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This study explored the motives, relationship dynamics and outcomes of male executives in mentoring Black African women within the context of South Africa. The authors investigated the experiences of White, Black African, coloured, and Indian male mentors conducting cross-gender and cross-race mentoring in South Africa.

A qualitative study was conducted with 21 male executives within South Africa's male-dominated financial services industry. Data were collected via semi-structured, one-on-one virtual video interviews. The study endeavoured to deeper understand the mentors' experiences during their interactions with the intersecting marginalised identities of Black African women as protégés.

The authors found that the mentoring relationship is central to mentoring Black African women. This relationship is often influenced by the mentors' parental approach to mentoring, with resultant negative consequences, including the protégé not taking accountability for driving the relationship. Mentors' stereotypical expectations of women as homemakers and carers also influenced mentoring experiences. Mentors' motives included growing next generation leaders, which led to mentors' job satisfaction.

This study contributes an account of male executives' motivations for mentoring Black African women, the relationship dynamics as well as negative mentoring experiences, and the mentoring outcomes for protégés and mentors. Intersectionality theory was used to highlight the mentors' lack of insight into the intersecting marginalised identities of Black African women in the unique South African context, where inequalities in terms of class, race, and gender are amplified.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between African–American undergraduate students, racial microaggressions (RMAs) and college retention rates.

Data were obtained from a survey given out to African–American undergraduate students, recruited from a large, midwestern, predominantly white public university (n = 53).

The results indicate that students did experience a wide range of microaggressions. Furthermore, the data revealed a statistically significant relationship between the participants’ perceptions that others viewed them as if they were foreigners and did not belong to the place and the participants’ thoughts about dropping out during the ongoing semester [r(51) = 0.338, p = 0.05]. The results suggest that African–Americans frequently experience RMAs while on campus but these experiences are not significantly tied to their intentions to complete the ongoing semester or return for the subsequent semester.

This study shows that African–American students felt disconnected from the campus that they attend. This information may allow for faculty and staff members to assist in making students feel more welcomed and included in the classroom and on campus.

This is one of the few studies to provide evidence of the relationships between African–American undergraduate students, RMAs and college retention rates. In addition, most studies looking at the relationship between RMAs and retention are qualitative in nature. The use of a quantitative approach helps us eliminating possible observer bias and increasing sample size.

In this article, we examine the experiences of African American engineering undergraduate students who participated in two student–faculty mentoring programs. This work provides critical insights about important factors that enhance students' experiences in higher education (e.g. the need for informal community spaces, mentoring and representation).

Using a sequential explanatory mixed-methods approach, participants were surveyed and interviewed about their experiences in the mentoring programs. Data were analyzed using basic statistical methods and thematic analysis.

Findings indicate that students prosper in informal community spaces, where representation allows them to build mentoring relationships that are fostered naturally through common identities in a shared space.

Given the intimate size of the program, the sample population was limited.

To benefit student development, mentoring program practices should consider dedicating funding and space for students and faculty of shared racial backgrounds and lived experiences to meet informally.

This work identifies explicit mentoring program factors that support the development of minoritized students in engineering.

In spite of ongoing and recent initiatives aimed at broadening participation in engineering, the representation of diverse groups of learners in engineering graduate programs in the USA remains a challenge. Foregrounding the voices of 26 Black male engineering faculty, this study aims to investigate how institutions might recruit and retain more Black men in engineering graduate programs.

For this study, inductive thematic analysis was used.

The authors show that three themes, namely, representation as an asset, invested mentors and faculty, and supportive peer networks described as the “Vibe” manifest as crucial elements for successful recruitment and retention of Black men in engineering graduate programs.

These findings are meant to augment the conversation around diversity, equity and inclusion in engineering graduate programs and to address a dearth of published research on the Black male engineering population. This work is also meant to help institutions conceptualize ways to create a “Vibe” that might be transferable to their institution’s sociocultural context.

This comparative case study looks towards the diverse approaches of higher education to support peacebuilding, from policy and philosophy to pedagogical practices, in conflict-affected and post-conflict settings. The achievement of global development goals is dependent on addressing access to quality education in conflict-affected contexts, including higher education. However, in settings affected by conflict, higher education is often perceived to be a luxury, not a necessity. This study, then, explores whether and how higher education might support peace and development through the unique perspective of the “three faces” of higher education in conflict contexts.

The paper is designed as a qualitative comparative case study. The research examines the work of university educators in two institutions in Afghanistan and Somaliland, highlighting the challenges and opportunities they face working in conflict-affected societies and their pedagogical responses to conflict. Data for the research were collected through in-depth interviews, documents, and digital artifacts with 12 university educators across the two institutions. The faculty teach a wide variety of subjects in the social sciences and humanities, subjects including and in addition to those specific to peace and development studies. To strengthen the interpretation of data, multiple coders were involved and intercoder reliability was conducted.

Findings indicate a number of challenges and opportunities that university lecturers and their institutions face in teaching for peace in conflict-affected contexts, particularly as it relates to the “three faces” of higher education to support, impede, or reveal the complicated nuances of peacebuilding in conflict settings. Member-checking was employed with participants to enhance the reliability of the analysis.

In the end, the paper contributes new empirical insights into higher education in conflict-affected contexts, particularly from the standpoint of faculty. Critical perspectives and implications for curriculum, pedagogy and research are offered.

Drawing insights from the ecological theory, the purpose of this paper is to explore social determinants related to pathways to high-risk sexual behaviors of international travelers across their life span.

