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The purpose of our research was to identify challenges middle grades educators face as they strive to disrupt for justice in their predominantly white schools/districts. Developmentally and culturally responsive education for all middle grades students calls on educators to embrace justice-oriented teaching. Yet middle grades teachers attempting to disrupt unjust practices and policies are often met with significant challenges that can undermine their efforts. Research illustrating these challenges could help justice-oriented middle grades teachers and leaders prepare for and proactively address these challenges. This article draws on the experiences of a group of middle grades educators to illustrate the numerous challenges they faced while leading and engaging in justice-oriented initiatives in the predominantly white state of Vermont. We describe four categories of challenges faced by the group: (a) institutional challenges; (b) interpersonal challenges; (c) pedagogic challenges; and (d) inner challenges. Drawn from the findings, we offer implications for justice-oriented middle grades teachers, administrators, and teacher educators.

To inform equity-oriented and responsive middle grades teacher education, the current article is a qualitative study of the lived experiences of middle grades teacher candidates enacting critical consciousness in their first semester in a two-year equity-oriented middle grades teacher preparation program. Equity-oriented and responsive middle grades teacher education is defined as professional learning for middle grades preservice and inservice teachers that advances their development of critical consciousness, develops their capacity, knowledge, and skills as culturally and developmentally responsive teachers of young adolescents, and attends to their cultural and historical locations, pedagogical needs, interests, and concerns. Using a phenomenological research tradition and theories of critical consciousness and culturally relevant pedagogies, researchers closely examined 20 participants’ narratives and annotated reflections on how they “read the world” as perceived through the lenses of their cultural and historical locations and their descriptions of their experiences with critical incidents of perceived injustice as documented in Justice Journals. Two major themes emerged in participants’ data regarding their lived experiences of engaging in critical consciousness: (1) noticing and commenting on systems of oppression and (2) describing responses and strategies in connection to instances and patterns of injustice. Within the theme of noticing and commenting on systems of oppression, three sub-themes included (a) gender socialization, (b) classism, and (c) racism. Within the theme of describing responses and strategies in connection to instances and patterns of injustice, analysis revealed four sub themes: (a) responding to discomfort, (b) critiquing/distancing, (c) stopping, and (d) feeling blessed. These themes and sub-themes represent teacher candidates’ lived experiences of engaging in critical consciousness, primarily focused on critical awareness, critical reflection, and critical analysis. Implications for developing equity-oriented and responsive middle grades teacher education are provided.

Preparing middle level teacher candidates to articulate a rationale for and successfully enact a variety of effective, developmentally responsive instructional strategies requires purposefully designed teacher education experiences. Recent teacher preparation research suggests that pedagogical approaches from practice-based teacher education and a curricular focus on the science of learning may support teacher candidate uptake of these instructional decision-making skills. Using a quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design, this study examined learning outcomes of teacher candidates in a redesigned undergraduate middle level preparation program who were taught the science of learning through increasingly complex pedagogies of enactment. Results indicated that participants' capacity for understanding and applying science of learning principles increased during the intervention. Detailed examples illustrating one teacher educator's use of representations, decomposition, and approximations to teach science of learning applications to middle level teacher candidates are included. Multiple recommendations for further research in the field of middle grades teacher preparation are also discussed.

A multiple case study was conducted to investigate how Lego robotics instruction incorporated into a middle grades mathematics methods course could inform pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) TPACK through the lens of Social Constructivist Theory. The qualitative data analysis revealed that when instruction on Lego robotics technology is integrated into semester long mathematics methods courses, PSTs are able to improve their TPACK knowledge in regard to the robotics. Overall, the findings suggest instruction of educational technology tools should be incorporated into methods courses over a longer duration of time, and in depth, to better support the development of PSTs’ TPACK. To meet the demands of the teacher shortages while simultaneously supporting the needs of school districts, this research provides preliminary evidence of the need to incorporate content-specific technology into all methods courses.

