bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Reflections on Brown to Understand Milliken v. Bradley: What If We are Focusing on the Wrong Policy Questions?
Authors: Milner H. Richard , Delale-O'Connor Lori A. , Murray Ira E. , Farinde Abiola A. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Prior research on Milliken v. Bradley focuses on the failure of this case to implement interdistrict busing in the highly segregated Detroit schools. Much of this work focuses explicitly on desegregation, rather than on equity and addressing individual, systemic, institutional, and organizational challenges that may prevent the advancement and actualization of desegregation to benefit Black students, teachers, and communities. Purpose/Objective In this study, we shed light on the impacts of desegregation on Black students, teachers, and communities. We argue that Brown, Milliken, and associated policies that attempt to address segregation focus mostly on student assignment policies. Our focus instead is on highlighting the underconceptualized microlevel realities of desegregation, which include the losses of cultural and community connections, strong role models, and connections to school. Population/Participants This study draws from interview data collected from three experts in the field of education whose research focuses on school desegregation. The interview participants have written scholarly articles and/or book chapters about desegregation and related influences on/for Black teachers, Black students, and Black communities spanning the PreK–12 and higher education spectrum. Research Design This study employs in-depth qualitative interviewing. Data Collection and Analysis Interviews were conducted by phone and lasted approximately 45 minutes to an hour. Participants in the study were asked questions about the impact of desegregation and education on Black teachers’ experience, self-concept, dedication, and retention; Black students’ experience of schools and school-related success; experience and connection of Black communities; and “next steps” in educating Black students. An interpretive perspective was used to guide the interview analyses in this study. Findings/Results Analysis of the expert interviews reveals the underexplored microlevel losses and harmful effects of desegregation policies and politics on Black children, families, and communities. Conclusions/Recommendations Evidence from these researchers who have studied desegregation suggests that for many Black students and educators, desegregation was unsuccessful— even when there were superficial indicators of success. We suggest that both researchers and policy makers should consider drawing from the potential losses associated with desegregation and focusing on equity, regardless of schooling location and population.
Relational Teaching with Black Boys: Strategies for Learning at a Single-Sex Middle School for Boys of Color
Authors: Nelson Joseph Derrick 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Positive teacher-student relationships are critical for Black boys’ learning across single-sex and coeducational environments. Limited attention to these relationships by school professionals is rooted in deficit-oriented conceptions of boyhood and Black masculinity. The popular message of deficiency and pathology is clear: Black boys and men are either dangerous or at-risk and need to be saved. Such narrow conceptions are destructive, operate unconsciously, skew teachers’ perceptions of who boys are, and distort teachers’ efforts to meet boys’ distinct learning needs. A “boy crisis” in U.S. education has been characterized by a set of distressing school outcomes in specific learning categories. Racial marginalization and poverty only serve to exacerbate these negative academic outcomes, whereby low-income Black boys remain in the bottom quartile across all achievement measures. Scholars have recently begun to partly attribute boys’ underachievement to a lack of emphasis on the relational dimension of schools. Purpose/Focus of the Study (1) Illustrate how a set of relational teaching strategies supported Black boys’ engagement and learning, and (2) further contribute boys’ “voice” to a counternarrative, which strives to complicate and dispel negative race and gender stereotypes associated with Black males in the United States. Setting/Population/Participants This study employs a relational teaching framework to examine the learning relationships among teachers and a full cohort of eighth-grade Black boys (N = 27) at a single-sex middle school for boys of color in New York City. Research Design/Data Collection In-depth interviews from a critical ethnography conducted at the school-site (2011–2012) culled boys’ narratives of their teacher-student relationships. Findings/Discussion Boys particularly expressed how teachers must foremost convey mastery of course content, with a lucid set of humane behavioral expectations. Narratives from the boys revealed how relationally effective teachers consistently enacted the following gestures: reaching out and go beyond; personal advocacy; establishing common ground; and accommodating opposition. Teachers demonstrated the capacity to acquire and refine relational gestures, but relationship struggles among the boys and their teachers were commonplace. Core findings include: (a) Boys illuminated how specific aspects of the school context facilitated successful enactment of the relational teaching strategies by teachers; (b) teachers’ use of the relational strategies was also facilitated by the social categories of race, gender, and class the boys embodied; (c) boys’ engagement and learning benefitted from positive teacher–student relationships, which ensued after effective use of the relational teaching strategies; and (d) relational teaching with Black boys is not limited to either single-sex or coeducational learning environments.
