This article describes a three-year qualitative study on how youth of color in one community-based organization, Durham Community Youth, used the mentor text, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "What's your life's blueprint?" speech, as a reflective tool to transform themselves and their community. Using a critical literacy framework, the…

African immigrant youth adaptation processes in US schools remain under-researched. Using qualitative case study, this article examines West African immigrant middle- and high-school youth adaptation experiences in US urban schools. Findings show that racialized experiences, English proficiency levels, and multilingualism affected social…

This article examines the perceptions of young migrants (and non-migrants), their parents, and teachers to discuss whether the school is a device of inclusion or a device of exclusion that produces inequalities. It presents qualitative and quantitative data collected in the urban areas of Lisbon and Porto. First, we analyze data from 14 focus…

Mathematics teachers' preteaching experiences as mathematics learners can affect their identity and practice in supporting their own students' learning and motivation in mathematics. However, little empirical data exist on teachers' formative experiences to guide these assumptions, particularly how teachers draw on these experiences when teaching,…

The overwhelming majority of published scholarship on urban high schools in the United States focuses on problems of inadequacy, instability, underperformance, and violence. Similarly, across all schooling contexts, most of what has been written about young men of color continually reinforces deficit narratives about their educational possibility.…

In urban secondary schools where underpreparation and dropping out are real world concerns, students understand that their relationships with teachers affect their learning. Using descriptive coding and thematic analysis of focus group data, we explore adolescents' perceptions of the "bridges" that foster and the "barriers"…

African American adolescents from families with low levels of human capital (i.e., caregiver level of education) are at risk for poor early adult outcomes. The current study examined the relationships among 48 African American high school students' literacy performance (e.g., reading and vocabulary), their implicit views of intelligence, their…

This study explores racial-ethnic identity and academic achievement of five young African American men in 11th and 12th grade in an urban pilot high school. Data gathered through individual and group interviews and a questionnaire were analyzed to understand how academically successful African American male adolescents interpret their social and…

This article will explore the role of "CYC," a community-based youth center, in providing a sense of what I call "Youth (Comm)Unity" for Chinese American youth from low-income immigrant families. While CYC combines the youths' home and school worlds, it is also distinct from these worlds by forming a new and hybrid culture/space. In doing so, I…

This study examines how educators in traditional and alternative public high school settings conceptualize the experiences of their pregnant and parenting students. Educators' narrative responses are qualitatively analyzed to identify their perceptions of students' worries and the types of support educators provide students. Results suggest that…

Discusses the use of regimentation and depersonalization as socializing mechanisms at an inner city junior high school. Focuses on the routine encounters of newcomers and the way such encounters force students to redefine themselves according to institutional needs and practices. (PS)

Reviews the rationale and research supporting achievement motivation training, the most extensively studied prototype psychological education course. (DM)