Disrupting Intergenerational Poverty Through a Place-Based Education Initiative : A Review of Promise Neighborhoods in their First Decade

This study explains the complexities of attainment, implementation, and evaluation of the U.S. Department of Education's Promise Neighborhood (PN) initiative. PNs seek to disrupt intergenerational poverty through a place-based education initiative that creates a pipeline of health, social, and education resources within an economically distressed neighborhood in an urban, rural, or tribal setting. The PN implementation grantees manage a network of school-community partnerships aiming to support students from cradle to career. This study includes an analysis of the complexities of PN attainment with a focus on the PN grant awardees; the complexities of PN implementation with a focus on PN management and services; and lastly, the complexities of evaluation with a focus on the PN evaluation factors. Recommendations for the future of the PN initiative are discussed.

The Role of Prior Experiences in Black Science Pre-Service Teacher Career Decisions

In this study, framed in Expectancy Value Theory (EVT) and Factors Influencing Teaching (FIT) Choice model, I employed an explanatory sequential mixed methods research design to explain which factors influence Black novice and pre-service teachers (NPSTs) to pursue a career in science education. Drawing from EVT, FIT Choice® theory provided a theoretical framework explicitly focused on the antecedent experiences, values, and expectancies of success influencing teaching career choice. Based on this study’s results, Black NPSTs are motivated by many factors, including factors of social utility, ability, and career, and subject area interest. These factors are primarily influenced through prior teaching and learning experiences, such as informal summer camp experiences and tutoring. Understanding the factors that influence Black novice and pre-service teachers to pursue science teaching can help address future recruiting and retention efforts in primary and secondary schools.

Let Me Say It for the Folx in the Back, GOOD TEACHING ISN'T GOOD ENOUGH : Quantifying Academic Achievement in a College Algebra Course Centered on CRP

The purpose of this pre/post-intervention quantitative experimental study was to investigate the effects of a sequence of lessons grounded in the principles of culturally relevant pedagogy on students enrolled in a college algebra course at an HBCU. In particular, the paper focuses on the interaction between these lessons and academic achievement (students' ability to learn, process, and affinity towards the subject they are learning about) with regards to students' grades and their views about mathematics. Two classes of students, an experimental group and a control group, engaged in mathematics lessons that were grounded in rigorous mathematical teaching practices; but the experimental course received lessons that also incorporated principles of culturally relevant pedagogy. Results indicated that students in the experimental course showed significant quantitative gains on the various measures related to academic achievement and self-efficacy in mathematics.

Children's Power Relations After the U.S. 2016 Election : A Diffractive Analysis

To challenge the traditional notions that children are apolitical or prepolitical beings, in light of poststructural theories of power relations and diffraction, this paper explores children's everyday politics in the classroom in relation to the politics during the U.S. 2016 Election. Through participant observation and videotaped interviews, I generate a snapshot of students' power relations in a fourth-grade classroom of an urban Title I elementary school. I elicit children's dominant identity discourses, racial marginalization, and exclusion. Drawing on the methodology of diffraction, I examine the relations of difference between children's and adults' politics in the post-2016 world. I end this paper with implications for researchers and practitioners.

Students' Understanding of Trigonometric Functions : A Case Study

In trigonometry, students are often pushed toward the memorization mnemonic devices or acronyms. Instead, students should be able to use procedures and explain why they are appropriate and justify why concepts in mathematics have the properties they do (Weber, 2005). Motivated by the dichotomous approaches to learning trigonometry by the work of Weber (2005) and Kendal and Tall (1998), this study aims to explore how students in a college trigonometry course understand trigonometric functions in a unit circle learning approach course and if students in a unit-circle-first approach in a college trigonometry course can justify why trigonometric functions have the properties they do? The context of the course studied was designed to introduce active learning components to students to study how these new practices are implemented and how they affect student outcomes.

Community College Honors Programs: Examining the Research Agenda, 1984-2019

Across many community colleges, honors programs help prepare students to transfer and excel at four-year institutions. These programs introduce students to more rigorous coursework while providing them access to additional support services. Despite the popularity of these programs, little is known about the scope of the literature on community college honors programs. In response, I use this review to examine 78 texts published between 1984 and 2019 on two-year college honors programs. I find that while scholars have explored a variety of topics on honors programs, only two texts have exclusively focused on student demographics. This is troubling given that honors programs have been previously faulted for their lack of diversity. In addition, nearly all the literature has come in the form of case studies, which severely limits the ability to compare programs with one another. I conclude this review by offering potential areas of further study for researchers and practitioners alike.

Early Childhood Education and Child Care in Arizona : Is Availability Alone Sufficient?

With many states increasingly adopting Quality Rating and Improvement Systems (QRIS) to rate their early childhood education (ECE) and child care programs, researchers question the use of these systems. Specifically, they are trying to understand the value of information provided by QRIS ratings and the implications QRIS ratings have on the quality of and access to ECE and child care programs for families. In this study, we attempt to understand the value of QRIS ratings when they are provided for families at the household level. To do so we take a close look at the relationship between availability of programs rated by the Quality Improvement and Rating System (QIRS) in Arizona and demographics of the communities they serve, and compare the utilization of the programs in communities with varying demographic compositions. While we find that more high-quality ECE and child care programs are available for children that are Hispanic, Black, and eligible for free and reduced-price lunch, we also find that families underutilized those programs. We argue that this underutilization might be due to a variety of barriers that the families are experiencing and believe that efforts should be directed to work with families and assist them in understanding their enrollment options.

The Roles of Stress and Support on Student-Teacher Relationships in Educators of Children with ASD

The current study examined the associations of teachers' stress with the quality of their relationships with young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and if teachers' organizational and social support were also associated with aspects of these relationships. A sample of educators (N=42) of children with ASD were examined utilizing a cross-sectional survey that assessed stress, closeness (i.e., warmth and support) and conflict (i.e., tension and negative affect) in student-teacher relationships, and varying support systems. All participants worked in either a specialized institute or a specialized classroom predominantly serving young children with ASD. Regression revealed that higher stress, controlling for education level, was associated with higher conflict in student-teacher relationships but was not related to closeness. Controlling for stress and education, social support was positively associated with closeness. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.

Contributions of Classroom Engagement and Exposure to Math Content on Preschoolers' Math Performance

Children's early math skills are one of the strongest predictors of later academic success, yet many preschools dedicate relatively minimal time to fostering math skill development. Children from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds tend to enter school with weaker math skills than peers and continue to lag behind more affluent peers throughout elementary and secondary school. The current study a) explored the amount of exposure to math content that children receive in preschool (both observed and teacher-reported), and b) examined children's engagement with tasks, the quantity of exposure to math content, and the quality of instructional support as potential factors that may contribute to changes in children's math performance across the preschool year. The sample consisted of 380 preschool children from primarily low-income families. Controlling for child characteristics (e.g., sex, age, race, SES) and classroom factors (e.g., teacher education, years of teaching experience), children's engagement with tasks emerged as a strong predictor of positive changes in math performance across the preschool year. Independently, neither exposure to math content nor instructional support significantly predicted changes in children's math performance. However, the pairing of high-quantity exposure to math content and high-quality instructional support was associated with significant positive changes in children's math performance across the preschool year.