TeleNGAGE: Enhancing Collaboration between Families and Schools

Findings in the literature strongly support the importance of family engagement in education. However, effective partnerships between families and schools are rare, especially in ethnically diverse communities where families may lack efficacy or face structural challenges for engagement. Additionally, educator perspectives toward engagement are often framed by White, middle-class paradigms. Educators often fail to acknowledge structural challenges faced by low-income families or the cultural contributions low-income and/or minoritized families can bring. To facilitate engagement between families and schools, a new ECHO® line, TeleNGAGE, was developed at Oklahoma State University, Educational Leadership program. ECHO®, traditionally used in the field of medicine, has utility for professional development for educators because it offers a platform for case-based learning where real problems are addressed in real-time. Additionally, didactic presentations provide professional development for collaborative learning. Through the lens of Communities of Practice (CoP), this qualitative case study explores how relationships between families and schools changed as a result of participation in TeleNGAGE. Tenets of CoP, negotiated meaning, mutual engagement, and a shared repertoire, support a collaborative approach to addressing complex problems. Findings suggest that a CoP has emerged through TeleNGAGE and has resulted in changes in perspectives across families and educational leaders about "what it means to be engaged," enhanced family efficacy for engagement, and changes in engagement practice as family voice has expanded through sharing of concerns/perspectives. These findings have important implications for equitable engagement in a convenient, cost-free environment where educators and families can communicate and develop mutually supportive understandings and practices.

Changing the narrative of disengagement: Exploring academic identity formation for non-ethno-European students

The COVID-19 pandemic and the changing demographics of the American identity have drawn attention to the necessity of reforming the Ethno-European education system to meet the needs of a diverse student population. If the educational landscape is to be transformed to meet the needs of a growing non-Ethno-European student population, more research is needed to explore factors that increase non-Ethno-European students' academic engagement. This research attempted to identify individual and systemic factors contributing to non-Ethno-European students' academic engagement during secondary education. This exploration began by outlining the role a cohesive identity continuum has on education engagement for non-Ethno-European students. Antecedent moderators of academic engagement for non-Ethno-European students were explored utilizing the seminal work of attachment theory by John Bowlby (1969) and Mary Ainsworth (1991), the Psychosocial Development of Identity Formation theory by Erik Erikson (1950), and Social Identity theory by Tajfel (1972). This exploratory research used a Convergent-Parallel Mixed Method design to evaluate potential antecedent moderators during the 2020-2021 academic year. The Convergent-Parallel Mixed Method used three research instruments to explore whether Ethnic Identity, Grit, and other school engagement factors (SEI) contribute to student attendance. The research also used a semi-structured interview to explore teacher and student perceptions and expectations about factors influencing student engagement. For this research, student engagement is defined as the number of days students attend school. As such, the terms student engagement and the number of days students attended school is used synonymously throughout the dissertation.The QUAN portion of the research utilized varies from three research instruments: Ethnic Identity Scale, Grit Scale, and Student Engagement Scale (SEI), as well as the number of days students attended school during the 2020-2021 school year. The QUAN portion of the research revealed statistically significant differences between grade-level groups, 10th graders and 12th graders, as well as among Gender, males, and females, for the Grit scale, though the variables were not statistically significant predictors of student attendance. In the QUAL portion of the research, a semi-structured interview was conducted to explore student and teacher perceptions of factors that increase or decrease school engagement. This research portion points to students' psychosocial moratorium as an antecedent factor influencing student and teacher classroom interactions. Lastly, a teacher's Psychological Grind appears to be an essential phenomenon with theoretical implications among teachers of non-Ethno-European students. A teacher's Psychological Grind may facilitate the intersectionality between a student's psychosocial moratorium and academic engagement. A teacher's Psychological Grind is defined as the ability of an educator to remain emotionally and psychologically engaged and consistent, despite a student's emotional and cognitive instability. The finding points to the need for further research on how students' attachment patterns contribute to their psychosocial moratorium influencing biases and perceptions about the education system and its teachers well before entering the classroom. Teachers have a brief window of opportunity to contribute to a healthy attachment with students. Teachers must attune, grasp, interpret, and respond to the student's internal and external needs to create a healthy attachment to students. Focusing on a teacher's and student's attachment patterns, the student's psychosocial moratorium, and a teacher's Psychological Grind has the potential to guide future research in exploring attachment patterns as antecedent moderating factors of school engagement among non-Ethno-European students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Tracking cognition with the T-MoCA in a racially/ethnically diverse older adult cohort.

