The 10 most-cited articles in American Educational Research Journal, 2019

The African American Policy Forum and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies states, “The risks that Black and other girls of color confront rarely receive the full attention of researchers, advocates, policymakers, and funders.” The limited awareness of the challenges that Black girls face perpetuates the mischaracterization of their attitudes, abilities, and achievement. Thus, school becomes an inhospitable place where Black girls receive mixed messages about femininity and goodness and are held to unreasonable standards. This study explores how Black girls describe and understand their school experiences as racialized and gendered and the ways a conversation space allows Black girls’ meaning making about and critical examination of individual and collective schooling experiences.

We estimate male-female test score gaps in math and English language arts (ELA) for nearly 10,000 U.S. school districts using state accountability data from third- through eighth-grade students in the 2008–2009 through 2015–2016 school years. We find that the average U.S. school district has no gender achievement gap in math, but there is a gap of roughly 0.23 standard deviations in ELA that favors girls. Both math and ELA gaps vary among school districts; some districts have more male-favoring gaps and some more female-favoring gaps. Math gaps tend to favor males more in socioeconomically advantaged school districts and in districts with larger gender disparities in adult income, education, and occupations; however, we do not find strong associations in ELA.

This article addresses the gap between what works in research and what works in practice. Currently, research in evidence-based education policy and practice focuses on randomized controlled trials. These can support causal ascriptions (“It worked”) but provide little basis for local effectiveness predictions (“It will work here”), which are what matter for practice. We argue that moving from ascription to prediction by way of causal generalization (“It works”) is unrealistic and urge focusing research efforts directly on how to build local effectiveness predictions. We outline various kinds of information that can improve predictions and encourage using methods better equipped for acquiring that information. We compare our proposal with others advocating a better mix of methods, like implementation science, improvement science, and practice-based evidence.

Schools differentially sort students into special education by race, though researchers debate the extent to which this is caused by racist school practices versus variation in student need due to other racial inequalities. I test the interaction between school-level racial composition and student-level race as a predictor of special education receipt. I find that as the proportion of White students increases, the risk of lower-status disabilities, such as intellectual disability, increases for Black, Latinx, and Native American students. As the proportion of White students decreases, White students’ risk of higher-status disabilities, such as speech/language impairment, increases relative to students of color. Thus, in the context of racial distinctiveness, student race becomes salient to sorting into special education.

This study examined the associations among racial identity beliefs (centrality and public regard), racial discrimination, and academic engagement outcomes among 1,659 African American adolescents across two demographically distinct school districts, one predominantly Black, working class ( n = 1,100) and one predominantly White, middle class ( n = 559). Across these districts, the youths reported that race was a central aspect of their identity and demonstrated varying levels of public regard. Racial discrimination was negatively associated with academic curiosity and persistence, but this effect was moderated by gender and racial identity. Our findings demonstrate the harmful influence of discrimination on the academic engagement of African American adolescents and the protective roles of racial identity beliefs across gender and school racial contexts.

This article reports an investigation of a professional development program to enhance elementary teachers’ ability to engage their students in argument from evidence in science. Using a quasi-experimental approach, three versions were compared: Version A—a 1-week summer institute with a 2-week summer practicum experience and 8 follow-up days (four per year), Version B without the practicum experience, and Version C—a revision of Version A in Year 3. All teachers were videoed twice each year, and the videos were rated using an instrument to measure the quality of discourse. All versions led to a significant improvement in teachers’ facilitation of classroom discourse. Neither the practicum nor the revised program had an additional effect. Implications for the field are discussed.

In response to growing concerns about the impact of harsh immigration enforcement policy since the 2016 presidential campaign, we examined its overall impact on the nation’s schools, using survey data completed by over 3,600 educators across the country. Our study results show that immigration enforcement is affecting all students—both those from immigrant homes and those that are not. In particular, Title I schools are the most affected by immigration enforcement. Our results also show that the higher the percentage of White students, the more educators reported immigrant students being exposed to a hostile, anti-immigrant environment. We conclude that the current policy of immigration enforcement significantly dismantles an equitable education for all students and creates a critical threat to their futures.

Compared with admissions test scores, why are high school grades better at predicting college graduation? We argue that success in college requires not only cognitive ability but also self-regulatory competencies that are better indexed by high school grades. In a national sample of 47,303 students who applied to college for the 2009/2010 academic year, Study 1 affirmed that high school grades out-predicted test scores for 4-year college graduation. In a convenience sample of 1,622 high school seniors in the Class of 2013, Study 2 revealed that the incremental predictive validity of high school grades for college graduation was explained by composite measures of self-regulation, whereas the incremental predictive validity of test scores was explained by composite measures of cognitive ability.

Arguments for social justice teacher education and arguments for practice-based teacher education are often seen as incongruous. Drawing on sociocultural theory and theories of justice, our study interrogates this underresearched assumption. We conducted video analyses of teacher education coursework and novice teachers’ K–6 classroom instruction, together with novices’ written reflections on videos. Data were collected during a university-based, accelerated teacher credentialing program. Analyses of videos of teacher education coursework revealed that while teacher educators frequently represented, decomposed, and approximated teaching practice, they rarely did so when discussing social justice issues. In a mirror-image finding, analyses of videos of (and reflections on) novices’ subsequent K–6 teaching revealed that novices rarely identified instructional decisions during which they attended to social justice issues.

This longitudinal case study utilizes critical race theory methodology to chronicle the journey of an African American female in science teacher education. The study looks at her educational history first as a young child and then how she navigates a contested, racialized predominantly White teacher education program, grows and develops in science education, and secures her first full-time teaching appointment as an elementary teacher. The implications for practice in both teacher education and science education show that educational and emotional support for teachers of color throughout their educational and professional journey is imperative to increasing and sustaining Black teachers. In addition, intersectionality foregrounds and adds to the complexity of understanding race, racism, and science in teacher education.