The mixed methods quasi-experimental study aimed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the impact of interdisciplinary teacher teams on sophomore on-track graduation rate. Employing a mixed methods approach, quantitative data from an Early Warning System were combined with qualitative teacher survey data collected from a Chicago suburban…

Singular efforts in PK-12 settings to instill a social justice mindset will not achieve the same outcomes as social justice education infused throughout content area instruction. In collaboration with 10th-grade teachers, we developed and implemented a biblioguidance curriculum to develop students' social justice and content area competency.…

Standardized testing is a top priority in schools, with conversations around teaching and learning reduced to raising student test scores. Often any other conversations about how schools should serve students are eliminated or pushed to the periphery. The central questions raised here are the following: how are student-teacher relationships…

There is growing concern that it is too difficult or costly to substantially improve the academic skills of children who are behind in school once they reach adolescence. But perhaps what we have tried in the past relies on the wrong interventions, failing to account for challenges like the increased variability in academic needs during…

This research investigated the potential contributions of natural mentoring relationships and ethnic identity to the academic attitudes and performance of Latinx high school students. In a sample of 347 urban Latinx students in grades 9 and 10, analyses examined the presence and quality of mentoring relationships as well as ethnic identity…

The purpose of this study was to explore, using the voices of diverse high school students, the classroom factors that are important for promoting classroom belonging and engagement. Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with tenth grade students about classroom belonging and behavioral engagement in their favorite and least…

Purpose: Though the benefits of social-emotional competence (SEC) are well-recognized, measuring it and designing appropriately matched interventions remains elusive and methodologically challenging. This paper shares formative research designed to uncover the SEC of one secondary school health teacher's students and to help her make…

The authors used vocabulary activities, photographs, group work, and writing with tenth-grade students to unpack a commission report on violence associated with housing desegregation in 1950s Chicago to deepen students' engagement with Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun."

In the first comprehensive analysis of Illinois' statewide survey of school climate and learning conditions, this report finds systematic differences among schools in the degree to which students and teachers report strength in the five essential supports. Previous University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research (UChicago CCSR)…

Improving the long-term life outcomes of disadvantaged youth remains a top policy priority in the United States, although identifying successful interventions for adolescents--particularly males--has proven challenging. This paper reports results from a large randomized controlled trial of an intervention for disadvantaged male youth grades 7-10…

Examines the learning opportunities students have related to the democratic purposes of schooling in eighth, ninth, and tenth grade social studies classrooms. Explains five frameworks identified for linking curricular strategies to the preparation of citizens and the rubrics used to code observations in Chicago (Illinois) social studies classrooms…

Interviews with 162 10th-grade Mexican-American students in Chicago found that, of respondents aspiring to a career, both females and males overwhelmingly aspired to male-dominated careers. Females aspiring to highly male-dominated careers had higher levels of acculturation and academic achievement, higher educational expectations, and clearer…

THIS STUDY SOUGHT TO DISCOVER AND ANALYZE SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCES IN MOTIVATIONAL PATTERNS AND THE EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT OF TALENTED STUDENTS. THE OBJECTIVES WERE TO DETERMINE--(1) THE DIFFERENCES IN MOTIVATION TOWARD ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT BETWEEN THOSE WHO ACHIEVE AND THOSE WHO DO NOT, (2) THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACHIEVERS AND NONACHIEVERS IN…