Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

Off The Rails: Cinematic Trains As Technological Controls Of The Natural World, Trinity Thompson

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Short train rail lines across the United States are seeing increased national funding to reduce toxic chemical spills caused by train derailments, the most notable of which happened in February 2023 in East Palestine, Ohio. A year prior, the film White Noise (2022) featured a similar toxic train derailment incident, taking place, too, in Eastern Ohio, and featuring actors from the town of East Palestine. In considering other films featuring trains, I identified a pattern of environmental conflict, leading me to question the relationship between trains and the natural environment as portrayed in popular cinema. To conduct my research, I …

Perceptions Of Student Loan Debt: A Phenomenological Study Exploring Black Undergraduate Students' Experiences., Pilar Prather

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rising cost of higher education concerns many families in the United States, especially those from historically underrepresented backgrounds. The purpose of this study is to explore the phenomenon of Black students' perception of their student loan debt and how their financial knowledge influences their decisions at a public institution. This qualitative research provides space to empower individuals to share their stories through semi-structured interviews to get an account of their experiences. Grounded in Yosso's (2005) Community Cultural Wealth Theory, the study seeks to capture the unique ways Black students make financial decisions. The dissertation is divided into five chapters: …

Transforming Black Students’ Higher Education Experiences And Lives: A Proposal For The Csu, Don Lundy

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

For decades, a racial “achievement gap” has persisted in U.S. higher education. Specifically, White students have outperformed Black students on a number of indicators, including college admissions, standardized test scores, and graduation rates. This graduate project considers several explanations for this persistent inequity. The root of the problem, it argues, is U.S. higher education’s history of racism and exclusion and the oversaturation of whiteness in these institutions. In other words, U.S. higher education was built for and continues to serve White students at the expense of Black students. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) show us that when whiteness is …

The Erasure Of Rural West Texas Voices In Higher Education Institutions An Autoethnographic Study Of Minoritized Students Of West Texas In Their Journey To Obtain Success In Higher Education Institutions, David Whaley-Weems Sr

All Dissertations

I was once told there is a person in the world who has locked within his or her mind the framework for the cure for cancer or even the ability to create an energy model that will revolutionize how society consumes natural resources. Now imagine if I told you I have seen that person alive and well working as an oil well driller on a rig in Mentone, Texas. The first question most people would ask is, “Why is the person drilling in the middle of nowhere Texas instead of impacting the world by way of displaying his or her …

Making In Media Education: An Activity-Oriented Approach To Digital Literacy, Thomas Knaus

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Why is maker education a suitable approach for giving learners the 21st century skills they need to cope with the digital transformation? This article provides an answer and represents a defense of maker education in the field of educational science. Taking a human-media-machine interaction model as the basis for discussion, this article highlights the growing importance of digital technology as well as technological principles for human communication and interaction. Communication technology and the influence of technology on culture and society require a broad understanding of media literacy in the sense of digital literacy. By broadening the theoretical basis of media …

Sounds About White: Critiquing The Nca Standards For Public Speaking Competency, Adam Key

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

Using critical discourse analysis, I critically examined the National Communication Association’s (NCA) standards for public speaking competency to determine what type of ideal speaker the standards would produce. Highlighting NCA’s emphasis on “suitable” and “appropriate” forms of communication and the use of Standard American English, I argue that the ideal competent speaker in our classrooms sounds White. I complete the essay by reimagining the basic course using methods of Africana Study to explore ways that the standards for public speaking might be decolonized and made more inclusive to students of all backgrounds.

Full Issue, Winthrop Mcnair Research Bulletin

The Winthrop McNair Research Bulletin

Winthrop McNair Research Bulletin Volume 5, Full Issue

[Cldv 100] Diversity And Multicultural Studies, Oluremi "Remi" Alapo

Open Educational Resources

CLDV100 (Liberal Arts) Introduction to Multicultural Studies in the 21st Century: 3 hrs. 3 crs.