Does Attending a Low-Achieving School Affect High-Performing Student Outcomes?
Authors: Parsons Eric 
Published: November 2021

Background Ability tracking in K–12 education has been the subject of much research over the past decades, with proponents arguing that it allows for better instructional targeting and opponents countering that it has the potential to increase inequality. Despite the large volume or research on the topic, however, there is little consensus on the actual impact of ability tracking on student outcomes. Objective/Focus of Study This article expands on the tracking literature by exploring the impacts on high-achieving students of a type of tracking that has previously been ignored in research—de facto tracking that occurs at the school-level as the result of residential segregation and other factors. High-achieving students represent an important population that may be particularly affected by this type of tracking. To explore whether attending a low-achieving school impacts high-achieving students, two primary outcomes are examined—middle school standardized exam performance and the grade in which high-achieving students take Algebra I. Research Design I employ a secondary analysis of data taken from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's statewide longitudinal data system, following a cohort of 6,151 initially high-performing Missouri students from the time of their first statewide standardized exam (grade 3) through their entry into high school (grade 9). The research design incorporates regression analysis using a rich set of student and school control variables and value-added modeling methods. Findings Two key findings emerge from the analysis. First, attending a low-achieving school does not affect the standardized exam performance of initially high-performing students once school quality (as measured by value-added) is accounted for. Second, high-performing students who attend low-achieving schools are more likely to take Algebra I later relative to their counterparts who attend higher-achieving schools. Conclusions/Recommendations Since de facto school-level tracking appears to have little effect on test scores through grade 8, policy at the elementary level should focus on improving overall school quality, rather than issues of student placement in schools. However, as high performers move into the middle and upper grades, transfer and distance learning policies that encourage high-performing students in low-achieving schools to take more academically-advanced coursework should be considered. Interventions of this nature have the potential to produce substantial benefits in terms of college readiness.
Getting to Scale: Ideas, Opportunities, and Resources in the Early Diffusion of the Charter Management Organization, 1999–2006
Authors: Quinn Rand , Oelberger Carrie R. , Meyerson Debra 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context The concept of scale has gained purchase across social sectors in recent years as organizational leaders and funders seek to maximize the impact of promising social innovations. Purpose/Objective We apply insights from recent scholarship on ideas as mechanisms for change to explain how the idea of “getting to scale” intersected with political opportunities and human and financial resources in the early diffusion of the charter management organization (CMO). Research Design As the birthplace and a political locus of the CMO form, California is an ideal vantage point from which to understand the early years of the form's diffusion. We conducted interviews with California CMO and non-CMO leaders, principals, and funders. Our interviews were designed to understand when and why CMO leaders thought about growth, the challenges and opportunities associated with growth, organizational goals and strategic priorities, and whether and how funders shaped CMO development and plans. In addition, we constructed a school-level panel dataset for the 1991–92 to 2006–07 school years using data from the National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data and the California Department of Education. We included charter organizational form, enrollment, and school founding and closure years. We also joined multiple Foundation Center datasets to create a grant-level dataset for the years 1999 to 2006 that includes grant amount, grant type, recipient, and funder. Finally, we conducted participant and nonpar-ticipant observations at CMO board meetings, foundation staff meetings and presentations, and charter school conferences and meetings. Findings/Results Understood and framed as the vehicle for getting to scale, the CMO form drew a disproportionate share of private philanthropy dollars, appealed to a new class of professionals from outside of education, and was successfully distinguished from alternative charter forms, all of which contributed to its early diffusion. Conclusions/Recommendations We develop a fuller understanding of the charter school movement, describing how the diffusion of the CMO form displaced ideas about school-level autonomy and decentralization in favor of ideas about getting to scale and tipping the system. The study also offers insight to scholars analyzing current and past efforts at educational reform by emphasizing the roles played by ideas, opportunities, and resources.
The Political Dynamics of District Reform: The Form and Fate of the Los Angeles Public School Choice Initiative
Authors: Marsh Julie A. 
