The goal of the College of Arts & Sciences Community-aid (CASC-aid) project, a National Science Foundation grant funded study (2016-2021), is to develop, implement, and evaluate a program that fosters a community of academic success for Hispanic STEM students. This Hispanic Serving Institute continues to provide a variety of supports to…

International health science students face many challenges at the beginning of their courses, including a lack of awareness of cultural differences, adjusting to academic expectations, communication difficulties, clinical placement challenges, financial pressures, maintaining cultural and religious practices, discrimination, and emotions such as…

Play is very "on trend" in the primary sector, but is it a suitable pedagogy for secondary students? Based on research into play-based learning in a Year 11 English class, this article provides an overview of play theory, describes a typical play-based lesson in Year 11 English, considers three different approaches to assessment,…

Adopting empowerment as a theoretical lens, this paper examines how a combination of structural (particularly class background) and individual factors (particularly empowering agents and a strong personal will to achieve) have contributed to school success and ethnic identity formation of minority students in China. Our longitudinal study on a…

Conventional wisdom encourages educators to cultivate student success by creating expectations among students, with the intention of boosting motivation and empowerment. If students feel that their learning is in their hands, they are more likely to fulfil the learning outcomes. But this paper argues that vulnerable or sensitive students are…

Teaching self-determination to students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) may empower them to become self-regulated problem solvers. This article, using the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI), outlines a framework for teachers to facilitate mathematics instruction and goal attainment relative to in-school and…

Blended learning appears to facilitate learner empowerment more readily than either face-to-face or fully online courses. This contention is supported by a review of literature on the affordances of blended learning that support Thomas and Velthouse's (1990) four conditions of empowerment: choice, meaningfulness, competence, and impact. Blended…

Based on interview data, life "testimonios," and Chicana feminist theories, "The Chicana/o/x Dream" profiles first-generation, Mexican-descent college students who have overcome adversity by utilizing various forms of cultural capital to power their academic success. While college enrollment rates for Chicana/o/x students have…

States across the country have begun to take strides to implement policies that support a new, student-centered vision for learning, several of which are highlighted in this resource. However, we recognize that many states still need additional supports and resources to enable all communities to realize the promise of student-centered learning.…

For over thirty years, a political and social battle over bilingual education raged in the U.S. and in and around the Crow Indian Reservation of Montana. This book, a period piece rich in political, historical, and local western context, is the story of language, education, inequality and power clashes between the dominant society and the Indian…

New estimates report that Black girls are facing an educational crisis with regard to disproportionate disciplinary practices and academics. To date, there has been very limited research with regard to school-based interventions that have been designed to help Black girls explore both their cultural and gender identity. This is problematic because…

The transition between high school and college is inconsistent and uncertain. Many marginalized students do not understand how to seek out assistance without guidance and mentorship. Although the number of marginalized college students enrolled in 4-year colleges in the United States is growing, many marginalized college students struggle to find…

While the terms student-centred and learner-centred are used to describe a range of neo-liberal educational policies and practices around the world, the meaning is not clearly defined. This limits its utility as a concept in policy, research and practice. This article applies abductive reasoning to explore how student-centred education is…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to use an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) approach to discover generative instructional and assessment practices of teachers in the language arts classroom at a 5th and 6th grade low socioeconomic public school campus in Texas that earned five distinctions or three consecutive years. The study sought to design a…

Asian Americans are the fastest-growing population of any minority group in the United States (Lopez, Ruiz, & Patten, 2017). As colleges seek to become more diverse and increase their enrollment of minority students, educators need to understand the cultural dynamics that affect Asian Americans in the classroom. Because the Confucian values of…