Historically, African American students have been overrepresented in special education (National Education Association [NEA], 2007. Specifically, African American students have been identified with an emotional disturbance (ED) in special education at an excessive rate in comparison to students of other racial and ethnic categories (Office of…

Disproportionate office referrals through teachers in Grades 3-5 based on their students' race are documented. At a Title I elementary school in the northeastern part of Virginia, non-White students are referred to the office for behavior issues 5% more times than their White peers. Guided by Bell's critical race theory, the purpose of this study…

Researchers indicate that there is a need to address disproportional discipline in schools. As the landscape of some schools change the question becomes, how does cultural mismatch in school affect discipline? This dissertation contributes to the conversation on cultural mismatch in the classroom and its effects on discipline. The researcher…

At North Middle School--a Northeastern public school with a large African immigrant population--Black males were overrepresented in disciplinary referral by a factor of three in 2017-2018. A literature review framed by network theory (Neal, J. W. & Neal, 2013) and the concept of the serial stream of discipline (Irvin, Tobin, Sprague, Sugai,…

Latinos who qualify for Deferred Action Childhood Arrival (DACA) and currently attend institutions of higher education are a unique subset of this population in the United States. The current literature focuses on all Latino DACA whether in or out of college, recipients' experiences of discrimination and its impact on their mental health, and…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain insight into the experiences of North American teachers working in international schools and why they chose to leave within the first year. The findings offer insights into the following questions: (1) How do these teachers experience relationships with leadership and students? (2) What role, if…

The purpose of this study was to investigate several factors associated with cyberbullying and its victims; gender, age, and the time spent using various forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC). Because cross-national studies are so important to understanding the similarities and differences found in this global problem, the current study…

This dissertation investigates Chinese undergraduate student engagement at U.S. universities. Over the past decade, the number of Chinese students studying in the United States has increased dramatically, but scholars have yet to concentrate on these student experiences or on the dynamics of their interaction with host institutions. Dominant media…

Asian Americans have been recognized as the "model minority" in the United States since the 1960s. Students from Asian countries are winning in international competitions, especially in science and mathematics. Modern Western scholars working within the constructivist learning theory advocate malleable intelligence and effort, which…

The culture of most colleges and universities is very different for Native American students with close ties to their traditional communities. "Traditional," in a Native American sense, means multiple interconnections of emotional, physical, intellectual, and spiritual identity that combine to define expectations for the Native American…

A relative large number of women on college campuses report experiencing eating afflictions. About 61% of college women indicated that they either occasionally or regularly used extreme measures to control their weight (Mintz & Betz, 1988). No clear consensus on the relative prevalence of eating disorder symptoms across ethnic groups has…

This study explored the learning experiences of international students in fully online courses offered through a US university. Employing a sociocultural framework, particularly ideas put forward by Russian psychologists L. Vygotsky and American scholars R. Scollon and S. W. Scollon, the study examined the interplay of host and native cultures in…

The federal government, national educational organizations, and universities support undergraduate student participation in study abroad programs. Study abroad provides students the opportunity to gain skills required in an era of global interdependence, such as foreign language proficiency, knowledge of other countries, and intercultural skills.…

Chronic underachievement, as characterized by disproportionate placement of low-income African-American students in low-ability coursework, special education programs, and behavioral remediation persists despite various efforts to address these problems (Children's Defense Fund, 2003; Harris, Brown, Ford & Richardson, 2004; Harry & Klingner, 2006;…

Frequently, parents, educators, and even government leaders express concern over the continuing violence, as well as the breakdown of discipline within our schools (Boulter, 2004). The purpose of this study was to examine if teacher attitudes influence policy and practice in establishing and enforcing middle school student discipline, and if these…