The contributors to this edited volume examine the simultaneous implementation of critical and digital literacies and explore ramifications for the development and assessment of critical digital literacies (CDL) curricula across educational contexts. We ask: How has the increasing ubiquity of digital literacies in and out of school affected our…

School-wide positive behavior support (SWPBS) has an established evidence base in general education settings, and emerging evidence suggests that SWPBS may be effective in alternative settings (e.g., alternative, residential, or hospital schools; psychiatric hospitals). Given the intense educational and behavioral needs of students typically…

Recent trends in education have drawn attention to students at risk of school failure and dropout in the United States. Alternative schools are one method for preventing the severe and long-lasting consequences of underachievement and dropout. Few research studies have sought the opinions and perceptions of the at-risk students who attend…

Effective behavioral practices for students with emotional/behavioral disorders (E/BD) are critical. Students with E/BD are often served in alternative education (AE) settings due to behavior that cannot be supported in a typical school setting or due to court adjudication based on delinquent activity. Like other settings for students with E/BD,…

UK Government policy states that all young people aged 14-19 are entitled to a broad and balanced curriculum, with access to "personalised" education and training pathways. With boys currently leading the statistics on exclusion, girls' educational and social needs are often sidelined in alternative education provision, as the majority…

Students with high-incidence disabilities, including emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD), learning disabilities (LD), and mild intellectual disabilities (MID), demonstrate academic, social, and behavioral deficits to varying degrees, which places them at risk for school failure. Because students with E/BD face dire consequences, it is…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify how at-risk high school students in an alternative school describe how they best learn and to extrapolate their preferred learning practices to improve teacher pedagogical practices. Design/methodology/approach: The authors used a qualitative case study design to facilitate the first two stages of…

What type of individual pursues a nontraditional doctoral degree? Although answering this question is the main purpose of this chapter, there is an underlying story that provides context for how and why these individuals came to pursue a doctoral degree. The tremendous growth in the number of doctoral students and doctoral degree-granting…

What lies ahead for nontraditional doctorate programs? What issues should concern administrators, faculty, and scholars? Faculty and administrators raised concerns that the marketplace demand for "nontraditional doctoral programs" would pollute the academic purity and sanctity of traditional programs. The authors provide some considerations for…

The authors describe themes of cultural persistence, political resistance, and hope in the art of one Puerto Rican neighborhood in the Midwestern United States. The themes are described across three contexts: community mural art, poetry from students in an alternative high school, and poetry from seventh grade students in a neighborhood middle…

Students at two different sites (a 12th-grade English class focused on workplace preparation and an alternative program for students who had been expelled from school) read graphic novels and, using ComicLife software, created their own graphic sequences called "autographics" based on their personal experiences. The authors explore how…

Student resiliency refers to the ability to succeed in school regardless of unpleasant circumstances, such as poverty or abuse, and can be measured by the degree of presence of the following components: a sense of well-being, motivation, ability to set goals, development of strong relationships or connections, and stress management (Close &…

Over the past 15 years, a range of alternative education programs have been launched in Burkina Faso. The programs have been developed primarily by international or national NGOs, within a supportive policy space provided by the national government. They aim to respond to the widely recognized inadequacy of the French-language ecoles classiques to…

Check-in, check-out (CICO) is a secondary-tier intervention with proven utility for reducing problem behaviors and increasing responsiveness to primary-tier expectations of positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS). CICO has been investigated at the elementary and middle school levels in traditional school settings with students both…

People who deal with at-risk teens say dropping out is not an event; it's a process. Youngsters miss school and get "backed up" in class, so they miss more school because they're bewildered or embarrassed, and fall further behind. In the three years the 75-seat Hampton Performance Learning Center (PLC) has been open, it claims to have…