Agricultural educators can have a profound impact on student's lives and are often aware of their students' life experiences outside of the classroom. Students often treat their agricultural educator as a mentor, which increases their likeliness of confiding in them when facing hardships, such as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). An ACE is…

This study examined caregivers' lived experiences during the initial weeks of stay-at-home mandates within the unique socio-cultural and healthcare context of the United States. To learn about the experiences of caregivers during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted seventeen semi-structured interviews with caregivers of young…

The purpose of this study is to determine what factors affect teachers to stay or leave Illinois public school districts that are classified by their state report cards as having 95% or greater low-income student enrollments. Many teachers are dropping out before getting much experience. These teachers are either going to higher socioeconomic…

Do inclusion, diversity, equity, and access (IDEA) courses geared toward Latinx students help create a collectivist community on a college campus? We argue that courses incorporating IDEA initiatives into their curriculum and focusing on Latinx individuals provide students the face, place, and space to create the cultural wealth required for…

The role of the school leader continues to evolve. As the roles of principals and superintendents become more complex and demanding, there is a necessity to explore the perceptions of Illinois public school principals, superintendents, and Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools (IARSS) regional superintendents on the need for…

Teacher self-efficacy impacts student achievement, job satisfaction, and teacher retention. Although the benefits of social support have been extensively studied in medicine and psychology, limited research has been completed in education to evaluate the ways in which social support contribute toward teacher self-efficacy. The purpose of this…

To say that there is a need for social justice is to assume that there is inequitable access to resources and unequal distribution of power (Golightly et al., 2017). Resources are needed for LGBTQ+ college students to achieve higher success rates in their programs of study ("LGBTQ+" stands for "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender,…

Teacher self-efficacy affects student achievement, job satisfaction, and teacher retention. Although the benefits of social support have been extensively studied in medicine and psychology, limited research has been completed in education to evaluate the ways in which social support influences teacher self-efficacy. The purpose of this…

The main purpose of this study was to gain an in depth understanding of the adjustment needs of international graduate students at the host university. There are, of course, a variety of factors that play a part in the adjustment needs that plague international graduate students and their adjustment to the host university. Consequently, in order…

For many non-traditional candidates, the path into teaching is riddled with bumps and detours. They must pay for increasingly expensive coursework and certification costs, attend classes that conflict with work schedules, and forgo wages to complete unfunded student teaching requirements. These roadblocks can deter valuable local…

Youth who were in foster care as adolescents make up a small but highly vulnerable subpopulation of the college student body. This article analyzes secondary data collected from one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies of foster youth. The analytic sample includes 329 foster youth from three Midwestern states who attended college in the…

This paper draws on data collected from two of the most extensive longitudinal studies of care leavers in the US. The Midwest Study (2003-2011) included 732 youths in foster care in three Midwestern states, and the CalYOUTH Study (2012-present) includes 727 youths in California foster care. The paper has three objectives: (1) describe trends in…

This case study was focused on the establishment of the Midwest Asian American Students Union (MAASU) as a racial project reflecting students' articulations of a regional, panethnic identity in response to racism. A critical race theory lens was used to analyze interviews with 13 MAASU founders. Findings highlight the role of social context (in…

Social support has been shown to be a significant protective factor in the lives of adolescents and has been linked to numerous health and psychological outcomes. Spirituality and religion have also been demonstrated to have similar effects on a host of outcomes. The current study further analyzed the link between these two constructs from a…

Addressing the importance of international student engagement on campus and creating friendships with host-country nationals during their time abroad, this small-scale study explores the question of, "Are there trends in how or through what means international students are making connections with co-national, multi-national, or host-national…