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Authored by a university researcher, school practitioner, and high school student, this article examines how independent schools can utilize participatory action research (PAR) to bolster diversity and inclusion efforts. A case study approach was taken to showcase a two-year PAR project at a progressive independent school that sought to: (a) enrich institutional knowledge of student diversity, (b) capture the present-day schooling experiences of historically marginalized students in independent school settings, and (c) develop a dynamic action plan to ameliorate school issues that emerged through the PAR inquiry process. Committed to institutional research that informs school policy and practice, we argue that PAR provides a rigorous, student-centered, and democratic model for independent school reform.

Many elite schools proclaim a commitment to racial and other aspects of student diversity and inclusion. Pursuing this commitment is highly complex and contentious given the traditions of exclusion elite schools are founded upon. This paper examines some of these contentions drawing on research conducted at Cherry Tree Academy, an elite pre-K-12 school situated in the USA. Interviews and observations with faculty and students revealed contentions related to race at the school. Diversity efforts were considered synonymous with addressing the needs of Black students and produced expressions of apathy and victimhood from majority White students. Such racial contentions are examined in relation to the concepts of meritocracy and social justice. Examining these contentions remains significant in light of the renewed commitment to diversity and inclusion in elite schools and the reality that elite students are likely to be tomorrows' decision makers with the power to create more equitable societies.

In this essay, I offer relationship-building as central to teaching and learning in early-childhood contexts. With a distinct focus on historically marginalized students in United States education, particularly Black boys during childhood, I draw on personal experiences and my own position as teacher-researcher to center Black boys' humanity and personhood. I explore how a (re)imagining of Black boyhood can work toward addressing the race-gender discipline gap in American education.

Authored by a university researcher, school practitioner, and high school student, this article examines how independent schools can utilize participatory action research (PAR) to bolster diversity and inclusion efforts. A case study approach was taken to showcase a two-year PAR project at a progressive independent school that sought to: (a) enrich institutional knowledge of student diversity, (b) capture the present-day schooling experiences of historically marginalized students in independent school settings, and (c) develop a dynamic action plan to ameliorate school issues that emerged through the PAR inquiry process. Committed to institutional research that informs school policy and practice, we argue that PAR provides a rigorous, student-centered, and democratic model for independent school reform.

Drawing on critical childhood studies, Michael J. Dumas and Joseph Derrick Nelson argue that Black boyhood is socially unimagined and unimaginable, largely due to the devalued position and limited consideration of Black girls and boys within the broader social conception of childhood. In addition, the "crisis" focus of the public discourse on Black males--focused as it is on adult Black men--makes it difficult to authentically see young Black boys as human beings in and of themselves. A critical reimagining of Black boyhood, the authors contend, demands that educators, policy makers, and community advocates pursue pedagogical and policy interventions that create spaces for Black boys to construct and experience robust childhoods. Further, a (re)commitment to critical research on Black boyhood should inspire inquiry that asks young Black boys who they are, what they think, and what they desire in their lives now.

The authors examined the effects of a culturally responsive teacher's pedagogy on urban low-income African American and Latino high school students' interpretations of racial diversity, racism, and individual and collective agency in U. S. history. The authors found that students incorporated instruction about the diversity and agency of people of color and the changing forms and complexity of racism in U. S. history. Students were less responsive to instruction about the diversity of white people's historical experiences and particularly their roles as an oppressed group or as members of anti-racist movements. They also had difficulty conceptualizing the difficulty or "long arm" of change in history. The authors conclude by speculating on the potential and constraints of culturally responsive teaching, as well as areas for further research. (Contains 1 note.)

Background/Context: Positive teacher-student relationships are critical for Black boys' learning across single-sex and coeducational environments. Limited attention to these relationships by school professionals is rooted in deficit-oriented conceptions of boyhood and Black masculinity. The popular message of deficiency and pathology is clear: Black boys and men are either dangerous or at-risk and need to be saved. Such narrow conceptions are destructive, operate unconsciously, skew teachers' perceptions of who boys are, and distort teachers' efforts to meet boys' distinct learning needs. A "boy crisis" in U.S. education has been characterized by a set of distressing school outcomes in specific learning categories. Racial marginalization and poverty only serve to exacerbate these negative academic outcomes, whereby low-income Black boys remain in the bottom quartile across all achievement measures. Scholars have recently begun to partly attribute boys' underachievement to a lack of emphasis on the relational dimension of schools. Purpose/Focus of the Study: (1) Illustrate how a set of relational teaching strategies supported Black boys' engagement and learning, and (2) further contribute boys' "voice" to a counternarrative, which strives to complicate and dispel negative race and gender stereotypes associated with Black males in the United States. Setting/Population/Participants: This study employs a relational teaching framework to examine the learning relationships among teachers and a full cohort of eighth-grade Black boys (N = 27) at a single-sex middle school for boys of color in New York City. Research Design/Data Collection: In-depth interviews from a critical ethnography conducted at the school-site (2011-2012) culled boys' narratives of their teacher-student relationships. Findings/Discussion: Boys particularly expressed how teachers must foremost convey mastery of course content, with a lucid set of humane behavioral expectations. Narratives from the boys revealed how relationally effective teachers consistently enacted the following gestures: reaching out and go beyond; personal advocacy; establishing common ground; and accommodating opposition. Teachers demonstrated the capacity to acquire and refine relational gestures, but relationship struggles among the boys and their teachers were commonplace. Core findings include: (a) Boys illuminated how specific aspects of the school context facilitated successful enactment of the relational teaching strategies by teachers; (b) teachers' use of the relational strategies was also facilitated by the social categories of race, gender, and class the boys embodied; (c) boys' engagement and learning benefited from positive teacher-student relationships, which ensued after effective use of the relational teaching strategies; and (d) relational teaching with Black boys is not limited to either single-sex or coeducational learning environments.

