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The purpose of this paper is to explore how Ontario principals make sense of difference within student populations and how this sensemaking influences how they do their work.

The paper reports on a qualitative study in Ontario, Canada that included 59 semistructured interviews with school principals from English public, secular school districts in Southern Ontario.

Four themes emerged in principals’ descriptions of student populations: perceiving everyone as the same, or homogeneous; perceiving visible differences associated with particular religions, race and cultures; perceiving invisible or less visible differences, such as academic differences, socioeconomic status, mental health issues, gender identity and sexual orientation; and perceiving both visible and less visible differences through an inclusive lens. When asked about how their understanding of difference influenced how they did their work, principals’ responses varied from not influencing their work at all to influencing practices and activities. Participants’ context – both personal and local – influenced some of the work they did in their role as school principal. Lastly, multiple sources of disconnect emerged between how principals understood difference and the practices that they engage in at their school site; between their sensemaking about difference and diversity and preparing students for the twenty-first century competencies as global citizens; and between principals’ understanding of difference and diversity and existing provincial policy.

Study insights not only contribute to an existing body of literature that examines principals’ sensemaking around difference, but also extend this line of inquiry to consider how this sensemaking influences their professional practice. These findings pose additional research questions about how to approach principal professional learning for inclusive and equitable education. For example, even though principals are contractually responsible for students in their care, why is it that their efforts toward equitable and inclusive schooling appear to be limited to the school site and not the wider community?

Study findings can be used to inform principal preparation programs and professional learning opportunities. Namely, these programs should provide the skill development required as well as the time needed for principals to reflect on their local context and beliefs, and to consider how their local context and beliefs are connected to larger societal efforts to create a more inclusive and equitable society.

School leadership is integral to creating and building more inclusive and equitable public education that improves all students’ success at school. As Ontario’s general population becomes increasingly diverse, it is imperative that principals support success for all students; this can only happen if they understand the complexity of difference within their student populations and beyond, how to address these complexities and how their own understandings and beliefs influence their leadership practices.

Although other papers have examined how principals make sense of difference and diversity in student bodies, this paper also explores how this sensemaking influences how school leaders do their work.

The purpose of this research is to compare two different sample populations (student and general) to determine the impact of brand community motives on brand community engagement.

Two samples were drawn for the purpose of the current research. The first sample was drawn among the members of various brand communities from a general North American population sample (N = 503). The second sample was drawn purely from students, belonging to a variety of brand communities, from a middle-sized Canadian university (N = 195). Partial least squares structural equation modelling was used to analyse the strength, significance and effect sizes of the relationships between brand community motive and engagement constructs.

The findings indicate that the impact of brand community motives varied by sample population. The information and entertainment motives were significantly related to brand community engagement in both sample populations with roughly equal effect sizes. The social integration motive was again significantly related to the brand community engagement construct in the student sample population – but not for the general North American general population sample. Further, the self-discovery motive and status enhancement motives were significantly related to brand community engagement in the North American sample, but not for the student sample. This indicates significant differences between the two sample populations.

The results of the current research demonstrate that student populations are significantly different from the general population regarding their motives towards brand communities. This indicates that brand community managers need to be aware of the motives of different brand community members and also that they need to exercise caution about utilizing purely student data to make decisions about brand community management.

The purpose of this exploratory paper is to define the characteristics of foster youth, discuss the impacts of trauma on their lives, present results from a foster youth survey conducted at a university in the Midwest to assess the needs of former foster youth and discuss the ways universities can support this vulnerable population of students. Several themes emerged from the study. The financial need emerged at the top. The number of essential needs was striking. For example, more than half of the respondents did not have their basic needs met. These needs included food, medical/dental services, clothing and transportation needs.

Faculty researchers who were part of a university task force developed a survey to assess the needs of former foster youth who were enrolled in classes at the time that this research was conducted. The survey was developed and disseminated through Qualtrics, a software that distributed survey links via email in a confidential manner. The survey consisted of a variety of general questions related to participants’ background and demographic information, as well as the specific needs and services that they were interested in receiving. The survey was sent out one-time peer week for three weeks in the late fall semester.

Findings indicated that 9% of respondents (n = 4) ranked the greatest areas of need as being financial assistance for school supplies, medical/dental care and financial aid advice. Similarly, 7% of respondents (n = 3) expressed the greatest needs as being affordable housing, housing during semester breaks, financial support for a laptop, financial counseling, counseling services, emergency financial assistance and internship and career counseling.

