bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
How Do New Critical Pedagogies Develop? Educational Innovation, Social Change, and Landless Workers in Brazil
Authors: Tarlau Rebecca
Published: November 2021

Background

Over the past 30 years, the Brazilian Landless Workers’ Movement (MST), one of the largest social movements in Latin America, has developed a series of pedagogical practices for public schools that support the movement's struggle for agrarian reform in the Brazilian countryside. The MST's educational initiatives can be viewed in terms of their place in the debate about how grassroots movements develop alternatives to dominant educational practices.

Purpose

This article examines the diverse pedagogies and educational theories that MST activists have drawn on, while also assessing the political implications of this participation in the public schools.

Setting

Research took place in Brazil, in several dozen public schools located in MST communities.

Population

Research participants included MST activists, students attending schools in MST communities, teachers working in these schools, administrators, and public officials. More than 150 people were interviewed.

Research Design

This research is an ethnographic, qualitative case study, examining the MST's educational initiatives in four different regions of Brazil. Field research took place over 15 months, between October 2010 and December 2011. Research methods included semi-structured interviews, classroom observation, participation observation, analysis of primary documents, and focus groups with teachers and students.

Findings

Although the MST initially invested only in informal, popular education, by the late 1980s activists began to realize that transforming public schools was necessary for the realization of the movement's social and political goals. By drawing on their previous experiences with popular education, as well as the theories of several outside intellectuals, activists developed educational utopias that allowed them to solidify their educational proposals in practice.

Conclusions

This article provides insights into the process of grassroots educational innovation, illustrating that communities draw on a diverse set of educational theories that resonate with local practices and beliefs to develop alternative proposals for their schools. The article also suggests that certain questions arise about the purpose of public education when social movements with particular visions of societal transformation demand participation in the public school sphere. The article argues that this social movement participation is appropriate if activists can mobilize parents, students, teachers, and other community members to implement this vision through a collective process of participatory governance.
Two Models of Learning and Achievement: An Explanation for the Achievement Gap?
Authors: Yeh Stuart
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Despite decades of research, the persistence of the gap in student achievement between disadvantaged minority students and their middle-class peers remains unexplained.

Purpose/Objective

The purpose of the current article is to propose a new model of the achievement gap.

Research Design

Data were analyzed from three nationally representative data sets: The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study of the Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999 (ECLS-K), the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS), and the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS).

Findings/Results

The achievement gap may be explained as a consequence of the conventional structure of schooling and the failure to individualize task difficulty and provide performance feedback in a way that is necessary to ensure that all students experience mastery. Many students become disengaged and the effect is most severe for disadvantaged minority students. Alternative theories of the achievement gap do not adequately explain the observed pattern of data. A league table analysis indicates that interventions based on the proposed model of the achievement gap are more efficient than 21 alternative approaches for raising achievement and suggest a promising strategy for addressing the achievement gap.
Conclusion: The Intersection of Student Voice and Policy Research
Authors: Mitra Dana L.
Published: November 2021

This concluding chapter examines how this book on student voice intersects with previous research about policy implementation and sustainability, focusing on three issues: (a) Legitimizing the role of young people in the policy and reform process. This book considers how to reconceptualize the role of young people in educational systems as policy actors rather than as clients. Building on theoretical concepts of positioning and reframing, it articulates how young people have the right to participate in conversations and decisions that affect their lives. (b) Preparing adults to work with young people. The book also amplifies the need to develop structures that can maximize the ben-efits of the partnership for young people, adults, and the policy system. While adults can create barriers to authentic student participation, student voice efforts can teach adults how to work with young people as partners. When adults refuse to partner, the book demonstrates how student voice activities can serve as a social movement to challenge adults to rethink relationships with students. (c) Sustaining ongoing student voice work. The book also considers the contexts and conditions that might enable the sustainability of successful student voice efforts. Aligning with an intermediary organization can serve as a bridge for sharing knowledge and resources between student voice efforts. Additionally, inquiry-based processes can create a structure for creating meaningful student voice work. The book focuses mostly on a particular form of inquiry—Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), which allows an exchange of ideas, critique, and expertise.
Creative Expressions of Agency: Contemplating Youth Voice and Adult Roles in Participatory Action Research
Authors: Jones Vanessa , Stewart Carmine , Galletta Anne , Ayala Jennifer
Published: November 2021

