Social-emotional competencies (SEC) play a vital role in students' academic and social achievements. Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs are designed to equip students with these competencies to manage their daily stress and cope with academic and social challenges. Recently, published research studies have emphasized the significant…

The cause of African countries' perennial low-income status and failure to achieve lasting social transformation has proven to be a consistently vexing puzzle. This dissertation was an exploration of a conceptual framework that addressed this important query. The framework was informed by existing literature, including works on the ideas of social…

Students in rural and underresourced school settings often perform poorly due to adversity. This is evident in subcounty schools where challenges such as domestic violence and low socioeconomic status further impact students' academic performance. Researchers have demonstrated that the relationship between students and teachers is instrumental in…

Historically, traditional education systems and most scholarship have focused on the academic outcomes of schooling as well as the economic benefits of education for individuals (such as earnings) and societies (such as economic growth). While acknowledging the importance of such outcomes, this study instead focuses on the "social outcomes of…

In this increasingly competitive global society, the expectations held by parents for children's academic success have grown more intense. Despite the established research indicating a positive association between parental expectations and children's academic outcomes, the extent to which these expectations influence children's socioemotional…

Operationalism, representationalism, and pragmatism are three major philosophies of measurement in psychology and education. These philosophies play important roles in designing and conducting measurements, as well as interpreting results. When measurement results are available, validity evidence plays important roles in supporting the…

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore evidence of transformation as perceived by African American undergraduate students who participated in and persisted through community college study abroad programs in Ghana. Critical pedagogy, transformative learning, African ontology, and intercultural communication theoretical paradigms…

This dissertation aims to understand the contribution of schools to reducing bullying behaviors and, in turn, to examine the benefits for students of attending a school that effectively reduces bullying. In doing so, this dissertation contributes to the literature on bullying by (a) locating the school as a key environment in social-ecology of…

Renowned as a theater of the Cold War, the Korean peninsula has been divided between North Korea and South Korea over the past 70 years, with each country developing its distinctive political, economic, and cultural systems. Over the past 30 years, approximately, 33,000 North Koreans have entered South Korea, where they experience part-time and…

Alternative high schools may be a better fit for many students than traditional high schools, but this group transitions to post-secondary studies at a significantly lower rate than do traditional school students. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the practices of alternative high school principals of British Columbia,…

The advancement of innovative digital technologies has created a generation of digital natives (children) growing up in a diverse environment designed by a population of digital immigrants (adults). Consequently, this everyday experience has created some dissonance in their lifestyles, raising questions for educational leaders. The purpose of this…

The last two years of primary school in Trinidad and Tobago are marked by preparation for national standardized tests. The focus on preparing for these tests impacts teaching and learning strategies, as there is a shift to teacher centered classrooms and teaching strategies that depend on rote learning and memorization. This study explored how…

In Saudi Arabia, few researchers have examined teachers' perceptions and attitudes of the inclusion of students with all types of disabilities at the elementary school level. The purpose of this quantitative methods study was to explore the impact of the Inclusion Model on teachers' positive attitudes and expectations of students learning to…

The purpose of this qualitative, bounded case study was to understand how the specific medium of iTunes U facilitated a high school global collaboration experience for participating teachers and students in Philadelphia, PA, USA and Amsterdam, Netherlands and the academic, social, and emotional benefits participating in such a unique experience…

The term, Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), pertains to programs or projects that strategically use ICTs (e.g. mobile phones, computers, and the internet) as a means toward the socio-economic betterment for the poor in developing contexts. Gaining the political and financial support of the international community…