Limitations of this research include the use of a small and homogenous participant sample size, with data collected from one university campus. Therefore, results do not necessarily generalize elsewhere and replication is necessary for other geographical regions that include additional participants from varying backgrounds. Because data were not collected from a control group of nonfoster students, it is also unknown whether the identified student needs from this research substantially differ from the general population.

All students do not need the same support, so a menu of services should be provided. These services could include care packages that include basic academic necessities (e.g., laptops, school supplies, book vouchers, health and beauty supplies), financial literacy training, mentorship opportunities, a one-credit course on independent living skills, providing connections to community resources (e.g., childcare, housing, employment) and targeted advising for this specific student population, many of which who are from the first generation and low-income backgrounds. Another opportunity is to provide, possibly mandate, professional development for faculty and staff on the characteristics and needs of these vulnerable students.

Institutions have an opportunity, and arguably an obligation, to identify these students as early as possible. This can be done through collaboration with state human service departments, high school counselors and using demographic data found in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form. Recruiting, retaining and supporting this population of students are critical because many have needs similar to other marginalized populations that the authors are so intensely focused on.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether student veterans have specific library-related needs and how librarians can best meet them.

Researchers developed a survey which was administered both online and in paper copies. The survey results indicated need for further investigation; six face-to-face interviews with volunteers were conducted.

Principle findings were that while student veterans do resemble nontraditional students in their needs and characteristics, important distinctions from that population could be noted. In addition, dedicated student veteran centers and/or offices provide librarians with the best possible means of communications with this particular population.

This case study demonstrates that individual institutions are well-served to investigate the specific characteristics of their own student veteran population. Librarians can utilize outreach to student veterans through their institution’s veteran center (if available), and may wish to employ the specific outreach practices detailed in the study.

Virtually no other qualitative or quantitative research regarding the specific needs and characteristics of this academic population exists in the literature of the library sciences, and the academic literature that does address the population, coming from the student services arena, does not include mention of academic libraries.

For a variety of reasons, the districts, educators, and students of the largest cities in the United States garner substantial popular and scholarly attention. In the discourse and debate related to urban education, policymakers and researchers often cite accounts and articles derived from these larger urban areas. Yet, we found that school districts educating 47,700 or fewer students accounted for 61 percent of students educated in urban school districts in the United States. Comparison of the composition of student populations revealed that larger urban school districts exhibited greater concentrations of students identified as non-white and receiving free or reduced lunches. Overlooking the variation among urban school districts could result in ineffective reforms, poor educator preparation, skewed funding, and irrelevant research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the quality of the banking services in a rather neglected context, i.e. quality of banking services that target the student population. The goals were: to highlight the importance of student population as in the long run profitable market for personal banking services, to determine whether there are significant differences between student perceptions of and expectations from the quality of banking services as well as which dimensions students find to be the most significant and which the least significant in assessing the quality of banking services.

A summary of the theoretical framework is followed by the results of a research using the SERVQUAL instrument.

Despite a steady increase in the number of students over the past few years, bank managers have not yet realized their full potential. The results point to a gap in the quality of the banking services on all five dimensions of the SERVQUAL model. It is necessary to improve the banking service on all dimensions, and particularly with regard to “reliability,” “assurance” and “responsiveness,” in which the gap was observed to be the largest.

The research used a convenient sample. Therefore, it is impossible to generalize research findings based on the data processed, but only point to their being indicative.

Banks should by no means neglect the student population that possesses information knowledge, essential for the use of modern banking services. Bank managers should pay more attention to the needs of this growing segment of potential highly profitable customers.

The necessity to provide a more flexible response to the needs and requirements of students as a target market segment is discussed, along with potential importance of this segment for banks’ future business operations.

