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This article discusses multimodal practices in the context of teaching and learning and how this idea might inform and facilitate mathematical learning, especially for Latinx students. We discuss qualitative data drawn from a study of an elementary bilingual classroom (age 10 and age 11) in a Midwestern city (USA) that is exceptional because the students successfully do high-level mathematics. We describe one class episode and one student's use of multiple resources to create meaning. Through this we highlight the nature and relevance of multimodal practices for learning mathematics. This case highlights the necessity of creating environments, where students, especially those who have been historically excluded, use resources to make meaning and gain greater access to mathematics.

In recent years, discourses about youth have been mired in narratives of learning loss and mental health crises. These cultural stories often pathologize youth, offering little in the way of generative pathways for educator practice to aid young people as they navigate the very real challenges in contemporary society. The experiences and reflections shared by a young man, Alberto, about the work he did with his peers and teacher demonstrates the power of community engagement, collaborative art, and responsive teaching to reframe the "problems" of education, offering new pathways to "do wellbeing" in learning spaces.

The rising population of Latina/o students in U.S. schools warrants a deeper understanding of recent immigrant families, particularly families' engagement in their children's education. Our study highlights the importance of unveiling the community cultural wealth of Latina/o immigrant families to deepen and enrich family-school connections. Our findings describe the many strengths immigrant families possess, including their ability to maneuver social institutions, engage in various social networks, and maintain hopes for the future. Families also presented with strengths acquired through multilingual experiences and confrontations with inequality. By acknowledging these innate strengths, schools are better equipped to cultivate strong family-school partnerships and student success.

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) are often characterized as Hispanic enrolling (rather than serving) that practice deficit-based systems that continue to marginalize Latinx and other underrepresented students, especially in STEM fields. Extant research on HSIs stresses the importance of investigating the value of grassroots advocacy groups as external influencers of institutional servingness through deeper engagement with the Latinx community. Using a novel family-centered theory of change that addresses diversity, equity, and inclusion, we integrated intersectionality and servingness into a family-integrated education serving and transforming academic framework. We investigated the potential transformational impact of this framework on students, families, faculty, and administrators at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, an institution with over 90% Latinx population, the majority of which are Mexican American. Preliminary findings shed light on how the framework can help reshape an HSI's identity from "Hispanic enrolling" to a true Hispanic-Serving Institution through Family-Centered Pedagogy. The Family-Centered Pedagogy enriches the learning experience in which students complement their instruction by drawing from their families' experience and ancestral knowledge, supported by the Family-Centered Theory of Change developed by AVE Frontera, our community partner.

Colleges and universities are seeing growth of Latinx students actively engaged in Greek life. In this study, six Latino participants share their testimonios as members of different Chapters of a Latinx Greek Letter Organization (LGLO) nestled within Predominantly White Institutions located in the state of Georgia, USA. Informed by LatCrit theory, this qualitative study uses member's testimonios to shed light on their varied and sometimes politically charged and racist lived experiences. The researchers draw on these experiences to show how the LGLO supported these members' character and leadership development and their desire and commitment to critical service and socially just causes.

A First-Year Seminar course was designed using high-impact practices supporting food justice at a university serving mainly urban, minority, Hispanic, and first-generation students. The course was initially taught using participatory experiential learning but without service-learning. After an urban farm was added to campus to support the institutionalization of a garden-based service-learning program, the course was redesigned to add a service-learning component. Students were required to work at the farm composting, cultivating, and harvesting food for distribution to fellow food-insecure students for a minimum of ten hours throughout the semester. Service-learning students, as opposed to participatory experiential learning students, reported overall greater satisfaction with the course and its activities, had a 3% higher grade point average and a 9% lower drop, fail, and withdrawal rate. Service-learning students expressed a connection to campus community, a sense of feeling cared for, greater awareness of food justice issues and the ability to work toward community-based solutions and grow their critical consciousness. The added service-learning component significantly improved course outcomes and provided much needed assistance in the development of a new garden-based program.

