As part of a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded project to create culturally responsive curriculum that uses critical spatial thinking and geospatial technologies to address spatial justice in urban neighborhoods, students from a predominantly African American inner-city public high school in Toledo, Ohio participated in two summer workshops…

An important pre-condition to diversifying the workforce of land-grant extension services is access to qualified ethnic minority individuals with an awareness and interest in pursuing extension careers. This paper highlights an example of collaboration between the K-State Research and Extension office and an educational research program at Kansas…

Both society- and individual-level factors serve to make persistence through one's university career more difficult, especially for students with disadvantaged financial and academic backgrounds. Using a rich dataset of students at a rural, 4-year university in Pennsylvania, we compare GPA and persistence outcomes of two groups of students in…

Out-of-School Time (OST) programs play a crucial role in child and youth development, serving as a bridge between school, home, and the community. They offer structured environments where young people can engage in meaningful activities, build relationships, and develop essential life skills. OST programs foster personal growth, academic support,…

This paper focuses on a summer writing program we called GANAS with bi/multilingual youth, including English learners and one youth with a learning disability, that sought to facilitate sociocritical literacies (SL) based on youths' lived experiences to imagine new social futures. Envisioned as a social design experiment, we used testimonio as a…

Working solutions to problems are not definitive end points. As a result, code that is technically correct can still be treated as needing revising -- a practice in computer programming known as refactoring. We document how late elementary to middle school students and their undergraduate instructors weigh the possibility of refactoring working…

A university was awarded a "Teacher Prep to Practice" grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Education for a project titled "Developing Culturally-Relevant Aspiring Teachers." The university collaborated with local school districts to host 2, 3-day "summer institute" professional development sessions, focusing on…

While quantitative research has revealed that undergraduate research experiences are closing graduate school matriculation gaps for underrepresented students, little is known about how they are doing this. This study explores this through two in-depth interviews with 12 students who attended a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for…

United States history standards are written through a Eurocentric lens, centering white people's experiences. This occurs in schools by teaching some Black histories, but not through (or by) Black people's perspectives. In a recent survey, teachers said they try to teach Black history, but they do not feel prepared to do so. With this context in…

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is consistently seen as a top priority; however, STEM programs often suffer from low retention. Students who start in STEM degree programs often lose interest or face obstacles that cause them to leave. Here, we describe a non-traditional approach meant to encourage a range of…

The purpose of this study was to examine the intersections of experiential learning and critical reflection within the unique context of the Accademia Europea dell'Opera (AEDO), a music performance summer program specializing in opera. Researchers explored the development and implementation of a responsive model of reflection and considered the…

This qualitative evaluation of Emory's Oxford Summer Experience Program examined rural students' college aspirations. Educational and economic barriers hinder rural students' college enrollment and degree attainment (Adelman, 2002; Byun, Meece, & Irvin, 2012; Means, Clayton, Conzelmann, Baynes, & Umbach, 2016). Because of these barriers,…

Nationwide, over 430,000 thousand teachers serve seven million students with disabilities. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) for eligible students with a disability in one or more of 13 categories, and to the greatest extent possible, for inclusion, so that students with…

From an educational equity perspective, all students need to have appropriate learning opportunities that are close to their own cultural contexts (e.g., families and communities). Based on the transformative social-emotional learning (SEL) framework, the mixed-methods study explored how culturally relevant reading experiences can be…

Youth programs are consistently described as settings that offer youth developmental experiences. Summer camps are one example of youth programs with empirical evidence suggesting positive outcomes of participation; however, researchers seldom address how youth's social development, such as attachment, may shape outcomes. By not accounting for…