Despite significant cultural attention on the phenomenon of school shootings, one of the most predictive dimensions of these tragedies is under-analyzed: gender. Men commit 98% of mass shootings, but robust discussion and research on this relationship is lacking. This dissertation investigates the relationship between masculinity and gun violence…

Recent research has demonstrated that individual differences in infant attention to faces and voices of women speaking predict language outcomes in childhood. These findings have been generated using two new audiovisual attention assessments appropriate for infants and young children, the Multisensory Attention Assessment Protocol (MAAP) and the…

Second-generation Latinx immigrant students in middle school and high school may experience language and reading barriers in education resulting from their cultural upbringing. This study examined the language and reading scores of 2,107 bilingual dominant second-generation Latinx youth participants enrolled in 8th and 9th grade in the states of…

This dissertation examines the distinct motivational variables that impact philanthropic contributions among millennial graduates of Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU). This study focuses on examining the philanthropic behaviors of millennial graduates from FAMU, with a particular emphasis on understanding the significant impact…

The Sullivan Report (The Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce, 2004) identified the lack of racial diversity among health care practitioners as a major issue. This report points out that, while the U.S. population has continued to become more diverse, the composition of health care workers has not kept pace with these…

Purpose: This report compares device use in a cohort of Spanish-English bilingual and English monolingual children who are deaf and hard of hearing, including children fitted with traditional hearing aids, cochlear implants (CIs), and/or bone-conduction hearing devices. Method: Participants were 84 Spanish-English bilingual children and 85 English…

BACKGROUND: Extant literature indicates students living with food allergies (FA) experience biopsychosocial challenges (eg, social isolation, anxiety). The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of students living with FA during a usual weekday in a school setting. METHODS: Phenomenological study with purposive convenience sample…

Followership has become more relevant to scholars over the last few decades, and these scholars' work has led to a deeper understanding of followership in many contexts; however, there is a paucity of literature on followership concerning education. Therefore, this study aimed to add to existing knowledge in this field. This study examined how…

For the past quarter century, federal law has required states to measure school performance, identify the lowest performing schools, and provide support to identified schools. Earlier accountability systems were criticized for overemphasizing student achievement in reading and mathematics, excluding nonacademic features of school performance, and…

An emerging challenge of closing the gap of supply and demand in School-Based Agriculture Education (SBAE) is recruiting and retaining male agricultural teachers. This case study was conducted under the lens of the Theory of Planned Behavior to examine this phenomena. Ten male participants, who were active in SBAE as youth and are currently…

In the wake of the racial reckoning created by the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, several states have enacted multiple anti-equity educational measures. Florida is central in this discussion as it leads the US policymaking with 23 bills introduced and passed into law. Further, Florida's particular constellation of educational reforms has…

Using a regression discontinuity design generated by school-entry cutoffs and school records from an anonymous district in Florida, we identify externalities in human capital production function arising from sibling spillovers. We find positive spillover effects from an older to a younger child in less affluent families and negative spillover…

This non-experimental, quantitative study aimed to examine the factors that influence the self-perceived well-being of teachers in K-12 Christian schools. The sample for this study was convenient, non-probable, and purposive and comprised of 81 teachers from one Christian school system in Florida. The measurement tool used in this study is based…

American students are far more diverse than their teachers. Some 79 percent of U.S. teachers are white compared to 44 percent of students. As a result, students of color are far less likely to have a same-race teacher than are white students, a phenomenon that has attracted the attention of philanthropists and policymakers alike. Foundations have…

Leaders in education must focus on improving teacher attrition because teacher turnover contributes to lower student academic achievements by disrupting the learning environment for both students and teachers (Carver-Thomas & Darling-Hammond, 2017). This study took place in a North Florida School district where school and district leaders are…