Previous literature reported that Black students receive out-of-school suspensions (OSSs) and expulsions at disproportionately higher rates and have lower test scores than White students. This study provides recent evidence on the relation between racial disparities in discipline and in achievement, with particular focus on achievement gains, in…

The extent to which youth attend Tier 2 evidence-based intervention is an important dimension of implementation. This study examined attendance patterns of 369 middle schoolers involved in a randomized trial testing the impact of Coping Power, an evidence-based Tier 2 preventive intervention. We conducted latent profile analysis to examine student…

The extent to which youth attend Tier 2 evidence-based intervention is an important dimension of implementation. This study examined attendance patterns of 369 middle schoolers involved in a randomized trial testing the impact of Coping Power, an evidence-based Tier 2 preventive intervention. We conducted latent profile analysis to examine student…

Extracurricular activity participation has been associated with a multitude of positive outcomes, including school completion, and research suggests that students at risk for school failure are particularly likely to benefit from participation. However, before extracurricular activity participation can be promoted to address such issues,…

For over a century, genetic arguments for the existence of racial inequality have been used to oppose policies that promote social equality. And, over that same time period, American biology textbooks have repeatedly discussed genetic differences between races. This experiment tests whether racial terminology in the biology curriculum causes…

One approach to reducing persistent racial/ethnic achievement gaps is to tackle their social-psychological dimensions, including the negative consequences of stereotype threat and other identity threats in school. Initial research suggested that a particularly promising approach is brief self-affirmation writing exercises for 7th grade students;…

Office disciplinary referrals (ODR) and classroom exclusions among students from minority backgrounds have been a persistent concern for decades. The purpose of this dissertation was to assess disciplinary characteristics of American Indian students in special education. More specifically, the purpose was to determine (a) the rate at which…

In the 2012/13 school year American Indian students accounted for 1.1 percent of K-12 students nationwide and 1.4 percent of K-12 students in North Carolina (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.). Research has identified substantial achievement gaps between American Indian and other students on national tests, in graduation rates, and in…

The new science education reform documents call for integration of engineering into K-12 science classes. Engineering design and practices are new to most science teachers, meaning that implementing effective engineering instruction is likely to be challenging. This quasi-experimental study explored the influence of teacher-developed, engineering…

The central research question is the extent to which gifted programming effects student academic outcomes of gifted as compared to not-gifted students and how this differs by race/ethnicity and/or poverty status. Since the identification of elementary school students as gifted is not random, propensity score matching is used to remove this bias in…

This quasi-experimental study investigated how explicit instruction about multiple modes of representation (MMR) impacted grades 7 (n = 61) and 8 (n = 141) students' learning and multimodal use on end-of-unit assessments. Half of each teacher's (n = 3) students received an intervention consisting of explicit instruction on MMR in science…

There is growing concern regarding childhood obesity and its impact on children's health, and many states and school districts have mandated that health assessments be conducted as part of physical education. Tools such as the FITNESSGRAM[R] can help teachers inform students and parents if students are above a healthy weight range. The FITNESSGRAM…

Bullying has been around for decades; however, with the advancements of new emerging technology and devices, the ability for bullying to transcend into the cyber-world is becoming an international issue. Researchers have been intently studying the effects associated with cyberbullying to gain a better understanding of its perpetrators, victims,…

Background: Data are limited regarding the prevalence of substance use among adolescents in rural and ethnically diverse communities. This study examined rates and sociodemographic correlates of lifetime substance use among adolescents in Mississippi, a rural state that is the poorest in the country (21.3% poverty rate) and has the largest…

This study addresses closing the academic performance gaps between African American and Latino students and their White counterparts, and between girls and boys in mathematics. Of the various models and theories of these social inequalities that have been advanced in literature, one particularly compelling line of research concerns the idea of…