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This study aims to explore the experiences of newly resettled refugee-background high school students participating in the Teen Response program, a community-based initiative to assist refugee-background adolescents (RBAs) in navigating educational and career opportunities in the midwestern USA.

Using a mixed-methods approach, this study examined twenty-two RBAs through survey and focus groups.

The findings reveal significant growth and transformation in the students' self-efficacy and advocacy skills. This growth underscores the critical role of social support and community engagement in helping RBAs, empowering them to advocate for themselves and others in pursuing educational and career goals.

This study contributes new insights into the community-based support programs for RBAs, focusing on enhancing self-efficacy and advocacy. It offers valuable implications for developing effective support frameworks and recommends future research on these approaches.

In 2021, Dr Shang-Ying Chen, chair of the Department of Theatre Arts at National Sun Yat-sen University, invited me to teach in Taiwan for the 2022 academic year. I taught six 16- to 18-week courses, including creativity, marketing, theater management, and research methods, to 100 undergraduate and graduate college students in English.

As a published sociologist and practitioner of accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion (ADEI), I seek to center ADEI in every aspect of my own life, which includes my teaching. My chapter “Teaching ADEI in Taiwan” is an autoethnographic study, utilizing participant observation in documenting the ways in which inclusive pedagogies of ADEI impact teaching and learning in Taiwan. As a Jewish white English-speaking researcher-teacher, I also interrogate my own racial awareness and the impact it has on my efforts to provide my Taiwanese students with an education that is culturally responsive. ¹

The purpose of this study is to understand how faculty members perceive learning needs of the attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) student, as they acclimated to and performed within the higher education settings.

A phenomenological design was used to explore the faculty perceptions of ADHD college students. A sample of ten faculty members, employed in two-year, four-year, and graduate-level programs, participated in virtual semi-structured interviews. A six step thematic analysis of the codes was performed revealing three themes.

Results from the study yielded three themes: problem-based learning, time management and accommodations versus privilege. These themes highlight the complexity of the learning process, the limitations with time management, and the need for meaningful, rather than stereotypical, accommodations in these settings.

The number of students diagnosed with ADHD attending postsecondary education continues to rise, necessitating a critical lens on increasing neurodiversity-affirming practices in these settings. Despite noted strengths, students with this diagnosis struggle academically, resulting in academic challenges. To maximize each individual’s learning potential, systems of higher education need to carefully consider how to best design a positive learning environment with universally effective learning accommodations.

While faculty described accommodations and strategies provided to students, they also repeatedly shared concerning challenges and barriers to learning, as demonstrated by their students in various scenarios and situations. Results suggest areas of potential improvement, alongside the complexity of serving the need of the next generation of neurodivergent learners, in a world where equity and inclusion required additional time and thoughtful effort. Of greatest concern, perhaps, was the systems already in place, including offices of accommodations and services, that tended to use a “one-size-fits-all” approach, oversimplifying, rather than serving, student need.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the existing literature on the importance of mentorship in academia, particularly in higher education. Specifically, this study aims to address the research gap related to academic mentorship from a gendered perspective. The Productive Mentoring Framework and relational–cultural theory theoretically support this study.

In this qualitative descriptive study, purposive sampling was used to recruit 19 participants for semi-structured interviews and a focus group. Two research questions guided this study: (1) How do individuals who identify as women describe the importance of mentorship in academia? (2) How do individuals who identify as women describe mentorship in academia from a gendered perspective? Using Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis, a total of six themes emerged, with three themes identified for each of the two research questions from the data: (a) guidance and support, (b) personal and professional development, (c) inclusive and accountable relationships, (d) empathetic and supportive mentorship, (e) interpersonal connectivity and (f) gender empowerment and advocacy.

The research findings suggest that the participants held perceptions of gender disparity within academia. Additionally, empowering interpersonal relationships with other women and supportive environments were crucial in overcoming challenges and developing personally and professionally in higher education institutions. Future research is recommended to explore the perspectives of women supporting women and the perception of gender disparity in academia.

While successfully addressing the research questions, this study has limitations. One limitation was that this study had a relatively small sample size of participants who identified as women, which limited the focus of this research. Another limitation was that interview and focus group participants did not mention working with mentors who fall outside the traditional binary of male and female. Finally, limitations can occur in qualitative research as there is potential bias in the data analysis process. However, member-checking and codebook verification were utilized to minimize this constraint.