Introduction: We investigated the utility of the Telephone-Montreal Cognitive Assessment (T-MoCA) to track cognition in a diverse sample from the Einstein Aging Study. Methods: Telephone and in-person MoCA data, collected annually, were used to evaluate longitudinal cognitive performance. Joint models of T-MoCA and in-person MoCA compared changes, variance, and test-retest reliability measured by intraclass correlation coefficient by racial/ethnic group. Results: There were no significant differences in baseline performance or longitudinal changes across three study waves for both MoCA formats. T-MoCA performance improved over waves 1-3 but declined afterward. Test-retest reliability was lower for the T-MoCA than for the in-person MoCA. In comparison with non-Hispanic Whites, non-Hispanic Blacks and Hispanics performed worse at baseline on both MoCA formats and showed lower correlations between T-MoCA and in-person versions. Conclusions: The T-MoCA provides valuable information on cognitive change, despite racial/ethnic disparities and practice effects. We discuss implications for health disparity populations. Highlights: We assessed the comparability of Telephone-Montreal Cognitive Assessment (T-MoCA) and in-person MoCA for tracking cognition.Changes within 3 years in T-MoCA were similar to that for the in-person MoCA.T-MoCA is subject to practice effects and shows difference in performance by race/ethnicity.Test-retest reliability of T-MoCA is lower than that for in-person MoCA.

Spaces and Prospects for Student Empowerment in the Debt-Ridden Greek Education System. Future Possibilities for Change According to Student's Views

This paper presents a research project that was conducted in Athens, Greece in 2018 and 2019. The main objective of this project was to address students' views on Greek society and education in the context of the socio-economic crisis, their prospects, and their aspirations for educational and social transformation. The paper concentrates on students' views on education and discusses the role of schools in creating democratic societies. It provides a closer insight into possible ways of thinking about education, and food for thought for any attempts to deconstruct or initiate radical change in the education system. It looks at the potentialities and possibilities of deploying critical pedagogy as a mode of resistance for transformative and empowering education within the Greek education system. It concludes that during times of multiple crises, critical pedagogy is clearly relevant and has a responsibility to rethink its views and practices, build active resistance and engage in fostering educational and social change that can lead to a more just, equal and fair society.

Changing the narrative of disengagement: Exploring academic identity formation for non-ethno-European students