In this chapter, we examine youth voice within intergenerational collectives where youth and adults are in consultation with each other about school and community issues. The three projects discussed in this chapter reflect the use of participatory action research (PAR) to address educational policies and practices viewed as counterproductive by youth within poor and working class neighborhoods. The use of PAR to inform policy makers and establish alternative educational approaches reflects a critical theoretical framework in that it considers the complexity of experiences and social identities among youth who are positioned differently in relation to educational and opportunity access. The use of the arts as a strategy for inquiry and action is discussed as a way to identify alternative frames of analysis—ways of seeing from different angles the explanations offered by decision makers for the use of particular educational policies. The chapter outlines strategic planning for public engagement at significant junctures of the PAR projects to ensure youth voices are heard and prevailing discourses and theories of action challenged, thus bringing into clear focus the imperative for more equitable and humanizing conditions within education.
Rural Youth Perspectives on Why Kids Disconnect
Authors: Pozzoboni Kristen M.
Published: November 2021

In the United States, policy makers refer to young people, between the ages of 16 and 24, who are disconnected from school or work as “opportunity youth.” Although researchers have documented demographic characteristics of this population, few empirical studies examine features of context that explain how youth become disconnected from education and employment. In this chapter, I present the voices of young people as they examine the phenomenon of “disconnection” in their rural community. I draw on qualitative data to describe how features of policy, practice, and place make it difficult for youth to experience feelings of belonging, develop valued social networks, and establish identities as productive community members. The chapter includes recommendations for sustaining youth engagement and interrupting pathways to disconnection.

In a small town, everybody knows everybody. If I make a mistake, and do something bad, everybody knows, everybody judges me. Why would I want to be involved in a place where I feel so judged?

— Youth participant
Back to the Woodshop: Black Education, Imperial Pedagogy, and Post-Racial Mythology under the Reign of Obama
Authors: Curry Tommy J.
Published: November 2021

For centuries, European thinkers, and their contemporary white followers, have run rampant in the halls of academia prematurely championing the success of liberalism to speak to the experience of those historical groups of people excluded from modernity, while simultaneously celebrating the universal embrace by the supple bosom of whites’ anthropologically specific ideas of reason and humanity. This philosophical impetus has solidified the political regime of integration as not only the most desirable but also the most realizable condition of Black (co)existence in America. The education of Black Americans has been collapsed into a single ideological goal, namely, how to mold these Blacks into more functional and productive members of American society under the idea of equality established by Brown v. Board of Education. Unfortunately, however, such a commitment elevates the ethical appeals made by Brown, which focused on higher ideals of reason and humanity found in liberal political thought and the eventual transcendence of racial identity, to moral code. This ideology, instead of attending to what Blacks should learn or the knowledge Blacks need to have in order to thrive as Blacks in America, forces Blacks to abide by the social motives that aim to create good Negro citizens.

When responding to the great debate over Negro education and Negro labor in the United States, Du Bois remarked:

My thoughts, the thoughts of Washington, Trotter, Oswald Garrison Villard were the expression of social forces more than of our own minds. These forces or ideologies embraced more than reasoned acts. They included physical, biological and psychological habits, conventions and enactments. Opposed to these came natural reaction; the physical recoil of the victims, the unconscious and irrational urges, as well as reasoned complaints and acts. The total result was the history of our day. That history may be epitomize in one word—Empire; the domination of white Europe over [B]lack Africa and yellow Asia, through political power built on the economic control of labor, income and idea. The echo of this industrial imperialism in America was the expulsion of [B]lack men from American democracy, their subjection to caste control and wage slavery. (W. E. B. Du Bois— A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of its First Century: The Autobiography of W.E.B. DuBois—1968)
Yes, We Did? Educational Equity in a New “Post-Racial” Society
Authors: Dixson Adrienne D.
Published: November 2021

The election of Barack Obama as the first African American president of the United States of America marked a watershed moment in American politics. Campaigning on the slogans, “Si se puede!” and “Hope” and “Change,” many Americans, regardless of race, had hoped that his election would also signal an improvement and progress in U.S. race relations and usher in a “post-racial” moment in the United States. This chapter draws on personal narrative to examine the post-racial rhetoric within the context of a multicultural and equity studies doctoral course.
A Rigorous Dialectic: Writing and Thinking in History
Authors: Schneider Jack , Zakai Sivan
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

As prior research has established, historical thinking is shaped by disciplinary-specific reading and writing. Yet while our understanding of historical reading is relatively strong, our understanding of historical writing—and particularly, the core processes at work in historical writing—is less robust.

