An incongruence exists between the growing job opportunities in rural areas and the educational opportunities provided to rural students, especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Positive change is possible, however. As one means to tackle this complex issue, this study sought to understand the perceptions and…

Merging community literacy and archival research pedagogies, this article presents a qualitative study of students' reflections from a course that involves partnering with a community organization to research their archives. The article considers students' reflections about, first, learning archival methods and, second, applying these methods in a…

This research advances notions about how interactive learning environments that intentionally shape learners' identities can empower students and give them agency. Our work draws on research on teacher noticing, extends it to the community level, and orients it towards identity. We provide an instrumental case study approach that examines…

Social capital can positively influence students' postsecondary aspirations and their postschool transitions to higher education and employment. Educators, families, and young people themselves can play an active role in generating and developing adolescents' social capital. A targeted focus on developing robust social capital could play an…

The problem investigated in this study was the lack of persistence of 1st-year African American male students at a community college in a southeastern state. In the fall of 2018, only 55% of African American male students progressed through their 1st year compared to 70% of White male students. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore…

This study explored the experiences of undergraduate BIPOC students in leadership education and development programs at two predominantly white institutions of higher education. Informed by interpretative phenomenological analysis, interviews with 36 students in various leadership roles (including residence life, peer mentoring, student…

This dissertation examined factors affecting the college choice of African American male undergraduate students at two private liberal arts colleges in the South. The study explored African American male undergraduate students experiences, perceptions, and attitudes toward the college selection process, using Hossler and Gallagher (1987) College…

Purpose: Research shows that family is influential to African Americans in college choice (Chapman "et al.," 2018; Chapman "et al.," 2020; Freeman, 2005; Hines "et al.," 2019; Lowry, 2017; Williams, 2018). However, it often overlooks unique, African-rooted characteristics of African American families and culture. This…

This article considers how the experience of community for young people from rural places (inclusive of regional and remote) can be influential in building a legacy of strengths and qualities, much like an inheritance. While there are many studies of rural youth, few consider rurality through complex social-relational dimensions; fewer still…

This dissertation was an investigation of how students in two-way bilingual immersion (TWBI) programs construct their bilingual identities inside and outside the school setting, highlighting the unique and multifaceted nature of their language development and cultural identity formation. TWBI programs aim to cultivate bilingualism and biliteracy,…

Rural communities in forested regions across the United States are in the midst of a transformation driven by a complex mixture of economic, policy, and demographic dynamics. This research examines, through survey results, rural youth educational aspirations in two forest- dependent regions and the role that perceptions of the local school,…

The purpose of this study was to examine preservice music educators' perceptions of how the culture of a music teacher education programme and its embedded communities of practice influenced their occupational identity development. Research questions were (1) What specific cultural influences and communities of practice, if any, did the…

The purpose of this pilot study was to investigate how African American male students persist through or depart before the end of the second year of their college journey. African American male students tend to drop out of college after their first year and sometimes after their first semester of college. There were several variables and themes…

Any undergraduate student lacking the knowledge and skills for digital technology will find it challenging to succeed academically and thrive in the 21st-century higher education setting. This study employed a novel conceptual framework built from ecological theory to investigate the attributions of the knowledge and skill gap in digital literacy…

Rural undergraduates lag behind urban and suburban undergraduates across many measures of college success, even though they graduate from high school at a higher rate. While a small but growing body of research literature addresses the challenges and barriers rural students face during the college process, few, if any, studies have focused…