Though economically disadvantaged students in the Houston Independent School District (HISD) have "greater" access to pre-kindergarten (pre-k) than their peers, English learner (EL) students do not. Equity in access to nearby pre-k would mean at-risk students, particularly those targeted for free public pre-k in Texas, would have greater…

Atlanta, the fourth-fastest gentrifying city in the United States, is comprised of neighborhoods close to the city center and seat of urban wealth, that suffer from high poverty rates, unemployment, and low literacy rates. One neighborhood school has been ranked as one of the lowest in the state. To combat historical under-performance, Atlanta…

The field of computer science has long been plagued by issues of diversity - in particular, attracting and retaining those historically marginalized in computing contexts. This is a great loss to the field, to the future of innovation, and to society. Perhaps most importantly, it is an incalculable loss to those populations excluded from pursuing…

This dissertation examines the racialization of urban Latinx youth in alternative school settings. Set in a predominantly Latinx neighborhood in inner-city Houston, the research catalogues everyday Latinx student experiences and the ways they experience, navigate, and survive educational systems of structural inequity. Drawing on long-term…

Building on a growing literature showing that early college high schools substantially improve educational outcomes, we investigate possible spillover impacts of this intervention on civic outcomes in North Carolina, which houses an early college in most of its counties. We present both lottery and observational impacts on voting and criminal…

Educational reform and the development of performance measure policies have remained a continuous debate throughout the past several decades. These accountability policies and increased performance standards can have a significant effect on teacher practice and student outcomes. Policy initiatives have now shifted the definition of teacher quality…

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an important driver of student well-being, academic achievement, and future success. Despite decades of work on motivation theory and frameworks to promote student motivation and achievement outcomes, connections between motivation and recent frameworks and measures of SEL could be stronger. The purpose of…

Summer learning for many students in a large urban school district in Tennessee is an inequitable experience. Academic learning gaps in reading and mathematics may expand over the summer for economically disadvantaged and underrepresented minorities. One school district, recognizing an opportunity to narrow the gap, launched its Superintendent's…

This basic phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of teachers that despite the challenges and adverse effects of poverty over historically underserved students' educational opportunities, have been able to enhance students' success. The interrelationships of poverty with race, class, ethnicity, and linguistic differences are…

From 2010 onwards, most US states have aligned their education standards by adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for math and English Language Arts. The CCSS did not target other subjects such as science and social studies. We estimate spillovers of the CCSS on student achievement in non-targeted subjects in models with state and year…

Through the use of Latinx Critical Race Theory (LatCrit), with testimonios as a method of inquiry, this study analyzed families' experiences that led them to resist school closures. This study also chronicled families' experiences with the transition to new schools, after the school closures. Once schools closed, families described their…

Conducting qualitative, critical ethnographical research on disability in Palestine requires deep self-reflexivity, exploring positionality while claiming authorship. As a Palestinian conducting backyard research, I explored ways to conceptualize disability in light of language and macro factors related to Israeli occupation practices. While…

Physical sciences teachers in low-quintile South African schools avoid the use of inquiry on the grounds of inefficiency and ineffectiveness for test preparation. This avoidance is consistent with the view that the high cognitive load inquiry offers to extreme novices such as these learners may be prohibitive. Given the purported benefits of…

This paper explores how "English learners (ELs)" or who we prefer to call "multilingual learners" are labeled and positioned in policy documents and leading education research documents respectively. Attending to the urgent call for serving the growing number of linguistically and culturally diverse learners, this study delves…

Despite the extensive research evidence about the importance of high-quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), English policy makers continue to promote nurseries for the 'childcare' they provide, rather than the transformational effects they can have in areas of socio-economic challenge. The aim of this study was to investigate if and…