UC Riverside

To address the achievement or opportunity gap of underrepresented populations in community colleges, this qualitative field methods study investigated five California community college programs that have demonstrated progress in improving (or show significant potential to improve) student achievement. This research found that promising practices have several conceptual conditions in common-cohesion, connection, cooperation, and consistency-referred to as the Four Cs. Although many of the key components that contribute to the development of promising practices in community college programs are unique to their specific contexts, the presence of these more general Four Cs may be transferable to other community college sites because they can be cultivated in different contexts while respecting the idiosyncrasies of particular community colleges. © 2014 Copyright Taylor and Francis Group, LLC.