Background: Mental health care is critical to improving mental health but factors associated with student utilization are poorly understood. Methods: Data were from high school students (N = 2933; mean age = 15.7 ± 0.6) enrolled in a California cohort. We examined associations of sociodemographic factors, substance use, and mental health symptoms…

As part of the network hub for CARPE College Access Network, a coalition of 30 schools across Southern California working to ensure that more students who are Black, Latinx, Indigenous, or experiencing poverty apply to and enroll in colleges where they are most likely to graduate, the authors provide support to team members to use continuous…

Background and context: High school students' interest in computing fields is not always sustained in community college due to a disconnect between institutions. Objective: To understand how cross-sector collaborations can align institutional pathways in computing. Research questions: What cross-sector practices can be used to build a computing…

Young Black and Latino men face profound academic obstacles in transitioning to college. Few studies have interrogated college readiness practices in urban schools through the lens of masculinity. Drawing on a yearlong ethnography, this study investigated how young men respond to college-readiness practices while enacting masculinity. Many young…

Culturally responsive school counseling (CRSC) is the call to action for school counselors, aimed at meeting the needs of underrepresented groups. CRSC is often described as an approach that serves all students, but definitions fail to mention and center underrepresented populations (i.e., students of color). Literature has included varying…

Young Black and Latino men transition from high school to 4-year universities at rates considerably lower than their peers. College-going disparities by gender are partly influenced by young men's constrained access to social capital in high school. This research explores how gendered inequalities in social capital arise for college-aspiring…

This dissertation examines how first-generation high school Students of Color from California's San Joaquin Valley navigate digital marketing and advertising during their college search and application processes, offering a timely contribution to the study of college admissions in a post-affirmative action landscape. Higher education institutions…

College access and success programs, which typically take place during out-of-school time, range widely in their size, target demographics, and services offered. Although concerted funding and energy have been dedicated to college access programs, the field suffers from a significant research and practice gap. Studies have demonstrated that…

Second-generation Latinx immigrant students in middle school and high school may experience language and reading barriers in education resulting from their cultural upbringing. This study examined the language and reading scores of 2,107 bilingual dominant second-generation Latinx youth participants enrolled in 8th and 9th grade in the states of…

Minority students are suspended at a disproportionately higher rate compared with others. To reduce racial suspension gaps, four California school districts banned schools from suspending students for willful defiance, a category consisting of relatively minor disruptive offenses. I evaluate the impact of these policies on high school student…

The Leading-to-Calculus Framework (LTCF) is a collection of math courses meant to prepare students for calculus. From its inception, however, scholars have marked out a number of problems with its approach, particularly for students of color: its content and activities are often too broad, its structure is too rigid, and it fails to regularly…

Despite recent calls to more fully incorporate multimodal perspectives into literacies research, there is still limited scholarship examining how students critically engage in reading activities by drawing on embodied practices. Racially and linguistically minoritized students are particularly disadvantaged by dominant logocentric and…

For years, policymakers, districts, and scholars have pushed for the inclusion of more Black male teachers in US public schools; however, their even smaller subset--Black male special education teachers--has been ignored, particularly by scholars. The results of this study provide insight into the recruitment and retention of Black male special…

I study student characteristics and academic performance at the University of California, where consideration of an applicant's ethnicity has been banned since 1996 and SAT scores were used in admitting students to the university until fall 2021. I show the following: (1) SAT scores were more important than high school grades in predicting…

This study highlights the influence of K-12 classroom experiences on college decision-making processes among Black students with dis/abilities. Within this study, participants articulated how positive and negative educational experiences shaped the choice to pursue higher education, as well as factors prioritized during their decision-making…