This study examines the epistemic disciplinary knowledge that students consider when addressing a real food emergency that requires their engagement in inquiry and argumentation practices. The study comprised two phases: (1) designing an experiment to study the emergency and (2) evaluating the real outcome of the emergency. The participants were…

Adolescents in the urban public school system experience childhood trauma that sometimes makes it difficult to focus on learning. Even more so, sometimes trauma experienced by youth manifests in disruptive behaviors in the school setting. Traditionally, urban public schools have focused on teaching and learning academics, generally neglecting the…

Students from urban high schools are usually faced with adverse environmental factors in their pursuit of academic success. These factors make learning more challenging and may confound the measurement of academic performance itself. This study explores how one such factor, ambient noise, affects the measurement of mathematics achievement.…

We investigate 10th-grade Latinx and African American high school students' engagement in a reform-oriented curriculum designed to foster their critical social analysis of urban schooling. Students' designs of "ideal schools" based on their studies of their neighborhoods largely reproduced existing inequitable structures and practices of…

Many urban Catholic high schools pride themselves as developing our students in a holistic way. In these schools, educators are able to develop and support their students in both a moral and an academic sense. This belief in educating the whole child is appealing to many families, especially those in our most underserved urban contexts. Families…

This qualitative study analyzes how an urban schoolteacher guided her 19 tenth grade Latina and African American young women in developing positive self-concepts as expressed through the implementation of design thinking processes. This work examines how young women who had limited access to digital media negotiated their identities as they…

Responding to recent reports that Latina students often lack feelings of belonging at school and are dropping out in increasing numbers, this study explores how classroom environments influence engagement or disengagement among Latina students. Through case studies with five Latina 10th-grade students, this research examines how variations in the…

Students' engagement and performance in their first year of high school offer strong signals about their prospects for earning a diploma 4 years later. These performance measures can be used to construct "on-track" indicators to measure a school's performance and to identify needs of specific students who are at risk of dropping out.…

These 2 studies investigate the extent to which an Embodied Mixed Reality Learning Environment (EMRELE) can enhance science learning compared to regular classroom instruction. Mixed reality means that physical tangible and digital components were present. The content for the EMRELE required that students map abstract concepts and relations onto…

This study documents the impact of placing graduation coaches as a GEAR UP intervention in urban high schools. The overall goal was improvement of students' academic performance, particularly for students not passing core courses. This longitudinal study began with data collection in feeder middle schools where results indicated improved student…

The growing prominence of high-stakes exit examinations has made questions about their effects on student outcomes increasingly important. We take advantage of a natural experiment to evaluate the causal effects of failing a high-stakes test on high school completion for the cohort scheduled to graduate from Massachusetts high schools in 2006.…

Describes the course "Bronx as Art" that was taught to 10th grade students from the Bronx Regional High School (New York) and was funded by the Bronx Council on the Arts. Explains that the students explored their self-images and experiences with their neighborhood. Provides background information on the school and students. (CMK)

The third of the tenth grade sequence of the FICSS series (Focus on Inner City Social Studies -- see SO 008 271) examines the political and economic theories and realities of Communism as practiced in the Soviet Union. A brief introduction to Communist China is also included in the unit. The intent of the unit is to enable students to grasp many…

The tenth grade unit of the FICSS series (Focus on Inner City Social Studies -- see SO 008 271) deals with the political-economic systems in the United States. The first unit of the sequence focuses specifically on capitalism in a democracy. The document deals with both the theoretical and practical aspects of capitalism. The theoretical section…

A collaborative pilot program between Oakland Unified School District (California), University of California at Berkeley, and Cooperative Extension uses the Internet to teach urban teens about insects. Students catch, identify, mount, and photograph insects; photographs are then digitized for inclusion in the "City Bugs" Web site, which…