A study of what culture is; how it influences the choices we make; how to deal positively with conflicts that inevitably arise in working/living situations with people of diverse cultures. It is a course structured to raise multicultural awareness and fortify students' social skills in dealing with cultural differences. It includes an ethnographic study of cultural groups in the U.S.A. Through the study of cultural concepts, this course develops skills in critical thinking, writing, and scholarly documentation. Not open to students with credit in CLDV …

Race-Neutrality And Race-Consciousness In Students’ Sensemaking Of “Servingness” At Two Hispanic Serving Institutions, Nik Cristobal, Gina A. Garcia

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

Postsecondary institutions that enroll 25% or more Latinxs are eligible for federal designation as Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). Yet few studies examine how students within HSIs make sense of what it means for an organization to be Latinx-serving. Utilizing interviews and focus groups with students at two HSIs in the Midwest, this study sought to understand how students make sense of the idea of “servingness.” We analyzed differences by students’ race/ethnicity within each institution, and by institution across the two sites. Data revealed a pattern of language that reflected race-neutrality and race-consciousness, with some differences by students’ race/ethnicity and stark …

An Ethical Discussion About The Responsibility For Protection Of Minors In The Digital Environment: A State-Of-The-Art Review, Charles Alves De Castro, Aiden Carthy, Isobel Oreilly Dr

Articles

Many ethical questions have been raised regarding the use of social media and the internet, mainly related to the protection of young people in the digital environment. In order to critically address the research question "who is responsible for ethically protecting minors in the digital environment?", this paper will review the main literature available to understand the role of parents, the government, and companies in protecting young people within the digital environment. We employed a holistic process that covers a state-of-the-art review and desk research. The article is divided into four sessions; (1) Government Policies from the European Union (EU) …

The Threat Of Returning To “Normal”: Resisting Ableism In The Post-Covid Classroom, Sarah M. Parsloe, Elizabeth M. Smith

Feminist Pedagogy

The abrupt switch to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted pervasive ableism; accommodations that had been “impossible” were suddenly available. This critical commentary draws from interviews with 16 students and our own ethnographic accounts as student/professor to understand how COVID shaped disabled experiences in the classroom. As a student with a disability, Elizabeth was hyperaware of her vulnerability to illness, but also experienced herself as less impaired online. She could control her learning environment to minimize sensory and mobility challenges. Additionally, professors’ flexible policies helped her to manage energy, time, and symptoms. However, Elizabeth and her peers feared an …

Witnessing Engaged Voices: A Feminist Pedagogy Of Inclusion, Alana M. Nicastro, Patricia Geist-Martin

Feminist Pedagogy

When student perspectives, needs, and wants are left out of academic discourse, the discursive structures necessary to encourage, organize, and evaluate their voice are absent. Students then become ambivalent instead of exercising their voice and decisively assessing the value of their contributions. This original teaching activity targets the problematics that constrain voices in the classroom and invites readers and listeners to consider their positionality and action as a commitment to a Feminist Pedagogy of Inclusion (FPoI). In this way, students and professors can deliberately hold a space where the act of witnessing is more than simply observing voice. The intended …

Welcoming Families With Children To Csusb: Making An Intergenerational Difference, Leslie Leach

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Coming back to school after a gap in your education can be a daunting task. For students with children (SWC), the undertaking has different challenges than their classmates. Providing resources geared towards their success plays a significant role in the student's ability to complete their education. It also allows the SWC to feel a sense of belonging within their institution of higher learning. This project analyzes other California State Universities' family housing programs to advocate a similar program at California State University, San Bernardino. Using the Communication Theory of Identity (CTI) and Organizational Identity (OI), I can illustrate how resources …

Toward A New Community Of Care: Best Practices For Educators And Administrators During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Cody M. Clemens, Tomeka M. Robinson

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

The onset of COVID-19 left people feeling unsettled, confused, and afraid of what tomorrow may hold. As university professors specializing in health communication, we too were left with these same feelings. As health communication scholars, we focus on issues surrounding illness, risk, crisis, care, health inequities, and wellness. COVID-19 is a health crisis, yes, but it has also changed the way we operate not only in higher education but in daily life. We begin this essay with an overview of COVID-19 and its impact on students, educators, and administrators. Then, we suggest four best practices to foster a community of …

Unpacking Privilege In Pandemic Pedagogy: Social Media Debates On Power Dynamics Of Online Education, Roy Schwartzman

