This article investigates the racial and gender dynamics of educational inequality in suburban public schools in the United States during an era of rapid demographic change. As suburban schools transition from predominantly White enclaves to more diverse settings, it is unclear to what extent the popular narrative of "suburban advantage"…

School choice policy is ubiquitous in urban school districts. Evidence suggests that it has not fully delivered on its proponents' promises of equitable educational opportunity. While scholars and policymakers scrutinize data to determine school choice's equity outcomes, little attention has been paid to how school choice policy directly…

Secondary newcomer schools vary tremendously in format but share the common characteristic of being comprised of recently arrived adolescent immigrants. These schools, designed to meet the educational and acculturative needs of adolescent immigrants, have been proliferating across the United States for years. Yet little is known about the…

In response to growing concerns about the impact of harsh immigration enforcement policy since the 2016 presidential campaign, we examined its overall impact on the nation's schools, using survey data completed by over 3,600 educators across the country. Our study results show that immigration enforcement is affecting all students--both those from…

In this article, Nicole Joseph, Meseret Hailu, and Jamaal Matthews argue that Black girls' oppression in the United States is largely related to the dehumanization of their personhood, which extends to various institutions, including secondary schools and, especially, mathematics classrooms. They contend that one way to engage in educational…

Sociopolitical consciousness refers to an individual's ability to critically analyze the political, economic, and social forces shaping society and one's status in it. A growing body of scholarship reports that high levels of sociopolitical consciousness are predictive in marginalized adolescents of a number of key outcomes including resilience…

Rochelle Gutiérrez has spent 15 years researching effective, urban high school mathematics departments that served Black, Latin@ and low-income adolescents (see, e.g., Gutiérrez, 1996, 1999a, 1999b, 2000, 2002). These were schools where students took more mathematics than was required by their district; where English learners, recent immigrants,…

Only about half of Latino, Black and Native American students graduate from high school. Much of the research explains school dropout using statistical relationships between dropout rates and a variety of "risk factors" attributed to students, like income, race/ethnicity, academic achievement and behaviors and attitudes. In contrast, this study…

As demands for more complex literacy skills have increased, and competition in economic and technological arenas at home and abroad have grown more intense, many U.S. students enter high school with literacy skills unequal to this challenge. In U.S. society, where the information base doubles every 5 years, an educated citizenry is essential.…

Project EXCEL, developed from a 2-year pilot study, provided college enrichment in reading, writing, and foreign languages for rising sophomores and sophomores in two inner-city high schools. One school had a predominantly black student body; the other had a student body that was 40% black. This study focused on the sources of equality and…

The stories of gang members and former gang members show that positive solutions can be found to the crisis of American urban youth. Personal experiences and challenges similar to those faced by young black students are used to indicate that there is hope. It is evident that poor black youth cannot survive or become part of the mainstream in…

In the past several decades, individuals have been responding more actively to political and personal pressures to identify with a specific group that shares their background. For many people of mixed racial, ethnic, and cultural heritage, making such an identification is complicated. It is important for society to foster the positive development…

This 5-year ethnographic study examines the issue of educational opportunity at Russell High School, a multiethnic school in Eastown (school and city both pseudonyms). Focusing on the beliefs and values of students, teachers, and administrators, this study reveals how prevailing cultural beliefs, the collective nature of the student population,…

This paper asserts that the growth and maintenance of failed urban school districts that have miseducated minority children in poverty for over 50 years is a predictable, explainable phenomenon. The essay suggests that the extensive resources funneled into these systems are used for increasing district bureaucracies rather than improving…

Focuses on issues relevant to educating homeless adolescents, including barriers to education, historical trends in homelessness, and reasons adolescents become homeless. The unique problems of this group, such as victimization and street life, are discussed with implications for educators. Recommendations are made for program and policy in this…