bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Names Will Never Hurt Me?
Authors: VARMA-JOSHI MANJU , BAKER CYNTHIA , TANAKA CONNIE
Published: May 2015

In this article, Manju Varma-Joshi, Cynthia Baker, and Connie Tanaka examine the impact of racialized name-calling on a group of twenty-six "visible minority" youth from New Brunswick, Canada. Through one-on-one interviews and focus groups, the authors compare views held by visible minority students and their parents to the views of White authority figures regarding the significance of racism and racialized namecalling at school. While White authority figures often view name-calling — even that of a racialized nature — as common adolescent behavior, the visible minority participants equate such name-calling with a serious form of harassment and violence. The authors contend that much of the disparity in these views is the result of White authority figures' perception of racialized name-calling as isolated incidents rather than part of a continual pattern of harassment encountered by visible minority students. As a result of this disparity, the authors identify three responses to racism that the youth participants typically enact: splintered universe, spiraling resistance, and disengagement. These responses are often destructive to visible minority students and negatively affect their school experiences. The authors recommend increased attention by school authorities to the everyday racist assaults that visible minority students have to endure.
Relating Classroom Teaching to Student Learning: A Critical Analysis of Why Research Has Failed to Bridge the Theory-Practice Gap
Authors: NUTHALL GRAHAM
Published: May 2015

In this article, Graham Nuthall critiques four major types of research on teaching effectiveness: studies of best teachers, correlational and experimental studies of teaching- learning relationships, design studies, and teacher action and narrative research. He gathers evidence about the kind of research that is most likely to bridge the teaching-research gap, arguing that such research must provide continuous, detailed data on the experience of individual students, in-depth analyses of the changes that take place in the students' knowledge, beliefs, and skills, and ways of identifying the real-time interactive relationships between these two different kinds of data. Based on his exploration of the literature and his research on teaching effectiveness, Nuthall proposes an explanatory theory for research on teaching that can be directly and transparently linked to classroom realities.
Voices Inside Schools: Newjack: Teaching in a Failing Middle School
Authors: SIPE PETER
Published: May 2015

In this article, Peter Sipe compares his first year as a middle school teacher in Brooklyn, New York, to that of a rookie corrections officer at Sing Sing prison. Sipe explores what he considers to be disturbing similarities in these experiences, namely, a preoccupation with control, immersion in an adversarial social dynamic, and the prevalence of stress. Most ominously, Sipe suggests that both institutions share a legacy of failure. He posits that, just as prisons do not live up to their titles as "correctional facilities," his middle school does not produce educated children.
Learning from Self-Study: Gaining Knowledge about How Fourth Graders Move from Relational Description to Algebraic Generalization
Authors: GRANDAU LAURA
Published: May 2015

In this article, Laura Grandau traces a self-study research project focused on teaching algebra to fourth-grade students. Facing a new curriculum and a new grade level, Grandau considers what good instruction and "good habits of practice" may be. Through journaling, videos, observations, analysis of students' verbal and written responses, and consultations with her "critical friend" Sean (also a teacher), Grandau develops a "critical distance" from her teaching. While doing this reflective work, she negotiates the ambiguities of teaching and learning. Although Grandau's work is of interest to teachers of mathematics, those in critical friend or peer mentoring relationships, and teacher researchers, it also serves as a model of how inquiry teaches, fostering growth in teachers, students, and communities of practice.
Gender Differences in Factors Leading to College Enrollment: A Longitudinal Analysis of Latina and Latino Students
Authors: ESTELA ZARATE MARIA , GALLIMORE RONALD
Published: May 2015

In this article, Maria Estela Zarate and Ronald Gallimore identify factors that predicted college enrollment for Latino and Latina students. Using data from a 15-year study of randomly recruited Latino and Latina youth (primarily second-generation Mexican Americans), they found that different factors were associated with their college enrollment. For Latinos, academic achievement (as measured by standardized tests), parental factors, and language proficiency consistently predicted their college enrollment. In contrast, for Latinas, teacher-rated classroom performance and pursuit of college counseling in high school were consistently significant predictors for college enrollment. These findings contrast with dominant college-attainment models and pose questions about how school agents might influence educational outcomes for Latinas. While their quantitative analyses exposed gender differences in factors that led to college enrollment, the authors conclude that future research should use a qualitative approach to explore how and why gender differences exist. Zarate and Gallimore speculate that nonacademic factors, such as interaction with parents and teachers, may explain the absence of a consistent predictive power of test scores for Latina college enrollment.
Implementing Small Theme High Schools in New York City: Great Intentions and Great Tensions
Authors: ANCESS JACQUELINE , ALLEN DAVID
Published: May 2015

