Digital Commons Network^™

The Significance Of Jesuit Educational Institution In The Reconstruction Of Postcolonial And Post-Conflict East Timor, Plinio Do Rosario Gusmao Dosreis Martins

Doctoral Dissertations

East Timor, as a postcolonial and post-conflict country, has striven to develop its educational system for almost two decades after its independence in 2002. The current educational system with the Portuguese language as the medium of instruction has been a challenge for teachers and students in the teaching and learning process. The fact that teachers and students are still using Tétum as a supplementary language to explain and express ideas shows that the educators and learners are still struggling with Portuguese despite the efforts of East Timor government to bridge the language gap.

Teachers and students, conversely, acknowledge that the …

Effect Of Transcendental Meditation On The Social Emotional Well-Being Of Bilingual Teacher Leaders, Margaret Peterson

Doctoral Dissertations

Teaching is one of the most stressful professions in the human service industry (Curry & O’Brien, 2012; Fisher, 2011; Herman et al., 2018; Martin, et al., 2012; Montgomery & Rupp, 2005; Schonert-Reichl, 2017). Stress and burnout have been shown to contribute to the attrition of teachers (Darling-Hammond, 2001; Fisher, 2011; Johnson et al., 2005; Klingbeil & Renshaw, 2018; Winchester, 2020). While there are shortages across many disciplines, the bilingual teacher shortage has been documented as the most severe (Swanson & Mason, 2017). This study utilized Community Cultural Wealth as a theoretical framework to investigate how bilingual teacher leaders experience stress …

Parental Involvement In Support Of African American Families, September Rose

Doctoral Dissertations

Meaningful parental engagement has historically been identified as the root cause of the United States’ academic achievement gap in African American education. However, the systematic structures that impose difficulties for African American’s access to education in school and other aspects of their social development must be addressed to gain a deeper understanding of the challenges these African American families face. Society must consider the perpetual marginalization of not only African American students’ academic experiences, but also their professional and personal development as well. The parental engagement with educators in the San Francisco K-8 schools, has not been studied. The purpose …

Narratives Of Disability And Displacement: Oral Histories Of The Lived Experiences Of Disabled Refugees, Jennifer Lynn Ward

Doctoral Dissertations

Disabled refugees are considered as the most marginalized group of all displaced populations. Disabled displaced people are at particular risk of violence, exploitation, and abuse. Additional barriers to accessing humanitarian assistance, education, health care, and other services exist for disabled displaced people. The purpose of this study was to collaborate with disabled refugees who have resettled in the United States and to create a space for their stories to be told. This research project explores the narratives of the lived experiences of disabled displaced people through the lenses of three theoretical frameworks: human rights, disability justice, and Critical Refugee Studies. …

Replanting A Wild Seed: Black Women School Leaders Subverting Ideological Lynching, Whitneé Louise Garrett-Walker

Doctoral Dissertations

Much race-based educational research is focused on teachers interrupting systems ofoppression in their classrooms, through methods such as curriculum and instruction, and preparing students to engage in the world (Alston, 2012; Bertrand & Rodela, 2017; Carpenter & Diem, 2013; Gooden & Dantley, 2012; Furman, 2012). I intentionally focus my attention on school leadership because while all stakeholders are responsible for maintaining school culture, as school leaders it is our responsibility to create conditions where the work of enacting social justice is expected in our schools. There continues to be a gap in educational research that deeply examines this level of …

Indigenous Assessment Developers On Elements Of The Disjuncture-Response Dialectic: A Critical Comparative Case Study, David A. Sul

Doctoral Dissertations

The disjuncture-response dialectic proposes that the assessment development practices of Indigenous assessment developers exist within a broader environment where attention to broader themes such as settler colonialism (Wolfe, 2006) and Indigenous sovereignty is incorporated. To understand this dialectic, this study sought insight from Indigenous assessment developers about the issues they face when developing culturally specific assessments for use within their environments and settings.This study used a critical (Giroux, 1979; Horkheimer, 2018; McKenzie, 2012) comparative case study approach (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2017) with a convenience sample of three Indigenous assessment developers representing a cross-section of culturally specific assessment development projects across …

Exploring Student Engagement For Diverse Student Populations: A Case Study Examining Institutional Logics Of Student Affairs Middle Management Leaders, Frangelo Rominque Ayran

Doctoral Dissertations

This study explores the institutional logics that student affairs middle managers employ to facilitate student engagement programs and resources intended for more diverse student populations. While the positive effects of student involvement and student engagement are both widely documented, disparities between White students and students of color in their rates of engagement continue to illustrate that the effects of student engagement opportunities as forms of high impact practices are dependent upon the racial and ethnic background of students. Higher education institutions faced with the widening divide between low-income students of color in their retention, degree attainment, and engagement rates not …

Dysconscious Racism And Racial Microaggressions In The Public School System, Ryan Lee

