This article argues that building powerful literacies involves the centering of dispositions and practices that thrive on the boundary--spaces that are not always sanctioned as educational. Leveraging youths' repertoires is particularly important for educators of nondominant learners who are committed to challenging characterizations of their…

Using a multiple case study approach across seven schools in the United States and Sweden that serve newcomer students exceptionally well, we identified the strategies they implemented across sites that served to meet the educational needs of these students. We found that these schools provided a comprehensive approach to support the…

This article examines students' experiences as resettled refugee and asylee students in international schools in New York City. Specifically, it looks at how teachers and school leaders provide critical academic and extracurricular support to facilitate students' adjustment to academic environments that differ markedly from those compared in their…

The goals of teacher education must evolve beyond the teaching of strategies and methods toward a process for beginning teachers' critical interrogation of their social locations and the ways they engage with the realities of teaching and learning. One way that this is accomplished is by incorporating opportunities for community engagement…

This article argues that the instructional scaffolding metaphor may be reconceived as distributed scaffolding when multiple means of influence are provided in a service-learning setting. In the service-learning course described here, the professor's role is largely as designer of activity settings for preservice teacher candidates, through…

Discussions of school and teacher quality now occur regularly in the United States: The ways in which teachers are licensed and assessed are frequently subjects of heated debates. Most concepts of teacher and school effectiveness focus narrowly on educators' subject area proficiency and students' performance on high-stakes assessments. Missing in…

Although they have their differences, educational practitioners and academic researchers largely agree on a broad goal: to develop in students the kinds of thinking skills that will prepare them to contribute to a democratic society. But the two groups largely speak different languages. While educators frequently talk about critical thinking as an…

The article discusses a multiple literacies and traditional approach to literacy by drawing on the experiences of 2 African American young women in a high school English classroom. The article suggests that teachers who use a more traditional approach to literacy are more apt to view students of color as powerless, failing, struggling, and/or…