Youth mentoring organizations miss the opportunity to re-engage the people they serve to help others within their organization. As such, they may perpetuate the marginalization of the youth served. Through the Clark and Estes (2008) gap analytical framework, this study sought to understand the gaps in knowledge, motivation, and organizational…

This study aims to analyze the factors that keep economically disadvantaged Hispanic students motivated when attaining their higher education degree. This study included 10 Hispanic students who have completed at least two academic years at an accredited four-year university in central or north New Jersey and were currently enrolled in one.…

Community colleges are important settings for the development of social capital as well as institutions of higher learning. The democratic mission, geographic dispersion, and close relationship with multiple stakeholders throughout their service regions allow community colleges to be well-suited to act as liaisons and social architects…

The purpose of this qualitative, intrinsic case study was to gain an understanding of how middle school teachers' professional learning and development experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic have influenced their existing professional capital. Even though middle school teachers led much of their professional learning and development during the…

According to the research, community mentoring programs can influence an adolescent's social skills, academics, and social mobility. Part of the reason for this is that community-based mentoring programs can provide training and understanding of how adolescents can address situations they may encounter. In addition, community mentoring programs…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the social networks of select veteran teachers in three schools within one large, urban school district. Using Lin's (1999) Network Theory of Social Capital as the theoretical framework, the case study described participant perspectives regarding how the social networks contribute to the…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how Latino employees of a nonprofit organization describe their experiences when providing advice to Latino youth in pursuing post-secondary education in the Northern United States. The participants in the study included 41 Latino employees of a nonprofit organization for qualitative…

The Center for First Generation College Student Success (2020) defined first generation college students (FGCS) as, "an undergraduate student whose parents do not have a bachelor's or higher degree." FGCS have to navigate many aspects of college without parent(s) who have experienced college themselves. After applying and being accepted…

Community schools have shown promising gains for students in the areas of student attendance, academic achievement, student behavior, and school climate. However, little scholarship has addressed the experiences of these schools and their stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic. To determine how community school programs were impacted by the…

As students of color find belonging in their campus community, they not only desire to persist to graduation, but they to seek to thrive and cultivate a sense of place for their peers to do the same. Utilizing Black placemaking framework, this study explored the lived experiences and the interpretation of that experience for Black students at…

First-generation Latina/o/x students have some of the lowest college attainment rates in the nation. College attainment is influenced by the access students have to different college systems. The college choices students access can reflect individual, community, and school-level factors that impact how much college knowledge and resources students…

This study focused on how nontraditional African American women students (NAAWS) draw from community cultural wealth to persist in higher education. There has been an increase in NAAWS aged 25 and over starting and returning to college who work at least part-time and possess other responsibilities; however, this population is not graduating at an…

Children at the intersections of language learning, racialization, and dis/ability status experience systems of power in a very particular way. This manuscript amplifies the experiences of bilingual nonspeaking children and their families to upend the notion of educational and medical professionals as the primary experts in the learning process.…

The inner-workings of an organization are deep rooted in trust, obligations, expectations, information channels, norms, and effective sanctions. These aspects are results of the various dimensions of social capital at play in an organization. Social capital can be explained as the connections or resources that organizational members use to attain…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how 7th-12th grade teachers described their active and passive transfer of the social capital elements of social structure and individual actions to at-risk youths during the reentry process into the general classroom in a Southwestern school district. The theoretical foundation of…