Maintaining productive partnerships between families and schools is more complex when youth enter middle school. A systematic and inclusive understanding of the strategies parents use, youth want and need, and teachers' desire is needed to broaden our conceptualization and deepen our understanding of parental involvement in education. The authors…

In this ethnographic study, we look closely at everyday classroom interactions in order to examine the complex process of creating equitable classroom communities in racially and socioeconomically diverse schools. We use the lens of relational difference (Abu El-Haj, 2006) to examine how students negotiate social boundaries within their new…

Incidents in which program leaders confront issues of culture and race occur regularly in many youth programs. These incidents are important because they reflect powerful dimensions of youth's lived experience and bring issues of injustice and program inclusiveness to the fore. This study examined these culture-related incidents and how leaders…

A concurrent mixed methods design, giving equal priority to both quantitative and qualitative methods, was used to investigate some of the factors that influence academic achievement of Native Hawaiian students in public schools in the state of Hawai'i. School-level instructional strategies, curricula, policies, and other variables that…

Self-handicapping represents a frequently used strategy for regulating the threat to self-esteem elicited by the fear of failing in academic achievement settings. Several studies have documented negative associations between self-handicapping and different educational outcomes, inter alia academic achievement. However, studies on the relation…

The movement from middle school to high school is a normative transition that is typically associated with increased stress and opportunity in social and academic domains. Theoretically, this transition may reflect a turning point in terms of initiating or sharply increasing heavy alcohol use, a notion that has received little attention in the…

One of the underlying premises of the charter school movement is that quality drives consumer choice. As educational consumers, parents are viewed as rational actors who, if given the choice, will select better performing school. In examining the choice processes of charter school parents, however, this study calls into question the extent to…

Youth suicide is a serious public health issue in the United States. It is currently the third leading cause of death for youth aged 10 to 19. School-based prevention programs may be an effective method of educating youth and enhancing their help-seeking. Most school-based suicide prevention programs have not been rigorously evaluated for their…

Studies of when youth classify academic achievement in racial terms have focused on the racial classification of behaviors and individuals. However, institutions--including schools--may also be racially classified. Drawing on a comparative interview study, we examine the school contexts that prompt urban black students to classify schools in…

The author uses Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital, and habitus to analyze how students, parents, teachers, and administrators are responding to Georgia's test-based grade retention policy in reading at one Georgia elementary school. In this multiple case study, the author interviewed, observed, and collected documents regarding ten fifth…

National efforts to interest students in STEM careers are intensifying around the globe, due to a shortage of professionals to fill the growing demands in these fields. Although some US studies find high interest in STEM in K-12 students, longitudinal studies show a decline in interest following middle school. Many students, particularly females…