A commentary on the special issue.

An introduction to the special issue on New Perspectives on Youth Development and Social Identity in the 21st Century.

An illustration of the effects of racial and social class status as barriers to school reform

The teacher development project described in this article reveals ways in which the social consequences of poverty and racial marginalization may be crucial to the outcomes of educational reform in inner-city schools. The study demonstrates that educational reform can be affected by the economic, political, and cultural context of which a school is in large part a product. The author addresses the consequences of this educational embeddedness for school reform, and suggests that in order to create good schools in the inner cities, educational reform must be accompanied by other, more fundamental social changes.