Scholars in recent years have explored the connections between video games, literacy, and learning. Research illustrates that video games can serve as texts for engagement and analysis in English language arts classrooms. Scholars have also demonstrated how games themselves effectively integrate a complex array of learning principles that help…

Recognizing the need to center equity-oriented practices within professional learning--and the challenges of doing so in traditional approaches to professional development--this study traced the experiences of teacher participants in a reimagined design of a teacher learning space. Drawing from narrative inquiry and case study methodologies, this…

The participatory action research (PAR) aimed to build educators' culturally responsive teaching capacity to support equitable classrooms. The study focused on the culturally responsive teaching development and decision-making process of a middle school principal, three Language Art teachers, and the culturally responsive teaching influence to…

The Rio Grande Valley, situated at the southernmost point of the United States, has grown to comprise a constellation of communities with shifting racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic demographics. While Rio Grande Valley communities have changed, the K-12 educational system where diverse students form the student body, does not always change…

Current English Language Arts programming and pedagogy, having evolved from colonial and racist histories, continue to employ instructional practices set to exclude, deculturalize, and assimilate America's marginalized citizens. Today's literacy educators continue to play a crucial role, regardless of intention, by further marginalizing their…

To engage interests and connect with 21st-century learners, educators must be able to effectively use technologies in their classrooms. The problem this study addressed was the limited understanding that language arts educators in urban school districts have of effectively using technological tools while teaching digital literacy. The purpose of…

Engaging students in the reading process is challenging when they are unable to connect to texts. It is important to provide inclusive and diverse texts (IDTs) in the language arts curriculum. To promote a positive reading experience, all students need to read IDTs with non-stereotypical depictions of girls, women, people of Color, and more. This…

While text selection is indeed a crucial choice that transmits explicit and implicit messages to students about what literature is and why it matters, it remains one element that needs to be put into conversation with a broader set of considerations in order for educators to fully grapple with the nature and purpose of rigorous and transformative…

Students in Title 1 school districts continue to fall far behind their peers academically in comparison to neighboring suburban districts. School reform has unsuccessfully attempted to improve test scores by consistently changing reading curriculums and mandating the use of various resources that fail when implemented. Struggling school districts…

This research sought to examine the various types of social justice knowledge that 10 practicing teachers possessed and how this knowledge can be categorized and further nuanced. Drawing from the theoretical framework of social justice pedagogical and content knowledge, researchers inductively and deductively coded a corpus of interviews to…

The continuous disparities in reading test scores between Black and White students remain a substantial problem in education. This study examines the historical disparity by investigating how the Georgia Milestones English Language Arts (ELA) End of Grade (EOG) Assessment incorporates cultural relevance. Employing the theoretical frameworks of…

Socioeconomically Marginalized Youth of Color (SMYoC) across global contexts tend to receive lower academic grades and standardized test scores due to systemic racism and classism. Research suggests that preschool enrollment is associated with short-term positive academic effects, yet little is known about how absenteeism relates to later academic…

This case study examines six English Language Arts (ELA) preservice teachers (PSTs) and the ways they recognize injustice and inequity in education, plan for addressing such issues, and engage as teacher-activists toward impacting the issues they recognize. This research was guided by the following two questions: In what ways do ELA PSTs use their…

Although the co-taught classroom is the fastest-growing inclusion model in U.S. public schools, an increasingly-diverse student population coupled with the continued overrepresentation of students of color in special education threatens to undermine its potential as an inclusive space that ensures success for all students. This multiphase,…

Background: In the past decades, there has been a growing concern to understand why boys struggle in school. One of the turning points in students' educational trajectories likely to exacerbate boys' academic difficulties is students' enrolment in private or enriched school programmes, as boys are underrepresented in such programmes. Method: To…