Doctoral Dissertations

Dysconscious racism and racial microaggressions are two forms of racism that exist in public schools today. Dysconscious racism is a form of racism that “tacitly accepts the dominant White norms and privileges” in a given environment while racial microaggressions are brief and commonplace indignations to the target person or group whether it was intentional or unintentional (Sue et al., 2009). Teachers of color face these subtllte forms of racism within their own workplaces. The researcher conducted a qualitative study by interviewing six public school K-6 teachers of color of different ethnicities who teach in various school districts across the South …

Engaging Feminism, Transforming Institutions: How Community Engagement Professionals Employ Critical Feminist Praxis To Re-Imagine And Re-Shape The Public Purpose Of Higher Education, Patricia Star Plaxton-Moore

Doctoral Dissertations

Most higher education institutions have mission statements articulating a commitment to serve the public good, and venerate the broader historical project of higher education as a force that improves the lives of individuals and communities. However, the public purpose of higher education is perpetually embattled by intersecting forces of neoliberalism, positivism, and settler colonialism that emphasize priorities like generating revenue, chasing prestige, developing real estate, and connecting students with high paying careers. As our society continues to grapple with pervasive social and environmental injustices, it is imperative that we clarify and strengthen higher education’s civic role in shaping a more …

Incorporating Critical Perspectives In Nonprofit Management Education Programs: How Critical Scholars Of Color Navigate Pressures In Higher Education, Khanh H. Nguyen

Doctoral Dissertations

The nonprofit sector has grown from a few charities, based on religious affiliation, to a multi-billion-dollar sector that supports the United States of America’s economic stability. As a result, the need for nonprofit management education has increased over the last three decades from 1990 to 2019 (O’Neill, 2005; Mirabella, 2014). However, most of the classes taught in nonprofit programs across the US focus on the transactional aspect of nonprofit leadership (Mirabella, 2014; Wang & Ashcraft, 2012). The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the ways critical perspectives are engaged within nonprofit management education programs by …

Women Who Lead: A Feminist Phenomenology Of Crisis Leadership In Higher Education, Ingrid Helene Mcvanner

Doctoral Dissertations

The landscape of higher education is rife with crisis events, ranging from the global COVID-19 pandemic to natural disasters and institutional and industry-wide scandals; yet, most institutions of higher education are unprepared to tackle these crises as they arrive. As an industry, higher education is also largely dominated by men at its upper echelons, despite being a field that is predominantly staffed by women. Amidst the backdrop of the attention COVID-19 has brought to female world leaders and the quest for parity in higher education leadership positions, this study sought to explore the lived experiences of women leaders in higher …

Voices Of Chinese International Students: A Critical Understanding Of Their Experiences In The United States, Shudao Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative study investigated the lived experiences of Chinese international students in the United States. It focused on their academic learning, sociocultural relationship, self-reflection and their identity development. This study addressed the active role of international students as participants who can manage cross-cultural difficulties as well as make new interpretations of their life in the host country. This study adopted three theoretical frameworks - transnationalism, transformative learning theory, and social identity theory - to present the intricate educational and social context in study abroad. Through in-depth interviews with eight Chinese students at a private university in California, together with the …

How Do Red Blood Cells Die?

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Normal human red blood cells have an average life span of about 120 days in the circulation after which they are engulfed by macrophages. This is an extremely efficient process as macrophages phagocytose about 5 million erythrocytes every second without any significant release of hemoglobin in the circulation. Despite large number of investigations, the precise molecular mechanism by which macrophages recognize senescent red blood cells for clearance remains elusive. Red cells undergo several physicochemical changes as they age in the circulation. Several of these changes have been proposed as a recognition tag for macrophages. Most prevalent hypotheses for red cell …

Time Travellers And Storytellers: Representations Of Dementia In Children's Fantasy Literature, Tracey Guiry

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

This creative writing research-based thesis asks how dementia can be represented to primary-aged children through a fantasy fiction novel and offers an original fantasy fiction novel, The Battle for Spanoak (Guiry, 2020), written for children between the ages of 7 and 12-years-old as an original contribution to the corpus of dementia writing for children. The critical component to this thesis explores how generic fantasy devices and structures impact on the representation of dementia through ‘storytelling’ and ‘memory’ and describes the particular relevance of ‘time’ as a narrative device in dementia fantasy narratives. I have also contributed a corpus of dementia …

An Intersectional Analytical Critique Of The Troubled Families Programme In Cornwall, Rebecca Carter Dillon

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

An Intersectional Analytical Critique of the Troubled Families Programme in Cornwall This thesis provides an intersectional analytical critique of the Troubled Families (TF) Programme in Cornwall, a county which is amongst the most deprived in Northern Europe (ONS, 2017). The TF Programme was launched in England in 2012 in an effort to ‘turn around’ the lives of ‘troubled’ families, in response to the urban riots of August 2011 (RCVP, 2012). While interim evaluations of the Programme have recognised that many ‘troubled’ families are in income poverty (MHCLG, 2019c), the official TF policy documentation does not acknowledge how ‘troubled’ families’ abilities …