This Library is a searchable data base of over 1000 research based articles for providing instructional and behavioral supports to students with disabilities in age-appropriate general education environments. The Library compiles current published research around the topics that make up the NIUSI Systemic Change Framework. Articles around professional effort, school organizational effort and district effort and support focus on student learning and effort within the contest of families and communities. These articles can be easily searched and shared with school personnel.

Simply click on a topic to access a list of articles and abstracts related to that topic, or enter a keyword in the "Search" box to search for more specific content.

Cultural Renewal & Improvement

• Notes from California: An Anthropological Approach to Urban Science Education for Language Minority Families
  The author described a unique and ongoing collaboration involving a team of bilingual/multicultural teacher-educators, preservice teachers, teachers, students, and community members in an urban California elementary school. The author used critical ethnography as a framework and focuses on building an American garden house to show how, by drawing on participants' funds of knowledge, a new kind of multiscience can emerge.
• Identifying the Prospective Multicultural Educator: Three Signposts, Three Portraits
  The author investigated how prospective teachers respond to social differences they encounter in educational discourse and public schools, identifying three signposts indicative of prospective multicultural educators (desiring change because of identifying with educational inequality, valuing critical pedagogy and multicultural social reconstructivist education, and wanting to understand educational inequality and its causes). The author presented data from observations and interviews with three teacher candidates.
• Understanding Culture
  This paper was produced by the National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It is about developing a complex and dynamic understanding of culture.
• Why are so many minority students in special education? Understanding race & disability in schools
  Scholars have discussed the overrepresentation of minority students in special education programs for high-incidence disability categories since long before the first federal law P. L.
• Rethinking Education in the Global Era
  The author of this article covered an exemplary school in Sweden, the Tensta Gymnasium, as a successful model of education in the global era that tries to promote lifelong learning and engagement with the world, as well as socialization for cross-cultural work. The author reviewed the general characteristics of the Tensta Gymnasium experimental high school.
• General Classroom Space. School Planning & Management
  The author illustrated how a Utah school district created classroom learning environments in their elementary schools that prepared students for life-long learning by teaching them in a collaborative, interactive, hands-on way. They pointed out that arrangements of classrooms as learning centers that foster a team atmosphere.
• On Inclusion and the Other Kids:Here's What Research Shows so Far About Inclusion's Effect on Nondisabled Students
  This OnPoint was developed by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It summarizes the reserach literature on inclusion's effect on nondisabled students.
• The Transformation of the Teachers' Role at the End of the Twentieth Century: New Challenges for the Future
  The authors discussed that rapid global changes have transformed education for the elite into mass education, resulting in the following: new teacher responsibilities, less educational activity by families, mass media access to learning, multicultural education models, change in the social worth of education and status of teachers, fewer resources for education, decline of authority and discipline, and teacher overload.
• Elementary and Middle Schools Technical Assistance Center: An Approach to Support the Effective Implementation of Scientifically Based Practices in Special Education
  The researchers at the Elementary and Middle Schools Technical Assistance Center (EMSTAC) tested an insider-outsider approach to assist local school districts in effectively identifying and implementing scientifically based practices. Methods used to measure EMSTAC's effectiveness in supporting successful practice adoption are presented.
• "The Politics of Multiculturalism and Bilingual Education: Students and Teachers Caught in the Cross Fire," by C. J. Ovando and P. McLaren (2000). Book Review
  The author reviewed an anthology that provides undergraduate and graduate students with theoretical and practical discussion on various ideological convictions in the fields of multiculturalism and bilingual education. The author discussed theoretical conflicts and ideologies affecting the field of multiculturalism, and the more immediate effects of politics on teaching and learning in schools.
• Teacher Education and the Cultural Imagination: Autobiography, Conversation, and Narrative
  Making culture a more central concept in the texts and contexts of teacher education is the focus of this book. It is a rich account of the author's investigation of teacher book club discussions of ethnic literature, specifically ethnic autobiography--as a genre from which teachers might learn about culture, literacy, and education in their own and others' lives, and as a form of conversation and literature-based work that might be sustainable and foster teachers' comprehension and critical thinking.
• Local theories of teacher change: The pedagogy of district policies and programs.
  The author examined district officials' theories about teacher learning and change, identifying and elaborating three perspectives (i.e.,behaviorist, situated, and cognitive) based on a study of nine school districts. The behaviorist perspective on teacher learning dominated among the district officials in the study.