This study explores the sense of belonging of rural middle and high school Latinx science students in Wisconsin. Between 2000 and 2015, the Latinx population was the fastest growing ethnic group in Wisconsin and increased by 95%. Yet, little is known about the experiences of these students in rural schools or their engagement in science learning. Our research contributes to addressing this knowledge gap and provides insights into Latinx student experiences relative to the science classroom and community. Our findings indicate that a primary determinant of Latinx science students' positive sense of belonging is a positive relationship with their teachers.

Regional Public Universities (RPUs) advance public good missions to foster postsecondary access, student-centeredness, and regional wellbeing. Despite the important contributions that RPUs make to their regions and students, scholars and the media often view the sector as amorphous and undistinguished, or they define RPUs by what they are not (e.g., elite, selective, community colleges, etc.). This sequential mixed methods research study grounded in organizational ecology theory and involving content analysis and cluster analysis proposes a typology of RPUs. Specifically, five RPU types are proposed: accessible, midsized master's-degree granting RPUs; regionally focused Historically Black Colleges and Universities; rural-serving and CUNY RPUs; large, urban regional-serving RPUs; and Puerto Rican Hispanic-serving RPUs. This study significantly advances conceptual understanding about RPUs by disrupting deficit-based understandings about the sector being shapeless and amorphous by showing that the sector contains distinct institutional types that represent unique approaches to fulfilling the RPU public good mission. This typology is also among the first to document the institutional diversity of RPUs.

Although Black and Latinx students disproportionately face exclusionary school discipline, prior research finds that the likelihood of suspension for Black students decreases when they are taught by greater proportions of Black teachers. Little prior work, however, has examined whether these effects generalize to large, diverse, urban school districts or to Asian American or Latinx students and teachers. Using student fixed-effects models and 10 years of data from New York City, we find that assignment to greater proportions of ethnoracially matched teachers decreases the likelihood of suspension for Black and Latinx students. The magnitudes of these effects are small but suggest that diversifying the teacher workforce could lead to significant decreases in exclusionary discipline in urban districts.

Latinx youth exhibit educational leadership and possess unique insight into experiences of youth of color in K-12 schooling. Yet, adultism hinders authentic youth participation in educational decision making. In this study we address the following question: What types of behavior do K-12 school leaders demonstrate in response to Latinx youths' experiences of racism? We share the story of a structured interaction, guided by social justice and forum theater, facilitated by Latinx youth to adult school leaders. We present our findings via the school leader lotería typology model and discuss the spectrum of adult educator behavior in response to youth voice.

In this essay, we conceptualize a rasquache resistance for Chicanx elementary-aged youth. Rasquache resistance are the various performances, comportamientos, estilos, ways of being, manners of speaking, dress, and types of humor that Chicanx youth express and perform that resist white supremacy. Drawing from Chicanx and Black feminisms and Chicanx cultural studies, we conceptualize rasquache resistance through rasquachismo, a concept theorized by Tomás Ybarra-Frausto that identifies the working-class sensibilities of Chicanx communities as an aesthetic rooted in survival, creativity, and cultural production. Our aim is to provide insights for educators who are working alongside students, specifically critical educators who seek to build on the sensibilities that Chicanx youth bring to classroom spaces and schools.

Current approaches to supporting students in the transition to elementary school fail to meet the needs of Latinx immigrant children and their families in the United States. Typical approaches place the responsibility on families to help their children adapt to the expectations of their teacher, classroom, and school without recognizing the specific barriers to participation faced by Latinx immigrant parents. In this article, we describe these barriers and consider the ways community-based practice can support and prioritize co-constructed partnerships among teachers, schools, parents, and communities.

College education plays a crucial role in upward social mobility. However, despite applying to and being accepted by colleges, students often fail to matriculate -- a phenomenon known as "summer melt". The summer after high school graduation is a vulnerable period for these students due to limited counseling support from both high schools and accepted colleges. While summer counseling has been studied as an intervention to address summer melt, little research exists on programs using "near-peer" counselors, despite evidence from smaller-scale interventions suggesting their positive impact and cost-effectiveness. This study utilizes administrative data for 54,000 New York City high school seniors who graduated in June 2020 at the peak of the COVID-19 Pandemic. It aims to examine the impact of a remote near-peer college matriculation support program on students' enrollment in Fall 2020 using propensity score matching. The results indicate that the program increased matriculation by seven percentage points. Notably, it proved particularly effective for Black and Hispanic students, as well as students residing in low-income neighborhoods -- groups that are typically underserved in higher education. These findings, drawn from the largest public school system in the nation, offer evidence supporting the efficacy of near-peer mentoring programs in promoting college matriculation.

