One of the prevailing notions within American culture is the idea that women are prevalent in leadership positions. The reality, however, is that while women are slightly more than 50% of the population, they are underrepresented in leadership. Fewer than 10% of chief executive officers in theological education are women. Traditional roles in…

Desegregation marked the beginning of a long period of loss of Black teachers within the profession. First, Black teachers were not hired in desegregated schools, and then as other professional opportunities opened up in society, fewer Blacks entered the teacher pipeline. The purpose of this literature review is to synthesize research relevant to…

English-language learners (ELLs) with special needs consistently languish in the American school system. The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) included ELLs as a minority group and required to hold schools accountable for reducing the achievement gap between ELLs and their white peers, however the act did not provide a specific direction for…

The Institute for International Public Policy program provides a single grant to assist a consortia of institutions of higher education in establishing an institute designed to increase the representation of minorities in international service, including private international voluntary organizations and the Foreign Service of the United States. A…

Well over three million children, K-12, are estimated to have lost instructional "seat time" in 2009-2010 because they were suspended from school, often with no guarantee of adult supervision outside the school. That's about the number of children it would take to fill every seat in every major league baseball park and every NFL stadium…

While the literature on institutional civic engagement is quite extensive, the community perspective on such endeavors remains an under-developed area of study. This is particularly true of academic outreach programs meant to support the college preparation of underrepresented students. The purpose of this study was to explore the motivations of…

African American students make up 17% of the public school population nationwide. Ironically, 41% percent of students in special education are African American (Kunjufu, 2005). The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of teacher demographics on the overrepresentation of African American males in special education in a coastal school…

Given the large continued investment by the federal government in programs that promote academic success and the pursuit of advanced degrees in the sciences among members groups traditionally underrepresented in the sciences, there is a strong need for research which provides rigorous investigations of these programs and their impact on the target…

There has been a significant increase in the use of secondary data sets. Many such data sets purport to be nationally representative. Secondary data sets include research commissioned by the National Center for Education Statistics, the Centers for Disease Control, and other public entities. Research increasingly utilizes these secondary data in…

Women are "starkly underrepresented" as researchers worldwide ("The World's Women 2010," 68). In Canada, for example, men hold over three-quarters of full professorships and top research positions. Dozens of interconnected factors restrain women's research careers. These include "upstream" factors, such as gender,…

Using a cluster randomized trial design, we evaluated the persistence of effects of a research-based model for scaling up educational interventions. The model was implemented in 42 schools in two city districts serving low-resource communities, randomly assigned to three conditions. In pre-kindergarten, the two experimental interventions were…

Despite improvements in the rates of college admission over the past few decades, college persistence, retention, and graduation rates continue to be problematic for underrepresented students--students of color and students from low-income and/or first-generation families. This article presents a case study of a female, first-generation,…

The Bradley Review in 2008 and the Australian government's response echoed policy concerns that young people from low socioeconomic status are underrepresented in tertiary education. In order to address this, responses to both recruitment and retention are necessary. While many studies have looked at reasons for student attrition, few investigated…

Academic tracking has been shown to limit the quality of student instructional opportunities, decrease students' perceptions of their abilities, and negatively influence student achievement. These factors associated with academic tracking also may influence students in lower tracks to learn less and ultimately to drop out of high school. Few…

This paper discusses the challenges college students with children face, as well as the steps colleges, universities, and the surrounding communities must take to help students succeed in their work as both students and parents. The role of parenthood in postsecondary settings needs greater focus from the higher education reform community. Unless…