This study examines the disproportionality in special education, regarding African American students being overrepresented, specifically under the disability category of Emotional Disturbance (ED) within the state of Pennsylvania. Demographic information was collected with the use of secondary data provided by the Pennsylvania Department of…

Black suffering at historically and predominantly white institutions cannot be analogized with other racially minoritized groups. By drawing upon insights from Black Critical Theory (BlackCrit), this study elucidates how antiblackness as a distinct form of racism manifests in Black undergraduates' lives. This study is guided by an instrumental…

This article reports although much has been communicated about the history of school segregation in Southern states, less is described about the prevailing attempts to establish school segregation in Northern cities and towns. Black-owned and operated newspapers serve as primary sources for the communication of counternarratives that bear witness…

The underrepresentation of Black girls in high school STEM courses is a pressing issue reflecting broader societal inequities and diminishes the potential for innovation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. The problem of low enrollments of Black girls in high school STEM classrooms impacts not only the educational outcomes for…

Physical activity offers many benefits, yet the majority of college students do not meet the recommended weekly amounts. This study investigated African American students' perceptions of barriers, benefits, and cues to action at Lincoln University. There was a gap in the literature because no qualitative studies regarding African American…

While existing literature offers valuable insights into various aspects of the African American college experience, it lacks the voices of African American students themselves. This study aims to fill this gap by investigating the experiences of first-generation African American male students attending predominantly white institutions. Employing a…

In this study, researchers investigated the library experiences of Black undergraduate students at Penn State in University Park, a predominately white institution. Their goal was to improve services and spaces and to highlight and validate experiences with race, racism, and microaggressions on campus and in the library. Twenty undergraduate…

After decades of advancement in education equality, a disproportional number of racially minoritized students are placed in special education. Addressing the disproportionality is a complicated issue due to various contributing factors. One possible cause is racial bias from teachers who rate problem behaviors of African American boys for special…

In this three-part article, we present two studies of Black political education and resistance to archive and document examples of the ongoing struggle for educational equity. In the first portion of the article, Goss's study uses an analysis of race, power, and policy to map the evolution of school discipline reform legislation, and advocacy…

This study explores the impact of student engagement on the success and involvement of undergraduate students. Student Engagement throughout this study includes extracurricular activities, mentoring opportunities for students, and advising experiences that students encounter during college. A further focus on the experiences of African…

Targeted school funding is a potentially valuable policy lever to increase educational equality by race, ethnicity, and income, but it remains unclear how to target funds most effectively. We use a regression discontinuity approach to compare districts that narrowly passed or failed a school funding election. We use close tax elections in 9 states…

Research for Action (RFA) studied why Black teachers were leaving their jobs more than White teachers in Allegheny County from 2014 to 2020. RFA analyses found that the number of Black teachers in the area was consistently dropping, more than the decrease in the overall Black population. The data gathered from speaking directly with 38 current and…

In public schools in Pennsylvania and across the nation an academic achievement gap exists between African American students and their White peers as African American students have consistently performed lower than White students on standardized tests in reading and mathematics (NCES, 2019). Since the achievement gap has persisted for decades,…

This qualitative study examined the perceptions of African American college graduates who defied the odds by graduating in four to six years from a Predominantly White Institution in Pennsylvania. Graduation rates are significantly lower for African American college students, so shedding light on these students' experiences is very important. The…

This brief presents findings describing how Pennsylvania compares to other states in providing its students with access to educational opportunity. Following a more detailed discussion of the indicators used to define educational opportunity, Pennsylvania's rankings on overall access are first examined and then how Pennsylvania compares to other…