Previous research on the impact of gender stereotypes on female adolescents' feeling of belonging to peer groups has focused on STEM classrooms and activities. This study expands this research and examines if perceptions of group-held gender stereotypes are related to adolescent girls' feelings of belonging to other social groups. Girls (N = 110)…

This article discusses transfer pathways to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) degrees and highlights ways in which existing literature on equity in STEM fails to represent transfer student experiences, limiting opportunities to support transfer students and diversify STEM programs. More specifically, we synthesize findings…

This article describes the change process at East Los Angeles College (ELAC) to address the unique barriers that Latinx students face in transferring to 4-year institutions. Since 2014, California Community Colleges have had an unprecedented opportunity to target disparities in academic outcomes through the Student Equity Policy (SEP) and its…

This article examines how states and community colleges can streamline the transfer process through an innovative national program known as Interstate Passport. The program enables block transfer of lower-division general education attainment based on a set of learning outcomes rather than on individual courses and credits. The article shows how…

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.…