This governing document for the public education system in Hawai'i provides a common foundation of expectations and supports for public education, centering on closing the achievement gap to ensure equity and excellence for each student. The Strategic Plan is a compact between the Board of Education (BoE), the Department of Education (DoE), and…

This article documents narrative experiences from alumni who participated in the GEAR UP program. The San Jose State University GEAR UP program, based on an intensive counseling model, is grounded in social capital and resilience theories, and is designed to increase the number of low-income students who are prepared to enter and succeed in…

Recent scholarship within the field of applied linguistics highlights the fact that identities are not static but are fluid, multiple, changeable across time and space, and always constructed in relationship to interactions with others. In other words, identities are constantly in motion. This paper presents a framework for examining the notion of…

Why is hope such an important concept for schools to consider? Research has clearly demonstrated that more hopeful students perform better in school and in life than less hopeful students. Hopeful thought reflects the belief that one can find pathways to desired goals and become motivated to use those pathways. As a result, hope drives the…

This paper focuses on children of refugees and migrant workers from 48 countries who study together in one multicultural school in the city of Tel Aviv, Israel. The context of our study is the current ethos of globalisation and within it the phenomenon of vast migrations and creation of intercultural social realities. The aims of the study were to…

A phenomenological approach was used with this study to give a voice to individuals who are incarcerated for the purpose of understanding their past educational experiences in the areas of academics, personal/social, and career exploration. The study included interviews with 25 individuals who are incarcerated and who were purposefully selected to…

English language learners (ELL) are students with a primary language spoken other than English enrolled in U.S. educational settings. As ELL students take on the challenges of learning English and U.S. culture, they must also learn academic content. The expectation to succeed academically in a foreign culture and language, while learning to speak…

Figuring out what motivates and engages individual students is essential. Indeed, it is the prerequisite for implementing student-centered approaches to learning. However, today's teachers--confronting large class sizes, fast-paced academic calendars, and standardized assessments--face particular pressures to lump all students together and "teach…

This article investigates issues to do with student voice. Much attention is given within the literature to including the voice of students without disabilities in educational debate. Indeed, clear connections have been made between the use of student voice and raising student achievement (Mitra, 2004). Given the validation of such voices, it is…

As a postcolonial Indian woman now living in the West, I managed to overcome my own circumstances by finding my voice and resisting the oppression of an abusive arranged marriage. Subsequently, as a teacher of at risk marginalized and immigrant youth in the inner cities of 21st century America, who continue to be "colonized" by a public…

The Australian government has set ambitious targets for increased higher-education participation of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. There is, thus, a pressing need to explore how best to empower these students with what they require to progress and succeed at university. The paper draws on a literature review and qualitative data from a…

Social justice education is undertheorized in science education. Given the wide range of goals and purposes proposed within both social justice education and social justice science education scholarship, these fields require reconciliation. In this paper, I suggest a student empowerment framework for conceptualizing teaching and learning social…

Lean is regarded as a systematic approach to maximizing value by minimizing waste, and by flowing the product or service at the pull of the customer demand. These key concepts of "value," "flow," and "pull," align with the ultimate lean goal: "perfection," or a continuous striving for improvement in the…

There is an impressive amount of quantitative evidence documenting positive student outcomes of learning communities in terms of retention and academic performance (Hotchkiss, Moore, & Pitts, 2006; Tinto, 2000; Zhao & Kuh, 2004). While this quantitative information significantly contributes to our knowledge about learning communities, it…

Adolescents have a unique perspective on their own development. However, educators have not fully considered the role of students' meaning making in the provision and receipt of school-based supports. To address this gap, this article draws on photographs and in-depth interviews that explore urban middle school students' experiences with learning…