This Dissertation in Practice (DIP) was a group dissertation as required by the Doctorate in Educational Leadership program and created a new form of educator development called the Virtual Educator Network (VEN). This DIP examined the VENs' impact on educators' attitudes towards inclusion, feelings of support, and incorporation of new strategies…

The COVID-19 pandemic has raised a wide range of challenges for school leaders that they now (rapidly) have to address. Consequently, they also turn to informal learning networks, in order to share and collect information and reach out to their communities. In this context, the current study investigates the underlying networks structures among…

Background: The Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model is an evidence-based comprehensive framework to address health in schools. WSCC model use improves health and educational outcomes, but implementation remains a challenge. Methods: Working with 6 schools in 2 districts in the Midwest, we used a mixed-methods approach to…

This cross-sectional study examined the mediating role of three reasoned action approach (RAA) constructs--attitudes, perceived social pressure, and perceived behavioral control--on the relationship between peer networks and intention to consume unhealthy food. The authors examined self-reported data of a sample of 277 adolescents from public and…

This review aimed to examine the perceptions of parents, professionals and informal network members regarding support needs of parents with intellectual disabilities (ID). In accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement, five databases were systematically searched and 19 qualitative…

The various types of interactions that students carry out when engaged in scientific argumentation function together to move forward developing ideas and support sensemaking. As such, incorporating argumentation in classroom instruction holds promise for supporting students in developing and acting with an epistemic agency, being positioned, and…

This study uses positional analysis to describe the student interaction networks in four research-based introductory physics curricula. Positional analysis is a technique for simplifying the structure of a network into blocks of actors whose connections are more similar to each other than to the rest of the network. This method describes social…

In this article, we suggest that competencies in working in intercultural and multidisciplinary environments are part of expected key skills in contemporary organisations. Higher educational institutions across the globe are pressured to contribute to the development of such key skills. Using social identity theory, through social network analysis…

Due to socio-economic difficulties, many teachers in Uzbekistan combine their regular teaching activities with private supplementary tutoring (PST). Involvement in two professional activities has led to the emergence of teacher and tutor professional identities. It is assumed that the co-existence of dual identities has an influence on the…

Since the opening of the University of Nebraska at Omaha's (UNO) Community Engagement Center in 2014, both university and community building partners have been guided by a set of core values. Established by a community/university task force after months of focus groups, community conversations, and other data gathering activities, these values…

Social Network Analysis has been posited as a useful technique to determine if leadership development programs are an effective intervention in developing social ties and enhancing connectivity among leaders in an organization. Evaluations can examine the extent to which the leadership development programs create and catalyze peer networks. This…

The influence of the European Commission (EC) expert groups on policy coordination within the European Union has received a growing interest among researchers, who have assessed their role in policy-making processes, their participation patterns, their transparency, and their knowledge-generating process. This article interrogates the structural…

Learning to teach is rife with challenges. Preservice teachers' self-efficacy can potentially mitigate the stress of these challenges, and teacher education programs are fundamental in helping them build this important resource. As such, understanding the foundations of self-efficacy is important for researchers and teacher educators alike.…

Scholars in the field of Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy have called for more work on the intersections of race and technologies (Banks, 2006, 2011; Gilyard & Banks, 2018; Haas, 2018; A. H. Powell, 2007). There is a particular need for research on how Black Americans engage with digital technologies beyond school settings. This project…

Though colleges have focused efforts on admitting more African American students, a need to improve engagement and retention exists. The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine if community college was a source of social capital for African American male students by way of early integration into an academic and social network. Relying…