This article is based on the findings of a 2‐year study that examined the nature of effective faculty/student undergraduate research (UR) science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) relationships. The study site was a large urban public college where three fourths of all incoming freshmen receive need‐based aid; and although not a historically Black college or university (HBCU), 85% are students of color. The college offers 2‐ and 4‐year STEM degree programs. Utilizing cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) as both a theoretical and methodological framework, this phenomenological study employed semistructured interviews, written surveys, and member checking to understand four paired faculty/student UR mentoring relationships over 2 years. The findings not only concur with the bulk of UR research, indicating UR's promise for addressing the low enrollment and retention rates of students of color in the STEM disciplines but also raise issues around the emotional, financial, and professional costs to UR faculty. It is these costs that are the focus of this article that concludes with ideas, for university and college administrators and all others concerned, about on how we might support faculty in UR's crucial work toward the goal of retaining students of color in STEM. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 96:527–542, 2012

This article, based on an ethnographic study of an urban General Education Development (GED) program, suggests that for some marginalized young men of color, Adult education programs are counter-spaces of spatial justice in opposition to previous negative school spaces. Framed by critical race theory (CRT) and drawing on critical geography and adult education literature on space and place, the author defines these counter-spaces through four dimensions: place, temporal, intrapersonal, and interpersonal, maintaining that they are not equivalent to activities or experiences although they may inhabit them. The article concludes with implications for the use of CRT in understanding GED as potential counter-space.

This chapter addresses the challenges facing men of color who return to adult education after incarceration. It frames their experience as a warThere is a war between the rich and the poor, a war between the man and the woman. There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn't.-Leonard Cohen War is hell, and war seems an appropriate metaphor for the depressing state of formerly incarcerated men of color who return to adult education. These men might be called the collateral damage of a war caused by history and failed policies. They continue to be punished by barriers to reentry into society and education. Men who have been incarcerated need strong support to rebuild their lives; if denied education, they will become recidivists, not necessarily by choice, but because they cannot adjust to society.In preparation for writing this chapter, the authors completed archival research, informally talked with men of color who were navigating the complicated minefield of the American educational system, and also drew on their own experiences. We considered three factors that determine the impact of the drug war on men of color and their access to education: past and current policies of the war on drugs, the effects of these federal policies, and reentry into the classroom experienced by those exiting the detention system and entering and/or returning to school.Thanks to LaGuardia Community College Student Government Association (SGA), LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, and the Fortune Society for support in the writing of this chapter.