The movie "Try Harder!" features a group of students at Lowell High School in San Francisco, California, as they navigate their elite public institution and apply to top-tier universities. A critical analysis of this film allows us to understand new trends and emerging discourses in urban cities, showing the way racialized groups are pit…

This study aims to examine the performance of students who completed the North Carolina Math 1 EOC assessment. The provided test scores are for students in middle school and high school who identify as Asian, Black, Latinx, and White, and are specifically for the North Carolina Math 1 EOC assessment. This applied research study focuses on Math 1…

There is an underrepresentation of Filipino American and Asian American school administrators. The problem is that low Filipino American administrator-Filipino American student ethnicity match ratios and low Asian American administrator-Filipino American student race match ratios have negatively affected the graduation rates and chronic…

Although Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial minority group in the United States, projected to be 10% of the population by 2050, they only comprise 2% of the teaching force. There is relatively little research about the experiences, recruitment efforts, or retention of Asian American teachers. This qualitative study seeks to add to the…

Objective: Ethnic identity is a crucial aspect of identity development during adolescence. This study aimed to examine the potential protective effect of ethnic identity in the relation between peer stress and global life satisfaction among adolescents. Method: Data were collected via self-report measures from 417 adolescents (ages 14 to 18, 63.0%…

We provide novel evidence on the broader impacts of school choice systems by quantifying disparities in peer continuity from middle to high school in New York City. We find that Black and Hispanic students and those in high-poverty neighborhoods attend high school with a much smaller fraction of their middle school or neighborhood peers than their…

This study sought to contribute to the limited research on the prevalence of suicidal behaviors and exposure to school-based violence among Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) adolescents. It also examined the relationship between engagement in suicidal behaviors and exposure to school-based violence among AAPI adolescents. Results from a…

This dissertation aims to advance our understanding of Asian American students' choices and trajectories in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, especially in math-intensive STEM sub-fields, by investigating Asian American female and male students' math-related motivational beliefs held in high school and whether/how…

There are equity gaps in dual enrollment registration. Literature demonstrates that White and Asian students register for dual enrollment at higher rates than Black and Latinx students. Many students and parents are not aware of dual enrollment opportunities, nor do they fully understand the proven benefits such as saving time, money, and…

This study explored racial differences in internalizing and externalizing problems among minority adolescents in impoverished urban communities. The study centered on a sample of 211 participants who were engaged in the 2018 Building Resilience Against Violence Engagement (BRAVE) programs. Their internalizing and externalizing problems were…

The findings reported in this paper are based on surveys of U.S. high school students who registered and managed their science and engineering fair (SEF) projects through the online Scienteer website over the three years 2019/20, 2020/21, and 2021/22. Almost 2500 students completed surveys after finishing all their SEF competitions. We added a new…

The literature linking adulthood criminality to cumulative disadvantage and early school misbehavior demonstrates that understanding the mechanisms underlying student behavior and the responses of teachers and administrators is crucial in comprehending racial/ethnic disparities in actual or perceived school misbehavior. We use data on 19,160 ninth…

Most U.S. students attend racially segregated schools. To understand this pattern, I employ a survey experiment with New York City families actively choosing schools and investigate whether they express racialized school preferences. I find school racial composition heterogeneously affects white, black, Latinx, and Asian parents' and students'…

Families indicate that fit and safety are priorities in school selections. It is not clear, however, whether school racial composition shapes families' perceptions of anticipated school belonging. Using a survey experiment with students and parents actively choosing NYC schools, I find that families expressed racialized judgments of belonging.…

Objectives: At the K-12 level, "CS for All" initiatives across the country strive to increase equitable access to and participation in computer science (CS). However, there are many open questions about the implementation and effectiveness of these initiatives, including the extent to which exposing young people to CS early on can shape…