bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Catholic Schools and Immigrant Students: A New Generation
Authors: Louie Vivian , Holdaway Jennifer 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This article considers the role of Catholic schools, an institution born of the adaptation of previous immigrant waves, in the education of new immigrants and their native-born counterparts. The new immigrants enter a landscape in which education plays a much bigger role than it did for their predecessors and yet faces many challenges. Public schools, particularly in urban centers, struggle with financial difficulties and new standards of accountability. Although scholars and the media have praised Catholic schools for performing better than public schools in promoting academic achievement among urban low-income minority students, the Catholic system also faces fiscal difficulties, declining enrollments, and school closings. Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study We examine the use of Catholic school by families of different ethnic backgrounds and how attendance relates both to religious affiliation and to socioeconomic class. We also analyze whether attending or graduating from Catholic high school has a positive effect on educational attainment and on the incidence of arrest and incarceration for men, and early childbearing for women. Finally, we seek to understand why immigrant families choose Catholic schools and how their children experience them. Research Design We draw on data collected for the Immigrant Second Generation in Metropolitan New York Study (ISGMNY). The study includes survey data on 3,415 young adults aged 18–32 who were interviewed between 1998 and 2001. Respondents include second-generation immigrants and native-born individuals. The study also includes qualitative data from in-depth interviews. For this article, we use interviews conducted with 74 respondents from immigrant and native-born groups who attended Catholic high schools, and those who referenced Catholic schools in their educational history even if they did not attend. Conclusions/Recommendations For immigrant families who have arrived recently, religion seems to be more or less irrelevant to the decision to send their children to Catholic school. Instead, like many native Blacks and Latinos, these families choose Catholic schools to avoid what they see as a seriously deficient public school system. To some extent, this represents a rational choice, but for many immigrant families, it also reflects a lack of knowledge about the public education system. Although many low-income families would like to send their children to Catholic school, cost is an insurmountable barrier for many. With the exception of native-born Whites, socioeconomic factors are very important in shaping who can go to Catholic school and whether students can stay until graduation. In many cases, families were forced to withdraw their children by high school, when costs rise sharply. Nonetheless, overall, the data show a benefit in terms of educational attainment for nearly all groups, and also a positive impact in terms of avoiding of certain problems, such as early pregnancy for girls and trouble with police for boys.
Constructing a Discourse of Inquiry: Findings from a Five-Year Ethnography at One Elementary School
Authors: Jennings Louise B. , Mills Heidi 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context In an age of test-driven accountability, many schools are returning to banking pedagogies in which students passively take in content. Inquiry-based instruction offers one approach for actively involving students in meaningful learning activity, however, research on inquiry pedagogies often focuses on academic accomplishments. Our study examines how inquiry-based dialogue not only supports academic learning but also supports social learning as students and teachers negotiate, share ideas, collaborate, and problem-solve together. Purpose This longitudinal study builds on conceptualizations of dialogic inquiry to examine how teachers and students coconstructed a discourse of inquiry in a public magnet school. We examine the processes and practices that make up this discourse of inquiry and study the function of teacher talk in supporting academic and social learning and agency among students. Setting The Center for Inquiry is a public magnet elementary school located in an ethnically diverse suburban community that was formed in partnership with the University of South Carolina. Participants Participants included teachers and 135 students (65% European American, 30% African American) studied during a 5-year period. Research Design The two authors worked collaboratively with school members to collect two related ethnographic data sets. Data Set 1 captured classroom practices across all six classrooms, and Data Set 2 followed one cohort during the same 5-year period. Findings Findings are presented in two sections. The first section presents a discourse of inquiry made up of six interacting practices of inquiry constructed by teachers and students across classrooms. This discourse of inquiry integrates academic and social practices that position inquiry as (1) dynamic and dialogic, (2) attentive, probing, and thoughtful, (3) agentive and socially responsible, (4) relational and compassionate, (5) reflective and reflexive, and (6) valuing multiple and interdisciplinary perspectives. The second section makes visible how these practices of inquiry were coconstructed through transcripts of classroom discourse drawn from both data sets that centered on discussions of life science. Conclusions/Recommendations This discourse of inquiry supports students as active, thoughtful, engaged learners and community members and underscores the critical role of classroom talk, collaboration, and deliberation in meaningful learning engagements. Although teachers and students alike took multiple roles and responsibilities through inquiry, the teacher's discourse was critical in supporting and extending student learning. We recommend professional development opportunities that equip preservice and in-service teachers with resources, skills, and dispositions to become active inquirers of their own classroom and school practices and who recognize the power of classroom talk to shape and limit possibilities.