Published: November 2021

Background Scholars widely acknowledge that politics help explain why policies are adopted and how they play out in states, districts, and schools. To date, political analyses of education reform tend to isolate a particular policy and examine the politics of its adoption or implementation, but pay less attention to the effects of the politics of surrounding reforms and broader issues. Purpose In this article, I use the instrumental case of the Los Angeles Public School Choice Initiative (PSCI) to demonstrate the ways in which the political dynamics of other policy issues in the same local environment greatly affect the form and fate of a reform. The article examines what led to the adoption of PSCI and what explains its implementation and adaptation over time. Research Design The study employed an embedded case study design and gathered 3 years of data from leader interviews, observations, interviews, and focus groups in nine case study schools, media articles, and documents. I drew on an ecological-political framework to analyze these data and to understand the evolution of PSCI. Findings I find that PSCI provided a vehicle to advance the goals of six education reform “subgames”—decentralization, charter expansion, accountability, union reform, academic rigor, and community empowerment—as well as goals of two broader local “games” of electoral politics and bridging, and that each was consequential to at least one or more phase of PSCI. At times in its evolution, players seeking success in one area of reform aligned with, used, or were used by players seeking success in other areas of reform. It is the interactions of these players in relation to the environment and to others working to advance complementary and conflicting reform issues and goals that explains how a reform touted to improve accountability and learning for low-performing schools and to empower the community became a broader referendum on school governance and reform writ large. Conclusions Consistent with recent scholarship, this research demonstrates that an increasingly broad set of actors are engaging in decisions around public schooling and changing the nature of educational governance. The study also illustrates the value of examining local policy with an ecological-political lens and poses several hypotheses that could be explored in future studies. Finally, it suggests that prior to adoption, policymakers consider the extent to which a new policy advances or competes with the goals of surrounding reforms and investigate ways to bolster bridging games.
The Long-Term English Language and Literacy Outcomes of First-Generation Former Child Immigrants in the United States
Authors: Huang Becky H. , Bailey Alison L. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Children from Asian ethnic backgrounds currently constitute the second largest group of child immigrants in the United States. Although stereotyped as model minority students due to their academic and economic success, studies have revealed that many Asian immigrant students struggle in school. Research has also shown that, compared to child immigrants from an Indo-European language background such as Spanish and French, Asian child immigrants experience more challenges in learning English as a second language (L2) due to greater cross-linguistic differences. However, little is known about the long-term English language outcomes of first-generation Asian child immigrants. Purpose/Objective The present study examines the effects of learner-level and input-level factors on first-generation Asian child immigrants’ long-term English outcomes. Research Design Data for the current study are selected from a larger correlational and cross-sectional study that examined the effect of the age of arrival variable on Chinese immigrants’ English L2 outcomes. We used two criteria to select participants from the larger study: (1) those who had arrived in the United States between the ages of 5 to 18 (to qualify as a “child immigrant”), and (2) those who had resided in the United States for at least 10 years (to examine long-term outcomes). These criteria resulted in the current sample of 69 participants. The English language proficiency data include participants’ phonological production ratings, performances on a grammaticality judgment task, and their self-ratings of English proficiency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Conclusions/Recommendations The current study showed a complex interplay of factors affecting former child immigrants’ English L2 acquisition. Although age of arrival played a critical role in their L2 learning outcomes, it exerted varying degrees of influence by L2 domain. Age of arrival was a strong predictor of L2 phonological production, grammar knowledge, and oral language proficiency, but not literacy skills. L2 input, language learning aptitude, and child immigrants’ affective status also contributed to their L2 outcomes, and carried more weight than age of arrival. We interpreted the results to be in line with the multiple sensitive period hypothesis in developmental psycholinguistics research. The results also suggested that literacy is not susceptible to age-related effects in the same way in which oral language and more specifically the phonological and syntactic systems are. Literacy as a cultural construct rather than a biologically unique human system is intensively taught throughout the school years and curriculum. Malleable factors, such as instruction and reading strategies, are thus perhaps more important in determining child immigrants’ long-term literacy outcomes.
