In 1996, Dr. Timuel D. Black collected and archived 36 oral histories with alumni and current students and staff from DuSable and Phillips high schools, Chicago's first two all-Black high schools. Several of those interviews were with alumni who returned to their alma mater as teachers. In this study, I drew on analyses of the interview…

While nearly half (40%) of Black students leave STEM disciplines, and racialized and gendered social and environmental factors play a role in STEM pathways of Black women, less known is how relationships and critical social capital facilitate undergraduate STEM success. Using a critical narrative approach, we explored how strong relationships at…

Structured out-of-school programs (OSPs) can be contexts in which youth can be producers of their own positive change (Eccles & Gootman, 2002). However, despite a considerable body of research documenting the benefits of participating in OSPs, there is a lack of knowledge about how youth of color in low-income communities define positive…

The college success of Black women has often been narrowly defined by outcome data and does not consider some of the challenges they experience that are often racialized and gendered. Despite the increase in the number of Black women attending and graduating from college, few authors have highlighted the unique strategies that help facilitate…

One part of COVID-19's staggering impact on education has been to suspend or fundamentally alter ongoing education research projects. This article addresses how to analyze the simple but fundamental example of a multi-cohort study in which student assessment data for the final cohort are missing because schools were closed, learning was virtual,…

Middle school Black girls in the Chicagoland area encounter challenges when engaging in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) learning and developing individual STEM identities. Black girls with good grades in STEM courses are reluctant to pursue STEM careers because of the negative stereotypes they face in school (King & Pringle,…

Although studies on school suspensions focus on the disproportionate number of Black students receiving them, policy changes reducing suspensions offer new insights into the racial gap. Using annual school-level data from the Chicago Public Schools (2012-2016), I evaluate how a suspension reduction policy affected the number of students receiving…

We examine the labor supply decisions of substitute teachers -- a large, on-demand market with broad shortages and inequitable supply. In 2018, Chicago Public Schools implemented a targeted bonus program designed to reduce unfilled teacher absences in largely segregated Black schools with historically low substitute coverage rates. Using a…

Black and Latinx adolescents in urban schools can derive numerous benefits from tailored career and health education. However, many factors may prevent schools and teachers from offering such programing. To address the need for career and health education, we prototyped Caduceus Quest, a theory-based, digital role-playing game designed to provide…

The current paper examines associations between preschool cognitive and behavioral skills and indicators of college enrollment in a sample (n = 379) of primarily Black and Hispanic youth growing up in low-income areas of Chicago. Although we found that most early cognitive and behavioral skills were only weakly or moderately related to later…

Background: Dental caries (cavities) experience is prevalent in US children, and national data show rates to be increasing among young children. Disparities are found for those in the low-income and non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic/Latinx groups. Use of caries prevention, specifically dental sealants, is low, even among school-based programs.…

Bullying victimization remains to be a public health concern in the United States, especially among sexual and ethnic minority youth. However, few studies have examined how school outcomes might be associated with bullying victimization among heterosexual and sexual minority African American youth and the factors that may attenuate that…

Much of the research on the benefits of graduate education for minority students has focused on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Little has been done on Predominantly Black Institutions. This case study attempts to shed light on alumni perceptions of the benefits of their graduate education at a Predominantly Black Institution (PBI),…

In 2017, Chicago Public Schools adopted an online universal application system for all high schools with the hope of providing more equitable access to high-performance schools. Despite the new system, black students and students living in low socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods remained less likely than their peers to enroll in a…

Racial disparities are evident in both educational outcomes and incarceration rates when comparing African American and white youth. It is essential to understand the school-to-prison pipeline and the ways in which school discipline practices and other factors disproportionately affect African American students, limit educational attainment, and…