Each year, thousands of prospective students are denied admission to universities because they possess a criminal record. Prior research finds that university officials and faculty are generally accepting of those with records attending universities. To date, few studies have examined the perspectives of college students on this matter. The…

This book turns to political theory as a framework for understanding the rise of political and religious extremism, and in particular the Christian Nationalist position, identifying solutions to civic challenges, and arguing for the vital role that public schools play in providing the civic education that prepares young people for participation in…

This paper demonstrates that, after deliberation, college students showed immense moderation potential and affective depolarization, especially even given their homogeneity as a bloc within American politics and within the overwhelmingly liberal sample for this paper. These findings offer optimism for future research in homogeneous groups through…

Conspiracy beliefs have been studied mostly through cross-sectional designs. We conducted a five-wave longitudinal study (N = 376; two waves before and three waves after the 2020 American presidential elections) to examine if the election results influenced specific conspiracy beliefs and conspiracy mentality, and whether effects differ between…

As research on far-right climate change communication focuses on climate skepticisms, little is known about how the far-right justifies climate acceptance--and what this might mean for environmental education and counter-communication. To initiate a discussion of communicative strategies through which far-right actors might become more accepting…

This investigation focused on two types of charter schools. The first is classical charter schools. These schools identify and market themselves as such, often including the word "classical" in the school's name. The second type of school offers a "back to basics" curriculum without necessarily identifying the curriculum as…

Access to menstrual products is important to support adolescent health. Advocacy to increase access to menstrual products in schools is growing; however, ideal access requires policies that will require schools to support the menstrual health of menstruating students. We conducted a legislative review on the existence and status of state…

Does political ideology affect how students judge situations? Although students who are liberal or conservative might both show political bias, they differ in their views of how the world works. This experiment conducted with 739 students manipulates ideology in a scenario about a student government regulating a biased student newspaper. Results…

Unsustainable student debt and a precarious labor market continue to raise public doubts over the value of a college degree. Observers note decades of grade inflation, eroding confidence in academic standards. Yet little attention has been paid to the perceptions of professors themselves. This report fills the gap by surveying 223 tenured…

Drawing on annual, nationally representative survey data from 2007-2022, I demonstrate that partisan gaps - the average differences in public opinion between Democrats and Republicans - have widened on many education issues. This pattern consistently exceeds what would be expected due to the changing demographic compositions of the parties alone.…

When discussing college student voice, the historical narrative has generally focused on large-scale student activism as the definitive medium through which students expressed their beliefs. However, this inevitably leaves more subtle forms of student expression left uninterrogated, specifically in the South, and other areas of the country where…

The US is experiencing extreme social and political polarization not seen since the Civil War. This divisiveness is causing civil unrest and governmental dysfunction which threatens the stability of the nation. Four major causes of the current state are party realignment, the deregulation of news broadcasting, algorithmic personalization of…

Long-running surveys need a systematic way to reflect social change and to keep items relevant to respondents, especially when they ask about controversial subjects, or they threaten the items' validity. We propose a protocol for updating measures that preserves content and construct validity. First, substantive experts articulate the current and…

This dissertation investigates whether social identity information modulates the interpretation of non-entailed clausal complement content (CC) in utterances of sentences such as (1): (1) Ken didn't hear that the minimum wage is too high. The focus of this dissertation is the listener 's inference that the speaker is committed to the truth of the…

This article explores how trust affects the nature and characteristics of civic engagement among university students in contemporary China. We draw upon empirical evidence from in-depth individual interviews involving 68 students born between 1993 and 1999. Four different types of civic activities, including associational membership with the…