The integration of ethnic minority youth can only be successful if they are motivated to establish and maintain social relationships in important institutions such as school. At the same time, worries about negative stereotypes about one's ethnic group can undermine ethnic minority students' motivation to approach others. In the present study, we…

Schooling can often function as a structure contributing to the reproduction of an American Dream of material and social success, but it can also reproduce an American nightmare of marginalization. Research studies have noted young men of color populate negative outcomes of academic achievement with trends of low test scores, overrepresentation in…

This article demonstrates how using feedback mechanisms or "loops" as heuristic devices can help ethnographers explain the interior logic, robustness and contradictions within complex educational assemblages. After reviewing the use of feedback mechanisms in the natural and social sciences, particularly practice theory, the article…

Much of the literature on social class and language study in schools argues that for middle-class parents and their children, languages are chosen for their capacity to offer forms of distinction that provide an edge in the global labour market. In this paper, we draw on data collected from interviews with parents and children in middle-class…

In response to the increasing diversity in American public schools and concerns over inequities in opportunity and achievement, many teacher education programs are infusing multicultural topics and coursework into their programs (Akiba, 2011; Hollins & Guzman, 2005). While some programs utilize what O'Grady (2000) called the Human Relations…

Early resistance theorists analyzed working class students' oppositional behavior at a time of high availability of viable jobs in manufacturing. They argued that oppositional behavior constituted a rejection of middle class culture motivated by an implicit understanding of the myth of meritocracy. But times have changed. This paper seeks to…