This study examines online teaching strategies, bilingual students’ learning experiences, and family support structures within the context of online mathematics education in upper elementary grades. It addresses the gap in research regarding how these strategies shape students’ approaches to learning (ATL), considering the dual challenge bilingual students face in mastering both mathematical concepts and dual languages through online learning environments. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the initial phase involved administering a questionnaire to assess students’ language proficiency and their engagement with online learning. This was followed by gathering qualitative insights through interviews with teachers and with families—to explore the challenges associated with educational practices in online learning for multilingual students. The study highlights the critical roles of effective teaching strategies and parental support in enhancing the ATL of upper-elementary bilingual students. It calls for a collaborative effort between educators and parents to meet students’ diverse needs and to create a supportive online learning environment.

Educational institutions are looking to global citizenship education as an avenue to prepare students to be global-minded leaders and find creative solutions to global challenges. However, there is not much consensus on how to educate for global citizenship. The purpose of this study was to examine the potential for service-learning to educate for global citizenship and paid particular attention to the lived experiences of students of color (SOC) whose experiences are historically underrepresented in the service-learning research literature. This qualitative phenomenological study interviewed 13 SOC who participated in one service-learning program at Soka University of America (SUA). The following research questions guided my study: 1) How do the lived experiences of SUA undergraduate SOC shape their orientation towards ASB?, 2) In what ways do experiences in the ASB program at SUA contribute to students’ understandings of global citizenship?, and 3) How do the experiences of SOC in ASB inform their global citizenship orientations one to six years after program completion? Based on Daisaku Ikeda’s educational philosophy, a conceptual model for value-creative global citizenship was used for data analysis. This study uncovered that: 1) Family and Community, Previous Civic Engagement, and Class and Privilege influenced participants orientations toward service-learning, 2) the pedagogical practices employed in the service-learning program mediated participants’ understanding of global citizenship and were deeply contextualized within an ethos of SUA, and 3) participants continued to maintain strong orientations towards value-creative global citizenship up to six years after program completion. The research findings have strong implications for service-learning as one pathway to educate for global citizenship. Findings of the research also point to important pedagogical considerations for educators who seek to employ equitable practices for SOC and other students with marginalized identities in their work.

This study sheds light on the assets First Generation Students of Color bring with them to a Research I University and highlights the role a small learning community plays in helping them identify and activate their assets. Through a qualitative case study consisting of five synchronous online focus groups and document analysis, I delve into the undergraduate experiences of 20 Women of Color. Asset-based theories, particularly Community Cultural Wealth and Funds of Knowledge guide this study’s design and analysis. Findings reveal the institutionally produced imposter syndrome and ethical costs of pursuing higher education students experienced. Yet in the face of these challenges students actively strategized, considering reverse transferring to a community college or a state school closer to home. Students attributed the small learning community with allowing them to find a support system and a safe space where they belonged. Through the small learning community students refuted institutionally-produced imposter syndrome, cultivated the power of their voices, and experienced identity affirmation and development. Students’ aspirational, familial, social and navigational capital allowed them to persist at SGSU despite various challenges. These findings demonstrate small learning communities are an effective strategy through which students can experience validation from institutional agents and learn to validate themselves by recognizing the assets they carry. Through small learning communities, higher education institutions’ roles can shift from passively enrolling students to actively ensuring their success by initiating support and taking measures to guarantee students use campus resources and services. Beyond implementing small learning communities and enrolling diverse students, colleges and universities must serve these students well by ensuring more faculty of color are recruited, hired and supported in academia, training faculty and staff to recognize students’ assets, validating students through the physical campus environment, implementing asset-based curriculums and producing equitable graduation, graduate school enrollment and job placement outcomes for FGSOC.

Though Assembly Bill 705 was passed in California to reduce gaps in retention and completion for community college students of color, these equity gaps persist. This study used quantitative and qualitative research methods to examine factors that influence enrollment choices and success in gatekeeper courses, like English, for African American community college students. Of particular focus were institutional supports and the role of learning communities. This study’s findings mostly confirm existing research on learning communities and other institutional supports, like counseling, and the ways in which these supports help students enroll in and complete courses. Primary findings from this study emphasize the importance of creating Educational Plans with counselors and frequent contact with counselors. The quality of professors was also perceived to influence students’ academic success, in addition to precollege factors, such as pre-existing writing skills. This study was grounded in two theoretical frameworks: Regina Deil-Amen’s (2011) Socio-Academic Integrative Moments and Laura Rendon’s (1994) Theory of Validation. The important role that learning communities play in community building and increasing a sense of belonging among students of color are validated through the lenses of these theories.

There is little doubt that educational outcome for students who experience foster care is far below those of the general student population and that they may be disproportionately impacted by college practices, programs or services. In California over 50,000 children and youths are in out of home placements. It is estimated that approximately 12,000 current and former foster youth are enrolled in California's community college system at any one time. Children enter the foster care system as a result of extreme abuse or neglect inflicted upon them by their biological family. In California, only about one third of the cases where there is a substantiated report of abuse or neglect result in removal from the home, meaning that these are the most severe and difficult cases of maltreatment and neglect. This experience is then often compounded by the circumstances these children face upon entry into the foster care system. Once in the system, many experience multiple placements that require frequent moves from home to home and may also result in multiple forced school changes and consequent social and academic challenges. By age 24, foster youth experience significantly poorer education outcomes than the general population (Courtney et al., 2011).

