The frequent need that students exhibit for greater academic and nonacademic support than can be offered during the regular school day is a widely documented challenge. Summer programs are a common tool that schools and districts employ to expand the time over which students have access to learning opportunities and resources. For the current…

Detroit students who obtain a college degree overcome many obstacles to do so. This article reports the results of a randomized evaluation of a program meant to provide support to low-income community college students. The Detroit Promise Path program was designed to complement an existing College Promise scholarship, providing students with…

Participation in higher education affords low-income students with a pathway out of poverty. The federally funded Upward Bound program aims to improve the college-going rate of low-income and first-generation students. Relevant studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of the program. There is a gap in the research regarding whether some types…

Kindergarten transition programs support successful school transitions for families and may reduce disparities in academic readiness upon school entry. Yet, access and participation in high-quality summer transition programs are lower among children from disadvantaged backgrounds. This study examined the impact of a summer kindergarten transition…

This study examined opportunities for enhancing transfer outcomes for community college students through summer research opportunities at a university. It emphasizes the significance of academic capital, derived from Bourdieu's cultural capital theory, in facilitating successful transfers. By offering ten-week paid summer research opportunities at…

The Engaged Engineering Program (EEP) project at ABC University is a five-year Track 2 NSF S-STEM that responds to challenges in recruiting and retaining academically talented, low-socioeconomic status students from diverse backgrounds into undergraduate engineering programs. The EEP project has successfully recruited four cohorts of Scholars and…

The purpose of the study is to examine the impact of a summer learning loss prevention program that is designed to improve the academic achievement gap. The target population for this research study was participants of the Power Scholars Academy (PSA) program. PSA is a collaboration of BellXcel, local school districts, and community organizations.…

Recently there has been an emphasis on how time spent outside of the classroom can affect student outcomes, including high school graduation, with the hope of closing academic achievement gaps along socioeconomic and racial lines. This paper provides experimental evidence regarding a particular type of out-of-school activity--early work…

The first year of college or university is a crucial phase which significantly influences students' persistence, academic achievement, and degree completion. The challenges associated with transitioning to college are often amplified for students who are the first in their families to attend college and may be less familiar with the norms and…

LGBTQ+, racial/ethnic minorities, youth from low-income contexts, and youth with cognitive and/or physical disabilities often face constraints to access and participation based on social and structural inequality. Understanding access and inclusion in summertime recreation program and camp settings for LGBTQ+, racial/ethnic minorities, individuals…

The American Chemical Society (ACS) Project SEED (Summer Experiences for the Economically Disadvantaged) program has been exposing students to chemistry-related research for over half a century. The program was created and designed to recruit and prepare high school students from economically challenged households to explore and build their…

Social and cultural capital are critical components of success among college students. In this paper, we examine the creation, accumulation, and distribution of social and cultural capital by and among underserved college students who participated in a summer bridge program at one regional public state university. Using qualitative data from…

Learning to read is an essential skill for later academic success, positive self-esteem, and gainful employment. Students who display reading difficulties/disabilities at the end of third grade are less likely to succeed in content areas and graduate from high school. Recent data suggests that many students in today's schools do not become skilled…

There is a lack of consensus among school districts on how best to mitigate reading and math learning loss during the summer months. The purpose of this quasi-experimental quantitative exploration study was to determine if there was a statistically and practically significant effect of an educational program on summer learning loss in reading and…

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of 42 hr of reading instruction during summer on (a) reading performance of rising second and third graders (n = 39), who were from low-income families and who read below grade level, and (b) the fall reading outcomes between this group and their nonparticipating peers. The intervention was…