Black students remain under enrolled in AP courses compared to White peers, even with intentional outreach. One possible reason for this continued disparity is that Black students may choose not to enroll in AP courses where they are racially isolated. Using the 2017-2018 Civil Rights Data Collection and multilevel modeling, I examine the…

Recurrent catastrophic weather events on the Texas Gulf Coast led to the need to explore how Hurricane Harvey affected PK-12 education in the geographical area. Consequently, changes in student demographic characteristics and academic outcomes were correlated with 2018-2019 NERD$ finance data for Houston ISD and surrounding school districts. The…

Background/Context: Increasing evidence suggests a connection between racial differences in rates of exclusionary discipline (suspensions/expulsions) and academic achievement by (Losen & Martinez, 2020; Reardon et al., 2018). Black students receive out-of-school suspensions and expulsions at disproportionately higher rates, which is associated…

Promise programs are proliferating across the United States, with wide variation in their design. Using national data on 33 Promise programs affecting single, 2-year colleges, this study examines program effects on first-time, full-time college enrollments of students by race/ethnicity and gender classification. Results suggest Promise programs…

Without a better understanding of what contributes to racial/ethnic and gender underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, many U.S. citizens likely will not be able to take full advantage of the socioeconomic affordances of STEM occupations. Additionally, the increasingly diverse nation will have a STEM…

The purpose of this exploratory research was to find out if Black students felt that image-based PowerPoints enhanced their learning in the classroom. A previous survey was conducted in 2016 to assess satisfaction of image-only PowerPoint lectures and results indicated that Black students were significantly less satisfied with image-based…

The rapid expansion of school choice is restructuring public education in the United States. This study examines associations between charter and magnet school enrollment, White-Black and White-Hispanic segregation, and test score gaps at the district level from 2009 to 2015 in third to eighth grade using the Stanford Education Data Archive and…

Likeness, also known as homophily, describes the tendency for individuals to seek out others who are socially similar to themselves. As a society, we are attracted to "like" behaviors, but subconsciously the value placed on likeness can lead to undesirable outcomes including segregation, reduced diversity in peer groups, and narrower…

Background: Students of color are disproportionately placed in special education throughout the United States. Prior research suggests that special education is used too often in high-poverty schools partly due to limited resources available to support struggling students (Skiba et al., 2006). More recent studies, however, suggest that…

Is under-representation of Black, Latinx, English learners (EL), and students from economically challenging communities in gifted programs due to inequality in early academic achievement or bias in the gifted identification process? Using three-level multilevel logistic models, we examine the degree to which the disparities in gifted…

If students are not able to access internships or career-based programming, they are likely to not acquire skills necessary to be college and career ready. In short, an abundance of research supports the problem of limited preparation of all students for college and career readiness in high school, which also affects success in college and/or…

Globalization, global citizenship, and cross-cultural competence are central to the mission of post-secondary institutions. In this paper, we examined study abroad participation rates and international student enrollments to understand the determinants that drive critical components of campus internationalization. We identified possible…

During the 2020-21 school year, Black students were less likely to learn in person than white students. We examine whether this difference persisted as the pandemic progressed. We find that the rate of in-person learning increased in 2021-22 but remained lower for Black students compared to white students. While several factors helped explain…

The present study examined the direct and indirect experience of mental health help-seeking, mental health help-seeking attitudes, and psychological health in Latina/o American, Asian American, Black American and White American college students. Participants (mean age = 20.48 years) were 74 Latina/o American (81% women), 307 Black American (91%…

Data was collected in 2014 and 2015 by principle investigator Dr. Lorraine Kubicek, Ph.D. as part of the Project to Learn about Youth--Mental Health (PLAY-MH). The study was funded by the Disability Research and Dissemination Center, University of South Carolina School of Medicine and the Center for Disease Control. Parents of 250 students…