Urban community leaders describe their perceptions of critical issues in education and offer recommendations for the creation of a college-going culture (CGC). This qualitative study employed a maximum entropy analysis. Results demonstrate critical issues with increasing educational attainment including complexity of the urban school system,…

White teacher savior films (WTSFs) depict the teaching profession as one for which conventional credentialing is unnecessary. White teachers with little training and experience perform miracles in urban classrooms where trained, experienced teachers have failed. This same narrative is echoed in alternative credential programs such as Teach For…

Using data from a multi-year study of eleven low-performing high schools, Cooper and Davis examine the academic aspirations and motivations of urban African American high school students in California. Situating their discussion within the context of neoliberalism and its manifestation in urban school reform and community cohesion, the authors…

Recent attention to youth activism for school reform reveals positive student outcomes. Yet educators may object to the use of social actions in schools, diminishing opportunities for these benefits to accrue. This paper analyzes educators' conceptions about the proper exercise of student voice within schools and how these coincide with…

Urban colleges and universities not only have a responsibility to engage in activities designed to improve the educational attainment of local urban youth, but also have extensive financial, human, intellectual, and organizational resources that may be directed productively toward this purpose. This article describes the multipronged approach that…

This article examines the emergence of a dialogue among urban youth about their educational condition, and the opportunities for learning and collaboration that ensue. The study is based on observations and interviews with eight students in a community-based program that supports the engagement of young people in school reform. Notably, the…

Recent efforts to reform urban high schools have been marked by the pursuit of ever-increasing accountability policies, most notably through the use of high-stakes standardized testing, mayoral control, and secondary school exit exams. "Urban Youth and School Pushout" excavates the unintended consequences of such policies on secondary school…

Advances in applied developmental science have contributed to the large literature on positive youth development (PYD) interventions. This study reports an investigation of a PYD program using an outcome-mediation evaluation model that drew on the treatment intervention science literature. The Changing Lives Program (CLP) is a community supported…

The purpose of this study is to review and follow up on a community, school, and university partnership that is in its third year of operation. A dissertation group at a top-tiered research university studied the partnership for the attributes that emerged during its first year of operation. This study is a follow-up to examine whether the…

This article discusses competing perspectives on the value of the General Educational Development (GED) credential. Although scholars and journalists debate the worth of the credential, urban youth continue to pursue the GED, especially as proxy for inadequate schooling. Using qualitative data from a participatory action research project, the…

The contributors to this edited volume examine the simultaneous implementation of critical and digital literacies and explore ramifications for the development and assessment of critical digital literacies (CDL) curricula across educational contexts. We ask: How has the increasing ubiquity of digital literacies in and out of school affected our…

This study examines civic identity exploration among African-American and Asian-American urban youth who participated in a grassroots organizing campaign to improve their local high schools. Drawing on 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with participants, the study found that the campaign provided a venue for participants to wrestle…

This article reflects on outcomes of a playmaking project conducted with 14-20-year-old urban students in the USA. The playmaking experience was part of a larger research project designed to facilitate students' understandings of the ways in which their own experiences of discrimination are reflected in pervasive inequity at the societal level,…

Discussions about the ways of improving high schools have frequently considered school size and many "new" schools reduce the size to personalize the school experience and produce more positive student outcomes. Interest in designing new small schools has increased. Embedded in many of the small school design initiatives is the belief that new…

Early resistance theorists analyzed working class students' oppositional behavior at a time of high availability of viable jobs in manufacturing. They argued that oppositional behavior constituted a rejection of middle class culture motivated by an implicit understanding of the myth of meritocracy. But times have changed. This paper seeks to…