This study presents a framework that uses academic trajectories in the middle grades for identifying students in need of intervention and providing targeted support. We apply a set of academic college readiness benchmarks to rich longitudinal data for more than 360,000 students in 5900 schools across 49 states and the District of Columbia. In both…

Immigration from Mexico and Central America to the United States has resulted in dramatic demographic changes in communities across the country since the early 1990s. Newcomers and longstanding residents make sense of and construct their shared society and the rules and norms by which they live alongside one another, and this construction of…

Charter school Alternative Education Campuses (AECs) leverage the nimbleness of the charter school model to create unique learning opportunities nationwide for students who experience challenges that make it difficult to excel academically. Some of the challenges include homelessness, pregnancy, parenting while in school, or interaction with the…

The University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) is a public metropolitan university that has developed a highly collaborative relationship with the Greater Oklahoma City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (HC). This partnership unites several UCO divisions and the HC in support of a set of shared goals, articulated in UCO's "Vision 2020" strategic…

Many low-income and first-generation students who enroll in college experience less desirable outcomes during their first year. Researchers have increasingly investigated the important role of college knowledge and engagement with faculty and staff for student success. Through a randomized controlled trial intervention, this study leverages the…

Drawing upon sociocultural theories of learning and social constructivist theories of identity development, this article defines learning and identity as outcomes of participation in order to investigate how an emergent bilingual in elementary school, Roselyn, has opportunities to participate in school-based activities and how these structured…

This study explores the experiences and perspectives of 15 Black and Latinx students with disabilities as they journeyed through the process of taking and attempting to meet high-stakes testing policies in an urban high school in southern California. Utilizing critical policy sociology and student voice, findings reveal material and structural…

The college readiness and standard English proficiency of preservice teachers of color are of increasing concern among those working to foster diversity within the teacher workforce. In this article, the author uses positioning theory to examine standard English proficiency and agency among first-generation Black and Latinx preservice teachers,…

The purpose of this study was to examine the determinants of benefits and barriers and their relationship with physical activity (PA) among predominantly Latino middle school students. Data were collected in a cross-sectional survey of 4,773 seventh-grade students recruited from a large, urban school district in Los Angeles. Hierarchical logistic…

This article explores how college expectations in 8th grade change by 10th grade, and if students realize the expectations for a given level of college from 8th and 10th grade, in light of the "college for all" ethos. This study is based on administrative data from 235,875 public school students in Massachusetts from 2006 to 2016. Using…

Historically, the teaching of literacy in American classrooms has been "restricted to formalized, monolingual, monocultural and ruled-governed forms of language" (The New London Group, 1996, p. 60-61) which disproportionately negatively affects bilingual children of color. In this case study we aimed to understand how bilingual second…

The increasing diversity in classrooms throughout the U.S. calls for teachers who are culturally competent and have quality professional development in working with dual language learners (DLLs) in order to ensure children from diverse groups are receiving equitable and high-quality education. This study focuses on teacher characteristics that…

Background: We examined prevalence, incidence, and trajectory of obesity from kindergarten through grade 8 in one of the first states to implement annual surveillance. Methods: Participants included 16,414 children enrolled in kindergarten in Arkansas in 2004 with complete body mass index (BMI) measurements in kindergarten and eighth grade.…

This study involved five English instructors at a Hispanic-serving community college who participated in professional development workshops on culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP). Three themes emerged from analysis of the survey and interview data: (1) Integration of disciplinary identity contributes to instructors'' satisfaction with the…

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…