Purpose

This research project seeks to advance our collective understanding of historical writing by categorizing the core processes at work in the development of expertise.

Participants

The study examined the work of doctoral students beginning to write their dissertations. As graduate students pursuing Ph.D.s from top research universities, they were experienced in the role of history; but as writers of history, they were novices learning to construct historical scholarship.

Research Design

A qualitative study drawing upon survey and interview data, this project traces the historical writing process of a group of writers working on sustained historical writing projects across a year of their development.

Findings

Among the many skills of historical writers, four particular authorial dispositions stand out as critical. Historical writers, we find, are adept at finding patterns; they are adept at telling engaging and plausible stories; they are adept at modifying their positions; and they are adept at faithfully translating the “foreignness” of the past for a wider audience.

Conclusions

We recommend that K—12 and college educators establish clear goals with regard to what they want students to be able to do, and that they include among those goals the signature competencies of historical writers.
Structuring Opportunity after Entry: Who Has Access to High Quality Instruction during College?
Authors: Roksa Josipa
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

When inequality of opportunity is discussed in higher education, it typically pertains to access to college. Ample research has examined sociodemographic inequalities in transition to higher education and enrollment in particular types of institutions. Although providing valuable insights, social stratification research does not dedicate the same attention to students’ experiences during college and, more specifically, to inequalities in instructional quality.

Research Questions

Conceptualizing opportunity in terms of instructional quality, I address two specific questions: First, do students from all sociodemographic groups report similar levels of instructional quality ? And second, do students report changes in instructional quality during their time in college ?

Research Design

This study relies on data from three cohorts of students who entered college in the fall of 2006, 2007, and 2008 and were followed through the end of their senior year in the Wabash National Study (WNS) of Liberal Arts Education. In addition to students’ background characteristics, WNS includes detailed information regarding students’ college experiences, including instruction.

Results

The results reveal a substantial amount of variability in students’ reports of instructional quality. Notably, this variation is not systematically related to students’ sociodemographic characteristics, net of controls. However, the results also reveal a considerable amount of path dependency, with approximately half of the students reporting the same level of instructional quality at the beginning and end of college. Academic achievement is related to students’ reports of instructional quality in the first year, after which academic inertia carries students toward the end. Academic motivation, on the other hand, facilitates mobility to higher levels of instructional quality over time and is particularly beneficial for students who begin college reporting a low level of instructional quality.

Conclusion

Reported patterns offer insights into social stratification and path dependence of students’ experiences during college. Moreover, patterns of stability and change in students’ reports of instructional quality have implications for studies of college impact. The article concludes with reflections on different conceptualizations of instructional quality and recommendations for future research.
Trading Stories: Middle-Class White Women Teachers and the Creation of Collective Narratives about Students and Families in a Diverse Elementary School
Authors: Yoon Irene H.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Collaboration is increasingly part of teachers’ professional learning and continuous improvement of teaching practice. However, there is little exploration of how teachers’ racial, gender, and social class identities influence their collaboration with colleagues and, in turn, their teaching and professional learning.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

This study examines shared meanings that are constructed through storytelling by middle-class White women teachers who work in a racially and socioeconomically diverse elementary school I call Fields Elementary. I ask: What narrative tropes do middle-class White women teachers draw upon to create common understanding about what it means to teach at their school? In what ways does a normative middle-class White culture, specifically related to White womanhood, achieve ideological projects through teachers’ participation in collective storytelling in professional communities? The article proposes conceptual connections across whiteness, intersectionality, professional learning, and collective storytelling, and provides an empirical example of how the integration of perspectives illuminates this type of complex interaction.

Research Design

Utilizing ethnographic methods of data collection, I spent 5 months at Fields Elementary, dividing my time between two focal teachers, both middle-class White women. I followed these teachers across settings and responsibilities. The data in this critical discourse analysis are drawn from this larger study and come from a conversation in one teacher community (the second-grade team). On completion of preliminary data analysis, focal teachers reflected on findings to enrich interpretations.

