Safety protocols for COVID-19 necessitated changes to this action research project. This article describes the theoretical framework of Community-Based Art Education for providing Service-Learning in an art education preparation program during the global pandemic. Art education students joined the local Boys & Girls Club (BGC) and a local…

In the United States, people often feel like they need to choose between pursuing a conventional four-year college degree or working, leaving millions of people with no opportunity to achieve the professional and economic advancement that comes with a bachelor's degree. What if this is a false choice? Apprenticeship Degrees offer a hybrid option…

This Practice to Policy brief, based on insights from UnidosUS's Affiliate Network of community-based organizations and public charter schools in Illinois, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California, highlights the critical role of Out-of-School Time (OST) programs in supporting the Latino community, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19…

This dissertation consists of two chapters that examine the impact of educational and positive youth development programs on students' academic and behavioral outcomes. In the first chapter, I evaluate the effect of the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) program, a school meal provision allowing schools meeting the eligibility requirements to…

Background: Chronic care management (CCM) and community health worker (CHW) interventions hold promise for managing complex chronic conditions such as diabetes and related comorbidities. This qualitative study examines facilitators and barriers to the implementation of an expanded CCM intervention that explicitly incorporated program staff, clinic…

Educators develop and implement various academic/behavioral intervention programs designed to specifically address academic shortcomings or aimed at disrupting behavioral cycles that impede success in the classroom. The purpose of this research was to identify gaps in behavioral Response to Intervention (RtI) programs and to design a RtI program…

Over the last decade the 21st Century Community Learning Center program (21st CCLC) funded by the U.S. Department of Education has served over 100,000 Texas students annually in after-school centers. Approximately 779 local Texas 21st CCLC programs served students from over 800 schools during the 2012-13, and/or 2013-14 academic years. Statewide…

Diversity has been shown to improve the ability of groups to problem solve and make predictions, as well as guarding against groupthink and overconfidence. Marginalized groups within the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields are still largely underrepresented despite various efforts to increase diversity in STEM. This…

Health professions students can increase their understanding of how social determinants impact health equity through experiential learning opportunities. Using key informant interviews with faculty and staff familiar with experiential education programs in medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, public health, and social work, we sought to…

Teachers are charged with connecting classroom science to real-world applications; however, opportunities for teachers to experience real-world applications in the life and biosciences are limited. When provided the opportunity to engage in hands-on learning experiences, teachers' capacity to connect classroom activities to real-world applications…

In the USA, persons of Hispanic ethnicity experience higher rates of adolescent pregnancy and STIs than non-Hispanic white youth and there exists a lack of research concerning the sexuality education preferences of Hispanic adolescents. This study describes sexual health education preferences by Hispanic ethnicity among a high-risk sample of young…

This case study examines the research process used to assess the intermediate effects of a community-based college preparation program in a fast growth, high needs exurban school district in Texas. Because it was not possible to randomly assign participants to treatment or control conditions, a nonexperimental design using propensity score…

Leadership programs and services have burgeoned over the past decade to encourage greater representation in leadership among girls and teens. Yet, little is known about the prevalence and type of girls' leadership programs or services adopted in secondary schools, whether they are perceived as important or effective by school counselors, or what…

This study, framed by Kolb's experiential learning theory, explored the intentions, perceptions, and understanding of graduate faculty and staff on community engagement. Questions have arisen as to whether students with advanced degrees are entering the job market with sought-after skills. In response, universities have continued to seek program…

A wealth of literature shows positive outcomes and experiences from arts learning, yet youth access to arts education has become significantly more inequitable over the past 30 years. Alongside the growing discourse around arts learning and equity issues, there is a recognized and persistent need for more research. We conducted a critical,…