“It’s Everybody’s Job”: Youth and Adult Constructions of Responsibility to Take Action for School Change through PAR

The Urban Review - Participatory action research (PAR) with youth holds potential to spur social justice-oriented change due to its explicit orientation to transform systemic inequity. Whereas...     

A Systems Approach to Understanding and Counseling College Student‐Athletes

Student‐athletes have unique challenges as they confront pressures to perform both athletically and academically. The authors present a systems approach that will enhance the conceptualization skills that counselors need to intervene more effectively with college student‐athletes as well as address counselors' own stereotypes and biases about student‐athletes.     

Educational disparity and the persistence of the black–white wage gap in the U.S.

This paper examines the relationship between contemporary racial inequality of schooling and the black–white wage gap in the U.S. In particular I ask: what policies would be effective at reducing the black–white wage gap in the U.S.? In order to address this question, I develop a model of human capital accumulation in which agents differ by race. I calibrate the model to reflect the U.S. system of education financing since the mid-1950s, and find that more than half of the black–white wage gap in the U.S. in the early 1990s can be accounted for by differential human capital accumulation by race. This indicates an increased role for policy in addressing racial inequality in the U.S. The results of the policy experiments conducted in this paper indicate that a conditional cash transfer program and a policy of decreased reliance on local property tax revenue would be effective in reducing the black–white skill and wage gaps.     

Training special educators: sustaining professional development in special school placements

With the rapidly changing demographic due to survival rates from medical advances, the need to strengthen training on SEND is now recognised, and special school placements valued, having been previously marginalised within initial teacher training. Practices developed since 2008 at one university to support progression of trainees to gain advanced and specialist skills in SEND were evaluated for effectiveness. This involved ten school mentors, 14 primary trainees on four‐week extended enrichment placements and three trainees with prior experience on final formally assessed seven‐week placements in special schools. This article presents the resulting consolidated developmental placement structures and a proposed compulsory one‐week model for trainees to gain core skills, underpinned by a shared understanding of trainee professional development needs and related support systems. Quality mentoring practices and sustaining trainees' emotional learning journey were integral to their developing pedagogical skills and understanding, so endorsing the debate for more humanistic approaches to teacher training.