Findings/Results

Findings indicate that this teacher community co-constructed narratives reproducing social locations as middle-class White women. Their professional knowledge reflected ambiguity in their efficacy to teach for equitable outcomes. In addition, their professional knowledge was tied to their identities as mothers; narratives reflected middle-class White social distance from students and families, which included asserting teachers’ moral superiority in parenting.

Conclusions/Recommendations

This study provides a model for conceptualizing collective storytelling and professional learning among teachers from an intersectionality perspective on whiteness. Empirical findings suggest that institutional constraints of teaching may require interventions at multiple levels: teachers’ and leaders’ learning how to facilitate professional conversations; home visits intended for “funds of knowledge” professional learning opportunities; hiring and placement of diverse faculty and school leaders to extend construction of professional knowledge; and policy changes. These considerations have implications for teachers’ professionalization and for schooling experiences that dehumanize students of color and students living in poverty.
White Gazes of Black Detroit: Milliken v. Bradley I, Postcolonial Theory, and Persistent Inequalities
Authors: Khalifa Muhammad , Douglas Ty-Ron M. O. , Chambers Terah Venzant
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

This article employs critical policy analysis as it examines the historical underpinnings of racialized policy discrimination in Detroit. It considers histories, discourses, and oppressive structures as it seeks to understand how policies have been and currently are implemented by Whites in predominantly Black urban areas.

Focus of Study

As we seek to understand how policy is constructed in relationship to predominantly Black communities, we argue that White actions toward Detroit are based on deep-rooted and historical biases, stereotypes, and fears of Blacks.

Research Design

We used critical policy analysis around the famed Milliken v. Bradley (1974) Supreme Court case to explore 20th century White American behaviors and policy regarding Black urban spaces, specifically in Detroit.

Data Collection and Analysis

We pull from political, educational, and legal literature surrounding Milliken I and critically examine prior research and policies related to the case.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our analysis suggests that Milliken had a long-term deleterious impact on Black students (and families) in the city of Detroit, including the resegregation of separate and inequitable schools and the (re)entrenchment of White fears and stereotypes about Black Detroiters.
Free Women's Contributions to Working-Class Women's Sexual Education during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and Beyond
Authors: Giner Elisenda , Ruiz Laura , Serrano Ma ÁNgeles , Valls Rosa
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Women's sexuality, and the ways they experience it, has been a major topic in feminist theories and movements throughout history. For the more than 20,000 working-class women who participated in the Free Women movement in Spain (the libertarian women's movement, which started in 1936), women's sexuality was also a key topic in both their process of empowerment and their claims and activities.

Purpose

The objective of this article is twofold. First, it explores the ways in which the Free Women movement helped improve the personal lives of women in that period. Second, this article analyzes how the libertarian women's movement contributed to the sexual education and encouraged other women to have sexual and affective relationships free of violence.

Research Design

The article is constructed based on the life stories of two women who participated in the Free Women's movement. Our analysis also draws from an in-depth review of literature on the libertarian movement and sexual education as well as of historical documents about the libertarian movement of that time.

Findings/Results

Our data reveal that thousands of women experienced personal transformations through their involvement in the libertarian movement, a social revolution that affected the entire society. Reflections on free love, the eradication of prostitution, and the promotion of “conscious motherhood” were leading ideas in both the educational activities that Free Women organized for working-class women and in the activists’ own personal lives. These women's ideas on sexuality contributed to the creation of a society with more egalitarian and free relationships based on mutual support, solidarity, and collective and community-based action. This article shows how the Free Women were historically independent agents whose multiple achievements and transformations have been largely ignored.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The article concludes by discussing how the main features of the Free Women's libertarian women's movement are present in the preventive socialization of gender violence that is currently being developed in some educational projects in Spain. In particular, the Free Women's contributions help students construct relationships free of violence.
“We Learn through Our Struggles”: Nuancing Notions of Urban Black Male Academic Preparation for Postsecondary Success
Authors: Warren Chezare A.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Scholars agree that students’ academic preparation for college begins as early as middle school. This preparation includes both instructional and social supports. The present study draws much-needed attention to how Black males articulate the role and function of their Chicago high school for helping them negotiate the challenges of urban living to both earn admittance to, and graduate from, a four-year college or university.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

Not enough is known about the specific supports most useful for improving urban Black males’ academic preparation to earn a baccalaureate degree from a four-year college or university. A single-sex public high school in Chicago (Nabur) rose to national prominence in 2010 for helping each of its 100% Black male graduates earn admission to college. This study investigates how members of this school's inaugural graduating class on track to graduate from college within 6 years of initial enrollment describe their high school academic experiences, and the impact of these experiences for shaping their college persistence. Exploring the contours of academic preparation through Black male students’ perspectives can be instructive for improving urban school reform efforts aimed at better preparing them for multiple postsecondary options.

