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Critical consciousness refers to the ability to analyze and take action against oppressive social forces shaping society. This longitudinal, mixed methods study compared the critical consciousness development of adolescents of color (n = 453) attending two sets of high schools featuring schooling models that represent "opposing" approaches to education. The participating adolescents were 13-15 years old at the start of the study; the majority identified as African American or Latinx; and nearly 80% came from low-SES households. They attended public charter high schools located in five different northeastern cities. Analyses of longitudinal survey data revealed that the adolescents attending these two sets of high schools demonstrated greater rates of growth on different dimensions of critical consciousness over their four years of high school. Qualitative interviews with youth attending these two sets of schools (n = 70) offered evidence of the long-theorized relationship between critical consciousness and problem-posing education, but also that effective practices supporting youth critical consciousness can be found embedded in schools featuring a broader range of pedagogies. These findings offer support for ethnic studies and action civics programming that several state departments of education have recently added to secondary school curricula.

Sociopolitical development refers to the processes by which an individual acquires the knowledge, skills, and commitment to analyze and challenge oppressive social forces. A growing body of scholarship reports that high levels of sociopolitical development are predictive in adolescents of a number of key outcomes including resilience and civic engagement. The present study explored the role that urban secondary schools can play in fostering adolescents' sociopolitical development through a longitudinal, mixed-methods investigation of more than 400 adolescents attending "progressive" and "no-excuses" high schools. Analyses revealed that, on average, students attending progressive high schools demonstrated meaningful growth in their ability to critically analyze racial and economic inequality, while students attending no-excuses high schools demonstrated meaningful growth in their motivation to challenge these inequities through activism. Qualitative interviews offered insight into youth's perceptions of the programming and practices at their respective schools that contributed to their sociopolitical development.

Interpersonal and structural forms of racism contribute to a system of economic stratification in the United States in which children of color are disproportionately likely to be born into poverty and to remain poor as adults. However, only a small body of research has focused on Black and Latinx adolescents' developing beliefs about the causes of poverty or the relationship between such beliefs and their awareness of racism. The present study sought to contribute to this scholarship with a longitudinal investigation involving Black and Latinx adolescents (n = 457) attending urban secondary schools in 5 northeastern cities. Specifically, we investigated (a) these adolescents' change over time in their beliefs about the causes of poverty; (b) the relationship between their developing beliefs about the causes of poverty and changes in their awareness of racism; and (c) the role of a progressive schooling experience in influencing the adolescents' beliefs about the causes of poverty. Multivariate latent growth modeling revealed that participants demonstrated significant positive change over time in their conception of poverty as caused by structural factors as well as a significant relationship at each time point between adolescents' beliefs about the causes of poverty and awareness of interpersonal racism. However, we found that attending a secondary school featuring a progressive schooling model did not significantly predict adolescents' change in beliefs about the structural causes of poverty.

In recent years, an ongoing conversation has emerged about the need for museums to address how collecting practices reinforce and perpetuate racial oppression (Jennings et al., 2014; Lynch & Alberti, 2010; trivedi, 2015), ultimately creating unwelcoming environments for groups of color (Jennings et al., 2014; Sandell, 2002; trivedi 2015). Of specific concern is that groups of color are often "erased" from the picture (Sandell, 2002), creating a distorted narrative about who is and can be a visual artist. New museum theory, also called critical museum theory emphasizes the impact of these transgressions in museums, but expands responsibility beyond collecting practices to the framing choices made at every institutional level, from architecture to education (Marstine, 2006). Two years ago, the authors, a Harvard lecturer in emancipatory education and a Harvard Art Museums education fellow, came together to design a theory-based training that would help our graduate student museum educators teach from these understandings. Drawing on critical pedagogy, a well-theorized approach to education in which students learn about and interrogate their sociopolitical context in order to resist and act against oppression (Darder, Baltodano, & Torres, 2003; Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008; Freire, 1970), they developed two teaching strategies for museum educators: (1) Conscientize Positive Representation, or draw students' attention to artworks created by artists of color; and (2) Foster Critical Literacy about Dilemmas of Representation, or provide students with opportunities and analytic tools to problematize artworks in which racialized/ethnic narratives are missing/misconstrued/misrepresented. This article overviews each of these teaching strategies and highlights a lesson implemented by educators using each strategy. Their intention is to provide museum educators with an introductory understanding of the importance, and the possibility, of re-building the museum as a space of belonging for students of color.

Sociopolitical consciousness refers to an individual's ability to critically analyze the political, economic, and social forces shaping society and one's status in it. A growing body of scholarship reports that high levels of sociopolitical consciousness are predictive in marginalized adolescents of a number of key outcomes including resilience and civic engagement. The present study explored the role that urban secondary schools can play in fostering adolescents' sociopolitical consciousness through a longitudinal, mixed methods investigation of more than 400 adolescents attending "progressive" and "no excuses" charter high schools. Analyses revealed that, on average, students attending progressive high schools demonstrated sizeable shifts in their sociopolitical consciousness of racial inequality, and students attending no excuses high schools demonstrated sizeable shifts in their sociopolitical consciousness of social class inequality. Qualitative interviews with participating students offered insight into the curriculum, programming, and practices that these youth perceived as contributing to these differences in their sociopolitical consciousness.

Research has suggested that critical consciousness--the ability to recognize and analyze systems of inequality and the commitment to take action against these systems--can be a gateway to academic motivation and achievement for marginalized students. To explore this approach, the authors studied five urban schools that include critical consciousness development in their mission. Three strategies emerged as promising practices that schools can use to develop black students' critical consciousness and harness the connection between critical consciousness and student achievement. They include teaching students the language of inequality, creating space to interrogate racism, and teaching students how to take action.