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Empowering The Self, The Researcher, And The Leader: A Testimonio Of A Latina In Higher Education, Daria Lisa Cardoza

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation, my testimonio, is a critical self-reflection about my experiences as a Latina in higher education. I write my story with an awareness, a critical consciousness, of who I am as an individual in the shared spaces of my life—as a daughter, a sister, a mother, a student, a researcher, a teacher, a learner, a partner, a lover, a leader, and a work in progress—and an acute desire to be an agent of change. Through my educational journey, I have been able to honor my epistemological, mestiza consciousness, challenge how I view the world, my ontological framework, and understand …

Lived History Of A Transformative Leader With A Disability: An Evocative Autoethnography For Social Justice, Sofia Vergara

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

Despite legal advancements recognizing the rights of individuals with disabilities, societal barriers are still arising from the medical model of disability. These obstacles have resulted in marginalizing and isolating practices, in turn leading to the underrepresentation of individuals with disabilities in the workforce and, by extension, in leadership positions.

Grounded in the frameworks of critical pedagogy and critical disability studies, this autoethnographic study examines, using my personal experiences as contextual evidence, the determining factors underlying the struggle for equity and leadership, within the hegemonic society that people with disabilities must navigate. The study further explores the issue of empowerment and …

Navigating Conflict In Inclusive Education: Autoethnography From An Elementary School Principal, Kimberly Christine Adams

Doctoral Dissertations

Practitioners and researchers have interpreted and debated the concept of the least restrictive environment creating the operational practices of mainstreaming and inclusion to adhere to the laws of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Despite the laws to ensure equal access to general education classrooms, and the vast body of literature on the technical implementation of inclusive practices, students with disabilities continue to be segregated and educated in a separate and unequal system of special education.

The purpose of this study was to better understand the competing tensions and conflict in inclusive education that elementary school principals navigate on a …