ABSTRACT: The study examines how the Greater El Paso Football Showcase (GEPFS) aims to help Latinx high school football players get exposure to college athletic programs. Using archival and publicly available data, we analyzed websites, online newspapers, and archival resources. Our themes included: Development of the Greater El Paso Football Showcase (GEPFS), the GEPFS Structure, and The Steven Montez Story. Through this study, the authors offer implications for academic and athletic stakeholders working with Latinx students in high school and higher education.
ABSTRACT: To date, no research has explored how high school athletes leverage social media while they are recruits, investigating which platforms these athletes use and possible gender differences. As a result, this mixed methods content analysis engaged with major recruitment rankings systems across six major sports (fall sports: football, women’s volleyball), (winter sports: men’s and women’s basketball) and spring sports (men’s baseball and women’s softball) to explore how each sport’s top ten recruits use social media. To identify this study’s sample, we engaged with several authoritative recruit rankings systems (ESPN, etc.) to determine the top ten recruits in the Class of 2024 in each sport, ensuring gender equity by including both men’s and women’s recruits. Results suggest Twitter (X) and Instagram were the most popular platforms across all genders and sports, with men athletes using these platforms at a higher rate and enjoying higher levels of engagement than women. Contradicting prior social media research, this study also finds that highly ranked high school athletes did not use YouTube and TikTok nearly as much as broader market research would suggest, possibly highlighting the differences between Generation Z social media consumption and creation. Implications for research, policy, practice, and youth advocacy are addressed.
ABSTRACT: Since the passing of Title IX as a component of the Education Amendments of 1972, opportunities for girls and women to participate in athletics have increased. In fact, among interscholastic athletics participants in the United States, girls comprise nearly 45% of total participants. Among coaching and administrative positions, however, interscholastic athletics remains a distinctly male-dominated institutional setting. Within this setting, aspiring female interscholastic athletic directors (FIADs) face numerous challenges and barriers navigating the male-dominated field. Such challenges inherently question the role of women in interscholastic athletics leadership while marginalizing their capabilities and qualifications as compared to their male counterparts. Seeking to enable and embolden women in interscholastic athletics leadership, this study sought to examine the perceptions of FIADs currently serving in positions of leadership in interscholastic athletics. Thirteen ( n = 13) FIADs shared their experiences and discussed how they overcame the male-dominated and insulated setting of interscholastic athletics administration to achieve the leadership positions they currently hold.
ABSTRACT: During high school, many adolescents experience various academic, behavioral, and social-emotional challenges, which may all contribute to student dropout rates. To address this growing concern, research suggests dropout prevention efforts should target alterable classroom-level variables such as student engagement. One of the most efficient and effective methods for improving student engagement is the implementation of evidence-based classroom management practices, such as increasing students’ opportunities to respond (OTR). Using a single-case, multiple baseline design across two teacher participants, we investigated the effects of multilevel professional development and coaching support provided by a school-based coach on two high school teachers’ implementation of OTR during teacher-directed instruction. Results showed teachers improved implementation fidelity but failed to achieve the required rates of OTR. Additionally, when teachers improved implementation fidelity, students also demonstrated increases in active student responding.
ABSTRACT: This in-depth study focuses on the content of and students’ perceptions of and experiences with career guidance in secondary education in the Netherlands. We address (1) students’ experiences with five career guidance activities, using semi-structured interviews with 112 students, and (2) students’ perceptions of career guidance, using 817 student questionnaires. Results show that student conversations with school counselors and tutors about career guidance mainly involved grades or teacher recommendations. Almost all participants stated they acted on these suggestions by selecting subjects for upper secondary education in line with their grades. At least half of the students found career guiding activities such as sample classes, subject-information sessions, and in-classroom information from school counselors useful. Fewer students considered subject recommendations to be useful. On average, students were neutral to slightly positive regarding the helpfulness of such guidance. We advise schools to develop a shared vision and policy on career guidance, as large differences in students’ experiences and perceptions were found.
