Educational Sociology Commons^™

“The Debt Is Suffocating To Be Honest”: Student Loan Debt, Prospective Sensemaking, And The Social Psychology Of Precarity In An Allopathic Medical School, William Burr, Judson G. Everitt, James Johnson

Sociology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Confronted with soaring medical school costs and intensifying disparities in physician compensation by specialty, medical students are forced to make sense of medical education debt during the nascent stages of their careers in medicine. Few studies, however, have examined exactly how medical students make sense of these constraints or how this process might influence decisions about which specialty to pursue or affect doctors’ wellbeing. Leveraging qualitative data collected from current students across all four years of medical education at a Midwestern allopathic medical school, we document how medical students collectively engage in prospective sensemaking about their debt and how it …

Schooled To The Streets? Exploring The Relationship Between K-12 Educational Experiences And Early Careers In Activism, David Abraham Castro

Dissertations

Since the late eighteenth century, organizing and activism have been part of the urban landscape, from the labor organizing of Eugene Debs in the early twentieth century to the community organizing work of Saul Alinsky during the 1950s and 1960s. The development of community organizers is strongly tied to local institutions such as factories, houses of worship, and schools. For many youths in Chicago, schools often become the sites of political and social awakening and lead to activism beyond the schoolhouse. Within the current context of urban education scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and community organizers alike agree that the perspectives of …

Educational Debt: Educational Loans And The Family, Keyla Navarrete

Master's Theses

Student debt is a well-documented topic in sociological literature. It is well known that there is a student loan crisis in the United States. However, kinship or familial ties in educational debt is not as studied as individual student loans. The student debt crisis seems to reach a new catastrophic level as years pass. Yet, not much research exists that looks at external sources of financing for students such as parents, grandparents, or other familial ties. This study contributes to the literature of student debt by analyzing debt patterns across those that take out loans for themselves, their spouse, or …

An Education In Sexuality & Sociality: Heteronormativity On Campus, Jason K. Wallace

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

In An Education in Sexuality & Sociality: Heteronormativity on Campus, Dr. Frank Karioris discusses the role of universities in creating sexed and gendered relationships and hierarchies within society. Through his ethnographic study, Dr. Karioris explores homosociality and challenges heteronormativity on college campuses. This book review provides an overview of this work along with critique and implication for higher education.

A Crt Analysis Of Teach Like A Champion 2.0, Kayla Stewart Valenti

Master's Theses

African American and Latinx students in the United States continue to academically perform at lower levels than their White peers as indicated by standardized testing results. While many educational efforts have attempted to close the achievement gap that exists between White students and students of Color, disparities in academic outcomes persist. The prominent discourse regarding the achievement gap emphasizes cultural deficiencies within the individual student rather than acknowledge structural and institutional factors that uphold systemic racism and White supremacy. As a result, many new instructional approaches and teaching techniques used in schools and teacher preparation programs focus on correcting the …

The Relationship Between Neighborhood Characteristics And College Academic Outcomes Among An Ncaa Division I Student-Athlete Population: A Multilevel Approach, Ann Kearns Davoren

Dissertations

Over 170,000 students participate annually in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I sports. Approximately one-third of these student-athletes fail to graduate from their initial school of enrollment within six years. While some will go on to graduate from a transfer institution, roughly 15% will fail to earn a degree while competing for an NCAA Division I school. Using U.S. census block group data, this study adds the neighborhood characteristics of education, employment, income, and racial composition to prediction models of first-year GPA and six-year baccalaureate degree attainment among an NCAA Division I student-athlete sample. The use of multilevel modeling …

“Undocumented” Ways Of Navigating Complex Sociopolitical Realities In Higher Education: A Critical Race Counterstory, Alonso R. Reyna Rivarola

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

In the United States, undocumented students must navigate complex sociopolitical realities to access and succeed in higher education. These complex sociopolitical realities are shaped by federal policies on education and immigration, state-specific legislation on education and public policy, as well as general attitudes regarding race, immigration, and nationalism in the U.S. In this manuscript, I weave in counter-storytelling to document some of the ways one undocumented student accessed and navigated U.S. higher education. I begin by reviewing the national and state policy contexts that affect undocumented students in the U.S. I focus a state policy analysis in Utah, as one …

The Pain Of Our Bodies And Souls, Wendolens A. Ruano

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

Students' Critical Reflections on Racial (in)justice

Research In Brief - Can They Teach Each Other? : The Restructuring Of Higher Education And The Rise Of Undergraduate Student “Teachers” In Ontario, Jennifer Massey, Sean Field

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

Changes to public funding regimes, coupled with transformations in how universities are managed and measured have altered the methods for educating undergraduate students. The growing reliance on teaching fellows, teaching assistants, and increasingly undergraduate peer educators (administering Supplemental Instruction [SI] programs) is promoted as a means toachieve a greater “return on investment” in the delivery of postsecondary education. Neoliberal discourses legitimating this downloading of teaching labour suggest it offers a “win-win” solution to the “problem” of educating growing numbers of undergraduate students. It proposes universities can deliver the same curricula, and achieve the same “outcomes” (primarily measured through grades and …

