In this dissertation, I explore how international migration and environmental pollution shape human capital accumulation and labor market outcomes.The first chapter examines how college enrollment and major choice decisions of young adults in migrant-sending countries are affected by the removal of international migration barriers. My…

Background: A potential target of educational policies or practices to address racial or ethnic disparities in school functioning is to increase the extent to which Black and Hispanic students are taught by teachers who are of the same race or ethnicity. Exposure to teachers of the same race or ethnicity may help provide Black and Hispanic…

The notion that students' aspirations are changeable with age is especially important in education aspirations studies. Researchers have acknowledged that individuals' aspirations are changeable and the stability of their aspirations is important for reaching their goals. Despite the finding that the misaligned educational and occupational…

The purpose of this study was twofold. The first purpose was to analyze exit data collection systems in Mississippi school districts (including a content analysis of the instruments used to collect exit data) to determine how many districts collected data from exiting teachers. The second purpose was to examine teacher characteristics (race,…

This study investigated the relationship among the variables instructional time configuration, gender, race/ethnicity, and poverty to predict the academic performance of seventh-grade students on a state-mandated social studies accountability test. Results of 24,919 seventh-grade student social studies test scores from 117 middle schools, as well…

Florida's Senate Bill 1720 allowed many students to bypass developmental education and enroll directly in introductory college-level courses. We use an interrupted time series design to introductory college-level courses enrollment and passing rates in English and math for three cohorts of college students prereform and three cohorts postreform.…

The change in the English computing curriculum and the shift towards computer science (CS) has been closely observed by other countries. Female participation remains a concern in most jurisdictions, but female attainment in CS is relatively unstudied. Using the English national pupil database, we analyzed all exam results (n = 5,370,064) for…

Florida's Senate Bill 1720 allowed many students to bypass developmental education and enroll directly in introductory college-level courses. We use an interrupted time series design to introductory college-level courses enrollment and passing rates in English and math for three cohorts of college students prereform and three cohorts postreform.…

This research brief examines the continuing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student achievement and progress toward academic recovery. Using data from 6.7 million U.S. public school students currently in grades 3-8, the study examined academic gains in the 2022-23 school year relative to pre-pandemic years. It also tracked the gap in…

School District Effectiveness Research (SDER) works to identify unusually effective organizations for in-depth qualitative study that significantly outperform peer districts over multiple years. Yet, critiques of SDER include a focus on cross-sectional data, individual states, and percent proficient metrics. Here, we analyze the Stanford Education…

This study examined the mediation and moderation of membership in a demographic group underrepresented in physics classes on course outcomes measured by course grades and Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation (FMCE) post-test scores. The study used a large dataset (N ¼ 4490) of course grades, SAT and ACT mathematics scores (ACTM), and matched…

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, educational research on emotions and social emotional learning has increased substantially. With this influx is a need for more critical work that explores how such research can both challenge and reproduce social injustices. In this conceptual paper, we critically reflect on the first author's thesis…

Objectives: The importance of breastfeeding exposure and children's development of self-regulation, independently, are well established. Each of these domains also has been linked to better cognitive development and academic achievement in children. However, little is known about how breastfeeding affects development of early self-regulation…

Indiana has a robust portfolio of high school options, including traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools that accept Indiana Choice Scholarships (private voucher schools). This study identified the type of high school enrollment (type of high school and voucher status) among the student populations of four cohorts (who…

Indiana has a robust portfolio of high school options, including traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools that accept Indiana Choice Scholarships (private voucher schools). But little research is available on the characteristics of students who attend different types of high schools or how their college and career readiness…