Increased educational advocacy for foster students among professionals who work with foster students have taken shape. In collaboration with the legislature, additional bills have been passed to help ease the access to student records and increase support services for foster students to continue schooling into the college and job training levels after high school completion. This increased attention came as a recent study of high school foster students demonstrated large disparities between not only foster students and the general student population but also foster students and other economically disadvantaged students.

The community college sector is where the majority of foster students enter into higher education due to their financial situation as well as their academic unpreparedness. This study sought out to find the service and program needs of foster students attending a community college, using Mt. San Antonio College as an actual study site by investigating the following research questions:

Umbrella question: For students with foster care experience, what are their service and program needs while attending community college?

1. What are the elements or characteristics of a foster youth resource center that has been active for 5 or more years?

2. What are the factors or information that professionals working with foster youth at non-profit agencies say are necessary for them to attend community college?

3. What information and/or services do foster students say should be included in a resource center to support foster students attending community college?

According to the results of this study, the following that elements are necessary to demonstrate that the community college acknowledges and supports the efforts of its foster student population to attain a college degree.

1. Access Point for Connection and Engagement

2. Safe Common Space for Assistance and Acceptance

3. Access Point for Collective Voice

4. Provide Opportunities to Give Back

5. Provide Targeted Programming and Services

In the end, this study recommends that a community college institute the following to ensure that the findings are involved: community cultural wealth promotion, ensure basic life necessities are available, and continued advocacy and networking on behalf of foster students. This study provides community college administrators a logic model to show them that building a resource center to support its foster students is possible and needed. Community colleges can be part of the solution in helping foster students increase college completion and improve their life trajectory.

Abstract: This research explores how the civic learning model could be used to increase student engagement in all school subjects, given the lack of student interest and engagement in high school learning. The model of civic learning has been shown to be successful in increasing student interest in subject material and participation in the civic sphere. Three fundamental elements of the civic learning model can be adapted to other subjects in order to increase students’ general interest and rate of class participation. By showing how each aspect of the civic learning model has been implemented in the past, the current research shows that that this application of the civic learning model would increase overall student engagement and interest in high school education.

This study sought to add to the limited existing literature regarding the experiences and challenges of first-generation doctoral students. Amidst fifteen interviews with first-generation doctoral students, who completed their doctoral degree at an R1 research institution in California, the research provided information about the journey students endured to complete the doctoral program when facing challenges and seeking support from their communities. Themes such as the importance of community support, discovering the unknown in education, and overcoming obstacles in their path shed light for institutions of higher education on ways to build intentional support for first-generation doctoral students. As the fifteen participants share their stories, the conversation pivots towards what can be accomplished despite the hurdles and what institutions of higher education can do to support a population that is growing among doctoral students.

Years of hiring practices have resulted in adjunct professors comprising the majority of college faculty (Gappa, Austin, & Trice, 2007; Schuster & Finkelstein, 2006). Today, adjunct faculty provide almost half of all instruction at the California community colleges (Student Success Initiative, 2018). It is essential to increase adjunct faculty participation in student success activities, such as Student Learning Outcomes (SLO) assessment. A large number of courses may not be taught as effectively if adjunct faculty do not assess SLOs (Danley-Scott & Topsett-Makin, 2013). This study sought to identify how adjunct faculty perceive their department cultures across the state. It also strived to understand what, if any, influence departmental cultures have on adjunct faculty contributing to SLO assessment. This mixed methods sequential explanatory study yielded findings emerged that indicate adjunct faculty at iii both sites primarily experience inclusive and learning cultures. Specific areas for improvement include communication, collaboration, and input in the design of curriculum and learning goals. Emergent findings included the role of the department chair as the progenitor and maintainer of a department’s culture. Adjunct faculty were found to be driven primarily by a sense of service to students and refining the curriculum to serve transfer and career goals. Lack of communication and collaboration were found to have adverse effects on these intrinsic motivations. Departments and institutions seeking to transform cultures of compliance around student learning outcomes assessment into cultures of inquiry may do well to begin with communication, collaboration, and other low cost change strategies in order to cultivate inclusive and learning cultures that increase adjunct faculty participation in SLO assessment.

This study used the mixed qualitative methodologies of ethnography and a participatory action research inspired inquiry to challenge deficit meanings and assumptions through increasing learning. During the inquiry, a group of teachers and administrators at each of two school sites engaged in a process of learning about systemic inequality and its impact on students of color through reading and discussions of scholarly articles. The educators engaged new meaning negotiations about their students of color and their education. Findings are that providing appropriate spaces for educator learning and reflection is very important. At one school site where the inquiry included educators of color and white educators, the white educators initially shifted away from focusing on important issues raised by their colleagues of color. Issues of race and power created barriers to real conversations, created silences and impeded learning. These barriers began to dissolve when one educator, with some support, took a stand and helped change the power imbalance in the group leading the group from contrived conversations to real conversations. Though sometimes contentious the real conversations led to increased learning even some evidence of transformational growth with potential for changes that could benefit the school's students of color.

At the other school location, despite relative harmonious shared meaning negotiations, changed minds did not result in the immediate changed actions of this relatively homogenous group of educators of color. The context of that school with more institutionalized deficit-oriented cultural processes created challenges to growth. Nevertheless, this group received some tools for change, building a foundation for future change.

The study initially identified some meanings at the two school sites. Findings indicated that (i) both white educators and educators of color held deficit meanings about students of color, and (ii) such educators also held resourced-oriented/asset-based meanings. Such positive meanings had the potential for forming the basis for building student learning. This study documented important learning processes that may be involved when power differentials exist within a group as they attempted to negotiate new meanings around education.