ABSTRACT: Empirical research has demonstrated that high school student-athletes of different gender identities experience coaching differently, and, thus, have different perspectives toward the overall effectiveness of their coaches. However, no studies of large datasets have explored how high school student-athletes within different gendered sports perceive coaching quality and what coaching characteristics contribute most to student-athlete perceptions of overall coaching quality. As a result, this study leverages state-level survey data (Illinois) across a sample of 4,563 high school student-athletes to explore how these student-athletes from different gendered sports perceive coaching quality. Results suggest gendered sports significantly predict coaching satisfaction, with co-ed student-athletes expressing the highest degree of coaching satisfaction ( p < 0.000). Coaching characteristics including whether a coach makes a sport fun and a coach’s ability to teach proper technique were strongly associated with student-athlete perception of coaching across all gendered sports. However, certain coaching characteristics were only significant among specific gendered sports, suggesting that playing a gendered sport may influence a student-athlete’s perception of their coach. We close with implications for research, policy, and the administration and coaching of interscholastic athletics.
ABSTRACT: This case study investigates the experiences of high school students of color as they return to in-person schooling during the 2021–22 school year amid COVID-19, aiming to fill the gap in literature on students’ returning processes. By conducting multiple in-depth interviews with student participants, we incorporate youth voices that are largely missing in existing research. Using the concept of situated agency , we showcase the two sides of these students’ experiences: The nuanced challenges they faced because of their intersecting marginalizing identities and their strong resilience and agency as they navigate their return to school. The findings underscore the need for educational policies and practices that are sensitive to the complexities of student experiences, advocating for supports that recognize and address the diverse challenges faced by students of color in the pandemic’s aftermath and prepare for similar school interruptions in the future.
Abstract: This study uses qualitative storytelling methodology to explore the culturally responsive practices of five educators in Hawai‘i who are instructional, school, and community leaders. Part of a larger study on a place-based resilience and sustainability graduate certificate program at The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, more broadly, we trace how their experiences as kumu both shape the program and are shaped by it. Their expertise and practices provide actionable examples of how responsive educational approaches, rooted in cultural practice, place, and community, can transform educational experiences for historically marginalized students and communities.
Abstract: Security personnel are in most public high schools nationwide, a presence that has increased over the last several decades. While prior research has extensively studied the role of sworn school-based law enforcement, less work has examined the roles and responsibilities of non-sworn school security guards. Drawing on a national sample of school security guard job advertisements, this study leverages role and signaling theory to examine their articulated responsibilities and expectations. Descriptive analysis of job characteristics and qualifications along with content analysis of job descriptions reveals that security guards are expected to maintain safety through a security-oriented set of responsibilities. Security guards are often expected to engage in high-stakes situations—involving emergency response, student discipline, and interfacing with law enforcement—despite requiring relatively little formal educational or job-specific training. The findings are interpreted against a backdrop of prior literature and policy action that suggests a desire for school safety enhancements but a concern about the unintended criminalization of students.
Abstract: This article details the critical issue of teacher burnout, emphasizing the need for systemic reforms to support teacher well-being and effectiveness. Identifying factors such as increased job demands, frequent classroom disruptions, and limited teacher autonomy, the article details the negative impact of burnout on teachers’ emotional capacity, professional commitment, and, ultimately, student learning. Using personal experiences, observations, and scholarly research, this exploration argues for a holistic approach to helping teachers rebound from burnout, emphasizing the necessity of research-backed coping strategies, ongoing mentorship, workload reductions, and administrative support. The article provides a conceptual understanding of burnout, reflections on how school policies impact teacher wellness, and research-backed strategies for sustainable change. By arguing for a paradigm shift that changes how schools view and support their teachers, this discussion emphasizes that teacher well-being and development are essential for student success. Schools, administrators, teachers, and policymakers must embrace and enact systemic changes that ensure teachers thrive in their roles, enriching the learning experience for all students.
