School improvement depends, fundamentally, upon collective agency--a group capability to work productively together and solve problems. Unfortunately, many schools operate in contexts of adversity that can pose considerable challenges with developing collective agency. Schools serving high-poverty communities of color often face chronic resource…

Parent engagement in middle school has the potential to yield positive effects on the academic success of students and contribute to a growth in a feeling of self-worth. Parents want the best for their children and based on their own experiences, they do what they can to support their children in school and beyond. This study examined the stories…

Nationally, teachers are leaving at heightened levels, and school culture has been identified as one possible root cause. Research has identified environments that are conducive to a positive school culture and ways to positively impact teacher retention. Furthermore, research highlights national initiatives that have been created to retain…

Much has been written about the instructional insights illuminated by viewing texts as windows through which readers can view the experiences of those who are different from them in some way, mirrors through which they can see themselves reflected, and sliding glass doors through which they can step to experience a world different from their own.…

Purpose: Previous studies have examined the empowerment of individual teachers, while neglecting the fact that such a phenomenon might grow within a team. Building on the crossover model and social exchange theory, the aim of this study is to explore whether team empowerment among school management teams (SMTs), is transmitted to the school level…

The teaching profession is in peril. Teacher recruitment and teacher retention are issues that have compounded the teacher shortage crisis, particularly in Black and Latinx communities. This study focused on a vehicle by which to recruit people into the profession while in middle and/or high school, known as pre-collegiate Grow Your Own teacher…

Agent-oriented pedagogies have been used in teaching concepts related to complex systems dynamics. However, little research has systematically explored the role of a strong agency-oriented focus on understanding of complex, dynamic ecological systems. This study analyzed seventh graders' (n = 216) explanations of a complex ecological scenario. The…

This case study examines the motivations of, and processes used by teacher leaders to establish a peace program at their middle school. These teacher leaders creatively engaged students in transforming school culture using empowering strategies to build positive peace among students, administrators, and teachers. Theories of peace education are…

The developmental shifts encountered by boys during adolescence can have long-term implications for mental health. This paper describes a holistic approach to wellbeing and development (the On Queenslea Drive, or OQD, program), which draws upon a traditional Rites of Passage framework to support the development of boys during this period. This…

Often the characteristics of students with emotional and behavioral disturbances (EBDs) are described in terms of how they compare to students with and without other disabilities. However, such a conceptualization or categorization may overshadow differences that exist among these youth, and few studies examine unique subpopulations within this…

We examined the effect of multiple school-related, resilience-promotive factors against exposure to violence (ETV) at school among an urban sample of 6th-grade students (n = 441, 57% female, mean age = 11.81), 90% identify as students of color. Using multilevel mixed-effects linear models, we analyzed two waves of data (baseline and 4-month…

Education thought leaders highlight the need to expand access to high-quality STEM learning for students historically underrepresented in STEM fields, and project-based learning (PjBL) is often seen as a key strategy. Introducing PjBL to classrooms typically focuses on building teacher capacity, but principals also play a key role in effective…

This research was aimed at examining the influence of teachers' psychological empowerment on their commitment to the school in the case of private schools in Antalya province, Turkey. Data were collected twice, first 297 teachers for scale development; second, we collected data from separate 297 teachers for the main analysis. A correlational type…

Promoting female learning otherwise known as Girl Child Education continues to engage the attention of policy makers and practitioners in education and development generally; a situation greatly shaped by the myriad of obstacles militating against girl child education. In the current study, we probed the influence of CAMFED's girl child education…

In an era of global climate change, intertwined with social and ecological predation, there is growing recognition of the importance of building socially, environmentally, culturally pluralistic, just and sustainable futures. Yet many of the calls for reform and discourses around sustainability are authored and defined through top-down approaches,…