Through interviews with Palestinian students in elite schools in Israel, we delve into the intersection between experiences of elite identities and national identities. Contrary to the conventional narrative of hegemonic elite education promoting apolitical attitudes, our findings reveal that Palestinian students, belonging to a stigmatized…

This dissertation examines the impacts of a last-dollar promise program on high school-to-college enrollments at a very large community college (VLCC) district in Texas. The research intends to add to the current literature on the growing popularity of promise programs at two-year community colleges. Specifically, this quantitative study examines…

Embracing students' cultural assets is critical in facilitating self-growth and development at the secondary level, especially among minoritized students interested in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine/health (STEM-M) careers. Using sociocultural and community cultural wealth (CCW) lenses, longitudinal data among 23…

This dissertation investigated the academic performance of immigrant high school students in urban settings, focusing specifically on mathematics. Drawing on Bandura's self-efficacy theory and Zea and colleagues' acculturation framework, the study explored the complex interplay between sources of self-efficacy, acculturation dimensions, and other…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a behavioral based intervention program on minority student behavior. The Breakfast Club was an intervention created with the goal of improving the negative behavior of minority adolescent students. The participants in this study were minority, high school students who displayed frequent…

Culturally responsive student-teacher relationships are critical to the academic success and social-emotional learning (SEL) outcomes of students of color and/or students from low-income backgrounds. Yet, little is known about how students' perceptions of their schools' culturally responsive environment are related to the quality of…

Distributing opportunities to participate in talk-in-interaction during whole-class mathematics discussions is an important equity issue, with multiple studies reporting pervasive inequitable participation patterns in mathematics classrooms. Less attention, however, has been given to the underlying interactional practices that can initiate and…

This cross-sectional study analyzed data from 364,143 students in 492 high schools who completed the Georgia School Climate Survey during the 2017-2018 school year. Through latent profile analysis, we identified that student perceptions of school climate could be classified into three distinct profiles, including positive, moderate, and negative…

The environmental workforce remains largely White, despite calls to diversify. There exists a narrative that environmental education programs can enact change by cultivating Connection to Nature (CTN) among individuals who identify as Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC). We contend that more work is needed to understand the full range of…

Previous research related to Youth Adult Partnership, Empowerment and Empowering Environments, and Liberatory School Design all highlight the importance of relationships in ensuring that young people experience school environments as empowering. Currently, there is a lot of interest and energy around redesigning schools to be Learner-Centered, in…

What happens to our students when they do not complete their studies and drop out of school? Perhaps this question is probably not something that we reflect on as educators. This study seeks to amplify three students' voices and explore their unique experiences and the challenges they faced after they did not complete their high school studies.…

BrainWaves is a Next Generation Science Standards-aligned neuroscience curriculum that allows high school students to develop and test original research questions related to how their brain helps them learn and form new memories. This article discusses the benefits and challenges associated with conducting authentic research in the high school…

This convergent parallel mixed method study was designed to identify obstacles that prevent historically underrepresented racial and ethnic student groups from taking online classes at Phi Beta County Community College and to determine what aid students perceive as necessary to remove these obstacles. This study included three Calloway Charter…

The movie "Try Harder!" features a group of students at Lowell High School in San Francisco, California, as they navigate their elite public institution and apply to top-tier universities. A critical analysis of this film allows us to understand new trends and emerging discourses in urban cities, showing the way racialized groups are pit…

Cisgender and heterosexual norms permeate every level of language classrooms, from textbooks to classroom discourse to teachers' actions, constraining queer/trans learners' ability to be themselves. Yet queer/trans and non-queer/trans learners alike may challenge cisheteronormativity within the language classroom and create new possibilities. We…