Research

What does it mean to be young, Black and male? In what ways do Black male youths accommodate and resist the social stereotypes of their demographic? And how does this shape Black boys' development of their own identity, and who they become?

These are among the questions the University of Washington's Onnie Rogers explored with Black urban teenagers in a recently published paper in the Journal of Adolescent Research.

On Jan. 11, the University of Washington's Center for Multicultural Education will sponsor its 27th annual symposium, "Black Male(d): Peril and Promise in the Education of African American Males."

About the Symposium

Children today have access to a greater volume of digital media from a wider variety of devices than ever before. Despite this growth, children's media too often takes a one-size-fits-all approach to creating content and fails to meet the needs of populations outside the mainstream.

This fall, influential education researcher Bronwyn Bevan joins the University of Washington College of Education as a senior research scientist, bringing her expertise on how institutional settings influence learning opportunities to the Pacific Northwest. For 25 years, Bevan has worked to broaden and improve out-of-school learning opportunities for culturally and linguistically diverse students. In particular, her work has focused on inquiry-based learning, tinkering and making in education, and policy advocacy for out-of-school learning.

Peter Wallis, a PhD student in learning sciences and human development at the University of Washington College of Education, is co-editor of the recently published book Clickers in the Classroom: Using Classroom Response Systems to Increase Student Learning.

The new edition of the Washington Educational Research Association's journal features four articles authored by alumni and faculty from the University of Washington College of Education.

The fall 2015 edition focuses on topics related to highly capable students, and UW alumni authoring articles were:

A shortage of full-time and substitute teachers is placing a severe strain on Washington's schools according to surveys of principals analyzed by a team from the University of Washington College of Education. 

Among the key findings: 80 percent of principals have had to hire under-qualified teachers while three-quarters of principals had personally substituted for a classroom teacher within the previous five days.

Effective teachers don't just impact their own students' achievement, they can significantly improve the performance of their fellow teachers' students. That new research finding by Min Sun of University of Washington College of Education has important implications for national efforts to ensure poverty-impacted and minority children aren't taught by a greater proportion of less experienced teachers.

The latest edition of Research That Matters, "Passion & Promise," explores how the UW College of Education is approaching the biggest challenges in education with a spirit of possibility. The following story about the College's Partnership for Science & Engineering Practices with the Seattle and Renton school districts also appears in the online version of the magazine.

In a preschool classroom, a teacher snaps a photo of a young girl stacking colorful wooden blocks, her face focused in concentration. Then another of a little boy fingerpainting, mixing red and blue to make purple.