Those Who Left,Those Who Stayed: Exploring the Educational Opportunities of High-Achieving Black and Latina/o Students at Magnet and Nonmagnet Los Angeles High Schools (2001–2002)

Being that educational disparities, manifested through socioeconomic instability, were a major contributing factor to the Los Angeles riots, it is important to examine how public high schools are now shaping the postsecondary opportunities of underrepresented students. Using opportunity-to-learn (OTL) and bounded rationality as frames, this article examines the college preparatory experiences of Black and Latina/o students at a magnet and standard urban high school, specifically focusing on the experiences of high achievers. Findings indicate that students at the two schools had equally high college aspirations, but experienced very different college preparatory environments. Magnet students had access to more college-going resources and greater opportunities to learn, manifested directly from opportunities offered at their school and indirectly from the collective college-going culture shaped by the school, peers, and parents. Bounded rationality allowed students at the underresourced urban school to perceive their school's resources positively and stay motivated, but limited their efforts to pursue additional resources to enhance their opportunity-to-learn.     

Critical Race Theory and the Meaning of “Community” in District Partnerships

This article uses a critical race theory lens to explore how members of one community-district partnership understand “community.” Engaging the community through full service schools (Dryfoos & Maguire, 2002), parent engagement programs (Comer & Emmons, 2006), lab schools through universities (Goldring & Sims, 2005), and other partnerships have become a major strand of reform in schools and districts. However, there is a dearth of critical scholarship that explores the contested meanings and implications of evoking community-laden terminology and approaches (Sanders, 2003; Warren, 2005). Using a grounded theory approach, this case study draws from a combination of ethnographic observations of governance meetings, committee meetings, and events over a year and a half; semi-structured interviews with 11 governance council members from the school district and other partners; and document analysis. Iterative rounds of coding identified ten concepts that were organized into three key categories: geographical and sociocultural conceptualizations of community, “community” as a euphemism, and structuring constraints and empowerment through advisory roles. These findings have broad implications for how we engage in community development and district partnership work in ways that are constructive, effective, and socially just.     

Race,Social Background,and School Choice Options 1

This research contributes to discussions about social inequality in school choices in two ways. First, educational choices include the multitude of options families may consider, including choosing a home in a particular area and home-schooling. Decision-making is considered not at a single point in time, but over children's educational careers. Second, this research explores school choices across school district boundaries to include school choices in suburban and rural, as well as urban districts. I use data from a random sample of families with school-aged children living in the Philadelphia Metropolitan area (including some counties in New Jersey) and other counties throughout Pennsylvania to explore the options that families consider for their children's schooling. The data paint a picture of two constellations of families: those who are white, suburban, and middle-income (who primarily select schools based on their neighborhoods and residences), and those composed of lower-income and urban families of color (who rely more on non-neighborhood school options). The differences between these predispositions toward choice suggest that the expanded school choice policies of urban school districts will have little influence on overall school inequality because of the tendency of white, suburban middle-class families to choose public schools in their relatively privileged, suburban neighborhoods.     

Development of Bilingual Phonological Awareness in Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners: The Roles of Vocabulary,Letter Knowledge,and Prior Phonological Awareness

Theories concerning the development of phonological awareness place special emphasis on lexical and orthographic knowledge. Given the large degree of variability in preschool classrooms that house Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELL), this study controlled for classroom effects by removing classroom means and covariances based on 158 children from 40 classrooms. Path analyses of the child-level covariance matrices tested the extent to which vocabulary and letter knowledge in each language predicted growth in English and Spanish phonological awareness of 130 preschool-age, Spanish-speaking ELLs. Results supported cross-linguistic effects of prior phonological awareness and Spanish vocabulary in the development of bilingual phonological awareness. Implications for theory, instruction, and research methods are discussed.     

Mentoring: A Typology of Costs for Higher Education Faculty

In this theoretical paper, we apply a social exchange framework to understand mentors’ negative experiences. We propose a typology of costs, categorized according to psychosocial and career mentoring functions. Our typology generates testable research propositions. Psychosocial costs of mentoring are burnout, anger, and grief or loss. Career costs of mentoring include diminished reputation, decrease in productivity, and risk of ethical transgressions. The typology focuses on faculty in higher education because of the prevalence and importance of mentoring in that work setting. However, the typology may be extended to career arenas such as law, medicine, and the military. The theory presents a framework for acknowledging negative experiences and the costs associated with mentorship.     

Exploring the Role of Family Support and Ethnic Pride in Cultivating the Academic and Career Resourcefulness of Underserved Youth in an Afterschool Program

The Urban Review - The purpose of this study was to identify the internal and external factors that support the academic and career resourcefulness of adolescents from underserved backgrounds. This...     

Leadership Transitions During Fundraising Campaigns

Capital campaigns are intense efforts to build the financial assets of an institution in a specified amount of time. This study provides an empirical view of how changes in leadership affected concomitant capital campaigns at ten colleges and universities. The transitions during these 10 campaigns influenced morale on campus, altered timing of the campaigns, created negative publicity, and caused lost momentum; however, all capital campaigns persisted to meet financial goals despite disruptive transitions. One area of note is the lack of fundraising training and development for provosts, many of whom assume interim or full-time leadership posts after a presidential departure.     

Graduate students’ experiences of plagiarism by their professors

This study expands the inquiry about an egregious form of academic misconduct. Participants consist of graduate students who reported a violation of academic integrity because a professor plagiarised their academic work. Based on data collected through interviews and documents, interpretative phenomenological analysis is used to examine participants’ experiences. A key research finding of relevance to Higher Education policy is: individuals in positions of authority failed to resolve the reports. This study calls for more education about authorship. Equally important, universities need clear reporting procedures and protections for students when they report academic violations.     

Teachers as readers: building communities of readers

Given the narrow scope of primary teachers' knowledge and use of children's literature identified in Phase I of Teachers as Readers (2006–2007), the core goal of the Phase II project was to improve teachers' knowledge and experience of such literature in order to help them increase children's motivation and enthusiasm for reading, especially those less successful in literacy. The year‐long Phase II project, Teachers as Readers: Building Communities of Readers, which was undertaken in five Local Authorities (LAs) in England, also sought to build new relationships with parents and families and to explore the concept of a “Reading Teacher (RT): a teacher who reads and a reader who teaches” (Commeyras and colleagues). The research design was multilayered; involving data collection at individual, school and LA levels, and using a range of quantitative and qualitative data research methods and tools. This paper provides an overview of the Phase II research. It suggests that teachers need support if they are to develop children's reading for pleasure, and enhance their involvement as socially engaged and self‐motivated readers.