The behavior of newborns is ambiguous. Cultural models--representations shared by members of a community--provide new parents and others with a cognitive and motivational structure to understand them. This study asks members of several cultural groups (total n = 100) to judge the "similarity" of behavioral items in the Neonatal…

This study explores factors enhancing the likelihood that three demographically disadvantaged groups of selective science high school graduates would complete a university STEM degree 4-6 years later. The target groups are labeled as disadvantaged in terms of STEM pipeline persistence compared to school peers, and include: (1) women, (2) those…

This qualitative study explored the interactions of six triads of Year One students in the United Kingdom (n = 18; mean age = 5 years, 7 months; 9 female) investigating interpersonal regulation of learning, social dynamics, and "group dialogue," evident in instances of productive collaboration during problem-solving activities. Group…

This article considers how the global "academic pipeline problem" constrains immigrant, low-income, and ethnic minority students' pathways to higher education, and how some students build pathways to college and career identities. After aligning theories of social capital, alienation/belonging, and challenge and their integration in…

First-generation college students (FGCS) often have different cultural values, practices, and goals from those of students from college-going families. As they navigate college, FGCS coordinate these values, practices, and goals with those of their families, noncollege-going friends, and communities. We draw on longitudinal and cross-sectional…

Unlike intelligence, creativity has rarely been investigated from the standpoint of cross-cultural invariance of the structure of the instruments used to measure it. In the study reported in this article, we investigated the cross-cultural invariance of expert ratings of creative stories written by undergraduate students from the Russian…

The purpose of this article is to focus specifically on professional development that is needed to ensure that preservice and in-service teachers are prepared to deliver intensive intervention to enhance reading outcomes of students in special education. Our aim is to provide recommendations to ensure that special educators are prepared to design…

The Adoption Mentoring Partnership (AMP) matches preadolescent adoptees with adopted college students, prioritizing matches of the same ethnic background. As part of AMP, participants actively discuss issues of ethnicity and adoption with a cohort of mentors over a period of 1 to 3 years in mentor group meetings (MGMs). This study focuses on…

Given mounting aspirations to graduate from college and pervasive difficulties in obtaining a four-year degree, growing numbers of young people in the United States have become "underachievers." Using data from the ongoing Youth Development Study, the authors examine the prevalence of "holding on" and "letting go" of…

This article provides an overview of objective and subjective class differences in experiences of postsecondary education. Using the metaphor of a funnel, it argues that cumulative disadvantage results when first-generation and low-income college students are disproportionately filtered out at each stage of the postsecondary education process.…

Drawing from recent research on first-generation college (FGC) students, this chapter advances an interdisciplinary theoretical framework for understanding how these students enact multiple aspects of their personal, cultural, and social identities. I use dialectical and cross-cultural adaptation theories as a foundation to extend examinations of…

This chapter provides a brief retrospective on the general topic and the empirical work presented in this volume, as well as a discussion of the practical implications of these findings for high schools, institutions of higher education, and the current workforce.

The authors' approach to using pattern-centered analyses and longitudinal data addresses how configurations of personal and contextual factors forecast the educational achievement and attainments of different youth across adolescence. Here, they discuss various types of pattern-centered analyses and provide an empirical illustration of how these…