There are practical implications from the research for mentoring practices in academia. Since the results indicated benefits to women, institutions could prioritize mentoring programs, especially pairing same-gender mentors and mentees. This helps new employees navigate academia. Mentoring fosters interpersonal connectivity, improving academic culture. By supporting mentoring relationships and professional friendships, leaders positively impact dynamics within institutions. Gender disparities and systemic barriers call for advocacy within higher education. Mentor training programs should address these issues, providing a platform for solutions. Administrators' awareness may support efforts to improve equity.

The study is original in its focus on academic mentorship from a gendered perspective, as described by women in academia, notably higher education.

This study explores how problem-based learning (PBL) programs can address Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) via the higher education (HE) curriculum, teaching materials and relevant assessments, supporting learning at scale for HE institutions.

Employing SDGs and their indicators as the coding framework, our two-phase study evaluates the curriculum and teaching materials of seven PBL programs at a leading higher education institution (HEI). The first phase involved a content analysis to assess the degree of sustainability integration in 156 relevant courses. The second phase applied a semi-automated mapping protocol to analyze learning and teaching materials in 120 relevant courses.

The school aligns with 17 SDGs (100%), covering 94 indicators (55.62%). On average, each program within the school addresses over ten of these goals and incorporates more than 24 associated indicators. However, the study reveals an imbalance in the incorporation of SDGs, with some goals not yet deeply and comprehensively embedded in the curriculum. While there is a substantial focus on sustainability theories, the practical implications of SDGs in emerging countries, particularly through case studies and assessments, require significant enhancement.

Mapping SDGs allows HEIs to identify strengths and gaps in SDG integration, thereby improving the PBL approach to enhance student work readiness in sustainability-focused careers.

Through the lens of transformative learning theory, this study provides evidence of SDG integration into PBL curricula. It highlights a mapping methodology that enables HEIs to evaluate their sustainability readiness in curriculum, teaching materials and relevant assessments.

In light of a largely negative discourse, this study aims to identify the various ways in which PhD mums have been supported in a range of contexts to develop a comprehensive typology of positive support, as well as to identify patterns that transcend institutional, national and disciplinary borders.

The study is guided by ecological systems theory which allows for the investigation of the various interrelated systems that influence (in this case) doctoral researchers. A mixed-methods survey elicited the first-hand experiences from recent and current PhD mums across the world.

The authors have identified a range of potential supports for PhD mums, but note a careful balance is needed to ensure that PhD mums are supported in their roles as both mother and doctoral researcher, where support in one domain does not contradict nor ignore support for the other.

This study complements the existing knowledge body, which consists mainly of localised studies, by providing a birds-eye view of issues that transcend national, geographic and disciplinary borders. A topography provides a visual map of the various sources of potential support and the complicated relationships between them.

The ambition of human rights-based research is to generate an evidence base aligned to specific rights and rights holders. This chapter addresses the question ‘How does the ethical communication of research evidence support the achievement of this ambition?’ It outlines a Communication of Evidence For Impact (CEFI) approach that is focused on the realisation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). CEFI proposes that human rights-based communication is: a public good; a legal imperative in States that have ratified CRPD, and a moral imperative in States yet to sign or ratify; a core research competency and ethical requirement; participatory; and grounded in a culture of inclusion, intersectionality, and allyship. This chapter explores how five actors – States, research ethics committees, researchers, funders, and publishers – can each contribute to ethical communication. Recommendations are made for including and futureproofing CEFI in a disability research ethics framework.

The principal aim of the research was to develop Interactive Mobile Learning Modules (IMLM) as an approach to innovative teaching practices in online distance education.

The study employed educational action research, using a quasi-experimental design catering to ninth-grade students (N = 104) attending a public high school in Manila.

Our research indicates that IMLM has a positive effect on student engagement. It provides students with a convenient, easily accessible, and engaging means of understanding Genetics concepts. The execution of this initiative has facilitated the emergence of novel ideas, heightened the ease of use, and advanced more equitable opportunities within the education domain. Thus, IMLM’s utilization has resulted in a favorable shift in conceptual understanding. It has been found to support learners' concept test performance, as evidenced by score gains and statistically significant improvement in understanding.

The study is limited with the development and utilization of mlearning strategy to accommodate learners in the public school system in a developing country.

The study addresses ongoing strategy and discussion to enrich online learning through the mlearning strategy.

The study accommodates inclusivity and equitable learning through personalize mlearning strategy.

The study is novel because it utilize mlearning as innovative approach to teaching genetics.