Education Commons^™

Building Confidence Of Academic Library Staff In The Selection Of Culturally Authentic Native American Picture Books, Cassondra Leeport

Dissertations, Theses, and Projects

This study aimed to explore the confidence and ability of library staff to select and identify culturally authentic Native American picture books. The researcher, a self-identified Native American, developed a tool designed to assist in library staff in identifying key elements of a picture book that lend themselves to a work being culturally authentic. Assisting patrons in selecting materials is a key element in the library profession. The setting of this research is a university with a large Professional Education Program as well as a documented dedication to serving Native students and surrounding tribal communities and the participants of the …

Improving Veteran Access; Status Of Operations Of The United States Department Of Veteran Affairs Work-Study Program, Kirk Allen

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The usage status of The U.S. Department Veterans Affairs Work-Study Program is examined. Beneficiary numbers from the Global, Unites States, State, and Local/County perspective are reviewed. While of essential value, the program suffers from a lack of scholarly research and government oversight, and is further hindered by restrictive administrative rules lived first-hand. Research suggests that the program is operating outside of accountability to the taxpayer, presents as unnecessarily/overly-restrictive in accessibility, and is underutilized. The program appears to not be serving all veterans to full potential.

The Work-Study Program is codified in Veterans Benefits', Title 38 United States Code, Part III, …

Through Critique And Beyond: Speculative Fiction As A Tool Of Critical Pedagogy, Syd Thorne

Master's Projects and Capstones

This field projects centers around the issue of hopelessness among teachers and students and examines the genre of speculative fiction as a potential tool for cultivating critical hope in the classroom and as an asset to critical pedagogy. Utopian pedagogy and critical pedagogy make up the theoretical framework of this research and project development. The research explores the use of speculative fiction in three areas: activism and identity, student engagement, and utopian performance. The review of the literature demonstrates that the use of speculative fiction in the classroom has the potential to engage students in conversations about social justice and …

Listening To Voices Of Latinx Immigrants In Rural America, Jacqueline Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to capture and gain an understanding of Latinx immigrants’ lived experiences during their transitions from their native countries to rural Arkansas. Using purposeful criterion-based sampling, the population of interest was five Latinx immigrant students and families who migrated from their native countries to the state of Arkansas. The analytic strategy included a single-case model of each family’s transcription, two-case model, cluster analysis to identify likeness, document portrait, and subtheme development. The structural descriptions that formed the essence of the experience resulted in three themes: education, migration, and emotional experiences. The three overall …

Black Organizations As A Way To Increase Black Students’ College Attendance Rates By Improving Their Academic Performance At Primary And Secondary Schools, Leydi Mercedes Vidal Perlaza

Doctoral Dissertations

The racial academic achievement gap between Black students and other students is one of the most pressing education-policy challenges faced by the United States. This gap refers to the disparities in standardized test scores between these groups of students. Decades ago, Fordham and Ogbu’s theory about the “burden of acting White” was one of the most cited studies indicating the causes of this achievement gap. This theory indicates that Black students who do not perform well academically, do not want to achieve success at school because it is considered as acting White. However, this is an old way of thinking …

Los Graduados; Factors Affecting First-Generation Hispanic Males Attainment Of A Terminal Degree, Frank Figueroa

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand and explore factors that led to the attainment of a terminal degree as perceived by first generation Hispanic males in Southern California. A secondary purpose of the study was to determine, of the factors identified, which were perceived to have the greatest impact on attainment of a terminal degree by first generation Hispanic males in Southern California.

Methodology: This phenomenological study collected data via semi-structured interviews and review of artifacts. The study sample involved 13 First-Generation Hispanic Males in Southern California who have attained a terminal degree. Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory …

Misunderstood: A Phenomenological Study On Intersectionality And The Lived Experiences Of Black Millennial Student Affairs Professionals At Pwis, Emily P. Dixon

Theses and Dissertations

This applied dissertation was designed to further understand the lived experiences of Black millennial student affairs professionals navigating and advancing through a predominately white institution in the southern United States. This phenomenological study, framed by critical race theory and intersectionality, sought to ultimately use these lived experiences to advocate for change. A review of the literature highlighted the needs, values, and experiences of Black Millennials based on both identities, the experiences of working in student affairs/higher education with these experiences, and the need for intentional diversity efforts by higher educational institutions.

