School discipline disparities within the U.S. P-12 public schooling system have been a staple issue for over four decades. The enforcement of out-of-school suspensions, in particular by inexperienced teachers, have traditionally impacted Black and Latinx students more than White students. Yet teachers are not the final decision-makers regarding…

Early college high schools are small schools designed to increase college and career readiness for groups underrepresented in higher education. While some research has focused on student experiences in the early college environment, few have specifically examined the perceptions of Black male students. The purpose of this study was to examine the…

An abundant and longstanding body of scholarship has underscored the White femininity of the U.S. K-12 teaching workforce and the need to diversify its ranks. Black males, in particular, potentially struggle with the notion of becoming teachers given their often highly negative lived experiences with schools and schooling including low…

Montessori programs are expanding in public schools, serving a large proportion of African American students. Although recent Montessori research has focused on diverse public school populations, few studies have examined outcomes for African American students at the lower elementary level. This quasi-experimental study compares reading and math…

Inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois' groundbreaking innovation in spatial research methodologies in "The Philadelphia Negro," this study uses critical spatial analysis to examine impacts of race, poverty, and violence exposure on trauma vulnerability and educational outcomes of Black children and families in Charlotte, North Carolina. Geographic…

Systemic inequities in educational opportunities contribute to reduced economic mobility. Extensive research has documented disproportionality in gifted education at national and state levels. However, limited research examines inequities in gifted education within districts. Informed by critical systems theory (CST), this research provides an…

There is a large body of research examining the discipline experiences of Black males (Lewis et al. in "Souls: A Critical Journey of Black Politics, Culture, and Society," 2009; Skiba et al. in "The Urban Review," 34, 317-348, 2002); however, less is known about the types of behavioral infractions Black female students exhibit…

This conceptual paper explores racial microaggressions and their effects on African American and Hispanic students in urban schools. Microaggressions are pervasive in our society (Sue et al., 2007), and although often manifested in subtle ways, can be detrimental for their long-term effects on students' psychological, socialemotional, and…

This qualitative research study examined the experiences of one African American former college athlete and two athletic department academic advisors at a BCS Division University in the Southern Region of the United States, Given the catastrophic shortage of African American male K-12 teachers, the participants of this study were interviewed to…

Grounded in critical race theory, this article seeks to frame the ideological positions of success and failure for African American students in urban school settings. First, we revisit national data and research literature that illustrate the ongoing urban Black-White achievement gap. Second, the Matrix of Achievement Paradigms is shared in an…

African American women are underrepresented in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields (Catsambis, 1994). The socialization and "under-education" of African American female students engenders ideas of inferiority, while the presence of an inferior race, sex and class, in one body, may produce an ideology of mediocrity.…

Problems facing African Americans students are complex and numerous. In this article, we describe current educational contexts (i.e., high standards, accountability, and standardized test scores). In addition, we discuss the realities confronting African American students through West?s (1994) lenses of paranoia and poverty. Finally, we present…

A plethora of research (McCadden, 1998; Monroe 2005; Skiba, Peterson, & Williams, 2000) on student discipline emphasizes the inequities surrounding the distribution of disciplinary actions taken by schools/school districts in regards to behavior, particularly for African American males. This study provides an in-depth examination of disciplinary…

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal legislation has dramatically changed the way schools and school districts measure educational attainment for all students. In this article, the researchers examine whether African Americans have progressed or digressed in their educational attainment five years after the implementation of NCLB. To provide a…

The achievement gap between African American students and their Caucasian peers has been of concern for quite some time in the field of education (Orfield, Losen, Wald, & Swanson, 2004). As a result, this article examined high stakes reading test scores for 4,135 African American students in grades 3 through 10 in a Midwestern school district.…