…

Discusses the work of Larry Dixon, assistant superintendent for resources in the Junction City (Kansas) school district, who supports principals in their efforts to improve schools. The paper describes Project TurnAround Teacher, which works in a nontraditional manner to help at-risk students who are discipline problems. (SM)

Examines the current status of cultural diversity in middle school education theory, suggests some developmental characteristics of young adolescents of color that are often overlooked, and proposes some ways that middle school education could be modified to be more responsive to the ethnic and cultural diversity of early adolescents. (SM)