Existing measures of belonging in schools do not explicitly elevate the contextual and cultural insights of the educators and students they were designed to assess. Our study addresses this shortcoming through the co-creation of an Opportunities to Belong survey measure for urban middle schoolers. The tool was developed in partnership with…

Equity between racial/ethnic groups has become an important factor in education, and scholar-practitioners have focused on closing the equity gap in both student academics and discipline. Research has shown the inequity in student discipline dating back to the 1950s when schools began to integrate and Black students were allowed to attend the same…

Purpose: Much scholarly hand-wringing has concerned the academic engagement of Black and Latino boys. At the center of these conversations are questions of culture. Cultural disconnects between home and school are profound for students from marginalized communities, particularly so for young men. Prudence Carter asserts that young men in urban…

Efforts to transform urban schools often overlook the role of students in shaping educational spaces. And so, I ask: How do students, as the primary users of school space, make and shape their school? I draw from spatial inquiry that emphasizes the social production of space to provide a glimpse into the spatial perspectives and practices of Azul,…

Teacher education programs strive to promote social justice and critical thinking among candidates. However, limited attention is given to ableism and disability rights. This study investigates how special education teacher candidates discuss disabilities and the future of students with developmental disabilities, as well as their motivation to…

In this qualitative research study we illustrate how implicit biases held by college personnel hinders the educational success of Latino men attending urban community colleges in Texas. In particular, we identify how often well-intentioned educators are (un)aware of how often they perpetrate racial microaggressions against Latino men. Interviews…

Purpose: In light of the importance of preschool oral narrative skills as precursors to literacy, this exploratory study examined expressive language skills among emergent bilingual Latine preschoolers using a naturalistic personal narrative task. To understand the factors that support language use in the personal narrative context for this…

Increasingly, student trust occurs in more varied school environments. The empirical research on school trust has primarily examined faculty trust in students, families, leadership, and colleagues. Few studies have investigated how student trust is characterized and manifests from student perspectives. Semi-structured interviews were conducted…

This paper extends research that looks at the intersection of multimodal composing and maker education. We present findings from a fourth iteration of a multidisciplinary classroom design study in which high school youth made digital comics based on literary novels in an 11th grade language arts classroom in a predominantly Hispanic, low-SES,…

A growing number of school district and community organizations are seeking to address a 'crisis' of Latino male education through the creation of Latino male mentorship programs. Indicative of neoliberal shifts in urban education, these programs often involve public-private partnerships and bring problem-solving, deficit-approaches to youth work.…

Objective: We assessed the impact of bearing multiple marginalized identities, experiencing discrimination and perceived social status on the prevalence of depression in college students using an intersectional approach. Participants: Public health students at a diverse urban public university in Northern California (N = 338, response rate = 85%;…

Teachers' engagement practices with Hispanic families are contributing to the continuing disparities in academic achievement between Hispanic and other students. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore secondary teachers' perceptions about the challenges of building engagement with Hispanic families. The conceptual framework…

The purpose of this study was to identify the strengths and challenges that emerged from the first 3 years of a high school student leadership development program located in an urban setting. This study was developed as an instrumental case study of one student leadership development program serving urban public high schools in South Central…

High-stakes testing is currently the primary measure of student success in the United States. Based on this measure of student performance, closing the "achievement gap" in test scores between Black and Latinx students and their white peers has become the main indicator of success for schools serving Black and Latinx students. When…

Objective: Ethnic identity is a crucial aspect of identity development during adolescence. This study aimed to examine the potential protective effect of ethnic identity in the relation between peer stress and global life satisfaction among adolescents. Method: Data were collected via self-report measures from 417 adolescents (ages 14 to 18, 63.0%…