Background: Peer education is a much-used approach to health education with young people and marginalised groups. Rarely, however, has the concept been interrogated for its meaning and usefulness, despite pleas for the importance of doing so going back several decades. Objectives: Against this background, this paper offers a specifically…

Trans and gender-independent clients, who often experience unnecessary pathologization when accessing mental health care, can benefit from art therapy because it offers practitioners and clients the unique potential to disrupt social hierarchies. Art therapy research, however, has often replicated social structures that oppress people from diverse…

Policies and programs to address higher education disadvantage reveal four distinct approaches, each revealing certain assumptions about the nature of educational disadvantage. These are: creating mass higher education systems; redistributing or allocating certain places to disadvantaged students; changing the cultural practices of institutions;…

This paper builds upon the evolving methodological perspective of a rural standpoint (Roberts, 2014b), and its related method of strategic eclecticism (Roberts & Green, 2013), to re-analyse existing data behind a previously published paper by Drummond, Halsey and van Breda (2012). It does this through an examination of the role of the rural in…

Not all students are dealt the same cards in life and some seem to have the deck stacked against them. Those who are dealt a particularly difficult hand to play include homeless, foster care, and juvenile justice students. As professionals who often know the most about mental health, service delivery, interdisciplinary collaboration, and crisis…

This dissertation as an exploratory study examines the characteristics of the students of a charter school participating in a partnership with a university located in an improving low socioeconomic environment in the northeastern U.S., which has been dedicated to providing educational opportunities to the underserved. This dissertation also…

Although reflection is a critical component of service-learning experiences, few studies explore the learning outcomes associated with various types of reflection activities. The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore what photo journals and structured narrative reflections reveal about learning outcomes for graduate preservice teachers…

The student demographic in United States public schools is becoming increasingly diverse. Yet, the curriculum used in classrooms throughout the country remains largely Euro-centric. Despite research confirming that the use of culturally relevant literature can increase engagement and academic achievement, most historically marginalized students…

The Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) submits this Report to the Legislature pursuant to section 165 of chapter 133 of the acts of 2016 (the FY17 general appropriations act): "The department of elementary and secondary education, in consultation with the executive office for administration and finance and the executive…

This longitudinal phenomenological study centers on an after-school writing club at an elementary school started by two high school English teachers and their students. Over the course of a school year, the writing club addressed local and systemic issues of inequality and facilitated the voice, agency and creative expression of the third to fifth…

This report reviews literature on both sides of the Atlantic to study the admissions process, specifically focusing on elements of the process which may prove to be particular barriers to disadvantaged students--including the University and College Admissions Service (UCAS) form, course choices, predicted grades, and personal statements--and looks…

This study investigated the sustainability of Arizona "Reading First" initiative. During the Arizona "Reading First" initiative there were 121 Title 1 Arizona schools that were a part of the initiative. Since the conclusion of this initiative little research has been conducted to determine if the elements of the initiative have…

The purpose of this study was to examine the variables that impact the strength of the educator workforce in Arkansas's High Poverty/High Minority schools and to determine if current allocations, expenditures and uses of Title II, Part A funds impact a district's ability to recruit and retain quality teachers, identified as 'excellent' teachers in…

Educational inequality is a pressing problem in much of the English-speaking world and especially in the United States, as the last three decades have witnessed rising inequality on several measures. This is an appropriate subject for a special issue commemorating the contributions of David Raffe, whose career of scholarship greatly enhanced our…

The current research investigated the extent to which "social identity threat"--the fear of confirming negative group stereotypes--could be contributing to the underachievement of first-generation-college (FGC) students, and whether brief social-psychological interventions could protect FGC students' academic achievement. Results from…