After the Bell Rings: Student Perceptions of After-School
Authors: Litke Erica 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Research on after-school programs has traditionally focused on those programs serving students in younger grades but found positive correlations between student participation in enriching after-school activities and school engagement. For older students, particularly teenagers, there tends to be lower participation. Research has also shown that students learn at different rates and need different amounts of time with the same material. School-based after-school programs have been one policy intervention to address this need. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study sought to understand better why students in one New York City high school attended after-school sessions and what kept them coming. Who does not attend, and why not? Finally, was the time after school being used in a way that most benefited students? How might the insights of those students who did attend push educators to improve after-school programming, both in terms of the teaching and in terms of how we structure these sessions? Setting This study took place in a small public New York City high school with almost all students participating in the federal free and reduced lunch program. Research Design In this action research study conducted with her own students in her own classroom, the author sought to use student perceptions to make programmatic changes that ultimately benefited the students attending the program. Through surveys, exit slips, interviews, and journal entries, the author collected student opinions and perceptions of the school's after-school program and changed the structure of her after-school sessions to maximize both attendance and student outcomes. Data Collection and Analysis The data suggest that a loosely structured and flexible program with varied types of help and, most important, individual attention is an after-school model that appears to appeal to high school students, particularly in the upper grades. Teenagers need to feel that they get something out of attending. It is critical to have the support of school administrators who understand that attendance figures alone do not reflect “success.” Students reported frustration when they were unable to get help after school because the teacher or peer tutors were overextended. The author recommends that policy makers focus on the quality of service, instead of the quantity served, to create and maintain successful interventions for all students.
Making Retention Count: The Power of Becoming a Peer Tutor
Authors: Mesler Leigh 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context A review of the literature demonstrates that grade retention often fails to improve the academic and socioemotional outcomes of retained students. Although little empirical work on peer tutoring has focused specifically on retained students, the literature suggests that those students who act as peer tutors often experience improved school performance and self-concepts. Purpose of Study This work developed out of a concern that elementary school students being held back to repeat a grade, or retained, were not benefiting academically from non-promotion. The purpose of this action research study was to identify and implement an intervention that would improve the academic and socioemotional outcomes of a twice-retained third-grade student. Setting This study took place in a New York City public elementary school. Intervention The intervention involved implementing a 12-week peer tutoring program in which a retained third-grade student tutored a struggling classmate in mathematics. Research Design This is an action research study in which the author conducted research and implemented an intervention in her own classroom. Results After serving as a peer tutor, this student experienced increased math achievement, an improved self-concept, and better classroom behavior. These results suggest that having struggling students serve as peer tutors may be effective in improving both their academic achievement and socioemotional outcomes.
Trouble in Paradise: A Study of who is Included in an Inclusion Classroom
Authors: Zindler Rachel 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context This study is based on prior research regarding the need for explicit social instruction for children with special needs, cooperative educational models, and the goals and relative successes of inclusive educational practices. The author refers to several studies on these subjects, including those by Kavale and Forness; Salend; and Sapon-Shevin, Dobbelaere, and Corrigan. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This teacher analyzes how truly “inclusive” her class was during 1 year of collaborative team teaching in a second-grade inclusion classroom. Employing research-based methods of cooperative education, she considered how successful she was in facilitating meaningful relationships between special education students from all backgrounds, and their peers. She also examined whether it was possible, despite differences in academic and social skills, to fully incorporate those children with special needs into a classroom so that their general education peers would value and include them in their activities and social life. Population/Participants/Subjects/Setting In this study, a second-grade teacher took on a new position as the general education teacher in a New York City school's inclusion team. Seven of the 24 students in the new class were special education students. These children struggled with a variety of developmental delays, such as expressive and/or receptive language processing disorders, physical disabilities, and social/emotional issues. Five of these children were bused from less affluent neighborhoods near the school to attend the program. Whereas the general population at the school consisted of upper-middle-class White and Asian families, these 5 children were from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and were either African American or of Latin American descent. Research Design This action research was conducted by a practicing teacher who collected data through interviews, sociograms, observations, and other anecdotal means.