• Educational change over time? The sustainability and nonsustainability of three decades of secondary school change and continuity
  This article is about long-term systemic sustainable change and applies to all educational leaders and policy makers. Based on a comparative research students conducted in Canada and the United States (US), the authors presented a conceptual framework, methodological design, and key research findings from a Spencer Foundation-funded project of long-term educational change over time.
• Creating school climates that prevent school violence
  The authors explained sets of school wide value statements that provide a base of expectations for school behavior. They discussed intervention options that help prevent violence in schools by affecting the school climate.
• HOPE FOR URBAN EDUCATION:A Study of Nine High-Performing, High-Poverty,Urban Elementary Schools
  This report is about nine urban elementary schools that served children of color in poor communities and achieved impressive academic results. These schools have attained higher levels of achievement than most schools in their states or most schools in the nation.
• On...Transformed, Inclusive Schools: A Framework To Guide Fundamental Change in Urban Schools
  This paper is one of the brief practitioner oriented pamphlets called On Points produced by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI).The authors of this On Point presented a systemic change framework for creating inclusive urban schools. They explained that if a key feature of reform focuses on multicultural education as a fundamental social and educational transformation, then opportunities for all students to achieve educational equity will be realized in U.S.
• Leading out from low-performing schools: The urban principal experience
  Researchers in the field of education have researched the educational leadership in urban schools primarily by focusing on the school context, and not the leadership required to facilitate school improvement. Through a collaborative inquiry process, six principals and two researchers spent almost two years exploring in depth the nature of the urban leadership in turning around low-performing schools.
• Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice. Multicultural Education Series
  The author of this volume made the case for using culturally responsive teaching to improve the school performance of underachieving students of color. Key components of culturally responsive teaching are discussed.
• Foundations for Success: Case studies of how urban school systems improve student achievement
  The authors examined the experiences of three large urban school districts (and part of a fourth) that raised academic performance for their districts as a whole, while also reducing racial differences in achievement.They reported findings from case studies on four urban school districts that demonstrated improvement in student achievement and in narrowing the achievement gap between minorities and whites at a faster rate than two anonymous comparison districts.
• Beyond Affirmative Action: Reframing the Context of Higher Education
  Based on extensive interviews with Latino and Latina students and faculty, the author of this book introduced a theory of "multicontextuality" that proposes that many people learn better when teachers emphasize whole systems of knowledge and that education can create its greatest successes by offering and accepting many approaches to teaching and learning.This revolutionary paradigm also addresses why current thinking about academic systems and organizational culture, affirmative action, and diversity must be revised. The author based his groundbreaking proposals upon his own synthesis of findings from anthropological, educational, and psychological studies of how people from various cultures learn, as well as findings from extended interviews he conducted with Latinos and Latinas who pursued graduate degrees and then either became university faculty or chose other careers.
• African American and White Adolescents' Strategies for Managing Cultural Diversity in Predominantly White High Schools
  The authors examined 3 strategies used by 77 African American and 138 White high school students to manage cultural diversity: multicultural, separation, and assimilation strategies. They discuss results in relation to forces supporting adolescents' strategy development and the implications of strategy use for adjustment in predominantly white schools.
• Sources of leadership for inclusive education: Creating schools for all children
  The authors examined leadership for inclusion in three schools according to leadership functions. They found that multiple people in the schools from parents and teachers contributed leadership for the success of the program.
• Preventing disproportionate representation: Culturally and linguistically responsive prereferral interventions
  This paper is one of the short practitioner-oriented pamphlets produced by the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt). This practitioner brief deals with culturally and linguistically responsive prereferral interventions for preventing disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in special education.
• School Violence and Disruption: Rhetoric, Reality, and Reasonable Balance
  The authors of this article examined issues related to school violence and disruption. They discussed the sociocultural context within which school violence occurs, balancing educational rights within an orderly school environment, and the role of students with disabilities in school suspensions.
• Secondary Schools in a New Millennium: Demographic Certainties, Social Realities
  The author of this report examined the demographic trends, social realities, and complexities that can potentially transform American secondary schools. They described the nature of diversity in the world and nation and between and within states and school districts.
• Enhancing Learning Environments Through Solution-based Knowledge Discovery Tools: Forecasting for Self-perpetuating Systemic Reform
  The rapid growth of databases in many disciplines has overwhelmed the traditional, interactive approaches to data analysis and created a new generation of tools critical to intelligent and automated data discovery.The authors explored how knowledge-discovery applications could empower educators with the information they needed to provide anticipatory guidance for teaching and learning, forecast school and district needs, and find critical markers for making the best program decisions for children and youth with disabilities. The authors discussed data mining for schools.
