Inclusive STEM high schools (ISHSs) can be viewed as opportunity structures for students underrepresented in STEM. By opportunity structures, we mean an education that provides not only access to high quality STEM curriculum and instruction or "opportunity to learn," but also the capacity to create learning environments where students…

Historically, African American male students have been disproportionately overrepresented in special education under the eligibility categories emotional disturbance, and behavior disorders. Additionally, African American male students with disabilities have consistently underperformed academically. If a student does not perceive that the teacher…

The declining student interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) remains a national concern. More problematic, Black high school students disproportionately lack access to Advanced Placement (AP) courses, which are essential stepping-stones in the path to STEM careers. This dissertation explores the psychosocial factors…

This study focuses on at-risk students entering 9th grade in Cambridge, MA and ways to increase their connectedness and science learner identity. At-risk students were invited to participate in a research-based, summer intervention program called Rise Up for four weeks prior to entering 9th grade in the fall. Students were grouped into three…

In January 2014, the Obama administration issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) on school discipline. The DCL claimed that: (1) school districts rely excessively on suspensions; (2) black students are suspended at disproportionately high rates primarily because of educators' racial bias; (3) suspensions cause substantial long-term harm to students;…

This study was designed to explore how secondary school counselors affect the entrance of African American students into higher education based on counselor beliefs. Minimizing and understanding barriers to postsecondary access is critical in closing the achievement gap for underrepresented African American students. Gaps in enrollment is often…

Race-based affirmative action policies are widespread in higher education. Despite the prevalence of these policies, there is little consensus on how affirmative action policies affect students either before they reach college or after they matriculate into college. This study provides new evidence on the benefits of affirmative action policies…

An ongoing concern at institutions of higher education is persistence among underrepresented minority students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs. This qualitative exploratory case study was designed to investigate whether combining two strategies, orientations and gamification, to provide more supports for…

This report presents key statistics and trends for teenage mothers and their babies in Australia. Teenage mothers and their babies are more likely to experience broader disadvantage, have antenatal risk factors and have poorer maternal and baby outcomes during and after birth, than older mothers and their babies. In Australia, the rate of teenage…

Students benefit from a teacher workforce that represents the full racial/ethnic diversity of the United States. We examine racial/ethnic composition of general education teacher (GET) and special education teacher (SET) workforce using the Schools and Staffing Survey. We find that the teacher workforce continues to be primarily White. In…

Open online courses could provide stepping stones for audiences that are underrepresented in higher education (HE). However, there are concerns that these instead proliferate forms of exclusion and do not address known difficulties for widening participation. We explore how organisations that represent the perspectives of particular underserved…

By typical definitions in the special education world, inclusion would not be recognizable as it exists at Memorial Elementary. Memorial is responding to a widely documented trend in public schools: over-representation of students of color, particularly Black and Brown students, in "high-incidence" special education categories, including…

In this essay, Jason A. Grissom, Christopher Redding, and Joshua F. Bleiberg investigate the receipt of gifted services based on the socioeconomic status (SES) of elementary school students and their families. Using nationally representative longitudinal data, they show that gaps in the receipt of gifted services between the highest and lowest SES…

This article presents recommendations regarding how to create welcoming and productively challenging classrooms for a diversity of students. These recommendations emerged during the pilot phase of a student--faculty pedagogical partnership programme in 2007 and remain relevant in 2017. To situate the recommendations, we evoke definitions of…

Pre-college advising programs exist in most disadvantaged high schools throughout the United States. These programs supplement traditional advising by high school guidance counselors and attempt to help underrepresented and disadvantaged students overcome the complexities of the postsecondary admission and financial aid processes. Existing…