Most educators enter the profession with a strong sense of purpose, often connected to a love of children and hope for the future, a desire to make a difference and give back to the community, or a belief in education as a catalyst for social justice. However, competing educational goals and purposes, as well as current educational reforms rooted…

This phenomenological study conducted through a CRT lens examined the lived experiences of rural school counselors who implemented or sought to implement antiracist school counseling practices in PK-12 schools. Literature currently exists on the experiences of school counselors implementing antiracist social justice practices (Smith-Durkin, 2022),…

Pellow's (2018) four pillars of Critical Environmental Justice (CEJ) provided a framework to address environmental justice challenges in this study of the San Diego Urban Sustainability Coalition's (SDUSC) Climate Ambassador Program. I used participatory action research to collect data from six participants in a key-informant interview,…

Writing studies in the United States has a long history of advocating for linguistic equity, starting with the passing of the Students' Right to Their Own Language (SRTOL) in 1974 and more recently in the form of translingualism (Lu & Horner, 2013) and anti-racist writing (Baker-Bell, 2020) theoretical frameworks and pedagogies. Alongside…

Collegians arrive to their campus' steeped in self-concept derived from their pre-campus contexts and experiences. Student experiences have ranges in their cultural distance or proximity to the values proclaimed by their institution. Ultimately, the degree of congruence with their campus' values influence ways students make meaning of their…

In the aftermath of George Floyd's death, independent schools faced a resounding demand for racial parity, compelling them to adopt transformative practices in response to community members voicing long-standing racial injustices (Carrera, 2021). This dissertation examined the perspectives of heads of independent schools in the U.S. regarding the…

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is a systematic approach that utilizes human learning and behavioral principles to assist individuals and groups in achieving their objectives. Despite the increasing diversity of the US population, the ABA field is predominantly represented by White cisgender women. Existing literature stresses the importance of…

This dissertation documented how undergraduate students made sense of data in news media. The participants were 30 undergraduate students enrolled in a course called "Numbers and Social Justice." The study used argument analysis (Toulmin, 2003) and ethnographic methodology to examine students' written work in a naturalistic setting.…

Care is foundational to the way we reproduce and transform the world around us. Today, in a time marked by widespread calls for racial and social justice, and simultaneous backlash against these calls, it is imperative that we understand the ways that care circulates and operates within racialized struggle. In this dissertation I engage in this…

This study addresses university leadership and the need to affirm diversity, equity, and inclusion in order to institute organizational change for social justice. My key research question is, "What are effective ways for leaders to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion with the goal of achieving social justice?" There is much research…

Impending climate crises, profound wealth inequality and unprecedented vulnerability to global catastrophe at the hands of technology make working towards justice a necessity, and a desperate one at that. However, engaging in work towards justice requires deconstructing the dominant narratives and norms that restrict what actions are permissible…

American colleges and universities seek to provide education and opportunity to their students, and to support a more informed and equitable society. Career education offices in higher education spaces face increasing pressure to lead life and career preparation efforts for a diverse student body. At the same time, as a result of European…

The purpose of this exploratory mixed-methods phenomenological study was to understand the perceptions of school building leaders (SBLs), also referred to as principals, regarding their facilitation of social justice leadership (SJL) and culturally responsive school leadership (CRSL) practices to support student inclusion and belongingness within…

While restorative practices (RP) is hailed as one of the oldest criminal justice models in the world, the official advent of RP in education did not occur until the 1990s. Mirroring the reemergence of RP into legal systems, educators began experimenting with the application of RP in the educational setting. Today, restorative work in schools has…

The research problem addressed in this study is that racial bias programmed into predictive algorithm recommendations negatively impacts students in historically underrepresented groups. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the perception of algorithm accuracy among data professionals in higher education and explore the…