Population/Participants/Subjects

Eighteen Black males—members of Nabur's inaugural graduating class who began at Nabur High School in 2006 and graduated in 2010—were participants in the study. Each of the young men, with the exception of one, attended Nabur all four years of their high school career. The young men self selected participation in the study. Each participant was on track to graduate from college within six years of their initial enrollment at the time of data collection.

Research Design

The young men participated in one in-depth one-on-one interview. Instructional and social supports—dimensions of academic preparation explored in this study—help to frame analysis and presentation of the findings.

Findings/Results

Students described teacher availability and academic expectations (instructional supports), as well as community building, social networking, and personal affirmation (social supports) as important aspects of their academic preparation for postsecondary success. Practitioners’ beliefs about Black males’ resilience as a framework for design and implementation of instructional and social supports emerges as most significant to their academic preparation for college.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Implications and recommendations for repurposing “struggle” as a site of resilience in efforts to better meet the unique needs of urban Black males in preparation for college are discussed.
“What Works”: Recommendations on Improving Academic Experiences and Outcomes for Black Males
Authors: Howard Tyrone C. , Douglas Ty-Ron M. O. , Warren Chezare A.
Published: November 2021

This brief presents the most significant recommendations based on a review of key findings from research presented in this special issue. The authors offer what they believe to be the most important considerations of what works for improving Black male school achievement in the domains of research, practice, and policy.
Mapping Me: Mapping Identity among Academically High-Performing Black Males
Authors: Flennaugh Terry K.
Published: November 2021

Background

Scholars have argued that far too little research has examined the complex processes that many Black males undertake in constructing identities that function in schools. Some have highlighted the perpetuation of a false dichotomy in which challenges, particularly for Black males, have focused on either individual or institutional culpability. Further, scholarship on Black males that has focused largely on deficits has neglected to include student voice to acknowledge the strategies employed by academically successful Black male students in the face of staggering challenges. The present study investigates academic identity formation with two high-performing Black male students attending an urban high school in Los Angeles, California.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

Not enough is known about the sense-making process young, academically successful Black males go through in constructing identities that function in school settings. This study explores the complexity of academic self-concept between two academically high-performing Black male high school students through the conceptual and methodological tool of identity mapping. The study explores the following questions: What are the factors that two academically high-performing Black male students identify as being important to their academic self-concept? In what ways, if any, do identity maps provide descriptive information about the construction and performance of academic self-concept among these Black male students?

Research Design

Drawing from Multiple Worlds Theory and the work of Cooper, Jackson, Azmitia, Lopez, and Dunbar, and Beach, Lundell, and Jung, this study utilized identity maps to visually represent participants’ understanding of multiple aspects of their self-concept through overlapping or disconnected spheres (i.e., multiple worlds). Identity maps were then used as tools for interviews to better understand the academically high-performing Black males’ academic self-concept.

Findings/Results

Findings suggest that these two academically high-performing Black male students conceptualize their academic identities as socially situated in a myriad of unique ways. Identity maps became an effective tool for both capturing the sense-making process students us to describe highly contextual and complex notions of an academic self and highlighting tensions embedded in the way students identified with schooling.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Implications and recommendations for educational researchers and practitioners to make concerted efforts to better understand Black males’ identity formation in school settings are discussed.
Reconciling Data from Different Sources: Practical Realities of Using Mixed Methods to Identify Effective High School Practices
Authors: Smith Thomas M. , Cannata Marisa , Haynes Katherine Taylor
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Mixed methods research conveys multiple advantages to the study of complex phenomena and large organizations or systems. The benefits are derived from drawing on the strengths of qualitative methods to answer questions about how and why a phenomenon occurs and those of quantitative methods to examine how often a phenomenon occurs and establish generalizable, empirical associations between variables and outcomes. Though the literature offers many strategies, designing mixed methods research can be challenging in large scale projects when trying to balance reliability, validity, and generalizability. By supporting the findings with multiple forms of evidence mixed methods designs lend greater validity than mono-method ones. However to draw on the comparative advantages of these two paradigms, researchers must grapple with the challenges of working with more than one method.