In this article, Jacqueline Ancess and David Allen use New York City as a case study to examine the promises and the perils of the small high school reform movement that is sweeping the nation. They analyze the varying extent to which New York City's small high schools have implemented curricular themes in order to promote academic quality and equity. After identifying a wide range in the level of theme implementation in the city's small schools, Ancess and Allen suggest that small theme high schools have the potential to boost student engagement and achievement. However, the authors also express concern about the manner in which curricular themes may serve as socioeconomic, academic, or racial codes that threaten to merely repackage old patterns of school stratification and segregation.
The Aspira Consent Decree: A Thirtieth-Anniversary Retrospective of Bilingual Education in New York City
Authors: REYES LUIS
Published: May 2015

In this article, Luis O. Reyes provides a retrospective of the historic 1974 Aspira Consent Decree between the New York City Board of Education and Aspira of New York, which established bilingual instruction as a legally enforceable federal entitlement for New York City's non-English-speaking Puerto Rican and Latino students. Reyes analyzes the fate of the Aspira Consent Decree over the last thirty years. He discusses the demographic and sociopolitical changes between 1974 and the present, the pedagogical and political struggles associated with the consent decree over the years, the lessons learned, and the emerging trends and prospects for bilingual education in New York City's public school system, which is now under direct mayoral control.
Sexuality Education and Desire: Still Missing after All These Years
Authors: FINE MICHELLE , McCLELLAND SARA
Published: May 2015

Nearly twenty years after the publication of Michelle Fine's essay "Sexuality, Schooling, and Adolescent Females: The Missing Discourse of Desire," the question of how sexuality education influences the development and health of adolescents remains just as relevant as it was in 1988. In this article, Michelle Fine and Sara McClelland examine the federal promotion of curricula advocating abstinence only until marriage in public schools and, in particular, how these policies constrict the development of "thick desire" in young women. Their findings highlight the fact that national policies have an uneven impact on young people and disproportionately place the burden on girls, youth of color, teens with disabilities, and lesbian/gay/bisexual/ transgender youth. With these findings in mind, the authors provide a set of research guidelines to encourage researchers, policymakers, and advocates as they collect data on, develop curricula for, and change the contexts in which young people are educated about sexuality and health.
Troubling Images of Teaching in No Child Left Behind
Authors: COCHRAN-SMITH MARILYN , LYTLE SUSAN
Published: May 2015

In this article Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan Lytle offer a critique of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) related to the implications for teachers in educational improvement. Through an analysis of the NCLB legislation and accompanying policy tools that support it, the authors explore three images or central common conceptions symbolic of basic attitudes and orientations about teachers and teaching that are explicit or implicit in NCLB: images of knowledge, images of teachers and teaching, and images of teacher learning. The authors argue that NCLB leaves teachers void of agency and oversimplifies the process of teacher learning and practice. Furthermore, NCLB undermines the broader democratic mission of education, narrows curriculum, and exercises both technical and moralistic control over teachers and teaching. They conclude by sketching a richer framework for teaching that embraces its myriad complexities and acknowledges teachers' agency, activism, and leadership in generating local knowledge.
From New Deal to No Deal: No Child Left Behind and the Devolution of Responsibility for Equal Opportunity
Authors: KANTOR HARVEY , LOWE ROBERT
Published: May 2015

In this article, Harvey Kantor and Robert Lowe explore the progression of American social policy and its relation to educational reform from President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal to President George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). The authors assert that this progression has been marked by the federal government's gradual divestment in public social provisions, and that the potential for NCLB to deliver on its promise of improved achievement of all students is limited by the erosion of the social and economic supports that are key components of educational success. Kantor and Lowe conclude that while NCLB intensifies the importance placed on education at the federal level, it contributes at the same time to the diminution of political support for a more expansive view of public social provision.
Financial Aid: A Broken Bridge to College Access?
Authors: LONG BRIDGET TERRY , RILEY ERIN
Published: May 2015

In this article, Bridget Terry Long and Erin Riley argue that in recent years, U.S. financial aid policy has shifted its emphasis from expanding college access for lowincome students toward defraying the costs for middle- and upper-income families. They explain how loans, merit-based aid, and education tax breaks are increasingly replacing need-based aid and discuss how the declining role of grants may disproportionately disadvantage students already underrepresented in higher education. They document the rise in students' unmet financial needs over the past decade, showing that low-income students and students of color are especially likely to face substantial unmet need even after taking into account all available grants and loans, as well as family contributions. In response to these trends, the authors call for a greater emphasis on need-based aid, especially grants, to reduce the role of cost as a barrier to college access.
Goldilocks and Her Sister: An Anecdotal Guide to the Doll Corner
Authors: GUSSIN PALEY VIVIAN
Published: May 2015

