Increasing Latinx Youth Engagement Across Different Types of After-School Organizations

This article explores how Latinx youth engagement practices vary across different types of out-of-school organizations that successfully sustain Latinx youth participation. Data are drawn from a qualitative study of 13 California organizations that each emphasize one of 3 missions: social justice youth development, “one-stop” wrap-around services, or academic enrichment. While all organizations are found to adhere to a core set of Latinx youth development guiding principles, there are nuanced differences in how they are operationalized in practice across varied organization types, reflecting variation in terms of discourse, scale, and scope. These findings highlight the need for youth development practitioners and collaborating researchers to understand the context of youth-serving organizations when identifying and implementing promising practices and extension programs.

A Pipeline to Increase Public Health Diversity: Describing the Academic Enrichment Components of the Summer Public Health Scholars Program

A public health workforce that reflects the increasing diversity of the U.S. population is critical for health promotion and to eliminate persistent health disparities. Academic institutions must provide appropriate education and training to increase diversity in public health professions to improve efforts to provide culturally competent care and programs in the most vulnerable communities. Reaching into the existing talent pool of diverse candidates at the undergraduate level is a promising avenue for building a pipeline to advanced training and professional careers in the field of public health. The Summer Public Health Scholars Program (SPHSP) at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center (CUIMC) is a 10-week summer internship program with a mission to increase knowledge and interest in public health and biomedical sciences. Funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Undergraduate Public Health Summer Programs, sponsored by the CDC’s Office of Minority Health and Health Equity, SPHSP aims to pipeline underrepresented students into public health graduate programs and careers by providing mentorship, academic enrichment, professional development, and field-based placements. The SPHSP is uniquely positioned to offer scholars a program that exposes them to core public health training components through the joint effort of all four CUIMC schools: public health, dentistry, nursing, and medicine. Here, we describe the program’s academic enrichment components, which provide advanced and multifaceted public health training opportunities. We discuss the impacts of the program on student outcomes and lessons learned in developing and refining the program model.

Promoting STEAM learning in the early years: “Pequeños Científicos” Program

Education in the early years is an excellent space for promoting integrated learning. The STEAM education model combines Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics holistically and has gained force globally, mostly in developed countries. However, in developing countries of Latin America, STEAM education programs are incipient and still unfamiliar to many early childhood and primary school educators. "Pequeños Científicos" is a pioneer educational program in Chile aimed at providing extracurricular academic enrichment to students 3 to 10 years old, with a gender-empowering approach. With a cross-sectional design and integrating data from students, researchers and educators, this article documents program design and implementation issues based on a partial application of SWOT analysis grounded on strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. The strengths were the strongest elements that might be transferred to similar interventions, for instance, students were positively engaged in the learning processes and actively communicating their advances through diverse artistic formats. The weaknesses were mainly difficulties that can be avoided in future replication, such as teachers' management of children's behavior. Opportunities present alternatives to these types of programs to improve and grow; for example, through articulation of the courses and including children with additional needs. We call for tackling the weaknesses for more efficient application and discuss the promotion of STEAM learning in the early years in the contexts of high educational inequality for future replication in diverse contexts.

Breaking Down Barriers to Literacy

Reading aloud to children is not only a very pleasurable experience but also an academic enrichment activity that helps equalize opportunities for all students by increasing their exposure to language, culture, and literature through a variety of vicarious experiences. After reviewing relevant professional literature, this paper presents a generic lesson plan that can increase children’s listening and reading comprehension skills and thereby help break down the barriers between advantaged and disadvantaged students. Public librarians, school librarians, teachers, and parents can use the recommended read-aloud strategies to help all children increase their linguistic and social skills as well as their cultural awareness.

Mining for Untapped Talent and Overcoming Challenges to Diversity in Higher Education: Evidence for Inclusive Academic Programs

The aim of this study is to examine and explore factors that impact the successful growth of student diversity at colleges and universities in the United States of America. Special emphasis is placed on America’s five decade struggle since the 1970s to increase college access and success for underserved youth. The paper reviews select federal policies and collaborative efforts by higher education institutions to diversify the population of college students, toward realizing the potential of untapped talent. In addition, the authors review and examine statistics and trends in graduation rates for undergraduate students from First-Generation (FG), Underrepresented Minority (URM) and/or Low-Income (LI) backgrounds, and highlight programs at Predominantly White Institutions (PWI) that have demonstrated improvements in graduating URM undergraduate students. Likewise, the study describes initiatives that have attempted to address the graduation gap in higher education. Readers will have an opportunity to learn about the premier national program promoting diversity and academic achievement. The study closes with a discussion and evidence for continued national interest and attention to building successful academic enrichment, support, and achievement programs for students from diverse backgrounds.

Exploring the Implications of Culturally Relevant Teaching: Toward a Pedagogy of Liberation

Schools in America may provide opportunities for upward mobility while also perpetuating social inequality. The inequities found in the US public school system probably result in such a highly stratified society. Conditions found in many schools and classrooms are often a microcosm of the same conditions and factors present in the broader American society. Scholars and education reform activists often use the term school-to-prison pipeline to describe what they view as a widespread pattern in the United States of pushing students, especially those who are already at a disadvantage, out of school, and into the criminal justice system. This research explored whether mentorship in the lives of these very students can affect the trajectory that these students take in life by moving toward a pedagogy of liberation that challenges the inequities and contradictions in the institution of education. Building from a model similar to CDF Freedom Schools, but targeting academic enrichment, Farrah and her colleague Hope developed the Sankofa Project at Yin Elementary School (YES). Embracing both the social-emotional and pedagogical aspects of CDF Freedom Schools, the Sankofa Project moved from a mission that sought to instill a love for reading to actually teaching children to read. This aspect was pivotally important to Farrah and Hope as they sought to dismantle the “cradle to prison pipeline,” the concept of funneling masses of people into marginalized lives, imprisonment, and often premature death. Farrah believed that all her predecessors had done “was spot on, but academic enrichment was a key to steering children away from the pipeline.” With the rebirth of a caste-like system in America, black and brown bodies are disproportionately locked behind bars, relegated permanent second-class status if declared a felon and an increasingly common trend toward annihilation at the hands of those of who are designated to serve and protect them.