This action study investigated the experiences of current female students, recent female graduates, and female dropouts of a rural community college in Appalachian Ohio to determine what factors led to successful college completion. Although female enrollment exceeds male enrollment, females currently and consistently rank below their male…

Research studies show that students' grades are more predictive than test scores of their future academic success, including high school and post-secondary outcomes. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) recognizes the importance of grades through its longstanding "Bs or Better" campaign. Yet within CPS, boys' grades are consistently lower than…

The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted schooling, not only in South Africa, but globally. In the study reported on here we investigated the perceived psychosocial effects of the pandemic on the teaching realities of Foundation Phase (FP) educators in rural quintiles 1 to 3 schools in the North West province, South Africa. A qualitative, case…

This transcendental phenomenological study examined the factors that led to the successes of Latino males' persistence in obtaining their bachelor's degree. Through the lens of participants' lived experiences, first-generation Latino males unpack their experiences and describe how those experiences impacted their academic achievement to graduate…

Inequity in public education has remained constant throughout history with disadvantaged students being left behind. The obstacles faced by minority students often cause them to lag behind their White counterparts in a persistent decline that leads to lower academic achievement. The problem addressed in this study was lower academic achievement in…

Relationships matter in the classroom. The connections elementary school teachers build with their students throughout the school year can affect learners as they move to secondary education. African American boys in third through fifth grade receive discipline consequences that remove them from classroom instruction, negatively impacting success…

Disparities across race, gender, and class are important targets of descriptive research. But rather than only describe disparities, research would ideally inform interventions to close those gaps. The gap-closing estimand quantifies how much a gap (e.g., incomes by race) would close if we intervened to equalize a treatment (e.g., access to…

The general academic disadvantage faced by children of immigrants is already a well-documented regularity in Spain. However, there is no reliable knowledge on how academic achievement is ethnically stratified and more research is needed to understand the determinants behind these achievement gaps. This study aims to further knowledge of both…

The achievement gap is a topic that has plagued the education research field for a long time. This persistent quandary is often rooted in disparities along racial, socioeconomic, and other demographic lines, such as geographical location. This study focuses on the achievement gap within the context of the Mississippi Delta. This rural region of…

The COVID-19 global pandemic caused the education world to shift to distance learning. Before then, technology usage in the classroom showed minimal implementation and surfaced level approaches. The shift to distance learning caused students to rely on parents and their home environment to continue learning. For many students, this expands…

English Learners (ELs) are one of the fastest-growing student populations in K-12 schools, and attention must be given to the academic achievement gap between ELs and their native English language speaking counterparts. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), passed in 2015, required every state to adopt English proficiency standards aligned with…

Background: South African learners face the double disadvantage of living in low socioeconomic conditions with access to few resources and attending schools with challenging learning conditions. Mathematics performance reflects such conditions with extreme performance gaps between wealthier and poorer learners. The need for early intervention is…

Background: The Mental Starters Assessment Project (MSAP) seeks to address poor performance in Grade 3 mathematics. The programme focusses on eliminating inefficient counting methods and promoting strategic mathematical skills, including numerical sense, mental calculation and rapid recall skills. Additionally, MSAP supports teachers' professional…

Background: Inequality along racial and economic dimensions is well-documented and widespread in educational contexts. Achievement gaps are observed among children as early as primary school and are especially notable in standardized testing (Fryer & Levitt, 2004; Fryer & Levitt, 2013; Bond & Lang 2013). In response, some observers and…

When school districts move more administrators down to school campuses, do they get better at reducing the income-based achievement gap? Data from Texas public school districts between 1994 and 2010 show that such managerial decentralization is positively associated with income-based achievement gap, explained by the tendency of elite capture in…