Education Commons^™

Dismantling The Education-Survival Complex: A Qualitative Case Study Of How High School Youth Resist Whitestream School Policies And Foster School Change Through A Youth-Development Organization, Tracie Trinidad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this study is to critically examine how youth resist whitestream school policies and foster educational change through community sociopolitical youth-development organizations. The methodology for this study is a qualitative case study (Fraenkel & Wallen, 1990; Merriam, 1988), as I am focused on participant perceptions and experiences, and how they make sense of their resistance experience through participation in sociopolitical youth development organizations like Youth for Social and Political Activism (YSPA). In total, eight participants spoke about their racial identity through their lived experiences in public school and YSPA programming.

The data and analysis are presented in the …

Exploring Opportunities For Supporting Juvenile Justice-Involved Youth: A Path Forward Through Expanding Graduate Training In School Psychology, Erica L. Gleason

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

School psychologists are equipped with a dynamic skill set and an ethical and moral responsibility to support the diverse needs of all youth. While juvenile justice-involved youth may not be a primary subpopulation served by all school psychologists, they are a high-needs group that requires special consideration and attention. As a professional entity, school psychologists’ knowledge and expertise are not optimally applied to serving these youth. Consequently, school psychologists may be forgoing an opportunity to improve rates of successful school and community reintegration and overall positive life outcomes for justice-involved youth. The first manuscript of this dissertation presents precipitating and …

Culturally Responsive School Leadership Agility: A Journey Through Critical Self-Reflection, Deborah Mckelvey Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined how school leaders can differentiate their approach using a self-reporting psychometric instrument called the Emergenetics® Profile when engaged in critical self-reflection. Using a multiple case study approach, three urban school leaders engaged in the deconstructing and reconstructing of knowledge frameworks specific to deficit thinking. The Emergenetics Profile served as a lens to critically self-reflect in order to differentiate their approach to the disrupt deficit thinking practices in their schools (Browning 2007; Khalifa, 2018; Shields, 2018). This study integrated these insights from critical self-reflection and the awareness gained by school leaders through their Emergenetics preferences to change their …

Exploring The Impact Of Leadership Values And Practices To Support Equity And Social Justice In An Urban School, Susan-Marie Farmen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative case study explores the leadership values and practices of a principal in a sixth through twelfth-grade school in the Rocky Mountain West to determine how leadership values and practices support the implementation of equitable and socially just practices in the school. Five key themes emerged: (a) equity as a Black/non-Black construct; (b) a lack of knowledge and awareness of the historical contexts of marginalized populations; (c) moral courage for all members of the school; (d) equity as an initiative or program; (e) resistance to deep equity work. From these themes, I devise three recommendations to support substantial and …

Do You Hear Us? Amplifying Alternative Pathways For High School Pushouts Through Youth Participatory Action Research, Rob A. Duren

Educational Leadership and Policy Studies: Doctoral Research Projects

The school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) metaphor encapsulates and describes a set of legislative policies and educational practices that systematically funnel African American, Indigenous, and Latinx students from the classroom into the juvenile and criminal justice system at disparate rates. An emerging solution to address high school pushout and the STPP has been to develop Alternative Education Campuses (AECs). However, there is a current gap in the research that amplifies the counter narratives of students currently enrolled at an AEC, through their own words, using Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR). Studies conducted with students who have been labeled “high-risk” are especially lacking. …

In Search Of Social Justice Praxis: A Critical Examination Of Senior Student Affairs Officers' Leadership Practices, Ryan P. Barone

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the highest ranking administrators in divisions of student affairs, Senior Student Affairs Officers (SSAOs) have the substantial opportunity to perform leadership in a manner which realizes social justice processes and goals. Framed by critical postmodernism (Tierney & Rhoads, 1993), this study uses educational criticism and connoisseurship (Eisner, 1976, 1998, 2002) to document the social justice leadership practices of two SSAOs. In depth narratives give rich descriptions of the nuances of social justice leadership as enacted by the SSAOs. Critical interpretation and evaluation of these practices is woven throughout the study. Themes relevant for the field of higher education in …

Disrupting The Deficit Discourse On Historically Black Colleges And Universities: An Organizational Identity Case Study Of Philander Smith College, Shametrice Ledora Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The federal Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, defines a historically Black institution of higher education as "any historically Black college or university that was established prior to 1964, whose principle mission was, and is, the education of Black Americans." Today, there are approximately 105 HBCUs, more than half private, the rest public, and a few two-year institutions (Allen, Jewell, Griffin, & Wolf, 2007). While currently only 14 percent of Black college students attend HBCUs, 70 percent of all Black doctors and dentists, 50 percent of all Black engineers and public school teachers, and 35 percent of all Black …

Secrets In Plain Sight: Institutional Covert Discrimination, Jacquelynn Suzette Mcdaniel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While dominant national P-20 narratives circulate a discourse of the near achievement of racial equity post Brown v. Board of Education, there remains a large gap between the experiences of people of color and the official record of their inclusion and access. Organizational self-analysis of racial disparities in education often attribute undeniable discrimination to the micro-level performances of individuals; claiming micro-aggressions, lack of training, political/personal conflict, or ignorance. When these reasons cannot fully explain gross inequity; organizations turn to society's socio-economic disparities and mirrored racial realities within the country as instructive on the inevitable realities of racism within schools.

A …

Narrowing Of Curriculum: Teaching In An Age Of Accountability, Donna Kay Newberg-Long

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation made clear the need for increased accountability of U.S. public schools in 2002, there has been a trend toward narrowing curriculum in social studies and other core subjects to focus predominantly on what is tested through state exams. Concerns exist regarding the unintended consequences of curriculum narrowing on low, middle and high socioeconomic status (SES) students in public schools.

The Center on Education Policy (CEP) and National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) have been tracking the effects of NCLB since it took effect in 2002 and found that 71 percent of districts nationwide …

Toward A New Social Contract: A Tripartite Mixed-Methods Analysis Of Social Sustainability At Three Land-Grant Universities, Lyndsay Josephine Agans

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Increasingly, colleges and universities in the United States are adapting toward a model of behavior that incorporates issues of sustainability. This adaptation in universities and in society has implications on the organizational and nation-state level, the very core of which may serve to reshape the social contract between the two. In addition to supplying a strong counter-hegemonic argument that alters the competitive economic agenda-setting paradigm, this study serves as a tripartite comparative case study analysis of university adaptation toward social sustainability. By employing a social capital lens to understanding social sustainability in higher education, this study seeks to examine the …