In 1986, the Harvard Educational Review published Vivian Gussin Paley's article "On Listening to What the Children Say," which detailed the beginnings of her career as a teacher and author. The article described Paley's methods of tape-recording and analyzing her students' daily engagement in the "the three Fs: fantasy, fairness, and friendship." Her careful analysis provided insight into how children understand the world through storytelling and imaginative play. Now, more than twenty years later, Paley's new essay, "Goldilocks and Her Sister: An Anecdotal Guide to the Doll Corner," revisits similar themes while reaching beyond the classroom into more public and private spaces (the post office or a living room) to show how children's imaginative play strengthens relationships and creates opportunities for social and cognitive development. We have included both essays in this issue in order to highlight the ways in which children, regardless of context, can be engaged in the world of imagination as a form of both pedagogy and play. These companion articles extend our understanding of children's storytelling, imaginative play, and intimacy as means of promoting learning both inside and outside of classroom settings.
On Jorge Becoming a Boy: A Counselor's Perspective
Authors: WRIGHT TRAVIS
Published: May 2015

In this portrait, Travis Wright, writing as a psychology counselor in training, brings the reader into one morning's events in his clinical work with Jorge, a three-year-old boy whose family is experiencing difficult times. Throughout the morning at Jorge's day-care center, Wright encounters scenarios that force him to ask questions about child development, gender identity, masculinity, and family dynamics. Wright observes that boys are often thrust into a gendered world dictated by adult norms before they can make sense of their own life events and losses. The portrait is a poignant narrative of Jorge's experiences in and out of his day-care center, as well as a moving self-reflection on Wright's own gender identity.
"I Was Born Here, but My Home, It's Not Here": Educating for Democratic Citizenship in an Era of Transnational Migration and Global Conflict
Authors: ABU EL-HAJ THEA RENDA
Published: May 2015

In this article, Thea Renda Abu El-Haj shares her research on how a group of Palestinian American high school youth understand themselves as members of the U.S. community, of the Palestinian American community, and of communities in Palestine. She argues that, for these youth, coming to terms with who they are has a great deal to do both with how they view themselves and how Palestinian Americans are viewed in the imagined community of the United States, especially after September 11, 2001. Her research reports on the tensions these youth face as they deal with school issues, like pledging allegiance to the U.S. flag, teacher harassment, and disciplinary sanctions related to being framed as "terrorists," that affect how they think about citizenship and belonging. Given the complex way these and other youth experience belonging, Abu El-Haj ends with a call for a greater commitment to, and a more nuanced understanding of, citizenship education.
Legal Literacy for Teachers: A Neglected Responsibility
Authors: SCHIMMEL DAVID , MILITELLO MATTHEW
Published: May 2015

In this article, David Schimmel and Matthew Militello document the legal knowledge and training of teachers based on a survey of more than thirteen hundred K– 12 respondents in seventeen states. The findings from this study suggest that most educators (1) are uninformed or misinformed about student and teacher rights; (2) have taken no course in school law; (3) get much of their school law information from other teachers; (4) would change their behavior if they knew more about school law; and (5) want to learn more about these issues. This article outlines the consequences of neglecting educators' lack of legal knowledge. The authors conclude with a series of recommendations on how to promote legal literacy among teachers in both teacher certification and professional development programs.
Surveillance Cameras in Schools: An Ethical Analysis
Authors: WARNICK BRYAN
Published: May 2015

In this essay, Bryan R. Warnick responds to the increasing use of surveillance cameras in public schools by examining the ethical questions raised by their use. He explores the extent of a student's right to privacy in schools, stipulates how video surveillance is similar to and different from commonly accepted in-person surveillance practices, and discusses the possible impact of surveillance technology on educational environments. In response to the ethical concerns he raises, Warnick offers five suggestions for how schools can use video surveillance technology in more ethically sensitive ways.
From Visibility to Autonomy: Latinos and Higher Education in the U.S., 1965–2005
Authors: MACDONALD VICTORIA-MARÍA , BOTTI JOHN , CLARK LISA HOFFMAN
Published: May 2015

In this article, Victoria-María MacDonald, John M. Botti, and Lisa Hoffman Clark trace the evolution of higher educational opportunities for Latinos in the United States from the Higher Education Act of 1965 to the designation of Title V in the Act's 1998 reauthorization. The authors argue that this evolution moved through stages, including establishing visibility and legitimacy, self-determination, self-scrutiny, emulation, and, finally, autonomy. The journey toward improving higher educational opportunities for Latinos is juxtaposed with the journey experienced by African Americans in the United States. Because of the enormous historical, social, and political differences between the two groups, the models utilized by and for Blacks were viewed as inadequate for serving Latino needs in higher education. However, the model established by Historically Black Colleges and Universities inspired Latino educators to found Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). The authors conclude their article by discussing contemporary issues surrounding HSIs and looking toward the future of Latino higher education.
The Complex World of Adolescent Literacy: Myths, Motivations, and Mysteries
Authors: BIRR MOJE ELIZABETH , OVERBY MELANIE , TYSVAER NICOLE , MORRIS KAREN
Published: May 2015

