Students' social belonging in a general chemistry course has been shown to predict academic performance in that course. Additionally, students' social belonging at the beginning of a general chemistry course has been shown to differ across demographics, such as gender. This social belonging exists as both an absolute sense of belonging in the…

Why do college students persist with their education, especially when facing challenges? We answer this question by exploring the complexities surrounding college student retention, using the organizational research lenses of job embeddedness, normative pressures, and the unfolding model of turnover. We first developed a college embeddedness scale…

This research seeks to answer the question of why sociologists teach at community colleges, how they view their choices and how they view the discipline of sociology. I theorize that contrary to community college teaching being a "fall back" position, many sociologists actively seek those positions deliberately to enact social justice…

Academic advising is a critical component of student success, retention, and completion. The advising process is vital to the success of community college students and serves as a tool for connecting students with faculty. Faculty advisors are often immersed in the college culture and are highly familiar with discipline and institutional…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the academic and interpersonal lived experiences of Latino Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students by analyzing their individual stories and personal accounts as community college students. This study focused on students who were undocumented but were able to attend community…

During a global pandemic, another pandemic of loneliness impacted undergraduate college students and influenced the way members of the 18-25-year-old population lived and learned throughout a time of intentional distancing. Additionally, the insurgence of loneliness impacts members of the 18-25 age group in startling rates. This qualitative case…

Students' Sense of Belonging (SoB) to a University is important because high levels of Sense of Belonging have a positive impact on students' motivation and retention. This mixed methods research design was developed to define Sense of Belonging to the University from the students' perspective, create a more comprehensive measurement tool for…

This report focuses highlights turnarounds at two Massachusetts schools, Worcester Technical High School and the Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy in Springfield, that were once known for high dropout rates and low graduation rates. The report shows that these schools now excel due to new leadership, community investment, and committed…

This toolkit is designed to guide educators in developing and improving practical measurement instruments for use in networked improvement communities (NICs) and other education contexts in which principles of continuous improvement are applied. Continuous improvement includes distinct repeating processes: understanding the problem, identifying…

The COVID-19 pandemic led to an abrupt shift from in-person to virtual instruction in the spring of 2020. We use two complementary difference-in-differences frameworks: one that leverages within-instructor-by-course variation on whether students started their spring 2020 courses in person or online and another that incorporates student fixed…

The climate crisis is not (merely) a problem of science but also, pre-eminently, a moral and ethical one. Humans alive today are the first with overwhelming data that our modern, industrialised, high-carbon-consumption ways of living threaten the biosphere we depend on, and perhaps the last with meaningful opportunity to avert climate disaster.…

Social movements are at the forefront of fighting for another world as conceptualised through Arundhati Roy's portal. COVID-19 and state measures imposed to contend with it have severely impacted not only the activism of movements, but also their capacity to learn. Translocal social movement learning offers one way in which such learning can…

Drawing on the perspectives of six student teachers (including five geography specialists) and two teacher educators, four key components are identified as being crucial to enable those undertaking a geography-focused programme of Initial Teacher Education to thrive rather than simply survive. These include, (1) nurturing an enjoyment of…

Large-scale disparities in computing exist for many youth of color. Learning in informal settings can increase the participation of youth in computing; however, computing education programs have typically been developed by adults for youth. We argue computing education can contribute toward decolonization by directly involving youth from…

Early adolescence is a dynamic stage for the development of critical consciousness, yet there are few resources focused on social justice education (SJE) in the middle grades. This article shares the findings from a study that investigated the experiences of three social justice educators as they engaged in SJE with young adolescents (YAs). We…