The researcher interviewed nine participants to learn more about …

American Indian Culture And Secondary Science Curricula: Examining The Confluence Of Native Epistemologies And U.S. Public Education Science Standards, Molly Anne Wolk

Theses and Dissertations

Innate to the traditional science curricula taught under the auspices of United States public education are a Neoliberal axiology and Eurocentric epistemology (Howard & Kern, 2019) that do not meet the cultural needs of American Indian students (Cobern & Loving, 2001). It is inequitable that American Indian students do not see themselves and their cultures reflected in traditional public school science texts and curricula. At the confluence of often-undifferentiated science curricula and American Indian culture and language, there is a need for a responsiveness that benefits American Indian students. This present study illuminates the research question, “What is revealed about …

Existentially Guilty: Where Do I Go From Here?, Devontae Wilson

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

Teachers, students, parents, and even politicians have been forced to confront the by-products of not having difficult conversations about race and class. Political pundits are using this moment in history sparked by recorded injustice and the publicized murders of unarmed black people at the hands of law enforcement to demonize Critical Race Theory (CRT), a framework created to analyze how the law is racialized. This portfolio is largely a result of Dr. Rudine Sims-Bishop’s “Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors” and contextualizing it through my personal experience as a classroom teacher, as a black man in a majority white, female …

Discipline Disproportionality Of Black Students With Disabilities: Principals' Perspectives, Wanda L. Van Dyke

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the problem of practice found in discipline disproportionality of Black students with disabilities in an urban school district with a majority Black student and teacher population. Through personal interviews with building level administrators, data was gained to determine common themes that impact discipline disproportionality of Black students with disabilities. A qualitative inquiry approach, in the form of a case study was used to determine principals’ perspectives about factors that may impact discipline disproportionality. Student disciplinary records were examined to verify disproportionality and investigate patterns and categories related to students with and without …

A Narrative Study Of The Experiences That Disrupt Or Terminate Entry In The Community College Presidential Pipeline For African American Women, Dana G. Stilley

Educational Foundations & Leadership Theses & Dissertations

Organizational structures, beliefs, and values in higher education are influenced by the deep-seated characteristics of patriarchy, dominance and racial and gender bias, upon which higher education was founded. These factors continue to impact the ascension of African American women to college presidencies. Current challenges facing community colleges include a gap in executive leadership and the underrepresentation of African American women in the presidential pipeline.

The purpose of this narrative inquiry was to better understand the experiences that disrupt or terminate the journey to a presidency for African American women in senior level positions at community colleges. The goal was to …

Master's Portfolio, Sydney Ludewig

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This is the final portfolio for my Master's of Arts in the field of English. It includes an analytical narrative along with four projects that best illustrate my knowledge and skills in regards to teaching literature. These four pieces are titled "Problematic Women and Gender Roles in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night," "Teaching Linguistic Justice," "The Importance of Teaching Identity," and "Image Grammar and Narrative Essay Unit."

Material Encounters: Making Memory Beyond The Mind, Ariel Wills

Masters Theses

Can acts of making carry the memories of our embeddedness within the world? This thesis explores how making things can nurture a sense of kinship that cuts across the organic and inorganic, erasing the distinction between living and dead, material and spiritual. Through handwork such as art-making, sewing, knitting, cooking, woodworking, and beyond, the burden of remembering and of archiving is shared across human and non-human bodies, cultivated through practices of making, and through the materials themselves. By recounting the stories of my family’s experience as Jewish immigrants in the United States, I aim to reveal how their domestic practices …

Counterstories Of Black High School Students And Graduates Of Nyc Independent Schools: A Narrative Case Study, Kahdeidra M. Martin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Public youth resistance movements in 2019 and 2020 exposed the entrenchment of racism, sexism, heteronormativity, and classism across New York City independent schools (NYCIS). In order to support the imminent need for schools to provide effective diversity, inclusion, and equity supports that address broad issues of school climate, relationships, and pedagogy, there is a need to better understand the specific, hyperlocal experiences of Black/African Descendant (BAD) students, who occupy several unique, unexplored spaces in educational research. The following four research questions helped to conceptualize the experiences that support and hinder the academic success and long term well-being of BAD students …

Spirits In The Dark: Black Community Education And The Light It Bears, Sydoni A. Ellwood

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Spirits in the Dark” is a digital space dedicated to the efforts of Black community education. It memorializes the commitment and strategies of spirits, light bearers like Mary McLeod Bethune and Huey Newton – people who devoted their lives to the fortification of their communities via education. This project also presents a variety of answers to one specific question: What lessons can school leaders and educators incorporate from community-controlled education programs to make learning spaces affirming and engaging for Black students? In totality, the digital space contributes to conversations in urban education and sociology, specifically the ones being held around …

