There is a shortage of Black male teachers in the United States and an even smaller proportion of Black male mathematics teachers. With the population of students in the United States becoming increasingly more diverse, we would greatly benefit from a teaching workforce that aligns with the rich diversity of the student population they serve. This narrative inquiry explored the lived experiences that attracted Black men to the mathematics teaching career and what may have inspired them to continue teaching. The goal was for the data collected through the narratives of four Black male teachers, two former teachers, and two who remained in the classroom to reveal strategies to inform and bolster recruitment and retention efforts to increase the number of mathematics teachers of color. Data were gathered through interviews, and an artifact was collected from each participant to support their narratives. A thematic analysis was used to identify three common themes among all four participants: relationships, motivations, and defining moments. The data supports altruistic and intrinsic motivational factors for Black males choosing to become mathematics teachers. Each participant mentioned impacting students as a motivational factor that led them to teaching. Three of the four participants had an informal education experience, which they enjoyed and credited as a reason they became mathematics teachers. The two former teachers left the classroom in part due to a lack of curriculum autonomy. This study recommends supporting teacher preparation programs and school districts on strategies to improve the recruitment and retention of Black male mathematics teachers.

Recruiting and retaining an adequate share of the UK workforce is vital to meeting the construction industry's demands and sustaining its current growth. This requires the industry to attract new employees, adopt a proactive approach to Human Resource Development (HRD) and the formulation of effective retention strategies. Career development programmes are required which can align the industry's needs with the career expectations of the individual employee. However, despite the importance of such schemes to the trade and craft occupations, most research devoted to career development has a professional and managerial focus. A need to redress this imbalance has been compounded by a variety of factors such as the scarcity of skilled people, falling recruitment levels and high employee turnover rates. The overall aim of the work reported in this thesis is to develop an understanding of trade and craft career dynamics. The information can be used as a framework for supporting specific career management and career development initiatives, which in turn will serve to actively encourage skill development, attract new employees and retain the services of the current workforce. Drawing on the conceptual languages of extant "Careers" and "Human Resource Management" theory, the research adopted an ethnographic research approach. An iterative multiphase research design framework was utilised, involving a combination of research paradigms. These quantitative and qualitative methods included: a questionnaire of 563 informants; discussions with 54 groups of trainees; and 88 indepth interviews with both New Entrant Trainees (NETs) and Qualified and Experienced (QE) construction workers. By encouraging systematic narrative accounts of the attitudes, behaviours and idea systems of the actors involved a better understanding of the nature of trade and craft employment was developed. Combining and comparing the fmdings of both datasets (NETs and QEs) and relating this to the outlined theoretical perspectives sheds new light on the career dynamics within the industry. The resear_c~-. found that although employees are not comprehensive in their information and search of career options; they do place a high priority on career development. However, career development is limited due to the realities (opportunities and operational conditions) of the industry; which influence attitudes of individuals and their peers. Employees often further encounter a series of career decision errors which affect the employment relationship. The fmdings suggest that good career development practice is capable of helping to attract, recruit and retain a sustainable share of the UK workforce. As such, the fmdings provide a platform from which effective employment strategies can be developed in the future.

Considering current levels of overweight and obesity in the population and the associated adverse health consequences, engaging people with chronic exercise programmes is of heightened importance. During chronic structured exercise programmes, some adults experience adaptive compensatory behavioural responses through increased dietary intake and/or decreased free-living physical activity. These responses can negate the benefits of an exercise-induced energy deficit. However, it is unclear whether young people experience similar responses during chronic structured exercise. Therefore, the experimental research presented in this thesis examined the existence and extent of exercise-induced energy compensation in adolescent girls. To achieve this, a total of 92, 12 to 15 year old girls and 26 adults were recruited into six experimental studies. The Medical Research Council guidance for designing complex interventions was used to structure the experimental chapters into development (Chapters 4 to 7), piloting (Chapter 8) and evaluation (Chapter 9). The first experimental study (Chapter 4) demonstrated that typical daily variation of total energy expenditure (TEE) in adolescent girls is ~3% when estimated by the Actiheart. Physical activity energy expenditure (AEE) variation was found to be ~10%. In the second experimental study (Chapter 5) the agreement and variability of laboratory buffet meals test days was investigated. The results demonstrated typical daily variation of 8.7% in laboratory-based energy intake (EI) in adolescent girls aged 12 to 15 years. Furthermore, a buffet meals familiarisation day is recommended to reduce the variability in EI. Estimation of EI was further explored in Chapter 6 using a digital photography method. This study demonstrated potential for EI assessment using digital photography, but highlighted that, at present, a supplementary written record of EI is required to overcome the limitations associated with missing photographs. Chapter 7 explored themes related to recruitment and retention of adolescent girls to chronic exercise intervention studies. The seven recommendations identified were used to recruit and retain participants in a twelve week pilot exercise intervention study with adolescent girls (Chapter 8). There was no evidence of energy compensation behaviours on a group level; however, high individual variability in both EI and EE behaviours was apparent. The final experimental chapter (Chapter 9) evaluated the fidelity of the exercise intervention and compliance with the measurement of primary outcome variables. Intervention fidelity was largely upheld. On average, participants attended 94% of exercise sessions and 73% of the participants met their individual target heart rate zone. Focus groups with the participants and parents highlighted preference for school-based exercise sessions due to increased variety and convenience, and recommendations for future estimation of free-living EI and EE. Collectively, these studies suggest there is value in pursuing the investigation of energy compensation behaviours in adolescent girls using a mixed methods approach. These studies demonstrate the factors requiring attention when designing and delivering complex interventions to investigate exercise-induced energy compensation in adolescent girls. In particular, methods for estimating free-living EI and EE require further attention before attempting to conduct such research in a larger sample.

