Grounded in the traditions of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) and Hip-Hop culture, Cyphers for Justice (CFJ) youth work alongside college students (undergraduate and graduate), professors, and community-based teaching artists to conduct research and present their findings on relevant social issues. As a critical approach that privileges…

Although schools themselves cannot address resegregation, they can mitigate some of the detrimental effects of racial inequalities. Students of color internalize racial inequalities in educational environments at critical times in their identity formation. This internalization can lead to attitudes and behaviors that contribute to academic…

Background: Expanding opportunities to experience engaging STEM educational programs is an important pathway to increasing students' interest and competencies in STEM and, ultimately, motivation to pursue STEM careers. After-school programs offer one means to achieve this aim, but barriers such as a lack of transportation or available teachers may…

Studies of embodied cognition offer powerful accounts of the semiotic resources people use as they think together within different domains. Yet this research does not typically foreground the history of relationships within focal interactions--a history we have found to be consequential to the ways embodied actions unfold. Through ethnographic and…

Out-of-school time (OST) programs in affordable housing communities address some of the persistent issues with OST participation among low-income families. The author conducted research on affordable housing organizations, including her own, that provide OST programs. She aimed to identify similarities and differences between these programs and…

This mixed-methods study examined how ten- to twelve-year-old children experienced and made sense of their growing climate change awareness through an after-school program that used participatory methods to facilitate children's informed climate change action. The fifteen-week program combined hands-on educational activities with digital…

Despite generous funding, the current data shows slow-moving demographical changes in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields, and little to no slowing in the decline of STEM-associated career interests in underserved communities (Leeker, Maxey, Cardella & Hynes, 2019). While a considerable amount has been written about the…

This descriptive study explored the relationship between sustained attendance in high-quality 21st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC)-- funded programs and key child outcomes. The key hypothesis was that high-quality programming is associated with the development of social and emotional skills, which in turn may be related to academic…

The Utah State Board of Education Child Nutrition Programs (CNP) administers several federal food programs and sub programs, appropriated under United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and administered by Food and Nutrition Services (FNS). The federal food programs are primarily designed to ensure sponsors have the necessary knowledge and…

According to the authors, we live in a society that is deeply influenced by technology, and social studies classrooms are ideal places for students to conduct inquiries into timely and relevant technological issues. In this article, the authors describe an approach that can be used across many situations to teach students to think critically about…

The $189.5 billion Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) Fund was authorized by Congress to help address the urgent needs of schools brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the first years of COVID-19, ESSER funding was critical to helping schools quickly and safely reopen and sustain in-person instruction. Three years later,…

Intentionally designed afterschool and summer programs can benefit students' social-emotional skills, accelerate their learning, and even increase their school attendance during the school year. This infographic touches on the value of these programs, possible barriers that might limit access to students, and states with innovative models.

Background: This study builds on posthumanist and new materialist orientations to examine the role of material properties and the gendered identity texts of educational tools as active agents in STEM learning. Methods: Over 200 youth, ages 5-15, were randomly assigned to 90-minute introductions to one of five commercial circuitry toolkits. Youth…

Through ethnographic fieldwork and sociological theory drawing from French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this article describes possibilities and restrictions for Chinese language education for Chinese-diasporic youth in the San Francisco area, 50 years after "Lau v. Nichols." I examine four sites of this education, all of which serve…

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate students' perceptions of their personal and social responsibility skills during and following an eight-week physical activity (PA) afterschool program (ASP) focused on social-emotional learning (SEL) competencies. Specifically, student knowledge of SEL competencies and general PA attitudes…