Coalition And Creativity On The Bridges And Fringes With Immigrant Student-Contributors In Nonprofit Adult Education, Katherine E. Entigar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The nonprofit education of adult immigrants is an under-researched aspect of U.S. education. Adult immigrants, often perceived as passive and quiescent, bring voices and contributions to learning in powerful yet unheard ways. This research agenda invokes a new critical lens in education scholarship to uplift and center these contributions as a coalitional, dialogical project. Drawing upon critical sociocultural, women of color feminist, and poststructual theories, critical intersectional epistemology, and Bakhtinian dialogical thinking, this research project pursues inductive, recursive meaning making as an innovative exploration. A multiphase, sequential study including surveys and two focus groups foregrounds the complex, fluid ways adult …

Mapping Out Our Space In Stories: A High School Curriculum For A Social Justice Tour Of San Francisco, Elena Ramírez Robles

Master's Projects and Capstones

How do youth engage with the spaces around them? In what ways might students connect their personal, lived knowledge to the politics and intricacies of space? The manners in which schools approach outside-of-school learning includes non-critical Place-Based Learning and field trips as optional material; however, doing so breaks the powerful relationship waiting to be explored between Critical Geography and Critical Education. This field project uses Henri Lefebvre’s concepts of The Production of Space and Rhythmanalysis as foundations to argue for the implementation of Critical Geography into high school curricula, and offers a 9-week high school curriculum to create a student-led …

A Decolonial Middle School Social Studies Curriculum: 19th Century U.S. Westward Colonization, Leah Chatterji

Master's Projects and Capstones

Social Studies education throughout the United States sustains settler futurity, white supremacy, and coloniality, as it rarely engages with Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) hxstories and structural violence. For middle schoolers, this is especially troublesome as social justice pedagogies are minimal for this demographic. To shift this, this field project offers an 8^th grade decolonial Social Studies curriculum on 19^th century U.S. Westward colonization; this topic was intentionally chosen as it is an opportunity to disrupt settler epistemologies. It centers: Land; relationality; and collective liberation. It complements the California unit 8.8 standards, yet different grades, subjects, …

Mechanisms Of Biases And Cultural Literacy In International Language Education: One Such Story To Carry, Yukari Birkett

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

Despite equity and inclusion initiatives, the English based colonial model has permeated the kindergarten to college systems, teaching/learning, theories and methods, the perception of second language acquisition, multiculturalism, and language education (Knowles et al., 2015; Macedo, 2019; Phillips & Abbot, 2011; Battiste, 2013). Additionally, cognitive neuroscientific discoveries of the complexity of language learning, emotional intelligence, and cultural literacy systematically failed to reach educators. Few studies have focused on what factors impact on cultural biases of foreign language learners, or what factors in learning facilitate the dismantling of durable biases. What are the hidden agendas for teaching and learning foreign languages? …

Three Prongs Of Knowledge For Black/African American Parents To Prepare Them To Assist Young Black/African American Children Navigate Through Systemic Racism, Diane R Miles, Diane R. Miles

Graduate Liberal Studies Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This dissertation focuses on three prongs of knowledge in parent education programs for Black/African American parents. These three prongs of knowledge fortify and enhance Black/African American parents' effectiveness in their role. This dissertation focuses on Black/African Americans' parenting experience because of the unique challenges they and their children face in a country that does not always value them or respects their humanity. Living in a country where systemic racism is foundational, Black/African American parents and their children have added challenges presented by this reality. It is systemic racism that creates the need for additional knowledge to ensure that Black/African …

University Staff: Indigenous Sovereignty And Justice Online, Star Berry

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

United States (U.S.) public research universities generally deliver problematic diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts that erase Indigenous, Transgender, and Disabled staff through online formats and representations. This qualitative explanatory study describes the DEI common language as one of compliance, erasure, and management through a review of 17 high and very high research universities as defined by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education®. Of these universities, seven are also land grant universities. The frameworks applied include Indigenous Feminist Theory (Waterman, 2018) and Intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991). The results from this review demonstrate universities’ differing institutional commitments to Indigenous, Transgender, …

Black Identity Development In Deaf Individuals, Faith Sanders

Undergraduate University Honors Capstones

The development of a positive relationship with one’s intersectional identity is influenced heavily by environmental factors. Black deaf students have birthright connections to both the Black and deaf communities which needs to be fostered appropriately. This study examines the impact of hearing mainstream and residential deaf schools on Black deaf students identity development. Mainstream environments typically have small, if any, concentrations of deaf students, reducing the likelihood of having interactions with the deaf community. Residential deaf schools, on the other hand, have high concentrations of deaf students and provide opportunities for growth within that community. Data shows that students in …

Mental Health, School Climate, And The Resilience Of Lgbtqia+ Mexican/X Youth, Damon R. Carbajal