In this article, Elizabeth Birr Moje, Melanie Overby, Nicole Tysvaer, and Karen Morris challenge some of the prevailing myths about adolescents and their choices related to reading. The reading practices of youth from one urban community are examined using mixed methods in an effort to define what, how often, and why adolescents choose to read. By focusing on what features of texts youth find motivating, the authors find that reading and writing frequently occur in a range of literacy contexts outside school. However, only reading novels on a regular basis outside of school is shown to have a positive relationship to academic achievement as measured by school grades. This article describes how adolescents read texts that are embedded in social networks, allowing them to build social capital. Conclusions are framed in terms of the mysteries that remain — namely, how to build on what motivates adolescents' literacy practices in order to both promote the building of their social selves and improve their academic outcomes.
Implementing a Structured Reading Program in an Afterschool Setting: Problems and Potential Solutions
Authors: HARTRY ARDICE , FITZGERALD ROBERT , PORTER KRISTIE
Published: May 2015

In this article, Ardice Hartry, Robert Fitzgerald, and Kristie Porter present results from their implementation study of a structured reading program for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders in an afterschool setting. As the authors explain, schools and districts often view an extended school day as a promising way to address the literacy needs of their lowest-performing students by devoting more time to reading instruction. While structured reading programs may help teachers use afterschool instructional time more effectively, the degree to which these programs improve student outcomes depends on the effectiveness of their implementation. Focusing on program implementation in one district as part of a randomized controlled trial, the authors find that successfully implementing a structured reading program in an afterschool setting depends on thoughtful preparation, suitable resources, and ongoing attention.
Cognitive Strategy Instruction for Adolescents: What We Know about the Promise, What We Don't Know about the Potential
Authors: CONLEY MARK
Published: May 2015

"Strategy instruction" is quickly becoming one of the most common — and perhaps the most commonly misunderstood — components of adolescent literacy research and practice. In this essay, veteran teacher educator Mark Conley argues that a particular type of strategy instruction known as cognitive strategy instruction holds great promise for improving adolescents' reading, writing, and thinking across content areas. However, he further suggests that we do not yet have the research needed to adequately understand and maximize the potential of cognitive strategy instruction in secondary content-area classrooms. After situating cognitive strategy instruction in the larger context of research on adolescent literacy and school-to-work transitions, Conley provides classroom examples of cognitive strategy instruction, demonstrates the need for meaningful integration of cognitive strategies in teacher education, and recommends specific directions for future research needed to understand and maximize the benefits of cognitive strategy instruction for adolescents.
Redefining Content-Area Literacy Teacher Education: Finding My Voice through Collaboration
Authors: DRAPER RONI JO
Published: May 2015

In this essay, Roni Jo Draper reflects upon her professional journey as a content-area literacy teacher educator, describing how she first became a literacy teacher educator and how she later came to collaborate with a group of teacher educators who specialize in disciplines such as music, theater, and mathematics. Drawing upon ethnographic data from the group's participatory action research project, she explains how their collaboration shaped her understanding of her own professional role and expanded her definitions of texts, content-area literacy, and literacy itself. Informed by insights she gained through the project, Draper argues that content-area literacy instruction should promote mastery of the intellectual discourse within a particular discipline. She also suggests ways to increase collaboration between literacy and content-area specialists working in the field of teacher education.
State Literacy Plans: Incorporating Adolescent Literacy
Authors: SNOW CATHERINE , MARTIN TWAKIA , BERMAN ILENE
Published: May 2015

In this article, Catherine Snow, Twakia Martin, and Ilene Berman describe professional development institutes offered in 2001 and 2002 by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices to familiarize state-level policymakers with research on adolescent literacy and to guide states' development of effective literacy plans. The authors then review the literacy plans that four of the participating states developed in the years following their institute involvement and discuss ways in which the content of the literacy institutes is reflected in these states' plans. In conclusion, the authors call on higher education institutions to help state policymakers develop and evaluate initiatives intended to increase adolescents' reading skills. They also call for broader cross-state comparisons of states' strategies for improving adolescent literacy.
The New Outspoken Atheism and Education
Authors: NODDINGS NEL
Published: May 2015

In this essay, Nel Noddings calls upon U.S. public schools to equip students with a more nuanced understanding of religious vocabulary, history, and ideas. Examining recent books by outspoken atheists including Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, Noddings argues that schools should help students "communicate across the chasm" between belief and unbelief in an effort to prepare a more civil and informed citizenry. In a wide-ranging discussion of religious vocabulary, belief, logic, morality, and aesthetics, she illustrates ways in which schools can incorporate religious literacy across the curriculum and foster a rich understanding of religious history and ideas among the students they serve.
Language and the Performance of English-Language Learners in Math Word Problems
Authors: MARTINIELLO MARIA
Published: May 2015

