In this book, Robert Nelson reminds us that one of the most important elements of teaching and learning is to inspire and to be inspired. Given that inspiration itself has evolved through metaphor, the inquiry distinguishes inspirational learning by its peculiarly metaphoric character. We acknowledge that students respond to passion and…

The primary audience for this book is first-generation college students. Whether they are in two-year or four-year colleges, I give the readers an example of the power of a parent's dream, the positive and negative outcomes of a student's hard work, the stuff caring teachers and supportive school administrators are made of, and the significance of…

This much-needed volume brings together academics, practitioners, students, and community members of Color to thoroughly reframe college access and choice in research and practice. Enrollment rates continue to differ substantially by race and ethnicity. While Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color remain inequitably stratified in the pursuit…

How do youth placed in foster care aspire to and access college? This book chronicles the lives and experiences of 49 college students navigating the challenging terrain of the United States' foster care system. Through in-depth interviews, Johnson provides insight into the harsh realities of how our nation's educational and welfare systems often…

High school and college students are inundated by indicators and rankings supposedly designed to help them decide where to go to college and what to study once they arrive. In "Metrics That Matter," coauthors Zachary Bleemer, Mukul Kumar, Aashish Mehta, Chris Muellerleile, and Christopher Newfield take a critical look at these metrics…

Why does a public high school, despite having resources and educators with good intentions, end up graduating English learners (ELs) without preparing them for college and career? This book answers this question through a longitudinal ethnographic case study of a diverse high school in Pennsylvania. The author takes the reader on a journey with…

This case study is based on research begun for an MA dissertation in Human Resource Management and subsequently developed. It follows the government's decision that from September 2012, UK universities would be able to increase their tuition fees from a maximum of £3000 to £9000 per year. The project aimed to investigate the impact of this on…

"Study Gods" offers a rare look at the ways privileged youth in China prepare themselves to join the ranks of the global elite. Yi-Lin Chiang shows how these competitive Chinese high schoolers first become "study gods" ("xueshen"), a term describing academically high-performing students. Constant studying, however, is…

It's widely acknowledged that American parents from different class backgrounds take different approaches to raising their children. Upper and middle-class parents invest considerable time facilitating their children's activities, while working class and poor families take a more hands-off approach. These different strategies influence how…

What single factor makes for an excellent college education? As it turns out, it's pretty simple: human relationships. Decades of research demonstrate the transformative potential and the lasting legacies of a relationship-rich college experience. Critics suggest that to build connections with peers, faculty, staff, and other mentors is expensive…

This edited volume brings together a state-of-the-art collection of leading and emergent research on the burgeoning topic of science identities. It sets out how science identity can be productively used as a lens in understanding patterns and inequalities in science participation across different educational and international contexts. Its…

This book disrupts the false dichotomy of college versus career by showing how young people and the programs created to serve them integrate the worlds of college and career readiness as students work to learn against the odds and strive toward lives that matter to them. Work-based learning at each stage of the K-college experience is crucial to…

This case presents an empirical study that examined how general self-efficacy functions as a predictor of community college student's degree aspiration directly and indirectly via various key factors (i.e., social capital, personal input, transfer readiness). This study is unique because the author (a) utilized general self-efficacy scale and (b)…

Early School Leaving in the European Union provides an analysis of early school leaving (ESL) in nine European Union countries, with a particular focus on young people who were previously enrolled in educational institutions inside and outside mainstream secondary education. The comparative approach employed by this volume adds to the existing…

What is important for citizens to know and be able to do? The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) seeks to answer that question through the most comprehensive and rigorous international assessment of student knowledge and skills. The PISA 2015 Assessment and Analytical Framework presents the conceptual foundations of the…