Female, Black, Latinx, Native American, low-income, and rural students remain underrepresented among computer science undergraduate degree recipients. Along with student, family, and secondary school characteristics, college organizational climate, curricula, and instructional practices shape undergraduates' experiences that foster persistence until graduation. Our quasi-experimental project, "Improving the Persistence and Success of Students from Underrepresented Populations in Computer Science" (I-PASS), is designed to augment students' persistence until they earn their computer science degree. Drawing on prior research, including Tinto's model of effective institutional actions for retention, I-PASS Scholars--all low-income, female and/or members of underserved demographics groups--receive a four-year scholarship; mentoring, tutoring, advising; and opportunities to integrate into the academic and social life of the campus. Students' written reflections and attitude surveys suggest I-PASS's components foster their retention by, among other mechanisms, enhancing their computer science identity development and sense of belonging in the major.

This study adopts a cultural ecological perspective to examine how cumulative effects of external transcultural and cultural strengths are related to baseline and changes in three markers of Mexican-origin adolescents' self-growth (i.e., resilience, life meaning, and discipline). Using a three-wave longitudinal data set (5 years) of 604 adolescents, cumulative strengths (CS) was calculated, and growth curve analyses showed a similar pattern of findings for both transcultural and cultural cumulative strengths models: Adolescents with higher CS showed higher baseline resilience, life meaning, and discipline. While there were no significant associations between adolescents' CS scores and the increase in resilience, adolescents with higher CS scores showed steeper declines in life meaning and discipline (although these declines were no longer significant for cultural CS when transcultural and cultural CS were simultaneously tested in the same model). The findings emphasize a cultural ecological understanding of Mexican-origin youths' positive development from early to later adolescence. They also provide support for a CS model and have implications for positive psychology theories.

Background: Since returning to in-person instruction after the emergence of COVID-19 schools have seen a dramatic increase in the number of students chronically absent, with data indicating a greater increase for low-income, Black, and Hispanic students. Given the role of school attendance in both promoting positive educational outcomes as well as providing students with physical and mental health supports, it is critical to identify ways to re-engage families in a manner that is culturally responsive and equitable. Contributions to Theory: Current attendance interventions focus primarily on school-based academic and behavioral supports for students while excluding the family. Additionally, traditional family engagement models do not address the sociocultural realities of low-income and/or minoritized families. We present a strengths-based model of family engagement to support attendance. Implications for School Health Policy, Practice, and Equity: Along with our model, we provide concrete supports that schools can provide, including example measurement items. In this way, schools and districts can self-assess as well as identify action steps to promote positive school-family partnerships for equitable family engagement. Conclusions: Without consistent attendance, schools cannot support positive educational outcomes nor provide important safety net services for students. Attendance is a family engagement challenge, which addressing holistically can reduce racial and socioeconomic educational and health disparities.

This U.S. study evaluated the effects of a reading intervention for emergent bilingual students with significant reading difficulties in Grades 6 and 7 within a multisite randomized controlled trial. Emergent bilinguals were randomized to a researcher-provided intervention (n = 171) or business-as-usual comparison condition (n = 169). Results on a measure of word reading indicated significant differences favoring treatment after Year 1; however, there were no significant differences between groups on standardized measures of reading comprehension. Initial English vocabulary knowledge moderated reading comprehension scores at the beginning of the second year of intervention, indicating that students' response to instruction varied as a function of their initial English language proficiency. The discussion focuses on interpreting these findings with an emphasis on improving the effectiveness of interventions for secondary grade emergent bilinguals with significant reading difficulties.

Cultural mismatch theory of inequality and associated research indicates that a mismatch between independent cultural norms of institutions of higher education and students' interdependent backgrounds account for disparities in academic achievement for students from historically underrepresented groups. Despite growing interest in interventions to reduce cultural mismatch, there was not yet a comprehensive measure of cultural match. We developed and validated the Cultural Match Scale (CMS) composed of 24 Likert-scale items. The CMS measures Navigation of Institutional Culture, Connection to Community, and Connection to Institutional Values. Data from 858 participants were utilized to obtain validity and reliability evidence. Three factors with a general method factor for all negatively worded items showed the best fit. Consistent with the prior findings, relationships with four criterion measures showed medium to large magnitudes of correlations. Reliability was acceptable to excellent levels. The use of the CSM was discussed along with the needs for future research.