In this essay, I offer relationship-building as central to teaching and learning in early-childhood contexts. With a distinct focus on historically marginalized students in United States education, particularly Black boys during childhood, I draw on personal experiences and my own position as teacher-researcher to center Black boys' humanity and personhood. I explore how a (re)imagining of Black boyhood can work toward addressing the race-gender discipline gap in American education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to determine if "short" femoral stems were noninferior to (at least as good as) standard-length stems in regards to 90-day periprosthetic fracture and 1-year revision rates. Using the MARCQI implant registry, a retrospective study of statewide data was carried out on 64,084 total hip arthroplasties (THAs) between 2012 and 2017. We noticed an increase in the use of "short" uncemented femoral hip stems during THA. Chi-square tests were used to test homogeneity of categorical variables. The covariates included in the analyses were identified using modern epidemiological methods. A Type I probability of 0.05 was used as the level of statistical significance. Inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) was used to mitigate confounding variables. One hundred and seven stems were implanted by surgeons in the state of Michigan. They were classified according to the Khanuja Classification System as Type 2A (trapezoidal, double-tapered calcar loading, n = 3,281), Type 3 (calcar loading with lateral flare, n = 1,898), and Type 4 (shortened, tapered, conventional, n = 19,580), and were compared to standard-length, type 5, stems (n = 33,322) in regards to the 2 outcomes (periprosthetic fractures and 1-year revision rates). Overall, 1-year revision and the 90-day fracture rates were 1.3% (791/57,853) and 1.1% (631/57,968), respectively. Noninferiority was established for all short stems at the clinical threshold of an odds ratio (OR) of 1.5 with P -values <0.05 for 90-day fractures. In regards to 1-year revision rates, noninferiority was also established for Type 3 and 4 stems (P <.05). The increased use of "short stems" in Michigan did not lead to increased 1-year revision or 90-day fracture rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the amendments posed by the Affordable Care Act to whole hospital exemption for physician-owned hospitals under the Stark Law and its provisions on lease arrangements, service arrangements, and anti-kickback.

Boys' identities are distinctly gendered, racialized, and classed across disparate social and cultural contexts. Related intersectional identity processes are associated with boys' academic success. While intersectionality has been utilized throughout boys' education scholarship, a limited, "light touch" approach is often enacted. As a critical logic of interpretation, intersectionality theory accounts for race, class, and gender within equity-based empirical studies. The authors contend insufficient engagement with intersectionality may lead educational research on boys' social and learner identities to become static. Examining boys' identities through intersectional approaches reveals more complex insights particularly related to their school engagement. Critical of the recent "boy crisis" literature, this article strives to compel theorists of boys' education to more fully leverage the history, constructs, and epistemologies of intersectionality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WINGS is a peer-mentoring program for boys of color at the Riverdale Country School in New York City. Twenty one-hour interviews and +200 hours of observation were used to capture boys' programmatic experiences related to identity. Data sources were analyzed using "open-coding" (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and Thematic Analysis (Bogdan & Bilken, 2000). Boys' participation revealed three interrelated themes: (1). Other Boys Like Me; boys expressed an appreciation for meeting other boys of color across all grades and generally felt they would not have forged these relationships otherwise. (2). If You Need Me, I'm Here; a sense of belonging was exhibited through boys' commitment to each other's social/academic success. (3). I Am, Who I Am; boys emphasized being true to self and valued their own perspectives. WINGS highlights the potential of peer-mentoring at an elite independent school to support boys' connection to school and identity development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restrictions on boys' capacities to process and to show emotion, however detrimental for their development, constitutes a key lesson of the masculinity curriculum learned in schools. To explore what schools can do to offer support for boys' resistance to this curriculum, a series of studies has been conducted at a suburban independent school outside Philadelphia, PA. The present study uses a mixed-method design, including teachers, university-based researchers and students on the research team, to examine how boys' participation in a peer counseling program influenced their sense of self and self-expression. A survey, focus groups, interviews, and observations supported the usefulness of the intervention for boys. The following qualitative themes emerged: (1) The constraining effect of the school's masculinity culture on boys' emotional development; (2) the value of a "safe space" in overcoming this culture and in promoting boys' learning and connection; (3) boys' ready development of new skills, especially in relation to emotional experiences, when invited to do so; (4) the deepening and broadening of boys' friendships resulting from their self-disclosure and mutual support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extended editorial introduction to a double special issue on boys and schooling. Adopting a developmental perspective on boyhood, the editors frame these special issues on boys' education by reviewing research on their experience of schooling. In particular, they endeavor to illuminate boys' agency and opportunities they can find in schools for resistance to restrictive masculine regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors examined the effects of a culturally responsive teacher's pedagogy on urban low-income African American and Latino high school students' interpretations of racial diversity, racism, and individual and collective agency in U. S. history. The authors found that students incorporated instruction about the diversity and agency of people of color and the changing forms and complexity of racism in U. S. history. Students were less responsive to instruction about the diversity of white people's historical experiences and particularly their roles as an oppressed group or as members of anti-racist movements. They also had difficulty conceptualizing the difficulty or "long arm" of change in history. The authors conclude by speculating on the potential and constraints of culturally responsive teaching, as well as areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]