When young adults with disabilities (YAWD) age out of the system, they face what has colloquially been termed "the cliff," which symbolizes the sudden drop in services that occur as they transition out of high school; needs previously met at school are left unaddressed. Multiple options have been suggested to meet these needs, including…

The purpose of the study is the country of Burkina Faso and the pedagogical aspects of Yacouba Sawadogo's leadership and commitment to ecology, using epistemologies of the South to address climate change in Africa. Knowing that Sawadogo's achievement happened within a contextualized community whose members impacted him, this study explores the…

This dissertation explores two main questions of farmers in Western Kenya -- how they see farming as a creative process and their role in that - and how change is made possible in their community. I explore stories from farmers themselves, using photographs they have taken and stories they tell about those photographs, which answer these two…

The purpose of this descriptive qualitative study was to explore the experiences of African immigrant farmers in the U.S. Data were collected from eight participants who have experienced the phenomenon using in-depth interviews and field observation. Findings revealed that Immigrant farming is anchored on cultural practices resulting from parental…

This dissertation contains three chapters, each investigating a question in American economic history. The first chapter is co-authored with Ran Abramitzky, Santiago Perez, and Joseph Price. In this work, we conduct a large-scale digitization of historical college registers, encompassing 2.7 million students at 65 elite US universities. We use…

This dissertation investigates work-based learning as a method to prepare students for agricultural careers through three interconnected studies. The first two studies investigate secondary education programs in the United States, while the third study explores postsecondary education in Rwanda. In Study 1, a philosophical research approach…

To what extent are farmers in Illinois using the social networking platform Facebook and for what purpose? Do they use it to seek information related to farming? If so, what types of farming-related information are they looking for? This study aims to examine farmers' acceptance, use of, and information seeking behaviors as they engage with others…

Food insecurity is a global concern and is acute in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa as well as pockets in the global North. In the lush green spaces of "God's Own Country", the state of Kerala in India, about 379,000 women are engaged in farming in about 75,800 groups. Spearheaded by Kudumbashree, the State Poverty Eradication Mission…

Many goods carry health risks that have important impacts on demand and behavior. However, the risks are rarely transparent and, as a result, consumers often have incomplete knowledge of the health risks associated with many of their consumption decisions. This can lead to inefficient behavior. With that in mind, economists have studied the…

Historically Black Colleges and Universities have historically been given less funding than White institutions, a known discrepancy partially rectified by the Civil Rights era desegregation lawsuits. The court-ordered funding, however, came with race-based restrictions for public HBCUs, and many lost academic programs to traditionally White…

Georgia Young Farmer teachers and their needs have never been researched in a formal fashion. To better understand these individuals and strengthen the program that is decreasing in numbers throughout the United States, the general design of this research was a descriptive survey, allowing the 51 Georgia Young Farmer teachers to enter categorical…

The purposes of this quantitative descriptive and correlational study were to describe the learning preferences of Georgia Young Farmer participants and determine if significant differences exists between scores relating to visual, auditory and kinesthetic learning styles. A pilot study was used to correct identifiable problems with the survey…

Migrant and seasonal farmworkers are the fabric and driving force of the agricultural economy in the U.S. They make it possible for us to thrive on fresh fruits and sustenance on a daily basis. However, there has been a lengthy history of K-12 schools failing to meet the needs of children of migrant farmworkers and youth migrant farmworkers.…

This dissertation explores the role of creative, participatory methods of communication in response to the impacts of climate change and other environmental and social pressures in Sub- Saharan Africa. Specifically, the research seeks to understand the extent to which narrative and participatory drama influence social interaction, attitudes, and…

In the mid-2000s, China began a set of policies to "informatize" the countryside, i.e. to bring Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to rural residents in order to improve their economic conditions. These policies posit the countryside as a world of "less," compared to urban areas, and they are framed in terms of…