Data were collected from 45 international travelers in Houston, a critical transit point frequented by international visitors.

Overall, several ecological settings (individuals, interpersonal, institutional and contextual) related to two typologies of international travelers (risk takers vs non-risk takers) and their inclination to engage in high-risk sexual practices in an international or/and local context were identified.

This research calls for the need to assess high-risk sexual behaviors from the ecological perspective to better understand the dynamics of disease transmission among frequent international travelers from diverse backgrounds/life styles and age cohorts.

Prevention and treatment programs developed for at-risk international travelers should target both distal and proximal social factors that predispose travelers to vulnerable situations. To build a reliable health surveillance network, policy makers, health practitioners and educators must focus not only on individual-level determinants but also on other ecological determinants that branch out beyond the personal level (e.g. interpersonal, institutional and contextual levels). Multi-level formal and informal social networks can be developed to promote a global social climate and environment that encourage safe sex and safety precautions.

To raise awareness, the public must be constantly reminded that outbreaks of potentially health hazards can lead to unpredictable morbidity/mortality and security risks that place a burden on our nation’s economic growth, emergency responsiveness and homeland security infrastructure.

The study is one of very few to address international travelers’ health risk, while abroad, from an ecological lens across the life course.

Historically minoritized students are routinely silenced in classroom settings. This study aims to explore whether open annotations encourage students with historically minoritized gender/racial/ethnic identities to share knowledge and ideas. In addition, this study explores how the intersectionality of student identities relates to their experiences of open annotation and assess gendered and racialized achievement of student learning objectives.

This study uses mixed methods to examine the use of an open annotation tool (Perusall) to foster the redistribution of epistemic authority and more equitable interactions in science, technology, engineering, and math and humanities courses at the intersection of environmental and social justice issues. The study design draws on illustrative case study methods to assist others in seeing the potential and considerations in using a similar pedagogical approach.

An open annotation tool like Perusall can foster more equitable interactions for historically minoritized students. Women reported that open annotations deepened knowledge and engagement with the source and their peers. Women of color, in particular, acknowledged the benefits of social annotations as a tool that redistributes epistemic authority. Conversely, men were more likely to comment on dissatisfaction with grading.

This study suggests the value of open annotation as an effective and accessible method to foster inclusive classrooms. Through examining epistemic authority in social annotations, this study provides a novel approach to addressing the disengagement of historically minoritized students.

This study was conducted in the United States of America to identify what practices virtual mentor-coaches perceived to be effective in virtual mentoring and coaching (VMC) within virtual professional learning communities (VPLCs). The authors also sought to determine the ways in which virtual mentor-coaches provided VMC for school leaders within VPLCs.

The authors used a phenomenological approach in our research, describing the lived experiences of practicing virtual mentor-coaches as they engaged in VMC. Data analysis included video analysis and systematic coding of interview data.

An in-depth analysis of interview and video data showed that virtual mentor-coaches support school leaders in developing and transforming school leaders' leadership for building teachers' instructional capacity. The authors identified a VMC process model within VPLCs, including four steps as follows: (1) presentation, (2) collaboration, (3) reflection and (4) action plan.

VMC for school leaders participating in VPLCs is regarded as a transformative model which provides encouragement, reflection and support for instructional leadership actions.

Key steps and components of an effective VMC highlighted in the current research offer practical guidance for future virtual mentor-coaches in conducting and implementing VMC within VPLCs.

The goal of this research is to investigate the relationship between two different sets of practices, lean startup and business planning, and their relation to entrepreneurial performance.

The authors collected data from 120 entrepreneurs across the US about a variety of new venture formation activities within the categories of lean startup or business planning. They use hierarchical regression to examine the relationship between these activities and new venture performance using both a subjective and objective measure of performance.

The results show that talking to customers, collecting preorders and pivoting based on customer feedback are lean startup activities correlated with performance; writing a business plan is the sole business planning activity correlated with performance.

This research lays the foundation for understanding the components of both lean startup and business planning. Moreover, these results demonstrate that the separation of lean startup and business planning represents a false dichotomy.

These findings suggest that entrepreneurs should engage in some lean startup activities and still write a business plan.

This article offers the first quantitative, empirical comparison of lean startup activities and business planning. Furthermore, it provides support for the relationship between specific lean startup activities and firm performance.

This study is motivated to investigate the ethical challenges facing public relations professionals in today's digital communication environment. Specifically, the authors focused the research on the new ethical challenges in digital practice, the resources relied on when encountering ethical challenges and public relations professionals' efforts in seeking trainings on communication ethics.

An international online survey was designed and conducted in Canada and the USA. The final sample includes 1,046 respondents working full time in the profession of public relations and communication. In addition, the authors prespecified several demographic quotas in sampling design in order to recruit a more representative sample.

The research found nearly 60% of surveyed professionals reported that they faced ethical challenges in their day-to-day work, and there is a wide range of ethical challenges in digital practices. Results also revealed that professionals use various resources to deal with ethical issues. Those resources include ethical codes of practice of professional associations, ethical guidelines of their organizations and their personal values and beliefs. As common as experiencing ethical challenges, over 85% of surveyed professionals reported that they have participated in communication ethics training. However, only 30% of participants indicated that their ethics training took place in the past year.

The research provides solid evidence that the digital communication environment generates more ethical challenges, while it creates new ways of delivering content in corporate communications. Professional associations and organizations shall dedicate efforts in providing timely ethics training to PR professionals at all levels of leadership within and beyond corporate communications.