Background/Context: Kindergarten mathematics instruction is critical for students' future academic success. The nature and quality of this instruction may vary depending on classroom characteristics. However, little empirical work has examined how mathematics instruction in kindergarten might differ based on classroom performance levels. Purpose,…

Context: Educators often engage with student performance data to make important instructional decisions, yet limited research has analyzed how educators make sense of student performance data. In addition, scholars suggest that teachers recognize a relationship between their instruction and student performance data, but this is a relatively…

Background: Blacks are commonly targeted as a population that will benefit from school choice. Drawing upon market theory, school choice advocates argue that educational opportunity will increase for Blacks and other underserved populations when schools are required to compete for students. With choice, the historically underserved can presumably…

Background/Context: Research has shown teachers' expectations of students to be a powerful predictor of the racial opportunity gap. Yet, many teachers continue to profile White students and Students of Color very differently in schools when it comes to intellectual capacity and motivation to learn. One of the major ethical challenges of teachers'…

In this commentary, we discuss the lessons we learned from case studies of two African American mathematics teachers, thereby endorsing the claim made by the contributors to this special issue that the insights they gained are not restricted to mathematics teaching in nonselective urban schools but can also inform the field more generally. We then…

Background/Context: The fulfillment of academic potential is an underdeveloped area of inquiry as it relates to explaining racial differences in academic outcomes. Examining this issue is important for addressing not only differences in the typical outcomes for African American and White students but also the severe underrepresentation of African…

Background/Context: Prior research has investigated differences in course-taking patterns and achievement growth in public and Catholic schools, but the nature of instruction in Catholic schools is currently understudied. One important dimension of instruction that impacts student engagement is the prevalence of developmental or student-centered…

Background/Context: The study examines teachers' and administrators' perspectives on the persistent academic failure of African American male high school students. The study took place between 2003 and 2005 in a low-performing high school in Summerfield County, a Black suburban county in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States with a poverty…

Background/Context: Considerable controversy surrounds the issue of whether high-stakes statewide accountability programs have led to more equitable educational opportunities for all students. Some researchers suggest that these programs have focused attention on improving the achievement of students of color from low socioeconomic backgrounds.…

Background/Context: This is the first research study to examine the content basis of Payne's in-service teacher education program, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, though others who have reviewed the book have agreed with our analysis. The study took place within a policy context in which the federal government, with the passage of the No…

Background: Scholars are bringing much-needed attention to the persistent problem of academic underachievement among African American children in the United States, who continue to lag behind White school children in all socioeconomic groups. This is especially true of impoverished African Americans. Although some link these outcomes to poor…

Draws on an interpretive study of classroom authority relations in a U.S. metropolitan high school to describe and analyze the character of these relations and their connection to social theory and educational ideologies. Results reveal that conservative, bureaucratic, progressive, and radical positions all contribute to commonsense…

Examines the work of one urban teacher network, analyzing ideas about educational equity and inequality evolving from its professional development practices. Using archival and ethnographic materials spanning 24 years, the article explores how the network's oral inquiry process makes visible two different, but interrelated ethical obligations…

The Coleman report, published 12 years after the Brown decision, confirmed that widespread school segregation in the United States created inequality of educational opportunity. This study examines whether racial and socioeconomic segregation, which is on the rise in the United States, is still contributing to the achievement differences among…

This study examined how one type of student work habit classroom participation is related to a combination of both student factors (math achievement, personal achievement goals, perceptions of classroom goal structures, and teacher support) and features of the classroom context (teachers' instructional practices, average perceptions of classroom…