Background or Context: Public school library book challenges have garnered ample media attention in recent years as many school districts and advocacy organizations have reported record numbers of book challenges. Book challenges are not a new phenomenon, historically speaking, but they have often illuminated values clashes in communities and…

Background/Context: In Ontario, and Canada more broadly, anti-discrimination on the basis of gender identity and gender expression is enshrined in the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which have required schools to address trans inclusion. However, the ways in which educators understand or enact these…

Background: Challenges to books are surging across the United States, and books that portray diverse human experiences are particularly targeted. Censorship has deleterious consequences, such as undermining children's intellectual freedom and influencing educators' book selections. In a climate of censorship, when educators face the realistic…

Background: In recent years, school districts have experienced a complex policy environment with myriad reforms aimed at addressing longstanding and historically entrenched disparities in opportunities and outcomes between racially minoritized students and White students. One such reform is standards-based accountability, with its emphasis on…

Background/Context: Contemporary accountability policies in teacher education often require that programs systematically use data for program improvement (Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, 2013). However, social science research from multiple fields of human service suggests that the challenges of using data involve much more…

Background/Context: Implicit bias, or stereotypes and attitudes that may or may not reflect known positions, has been implicated in teachers' disciplinary interactions with students; however not all of the differences in discipline severity by race are accounted for by teachers. School administrators have received little attention concerning…

Background or Context: There is increasing research focusing on dual language (DL) education program policies and practices regarding who has access to bilingualism and whose bilingualism is valued and represented. However, limited research is situated in the context of Chinese-English DL education and its service of emergent bilingual learners…

Background/Context: Scholars and practitioners continue to work to identify ways to change structural conditions, school-level policy, and stakeholder mindsets to support minoritized youth in advanced coursework. Open access policies, in which students do not need a previous teacher's approval or a prerequisite grade to enroll in an advanced…

Background/Context: Seeking to avoid litigation or a legal threat, many postsecondary institutions are responding to a legal and policy environment that seeks to end the consideration of race in education policies by adopting race-neutral policies and practices in admissions, even when not explicitly required to do so by law. Yet, such responses…

Background/Context: Working towards social justice in education requires students' voices to be heard and understood (Mansfield, 2014). This is especially the case for students from marginalized populations. Prior research has shown the value and importance of students' voices for school retention, academic success, school inclusivity, and student…

Background/Context: Most research on "elite" schools has focused on the private sector. However, as a result of economic residential segregation, a number of public school districts exist which may plausibly be construed as socioeconomically elite. Districts of this sort remain relatively understudied. In particular, few researchers have…

Background: Data-driven decision making continues to be a common feature of educational reform agendas across the globe. In many U.S. schools, the teacher team meeting is a key setting in which data use is intended to take place, with the aim of planning instruction to address students' needs. However, most prior research has not examined how the…

Background/Context: Current research within four-year university settings reveals the daily encounters students of color and faculty have with microaggressions--brief, intentional or unintentional comments and behaviors communicating covert biases toward individuals based on their social group membership (Sue et al., 2007). The majority of all…

Background: Researchers have tended to favor scholarship that looks at institutional forms of support for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students in the context of resource centers specifically tailored to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students. Our study makes two distinct contributions to the study of gay and lesbian students…