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Floods cause extensive damage in high-income countries, including the United States, but problems are more severe in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) that lack preventative and mitigating infrastructure. Marginalized children’s education in LMICs might be particularly vulnerable. Using the Indian Human Development Survey, we investigate flood exposure implications for the education of school-age rural children, paying particular attention to children from marginalized groups. Results show that lower-caste Hindu, Muslim, and poorer children with less-educated parents in agricultural households are more likely to experience flooding. Interactions between flooding and marginalization characteristics indicate that flood exposure is associated with disproportionately negative learning outcomes for girls and that economic resources may mitigate flood exposure effects on delayed school progress. While greater exposures for marginalized groups are concerning, the limited number and modest magnitudes of documented negative effect heterogeneities for marginalized children are somewhat better news. 

Abstract A tertiary course in Quantitative Reasoning (QR) has the potential to develop key practical and intellectual skills for citizenship, such as critical thinking, problem solving, quantitative literacy, and oral and written communication. In this article, we present research conducted on four instructors of such a QR course for students enrolled in a wide variety of nonscience degree programs at a university in the United States. The course used a student-inquiry approach to proportional reasoning, probability, statistical reasoning, and mathematical modeling. The findings are framed by a 5 C model of QR, which entailsCritical thinking to link real-worldContexts to mathematicalConcepts supported by studentCollaboration and QRCompetencies. The research addressed the questions of how university instructors support student development of the skills needed for critical citizenship and how this support relates to the 5 C model. We found that three of the four instructors viewed critical thinking as a central goal of the QR course and as supporting citizenship education. All four engaged students in tasks designed to develop a combination of skills associated citizenship, including critical thinking, self-questioning, collaboration, and communication. The discussion addresses such issues as the course’s merits and challenges, student engagement, the relative importance of the five Cs, the importance of instructional autonomy, and recommendations for related professional development and future research.