The demographics of school-aged students in the U.S continue to shift, with increasing numbers of students coming from historically underrepresented minority populations. Yet the percentage of white, female teachers remains disproportionately high. Using a framework revised from Garmon's (2004) study in which he found experiential factors;…

In the spring of 2019, the EdWeek Research Center conducted a survey of more than 1,200 K-12 gifted and talented teachers and coordinators to learn more about how districts and schools define, identify, serve, and instruct students in gifted and talented programs. A major objective was to gain a better understanding of the extent to which…

Addressing racial disparities in school discipline is an urgent and widespread issue facing U.S. schools. One approach to improve racial equity in school discipline practice is to enhance the contextual fit of empirically validated school-wide practices. School-wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) is a widely implemented…

National data indicated approximately 80 percent of the teaching force is white while the student population continues to become increasingly racially diverse. Teacher education programs continue to graduate and recommend for licensure a disproportionate number of white teachers. Research indicates overwhelmingly pre-service teachers suffer from a…

Previous research suggests that early experience of and exposure to the world of work is an important predictor of a child's future involvement in a STEM career. Many interventions have focused on those in secondary education age 11 years and above. Far fewer interventions have explored the impact of STEM outreach engagements among younger age…

Background: Women (along with minority ethnic and low-income communities) remain underrepresented in engineering, despite a 30-year history of research and equality legislation. Compared with the United States and other European Union countries, this underrepresentation is particularly pronounced in the United Kingdom. While existing literature…

The debate surrounding the prioritization of services for emergent bilinguals with disabilities is an area in need of attention. The generalized belief that disability-related services must take priority over English as a Second Language services suggests that there is a critical need to develop school professionals' understanding that these…

Prior research points to a variety of factors that influence student persistence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) degree programs. Little attention, however, has been given to how STEM faculty understand these processes and subsequently frame their role in supporting students. To address this gap, this article reports on…

As workforce participation increasingly requires a college degree, ensuring that more students from traditionally underrepresented populations have the opportunity to enter and complete college is an equity imperative. To that end, high school reforms have promoted "college-going cultures" in low-performing high schools through…

As part of a longitudinal research effort that examines the influence of social capital on differential persistence and retention among undergraduate engineering majors, this study examines how engineering degree-related social capital differs for first-year engineering students by gender and ethno-racial groups. Social capital is operationalized…

Although increasing the racial and ethnic diversity on college campuses is a key component of any broad policy agenda aimed at reducing structural inequality, access to higher education does not always equate to graduation and equal labor market opportunities. For colleges, students, and society to reap the benefits of diversity, there needs to be…

Coping with the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for all families, especially those caring for young children with disabilities. Of the 24 million children under age 6 in the United States, about 5 percent (1.2 million) have a diagnosed disability, which qualifies them for early intervention or special education services through the…

This study examined whether students who left biomedical fields of study during college did so primarily because they became disenchanted with those fields or because they felt attracted to alternative fields of study. We identified 1,193 students intending to pursue biomedical fields of study early in college, collected data about their beliefs…

In the USA, women have consistently been proportionally underrepresented in science and technology (S&T). In these disciplines, as students move from high schools to colleges to graduate programs, qualified women drop out at higher rates than do men, resulting in a striking loss of talented students. Attitude toward a discipline is one of the…

We report the outcomes of a survey of underrepresented minorities (URMs) in life science academic (e.g., faculty) and nonacademic (e.g., research-related) positions seeking to ascertain variables that contribute to their success (e.g., favorable or desired outcome). Given that they had positions in research careers, all respondents were presumed…