While the population of America's public schools is becoming more diverse, the percentage of minority teachers is steadily decreasing. While over 44% of all students in America are minority, only 12-14% of teachers are minorities and less than 2% are African American males. The challenge for colleges of education is to recruit more African…

While the black and white racial experience has been delineated over the years, the ethnic realities of Latinos have received minimal attention. Therefore, with Latinos projected as the upcoming U.S. population majority, the central goal of this book is to document the Latino experience in the world of academia, focusing primarily, but not…

In this study, we compare SpringBoard® (SB) schools that had continuously used the SB English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum for at least three years with comparable non-SB schools. For high schools, the outcomes examined were school-level AP® participation and performance for a) all AP subjects, b) ELA and social science AP subjects, and c) ELA…

This study examined the associations between undergraduate students' socioeconomic background (i.e., first-generation status and household income) and their participation as positional leaders at six large, public research universities. Results from logistic regressions predicting positional leadership in student organizations suggested that…

This article argues that the chances of successful educational upward mobility are more clearly assessed when educational decisions are interpreted not as isolated individual or family decisions, but in relation to their societal and political context. In order to do this, the authors propose a combination of Bourdieu's conception of habitus with…

The purpose of this study was to explore similarities and differences among low-income and first-generation (LIFG) students' perceptions of influential academic, psychosocial, and contextual factors that shaped their persistence at different stages at the postsecondary level. This study consisted of 29 LIFG students from a large, urban research…

Although in recent decades many of the outer Appalachian counties have stabilized economically, the central region of Appalachia continues to have the highest concentration of distressed and at-risk counties in the country. The geographic isolation and cultural characteristics of Appalachian communities have limited their ability to achieve…

The Office of Shared Accountability in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) is conducting a multiyear evaluation of the Achieving Collegiate Excellence and Success (ACES) program. The ACES program is a collaboration between MCPS, Montgomery College (MC) and the Universities at Shady Grove to create a seamless pathway from high school to college…

This report (the first in a series of five) explores congressional efforts to mitigate that risk and encourage informed borrowing by enacting statutes related to student loan counseling. After introducing the relevant contemporary policy context, it examines how federal rules governing student loan counseling evolved over time to embrace online…

In a follow-up study to the ERIAL (Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries) Project, librarians at UIC compared the responses of first-generation college freshmen from the original study to those of seniors. The study's aim was to determine whether student information literacy increases as a result of undergraduate education and to…

A qualitative study design was used to describe the perceptions and beliefs about higher education of seven first generation college Latino male students enrolled in higher education in the Southeastern part of the U.S. The purpose of this investigation was to explore the students' experiences regarding the various factors, which they perceive may…

The disconnect with family is not uncommon among graduate students home for the holidays or any other occasion, especially when they are first-generation graduate students or from a working-class background. Besides having to deal with academic demands, many graduate students from working-class backgrounds feel like strangers in their own families…

First-generation college students and students from low-income families face financial, social, informational, and academic barriers to college completion because of the high cost of postsecondary education, the complexity of navigating college life, misalignment between high school and college academic expectations, and a general lack of guidance…

In the present study, I explored student-teacher interaction, student-teacher relationship formation and development, and the ways in which student-teacher interaction and relationships facilitated support and persistence for first-generation (FG) students during the transition to college. Using transition theory as a sensitizing framework, I took…

This essay addresses persistence and success of an underrepresented group enrolled in college who are white, working-class first-generation students. The discussion examines these college students and the challenges they face. The discussion analyzes why first-generation college students persist while others do not. Additionally, the discussion…