Background: Learners from predominantly less priviledged South African schools encounter English as a language of teaching and learning for the first time in Grade 4. The transition from the use of home language to second language, namely English first additional language, is complexly related to the learners' inability to read text meaningfully.…

Background: Social and economic aspirations held by parents can reflect a desire for their children to learn English as a second language. Bilingual education has the potential for empowering traditionally disadvantaged groups, particularly through competence in English, a language that positions identity with power, privilege and status, thus…

Aspiring school leaders must be equipped with skill sets to facilitate the critical examination of district policies that reproduce inequities. Policies such as school choice, which have racial and socioeconomic implications for educational opportunity, require leaders to operate from a social justice identity while seeking to enhance their sense…

Pre-college advising programs exist in most disadvantaged high schools throughout the United States. These programs supplement traditional advising by high school guidance counselors and attempt to help underrepresented and disadvantaged students overcome the complexities of the postsecondary admission and financial aid processes. Existing…

Although used in teacher education at the preservice level and with in-service teachers with their students, less is known about the influence of digital storytelling created by teachers themselves. Furthermore, capstone research mostly focuses on more traditional text-driven products and the experiences of preservice teachers. The capstone…

When their teachers are well equipped to foster inclusive and equitable classrooms, students from marginalized communities show higher rates of academic achievement, motivation, self-confidence, and self-efficacy. However, many teachers complete preparation programs feeling underprepared to work in culturally diverse classrooms, making…

Publicly funded center-based preschool programs were designed to enhance low-income children's early cognitive and social-emotional skills in preparation for kindergarten. In the U.S., the federal Head Start program and state-funded public school-based pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs are the two primary center-based settings in which low-income…

To support elementary school students in finding a solution to an engineering problem, the authors developed a series of five lessons using the 5E Instructional Model (Bybee 2014). The lessons align with the "Next Generation Science Standards" and the "Common Core State Standards" and integrate the teaching and learning of…

Lower-skilled workers in the United States face a shrinking pool of employment opportunities. To combat this, the city of New Orleans' Office of Workforce Development (OWD) developed a job training program with a grant, awarded in 2014, from the U.S. Department of Labor Workforce Innovation Fund. The program, Career Pathways, was designed to help…

This generic qualitative study examined the characteristics of high-achieving elementary school African American males in Title 1 elementary schools, from the perspective of teachers, in an effort to address the academic achievement gap between African American students and their counterpart of other ethnicities. The research question for this…

The Colorado Department of Education recently received state funding to implement a Student Re-Engagement Grant Program (SRGP). The goal of this project is to inform the administration of the SRGP by looking back at data from a previously administered grant program, called Colorado Graduation Pathways (CGP). The CGP program was a federally funded…

The Indiana Commission for Higher Education (ICHE) has adopted goals and policy strategies focused on increasing college access, success, and completion for underrepresented students. In 2013, the Commission passed a resolution to eliminate achievement gaps among Indiana's learner populations by 2025. Designed as a companion piece to the…

This paper presents the first analysis of the life course outcomes through late midlife (around age 55) for the participants of the iconic Perry Preschool Project, an experimental high-quality preschool program for disadvantaged African-American children in the 1960s. We discuss the design of the experiment, compromises in and adjustments to the…

Since 2001, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has been working with Atlanta's Southside communities to transform high-poverty city neighborhoods and help low-income families and children succeed. While some progress is being made, the gap between Atlanta's haves and have-nots remains immense. This report -- which is a follow-up to Casey's…

The Global Partnership for Education (GPE) supports close to 70 developing countries to ensure that every child receives a quality education. The featured stories in this report show the progress that developing country partners are making in getting more children, especially girls, in school and learning. The results are not only evidence of…