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

As one of the world’s major social media hubs dedicated to online education during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Facebook mega-group Pandemic Pedagogy provides a panoramic perspective of the key concerns educators and students face amid a public health crisis that forces redefinition of what constitutes effective education. After several months of instruction under pandemic conditions, two central themes emerged as the most extensively discussed and the most intensively contested: (1) rigor versus accommodation in calibrating standards for students, and (2) ways to improve engagement during classes conducted through videoconferencing, especially via Zoom. Both themes reveal deeply embedded systems of privilege …

Exploring Latinx Alumni Donor Motivations At Hispanic Serving Institutions, Monica Alejandre

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Higher education is a funding priority every state should invest in. However, the great recession of 2008 left a catastrophic impact on how public universities in the United States are funded thus mobilizing higher education institutions to seek external support. This focus has led to public universities developing advancement programs to cultivate and solicit alumni support. With the average alumni giving rate at 10% across the nation and 2.8% more specifically for HSIs, and more Latinx students graduating with their bachelor’s degrees, it is important for universities to understand philanthropic motivations among their Latinx alumni population.

This study explored Latinx …

Coronavirus Chronicles, Diane Guerrazzi

All Assignment Prompts

No abstract provided.

The Writing For Healing And Transformation Project, Heather Elizabeth Osborn

Education Doctorate Dissertations

As a qualitative action research study, the purpose of The Writing for Healing and Transformation Project was to facilitate more inclusive writing strategies and to promote individual and collective healing on issues of social suffering and oppression (Kleinman, Das, & Lock, 1997; Pennebaker & Smyth, 2016) for diverse students at a community college located in the northeastern United States. The 18 participants in the study included students in my English II literature and composition course. The theoretical framework encompassed Pennebaker’s (2016) “writing for healing” paradigm, advocating the use of expressivist writing and “social suffering theory,” examining how power structures affect …

No Future For Academic Crips: An Autoethnographic Crippling Of Academic Futurity, A. Adams

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

No Future for Academic Crips attempts to situate crip theory, critical disability studies, and communication theory squarely in the context of academia, problematizing the constraints placed on autistic identity by the demands of a graduate education. Utilizing autoethnographic vignettes along with theoretical writings regarding the creation and consolidation of crip identity, this thesis theorizes what a “neuroqueer future” looks like for academics. Six vignettes are presented to demonstrate strategies for survival employed in academic spaces, followed by analysis contextualizing and criticizing those strategies. Finally, implications for neuroqueer futurity and identity are discussed.

Higher Education And The Dei Climate: Exploring And Understanding The Role Of Social Media, Self Esteem, And Intercultural Communication In Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Initiatives On The College Campus, Christian T. Cardona

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to understand the effects and levels of impact that a university student’s intercultural communication competence, social media usage, and self-esteem have on the students’ attitudes towards diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts implemented by institutions of higher education. By studying these three independent variables, this research seeks to improve the understanding of the university students’ attitudes on DEI efforts for leaders and change agents in higher education, providing an inspiration for leaders, administrators, and change agents of higher education to continue collaborating to innovate methods and avenues towards creating a diverse, equitable, and inclusive campus climate, as …

Departments And Disciplinary Gatekeeping: The Sociolinguistics Of Spanish In Us Academia, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

In his contribution, José del Valle looks at the intersection of the sociolinguistic study of Spanish in the US and the transformations of Spanish language departments in higher education. Del Valle traces the history of the institutionalization of Spanish teaching and study and its effects on linguistic research’s position within Spanish departments. Shifts in approaches to the use of language in social practice, and the growing demands on language units to act as service departments for language learners, has isolated scholars in those institutional homes from broader integration into sociolinguistic research.

Reading Autoethnography: The Impact Of Writing Through The Body, Katarina Tuinamuana, Joanne Yoo

The Qualitative Report

In this paper, we explore alternative ways in which academic writing can have impact, specifically in how it can move from the clearly measured to the deeply felt. We do this by writing a creative nonfiction narrative of our experimentation with autoethnography, detailing our responses to four published autoethnographic articles. We found that reading and engaging with these papers meant that we also had to listen and reconnect to our bodies in ways that initially seemed foreign to us as academics. But we persevered, and this project strengthened our resolve to create time/space to engage writing/research that deeply moves and …

In Our Own Words: Institutional Betrayals, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

When Dr. Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt, professor of English at Linfield College, asked a large group of underrepresented faculty members why they left their higher education institutions, they told her the real reasons for their departures — those that climate surveys don't capture.