• Leading coherent professional development: A comparison of three districts
  This article is about the relationship between professional learning/development programs and teachers’ instructional practices. It applies to educational leaders interested in implementing effective professional learning/development programs.
• Preventing DISPROPORTIONALITY by Strengthening District Policies and Procedures - An Assessment and Strategic Planning Process
  This document includes a rubric produced by the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt) for looking at district practice. The authors designed the document to help State and Local Education Agencies address institutional and systems issues that may affect students from culturally and linguistically diverse populations who continue to experience a wide variety of achievement gaps.
• Reinvented inclusive schools: A framework to guide fundamental change
  The authors of this report presented a systemic change framework for creating inclusive urban schools. They explained that if a key feature of reform focuses on multicultural education as a fundamental social and educational transformation, then opportunities for all students to achieve educational equity will be realized in U.S.
• Principals of Inclusive schools
  This paper was developed by the National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It is about the roles of school leaders in inclusive schools.
• Visions of change: information technology, education and postmodernism
  The authors of this article examined the impact of postmodernism on education in Great Britain. They discussed the postmodernist change; effects of the introduction of information technology on education; contrast visions of educational change; impact of educational change on the society.
• Why Do Some Curricular Challenges Work while Others Do Not? The Case of Three Afrocentric Challenges
  The author compared three cases in Atlanta, GA, New York state, and Washington, DC, in which advocated fought to have an Afrocentric curriculum implemented in public schools' social studies and history classes. The author examined the influences of six local organizational factors on the proposed curricular changes.
• Moving Marginalized Students Inside the Lines: Cultural Differences in Classrooms
  The author discussed what she has learned in her job at an elementary school in Northeast Mississippi as liaison between English-speaking school personnel and Spanish-speaking students and parents, most of whom are recent immigrants from Mexico. Also, the author discussed what she learned, through extensive talking and questioning of students and parents, about how cultural differences affect classroom activities and interaction.
• Technical Assistance and Professional Development Planning Guide
  This Technical Assistance (TA) - and Professional Development (PD) guide was designed by the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt). It structures a five-step process for the development of TA/PD Plans for State Education Agencies (SEAs) and Local Education Agencies (LEAs).
• On Infusing Disability Studies into the General Curriculum
  This On Point was produced by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It is about inclusion and applies to all people with disabilities, families and teachers.
• A Proposed Remedy for Disproportionate Special Education Placement and Underinclusion in Gifted Education
  The authors of this article examined the root causes for the overrepresentation of African American students in special education classes and their underrepresentation in gifted and talented programs in America's public schools. The authors (a) provided a historic overview of the legal struggles for educational equity, (b) examined key issues surrounding the academic status of African American students, (c) discussed multicultural education as a remedy, and (d) recommended an appropriate course of action for educators and policy makers.
• Cultural Identity and Teaching
  The authors of this practitioner brief suggested that understanding your own cultural background, and connecting that background to that of the students in your classroom as you explore the connections you have and the different ways you might look at things creates a rich learning environment in which the teacher and students can all participate, be valued, and learn.
  Download the document here.
• The return of large-scale reform
  The author reviewed three "types" of large-scale reforms and the emerging lessons being learned. Whole school district reform involving all schools in a district; whole school reform in which hundreds of schools attempt to implement particular models of change, and; state or national initiatives in which all or most of the schools in the state were involved.
• Schools on move: Stories of Urban Schools Engaged in Inclusive Journeys of Change(JC Nalle Elementary School in Washington, DC).
  This paper is one of the brief practitioner oriented pamphlets produced by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). This story depicts a school in the midst of exciting changes and renewal.
• One-Way Streets of Our Culture
  The author presented various definitions of culture and contemplates how much a culture can really be shared by those not born into it. The author asserted that, in international education, certain concerns must be raised, including: (1) a truly shared meaning depends upon a shared culture; (2) language plays a key role in understanding and developing a culture; and (3) teachers cannot help but support as well as challenge cultural values.
• Give Us a Taste of Your Quality! A Report from the Heartland on the Role of the Arts in Multicultural Settings
  The authors of this article discusses the role of the arts in multicultural education, explaining how diverse students react to and need support in the arts in order to succeed. They focuses on the efforts of urban elementary and secondary schools in Madison, Wisconsin.
• Including Gypsy Travellers in Education
  The authors examined the educational exclusion and inclusion of Gypsy Traveller students, exploring how some Scottish schools responded to Traveller student culture and how this led to exclusion. Interviews with school staff, Traveller students, and parents indicated that continuing prejudice and harassment promoted inappropriate school placement and persecution.
