Many students struggle with the basic skill of writing, yet schools lack technically adequate screening measures to identify students at risk in this area. Measures that allow for valid screening decisions that identify students in need of interventions to improve performance are greatly needed. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the…

The present study is a systematic review of school climate measures developed for a Spanish-speaking K-12 population. Four instruments were included in the analyses representing data of 9,236 students with a mean of sample size of 2,309 students. Evidences for test content and internal structure were the most frequent representation of…

Background: The SMART Moms/Mamás LÍSTAS Project was a randomized control trial that tested the efficacy of a prenatal stress management program in reducing stress and cortisol levels among low-income women. The current study is a process evaluation of the stress management program (intervention arm of the original randomized controlled trial) and…

In a recent report, "Hate at School," from which this article is excerpted, the authors identified 821 school-based incidents that were reported in the media in 2018. By comparison, the K-12 educators who responded to a new questionnaire reported 3,265 such incidents in the fall of 2018 alone. Findings included the following: (1) More…

This study focused on the validation of the Revised Sense of Purpose Scale (SOPS-2) with emerging adults. We used a sample of 681 college students aged between 18 and 25 years old. The results provided evidence for the factorial validity of the SOPS-2 designed to measure awareness of purpose, awakening to purpose, and altruistic purpose. The…

Literature regarding translanguaging pedagogy has grown in recent years, with several studies examining its use within the classroom as well as potential ways it can shape learner identity constructions (e.g., Sayer, 2013). Drawing on translanguaging and translanguaging pedagogy (e.g., Canagarajah, 2011; Creese & Blackledge, 2010) and the…

There is ongoing debate within the field of bilingual education concerning the extent to which instructional languages should be separated. However, neither side has sufficiently addressed how language practices and policies shape the ideological space of the classroom, and the concomitant implications for student learning and sense-making around…

Background: Accumulating evidence indicates that Latino children and adolescents are at risk for higher anxiety relative to youth of other ethnicities. However, to date, very little research has been conducted to examine culture specific mechanisms of anxiety in Latino youth. Objective: This study explored whether strict adherence to Latino…

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of prestige seeking on access for Black and Latino students at urban-serving universities, addressing gaps in the literature to raise questions as to the extent to which prestige seeking is detrimental to achieving equity goals. To do so, I used an OLS [ordinary least squares] regression with…

The goal of the College of Arts & Sciences Community-aid (CASC-aid) project, a National Science Foundation grant funded study (2016-2021), is to develop, implement, and evaluate a program that fosters a community of academic success for Hispanic STEM students. This Hispanic Serving Institute continues to provide a variety of supports to…

This research explores how adolescents conceptualize the usefulness of mathematics. Integrating sociocultural theory with the study of utility value, this study uses open-ended survey items and interview tasks to examine conceptions of usefulness among a group of predominantly Latinx middle school students. Findings reveal that students primarily…

The underrepresentation of females in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs, in particular, minority females such as Latinas persists. Multiple studies have addressed such lack of presence by recriminating their race and gender. Fewer researches have focused on Latinas' assets and their leadership adopted throughout the…

Hispanic women majoring in engineering have been a marginalized population for decades in higher education. The study for my dissertation is to evaluate how peer support programs benefit or hinder Hispanic women in their persistence majoring in engineering at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) located on the Southwest border. Identifying how the…

U.S. public schools are highly segregated by both race and class. Prior research shows that the desegregation of Southern schools in the 1960s and 1970s led to significant benefits for black students, including increased educational attainment and higher earnings. We do not know, however, whether segregation today has the same harmful effects as…

Substantial disparities in college enrollment rates exist across racial and socioeconomic groups in the United States. A key goal of education policy is to help remediate this inequity by providing equal opportunity and access to all students. However, to develop better policy, one needs to understand the underlying causes of these disparities.…