Focus of Study

This paper discusses the benefits and challenges of collecting and interpreting mixed methods data in a large scale research and development project. Drawing on existing frameworks, we refect on our strategies of mixed methods design, data collection, and analysis. We discuss the quandaries faced by researchers when discrepant findings emerge.

Research Design

The data come from a large, mixed methods case study focused on the practices that explain why some high schools in large urban districts are particularly effective at serving low income students, minority students, and English language learners. Undertaken in several phases, the work included sequential and concurrent designs. Incorporating a sequential explanatory design element, we first used quantitative data to identify schools in the district that were more and less effective at improving student achievement in English/language arts, mathematics, and science. We then used a combination of interviews, focus groups, surveys, classroom observations, and district administrative data—in a concurrent design—to try to understand what differentiated between the most and least effective schools in the district.

Conclusions

Based on our analyses, we provide examples of when mixed methods data converge, when they diverge but are complementary, and when they diverge and introduce a methodological quandary for researchers who must confront seemingly discrepant findings. In so doing, we discuss the tradeoffs encountered between the study design and the implications as we confronted them during analysis and suggest ways to balance the methodological demands of complex research studies. Seemingly discrepant findings, while challenging to reconcile, when considered for their potential complementarity, actually lead to a more complete understanding of the phenomena under study.
Exploring how Institutional Structures and Practices Influence English Learners’ Opportunity to Learn Social Studies
Authors: Heafner Tina L. , Plaisance Michelle
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Current research addresses the marginalization of social studies and trends in teaching English learners (ELs) in monolingual schools; however, few studies have examined the way in which support services provided to ELs impact their exposure to social studies instruction.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

Social studies is a difficult content area for ELs, as they grapple with culturally specific concepts in addition to language barriers. School structures and institutional practices sometimes result in less access to social studies instruction for ELs than their English-speaking peers. We sought to describe ELs’ opportunities to learn social studies in the face of educational reforms designed to increase accountability. We also examined how institutional structures, such as ESL programs, influ-enced ELs’ exposure to the social studies curriculum.

Setting

The study took place in a suburban elementary school with a moderate population of ELs, situated within a large, urban school district in the southeastern United States.

Participants

Six classroom teachers, three instructional specialists and one administrator participated.

Research Design

We present a qualitative participatory inquiry that was guided by an opportunity to learn theoretical framework, in addition to research that suggests an important relationship between the quality and intensity of classroom instruction and students’ academic success.

Data Collection and Analysis

Data were collected across one academic year and included transcribed interviews, field notes from observations, classroom artifacts, teacher journals, and district resources. We employed a multitiered inductive analysis using a three-phase coding process.

Findings/Results

Our findings suggest that ELs do not receive an equitable opportunity to learn social studies. Factors included variance in social studies time, instructional schedule design, the ESL program structure, and communication/collaboration gaps. Additionally, we found disparities between the type and general overall quality of social studies for these linguistically diverse learners and their native speaking peers.

Conclusions/Recommendations

We recommend the inclusion of instructional specialists, such as the ESL teacher, in planning, professional development, and decision-making. Furthermore, we advocate for flexible, yet monitored scheduling of special services to ensure curricular access to all content areas. Furthermore, we emphasize that administrators must have a clear understanding of the needs of their ELs and that they must adopt a long-term vision for these students that includes simultaneous support for their content and language development.
Interplay of a Way of Knowing among Mexican-Origin Transnationals: Chaining to the Border and to Transnational Communities
Authors: Kasun G. Sue
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Transnational Mexican-origin youth comprise a large and increasing number of students in U.S. schools, yet their teachers have often misunderstood their backgrounds and the conditions related to their transnational movement over borders. With such a large number of immigrant/transnational youth in the U.S. of Mexican origin, it is important for educators to begin to understand their ways of knowing.

Purpose

I describe chained knowing, a way of knowing of transnational Mexican-origin families. Family members were chained to the border and to their extended family and communities across borders, with the latter way of knowing as an ends in itself. I offer implications for educators, curriculum, and considerations surrounding immigration policy.