Pedagogical Possibilities: Engaging Cultural Rules of Emotion
Authors: Knight-Diop Michelle G. , Oesterreich Heather A. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Teaching, leading, and learning are inextricably connected to emotions. Yet, the significance of emotions is rarely addressed in educational settings, and when it is, the relationship between emotions and curricula is most often framed by of an overly individualistic behavior model that focuses on the management and regulation of emotions. This model obscures, if not denies, the structural-collective aspects of students’ and teachers’ emotions and thereby fails to recognize that emotions are culturally based, with patterns of selectivity deeply embedded in social and cultural structures. These patterns of selectivity operate to influence decisions that can lead to educational and social (in)equities. This article focuses on an imperative to understand how emotions function as sites of knowledge to create cultural rules of interactions that promote and/or hinder the preparation of teachers to act as agents of change. Focus of Study In seeking to better understand both individualistic behavior models and structural-collective aspects of teachers and students’ emotions as sites of knowledge within the classroom, the authors focus on the role of emotions in preparing preservice and in-service teachers to confront educational and societal inequities. Research Design The authors conducted a retrospective qualitative case study of 14 graduate students—reflecting a diversity including age, gender, and race—enrolled in a course on urban education. Using multicultural feminist theories, they analyze students’ understandings of a critical incident in the course about gender inequities through individual semistructured interviews, focus group interviews, and document analysis. Conclusions Students enter classrooms with “pretexts” of how teachers and students will interact in the classroom. These pretexts are integrally related to the negotiation of power in the intersections of race, gender, and class and underlie emotional selectivity. In these pretexts, a pedagogy of discomfort and a pedagogy of challenge simultaneously exist. The blurring and blending of these two pedagogies create a unique third space in which emotions serve as sites of struggle and contestation, and possibilities for changing the status quo of inequities. Four prevalent patterns of emotional selectivity emerged within the specific context of gender inequity in educational contexts: (1) denial of emotions, (2) mere existence of emotions, (3) simultaneous acceptance and denial of emotions, and (4) emotions-reason informing knowledge, identities, and actions. The fourth of these patterns offers pedagogical possibilities for challenging personal, educational, and societal inequities as it situates the focus of teachers’ roles as active agents of change.
Hope in the Unexpected: How Can Teachers Still Make a Difference in the World?
Authors: Edgoose Julian 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context The central role of hope in teaching has long been acknowledged by authors such as Sonia Nieto and Larry Cuban, but hope has received little focused attention from scholars. This article seeks to compare multiple understandings of hope to examine how teachers can find hope in times of global crises that challenge the promise of a better future that is implicit in modern schooling. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study How can teachers find hope in hard times, when the usual promise of schools for a better future seems difficult to sustain? Research Design This article is an analytic essay. Conclusions/Recommendations This article concludes that while the long-dominant understandings of hope are inadequate for many teachers at times like these, Arendt's view of the hope that emerges in the unexpected occurrences of classroom life resonates strongly with the most rewarding and hopeful experiences of many teachers. Yet Arendt explains how the hope that teachers experience from these unpredictable and unexpected occurrences is not just a source of immediate reward, but rather contributes to political and social change. The article concludes with an account of Arendt's critique of historians’ narratives of social change and an affirmation of the impact that teachers can have as agents of change.