Chicana and Chicano Studies ETDs

Mental health and school climate are two critical components of youth experience and are cardinal components of creating and ensuring equitable education and spaces for youth. LGBTQIA+ Mexican/x youth are highly affected by these two entities as part of their lived realities, being multiply marginalized persons in the U.S. educational system. Thus, to best understand how these entities play into the LGBTQIA+ Mexican/x youth experience, this study utilizes a social sciences testimonio comprised of one-on-one semi-structured interviews, demographic surveys, and a focus group. Through this three-prong approach, I analyze the lived realities of LGBTQIA+ Mexican/x youth, the traumas of discrimination, …

The Need For Spanish In Mainstream Classrooms: A Celebratory Reclamation Of Linguistic Identity, Keila Torres

Art of Teaching Thesis - Written

This paper is a testament to the sociocultural importance of bilingualism in mainstream U.S. classrooms, specifically pertaining to the Spanish language and communities in which there is a large percentage of Spanish speakers. Approximately 13% of Americans are native Spanish speakers, this is equivalent to 40 million people. States like Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Texas can boast populations that include over 1 million Hispanic people (United States Census Bureau, 2019). However, our school curriculums do not reflect the large percentage of Spanish-speaking students who roam their hallways. I argue that traditional …

In Search Of Ourselves, We Find Each Other, Kalyn Fay Barnoski

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

in search of ourselves, we find each other is a fully collaborative, multi-platform exhibit centered on developing and locating relationships to both self and community. Challenging societal individualism, the exhibit focuses on collective, relational creativity using Indigenous methodologies for community. It is about me. It is about you. It is about us.

Chronic Codeswitching: A Phenomenological Study Examining Multiracial Student Sense Of Belonging In A Predominantly White Institution., Nicholas Lamar Wright

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Constantly feeling a lack of acceptance and getting the comment “You are too Black” or “You are too White” is a challenging, common occurrence for multiracial students, but especially those in predominantly White institutions. This is just one of the barriers that stand between multiracial students and forming a sense of belonging at a predominantly White institution. The majority of research examining sense of belonging focuses on either Black or White students, but neglect multiracial students and their experiences. This dissertation examines sense of belonging for multiracial (Black/White) students in a predominantly White institution, by interviewing 11 multiracial students at …

Daring To See: White Supremacy And Gatekeeping In Music Education, Brian A. Gellerstein

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Music education in the U.S. maintains a legacy of cultural hegemony that has historically and systemically benefited the White students it was designed to serve, at the expense of Black and Brown students and teachers. As a subdiscipline concerned with cultural production and reproduction, the persistence of White supremacy within music education contributes to its indefatigability within the broader society.

This study is cast within a theoretical framework that connects critical race theory and critical pedagogy in order to address the ways in which music teachers make meaning of gatekeeping practices mediated within hidden structures of White supremacy. This inquiry …

Systems Of Success: African American Women Prepared, Dawna Sturdivant Wharton

Dissertations

This study generates a vision for African American schooling based on the lived experiences of Black women, born between 1965 – 1980, who have persisted through college and graduate studies. This research centers the voices of Generation X African American women, to discover the impact school systems have had on their development toward adulthood and how their experiences help construct their vision of Black education for the future. Using the ecological systems theory to position that school systems help create meaning and impact development towards adulthood, the study asks participants to envision an education system that enables success for African …

Corazonar Y Escuchar Para Construir Memoria Desde La Interculturalidad Y El Territorio: Voces De Maestras En Escuelas Rurales., Valentina Dalmau Corredor, Laura Valentina Arévalo Lozano

Trabajo Social

La presente investigación da cuenta de la relación que se teje entre memoria colectiva y territorial desde la perspectiva de la interculturalidad decolonial en las Escuelas Normales Superiores (ENS) de Sibundoy-Putumayo y Pupiales-Nariño. Este documento fue escrito involucrando las voces de las maestras rurales, quienes, desde su trayectoria de vida, resignifican la labor docente en un país marcado por la desigualdad social, política y cultural como lo es Colombia. En estos territorios del sur del país, las maestras rurales hacen escuela desde sus resistencias y luchas cotidianas contra la estandarización y uniformidad que propone el sistema educativo. Por ello, busca …

Tracking And Experiences Of Black Students Following The Inception Of No Child Left Behind, Gwenda Walters

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

Academic placement in high school classes is an important decision that can have long-term effects on student success. Research indicates that students most often remain in high or low tracks year after year. However, the precision of placements relative to real achievement disparities in the grouping of students into homogenous groups remains a petulant area of debate. Many scholars consider placement judgments to be dubious, marginal, or incorrect in terms of performance gaps, notwithstanding the assumption that these placements are deemed accurate in representing a student's academic ability. Researchers argue that the process of comparing, sorting, and classifying students has …