While many policy makers attempt to close the educational divide, precollege programs have the ability to creating a college going culture and develop college aspirations throughout the entire K-12 pipeline. Exposure to college culture and the college system grants students opportunities to develop college aspirations, skills, confidence, and…

Youth development researchers have focused on persistent challenges facing youth in diverse urban settings; thus, we know less about youth in rural communities. Using multilevel modeling, we explored contextual factors associated with school grades and educational aspirations. We find that, on average relative to students from urban schools,…

Reading motivation may help explain some discrepancies in higher education attainment among Latinx adolescents. Using a person-centered approach to understand underlying reading motivation profiles among N = 254 Latinx adolescents, results identified four ordered classes of reading motivation including, (a) a "High" class characterized…

This report uses data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). HSLS:09 is a nationally representative, longitudinal study of more than 23,000 students who were first surveyed in fall 2009, when they were in the ninth grade, and then again in spring 2012, when most were in the eleventh grade. The 2012 administration also included…

This report uses data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS:09). HSLS:09 is a nationally representative, longitudinal study of more than 23,000 students who were first surveyed in fall 2009, when they were in the ninth grade, and then again in spring 2012, when most were in the eleventh grade. Students who had been held back and…

This study tested the theory that an authoritative school climate characterized by disciplinary structure and student support is conducive to positive academic outcomes for middle and high school students. Multilevel multivariate modeling at student and school levels was conducted using school surveys completed by statewide samples of 39,364…

National trends and goals have pushed beyond the dropout crisis and are now focused on raising the percentage of graduates prepared for college and career. This study examined a longitudinal cohort (n = 6443) of students in an urban, public school district in order to explore how districts and communities can redirect off-track high school…

This study examined the relationships of college knowledge and parent education level with these college-going beliefs: (a) self-efficacy, (b) outcome expectations, (c) likelihood both to go to and graduate from college, (d) choice intentions, and (e) educational goals. Social Cognitive Career Theory (Lent, Brown, & Hackett, 1994) provided the…

This study examined programming practices that have identified in the research as critical for school success for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). Secondary purposes of the study were to identify the extent to which these practices were used and to examine student social/emotional and academic outcome data in a public day…