To better understand the critical early years of teaching and teacher identity development, this study explored the mathematics teacher identity of two early career middle school mathematics teachers and the influence of their working communities on its development. Emel and Berk graduated from the same reform-oriented teacher education program…

Reading interest serves as an inherent driving force for children's reading. Current research shows that family cultural capital, school reading environment, and community reading culture all influence children's reading interests. According to the "family-school-community" collaborative education model, families, schools and communities…

This study investigates the implications of engaging plurilingual children in creative multilingual placemaking practices on their language awareness and sense of belonging. Children participated in carefully designed class activities, engaging in tasks focused on reflecting on their own identities, the community's, and the neighbourhood's,…

This case study examines how relationships with staff in a GEAR-UP (Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs) pre-college program positively influenced the college-going aspirations of Black ninth-grade students. Critical Race Theory and Possible Selves provide an intersecting analytical framework for understanding the…

The purpose of this study was to explore the potential moderating role of perceived social support (school personnel, friends) and gender in the association between distinct psychopathic traits (callous-unemotional traits, narcissism, impulsivity) with bullying and victimization among 1442 Greek speaking early adolescents. Results suggested that…

Despite seven decades of policies aimed to equalize the educational inequities and social injustices experienced by people of color, the inequities and injustices still remain. Through qualitative case study and portraiture methodologies, this study examined how a multi-level social network of families, educators, and community members engaged…

The opioid crisis is widely recognized as one of the most important public health emergencies of our time, and an issue that is particularly acute for rural communities. We propose a simple model of how opioids in a community can impact the education outcomes of children based on both the extent of exposure to opioids in the community and the…

This single site case study examined influences on student success, as perceived by twelve selected sixth grade students (ages 11-12), at a mid-West U.S. middle school (grades 6-8). Using a strengths-based positivist approach, it examined how and why participants thought they had been academically successful during their first year of secondary…

Is public housing bad for children? Critics charge that public housing projects concentrate poverty and create neighborhoods with limited opportunities, including low-quality schools. However, whether the net effect is positive or negative is theoretically ambiguous and likely to depend on the characteristics of the neighborhood and schools…

This study was a narrative inquiry that investigated middle school students' experiences with an informal writing group. The six primary participants were members of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMO). During the month of November, each of the primary participants set a word count goal and composed a novel. Participants met together at group…

To enhance understanding of factors that might improve STEM career participation, we assessed students' self-perceptions of competency and interest in science/math, engagement in STEM activities outside of school, and knowledge of STEM career requirements. We show that the primary positive influencer directing students to a STEM career is high…

This study investigates how a group of Mexican immigrant children in the United States made sense of engaging in school and school mathematics. The research focused on a population of Latino/a middle school students who were a distinct minority, building a model that shows how a complex set of cognitive, sociocultural, and institutional factors…

This study examines the relationship between peer, family, and community context risk factors and alcohol use; gender is examined as a potential moderator of these relationships. Hierarchical logistic regressions conducted in a sample of 781 seventh grade students found that normative beliefs about peers' alcohol use emerged as the most consistent…

Data from the spring 2010 Minnesota student survey were analyzed in order to quantify the risk for suicide ideation as a function of bullying variability. Other factors available from the survey included alcohol and other drug use, within-family violence and abuse, mental health symptoms. In addition, a factor analysis revealed a protective…

This study tested a social-ecological model of adolescent substance use. Multilevel modeling was used to investigate how systems, such as parents, peers, schools, and communities, directly influence and interact together to influence adolescent substance use. Participants included 14,548 (50.3% female) middle school students who were 78.6% White,…