Although Malaysia primarily relies on expatriates to develop its economy, a private Malaysian institution had not examined the retention of expatriate students who might contribute toward the country's future economy. The problem that prompted this study was the institution showed low graduation rates for expatriate students and had not assessed the perceptions of key factors that impacted their attendance and persistence. The purpose of this study was to provide insights about expatriate students' perceptions of key factors about attendance and persistence at the institution. Tinto's longitudinal model of dropping out and the conceptual model guided this study. With a guiding question about students' perceptions, specific research questions explored expatriate students' perceptions of individual characteristics, the interactions within the institutional environment, and institutional characteristics that influenced their decisions to attend and persist at the institution. Qualitative data were collected using interviews from a purposeful sample of 5 expatriate students. Data were transcribed and coded inductively, resulting in 10 themes: Malaysia as a destination for higher education, the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) institution as an institution, supporting group, English language, past educational experiences, academic integration, commitment, social integration and institutional commitment, college quality, and institutional type. A white paper was proposed as a project that included recommendations to stakeholders. The positive social changes were to promote future expatriate students' persistence and graduation rates, enhance their learning, and prepare them to be the future leaders in Malaysia, their country of origin, or elsewhere internationally.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has received increasing attention among organizations and in research as the world becomes increasingly globalized and internationalized. However, there is still limited research on how diversity management is performed in organizations and a neglected focus on social sustainability linked to DEI, which underlines the need to further study implemented practices to promote DEI in organizations. Thus, the aim of this study is to broaden the knowledge of how diversity management is performed in organizations. The research questions are (1) What strategies and practices are implemented by diversity and HR managers to integrate DEI in organizations? and (2) How are the results of DEI strategies and practices measured in organizations?  A case study of DEI as a phenomenon was conducted to explore the strategies, practices, and measurements used in organizations to increase DEI in the recruitment, retention, and promotion of employees. A qualitative research method based on semi-structured interviews was used to examine DEI from the perspective of diversity and HR managers in nine organizations. The theoretical framework was based on practice theory.  The empirical findings show that organizations use various strategies and practices to integrate DEI in the recruitment, retention, and promotion of employees. Organizations focus mainly on gender and ethnicity in the context of DEI and the most common practices are awareness training on DEI, bias, harassment, and discrimination. Furthermore, the findings show that most organizations do not use DEI measurements or targets systematically, making it difficult to measure the progress and outcomes of DEI practices. Moreover, there is a need for specific targets covering DEI parameters besides gender and ethnicity, to include other minorities and discriminated groups. This thus requires structured efforts to create measurement tools for DEI practices to facilitate the monitoring and evaluation of progress and outcomes of DEI practices.

Millennials are growing within the workforce, but they are becoming difficult to attract and retain for longer than two years at a time. In addition, Millennials have generational-specific values that are different than their predecessors. Identifying and applying these workplace expectations to organizational policies have made it challenging for leaders to appeal to this generation. Millennials desire five aspects from their workplace: work with a purpose, to be their own boss or work for a boss that is a mentor, a collaborative work environment, flexible work schedules, and work-life integration and/or work-life balance. Using a survey research method, this thesis outlines how Millennials appreciate these values in a workplace and, because of this appreciation, employers and recruiters should consider them for attrition and recruitment purposes. This thesis also examines why the assumption that Millennials are job hoppers who would rather work for themselves than an established corporation is unfounded. Finally, this thesis finds that the risk aversion trait Millennials possess affects their potential for decision making regarding their career that this trait can be used by organizations to market communication positions to this generation.