This article shows the results of research on how Polish school space is perceived by students from a refugee background. The study was conducted through participatory photography and narrative interviews with 15 participants (ages 10-16). Action research was the main research strategy. The results indicate that students perceive the school space…

The social climate in the classroom can impact students' mental well-being, behaviour and peer-learning opportunities. This article describes one way that elementary teachers can understand students' social networks using a sociogram. Findings show variation in classroom cohesion and reveal groups of students who are at higher risk of social…

Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder often have difficulties with social integration and sensory challenges on collegiate campuses. These difficulties are sometimes tied together as social integration spaces are not always sensory-friendly and can be overwhelming for the individual. Creating a sensory-friendly space within the potentially…

Distance-learning studies have seen an incredible growth in the last 20 years. The majority of these were at postgraduate level. Fewer were undergraduate and even fewer were in initial teacher education training. Within these, there are even fewer examples of art education courses as it was frequently argued that the experiential aspect of these…

Many newcomers to Canada experience significant difficulties adjusting to life in their new community, with few more challenging than learning English. While Canada's Language Instruction for Newcomers to Canada (LINC) program suggests a pathway to social integration, ideologies pertaining to language and diversity that inform the LINC program can…

The relationship between acculturation and academic adjustment has been under-investigated. A mixed longitudinal design was used in this article, with study 1 employing a questionnaire survey (N = 642) to explore student sojourners' academic adjustment status and its predictors, and study 2 adopting qualitative approaches (reflective journal and…

This dissertation investigated the persistence of African American college students with disabilities in higher education, focusing on academic, social, and institutional factors influencing their success. Using a qualitative approach and insights from interviews; findings revealed that comprehensive academic support services, social integration,…

This study speaks to the larger question of how mobile upbringing that spans tensions between multiple communities across the globe influences one's construction of identity and belonging. In this paper, I examine how young adults who have been living in multiple countries in their formative years- most prominently referred to as Third Culture…

The existing retention literature focuses on White students and non-White students in predominantly White institutional (PWI) environments. Furthermore, prevailing literature tends to concentrate on varying factors that influence these students to be retained at their respective institutions. Retention factors in differing contexts, such as…

The transition from high school to university is often a challenge for many students, as they face numerous academic and social adjustments during this time. For the 2020 cohort, these challenges were compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic which further exacerbated the existing concerns and uncertainties. This study reports on the perceptions of a…

The role of student support in enabling successful student outcomes is widely acknowledged. However, student support functions and the structures within which they reside often emerge independently at universities, and are seldom designed with integration in mind, leading to systemic inefficiencies. This paper draws on systems thinking to develop…

A Future Search (FS) Conference is a systems based large group intervention that utilizes a dialogue process among interdependent stakeholders to analyze the past, understand the present, envision a better future, and agree to action plans to work towards the desired future. This study uses an instrumental case study design (Stake, 1995) to…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how promise students describe their social integration via their interactions with faculty and peers in college success courses at a community college in California. Tinto's Student Integration Theory was used to address two research questions: how promise students describe their…

This phenomenological study expands upon Bean and Metzner's (1985) A Conceptual Model of Nontraditional Student Attrition framework by introducing a new Academic Variable, Learning Analytics (LA), and identifying two specific Social Integration Variables (Sense of belonging; Microaggressions). LA was not a factor in 1985 when the original model…

For several years now, military conflict, climate change, lack of food, and other forces have compelled many people around the globe to leave their countries and live in exile. As shown by exponentially increasing statistics, children are leaving their homes, sometimes their families, and their schools. Once they arrive in a country of…