There is growing interest to develop programs and pedagogies focused on increasing representation of underrepresented minority (URM) students within the scientific community. URM students face many pedagogical, societal, and institutional barriers that lead to disproportionately lower levels of entering and higher levels of attrition from Science,…

School vouchers are state-funded programs--often called scholarship programs--that allow students to use public monies to attend a private school. The state provides a set amount of money, typically based on the state's per-pupil amount, for private school tuition. There are currently 27 voucher programs in 16 states and the District of Columbia.…

Aligned with the 2021 AERA conference theme, which asks us as citizen-scholars to use educational research to address complex social and educational problems, the objective of this study is to provide the first nationally-representative, empirical evidence on the relationships among literacy, literacy skill use, and these information-seeking…

Using original qualitative and quantitative data, "Schools Under Siege" confronts the many ways, direct and indirect, in which US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) policies and practices disrupt education. The book explores not only the impact of these policies on the six-million-plus K-12 students in the US at risk for being…

Alternative Breaks are service trips that occur at colleges and universities all around the United States, but little is known of their long-term impact on the participants. This study explored how alumni of Alternative Break programs were civically engaged in their communities post-graduation. The survey instrument, modeled on the Life After…

With the changes in the Tennessee standards, the testing format has become more rigorous. Teachers who usually made high achievement scores in math, now struggle to adapt to teaching the new TNReady standards and prepare for the TNReady assessment (high stakes assessment). The school selected for this study was a Level 1 (on a 1-5 scale, 1 being…

Recent events have called for a higher proportion of grade school students to learn virtually. The purpose of this qualitative research was to discover effective online teaching strategies that enhance attendance and participation within the virtual classroom setting. A sample of 24 virtual teachers participated in a survey to seek current methods…

This toolkit provides state and local CTE leaders with actionable resources, guidance and tools to ensure CTE learner voices are elevated and heard for the improvement of CTE policies and practices. The learner voice is often neglected when decisions are made about Career Technical Education (CTE) programs, even though learners themselves are…

The purpose of this qualitative study is to understand working-class parental involvement in the education of Latino secondary students in the U.S. Literature indicates that most Latino parents want their children to enroll in a higher education institution. However, statistics and research show that enrollment rates to a higher educational…

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of African American male high school dropout students towards their academic achievements via an alternative asynchronous online learning platform after their unsuccessful attempt to complete a traditional public-school setting requiring the GMA (Georgia…

This dissertation comprises essays focused on women's development issues. Specifically, it discusses minimum marriageable age policy, early marriage, and female education in Nigeria. Essay 1 discusses the factors that affect state adoption of the minimum marriageable age policy in the 2003 Child Rights Act (CRA), a policy aimed at eliminating…

Student affairs professionals provide vital services to college students while also facing various challenges that impact their ability to thrive at work. This study examined overall thriving, its constructs and a set of predictors that impact thriving in student affairs professionals. Seligman's (PERMA) theory of thriving provided the conceptual…

Student affairs professionals provide vital services to college students while also facing various challenges that impact their ability to thrive at work. This study examined overall thriving, its constructs and a set of predictors that impact thriving in student affairs professionals. Seligman's (PERMA) theory of thriving provided the conceptual…

Student affairs professionals provide vital services to college students while also facing various challenges that impact their ability to thrive at work. This study examined overall thriving, its constructs and a set of predictors that impact thriving in student affairs professionals. Seligman's (PERMA) theory of thriving provided the conceptual…

Student affairs professionals provide vital services to college students while also facing various challenges that impact their ability to thrive at work. This study examined overall thriving, its constructs and a set of predictors that impact thriving in student affairs professionals. Seligman's (PERMA) theory of thriving provided the conceptual…