Education systems in the United States (US) increasingly experience disagreement over how to address cultural and societal injustices. At the heart of these debates includes the role of the rural sociocultural experience -- which in the US is based on racial and spatial isolation, the idea of whiteness as the norm, and more recently economic…

Inequality in educational outcomes is substantial and persistent in the United States. Students from high-income families outperform those from low-income families on achievement tests, are more likely to graduate high school, and are more likely to earn a college degree. The authors look at student demographics and several measures of teacher…

Biases in online platforms pose a threat to social inclusion. I examine the influence of social biases on online platforms. In my dissertation, I conduct empirical studies on online crowdfunding platforms (prosocial lending and educational crowdfunding) to investigate the influence of funders' or recipients' social backgrounds on the funding…

Providing instruction in multiple languages has the potential to simultaneously help both native English speakers and English learners to develop language proficiency. "Dual language programs" can help native English speakers develop proficiency in a second language and English learners develop proficiency in both their native language…

Early educators are the best spokespeople about the conditions under which they work and what they need in order to thrive. Policy leaders have much to gain by actively engaging educators in identifying workable solutions to the child care crisis. The Center for the Study of Child Care Employment (CSCCE) believes that educators have the right to…

This study examines the experiences of six K-5 elementary school teachers in professional learning spaces for antiracism. Teachers from two elementary schools established school-university partnerships to begin antiracist work: one on a whole-school level, the other a group of teachers meeting voluntarily with university faculty. Given the paucity…

Disparity exists in disciplinary actions taken toward Black students compared to White students in the public schools of a county school district in a Southwest U.S. state. Successful school leadership practices are needed to minimize the disproportionality of Black students being expelled, suspended, and routed to the school-to-prison pipeline.…

The research entitled, "The Factors That Affect Retention Rates of African-American Students Pursuing Stem Degrees from Historically Black Colleges and Universities" is a quantitative study that analyzes academic factors, specifically in the first year of college, and their impact on the retention of African-American Science, Technology,…

This study investigated associations of three teacher-reported health indicators--hunger, tiredness, and sickness--with kindergarten readiness skills in San Francisco Unified School District (N = 12,423; female = 48%; M[subscript age] = 5.47, SD[subscript age] = 0.30, range[subscript age] = 4.67-7.00; Asian American = 26%, Black = 5%, Latinx =…

Early care and education (ECE) programs can provide a lifetime of benefits to children and families, but a lack of public support leaves these valuable services vulnerable to collapse during economic downturns. The COVID-19 pandemic was a particularly intense emergency for ECE providers: closures due to illness or shelter-in-place ordinances…

To ensure students with disabilities receive the services they need to support their learning, the U.S. Congress reauthorized the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 2004. IDEA requires that each state: (1) implement IDEA with fidelity; (2) sustain special education programs that meet IDEA's educational standards; and (3) monitor…

Undergraduates (11,497) at two mid size universities completed a self-administered 100 item online survey including items related to deception in one's romantic relationships. Over two thirds (69%) reported that they had lied, 44% reported that they had cheated and 16% reported that they had misrepresented their "body count" (number of…

We examined professional development spending among Minnesota school districts and explored: (1) the level and variation in spending among districts; (2) associations between expenditures on professional development and district characteristics, including ethnic divergence between faculty and students; and (3) associations between professional…

Through a historical analysis this dissertation addresses how the work of the Negro Youth Study (NYS) fits into the historical development of sociology during the early Civil Rights Movement (CRM). Secondarily, the dissertation addresses the silence surrounding NYS and its place in Black Sociology. As the Depression deepened, educators worried…

Using student transcripts from six institutions over a 23-year timespan, the authors investigate the movement of students into and out of the economics major. Considerable movement between majors occurs with 83 percent of economics graduates switching in after their first principles course. These eventual majors come from a variety of sources, but…