In its diverse forms, authentic writing carries the potential to connect literacy practice to an author's 'real world'. While contemporary approaches to authentic writing instruction--advocating writer-centred, intertextual and culturally relevant productions--are most often explored in formal learning contexts like classrooms, this paper seeks to…

Suicide rates among Black youth have risen faster than any other racial/ethnic group in the past two decades. Black youth residing in rural areas are subject to systemic challenges such as minimal access to mental healthcare providers, generational poverty and oppressive social structures that lead to racial discrimination. Racial discrimination…

Principals play a critical role in improving schools, but high rates of principal turnover threaten improvement gains. In this study we used a mixed-methods design to examine school, district, and community factors associated with greater principal turnover, and explore how these factors differ for rural schools. We found that rural districts tend…

Teacher retention has become a major challenge for schools over the past several years. Rural school districts have become increasingly short on staff and are struggling to retain the staffs they have. The study had four purposes: (a) to determine teachers' perceptions of the factors leading to their retention, (b) to determine administrators'…

Using a 3-Round Delphi Technique, the current study aimed to ascertain consensus regarding parents' thoughts about the school, home, and community protective factors (i.e., preventive behavior interventions, behavior resources) needed to prevent adolescents from referral to behavior school and subsequent involvement in the juvenile system. A…

Early childhood has long been known to be a formative time in a child's development-- a time when the brain produces more than 1 million neural connections every second during the first few years of a child's life. However, there are factors at the individual and community levels that impact the development process. In communities across America,…