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This qualitative study examines the perceptions that Latino students have of middle school social studies. Twelve Latino/a middle school students provided written narratives recounting their experiences in social studies and participated in two semi-structured phenomenological interviews. Findings indicate that social studies teachers rely heavily upon "banking" pedagogy and the curriculum lacks cultural diversity. Students also perceived social studies as the ideal subject area in middle school to engage in global learning opportunities as well as discussion about current events. Latino/a students' experiences and subsequent perceptions of middle school social studies are consistent with theory and research pertaining to adolescent identity, cognitive, and psychosocial development. Findings from this investigation add to the extant canon of literature on students' perceptions of social studies and further emphasize the significance of social studies in meeting the needs of 21st century diverse learners. Lastly, the authors offer suggestions for practice and issue a call for research in the field of social studies education that is middle-level specific with implications as to how culturally responsive social studies fosters identity and psychosocial adolescent development for culturally and ethnically diverse students.

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Growth in racial and ethnic diversity among public school P-12 students stands in stark contrast to the teaching population who tend to be monolingual, White females. Secondary social studies teachers defy demographic teacher trends, as they tend to be male, albeit White males who still are not representative of the students they teach. What is missing from the discourse of student–teacher imbalance however is discussion surrounding diversity among social studies teacher educators. The purpose of this study was to examine racial, ethnic, and gender demographics for social studies teacher educators using a framework of critical teacher demography. Findings revealed that social studies teacher educators tend to reflect the population of social studies teachers with many being White males. Furthermore, social studies teacher educators tend to focus their research on concepts such as democratic citizenship with little focus dedicated to critical multicultural issues. The paucity of diversity in demographics and research is critical for social studies teacher educators to consider if we are to reflect multiculturalism in 21st century schools.

As demonstrated through the disregard for Black humanity and respondent Black social movements throughout Latin America, anti-Black systemic racism is a transnational phenomenon birthed from global White supremacy. Across the Americas, the hemispheric parallels undergirding collective resistance to anti-Black racism and state-sanctioned violence lend themselves to multifaceted interdisciplinary scholarly examinations. Using transnational anti-Black racism in Latin America as a point of departure, we advance a theorization of critical race theory in education capable of interrogating racist structures of coloniality, modernity, and White supremacy that operate globally to suppress Black humanity and humanness in general. To that extent, we draw from and reposition critical race theory (CRT) from its sociohistoric heritage in the United States and instead conceptualize transnational anti-Black racism vis-à-vis a Black Diaspora reading of CRT. Finally, we return to education as a key site of contestation for transnational anti-Black racism and draw implications for the meaning of this global theorization of CRT in urban education, praxis, and educational research. We end by charting new and old directions for CRT in educational research.