Qualitative research is an inherently complex landscape which continually presents researchers with difficult, ethically challenging dilemmas. This paper foregrounds some of those challenges, experienced during a qualitative research study which focused on preschool children's opportunities to access different forms of play in early year education…

Notwithstanding the increasing number of UK and international studies focused on parental involvement in education and parental imprisonment there remains little focus upon the involvement of imprisoned fathers in children's education and the impact of this upon paternal identity. Despite the now accepted perspective that parental imprisonment…

In this essay, Jennifer Light examines the ideal versus the reality of the "unproductive student," the young person who puts off work in favor of schooling to develop their human capital for later workforce participation. The economic status of student activities has been the source of recent controversy with college athletes and…

The immigrant population in Hong Kong is steadily increasing every year. This immigrant population largely comprises families, most of whom have pre-school and school-age children. However, limited information is known on the practices that immigrant parents adopt when they become involved in their children's schooling. In the present study, the…

Poor completion outcomes in community colleges' developmental education programs have spurred reforms in developmental education policies and practices in order to increase students' chances of success. In the case of developmental math, the focus of this article, such changes include revisions to testing and placement policies, amendments to the…

Learning communities have been a part of the higher educational landscape since the 1980s. Despite their widespread use, research regarding their effectiveness with enhancing retention is sparse. This study describes a freshmen curricular learning community linking courses required for all business majors. Retention for students taking courses in…

Informed by self-directed learning theory, we explored the relationship between community college students' ages and their use of academic advising. Although academic advising has been shown to be an important part of student success, few studies have explored academic advising at community colleges and among adult learners. We performed…

Correspondence testing to research discrimination in the marketplace has become common and the use of internet applications has allowed researchers to send greater numbers of applications. While questions of research ethics always arise when planning a correspondence test, the issue receives relatively little attention in published correspondence…

This article presents findings from the first year of a multiyear investigation of the implementation of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library (DPIL) book distribution program as part of one community's long-term initiative to improve early literacy skills. The authors describe (a) the study's logic model and associated theory of change, (b)…

As calls for student-staff partnership proliferate across higher education, academic development must re-examine and reimagine its relationship to students. Students generally occupy roles with limited agency in academic development. We argue that this needs to change. We propose re-articulating the purpose of academic development toward the…

According to the University of Notre Dame's online dictionary (n.d.), the word advocacy comes partly from the Latin word "advocare," which means "to summon or call to one's aid." This definition provides an interesting look into what advocacy means when looking at the special needs of a child. Advocacy is a summoning of…

The role of fathers in elementary education has shifted drastically in recent years. In particular, stay-at-home dads (SAHDs) have become more relevant in the lives of children. Despite these changes, there remains a paucity of research on SAHDs' experiences with their children's schools. This qualitative study examined SAHDs' perceptions of and…

Pupil involvement in planning is one way in which teachers listen to the "pupil voice". This paper focuses on pupil involvement in planning class topics using KWL grids. The opinions of teachers, teacher education students and primary school pupils in Northern Ireland were sought on this using questionnaires and interviews. The vast…

Both participation in dialog and exposure to others from different cultures have been theorized to increase the ability of an individual to be creative. This study focused on the multicultural student-to-student dialog that took place in one graduate level course. The purpose of this study was to explore how participation in this dialog might…

This study employed interviews and document analysis to achieve a better understanding of the design and facilitation strategies used by online instructors in a department of educational technology at a large university in the U.S. Some distinctions were found with the literature about what strategies and activities can be used in online…