Family-program partnerships in early care and education have the potential to influence young children's development through multiple pathways. Guided by the Head Start (HS) Parent, Family, and Community Engagement (PFCE) framework, the current study uses data from the 2014 HS Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) to examine the direct, and…

This paper uses critical discourse analysis and critical literacy to analyze the first in a series of literacy primers developed with US support for children in Afghanistan in the 1980s, called 'Jihad literacy'. The text is analyzed for its ideological content as related to the themes of religion, violence, and martyrdom in the historical…

The purpose of this quantitative study is to investigate the relationship between federal Pell Grant status, campus diversity statistics, and their influence on graduation rates within higher education. This study focuses on higher education institutions in the state of Texas and adopts a quantitative design that utilizes a regression analysis to…

Several states have invested in 1915(c) Home and Community Based Service (HCBS) Medicaid policies to improve outcomes and reduce costs for children and youth with significant behavioral health needs, or Severe Emotional Disturbance (SED). However, little is known about these programs and the children they serve. Through a retrospective…

The set of appendices in this volume is a companion to the report "Federal Efforts Towards Investing in Innovation in Education Through the i3 Fund: A Summary of Grantmaking and Evidence-Building." The goal of the U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) was to build high-quality evidence about effective…

This dissertation, titled "Families, Culture, Community: Expanding Understanding of What Catalyzes Student Success in a Pre-College Upward Bound Program," investigates the critical factors influencing student success in the Upward Bound program through a funds of knowledge framework (Moll et al., 1992; Rios-Aguilar & Kiyama, 2012).…

Food insecurity poses a serious threat to children's development, but the mechanisms through which food insecurity undermines child development are far less clear. Specifically, food insecurity may influence children through its effect on parents' psychological well-being and parent--child interactions as a result, but past research on the role of…

This article combines archival research and critical discourse analysis to examine 33 evaluation and report documents that evaluate the effectiveness of the Fulbright Program from 1958-2023. Specifically, the study employs argumentation analysis to understand the underlying ideological strategies used to discursively construct the Fulbright…

Early literacy assessment has become commonplace in the preschool years, with phonological awareness constituting one component of emergent literacy targeted by such practices. This within-subjects experimental study examines the role of word familiarity on 93 dual language preschoolers' performance on phoneme-level awareness tasks in…

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is the Nation's second-largest food and nutrition assistance program, providing billions of meals to tens of millions of children and adolescents each year. USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) periodically reports on NSLP policies and program operations, often after major changes to the program's rules…

Head Start programs in many of the states with higher rates of children living in poverty have received less per-child funding allocations than programs in states with lower rates of children living in poverty for years. Further, the educators who teach these children are vastly underpaid, and their pay is also inequitable among states and…

Since 1995, publicly funded pre-K with universal eligibility has proliferated across the U.S. Universal pre-K (UPK) operates at great scale and serves children with a wide range of alternative childcare options. Because these programs are relatively young, very little is known about their long-run impacts on children. In this paper, I use a…

Emerging research suggests English and Spanish proficiencies of young Latine dual language learners (DLLs) are heterogeneous, including subgroups characterized by varying levels of English and Spanish dominance and proficiencies. However, there is limited understanding of contextual factors associated with the formation of DLL profiles. This study…

Emerging research suggests English and Spanish proficiencies of young Latine dual language learners (DLLs) are heterogeneous, including subgroups characterized by varying levels of English and Spanish dominance and proficiencies. However, there is limited understanding of contextual factors associated with the formation of DLL profiles. This study…

Accessible, affordable, high-quality child care and early education are vital for the economic well-being of families, communities, and the nation. However, families, especially those of color with low incomes, face significant challenges in accessing these services due to systemic racial and economic barriers. Federal programs like the Child Care…