Approximately two-thirds of Latinx college students attend Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). Despite the growing number of HSIs, these institutions often fail to result in better educational outcomes and success for Latinx students. As such, more research is needed to explore factors that may hinder HSIs in their ability to support Latinx students. Whiteness--defined as the invasive system of White supremacy that permeates society--is systemically embedded throughout higher educational systems. However, little research has explored the specific ways that whiteness may influence the construction and maintenance of HSIs by senior administrators, staff, and faculty. To address this gap, the present study centered theories from critical whiteness studies (Nayak, 2007) and Garcia's (2018) decolonizing HSIs organizational framework to assess how whiteness operates at a recently designated HSI. We used a critical qualitative case study design that included thematic analysis of 14 student affairs staff, faculty, and senior administrator interviews and document analysis of public-facing institutional materials. Results indicated three predominant themes related to how whiteness is maintained by senior administrators, staff, and faculty, including "the rhetoric of all as a tool of White appeasement, the taxation of bodies of people of color," and "whiteness through good intentions." The study concludes with recommendations for identifying and disrupting whiteness at HSIs, including specific recommendations at the individual and institutional levels.

Study abroad is often hailed as a unique and important learning experience that prepares students for life and work in a global society. Many benefits and learning outcomes such as language learning, personal growth and development, educational and career attainment, and the development of intercultural competence are ascribed to study abroad. Study abroad, however, has an elitist history and often uses approaches steeped in whiteness, which ignore the unique needs and experiences of Black indigenous people of color (BIPOC) students. Previous research also indicates that intersecting identities may shape students' experiences while abroad, limiting or enhancing their learning in different ways. Utilizing intersectionality and the Intersectional-Model of Multiple Dimensions of Identity as guiding frameworks, the purpose of this narrative inquiry was to explore BIPOC women's stories of study abroad. Based on two interviews with each of the six BIPOC women participants, we found that intersecting identities shaped participants' experiences with study abroad, from their interest in study abroad to their experiences while abroad. Intersecting systems of oppression created unique barriers for BIPOC women to access study abroad, led to concerns about safety, and influenced students' interactions with host nationals. These experiences led to increased identity exploration, with participants sharing that study abroad made them feel more confident in their intersecting identities. We discuss implications for future research and practice.

This study examined the links between COVID-19 psychosocial stressors, ethnic discrimination, COVID-19 fears, and their combined effects on mental health outcomes among U.S.-based Latinx college students (N = 148; M[subscript age] = 20.68, SD = 2.53). Findings showed that sleep and eating disturbances, emotional distress, and work disruptions were linked with fear of contamination, fear of social distancing, and fear of pandemic impact. Further, ethnic discrimination was found to uniquely contribute to COVID-19 fears above and beyond COVID-19 psychosocial stressors. Finally, COVID-19 emotional distress and COVID fear of pandemic impact were significantly linked to anxiety and depression symptomatology. Recommendations for practice and future research are provided.

Higher education practitioners are a wide-ranging group of professionals often responsible for implementing programs and services that support student success. In this qualitative study, we examine the nature of student-practitioner relationships among a multiracial sample of 39 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) college seniors to address three questions: (a) How do STEM students describe their relationships with practitioners on campus? (b) In what ways, if any, do student-practitioner relationships influence STEM students' feelings of marginality and/or mattering in STEM? and (c) To what extent do STEM students have different experiences based on their racial/ethnic identities? We employ a cross-case study analysis approach, contrasting the experiences of majority-status (e.g., White and Asian/Asian American) and minoritized-status (e.g., Black/African American and Latinx) students within STEM contexts. Our findings show clear differences regarding how students describe their interactions with practitioners based on racial/ethnicbackground, as well as how student-practitioner relationships impact students' sense of mattering and marginality in STEM. We conclude with implications for research and practice to address the persistent structural issues affecting STEM college students.

