Background: The present study sought to determine whether the cognitive triad serves as a moderator or mediator in the association between perceived everyday discrimination (PED) and depressive symptoms among inner-city youth by examining if discrimination is related to both cognitive processes and depressive symptoms in adolescents. Previous…

Validity studies of college admissions tests have found that black and Hispanic students typically perform worse in college, as measured by their freshman grade point average (FGPA), than predicted based on college admissions test scores. These studies, however, conflate student and school characteristics when estimating differential prediction.…

This ethnographic study examined access to college information for low-income, first-generation Latinx students who attended an under-resourced high school. Using a college-"conocimiento" framework, I analyzed the college choice and transition experiences of 47 participants. Findings revealed that educators provided limited college…

African Americans and Hispanic Americans historically have been underrepresented in U.S. jobs in the fields of STEM in large part because of the usability of technology. In this research, the goal was to discover the usability factors relative to operating systems that may limit African Americans and Hispanic Americans from pursuit of computer…

This study makes use of data from NCES's High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 to ascertain the relationship of number of mathematics courses and content of mathematics courses to mathematics achievement. As one contribution, the study replicates a process to quantify mathematics course content. Results of the study show that mathematics content…

Undocumented Latino students who enroll in and attend colleges and universities face a multitude of barriers and often must navigate complex situations and structures that make them more vulnerable of not completing their education (Diaz-Strong & Meiners, 2007). When undocumented students attend colleges and universities, they often encounter…

High school calculus has become indispensable for students seeking a college degree in a STEM field. However, in the present study, we argue that the mathematics opportunities that students seize (when afforded) in middle grades are the key to earning calculus credit in high school. To take calculus in high school, students usually need to take…

Student-teacher relationships are important to student outcomes and may be especially pivotal at the high school transition and for minoritized racial/ethnic groups. Although interventions exist to improve student-teacher relationships, none have been shown to be effective among high school students or in narrowing racial/ethnic disparities in…

After Hurricane María, approximately 3,500 students enrolled in on Florida's school district from Puerto Rico. Displaced Puerto Rican high schoolers incurred the transitional costs of forced migration at a time in their educational trajectories when they are formulating their postsecondary plans. While student mobility is not uncommon, prevailing…

In response to inquiries about the roles of School Resource Officers (SROs), the Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) conducted a review of the SRO program using data from several sources: SRO referral and incident data; a survey of WCPSS students, staff, and members of the community; and data from focus groups. Two major themes emerged from…

The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's (WICHE's) ninth edition of "Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates," published in December 2016 (revised February 2017), quantified how the demographic changes that are underway with America's youth population will be evidenced in the next 15 years of…

The study focuses on a two-week unit with 90 students at an urban, Latinx-serving charter middle and high school in the south midwestern U.S. to create digital counterstory maps. The maps then served as the organizing content for a subsequent week-long summer professional development the authors led for their teachers. Analysis suggests the…

To explore the role of teachers' biases in the underrepresentation of minorities and women in STEM, 128 secondary science teachers were asked to evaluate responses spoken with either falling or rising intonation by African American, Latino, and White ninth-grade boys and girls. Responses spoken by minority students were evaluated less favorably…

This three-study dissertation investigated how socioeconomic factors and policies are associated with educational outcomes for undocumented youth and, in one of the papers, to what extent education and employment outcomes intersect. Guided by the specific questions of each study, the three papers take different theoretical and methodological…

College-going culture represents the development of college aspiration within individuals, and also the provision of guidance and support to prepare students for college application, enrollment, and success (Achinstein, Curry, & Ogawa, 2015; Corwin & Tierney, 2007). First- generation students are of particular research interest because…