Setting

Washington, DC area and two rural immigrant-sending communities in Mexico in the states of Jalisco and Michoacán.

Participants

Four working-class Mexican-origin families whose primary residence was in the Washington, DC area and who made return trips to Mexico at least every 2 years.

Research Design

This multi-sited, critical ethnographic work draws from participant observation and interviews with four families who were situated in the Washington, DC area. The research was collected over 3 years.

Data Collection and Analysis

Through the interwoven lenses of border theory and Chicana feminism, the data were collected over 3 years and then analyzed and coded for emergent themes in an iterative process. The data were member checked with participants from each of the four participating families and also coded by an outside researcher.

Findings

Mexican-origin transnationals in this study demonstrated an interconnected way of knowing as chained knowing: chained to both the border and to their extended communities spanning borders.

Conclusions

The ways of knowing of transnational families should be understood by educators, researchers, and policy makers in order to help the curriculum better reflect the increasingly global context all students engage and the ways we understand the struggles of people across border.
Differential Access to High School Counseling, Postsecondary Destinations, and STEM Careers
Authors: Nikischer Andrea B. , Weis Lois , Dominguez Rachel
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Policy makers, school district officials, teachers and parents have embraced science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects as a way to promote a stronger pipeline to college and career STEM. In so doing, these varied groups seek to raise job prospects for next-generation workers, increase opportunities for low-income and minority students, and enhance U.S. competitiveness in a global economy.

Purpose/Objective

In this article we explore the ways in which the work of counseling departments in two different school environments shape students’ STEM participation in high school, with important potential consequences for college and career STEM. High school counselors operate at a critical access point to high-level science and math coursework in high school and STEM postsecondary majors and programs after high school. A fuller understanding of the role that school counselors play in improving math and science outcomes and strengthening pathways to STEM is increasingly important, particularly given the push for STEM careers in new global economic context.

Research Design

In this article we delve deeply into the day-to-day workings of the high school counseling office in two schools that serve markedly different populations of students. Utilizing data gathered through full ethnographic investigation over a 1-year period, we focus on the ways in which the work of counselors collectively constrain and /or enhance short and long-term STEM-linked outcomes for varying populations. We address two interrelated research questions: (1) In what ways and to what extent does the work of counseling departments in two different school environments shape students’ STEM participation in high school? (2) In what ways and to what extent does the work of the counseling departments differ in schools that serve markedly different populations of students in terms of race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status?

Conclusions/Recommendations

Our data reveal stark differences between students’ high school STEM participation at the two schools. Evidence also points to differences in the work and role of school counselors in aiding students to access STEM in college and career. However, in spite of the fact that one school offers a far more robust pipeline to STEM than does the other, in neither case do the schools take concrete steps to maximize access to STEM in college or career for their top math and science students who express strong inclination in this direction. Although it is arguably the case that a number of factors contribute to STEM college and career outcomes, data highlight the differential yet simultaneously central role of high school counselors in the pipeline to STEM.
Does the Organization of Instruction Differ in Charter Schools? Ability Grouping and Students’ Mathematics Gains
Authors: Berends Mark , Donaldson Kristi
Published: November 2021

Background

Although we have learned a good deal from lottery-based and quasi-experimental studies of charter schools, much of what goes on inside of charter schools remains a “black box” to be unpacked. Grounding our work in neoclassical market theory and institutional theory, we examine differences in the social organization of schools and classrooms to enrich our understanding of school choice, school organizational and instructional conditions, and student learning.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study

Our study examines differences in students’ mathematics achievement gains between charter and traditional public schools, focusing on the distribution and organization of students into ability groups. In short, we ask: (1) How does the distribution of ability grouping differ between charter and traditional public schools? And (2) What are the relationships between ability group placement and students’ mathematics achievement gains in charter and traditional public schools?

Research Design

With a matched sample of charter and traditional public schools in six states (Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Ohio), we use regression analyses to estimate the relationship between student achievement gains and school sector. We analyze how ability grouping mediates this main effect, controlling for various student, classroom, and school characteristics.

Findings

We find significant differences in the distribution of students across ability groups, with a more even distribution in charter compared to traditional public schools, which appear to have more selective placements for high groups. Consistent with prior research on tracking, we also find low-grouped students to be at a significant disadvantage when compared with high- and mixed-group peers in both sectors.