As the number of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) continues to rise in the United States, higher education scholars and practitioners have increasingly wondered how HSIs fulfill their charge to serve Latinx/a/o communities. However, Latinx/a/o sexually minoritized students often go unrecognized in conversations on servingness at HSIs. This phenomenological study addresses this gap by exploring the experiences of 15 Latina lesbians navigating their race/ethnicity, sexuality, and gender at an HSI. Informed by scholarship on how intersecting systems of power affect Latinx/a/o communities differentially, findings revealed how encountering isolation and alienation from peers, living within and against traditional gender norms and expectations, together with articulating the importance of affirming environments and individuals characterized the experiences of Latina lesbians at the institution. From the participants' stories, we used literature on servingness to explore how their experiences reflected organizational commitments to sexually minoritized students at the HSI. We then offer implications for research and practice.

Prior research has demonstrated that women and racial minority undergraduate students experience stereotype threat in unwelcoming STEM classrooms in predominantly White institutions. Drawing from focus group and journal entry data with Latinx and African American undergraduate students (N = 52) majoring in a STEM field at an institution that holds both Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) and AANAPISI designations in Southern California, we find that Latinx and Black undergraduate students narrate exclusion from faculty and peers in four main ways: (1) exclusionary STEM classroom culture fomented by faculty, (2) study group stereotype threat, (3) nuances in Black student undergraduate experiences, and (4) unaddressed gendered discrimination. We find that Latinx and African American undergraduates enrolled at a minority serving institution highlight that STEM faculty foment stereotype threat in their classroom culture, which trickles down to students and negatively impacts their ability to develop the necessary social capital networks with both faculty and peers to succeed.

Latina students have been enrolling in colleges at increasing rates but experience disproportionate levels of STEM major declaration and persistence, even at Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). This qualitative study explored the first-year experiences of Latina students at a newly designated HSI to gain insights into how to serve them better as they begin their STEM coursework. Findings from semi-structured interviews suggest that while the Latinas in this study entered college with a strong interest and passion for STEM, they faced challenges during their first year due to the STEM program culture and lack of representation of Latinas in STEM. Students attributed their perseverance and sense of belonging to the social networks they developed with peers and TAs. Implications for other newly designated HSIs include formalizing peer networks, providing supports for TAs, and creating environments that better represent and highlight Latinas in STEM.

Students who are Black or Hispanic have long been disproportionately represented in K-12 gifted and talented services. However, there are schools that have diverged from this trend by identifying atypically high numbers of Black and Hispanic students. In this conceptual replication of Peters and Johnson, we present predictors of whether a school offers gifted services (i.e., access) and representation indices for Black and Hispanic students (i.e., equity) within schools that enroll 10 or more Black or Hispanic students. Our results show that state policy mandates for gifted education are predictive of higher levels of access to and equity within gifted services for these schools. The average achievement and socioeconomic status of the district were positive predictors of access and equity while the district proportion eligible for special education services was a negative predictor of both. Finally, we end with a description of how the top 5% most-equitable schools in the country look different from their peers.

The study investigated the role of relocating on the mental health, psychosocial stress, and social support of 159 first- and second-year Latinx college students. Findings revealed students who relocated for college had significantly higher self-reported sense of campus belonging, and social support compared to students who did not relocate. Implications for college readiness organizations and universities with commuter populations are discussed. Future directions to enhance the understanding of Latinx students' transitionary experiences are also reviewed.

This ethnographic case study utilizes intersectionality and sense of belonging to understand students' experiences in a Latino Bible study and how it contributes to their overall college experience. The findings suggest that the Bible study offers a unique space for students to explore faith, ethnic identity, and politics in a culturally appropriate format that helps them feel like family. This study helps demonstrate the value and role of student groups in students' college experience.

This case study examines reciprocal mentoring in a community-based program (CBP) serving immigrant Latino families with school-aged children. University student volunteers shared technological and college knowledge and grew in leadership skills. Simultaneously, they gained familial and cultural support and belonging from program families. The CBP fostered all forms of community cultural wealth capital. Study findings can inform educational leaders seeking to develop mutually beneficial partnerships between education institutions and community organizations to support student success.