UW–Madison’s Xueli Wang has spent much of her academic career examining ways to improve the higher education landscape in an effort to help college students find their path to a better life.
Wang’s research puts a particular emphasis on students who start out at two-year colleges with an eye on transferring to a four-year institution to earn a degree in a STEM (science, technology, engineering, or mathematics) field.
“There has been a lot of interest in expanding and diversifying STEM, and community and technical colleges are often portrayed as the engine to prepare STEM workers at the sub-baccalaureate level,” says Wang, a professor with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis. “This narrative has troubled me as it leaves out a crucial function of many public, two-year institutions that enroll some of the most talented yet historically underserved students aspiring to transfer upward. These institutions and their transfer-aspiring students can no longer remain on the periphery of conversations of STEM bachelor’s degree attainment.”
More than eight million students enroll at community colleges across the United States, with 75 to 80 percent intending to transfer and earn a bachelor’s degree. Yet only about a quarter of those students actually transfer.
The students who do transfer, however, are highly successful and experience similar outcomes compared with students starting directly at four-year institutions.
But as Wang explains, the road to transfer is infiltrated with structural barriers. In addition, efforts to find new and more effective ways to support these highly motivated students on their academic journey weren’t being studied in a systematic and longitudinal way to fully uncover the various complexities and nuances related to transfer.
Until now.
With more than a decade of research in this realm, Wang is the author of: “On My Own: The Challenge and Promise of Building Equitable STEM Transfer Pathways,” which was released in April.
Eboni Zamani-Gallaher, a professor of higher education and the executive director of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges, called Wang’s book, “one of the few texts that granularly captures the nuances of navigating hopes, dreams, and educational aspirations amid segmented opportunities and systemic inequities. It offers a sage call to action to those of us who want to enact transformative change and equitable student outcomes. All told, Wang has written a must-read primer for improving and diversifying STEM pathways.”
Based on her longitudinal, mixed-methods research that was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant No. DUE-1430642), the book follows 1,670 two-year college students over four years as they navigated STEM courses and programs in the Midwest. Wang brings to life students’ educational and life experiences as they traversed the prospect of transfer to a four-year institution.
“These students were very much on their own to navigate college and the transfer process without sufficient and consistent institutional support,” says Wang.
Turner authors, ‘Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality’
Erica Turner, a faculty member with the School of Education’s Department of Educational Policy Studies, is the author of “Suddenly Diverse: How School Districts Manage Race and Inequality.”
Turner’s work, released in February 2020, notes that American public schools have been enrolling more students identified as black, Latinx, American Indian, and Asian than white students over the past five years. Additionally, more than half of U.S. students qualify for federally subsidized meals, a marker of poverty.
Indeed, the makeup of schools is changing quickly, and many districts and school boards are struggling with how best to effectively and equitably handle these shifts.
A preview of the book explains how “Suddenly Diverse” is an ethnographic account of two school districts in the Midwest — one predominantly working class and conservative, while the other is more affluent and liberal — responding to these rapidly changing demographics at their schools.
Turner’s work is based on observations and in-depth interviews with school board members and superintendents, as well as staff, community members, and other stakeholders in each district.
Turner finds that, despite good intentions from district leaders, they often adopted policies and practices that perpetuated existing inequalities and advanced new forms of racism.
Suggesting ways forward, Turner shows that changes need to be made. Without transformations to the system, she argues, even the best efforts of district members will undermine the promise of equity for students.
Graue co-edits, ‘Scientific Influences on Early Childhood Education’
Elizabeth Graue is a co-editor of a new book released earlier this year titled, “Scientific Influences on Early Childhood Education: From Diverse Perspectives to Common Practices.”
A preview of the book explains how it “offers a new framework for examining the diverse scientific perspectives that shape early childhood education.”
The preview adds: “As the field takes on an increasing role in addressing children’s educational, developmental, and environmental needs, it is critical to more fully understand and appreciate the diverse scientific roots of contemporary early childhood education. This edited collection brings together leading researchers to explain and unpack perspectives that are not often associated with early childhood education, yet have made significant contributions to its development and evolution.”
Graue is the Sorenson Professor of Early Childhood Education with the School of Education’s No. 1-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She also is director of the Center for Research on Early Childhood Education (CRECE). “Scientific Influences on Early Childhood Education” is co-edited by Dominic F. Gullo, a professor of early childhood education and director of The Lisa and John McNichol Early Childhood Education Lab at Drexel University.
Popkewitz releases latest book, ‘The Impracticality of Practical Research’
Thomas Popkewitz released his latest book earlier this year titled, “The Impracticality of Practical Research: A History of Contemporary Sciences of Change that Conserve.” This work examines the politics of practical knowledge and the paradox of exclusion in contemporary social and physical sciences.
Popkewitz is a professor with the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
According to Popkewitz, there is a desire that research should show us practical knowledge that “enables people to live a good life in a just and equitable society.” Over time, this desire has “haunted” research and continues to live on in educational research.
“The Impracticality of Practical Research” explores how practical and useful knowledge evolves over time, showing how this knowledge has been “(re)visioned” in contemporary research. Popkewitz argues that research meant to correct social wrongs is inherently paradoxical, interwoven with “inscription of differences” that undermine its purpose.
Baldacchino writes two new books
John Baldacchino recently released two new books, “Sejjieħ il-Ħsieb: Limitu u Ħelsien (Rubblewalls of Thought: Limit and Freedom)“and “Educing Ivan Illich: Reform, Contingency, and Disestablishment.”
Baldacchino is a professor with the School of Education’s Art Department.
Written in his mother tongue, Maltese, “Sejjieħ il-Ħsieb” is Baldacchino’s first book of philosophy. This work takes a poetic yet rigorous approach to explore the relationship of freedom and the “limit.”
“This book opens new horizons to those who care for philosophy written in the Maltese Language; a book that invites readers to roam and dialogue with major concepts in ethics, politics, literature, and epistemology,” Professor John Portelli, of the University of Toronto, said in his endorsement. “Baldacchino shows how philosophy is borne out of our existential relationships, in dialogue with ourselves, and with others.”
Baldacchino’s other book, “Educing Ivan Illich,” is in conversation with Illich’s work, almost 50 years since his “Deschooling Society” was first published. Receiving several endorsements from colleagues across Europe and Canada, Baldacchino’s book is revered as a unique contribution to commentary on Illich’s work.
Carr publishes book about women during the Civil War
Jo Ann Carr, director emerita of the School of Education’s Media, Education Resources, and Information Technology (MERIT), has recently published “Such Anxious Hours: Wisconsin Women’s Voices from the Civil War,” with the University of Wisconsin Press.
Carr provides a chronicle of Civil War Wisconsin by placing the words of eight Wisconsin women in the national, state, and local context of the war.
The book includes an illustration of Wisconsin in 1861 created by Linda Endlich, a graphic artist in the School of Education’s Office of Communications and Advancement.