Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

Equalizing Postsecondary Transition For At-Promise Youth Receiving Special Education Services: A Chance To Succeed, Karla R. Sanchez

Dissertations

Postsecondary transition can be difficult for At-Promise Youth Receiving Special Education Services (APYRSES). Special educators supporting postsecondary transition often manifest traditional and institutionalized forms of oppressive education while dismissing collective values and beliefs.

This qualitative case study examined the beliefs and attitudes shared by three special education teachers after being introduced to a justice-focused, humanizing intervention to facilitate postsecondary transition for APYRSES. The conceptualized intervention was grounded in liberatory educational frameworks and drew from critical, culturally affirming, sustaining, and humanizing theories that foster cultural reciprocity, self-determination skills, and antiracist social–emotional justice learning to afford opportunities for APYRSES to succeed. The …

Resistencia Indocumentada: Exploring The Lived Experiences Of Higher Education Undocumented Students In The San Diego-Tijuana Border Region, Adan Escobedo Sanchez

Dissertations

Undocumented students face myriad obstacles while attending higher education institutions that would deter them from completing their academic journeys. Furthermore, they are placed with a dual narrative that labels them as either dangerous or exceptional. This study explored the lived experiences of undocumented students in college in the San Diego-Tijuana border region to consider what factors have led to resilience and resistance in their academic journey. By understanding these factors, the research aimed to tackle the dual narrative that burdens undocumented students from the illegality as a master status they possess.

This study used narrative inquiry and a literature review …

The Wheels On The Bus Go Round And Round: Rethinking The St. Louis Busing Program, Tango Walker, Ketosha Harris

Dissertations

This autoethnography shares our personal experiences and counter-narratives in the St. Louis busing program. Through our mission we expound on experiences and real-life situations as seen through our lens as a student and a mother in the St. Louis busing program. Critical race theory (CRT) was used as an essential framework allowing us to focus on the following four tenets: counter-stories, permanence of racism, whiteness as property, interest convergence. (Anderson, et al., 2017). Critical race theory (CRT) is the framework in social sciences that examines society and culture as it relates to categorization of race, law and power (Lynn & …

An Exploration Of Black Church Leaders' Intentions To Develop Critical Consciousness Among African-American Students, Taheesha Quarells

Dissertations

African-American students experience human capital opportunity and achievement gaps. Researchers have called for culturally relevant strategies to help close the gaps. The historic Black Church, a part of many African-American students’ culture and community, is a historic and current source of social capital for positive human capital development outcomes. Critical consciousness develops positive human capital outcomes, such as academic achievement, in African-American and other minority students. Much of the literature on critical consciousness is quantitative in nature and therefore does not include the intentions or the willingness of organizations to develop critical consciousness. Therefore, there is a need to understand …

Documenting The Journey Towards Becoming An Anti-Racist White Educator, Heather Mccord

Dissertations

As a White teacher in public education, I have had the great pleasure of educating students from all over the globe. My career began in a district that served predominantly White students from middle class families. The only Black students I interacted with were those bused in from the city while participating in the desegregation program. There were noticeable biases and beliefs teachers held toward those students. However, since I was early on in my career with little experience, I was unaware of damage being done to these students. Once I began working for an extremely diverse district, in a …

The Cultural Adaptation Experiences Of Chinese Higher Education Students In The American Deep South: A Comparison Across Disciplines, Xiaonan Song

Dissertations

In the past decade, Chinese international students have been found as one of the largest international student groups at American institutions across the country. However, the American Deep South was not less frequently studied in the past. Due to the distinctiveness of the Deep South, the researcher conducted this qualitative research on Chinese international students studying in this historically and culturally distinctive region. Mississippi was chosen as a representative state of the Deep South in the current study. The researcher collected data from in-depth interviews from three publicly funded institutions in Mississippi. Besides reporting many common issues regarding to cultural …

Linguistic Interactions Of Spanish Speaking Mexican American Families, Adelfio J. Garcia

Dissertations

This study explored the bilingual linguistic interactions in Mexican families and their impact on children’s language and literacy development. This qualitative study gathered data using different methods, namely, interviews, direct observations, participant observation, and physical artifacts to examine parents’ perceptions of their own educational path in comparison to their children’s educational path in an American school system, together with their daily linguistic interactions in various social contexts, and the features, themes and roles of linguistic interactions participants. Study results assisted in gaining deeper understanding of daily conversations happening in different social contexts and their impact on the language and literacy …

Does Global Citizenship Education Predict Identification With All Humanity?, Alpha Amber Scott Belt

Dissertations

Scholars and leaders agree institutions of higher education must prepare students to live, work and thrive in a global community. Nevertheless, there remains much discourse and debate surrounding what it actually means to be a global citizen, and what are the appropriate learning opportunities that will best serve to achieve this goal. This quantitative study examined whether or not participation in global citizenship education opportunities predicts how a student identifies him- or herself in relation to all humanity as measured using the Identification with All Humanity (IWAH) scale (McFarland et al., 2012). Four research questions were examined 1) does participation …

Instructors' Perceptions Of The Bologna Model Of Higher Education Reform In Cameroon, Zachary Y. Mngo

Dissertations

Problem Statement. The literature on education in Cameroon suggests that there is a deep-rooted history of resistance to educational reform and harmonization both at the K12 and higher education levels. Attempts by political and educational leaders to reform and harmonize the two very distinct systems of education, inherited from former colonizers (France/Britain), have failed in the past because of failure by policy makers to take care of the socio-cultural, professional, and academic demands of educational stakeholders—faculty, students, parents, and educational leaders. At the center of resistance has been the fear by Francophone and Anglophone students and faculty that their …