• Creating a school environment for the effective management of cultural diversity
  The authors of this article examined the factors that affect the creation of a school environment for the effective management of cultural diversity as legislated for in the directive principles of the South African Schools Act of 1996 and the Schools Education Act of 1995. These two Acts determined that every person shall have the right to basic education and to equal access to schools and centers of learning.
• Developing a Commitment to Multicultural Education // Teachers College Record,102(6), pp.980-1005 Dec 2000
  The author investigated the kinds of lived experiences contributing to teachers' commitment to multicultural education and processes by which teachers became committed. Interviews and surveys involving K-12 and college teachers indicated that teachers developed commitment through various developmental life experiences.
• Multicultural Perceptions of 1st-Year Elementary Teachers' Urban, Suburban, and Rural Student Teacher Placements
  The authors investigated the effects of student teaching in urban, suburban, and rural settings on beginning teachers' attitudes about success, multiculturalism, and interactions with diverse parents. They noted the effect of a program for facilitating school-home relationships and improving urban education.
• Professional development for urban principals in underperforming schools
  Principals in America's lowest performing urban schools face many challenges, including public scrutiny as a consequence of being identified as such by state and federal legislation. These special circumstances have implications for the professional development of the leaders of these schools.
• Leadership Academies - Module 1, Building Leadership Teams
  This professional learning module was developed by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). The academies in this module promote inclusive systems and schools by coaching Building Leadership Team members in both leadership skills and team collaboration.
• Beyond the Rhetoric: Moving from Exclusion, Reaching for Inclusion in Canadian Schools
  In this article, the authors reported a 3-year study in Toronto (Ontario) schools. They examined educational practices that engender exclusion or inclusion, especially of racially marginalized groups.
• On Time and How to Get More of It
  This paper is one of the brief practitioner oriented pamphlets called On Points produced by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It is about systemic change and educational improvement.
• Children of War: A Curriculum
  The authors emphasized the importance of examining the position of children in war as they provide insight into the conflicts themselves that cannot be attained elsewhere. They presented a secondary curriculum entitled "Children of War" designed to promote an understanding of the phenomenon of children in war from multiple perspectives, including sociocultural, historical, and personal.
• Safeguarding Our Children: An Action Guide
  This jointly developed Action Guide to help schools and communities prevent school violence was produced by the U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice released.
• Race, Culture, and Intelligence: An Interview with Asa G. Hilliard III
  In this article, there is an interview with Hilliard, a professor and expert on African culture. Hilliard spoke about the racial and cultural bias of standardized tests, multiculturalism, the concept of race, Afrocentric teaching, Ebonics, recruiting and retaining African-American teachers, and the future classroom.
• Schools on the move: Benito Martinez Elementary El Paso, Texas
  This booklet is a one of the Schools on the Move stories produced by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). It applies to all educational leaders, teachers, and families who are interested in learning about creating successful and sustainable change in schools.
• Disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education: Measuring the problem
  This paper is one of the short practitioner-oriented pamphlets produced by the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt). This practitioner brief is about racial disproportionality in school disciplinary practices.
• Schools on move : Stories of Urban Schools Engaged in Inclusive Journeys of Change(Kepner Middle School in Denver, Colorado)
  This paper was produced by the National Institute for Urban School Improvement (NIUSI).The authors provided a story depicting school in the midst of exciting changes and renewal. Through the voices of parents, students, teachers, and administrators, this School on the Move is making fundamental and enduring changes in the work of schools and in the results that such changes make in the lives of children and youth.
• Backward design for forward action
  Using data to improve student achievement is a crucial issue and indicates an everyday challenge for all teachers and school leaders. In this the article, the authors explicitly demonstrate how school improvement initiatives can be integrated at the school and district levels.
• Equity and Excellence: Providing Access to Gifted Education for Culturally Diverse Students
  The authors of this article maintained that the underrepresentation of diverse students in gifted education programs is due to a "deficit perspective" about culturally diverse populations. The authors' recommendations included identifying and serving underachievers and low socioeconomic-status students, providing educators and gifted students with multicultural education, and developing home-school partnerships.
• The sustainability of comprehensive school reform models in changing district and state contexts
  This article is about school reforms. It applies to all educational leaders who are interested in the sustainability of comprehensive school reform (CSR) models in the face of turbulent district and state contexts.
• Creativity and Giftedness in Culturally Diverse Students. Perspectives on Creativity
  The author of this book addressed issues concerned with identification and educational intervention with gifted students who are from culturally diverse backgrounds.