Abstract: This ethnographically-informed study observed a youth research team in collaboration with district leaders and university researchers to inform their school district’s school improvement plans. When creating school change initiatives and educational policies in the United States, community members, including youth, rarely give input (Lac & Mansfield, 2018), even though students are highly knowledgeable about school experiences and are most affected by those initiatives and policies. With an epistemology of culturally responsive leadership and youth participatory action research (YPAR), this school district's Assessment, Research, and Evaluation department initiated a 9-week summer program for high schoolers to research and advocate for their schools and communities. In our study, we focus on the roles and strategies of adults (sometimes big sisters or "aunties") who honored the lived experiences of youth researchers and mentored them throughout a data gathering and analysis process to impact school change. We use Ella Baker's approach to organizing to better understand how group-centered leadership and social justice networking were integral to this work.
Abstract: School safety could be a meaningful cause of educational opportunity gaps if racially minoritized and historically marginalized students are more likely to feel unsafe in school than their White peers. Feeling unsafe can be a product of attending dangerous schools and discrimination within school. This study explores the extent to which high school students from disaggregated Asian American Pacific Islander and Hispanic/Latine ethnoracial identities feel more or less safe at school than White students and potential explanations for differences in feelings of safety. We do so through decomposition using two nationally representative data sets of high school students who were in 10th grade in 2002 and 9th grade in 2009. We find Southeast Asian and Puerto Rican students in both years felt less safe than White students, with Puerto Rican students being over twice as likely to feel unsafe compared to White students. Differences in feelings of safety were often explained by school, particularly for Filipino students, as well as language spoken at home, student reports of racial/ethnic fighting at school, and some indicators of school connectedness. Implications for future research disaggregating data by ethnoracial identity are discussed.
Abstract: Schools can serve as sites for LGBTQ+ support (e.g., LGBTQ+ inclusive pedagogy and curricula) and as sites for LGBTQ+ stigmatization (e.g., “don’t say gay” laws). The reality of LGBTQ+ precarity, especially among LGBTQ+ youth who face additional barriers—including students of color, youth who are disabled, and/or live in rural or conservative school districts—necessitates what the authors conceptualize as a critically inclusive vision of leadership. Building on our critical inclusion framework and informed by literature related to culturally responsive leadership, queer leadership, and LGBTQ+ belonging, we aim to illustrate how a sense of precarity among LGBTQ+ students can be transformed into a sense of belonging through the adoption of five critically inclusive leadership dispositions: the introspector, the humanizer, the critic, the advocate, and the historian. By embodying these dispositions, we argue that educators can effectively support LGBTQ+ students and actively create more justice-oriented, affirming environments. Additionally, we explore the practical implications of embracing these dispositions while acknowledging the associated challenges and limitations.
Abstract: Rigorous school curriculums and end-of-course exams have brought the need for literacy interventions at the high school level to the forefront. However, implementation of literacy interventions at the secondary level is often overlooked due to the assumption that students have mastered reading comprehension in elementary school. The current quantitative investigation focuses on implementing evidence-based literacy interventions at an Ohio-designated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics high school. The current study aims to determine the overall relationship of the following literacy interventions and reading levels: leveled texts and scaffolded grade-level texts, explicit morphology and vocabulary instruction, and Fountas’ and Pinnell’s Level Learning Literacy Intervention. Quantitative data suggest that students grew an average of three to five reading levels over a multi-year study when receiving literacy interventions in their high school English, history, math, and science courses.
Abstract: This qualitative study investigates the skills, practices and dispositions that 18 experienced superintendents perceive as impactful to their longevity and success. In addition, superintendents were asked about what decisions, if any, they had made regarding the academic performance of students of color in their district. Superintendents described strategies that have led to success for students of color in their districts. This study provides district perspectives for high school principals to consider as they grapple with how best to respond to the unique needs of their students, in general and their students of color, in particular.
