This article examines ethnic segregation in schools as a field where policy inaction, or non-decision making, is rife. A theoretical framework rooted in historical institutionalism and combining critical junctures with path dependencies enables the study of non-decision making and policy inaction. Moving from non-decision making as a general…

Research shows that students derive both social-emotional and academic benefits from a diverse educator workforce. The state has taken notable steps to prioritize a more diverse educator workforce in recent years. These include: (1) convening a California Department of Education (CDE) Educator Diversity Advisory Group, tasked with offering…

School absences figure prominently in student success. It makes sense that students who are in school have a better chance of learning and growing and when they aren't there, they don't benefit from what schools have to offer. But when absences are marked unexcused the consequences could be significant, further hindering school success for…

In this chapter, I offer a socio-ecological perspective on sense of belonging, which is designed to aid institutional actors in facilitating equitable opportunities for racially and ethnically minoritized students to fulfill their belonging needs. Though important, individual, and relational-level interventions alone run the risk of pathologizing…

There is inconclusive evidence on the ability of scientific research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education to scale-up from one context to another and ultimately become institutionalized. The dearth of evidence draws focus on how organizations change and evolve or the process of organizational learning. We designed…

Teachers of Color and Indigenous Teachers are underrepresented in public schools across the United States of America, with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color making up roughly 37% of the adult population and 50% of children, but just 19% of the teaching force. Yet research over decades has indicated their positive impact on student learning…

This article reports on analysis of "A Master Plan for Bilingual-Bicultural Education (MP)," created after the "Lau v. Nichols" Supreme Court ruling. Qualitative analyses reveal authors' intention to: 1) intertwine language and culture; 2) promote richly diverse multilingualism; and 3) systemically embed its implementation…

In this research article, Pamela R. Bennett and Amy Lutz offer new hypotheses about how state bans on affirmative action affect application decisions based on students' beneficiary positions vis-à-vis affirmative action and evaluate them for black, white, Latino, and Asian American students separately. They posit that bans discourage applications…

This paper explores the challenges of language and cultural maintenance through education among one immigrant ethnic group, the Uyghurs within Turkey, where the Uyghur population has grown in recent years. Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnic minority group of some 10 million people within China, originating from China's northwest Xinjiang…

In previous work we analyzed databases for 95 classes to show that the percent grade scale was correlated with a much higher student fail rate than the 4.0 grade scale. This paper builds on this work and investigates equity gaps occurring under both scales. By employing a "course deficit model" we attribute the responsibility for closing…

Special education technology and its use has largely focused on student concerns with accessing instruction. Where teachers have received attention, it has focused on classroom practices and their understanding of how to use technologies to support students. While some conversations have recently turned to the importance of "student"…

BACKGROUND: Affirming spaces have been associated with improved mental health outcomes for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) adolescents. METHODS: With data from adolescents currently enrolled in middle or high school across the United States, this study used topic modeling methods to examine students' reports of…

"Castañeda v. Pickard" established a precedent for evaluating bilingual programs in relation to the "soundness" of the educational theory on which they are based. However, this notion of theoretical soundness was grounded in an underlying logic that ultimately framed emergent multilingual students as a "protected"…

In this article, we examine and explore how the recent US Supreme Court case on affirmative action within higher education will shape and contextualize disproportionate minority representation and its monitoring within a K-12 public school context for students with disabilities. That is, as the litigation and ultimate judicial decision shape how…

In this Indigenous/non-Indigenous collaboration, we examine discourses of 'community engagement' in Australia's blueprint education policy, "Through Growth to Achievement: The Report of The Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools." While the report addresses the education sector widely rather than being…