In this article, Maria Martiniello reports the findings of a study of the linguistic complexity of math word problems that were found to exhibit differential item functioning for English-language learners (ELLs) and non-ELLs taking the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) fourth-grade math test. It builds on prior research showing that greater linguistic complexity increases the difficulty of Englishlanguage math items for ELLs compared to non-ELLs of equivalent math proficiency. Through textual analyses, Martiniello describes the linguistic features of some of the 2003 MCAS math word problems that posed disproportionate difficulty for ELLs. Martiniello also uses excerpts from children's think-aloud transcripts to illustrate the reading comprehension challenges these features pose to Spanish-speaking ELLs. Through both DIF statistics and the voices of children, the article scrutinizes the appropriateness of inferences about ELLs' math knowledge based on linguistically complex test items.
Voices Inside Schools: Capturing Authenticity, Transforming Perception: One Teacher's Efforts to Improve Her Students' Performance by Challenging Their Impressions of Self and Community
Authors: Marinell William
Published: May 2015

In this Voices Inside Schools essay, William Marinell describes the efforts of a public school teacher to improve her students' writing by attempting to increase their connectivity to their community. By designing photojournalism projects that prompt students to capture their authentic experiences, the teacher hopes to challenge the students'negative perceptions of their community, which she believes have a negative effect on her students' performance in school. Marinell elaborates on the personal and pedagogical dilemmas that the teacher faced while engaged in this work and how her instructional objectives and pedagogical approaches evolved as she gained an appreciation for the complex issues that arise when teachers and students attempt to depict their community.
Achievement as Resistance: The Development of a Critical Race Achievement Ideology among Black Achievers
Authors: Carter Dorinda
Published: May 2015

In this article, Dorinda Carter examines the embodiment of a critical race achievement ideology in high-achieving black students. She conducted a yearlong qualitative investigation of the adaptive behaviors that nine high-achieving black students developed and employed to navigate the process of schooling at an upper-class, predominantly white, suburban public high school while maintaining school success and a positive racial self-definition. Based on an analysis of interview data, participant observations, and field notes, Carter argues that these students' conceptions of race and how race operates in their daily lives informs their constructions of achievement beliefs, attitudes, and self-definitions and informs their racialization and deracialization of the task of achieving at various times in the school context. Findings from this study indicate that students with strong racial and achievement identities may develop a critical race achievement ideology and enact resilient, adaptive behaviors in racially challenging contexts.
Modeling Compassion in Critical, Justice-Oriented Teacher Education
Authors: Conklin Hilary Gehlbach
Published: May 2015

As the work of teacher education becomes increasingly focused on the challenges of helping mostly white, monolingual, middle-class prospective teachers become compassionate,successful teachers of racially, culturally, linguistically, economically, and academically diverse students, some teacher educators struggle to find compassion for the prospective teachers they teach. Motivated by this concern and drawing on feminist and Buddhist theories, Hilary Conklin argues that many teacher educators would benefit from a renewed consideration of modeling the pedagogy they hope prospective teachers will employ. In this article, she analyzes and brings together the work on critical, justice-oriented approaches to teacher education, relationships in teaching, modeling as pedagogy, and the Buddhist notion of compassion to articulate a pedagogy of modeling in critical, justice-oriented teacher education. Conklin proposes that such a pedagogy has the potential to move us closer to transformative teacher education.
Indigenous Knowledges and the Story of the Bean
Authors: Jones Brayboy Bryan Mckinley , Maughan Emma
Published: May 2015

In this article, Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy and Emma Maughn explore epistemic tensions within an Indigenous teacher preparation program where students question Western systems for creating, producing, reproducing, and valuing knowledge. Grounding their argument in a rich understanding of Indigenous Knowledge Systems,the authors advocate for an approach to training Indigenous teachers that recognizes the power of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, considers diverse knowledge systems equally, and equips teachers to make connections between various schooling practices and knowledge systems. Through the "story of the bean," in which an Indigenous student teacher reconceptualizes a science lesson from a more holistic perspective,the authors illustrate the wealth of understanding and insight that Indigenous teachers bring to the education of Indigenous students, and they depict the possibilities for pre-service teaching programs in which university staff honor the inherent value of Indigenous perspectives.
Identity versus Peace: Identity Wins
Authors: Bekerman Zvi
Published: May 2015

