There are two important premises at the core of the American democracy: inclusion and dissent. Focusing on the premise of democratic dissent, the overarching goal of this study is understanding how colleges may encourage desirable civic outcomes. This dissertation is proceeds in an alternative format, containing three distinct manuscripts. Chapter…

We examine the effects of a comprehensive college transition program (CCTP) on four psychosocial outcomes associated with postsecondary success: sense of belonging, mattering, and academic and social self-efficacy. The CCTP operates on three four-year campuses and includes a range of supports, including shared academic courses, peer mentoring, and…

The dilemma confronting modern university development presents a challenge to the management ability of university presidents, hence a need to review how successful presidents of the past managed. Wu Yifang, the first Chinese woman president with remarkable achievements in education, has thus come to our attention. As President of Ginling College…

Student academic burden exists to varying degrees throughout the world. To reach a comprehensive and unbiased understanding of the roles of academic burden, this paper explores academic burden from different viewpoints and summarizes existing assessment indexes for it. Factors correlated with student academic burden are examined and detailed…

In Montessori education, the teacher is ideally very caring, but not in the customary way. In most traditional schools, teachers try to help children by taking charge and giving them lots of instructions. The Montessori teacher is much less directive. She or he wants to help children by providing tasks that enable them to develop their powers on…

Brian Tomlinson is a Visiting Professor at The University of Liverpool and a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Professor at Anaheim University. He has worked as a teacher, teacher trainer, curriculum developer, university academic and soccer coach in Indonesia, Japan, Nigeria, Oman, Singapore, Vanuatu, UK and Zambia and has…

Based on Vygotsky's theory of the interplay of the tool and sign functions of language, this study presents a textual analysis of a corpus of student-authored texts to illuminate aspects of development evidenced through the dialectical tension of tool and sign. Data were drawn from a series of reflective memos I authored during a seminar for new…

This paper explores the role of a positive education paradigm in mainstream and specialist classrooms for students who have experienced complex trauma resulting from abuse, neglect, violence, or being witness to violence. Existing trauma-informed education focuses on repairing regulatory abilities and repairing disrupted attachment in students.…

The application of theory in this article expanded on Chickering and Reisser's ([Chickering, A. W., 1993]) 7-vectors framework by considering the effects of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) on the normal experience of student development in higher education. The article includes an overview of the prevalence and effects of CSA and a case study of a…

Universities are criticised for overemphasising instrumental values. Instrumental values are important but universities risks undermining cultivation of humanity, critical consciousness and civic agency. Service-learning (SL) is practice that moves teaching and learning beyond the focus on technical skills and instrumental outcomes. Nonetheless,…

Peer mentoring programs provide an opportunity for individuals with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) to learn, socialize, and work together in supportive and inclusive environments. In this study, we used a phenomenological research design to explore the impact of a college campus-based peer mentoring program on the…

This article intends to launch discussion and reflection on two main themes: lifelong learning and digital literacy in nowadays societies. In looking for the intersections between these concepts to connote them with a more humanistic and holistic perspective, we explore the potentials of distance learning in the lives of adult learners. The…

Modern society has plunged us into a maelstrom of telematics information with little control. Teachers from any field must be trained in order to pass on the confidence and values to withstand this media pressure to their students. To this end, one of the areas of knowledge on which greater emphasis should be placed is that related to emotional…

This paper explores how a teacher preparation program in a liberal arts institution built upon the foundations of dialogic, relational pedagogy utilizes strong alumni connections to improve teacher education curriculum and support preservice, inservice, and teacher educators as they work to teach against the grain. Best visualized as an infinity…

According to the 2017 American Community Survey, more than 1 in 5 US residents speak a language other than English at home, and many are nonnative-English speakers (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). Among this fast-growing population, nonnative-English-speaking (NNES) college students are significantly underserved and underresearched (Kanno &…