This research examines how a student voice experience--Social Justice Youth Summit--developed youth capacities as transformative school leaders. We engaged a youth development framework situated in school- and community-based youth leadership literature to analyze a diverse group of urban youth's experiences and sensemaking of the youth voice…

The Critical Literacy (CritLit) project promotes using critical texts to engage readers in examining their lived experiences and understanding of social justice issues. This study used a qualitative participatory approach with a narrative design to research the students' engagement in a book club using critical texts. Participants were fourth- and…

While parent involvement has been shown to have positive academic outcomes for their children, for structural changes to be made, parents have to go from being active to taking on a more activist role, thus "stoking the flame" of the norm. Parent advocacy and empowerment groups play a vital role in the transformation of parent activists,…

The purpose of this study was to suggest post-colonialist programmatic considerations for the implementation of service-learning programs that empower LatinX students. The researcher interviewed LatinX student participants in a Northwest community college. Service-learning program to discover any shared themes between social justice…

Uprisings against police violence have placed the institution of policing front and center in conversations about societal change. In our work with activists, we have engaged in collecting and analyzing public records data to inform community organizing for change. In this editorial we discuss how to obtain, interpret, and analyze public records…

Over the past two decades, research on urban schools has focused predominantly on achievement gaps. However, achievement gaps exist because of gaps in opportunities for urban, low-income, and racially/ethnically diverse students. Partnerships among schools, families, and communities can provide the enrichment opportunities, support, resources, and…

This study examines the experiences of 15 Latinx sixth-grade students in Los Angeles who participated in a yearlong journalism-based media literacy program embedded in their social studies classes. Students researched, interviewed, wrote, and published articles on the Internet about social justice themes, like immigration, racism, and LGBTQ…

This article explores how two urban schools help teachers create equitable spaces for students. We describe the structures and experiences supporting teacher learning and transfer of learning to practice as well as what happens when what is designed for and what is enacted do not align. Findings include that teacher professional learning for…

We explore the dynamics of nurturing, caring, and enabling in a social justice school and how a problematic context of educational enabling can develop when notions of nurturing are not balanced with consistent disciplinary consequences. In-depth interviews were conducted with eight school staff, teachers, and a student at a social justice urban…

This paper considers the emancipatory potential of incorporating youth participatory action research (YPAR) and restorative practices (RP) implementation into a transformative mixed methods study design as a means to create equitable and caring school systems for marginalized youth. The utilization of "transformative mixed methods"…

Despite the multifaceted causes of educational disparities, schools' responsibility for reducing inequality undergirds American ideals. Educators operate as street-level bureaucrats to accomplish this equalizing work. Surprisingly, we know little about how teachers think about inequality or enact strategies to combat it, even though their…

This qualitative case study explored the perceptions and practices of three teachers who teach social justice concepts in kindergarten and 2nd grade classrooms in an urban school district in the Northwest region of the United States. The research sought to answer the following central questions: (a) What do teachers perceive about how instruction…

This celebrated narrative shows how a teacher, alongside his 5th-grade students, co-created a curriculum based on the students' needs, interests, and questions. Follow Brian Schultz and his students from a Chicago housing project as they work together to develop an emergent and authentic curriculum based on what is most important to the…

Research has suggested that critical consciousness--the ability to recognize and analyze systems of inequality and the commitment to take action against these systems--can be a gateway to academic motivation and achievement for marginalized students. To explore this approach, the authors studied five urban schools that include critical…

The researchers conducted a study to gather information about one Chicano teacher's disposition and perception of high expectations for his Latina/o students and their opportunities to learn. Findings of this paper demonstrate the ways in which institutional memory such as an ethnic studies college education as well as this teacher's…