Washington has made some strides in recent years toward increasing awareness and state support of students' basic needs but has lacked state and regional information to drive larger-scale policies, programs, and investments to address the attainment barriers associated with basic needs insecurity. State and regional data on unmet basic needs can…

Three out of four jobs now require education or training beyond high school, yet some students face formidable barriers to attending college. Disruptions to K-12 education, trauma, loss, food insecurity, and housing instability are known impediments to the educational success of youth who have been in foster care. These types of challenges may…

California recently overhauled its K-12 public education finance system. Enacted in 2013, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) replaced California's 40-year-old funding formula. The LCFF increases district officials' fiscal flexibility; provides more resources to districts serving larger proportions of low-income, English learner (EL), and…

Arizona State University's (ASU) Bridging Success program, launched in 2015, is a campus-based support program for students with a background in foster care, also known as Foster Care Alumni (FCA). The program is housed within ASU's School of Social Work, which is part of the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions. The program…

Vocational identity is a prerequisite for enhancing societal inclusion of at-risk emerging adults. School curricula and rebound programs need insights into individual differences of these youths to effectively foster their vocational identity. Identifying three aspects of vocational identity, a questionnaire study among at-risk emerging adults in…

The term "school climate" has been around for more than a hundred years to explore the idea of school environmental or contextual factors that might have an impact on student learning and academic success. During the past three decades there has been growing research to support the importance of a positive school climate in promoting…

Some of the nation's most vulnerable youth are those living in foster care and other out-of-home settings. Many such youth have experienced abuse and neglect, face mental health and substance abuse challenges, and struggle with serious behavioral problems (Casanueva et al. 2014). They are more likely than their peers to have academic struggles and…

Technological changes have reshaped communication, social life as well as the conditions of work, challenging schools to foster skills and capacities that help youth to competently and confidently navigate these new socio-technological terrains as workers, citizens and private individuals. Responding to these changes, media and digital literacy…

This study was conducted in order to fill an existing gap within the field of religious education, specifically regarding standardisation within evangelical education aimed at teaching the youth within the church. There is currently no standardisation of education between sects nor within individual sects of evangelical Christianity, and this…

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) contracted with three child welfare providers that operate transitional living (TLP) or independent living (ILO) programs (or both) to implement LifeSet, an intensive case management program developed by Youth Villages, for youth in care who are 17.5 to 21 years old. LifeSet helps…

In response to growing concern about the increased disconnect between youth and their outdoor environment, this study examines how nature-based citizen science experiences with a local animal (American eels) influence urban adolescents' (high-school students) sense of place in a US city. The juvenile American eel is a unique animal due to its…

Young people's confidence in their creative abilities, as well as their beliefs about whether these abilities are fixed or malleable, play potentially important roles in educators' efforts to foster creativity. This study explores a multidimensional model of young people's creative self-beliefs that comprises creative self-efficacy,…

Unlike states with established immigrant populations, Indiana is a new immigration gateway state that is developing its infrastructure to address immigrant needs. Indiana's English learner (EL) population between 1999 and 2018 has grown by 550% from 9,114 to 59,255 students. Of the current 59,255 ELs in K-12 schools, 24% are immigrants. Employing…

This paper explores the implementation of Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) at a rural, alternative high school in Alabama. Students at the school were atypical from those usually described in the YPAR literature in that they were predominately white, working and middle class, and lived in rural neighborhoods that were geographically…

The COVID-19 school closures presented an unprecedented challenge to primary education on a global scale, with teachers, parents, and children having to rapidly adjust to a remote learning environment, and with concerns that this would exacerbate educational inequalities. Parental engagement has been widely acknowledged to have a positive impact…