This study explored the challenges facing 1st-year alternatively certified teachers of mathematics and science in urban middle schools. Four teachers, participants in a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Robert Noyce Scholarship Program, were followed from preservice training through their 1st year of teaching, having taken part in…

Half of all college students take at least one remedial course as part of their postsecondary experience, despite mixed evidence on the effectiveness of this intervention. Using a regression-discontinuity design with data from a large urban community college system, we extend the research on remediation in three ways. First, we articulate three…

Decodable books based on previous classroom instruction are the most frequently used texts for 1st grade reading instruction in public schools, yet no empirical studies exist demonstrating their efficacy or their benefits for beginning readers. This study attempts to address this gap in the research literature by analyzing the reading behaviors of…

Framed by theoretical perspectives on Black Feminist Thought, the life course, and the Generation X/Hip-Hop generation, I present findings from a subset of 10 Black women educators in Birmingham, Alabama who participated in a larger life story project. The participants, who came of age professionally across the pre- and post-civil rights movement…

Education reform in America remains illusive for children. Reform efforts in the past have meant simply tweaking the different components of the education system (i.e., teachers, curriculum, and standards). The call-to-action must be to transform the system to a more holistic approach that recognizes students? needs. This article addresses how to…

This paper examines how writing samples produced by middle school students reveal their emerging academic identities through their rhetorical choices in writing. Analyses of two texts produced by each student revealed students' implicit understandings of the requirements of academic voice. Through comparisons of each student's texts, strategies…

This study examined the relation between classroom cultural and achievement-related characteristics and their influence on social outcomes in a sample of 74 fifth grade African American youth (41 girls; 33 boys) ages 10-13 years. Trained observers rated classrooms according to Boykin's (Boykin, Tyler, & Miller, 2005) definition of mainstream…

Urban education and its contexts have changed in powerful ways. Old paradigms are being eclipsed by global forces of privatization and markets and new articulations of race, class, and urban space. These factors and more set the stage for Pauline Lipman's insightful analysis of the relationship between education policy and the neoliberal economic,…

Taking a cue from U.S. military operations, surveillance cameras, police officers, metal detectors, hall sweeps, expulsion, zero tolerance policing, and biometrics contour young people's everyday life in public schools. Given this influx in policing and surveillance in schools, recent critical scholarship broadly attends to the increase in and…

Culturally responsive practices in schools and classrooms have been shown to be an effective means of addressing the achievement gap as well as the disproportionate representation of racially, culturally, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students in programs serving students with special needs. While there has been much research discussing…

This grounded theory study highlights the words of urban career teachers who participated on a wikispace (wiki). The purpose of the investigation was to offer urban career teachers a space, outside of their daily work, in which to recognize and understand their professionalism. The grounded theory content analysis is carried out by way of a study…

This publication presents findings from a national study conducted by AAC&U researchers to investigate the impact of engagement in high-impact practices on traditionally underserved populations (defined here as first-generation, minority, transfer, and low-income students).The mixed-method analysis includes student-level data on engaged…

Given the prominence of the transformational theory of action in major urban educational reform efforts, this study intends to describe and analyze the initial and sustaining leadership actions taken by the superintendent and his leadership team, the board of trustees and the "Dallas Achieves!" Commission in the development of the…

This doctoral study concerns itself with how primarily White, suburban, middle-class Art Education pre-service students are prepared in academia to teach in urban/inner-city schools. As a researcher, student-teaching supervisor, Cooperating teacher, and public school Art Educator, the author examines the shifting demographics of public education…

Multicultural education and special education share historical roots, philosophies, theories, and pedagogies that provide unique opportunities to address the many challenges of underserved K-12 students. Without a more refined and critical analysis, however, the shared similarities could possibly mask the tensions and the complexities inherent in…