This narrative inquiry highlights the experiences of three high school students labeled Long-term English learners (LTEL) in a North Texas high school. This narrative inquiry study uses semi-structured interviews to restory the students' lives, emphasizing the emergent themes of family (the strongest pillar) and the language of the home (Spanish).…

To address the needs of middle school students who experience difficulty with reading, students are often placed in reading intervention programs to improve literacy skills. This study explores the question: in what ways do students successfully and unsuccessfully use self-initiated comprehension strategies in their efforts to engage with…

This study investigates correlations of course level, gender, and ethnic identity labels with attitudinal dimensions toward Spanish by Spanish as a Heritage Language Learners in New Mexico. Participants in first-semester (n = 327) and fourth-semester (n = 174) Spanish as a Heritage Language courses rated twelve items designed to index language…

This case study examines José, a bilingual Latino fifth-grader, and his complex and dynamic engagements in "travesuras" (mischievous behaviors). José's "travesuras" served to disassociate him from being labeled a "schoolboy." This disassociation was evident in how José: (1) renounced "school-like" work and…

Expansion of previous research on adolescents' attitudes toward their giftedness involved development of an open-ended questionnaire which was administered to 144 gifted and talented students (ages 15 and 16) in Texas. Results showed that views of the gifted label and its effects are multifaceted, and gifted adolescents are realizing positive and…

Guided by findings from various studies, the general thesis of this study was that identity polarization tends to be a reflections of meaningful structural divisions within the Mexican American population. This study considered such social status attributes which seemingly serve as discrete indicators of group heterogeneity as sex, socioeconomic…

Conversations with 19 predominantly Chicano middle-school students labeled "at risk" revealed that students viewed their at-risk status as a source of both shame and unity, thereby reproducing the category on one hand and producing a counterculture to adult world views on the other. A communication perspective on student success offers…

This study investigates stigmatization in the probation process from the perspective of the probationer. Hereby we use the concepts of primary and secondary deviance provided by labeling theory to differentiate between stigmatization by others and self-stigmatization. While stigmatization by others is less direct in the guidance of the…