Down And Out: College Students Experiencing Depressive Symptoms, Jenna Eileen Ofenloch

Master's Theses

Survey research that asks respondents to report on depression often ask

respondents whether they have been diagnosed with depression by a medical

professional. But such questions underestimate depression by leaving out respondents

who are unable or unwilling to seek professional help. Thus, other studies seek to ask

respondents to report symptoms of various dimensions of depression. This is especially

important because, according to the CDC, “persons with mild depressive symptoms, as

well as those with moderate or severe depressive symptoms, reported difficulties with

work, home, and social activities related to their symptoms”. But some groups are more

prone to depression. …

In Plain Sight: How Social Images In Education Shape The Social Identity Of Black Students, Kandyce Cabacar

Master's Theses

This thesis will postulate social identity development in Black students is shaped by their school experience. Reviewing how racial grouping is a critical factor in how we engage with others socially, this study will curate the variables of society that assembles the Black image. Social construction influenced by media messages and the neighborhoods that determine our respective schools will also be analyzed. By borrowing from the research of social psychology and contributions of sociologists on race relations, this thesis will demonstrate how expectations influenced by racial stereotypes of Black students create a correlation to social identity. These findings are discussed …

Can They Teach Each Other? : The Restructuring Of Higher Education And The Rise Of Undergraduate Student “Teachers” In Ontario, Jennifer Massey, Sean Field

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

Changes to public funding regimes, coupled with transformations in how universities are managed and measured have altered the methods for educating undergraduate students. The growing reliance on teaching fellows, teaching assistants, and increasingly undergraduate peer educators (administering Supplemental Instruction [SI] programs) is promoted as a means toachieve a greater “return on investment” in the delivery of postsecondary education. Neoliberal discourses legitimating this downloading of teaching labour suggest it offers a “win-win” solution to the “problem” of educating growing numbers of undergraduate students. It proposes universities can deliver the same curricula, and achieve the same “outcomes” (primarily measured through grades and …

Teacher Retention And Student Achievement: Environmental Factors, Social Capital And Interventions In Urban, Pre-Dominantly Latino Schools, Luis Xavier Benavides

Master's Theses

The quality of education in high poverty areas is often blamed on a number of factors - poor teaching, inadequate resources, an environment of hopelessness and mediocrity, lack of perseverance in the learner, lack of social programs and social capital. These factors are often compounded by effects of systemic racism in the student’s surrounding environment and in education system. This study focuses on one aspect of investigation: the impact of increased social capital for teachers on students’ school performance and interventions focused on building social capital between students, parents and teachers in urban, pre-dominantly Latino schools. Improving links between students, …

The Influences Of Parental Expectations On Children's Academic Achievements: A Comparative Analysis Of The United States And China, Xiaoyu Wang

Master's Theses

Parenting is very important to children, and it directly or indirectly influences children's outcomes in schools. Parents express passions and strong desires to help their children to succeed regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status, and they are highly interested in their children's education in school.

This paper is concerned with parental expectations for school-aged children in the United States and China under the influences of historical, cultural and social context. I will comprehensively compare relevant literature parts in both America and China, determining the distinctions in terms of various parenting patterns. Research about parental expectations in the two countries …

Teachers' Perspectives On Race And Gender: Strategic Intersectionality And The Countervailing Effects Of Privilege, Laurie Cooper Stoll

Dissertations

As a policy prescription, education is often considered a panacea for racism and sexism, and teachers therefore the conduits for social equality. Strategic intersectionality suggests that teachers who have marked identities, especially those who inhabit more

than one, may under certain circumstances experience a "multiple identity advantage" that can situate them as particularly effective advocates for others who are disadvantaged. This institutional ethnography explores the underlying premises of strategic

intersectionality and the countervailing effects of privilege through observations and indepth interviews of teachers in a primarily white elementary school, a primarily Hispanic elementary school, and a primarily African American elementary …

Colorblind, Deaf And Dumb: Examining Race In A Contemporary American High School, Brendan Bedell

Dissertations

Despite rhetoric of a meritocratic education system, there is little doubt that race still plays a significant role in advantaging white students while disadvantaging black students in school. These advantages and disadvantages are subtly carried out. The root causes of racial disparities in schools are not easily identified and often considered taboo outside of the academy. There is little research that assesses the ways in which students understand the relationship between race and schooling when compared to professional educators. Therefore, the research question for this project was: What language and perspectives do school personnel use in discussing race and what …

Toward A Cleaner Whiteness: New Racial Identities, David Ingram

Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The article re-examines racial and ethnic identity within the context of pedagogical attempts to instill a positive white identity in white students who are conscious of the history of white racism and white privilege. The paper draws heavily from whiteness studies and developmental cognitive science in arguing (against Henry Giroux and Stuart Hall) that a positive notion of white identity, however postmodern its construction, is an oxymoron, since whiteness designates less a cultural/ethnic ethos and meaningful way of life than a pathological structure of privilege and narrowminded cognitive habitus.