U.S. college students are a distinct population facing major challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the pandemic, students were already experiencing substantial mental health concerns, ...putting both their health and academic success in jeopardy. College students now face increasing housing and food insecurity, financial hardships, a lack of social connectedness and sense of belonging, uncertainty about the future, and access issues that impede their academic performance and well-being. There is also reason to believe that COVID-19 is exacerbating inequalities for students of color and low-income students. We provide several recommendations for institutions of higher education to mitigate these obstacles, including engaging in data-driven decision making, delivering clear and informative messaging to students, prioritizing and expanding student support services, and using an equity framework to guide all processes.
This book reveals the roots of structural racism that limit social mobility and equality within Britain for Black and ethnicised students and academics in its inherently white Higher Education ...institutions. It brings together both established and emerging scholars in the fields of Race and Education to explore what institutional racism in British Higher Education looks like in colour-blind 'post-race' times, when racism is deemed to be 'off the political agenda'. Keeping pace with our rapidly changing global universities, this edited collection asks difficult and challenging questions, including why black academics leave the system; why the curriculum is still white; how elite universities reproduce race privilege; and how Black, Muslim and Gypsy traveller students are disadvantaged and excluded. The book also discusses why British racial equality legislation has failed to address racism, and explores what the Black student movement is doing about this. As the authors powerfully argue, it is only by dismantling the invisible architecture of post-colonial white privilege that the 21st century struggle for a truly decolonised academy can begin. This collection will be essential reading for students and academics working in the fields of Education, Sociology, and Race.
Objective: To assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on daily living, mental well-being, and experiences of racial discrimination among college students from communities of color. Participants: ...Sample comprised 193 ethnically diverse college students, aged 18 to 25 years (M = 20.5 years), who were participating in virtual internships due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A cross-sectional 16-item survey was developed as a partnership between two nonprofit organizations. The survey included both close-ended and open-ended questions assessing the impact of COVID-19. Results: The students of color reported disruptive changes in finances (54%), living situation (35%), academic performance (46%), educational plans (49%), and career goals (36%). Primary mental health challenges included stress (41%), anxiety (33%), and depression (18%). Students also noted challenges managing racial injustice during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions: Higher education institutions will benefit from financially and emotionally supporting students of color during the COVID-19 pandemic and growing visibility of systemic racism.
We explored how new Teachers of Color grappled with equity and excellence as they were constructing science teacher identities while learning to teach in a teacher education program committed to ...equity, justice, and excellence, and eventually teaching in urban schools where inequities and injustices persist. The theoretical framing, compiled from various bodies of literature, weaved together what we consider as essential parts of teacher identity construction and provided a lens with which to examine how conceptions of equity and excellence that the study participants were constructing meshed with their multiple identities, considerations on legitimate knowledge production, and dialectical relationships with which they grappled. Using transcendental phenomenology, we learned from and with three Black and Latinx teachers and their narratives. The teachers intertwined similarly and differently their evolving conceptions of equity and excellence into their evolving science teacher identities as they engaged in forms of contentious local practice and reflected on their experiences as science Teachers of Color teaching predominately Students of Color. Their multiple identities were meshed with histories of larger institutions—science, schooling, and society—and together these were shaping their conceptions of equity and excellence. The intermingling of equity and excellence, which was guiding the curricular and instructional decisions they were making in their classrooms, was also linked to what they considered as legitimate knowledge production in science classes and what counted as knowledge that their students needed to know at different times. The various dilemmas defined by opposing poles with which they were grappling also functioned as scales on which their coordinated equity‐excellence unit of meaning was forming. Based on the study, we offer insights into practices that science teacher educators may consider as they prepare new teachers, and work with practicing teachers, to embrace and coordinate equity and excellence in their ever‐developing science teacher identities.
The demographic divide between teachers and students is of growing public concern. However, few studies have explicitly addressed the common argument that students, and particularly minority ...students, have more favorable perceptions of minority versus White teachers. Using data from the Measure of Effective Teaching study, we find that students perceive minority teachers more favorably than White teachers. There is mixed evidence that race matching is linked with more favorable student perceptions. These findings underscore the importance of minority teacher recruitment and retention.
Minority and majority elementary school students from a Native American reservation (N = 188; K-fifth grade; 5- to 10-year-olds) completed tests of academic self-concepts and self-esteem. School ...grades, attendance, and classroom behavior were collected. Both minority and majority students exhibited positive self-esteem. Minority students demonstrated lower academic self-concepts and lower achievement than majority students. Two age-related patterns emerged. First, minority students had lower academic achievement than majority students, and this effect was stronger in older (Grades 3-5) than in younger (Grades K-2) students. Second, children's actual achievement was related to their academic self-concepts for older students but more strongly linked to self-esteem in younger students. The authors offer a developmental account connecting students' developing self-representations to their school achievement.
This study aimed to relate school diversity approaches to continuity and change in teacher–student relationships, comparing Belgian‐majority (N = 1,875, Mage = 14.56) and Turkish and ...Moroccan‐minority adolescents (N = 1,445, Mage = 15.07). Latent‐Growth‐Mixture‐Models of student‐reported teacher support and rejection over 3 years revealed three trajectories per group: normative‐positive (high support, low rejection) and decreasing‐negative (moderate support, high‐decreasing rejection) for both groups, increasing‐negative (moderate support, low‐increasing rejection) for minority, moderate‐positive (moderate support, low rejection) for majority youth. Trajectories differed between age groups. Student and teacher perceptions of equality and multiculturalism afforded, and assimilationism threatened, normative‐positive trajectories for minority youth. Diversity approaches had less impact on majority trajectories. Normative‐positive trajectories were related to improved school outcomes; they were less likely, but more beneficial for minority than majority youth.
Objective
Sexual and gender minorities are at elevated risk for suicide, yet few studies have examined differences in risk within many sexual and gender minority subgroups. The purpose of this study ...was to examine differences in prevalence for suicide risk factors among a wide range of sexual orientations and gender identities.
Method
Forty‐one thousand four hundred and twelve college students (62% cis‐female, 37% cis‐male, 1% transgender/genderqueer) completed a wellness screen that included four suicide risk factors (depression, heavy alcohol use, suicide ideation, suicide attempt).
Results
Gender minority students (i.e., transgender, genderqueer/non‐binary) had significantly higher rates of depression, suicide ideation, and suicide attempts relative to cisgender peers, although there were no within‐group differences among gender minority students. Adjusted odds ratios for endorsing two or more (2+) suicide risk factors were substantially higher for all sexual minority subgroups relative to heterosexuals. Among sexual minorities, those identifying as pansexual, bisexual, queer, or mostly gay/lesbian had greater odds of endorsing 2+ suicide risk factors relative to students identifying as mostly heterosexual, gay/lesbian, asexual, or ‘other sexual minority’. Pansexual students had 33% greater odds of endorsing 2+ suicide risk factors relative to bisexual students.
Conclusions
These findings highlight significant variation in suicide risk among sexual minority subgroups and the need for targeted interventions for subgroups at highest risk.
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