School closures due to the COVID-19 virus have presented schools with the responsibility to make unprecedented decisions, and have brought many deep-seated equity issues in the U.S. education system to light. Now, more than ever, it is evident that outdated, one-size-fits-all approaches to education exclude the most vulnerable students, creating…

This paper examines student exposure to school shootings in the United States since the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School. We analyze shootings that occurred during school hours on a school day and resulted in a death. These shootings are likely to be uniformly reported and have a greater potential to cause harm -- either directly or…

In the United States, African-American students often face challenges that arise from structural stigma, which can inhibit their ability to learn and grow in the classroom and in their daily lives. Structural stigma, along with centuries of racist attitudes and policies, can impede student progress and is a challenge for policymakers, business…

Background/Context: There is continuing debate among social scientists and educators about the role of school-to-school differences in generating educational inequality. Are some students high achieving because they attend School A, while others struggle because they attend School B, as critical discourse on schools argues? Alternatively, is…

Patience and risk-taking -- two cultural traits that steer intertemporal decision-making -- are fundamental to human capital investment decisions. To understand how they contribute to international differences in student achievement, we combine PISA tests with the Global Preference Survey. We find that opposing effects of patience (positive) and…

Mindfulness is the practice of cultivating attention to foster greater self-awareness and self-knowledge about thoughts, feelings, and sensations, and how they can affect one's actions. It is complementary to other Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) approaches related to positive learning outcomes for pre-K-12 students and educators. This Center…

The purpose of this position paper is to emphasize the importance that the curriculum and climate are structured in ways that are conducive for a wide variety of learners. This not only means that the content itself is differentiated based on different learning styles and preferences, but also that students can see themselves represented in what…

A major criticism brought to digital learning environments was that the individual learning activities cannot be monitored consistently. However, recent advancements of educational data mining and learning analytics allow a precise tracking of learner activities. Previous studies focused on learners' navigation profiles, academic achievements, or…

The purpose of this instrumental case study was to understand how gun violence in schools has influenced school culture for stakeholders within a small suburban school district in southeast Texas. At this stage in the research, school culture is defined as the set of norms, beliefs, values, and assumptions that are shared by the school community…

This article makes the case for shifting the national focus from bullying prevention to the systemic integration of evidence-based practices of social and emotional learning (SEL) into US school programs and policies. Several meta-analyses demonstrate that SEL is a promising approach for reducing a range of disruptive behaviors in schools. The…

The health and wellbeing of teachers is not only good for teachers, it is also critical for students wellbeing and academic outcomes. Using the Social Ecological Model to drive this study and considering the school climate at the organization level, this study focuses on how the school climate effects teacher's burnout, perceived health and…

Predicting learning and human behavior in general is a challenging endeavor. Machine learning driven predictive modeling have been an increasingly popular means to understand disparities in student performance. With more than a handful of approaches to predictive modeling, the current literature of predicting learning is plagued with issues such…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to understand how online students described the experience of instructor-student (ISR) and student-student rapport (SSR). Two research questions addressed how students described rapport with instructors (RQ1) and classmates (RQ2) in online community college classes. Working Alliance theory and…

Teacher retention in rural schools continues to be an area of concern. This qualitative study examines why teachers migrate from small, rural school districts to teach in larger districts by interviewing teachers who have already made the move and who have taught in both environments. It also shares the perceptions of teachers as they reflect on…

Non-rural students are repeatedly outpacing rural students in postsecondary enrollment rates. Lower enrollment and college completion rates among rural populations can often be problematic for many communities whose economies depend upon an educated workforce to increase the demand for economic growth. One of the problems of low college enrollment…