The Promise of Anonymity: An Investigation of the Practices of ELA Teachers Facilitating Discourse about LGBTq Topics
Authors: Kavanagh Sarah Schneider 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context As states and districts have begun adopting texts inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people, debates about how LGBTQ issues should be represented in the curricular canon have emerged. While existing research investigates curricular questions that are arising as a result of LGBTQ curricular inclusion, scholarship has been slow to address the instructional questions presented by the introduction of inclusive curricula. Purpose This study explored how seven secondary English Language Arts teachers facilitated student engagement with LGBTQ-related topics. Analysis of data on teachers’ instructional practice and related decision-making sought to (a) determine what instructional dilemmas arose for teachers as they taught LGBTQ-inclusive content and (b) analyze the instructional decisions that teachers made to address these dilemmas. Participants Participants in this study were seven secondary English Language Arts teachers who (a) held strong reputations in their professional communities for supporting LGBTQ students and (b) had strong intentions to support LGBTQ students through LGBTQ curricular inclusion, reducing student prejudice, and advocating for and with LGBTQ students. Research Design This comparative case study was embedded in a larger qualitative study that investigated the instructional practice of LGBTQ-supportive teachers. This article reports on findings from an analysis of all data from this project that pertained to how teachers engaged students when teaching LGBTQ content. Data was collected over a six-month period and includes 22 teacher interviews, 28 observations of classroom instruction, 70 teacher log entries, and 25 teacher questionnaires. Findings/Results Analysis showed that participants felt a tension between a desire to make LGBTQ identity visible and a desire to offer LGBTQ students privacy. Participants employed two different approaches to navigating the visibility–privacy tension. Some created parallel engagement strategies for students, some public and some private, while others simultaneously allowed for privacy and visibility through the use of anonymity. Conclusions/Recommendations As conceptions of diversity expand to include sexual diversity, this study has implications for teacher preparation and professional development aimed at supporting teachers to attend to the unique needs of LGBTQ students within instructional practice.
Mapping Culturally Relevant Pedagogy into Teacher Education Programs: A Critical Framework
Authors: Allen Ayana , Hancock Stephen D. , Starker-Glass Tehia , Lewis Chance W. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Teacher education programs are charged with the daunting task of preparing the next generation of teachers. However, the extant literature has documented that teacher education programs have struggled to effectively arm teacher candidates with effective pedagogies to meet the needs of our increasingly diverse student population. Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) is a social justice framework posited to support academic achievement, cultural competence, and critical consciousness for all learners. To this end, this article examines the integration of CRP into teacher education programs. Purpose In this article, we discuss CRP and interrogate teacher education programs in the critical areas of governance and accountability, policies and programs, curriculum and instruction, and teacher educators. Furthermore, this article presents a conceptual framework for the integration of CRP into teacher education programs. Research Design This article is a conceptual paper that builds upon the hallmarks of CRP, which are rooted in a critical race paradigm that centers on exposing and challenging racial policies that maintain the status quo in teacher education programs. We present a critical framework to support the mapping of CRP into teacher education programs through critical reflection, social justice action, and critical questioning. Conclusion/Recommendations A teacher preparation program that does not critically interrogate race, power, and privilege in the context of schools does not maintain a social justice mission and consequently does not meet the tenets of CRP. A critical examination of race and other sociocultural concepts that disenfranchise K–12 students in schools must be an integral and reflective practice for teacher candidates. Requiring teacher candidates to gain skills in critical reflection and critical consciousness in an effort to deconstruct the existing social order is imperative to support culturally relevant pedagogy in teacher education curriculum.
Where's the Race in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy?
Authors: Iv H. Richard Milner 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context When Ladson-Billings described the pedagogical practices of successful teachers of African American children and consequently conceptualized culturally relevant pedagogy as an analytic resource to describe and make sense of pedagogical practices of teachers, her discussion was situated in a frame that examined instructional moves of teachers, especially with Black students. Since the introduction of this pedagogy, researchers and theorists have broadened Ladson-Billings's conceptualization to include various other factors. However, race is no longer as central as it was when the framework was introduced. Purpose/Objective I examine published literature on culturally relevant pedagogy in mathematics and English language arts that has considered race in some form. The purpose of this synthesis is to highlight patterns across the literature and to consider potential future areas of study to strengthen and encourage focused research on race and CRP. Setting I reviewed established literature to examine the intersections of race, culturally relevant pedagogy, and mathematics or English language arts. Research Design I analyzed research articles in the areas of mathematics and English language arts that examined race in some form between 2004–2014 to determine how race is situated and connected to the core of culturally relevant pedagogy. Conclusions/Recommendations Although race was a critical component of Ladson-Billings's conceptualization of culturally relevant pedagogy, research studies in the area demonstrate a marginal, at best, emphasis on race. Studies in the areas of mathematics and English language arts that do include race tend to focus on superficial aspects of race. Future studies should return to the root of the theory and include race as an essential component of empirical studies that draw from culturally relevant pedagogy as an analytic tool to describe pedagogical practices of teachers.