Public education in the United States is White, middle class, and urban/suburban normed. However, in the past decade, national population trends show an increase in minority populations, particularly in the southeastern United States. This trend has resulted in a cultural mismatch between teachers who are not trained in strategies that are responsive to the needs of a diverse student population. Novice teachers in a rural school district in eastern North Carolina participated in a study to examine the degree to which they were prepared to successfully interact with their culturally diverse student populations through the lens of culturally relevant classroom management (CRCM), based on their training at either historically White (HWIs) or Black (HBCUs) postsecondary institutions. As part of this larger study, we found that teachers trained at HWIs, although well-intentioned, enter the classroom far less prepared than their HBCU-trained counterparts. However, for both groups of novice teachers, intercultural interactions earlier in their lives seem to have a greater influence than institutional effects on effective, culturally relevant classroom management practices.

The aim of this paper is to examine literature related to transfer students and students in transition through three interrelated lenses: student demographics and experiences, considerations encountered by institutions of higher education working to support these students and academic libraries’ interactions with this growing population.

Library and information science and education databases were searched for articles related to transfer student experiences and initiatives. Educational research and policy centers were also investigated for supplemental data and definitions.

Several key considerations for academic libraries interested in supporting transfer students emerged, including the growth and diversity of this population; academic, social and procedural experiences encountered during and after students’ transition; commonalities and differences with native first-year students; and the value of partnerships in fostering student success.

This review contextualizes conversations regarding transfer student experiences, providing a resource for librarians to understand this population from multiple perspectives and to use these perspectives to develop and enhance initiatives, resources and services.

Despite an increased emphasis on transfer students across higher education, there is little literature regarding libraries’ involvement with this population. This literature review also seeks to expand upon existing conversations by examining transfer student experiences beyond the library that could inform both their interactions with the library and the ways in which libraries connect and communicate with these students.

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze an Arizona university’s educational leadership program and the revisioning/restructuring process that program faculty have engaged in to ensure that the program provides aspiring school leaders with the conceptual knowledge, dispositions, and skills necessary to transform their schools in ways that directly address the needs of Arizona’s increasing diverse student population and ensures equitable and excellent educational opportunities for every student.

Through a narrative inquiry approach (Clandinin, 2006), this study examined the Sonoran Leadership Academy and how the program faculty prepared aspiring school leaders to meet the needs of Arizona’s changing demographics.

The findings indicate that the program faculty have been able to work collaboratively to establish an ecological framework of transformative leadership to develop aspiring school principals’ dispositions to tackle systemic racism and practices associated with deficit thinking and low expectations of diverse student populations. By more explicitly and seamlessly weaving concepts and skills related to race, racism, and the structures and cultures that can either perpetuate or disrupt inequitable treatment of diverse student populations throughout all of the courses and experiences of the program, the program faculty made substantial progress in supporting their students to meet the program outcomes around equity and excellence and transformative leadership.

The knowledge generated from this study is limited to one specific educational leadership program in Arizona, but the conceptual framework emerged from the study has implications on how educational leadership programs can embark on a similar revision effort to ensure that leadership studies is responsive to the issues of race and racism in the context of schooling and demographic change.

The results of this study will operationalize a new conceptual model to demonstrate concrete effective teaching practices on ways to prepare school leaders for diversity and demographic change.

By the year 2050, it is estimated that white Americans will no longer make up the majority of the population in the USA. Since the school system has historically been envisioned as the bedrock of democracy, there is a pressing need for the educational system to respond to issues related to this demographic change and to prepare effective school leaders to establish conditions of equity and excellence for all children across multiple forms of diversity in their local schools.

This study contributes to scholarship in several ways. First, it introduces the field of educational leadership to an antiracist framework for critical race leadership studies and principal preparation. Second, it methodologically contributes to educational studies by using narrative inquiry to understand the experiences of those who are situated in the research context. Third, the paper connects theory to practice by identifying specific strategies on how to revise a program to meet the needs of diverse K-12 student populations, and how these efforts are connected to the university classrooms in the ways school leaders are prepared for transformative leadership.

The United States is becoming more diverse, a trend that is reflected in institutions of higher education; college campuses are filled with various subgroups of “non-traditional students,” many of whom are students from marginalized populations. Throughout history, the United States denied access to education to students from historically marginalized backgrounds and while society promises access to students today, it is not provided equally; gaps in educational access and achievement among marginalized groups persist. Some of the fastest growing subgroups of our population are least likely to succeed in higher education, because they face barriers as they navigate the university experience. This chapter spotlights the key access and persistence-related challenges faced by students from six marginalized populations: African American/Black students, students with disabilities, Hispanic/Latinx students, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students, undocumented students, and student veterans.