This essay originally appeared as part of Conditionally Accepted, a career advice blog for Inside Higher Ed providing news, information, personal stories, and resources for scholars who are, at best, conditionally accepted in academe. Conditionally Accepted is an anti-racist, pro-feminist, pro-queer, anti-transphobic, anti-fatphobic, anti-ableist, anti-ageist, anti-classist, and anti-xenophobic online community.

Dis/Ableist Consumption: A Critical Thematic Analysis Of Avowed And Ascribed Neuro-Identities In The Classroom, Shaundi C. Newbolt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, faculty and students are publicly claiming neurodivergent identities and support for the neurodiversity movement. This study uses Collier and Hecht’s cultural identity theories with Lang and Chen’s two-step process, critical thematic analysis (CTA), to examine avowals and ascriptions with four diagnostic terms, ASD, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and dyslexia, of students and professors from Rate My Professors (RMP) with Ritter’s frame of RMP as a phenomenon.

A total of 1,022 posts are analyzed to understand how students resist or re-inscribe popular medical model/deficit discourse in the classroom: student avowals (N = 232), professor avowals (N = 51), …

Envisioning Critical Social Entrepreneurship Education: Possibilities, Questions, And Guiding Commitments, Mark Congdon Jr., Liliana Herakova

Communication, Media & The Arts Faculty Publications

Higher education institutions continue to be increasingly interested in examining how social entrepreneurship and community engaged approaches to education can work together. In light of the recent growth and interest in such programs, scholars and educators have called for attention to specific considerations when developing SE and community-based education, which can be summed up in three areas - pedagogy, relationships, and impact. The present essay builds on such propositions, and calls for a critically-orientated approach to SE, grounded in community engagement, collaborative dialogue among diverse voices, and a commitment to transforming oppressive structures

Using From The Heartland In The First-Year Writing Classroom: Measuring Instructor Reception Of The Customized Textbook, Sarah Cohen

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The aim of the first-year writing program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) is to equip students with critical reading and writing tools and strategies to advance effective written communication well into their future. This study examines and measures attitudes of UNO composition instructors – who come from a variety of pedagogical and theoretical backgrounds – toward the efficacy of UNO’s self-published Composition I textbook, From the Heartland: Critical Reading and Writing at UNO. In many ways, From the Heartland embraces what Richard Fulkerson refers to as “a critical cultural pedagogy” which encourages students to consider personal …

In The Name Of Merit: Racial Violence In The Academy, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

Racial violence in the academy is enacted upon faculty of color, particularly women, in multiple disciplines. This essay attempts to both expose and suggest that everyday systemic racism has become a pervasive and normalizing feature within disciplines that continue to privilege white and Eurocentric forms of knowledge-making while devaluing others. Furthermore, attempts to challenge such supremacies are immediately countered by calls and charges of incivility. This is an essay about the costs of unmasking norms of civility as it bears upon constructions of both whiteness and meritocracy.

An Exploratory Study Of Acculturation Experiences Of Graduate Student Immigrants At The University Of San Francisco, Courtney Lamar

Master's Theses

This study explores the shared challenges during the acculturation process of graduate student immigrants pursuing higher education in the United States. 13 graduate student immigrants at the University of San Francisco discuss their experiences of cultural adjustment into U.S. culture. Through qualitative interviews and thematic analysis, this study seeks to understand the acculturation experiences of graduate student immigrants in the San Francisco Bay Area of the United States. This analysis is based on the individual-level experience examining attitudes and acculturation strategies in the dominant society. Analysis, possibly policy implication for institutions of higher education, and possible directions for future research …

Challenging Calls For Civility, Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt

Faculty Publications

In conjunction with her article "When Free Speech Disrupts Diversity Initiatives: What We Value and What We Do Not," Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt writes about civility codes and free speech for Academe Blog.

Software Of The Oppressed: Reprogramming The Invisible Discipline, Erin R. Glass

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation offers a critical analysis of software practices within the university and the ways they contribute to a broader status quo of software use, development, and imagination. Through analyzing the history of software practices used in the production and circulation of student and scholarly writing, I argue that this overarching software status quo has oppressive qualities in that it supports the production of passive users, or users who are unable to collectively understand and transform software code for their own interests. I also argue that the university inadvertently normalizes and strengthens the software status quo through what I call …