In this essay, Zvi Bekerman reveals the complicated and dynamic negotiation of individual and group identities for communities engaged in peace and reconciliation education. By looking closely at the experiences of students, teachers, and parents at one integrated bilingual Arabic-Hebrew school in Israel, Bekerman finds that while children are often able to reach beyond the boundaries of ethnicity and religion,adults struggle to negotiate their sociohistorical positioning with their goals for peace. Everyday practices—from recognizing the exceptionality of students who participate in religious practices outside of their ethnic background to segregating national ceremonial events—promote static and nationalistic notions of identity that limit the potential of these schools to advance authentic and meaningful change for peace. Bekerman calls on us to teach our students to become artists of design who can help construct new ways of living together.
Identity Development and Mentoring in Doctoral Education
Authors: Hall Leigh , Burns Leslie
Published: May 2015

In this essay, Leigh Hall and Leslie Burns use theories of identity to understand mentoring relationships between faculty members and doctoral students who are being prepared as educational researchers. They suggest that becoming a professional researcher requires students to negotiate new identities and reconceptualize themselves both as people and professionals in addition to learning specific skills; however, the success or marginalization that students experience may depend on the extent to which they attempt to enact identities that are valued by their mentors. For this reason, Hall and Burns argue that faculty mentors must learn about and consider identity formation in order to successfully socialize more diverse groups of researchers, and they believe that formal curriculum designs can be used more intentionally to help students and faculty understand the roles identity plays in professional development and to make doctoral education more equitable.
President Obama and Education: The Possibility for Dramatic Improvements in Teaching and Learning
Authors: Darling-Hammond Linda
Published: May 2015

From the unique perspective gained heading Obama's education policy transition team, Darling-Hammond describes President Obama's commitment to making the education of every child a collective responsibility and reviews the major tenets of the new administration's plans for education. She reflects on the importance of suggested policy changes, particularly focusing on the importance of legislation to improve teacher capacity and retention. Finally, she considers how the field of education might look in 2016 should the Obama administration's education agenda succeed as planned.
Promise And Peril: Charter Schools, Urban School Reform, and the Obama Administration
Authors: Payne Charles , Knowles Tim
Published: May 2015

In this essay, Charles Payne and Tim Knowles argue that given President Obama's support of charter schools, it is time for educators and policymakers to closely consider both the possibilities and the limitations of these schools in the context of urban school reform. The authors discuss the unique flexibility of charter schools—namely in staffing,time, budgetary autonomy, governance, and protection from district policies—as a significant source of their potential effectiveness. However, they also note the major challenges these schools face, as evidenced by variability in achievement results, sustainability,and quality of instruction. The authors suggest that these strengths and challenges must be considered together, and that the administration must focus on the elements of effective schooling for all children. Drawing upon this kind of evidence,the authors conclude, will lead to a more grounded and less partisan debate about urban education.
High School Research and Critical Literacy: Social Studies With and Despite Wikipedia
Authors: Harouni Houman
Published: May 2015

Drawing on experiences in his social studies classroom, Houman Harouni evaluates both the challenges and possibilities of helping high school students develop critical research skills. The author describes how he used Wikipedia to design classroom activities that address issues of authorship, neutrality, and reliability in information gathering. The online encyclopedia is often lamented by teachers, scholars, and librarians,but its widespread use necessitates a new approach to teaching research. In describing the experience, Harouni concludes that teaching research skills in the contemporary context requires ongoing observations of the research strategies and practices students already employ as well as the active engagement of student interest and background knowledge.
Suspending Damage: A Letter to Communities
Authors: Tuck Eve
Published: May 2015

In this open letter, Eve Tuck calls on communities, researchers, and educators to reconsider the long-term impact of "damage-centered" research—research that intends to document peoples' pain and brokenness to hold those in power accountable for their oppression. This kind of research operates with a flawed theory of change: it is often used to leverage reparations or resources for marginalized communities yet simultaneously reinforces and reinscribes a one-dimensional notion of these people as depleted,ruined, and hopeless. Tuck urges communities to institute a moratorium on damage-centered research to reformulate the ways research is framed and conducted and to reimagine how findings might be used by, for, and with communities.
Latina/o Undergraduate Students Mentoring Latina/o Elementary Students: A Borderlands Analysis of Shifting Identities and First-Year Experiences
Authors: Bernal Dolores Delgado , Alemán Jr. Enrique , Garavito Andrea
Published: May 2015

This article examines the experiences of first-year Latina/o undergraduates at a predominantly white institution. Through a borderlands analysis, the authors explore how these students describe their experiences participating in an ethnic studies course and mentoring Latina/o elementary schoolchildren. The authors find that these experiences served as sitios y lenguas (decolonizing spaces and discourses; Pérez, 1998)in which the undergraduate students were able to reflect on the ongoing transformation of their social and political identities, revealing the complex and fluid latinidades(Latina/o identities; Latina Feminist Group, 2001) that exist among the Latina/o university students. This article explores the physical and metaphorical borders (Anzaldúa, 1987) the undergraduates occupy, navigate, and challenge while they work simultaneously as mentors in a mostly Latina/o setting and as college students on a mostly white campus.
Existentialism at Home, Determinism Abroad: A Small-Town Mexican American Kid Goes Global
Authors: González Joe Robert
Published: May 2015

