Faith is a form of social identity encompassing individual religious and spiritual beliefs. Catholic higher education integrates faith development into its work with students. This qualitative study explored how the personal faith development experiences of Catholic higher education student affairs professionals influenced their understanding of…

This paper shows that while students operated in the ongoing context of race-based barriers to their education, the Minority Scholars Program provided opportunities for youth development as students reflected on their experiences and implemented initiatives to address those barriers. Employing youth development theories, this case study examined…

Due to grades as a primary concern in school selection in China, parents tend to choose a better school when their children enter secondary school from primary school resulting in the changing peer group (reference group). According to the Social Comparison Theory, individuals are affected by comparing with the people around them to get their own…

School-age mothers around the United States continue to pursue high school diplomas despite the limiting scripts society places upon them. This paper illuminates curricular choices at two programs that educate school-age mothers, Westside Alternative Center and Eastview School for Pregnant and Parenting Teens, two schools that challenge the…

This qualitative study fills a gap in our understanding of how students who attend for-profit institutions make sense of their education choices, their understanding of themselves as students, and the meaning of post-secondary education in the context of their diverse life experiences. The narratives of students who have attended for-profit…

While substantial progress has been made to describe the cognitive and social processes involved in digital literacies, few studies have examined affect aspects of digital literacies. In this presentation, we have a special interest in students' attitudes toward digital literacy practices as an important non-cognitive aspect that may (dis)engage…

Education research focused on Pacific Islanders over the past 30 years has overwhelmingly concluded that U.S. systems of education are failing these students, but the global movement towards culturally relevant and inclusive education has had an indelible impact on the number and types of support available for Pacific Islander students in the…

The paper is a cross-case analysis of identity development of youth throughout their first year attending two alternative high schools. Alternative schools fall in an interesting space of being able to provide innovative and supportive opportunities that are different from mainstream schooling, yet also alternative schools are part of a mechanism…

Motivational theories suggest various motivational best practices; however, the empirical research literature largely lacks the perspective of teachers, who facilitate motivation day in and out with students, about how they apply these motivational practices in their classrooms. The purpose of this study was to better understand what teachers do…

A phenomenographic analysis explored 18 teachers' conceptions of feedback and how they were enacted. Five hierarchically ordered categories of feedback were seen as aligning with three major functions; that is, (1) satisfying stakeholder expectations (Category 1), maintaining student psycho-social well-being (Category 2), and supporting learning…

What makes a leader in an online learning environment? This question is approached from three angles in this study: online activity, language quality, and social background. This study examines the simulation data of the 2015 GlobalEd 2 Project, which consists of 337 7th and 8th grade students representing 18 countries. The three dimensions were…

Interactions between teachers and students contribute to the quality of the classroom setting and growing evidence that the affective undertone of these interactions matters when considering outcomes for both the students and the teachers they serve. Although numerous measures of teacher-student interactions exist, relying on self-report or…