Race and Academic Achievement in Racially Diverse High Schools: Opportunity and Stratification
Authors: Muller Chandra , Riegle-Crumb Catherine , Schiller Kathryn S. , Wilkinson Lindsey , Frank Kenneth A. 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context Brown v Board of Education fundamentally changed our nation's schools, yet we know surprisingly little about how and whether they provide equality of educational opportunity. Although substantial evidence suggests that African American and Latino students who attend these schools face fewer learning opportunities than their White counterparts, until now, it has been impossible to examine this using a representative sample because of lack of data. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study uses newly available data to investigate whether racially diverse high schools offer equality of educational opportunity to students from different racial and ethnic groups. This is examined by measuring the relative representation of minority students in advanced math classes at the beginning of high school and estimating whether and how this opportunity structure limits the level of achievement attained by African American and Latino students by the end of high school. Setting This study uses data from the Adolescent Health and Academic Achievement Study (AHAA) and its partner study, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a stratified, nationally representative study of students in U.S. high schools first surveyed in 1994–1995. Population/Participants/Subjects Two samples of racially diverse high schools were used in the analysis: one with African Americans, Whites, and Asians (26 schools with 3,149 students), and the other with Latinos, Whites, and Asians (22 schools with 2,775 students). Research Design Quantitative analyses first assess how high schools vary in the extent to which minority students are underrepresented in advanced sophomore math classes. Hierarchical multilevel modeling is then used to estimate whether racial-ethnic differences in representation in advanced math have an impact on African American and Latino students’ achievement by the end of high school, relative to the Whites and Asians in the school. Specifically, we estimate the effects of Whites’ and Asians’ overrepresentation in sophomore-year math (or Latino or African American underrepresentation) within the school on students’ senior-year grades and their postsecondary enrollment. Findings/Results Findings show that schools vary in the extent to which African American and Latino students are underrepresented in advanced sophomore math classes. This pattern of racial inequality in schools is associated with lower minority senior-year grades and enrollment in 4-year postsecondary institutions, net of students’ own background. Conclusions/Recommendations Evidence consistently suggests that schools can play an active role in the provision of opportunities for social mobility or in the exacerbation of social inequality, depending on how they are structured. It is important to consider racial stratification within schools as a mechanism of inequality of educational opportunity.
Schools and Inequality: A Multilevel Analysis of Coleman's Equality of Educational Opportunity Data
Authors: Borman Geoffrey D. , Dowling Maritza 
Published: November 2021

Background/Context The Equality of Educational Opportunity study is widely recognized as one of the most important studies on schooling ever performed. The findings from the report have shaped the field of education, national education policies, and wider public and scholarly opinion regarding the contributions of schools and schooling to equality and productivity in the United States. Despite past reanalyses of the data and decades of research on the effects of schools as organizations, the report's fundamental finding—that a student's family background is far more important than school social composition and school resources for understanding student outcomes—still retains much of its currency. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: Using the original Equality of Educational Opportunity data, this study replicated Coleman's statistical models but also applied a two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM) to measure the effects of school-level social composition, resources, teacher characteristics, and peer characteristics on ninth-grade students’ verbal achievement. Research Design HLM allows researchers to disentangle how schools and students’ family backgrounds contribute to learning outcomes. The methodology offers a clearer interpretation of the relative effects of school characteristics, including racial/ethnic composition, and family background, including race/ethnicity and social class, on students’ academic outcomes. Findings/Results Our results suggest that schools do indeed matter, in that when one examines the outcomes across the national sample of schools, fully 40% of the differences in achievement can be found between schools. Even after statistically taking into account students’ family background, a large proportion of the variation among true school means is related to differences explained by school characteristics. Within-school inequalities in the achievement outcomes for African American and White students and students from families of higher and lower social class are explained in part by teachers’ biases favoring middle-class students and by schools’ greater reliance on curriculum differentiation through the use of academic and nonacademic tracking. Conclusions/Recommendations Formal decomposition of the variance attributable to individual background and the social composition of the schools suggests that going to a high-poverty school or a highly segregated African American school has a profound effect on a student's achievement outcomes, above and beyond the effect of individual poverty or minority status. Specifically, both the racial/ethnic and social class composition of a student's school are 1 3/4 times more important than a student's individual race/ethnicity or social class for understanding educational outcomes.