In this essay, Joe Robert González describes the process of his own growth as a Mexican American from Brownsville, Texas, who attended Villanova University. Coming from a majority-minority town, González identifies the importance of safe spaces for Mexican American youth, many of whom doubt their own potential to thrive within university settings. He laments the current push for cultural organizations on college campuses to educate the broader student body as well as the general inefficacy of these organizations due to the limited scope of their mission. At the same time, González celebrates the opportunities that his university gave him to interact with people from a variety of different cultures who hold different opinions about the world. Thinking about his friends from home, he laments the way that homogeneous experiences can nurture stereotypes and fear. González concludes by suggesting that college campuses must provide students with both safe spaces and opportunities for growth.
The Xicana Sacred Space: A Communal Circle of Compromiso for Educational Researchers
Authors: Soto Lourdes Diaz , Cervantes-Soon Claudia , Villarreal Elizabeth , Campos Emmet
Published: May 2015

The Xicana Sacred Space resulted from an effort to develop a framework that would center the complexities of Chicana ontology and epistemology as they relate to social action projects in our communities. Claiming indigenous roots and ways of knowing,the Xicana Sacred Space functions as a decolonizing tool by displacing androcentric and Western linear notions of research in favor of a Mestiza consciousness(Anzaldúa, 1999). Organically born, the space proved to be an important source of knowledge, strength, inspiration, and reflexivity for the authors in their journey as graduate students. Here the authors explain how the space evolved and detail its promise as a tool for raising consciousness, gaining strength, cultivating cultural intuition (Delgado Bernal, 1998), examining positionalities and standpoints, and achieving intellectual growth among those interested in conducting decolonial, emancipatory,and feminist research and action projects.
Barriers to Success: A Narrative of One Latina Student's Struggles
Authors: Robles Jannell
Published: May 2015

In this essay, Jannell Robles explores and discusses some common themes found in her experiences as a Latina undergraduate student. During the summer of 2008, she conducted fieldwork in a rural town in Mexico. Her experiences as the only Latina student on this trip were similar to her experiences at her university and those discussed by Latina scholars. Robles considers the pros and cons of being an insider and an outsider to a rural town in Mexico, the use of Latinos as cultural brokers while denying their contributions as social scientists, and the blame she experienced for her lack of adjustment. She also discusses the ways she resists these obstacles through survival strategies.
Challenging Racist Nativist Framing: Acknowledging the Community Cultural Wealth of Undocumented Chicana College Students to Reframe the Immigration Debate
Authors: Huber Lindsay Pérez
Published: May 2015

Using the critical race testimonios of ten Chicana undergraduate students at a toptier research university, Lindsay Pérez Huber interrogates and challenges the racist nativist framing of undocumented Latina/o immigrants as problematic, burdensome,and "illegal." Specifically, a community cultural wealth framework (Yosso,2005) is utilized and expanded to highlight the rich forms of capital existing within the families and communities of these young women that have allowed them to survive,resist, and navigate higher education while simultaneously challenging racist nativist discourses. Reflecting on her data and analysis, Pérez Huber ends with a call for a human rights framework that demands the right of all students—and particularly Latinas/os—to live full and free lives.
From Candy Girls to Cyber Sista-Cipher: Narrating Black Females' Color-Consciousness and Counterstories in and out of School
Authors: Kynard Carmen
Published: May 2015

In this article, Carmen Kynard provides a window into a present-day "hush harbor,"a site where a group of black women build generative virtual spaces for counterstories that fight institutional racism. Hidden in plain view, these intentional communities have historically allowed African American participants to share and create knowledge and find their voices in hostile environments, which, in the case of this study, involve an academic institution. Kynard also discusses the need for critical scholar/student alliances that interrogate taken-for-granted institutional practices that invalidate out-of-school literacies. The article parallels the instructional practices that disenfranchise black students with research agendas that claim to alleviate inequity while really perpetuating it.
Postrace: Every Good-bye Ain't Gone
Authors: Ford Iris Carter
Published: May 2015

In this commentary, anthropologist Iris Carter Ford reflects on the preceding pieces by Carmen Kynard and Signithia Fordham. She identifies parallels among the two essays and her own life, drawing out themes that emerge from the narratives. Integrating ideas about "talking black" and "talking back," Ford notes that both phenomena have roots in traditional African American notions of fictive kinship and complicity. Her analysis of Kynard's and Fordham's work, along with insight from her own experiences as a black woman navigating educational spaces, challenge us to reconsider whether American society is truly postracial.
More Like Jazz Than Classical: Reciprocal Interactions Among Educational Researchers and Respondents
Authors: Dance L. Janelle , Gutiérrez Rochelle , Hermes Mary
Published: May 2015

