Explore the vast range of titles available.

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.

Through this article, the author provides a reflection on the role of positionality in research, following the completion of a qualitative research project. Through the research project, the White researcher sought to explore the ways in which students of color experience a predominantly White university. Drawing on literature and findings from the research project, the author highlights potential challenges and opportunities of being cognizant of one’s positionality. These reflections illustrate the significance of positionality and serve as a reminder of its potential effects on the research process, as well as on participants and the researcher. The manuscript concludes with recommendations for researchers to carefully consider the potential influence of their positionality in any research setting.

Low rates of student persistence and degree completion are a major concern of colleges and universities across the United States. It is therefore important for higher education researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to better understand how to maximize the success of higher education's increasingly diverse undergraduate populations. This article's investigation aims to increase knowledge of how campus environments shape students' sense of belonging in college. The article will briefly discuss the evolution of scholarly theory and discourse on college student success. Next, provide a synthesis of existing literature on the impact of campus environments on sense of belonging in college. Then, offer an overview of the Culturally Engaging Campus Environments (CECE) Model of college success, which seeks to explain the ways in which particular aspects of institutional environments influence sense of belonging and other important student outcomes in postsecondary education. In the remainder of the article, focus on the analyses of the relationship between culturally engaging campus environments and sense of belonging in college will be presented.

Given the theorized importance of college belonging for academic success, we conducted a scoping review of studies examining relationships between sense of belonging and academic achievement and persistence for postsecondary students. In our scoping review, we included 69 reports (78 unique samples) published between 2003 and 2023. We observed an unexpected level of heterogeneity among the associations between belonging and academic outcomes (GPA, persistence, and intent to persist); most associations were positive but small with several small, negative associations. Across a few studies, there was a pattern of larger associations between belonging and academic achievement for marginalized college students, such as racially/ethnically minoritized students (compared to students in the racial majority) or women (compared to men) in historically exclusionary settings such as STEM disciplines. We identified gaps in the literature reflecting underreporting of student identities, including but not limited to gender identity, sexual identity, social class, religious identity, disability status, and first-generation status, in sample characteristics and a lack of attention to contextual factors, such as the type of institution (e.g., predominantly White institutions, community colleges, minority-serving institutions). In all, our findings provide an updated mapping of the literature, pointing to a much-needed refinement for how individual and institutional factors may moderate the associations between belonging and academic outcomes in postsecondary settings.

Through a narrative inquiry study, we sought to understand how 12 student affairs professionals (SAPs) experienced whiteness and perceived the influence of whiteness on campus responses to racialized incidents. We used components of critical whiteness studies (CWS) and critical race theory (CRT) as a theoretical underpinning to disrupt the dominant narratives that center whiteness in practices, policies, and spaces at predominantly white institutions. We used a critical resistance analysis (CRA) process to demonstrate how SAPs' narratives served as counternarratives, antenarratives, and resistance to institutional actors who refuse to acknowledge and name racism. Our findings illuminate whiteness as a racial ideology shedding light on the way whiteness is normalized, advantaged by the dominant group, and perpetuated through color evasive and race-neutral responses to racialized incidents. Several implications related to this work are described as there is a need to openly name racialized incidents that occur on campus and create safe spaces for SAPs of Color and Students of Color. Additional recommendations for theory and future research are offered.

This study provides a qualitative analysis of how local policy actors in a predominantly White suburban school district engaged in collective decision-making regarding elementary school attendance boundaries. Given the long-standing neighborhood segregation caused by housing policies and practices since the city’s inception, Riverside policy actors faced two competing options: maintaining the neighborhood school concept or addressing equity issues arising from the imbalanced distribution of students by income and racial groups. Utilizing critical policy analysis (CPA) and critical geography perspectives, the study found that while some community members and members of the rezoning committee challenged race-neutral approaches that influenced the decision-making process, the majority of policy actors ignored the existing spatial segregation. Instead, they positioned their decision-making as neutral and prioritized bureaucratic rationality. The implications for policy actors and future research are discussed.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the influence of school principals’ effective communication and teachers’ trust in principals on schools’ organisational mindfulness from the perspective of public school teachers in Kuwait. Design/methodology/approach The study used a cross-sectional research design. A quantitative survey questionnaire was electronically sent to public school teachers in Kuwait. The final sample size consisted of 641 teachers. Findings The teachers exhibited a moderate level of school principal effective communication and organisational mindfulness, in addition to higher levels of school principal trust. Multiple regression analysis results revealed that schools’ organisational mindfulness was significantly related to the teacher’s trust in school principals’ and their effective communication. Research limitations/implications This study used quantitative data from a survey of public school teachers in Kuwait in a given period. Practical implications The findings indicate that the school principal’s communication and teachers’ trust in the principal are critical for creating a mindful and high-quality school culture. Thus, policymakers should empower principals to prioritise mindfulness in creating a positive and supportive school environment. Originality/value The study contributes to the understanding of the influence of leadership aspects on organisational mindfulness in schools. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the impact of school principals’ practices on the quality of school organisations in Kuwait’s centralised educational system. This will pave the way for further research in the field.

Educational scholarship has called attention to the disproportionate ways Black males are disciplined in schools, which has become the catalyst to their entry into the school-to-prison pipeline through which they are funneled from K-12 classrooms into the criminal justice system. Since the majority of teachers are White, it may be insightful to examine the role that they play in the process and how teachers also influence White children’s perceptions of Black boys. Drawing from Lortie’s ( 1975/2002 ) notion of the apprenticeship of observation in teaching, I contend that White children learn how to dehumanize Black male students, particularly as they observe how their White teachers disproportionately target them for minor and subjective school disciplinary infractions. Recommendations are provided for teacher education to prepare teachers to dismantle disproportionate and unfair ways that Black boys are disciplined.

This paper analyzes the campus ecology (Renn, 2003, 2004) literature from the perspective of Critical Whiteness specifically problematizing perceptions of safety and inclusion on the college campus. Relying upon Sullivan’s (2006) ontological expansiveness, Mills’s (1997) epistemology of ignorance, and Leonardo and Porter’s (2010) Fanonian interpretation of racial safety, we argue that there is too high a premium placed on social comfort during the undergraduate experience which actually leaves White students at predominantly White institutions in perpetual states of racial arrested development. We conclude that intentional, targeted racial dissonance is necessary for both White students to develop their racial selves while concurrently being aware of the ugly realities of contemporary racism.