Background: Educational research shows differences in experience, access, and outcomes across racial groups with some groups advantaged and others disadvantaged. One of the concepts used to explain racial differences, racialization, is a taken-for-granted term that is yet to be fully defined in the context of the school. We differentiate the term…

Background/Context: Studies carried out over the last two decades have established structured after-school programs as significant contexts for adolescent development. Recent large-scale evaluations of after-school initiatives have yielded mixed results, finding some impact on adolescents' attitudes toward school but limited impact on their…

Background/Context: With the growth of the small-school movement, many urban districts have restructured large underperforming high schools into new, small high schools or schools-within-a-school designed to engage adolescents in rigorous and meaningful learning along with strong teacher-student relationships. In the case of this study, the…

Background/Context: The current era of educational reform targets teacher education and aims to improve the performance of children who have traditionally underperformed and are underserved in public schools. Although educational policy has tried to address the ways in which "good teaching" contributes to improved student educational outcomes,…

Examined personal narratives of struggle with schooling from working class Latino parents whose children were in an experimental college access program at a diverse metropolitan high school. Three narrative types emerged: life stories of parents' own struggles as students; stories of bureaucratic rebuff in parents' encounters with staff in their…

This ethnographic study of high school students' classroom practices and perceptions about participation reveals the extent to which students' perceptions determine their understandings of practice, even when these understandings conflict with researcher observations and the bulk of the literature on gender and participation. This study shows,…

To understand why women attain higher educational levels than men, this study used participant observation data from a predominantly Hispanic New York City public high school to investigate race(ing) and gender(ing) processes in the high school setting. Results found that both formal and informal institutional practices within schools…

Since the landmark "Brown v. Board of Education" ruling, most of the literature on school desegregation has focused on the experiences of African American students or school districts in which remedies were fashioned for African American students. However, little is known about the efforts of other ethnic and racial groups who have…

In the 1930s, educational leaders in New Mexico turned to the General Education Board (originally created to assist southern African-American students) for philanthropic aid, envisioning reforms geared to the needs of Hispanic students. The board's sponsorship allowed great latitude to some very innovative educators who were sensitive to cultural…

Examines conditions that influence Latino families' decision making regarding choices of preschool child care, investigating why they forgo preschooling and summarizing low-income Latina mothers' views. The study found that though there were factors common to all ethnic groups, there was also a relationship between Latino parenting practices and…

Describes development of Milwaukee's Parental Choice Program from an alliance of neoliberal reformers and supporters of inner-city community schools enrolling Black and Latino students. Necessary ingredients included the legacy of independent community schools, frustration of many Black school reformers with Milwaukee Public Schools, and political…

Examined tensions inherent in relationships between Latino immigrant students and their teachers at an urban middle school. Data from an ethnographic study of students' school experiences and interviews with teachers indicated that students named teacher discrimination against Latinos as the primary cause of their disengagement from school.…

In an effort to improve our nation's underperforming schools, education reformers are designing programs to educate and empower urban school parents. Parent involvement can be critical to a child's academic success, yet the education community still knows very little about the impact of specific parent programs. We evaluated a parent program that…

The views of George I. Sanchez are examined to determine what an earlier generation of Hispanic-American educators thought about bilingual education. Sanchez stressed integrating Spanish-speaking children into Anglo classrooms and downplayed the need for a new pedagogy, such as bilingual instruction. (PP)

Schools are inadequately prepared to serve the needs of increasing numbers of culturally diverse students. Problems relate to desegregation, multicultural education, higher quality education, and bilingual education. New York City is used as an example, noting the school system's role in serving New York's immigrant students. (SM)