This dissertation examined whether an urban-rural intergroup dialogue (IGD) curriculum intervention can improve participants' (a) awareness of social identities, privilege, and oppression; (b) intergroup understanding and relationships; (c) strategies to engage and intervene; and (d) capacity to advance equity and justice for bridging the…

Children in under-resourced schools are often subjected to a "pedagogy of poverty," in which their school days consist primarily of independently completing worksheets and preparing for assessments. By contrast, children in more affluent schools often experience engaging, hands-on learning opportunities. This discrepancy is identified as…

Across East and Southeast Asia, the International Baccalaureate (IB) is expanding and diversifying. More students from affluent families are 'opting out' of mainstream schooling to take the IB's Diploma Programme (DP), which is marketed as a distinctive skill-based education that prepares students for university. This research investigated how DP…

This cross-sectional study measures decoding and fluent reading skills of a random sample of 250 first- through third-grade students attending a high-SES school. Growth was compared between proficient and struggling readers with results showing the latter group significantly behind their higher attaining peers on all measures. When student…

There is currently much conversation on the issue of the achievement gap as scholars, politicians, and educational leaders continue to grapple with educational inequity and underperformance of students in urban neighborhoods who are mostly Black and Latinx as compared with higher performing students, mostly white, in suburban neighborhoods. This…

This article outlines opportunities and challenges of teaching neurologically diverse students in the business communication course, providing basic resources and information for instructors to supplement their knowledge and pedagogical ability to support neurodiverse students. While the business communication course may represent obstacles for…

The extreme inequality in South African education is well-documented by researchers. There is also a rich literature concerned with education for sustainable development (ESD) in the country. The relationship between these two phenomena has, however, been sparsely investigated. Drawing on biopolitical theory and fieldwork conducted in South…

Spatial skills are associated with mathematics skills, but it is unclear if spatial training transfers to mathematics skills for preschoolers, especially from underserved communities. The current study tested (a) whether spatial training benefited preschoolers' spatial and mathematics skills, (b) if the type of feedback provided during spatial…

In this paper, we revisit Brown's ("Br J Soc Educ" 14: 65-85, 1990) concept of "parentocracy" which has been informatively applied in educational research in a number of studies in various countries internationally--but almost none in North America. We provide an expanded conceptualization of parentocracy and suggest that it…

This paper draws on interview data gathered from a broader study concerned with examining issues of social justice, cultural diversity and schooling. The focus is on five students in Years 5 and 6 who attend a primary school located on the edge of a class-privileged area in outer London. The children are all high achievers who are very invested in…

From an intergenerational perspective, the U.S. income distribution is sticky at both ends. Affluence and poverty are both partially inherited. Policy and research has focused on upward mobility, especially from the bottom. But relative intergenerational upward mobility is only possible with equivalent rates of downward mobility, where much less…

Can the nation's schools meet today's challenge of providing all students with the skills they will need to thrive in the rapidly changing economy and society of the 21st century? The authors point out in this article that a large percentage of children, overwhelmingly from low-income families, end their formal schooling without the…

Children are exploring elements of literacy and numeracy. Such explorations begin in the earliest days of life and are a natural outgrowth of children's curiosity and interest in how the world works. Based on experiences, children build a reservoir of knowledge about language, reading, and mathematics that they take with them to kindergarten,…