Background: Individuals learn and develop across their lifespan in response to the people with whom they interact in settings, communities, cultures, and experiences. Collaborative research and policy efforts underscore the critical and reparative role of identity-safe, culturally driven, and relationship-rich environments--in classrooms, schools,…

Systems theory spans many disciplines and several decades. The field of biology has informed systems theory, according to von Bertalanffy (1972) and Boulding (1956), as an organizing principle of living beings. Extensions of this theoretical framework have led to the application of systems theory as systems thinking in a diverse array of…

Student success is becoming a shared vision for quality in higher education. Majority data in higher education have not been transformed into actionable insights for quality enhancement. Data are dispersed among stakeholders, and stakeholders' data literacy influences the effectiveness of using data for student success. However, existing studies…

The Fatwa making process is a process used by an Islamic "mufti" (A Muslim legal expert) to issue a non-binding opinion or "fatwa" (judicial pronouncement in Islam) on the point of Islamic sharia law when a question is raised by a "mustafti" (The person who asks a mufti for a fatwa), the person who has asked for a…

To reach the goals of outreach and Extension programs, a program planning model is essential. A new model is presented to ensure program success; it is the human development-ecoLogic model (HD-ELM). The HD-ELM components are as follows: HD--human development characteristics and implications for target audience; E--modified ecological systems…

School social workers have long operated at the forefront of addressing student social and emotional needs. However, in recent years, school social work positions have faced increasing threats of elimination because of misconceptions of the profession's purpose. Effective strategies to reverse this trend have not been documented in the extant…

"Uniting Body, Mind, and Spirit Through Art Education: A Guide for Holistic Teaching in Middle and High School" empowers art learners to have experiences that engage the spirit along with the body and the mind in deeper ways of seeing, being, and relating in the world. This timely resource, written to support both the veteran educator…

This is a practical guide for school leaders and teachers who have responsibility for designing and delivering a knowledge-rich and skills-focused curriculum at KS3 and KS4. It considers the elements that underpin a high-quality curriculum and how to create sequential and conceptually rich learning experiences for pupils across the secondary…

This autoethnographic study is part of a funded project involving a school science teacher and university science education researchers. In this project, we incorporated nature of science (NOS) into the fifth-grade curriculum and implemented it for a semester at a public school in Turkey. We adopted Reconceptualized Family Resemblance Approach to…

As the youth mental health crisis continues to worsen, there is a need for more evidence-based social-emotional interventions that can be applied in schools -- the setting in which youth are most likely to seek and receive mental health treatment (Simon et al., 2015). Further, exploring ways to culturally adapt interventions for marginalized…

Eco-Schools is the world's largest sustainable school program. Drawing on biopolitical theory and fieldwork conducted in Rwanda, South Africa, Sweden and Uganda, this article explores and compares how Eco-Schools is enacted in contexts marked by widely differing socio-economic living conditions. Attention is drawn to the biopolitical rationalities…

Positive schooling is the positive psychological movement that calls for the incorporation of student well-being as a focus of the learning environment. A strength-based approach to positive schooling employs character strengths as a pathway to positive change and well-being. The scoping review aimed to systematically review and map the…

As many universities worldwide have incorporated holistic competency development into their course goals, developing assessment literacy in these competencies is placed high on the agenda. Yet, existing literatures on assessment literacy tend to focus on disciplinary knowledge, with little reference to holistic competencies. Based on 29 focus…

Intervention programs are open systems that must withstand the disturbances of the environments in which they are implemented if they are to thrive. Stakeholders can benefit from proactive insights related to potential program malfunction or failure. Evaluators have not developed approaches to serve this preventive function. This study proposes…

This article provides an overview of Black college students and the need to focus on promoting positive mental health (PMH). Traditionally, research examining Black student's mental health has occurred from a deficits-based perspective while failing to acknowledge their fortitude in persevering despite enduring adverse circumstances (i.e. racism…