Conclusions

Although we find some significant differences between ability group placement and student achievement gains in mathematics, these relationships do not differ as much by sector as market theory (with its emphasis on innovation and autonomy) would predict. Consistent with institutional theory, both sectors still group students by ability and have similar relationships between gains and grouping.
Data Sharing to Drive the Improvement of Teacher Preparation Programs
Authors: Bastian Kevin C. , Fortner C. Kevin , Chapman Alisa , Fleener M. Jayne , Mcintyre Ellen , Patriarca Linda A.
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

Teacher preparation programs (TPPs) face increasing pressure from the federal government, states, and accreditation agencies to improve the quality of their practices and graduates, yet they often do not possess enough data to make evidence-based reforms.

Purpose/Objective

This manuscript has four objectives: (a) to present the strengths and shortcomings of accountability-based TPP evaluation systems; (b) to detail the individual-level data being shared with TPPs at public universities in North Carolina; (c) to describe how data sharing can lead to TPP improvement and the challenges that programs will need to overcome; and (d) to detail how three TPPs are using the data for program improvement.

Setting

North Carolina public schools and schools of education at public universities in North Carolina. Importantly, this individual-level data sharing system can be instituted among TPPs in other states.

Population/Participants/Subjects

Teachers initially-prepared by public universities in North Carolina.

Research Design

With individual-level data on program graduates, TPPs can conduct a range of analyses—e.g., regression analyses with program data, primary data collection with interviews, and rubric-based observations—designed to aid program improvement efforts.

Conclusions/Recommendations

Teacher preparation programs and researchers or state education agencies need to establish partnerships to share individual-level data on program graduates with TPPs. This individual-level data sharing would help TPPs to develop systems of continuous improvement by examining whether their preparation practices align with the types of environments in which their graduates teach and how graduates’ preparation experiences predict their characteristics and performance as Teachers of Record. Unlike other initiatives targeted at TPP improvement, individual-level data sharing, and its focus on within-program variability, can benefit TPPs at all levels of performance.
Fighting for Respeto: Latinas’ Stories of Violence and Resistance Shaping Educational Opportunities
Authors: Kiyama Judy Marquez , Harris Donna Marie , Dache-Gerbino Amalia
Published: November 2021

Background/Context

The experiences of Latina youth in the United States are embedded within a larger social context influenced by gender, ethnic/racial identity, socioeconomic status, language, and sociospatial and political characteristics that can negatively impact their daily lived experiences. Given the challenges that young Latinas encounter, it is necessary to understand the systemic barriers that complicate their educational progress as they confront dominant institutions and systems that marginalize them.

Purpose/Objective

This article is informed by intersecting forms of violence and the relationship between violence and systems experienced by adolescent Latinas. Its purpose is to explore the oppressive structures that influence Latinas’ educational opportunities and to illustrate how Latinas respond to these structures. This article is guided by the following research questions: How are Latina students’ schooling experiences influenced by acts of violence? How do Latina students respond to these acts of violence?

Participants

Analysis for this article was drawn from seven focus groups with 39 Latinas, ages 11–18. The majority (82%) of the Latinas identified as Puerto Rican, inclusive of biracial and multiracial identities.

Research Design

The data in this article originated from a larger mixed-methods study examining the barriers that prohibit Latina/o students from successfully progressing through K–12 schooling. We used focus groups to collect data from the participants and drew upon narrative analysis techniques to represent the stories of the young Latinas.

Findings

Findings highlight how systemic forces position and oppress Latinas, resulting in physical violence, stereotypes, and environmental violence, each of which intersect with Latinas’ gender, race, ethnicity, social class, and language. The authors present the findings by associating key themes of resistance, resiliency, and agency with Latina participant experiences with violence.

Conclusions/Recommendations

The authors argue that these forms of systemic violence must be interrogated further, as future educational opportunities for Latinas will continue to be impacted. Spaces must be created to recognize and further cultivate the resistance strategies that Latinas are developing, especially as they learn to critique and fight against the social systems in which they are embedded. I don't fight in school but they always wanted to, they always wanted to see me fight and they never ever got to see me fight, they saw me once but not in school. It was downtown. Girl, I feel better here because there's no girls trying to fight me. I'm making more friends … but in the street, there ain't no friends in the street. —Katia, Puerto Rican, current GED student