In an effort to advance the middle school movement, this paper examines the research trends from three organizations that support middle grades educational innovation, assessment, and research: The Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Educational Testing Service, and the Institute of Education Sciences. Using an instrumental, multiple case study design, trends within and across these organizations regarding research on middle grades education were identified. We found trends across these organizations that reveal the following: They privilege quantitative methodologies; the research topics examined are limited in focus; and the end-result for much of their work results in exclusive products for sale. Further, each of these organizations has deep pockets that provide significant funds for their research projects and products.

Universities engage students in traditional service-learning projects that often yield “good feelings”, even a savior mentality, but typically leave the root causes of social justice issues unexamined and untouched. In contrast to traditional service-learning, critical service-learning bridges this gap with an explicit focus on justice and equity, situating scholars’ work with the community rather than for it. A public university in the southeast offered a doctoral course that focused on critical service-learning in the context of a professional development school partnership. Designed as an ethnographic multi-case study, each graduate student in the on-site course represents a case. Data collection included interviews, observations, written reflections, and artefacts. The analysis revealed that developing critical service-learning projects with educators—rather than for them—supported participants’ critical consciousness. Findings and discussion highlight that facilitating community-engaged scholarship through critical service-learning impacts graduate students and middle-grades educators’ research interests, work, and future directions.

English-language learning in rural Taiwan has been targeted by government policy for two decades, yet little research has investigated students' motivation and support in these rural communities. This study investigated the effects of students' gender, grade, parental support (PS), and teacher support (TS) on their English learning motivation (ELM) in Taiwan's rural middle-level schools. A quantitative survey approach was used in this study. Seven hundred and fifty-four questionnaires were delivered to the students in 12 rural middle-level schools. The collected data were analyzed by using the t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlation, and multiple-regression methods. Females reported higher ELM, PS, and TS than their male counterparts. Seventh-grade students reported higher ELM, PS, and TS than eighth- and ninth-grade students. PS and TS were significantly correlated to ELM. Appraisal support of teachers was the most relevant predictor for value, emotion, and willingness to execute factors of ELM. Programs and policies to improve ELM in rural schools are suggested.

Teacher self-efficacy is an important contributor to student outcomes, school climate and teacher retention. Outcome expectancy, a construct studied more commonly in health- and behaviour-related fields, may also positively impact school-related outcomes. Research shows that professional development can increase teacher confidence, but few studies have considered this connection for science-focused professional development, specifically. Our study assesses the impact of a science-focused, mystery-based professional development workshop for upper-elementary to high-school teachers. The hands-on, collaborative nature of this workshop allowed for generalisability to classrooms of various ability levels. Using the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument-A (STEBI-A) as a measure of science-teaching self-efficacy and outcome expectancy, we found that participants’ self-reported self-efficacy and outcome expectancy significantly increased (p < .001 for each) over the course of the two-week workshop. This outcome is especially relevant to schools and districts interested in improving student outcomes, school climate and teacher retention rates.

Many middle level teacher education programs attempt to explicitly address goals such as developmental responsiveness, empowerment and equity. Over the past 3 years, faculty at a regional comprehensive university explored perceptions of professional growth among middle level teacher candidates in a program that attempts to meet these aspirations. Analysis of reflective essays written in response to course assignments have documented ways that participants expressed views of themselves as teachers who reflected the values emphasized during professional courses and internships. Reflecting on internships provided opportunities for participants to analyze classroom experiences using these values as lenses, questioning themselves at times and affirming their values with concrete examples at other times. Insights from this study have guided faculty in designing a developmental framework that scaffolds teacher learning more precisely. Examples from student work provide illustrations of one candidate's learning trajectory.

As the COVID-19 pandemic upended the 2019–2020 school year, education systems scrambled to meet the needs of students and families with little available data on how school closures may impact learning. In this study, we produced a series of projections of COVID-19-related learning loss based on (a) estimates from absenteeism literature and (b) analyses of summer learning patterns of 5 million students. Under our projections, returning students are expected to start fall 2020 with approximately 63 to 68% of the learning gains in reading and 37 to 50% of the learning gains in mathematics relative to a typical school year. However, we project that losing ground during the school closures was not universal, with the top third of students potentially making gains in reading.