In this article, educational scholars L. Janelle Dance, Rochelle Gutiérrez, and Mary Hermes share insights from their lived experience as qualitative researchers trying to work in collaboration with diverse populations. They refer to these insights as "improvisations on conventional qualitative methods," reminding readers that their methodological approaches have been more collaborative than unilateral, more fluid than unyielding, more like the reciprocal creativity of jazz than the directed orchestration of classical music. Calling on us to expand our previous conceptions of cultural intuition and reciprocity, these authors offer powerful examples of how their communities shaped their research processes.
"No Backpacks" versus "Drugs and Murder": The Promise and Complexity of Youth Civic Action Research
Authors: Rubin Beth , Hayes Brian
Published: May 2015

Although young people have diverse experiences with civic life, most civic education practices in classrooms fail to recognize this complexity. In this article, Beth C. Rubin and Brian F. Hayes describe the results of a year-long research project that incorporated a new approach to civic learning into public high school social studies classrooms. They explore how students' disparate experiences with civic life shape civic identity development in complex and challenging ways across two distinct contexts. They offer a fully elaborated conceptualization of civic learning in settings of "congruence"and "disjuncture" and describe how the practice of connecting students'lives and experiences to the curriculum through civic action research, while promising,can also create dilemmas for both students and educators.
"Education Is All About Opportunities, Isn't It?": A Biographical Perspective on Learning and Teaching English in Sri Lanka
Authors: Hayes David
Published: May 2015

In this article, David Hayes explores the language learning and teaching experiences of a teacher of English in Sri Lanka. He shows how the acquisition of English enabled the teacher to access the social capital available to speakers of English, which holds a divisive place in postcolonial Sri Lankan society. In his reflections on his career, this teacher grants primary importance to the opportunities offered by education in general, not the benefits of acquiring English. This complements his commitment to improving the life chances of children from less advantaged groups in Sri Lanka. Hayes contends that the richness of the teacher's portrayal of his career, and the meanings of English and education for him, offers an opportunity to understand the place of English within a particular sociocultural context.
The Power of Context: State-Level Policies and Politics and the Educational Performance of the Children of Immigrants in the United States
Authors: Filindra Alexandra , Blanding David , Coll Cynthia Garcia
Published: May 2015

Children of immigrant backgrounds—children who are immigrants themselves or were born to immigrant parents—are the largest segment of growth in the U.S. school population. In this exploratory interdisciplinary analysis, Filindra, Blanding, and Garcia Coll ask whether the context of policy and political receptivity, even when they are not directed at school reform or at immigrants, nonetheless affects the high school completion of children of immigrant backgrounds. The novelty of this work is its theoretical integration of insights from multiple disciplines and its emphasis on the larger context in analyzing the educational outcomes for children of immigrants. The authors' findings suggest that policy matters and that it matters in different ways. Specifically, they find a strong positive association between the immigrant inclusion in state welfare programs and high school graduation rates for the children of immigrants. At the same time, the study suggests that multiculturalism policies, targeting racial and ethnic minorities rather than immigrants specifically, may have the opposite effect. Finally, the authors suggest that politics also matters, as seen in the gap in graduation rates between the children of immigrants and the children of U.S.-born parents, which is narrower in Democrat-dominated states than it is in Republicancontrolled states.
Elementary Forms of Cosmopolitanism: Blood, Birth, and Bodies in Immigrant New York City
Authors: Kromidas Maria
Published: May 2015

In this article, Maria Kromidas explores how nine-, ten-, and eleven-year-old children in a diverse neighborhood school in immigrant New York City navigated and often undermined hegemonic notions of difference and belonging offered by mainstream multiculturalism and raciology. Based on ethnographic research and utilizing a finegrained sociocultural linguistic analysis, Kromidas demonstrates how the children subverted the most dehumanizing elements of these ideologies—most notably their essentialism and absolutism and their basis in blood, birth, and bodies. She argues that the children provide a compelling vision for living with difference, one that emerged from the rich experiences and everyday-ness of multiracial living.
Children's Need to Know: Curiosity in Schools
Authors: Engel Susan
Published: May 2015

In this essay, Susan Engel argues that curiosity is both intrinsic to children's development and unfolds through social interactions. Thus, it should be cultivated in schools, even though it is often almost completely absent from classrooms. Calling on well-established research and more recent studies, Engel argues that interactions between teachers and students can foster or inhibit children's curiosity. She offers an explanation for why curiosity is not a priority in our educational system and calls for greater attention to children's interests and explorations, which, she argues, are the mechanisms that underlie authentic learning.