The United States is trailing competing nations in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education threatening the prosperity of our nation's most vital industries. Internationally, our students rank below other large or high-income economies in math and science assessments while interest and proficiency in STEM-related careers is…

Accommodation~assimilation relations were theorized by Kelso and Engstrom (2006) as independent and dependent complementary pairs. This study defined relationships between organisms that experienced complementary interactions of accommodation~assimilation in diverse ecologies designed with universal design for learning environments (UDLE) compared…

What can an indigenous Egyptian paradigm for social evolution that represents the composite of bio-cultural diversities of Egypt and multiple bio-regions within it look like? With such exploratory inquiry in mind, this dissertation research focuses on analyzing the practice of development in Egypt through the lens of place, critiquing its…

This qualitative study focused on the experiences of eight male first-generation college students attending Kenmont College (pseudonym), a highly selective, residential liberal arts college located in the Midwestern United States. While first-generation college students have been studied in various contexts, very little is known about what…

In a rural community there is a risk that readers will not find connections to their own lives, which may affect the pleasure gained from reading. The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the use of literature in a small rural elementary school, focusing on how sociocultural factors affect how students connect to and access literature.…