In public discourse around higher education, diversity based on socioeconomic status (SES) is often presented as an alternative to diversity based on race/ethnicity. In particular, the Supreme Court's 2023 ban on race-based affirmative action gave new energy to calls for SES-based diversity efforts. This dissertation seeks to uncover people's…

Children develop their perceptions, expectations, and attitudes toward the occupational world much earlier than they enter it, also via television which serves as a central socialization agent in the preschool years. The current study thematically analyzes the values associated with the occupational world in children's series by integrating two…

Background: To combat stereotype threat, several school-based field trials have leveraged self-affirmation theory (Steele & Liu, 1983; Liu & Steele, 1986), wherein affirming one's important beliefs and values can buffer against identity threats. Self-affirmation theory posits that individuals are motivated to maintain a positive overall…

This study aimed to better understand the relationships between U.S. high school students' STEM-related educational experiences, expectancy-value attitudes, achievement, course-taking, and college major choices. Analyses employed data from three waves of the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09) and used structural equation modeling to…

Supporting student wellbeing in schools is increasingly becoming a global priority. However, research and initiatives primarily focus on general wellbeing rather than subject-specific experiences. Given the pervasive levels of mathematics anxiety, negative attitudes, and disengagement in mathematics education, we argue for a more contextualised…