Globally, early childhood education is seen as a right for children and yet, while several nations have instituted universal early childhood education policies to ensure that all children have access to it, the United States faces several challenges. In addition to lacking a universal federal mandate for early childhood education, the United…

PK-12 district-level administrators have been asked to navigate an increasingly complex policy landscape concerning gender-diversity reforms. We apply sensemaking theory to examine administrators' understanding of legal and policy protections for trans and gender diverse (TGD) students. Using 36 interviews with administrators and policy…

Young children of colour with disabilities have experienced more exclusionary practices in educational settings. Given the fast-growing number of students of colour across classrooms in the United States, and approximately 1 in 6 students identified with disabilities in public schools, it is important to pay attention to why exclusionary…

Despite significant efforts to broaden participation in postsecondary science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, students from historically minoritized populations continue to face systemic barriers related to access, departmental climate, and institutional practices. Previous research suggests that campus-level STEM diversity…

Teachers contribute more to reading and math outcomes than any other factor of schooling. However, teacher shortages are pervasive. How can schools and districts recruit high-quality educators, hold onto to the ones they already have, and reflect the diversity of their students? This infographic highlights innovative models beyond the traditional…

The problem addressed by this study was many educators do not practice Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) in U.S. public schools instead they tend toward a traditional Eurocentric model, which has been found to devalue, make invisible, and even disparage multicultural students, affecting their academic achievement. The purpose of this…

The study evaluates the location and prominence of Chicana/o/x Studies courses on community college campuses nationally according to their websites and public-facing resources through content analysis methodology. To date, the research on Chicana/o/x Studies and on Ethnic Studies programs in community colleges, in general, has been limited, so…

Visuals and images are ubiquitous on college campuses and with the lives of students, faculty, and staff. Increasingly students, administrators, and faculty have access to the means of creation, production, and distribution of images. While particular images are crafted by institutions to communicate particular messages, the use of visuals and…

As policy debates concerning LGBTQ+ students and staff continue across the American education system, there is not a clear description of the prevalence of local policy protections, even in states with legislative mandates, nor a strong understanding of how to expand reform initiatives. After conducting a document analysis of policies with a…

Classrooms nationwide welcome a diverse group of learners. A goal, and an achievable one, is to recognize this unique diversity on a whole child spectrum and to strive to customize learning to meet individual needs. Critical to this process is for teachers to have at hand research that connects factors of learning in a holistic way. It is equally…

Educators have sought to understand and address the disproportional representation of students from certain student subgroups in gifted education. Most gifted identification decisions are made with national comparisons where students must score above a certain percentage of test takers. However, this approach is not always consistent with the…

In the history of US news media, partisanship, class, race, and gender biases have always infused the press and that coverage has often been shaped behind closed doors by those with the greatest power. People of color have been systematically excluded from the press, both in general society and on college campuses. However over the past several…

Many Americans are familiar with the First Amendment, but its application to prayer and religious activities in public schools is often misunderstood. Religious beliefs are increasingly diverse in the United States. Therefore, it seems imperative that school personnel are aware of the law and sensitive to an array of religious practices. We…

Trans-informed administrative guidance introduces concepts from trans studies to educational leaders, but researchers have relatively ignored these policy implementation tools. This content analysis describes the design of administrative guidance using a representative sample of 112 Illinois districts: the who, what, how, and why of supporting…

Project Midstate Student Support for Teaching (MSS) (http://www.uis.edu/projectmss/) is an initiative at University of Illinois Springfield (UIS) designed to increase the number of first generation and diverse teacher candidates in area school districts. Students accepted into MSS receive full tuition waivers, a $200 book stipend per semester, and…