The COVID-19 pandemic and the changing demographics of the American identity have drawn attention to the necessity of reforming the Ethno-European education system to meet the needs of a diverse student population. If the educational landscape is to be transformed to meet the needs of a growing non-Ethno-European student population, more research is needed to explore factors that increase non-Ethno-European students' academic engagement. This research attempted to identify individual and systemic factors contributing to non-Ethno-European students' academic engagement during secondary education. This exploration began by outlining the role a cohesive identity continuum has on education engagement for non-Ethno-European students. Antecedent moderators of academic engagement for non-Ethno-European students were explored utilizing the seminal work of attachment theory by John Bowlby (1969) and Mary Ainsworth (1991), the Psychosocial Development of Identity Formation theory by Erik Erikson (1950), and Social Identity theory by Tajfel (1972). This exploratory research used a Convergent-Parallel Mixed Method design to evaluate potential antecedent moderators during the 2020-2021 academic year. The Convergent-Parallel Mixed Method used three research instruments to explore whether Ethnic Identity, Grit, and other school engagement factors (SEI) contribute to student attendance. The research also used a semi-structured interview to explore teacher and student perceptions and expectations about factors influencing student engagement. For this research, student engagement is defined as the number of days students attend school. As such, the terms student engagement and the number of days students attended school is used synonymously throughout the dissertation.The QUAN portion of the research utilized varies from three research instruments: Ethnic Identity Scale, Grit Scale, and Student Engagement Scale (SEI), as well as the number of days students attended school during the 2020-2021 school year. The QUAN portion of the research revealed statistically significant differences between grade-level groups, 10th graders and 12th graders, as well as among Gender, males, and females, for the Grit scale, though the variables were not statistically significant predictors of student attendance. In the QUAL portion of the research, a semi-structured interview was conducted to explore student and teacher perceptions of factors that increase or decrease school engagement. This research portion points to students' psychosocial moratorium as an antecedent factor influencing student and teacher classroom interactions. Lastly, a teacher's Psychological Grind appears to be an essential phenomenon with theoretical implications among teachers of non-Ethno-European students. A teacher's Psychological Grind may facilitate the intersectionality between a student's psychosocial moratorium and academic engagement. A teacher's Psychological Grind is defined as the ability of an educator to remain emotionally and psychologically engaged and consistent, despite a student's emotional and cognitive instability. The finding points to the need for further research on how students' attachment patterns contribute to their psychosocial moratorium influencing biases and perceptions about the education system and its teachers well before entering the classroom. Teachers have a brief window of opportunity to contribute to a healthy attachment with students. Teachers must attune, grasp, interpret, and respond to the student's internal and external needs to create a healthy attachment to students. Focusing on a teacher's and student's attachment patterns, the student's psychosocial moratorium, and a teacher's Psychological Grind has the potential to guide future research in exploring attachment patterns as antecedent moderating factors of school engagement among non-Ethno-European students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

Adapting parent-focused interventions for diverse caregivers of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities: Lessons learned during global crises.

Parent-focused interventions have been designed to provide training and support to caregivers who are essential in achieving positive outcomes for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). In 2020, significant crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and continued racial tensions, profoundly impacted the livelihood of children with IDD and their families. Many ongoing efforts to address disparities among this population were halted temporarily and required further adaptations. Researchers adapted interventions and support to address the disparities impacting children with IDD and their families with limited guidance. We provide a descriptive case analysis of four parent-focused interventions that responded to the global crises to continue serving children with IDD and their families. The four distinct programs were based on applied behavior analysis and naturalistic, developmental-behavioral paradigms that were culturally adapted for families of young children with IDD from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. We present the qualitative reports on the challenges and benefits that arose with adapting the four parent-focused interventions for telehealth implementation. We focused specifically on adaptations made in recruitment and retention, instrumentation and measurement, research staff training, and intervention delivery. We synthesize our experience with challenges and solutions in adapting parent-focused interventions for racially/ethnically and socioeconomically diverse children with IDD and their families. We conclude with recommendations for researchers and practitioners on methods for adapting parent-focused interventions to address the significant health disparities that impact racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse children with IDD and their families.

Geographical Variation of COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage, Ethnic Diversity and Population Composition in Flanders.

The vaccination coverage in Flanders is high, but some regions show lower vaccination willingness as compared to the overall vaccination coverage. Beginning november of 2021, the vaccination rate in Flanders was above 93% in age groups above 45 years, and around 85% in the age groups 12 to 44 years. Apart from Flanders as a whole, focus here is on the health sector Maasland, which has a slightly lower vaccination rate, especially in the age groups 12 to 44 years. In the Maasland region, located on the eastern border of Flanders, there are between 1% and 10% less vaccinated individuals than expected according to the vaccination rate in the whole of Flanders, with lowest vaccination rates in the south of the Maasland region. We study the impact of ethnic diversity in the population, population composition with respect to the ethnicity of individuals (in the sense of how the local population composition differs from the Flemish average), and socio-economic status on the vaccination rate at the level of the statistical sector, apart from the effect of age. We explain the statistical methods to investigate geographical differences and illustrate how one can deal with incomplete information in vaccination registries. Ethnic diversity in a region is associated with lower vaccination rates, as is a lower regional socio-economic status. The composition of the population in Maasland is associated with a 35% reduction in the odds to get vaccinated as compared to the overall Flemish population.

Adapting parent-focused interventions for diverse caregivers of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities: Lessons learned during global crises

Parent-focused interventions have been designed to provide training and support to caregivers who are essential in achieving positive outcomes for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). In 2020, significant crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic and continued racial tensions, profoundly impacted the livelihood of children with IDD and their families. Many ongoing efforts to address disparities among this population were halted temporarily and required further adaptations. Researchers adapted interventions and support to address the disparities impacting children with IDD and their families with limited guidance. We provide a descriptive case analysis of four parent-focused interventions that responded to the global crises to continue serving children with IDD and their families. The four distinct programs were based on applied behavior analysis and naturalistic, developmental-behavioral paradigms that were culturally adapted for families of young children with IDD from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. We present the qualitative reports on the challenges and benefits that arose with adapting the four parent-focused interventions for telehealth implementation. We focused specifically on adaptations made in recruitment and retention, instrumentation and measurement, research staff training, and intervention delivery. We synthesize our experience with challenges and solutions in adapting parent-focused interventions for racially/ethnically and socioeconomically diverse children with IDD and their families. We conclude with recommendations for researchers and practitioners on methods for adapting parent-focused interventions to address the significant health disparities that impact racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse children with IDD and their families. © 2022 The Authors. Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities published by International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and Wiley Periodicals LLC.

Coping with COVID-19 stress: Associations with depression and anxiety in a diverse sample of U.S. adults.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented levels of stress to individuals in the U.S. and throughout the world. These high stress levels place individuals at risk for symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other psychiatric disorders. The current study applies a control-based model of coping to contribute to the development of evidence-based interventions to promote resilience. Data were collected online from April 22 through July 12, 2020. Data from two samples of U. S. community adults who completed an online battery of standardized questionnaires were combined (N = 709). More than a quarter reported moderate to severe levels of depression symptoms, and more than one-fifth reported moderate to severe levels of anxiety symptoms; symptom levels were higher among adults who reported more COVID-19-related stress. As hypothesized, multiple regression analyses indicated that greater use of primary and secondary control coping was associated with lower symptom levels, whereas greater use of disengagement coping was associated with higher symptom levels, above and beyond the association of stress with symptoms. Race and ethnicity emerged as important moderators of these associations, indicating that what constitutes adaptive coping varies according to characteristics of the individual. Implications for public health policy and clinical practice are discussed. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-021-02444-6.

A Peptide Vaccine Candidate Tailored to Individuals' Genetics Mimics the Multi-Targeted T Cell Immunity of COVID-19 Convalescent Subjects.

Long-term immunity to coronaviruses likely stems from T cell activity. We present here a novel approach for the selection of immunoprevalent SARS-CoV-2-derived T cell epitopes using an in silico cohort of HLA-genotyped individuals with different ethnicities. Nine 30-mer peptides derived from the four major structural proteins of SARS-CoV-2 were selected and included in a peptide vaccine candidate to recapitulate the broad virus-specific T cell responses observed in natural infection. PolyPEPI-SCoV-2-specific, polyfunctional CD8+ and CD4+ T cells were detected in each of the 17 asymptomatic/mild COVID-19 convalescents' blood against on average seven different vaccine peptides. Furthermore, convalescents' complete HLA-genotype predicted their T cell responses to SARS-CoV-2-derived peptides with 84% accuracy. Computational extrapolation of this relationship to a cohort of 16,000 HLA-genotyped individuals with 16 different ethnicities suggest that PolyPEPI-SCoV-2 vaccination will likely elicit multi-antigenic T cell responses in 98% of individuals, independent of ethnicity. PolyPEPI-SCoV-2 administered with Montanide ISA 51 VG generated robust, Th1-biased CD8+, and CD4+ T cell responses against all represented proteins, as well as binding antibodies upon subcutaneous injection into BALB/c and hCD34+ transgenic mice modeling human immune system. These results have implications for the development of global, highly immunogenic, T cell-focused vaccines against various pathogens and diseases.