In this dissertation, I investigate the learning of inclusive mathematics teaching as a process of mathematics teacher identity development. Current research on teacher learning in teacher education often uses situated perspectives that have contributed knowledge about the ways that contexts impact preservice teachers' learning of beliefs and…

Professional school counseling ethical competencies, guidelines, and literature have encouraged school counselors to act as anti-racist, social justice advocates at the: a) individual level with students/families, b) school/community level, and c) public/legislative levels. The following research study proposal serves to fill a gap in the…

The purpose of this research was to investigate the representation of black students in contemporary American English. Two questions were addressed, what is the semantic prosody of Black students, and what are the semantic roles for Black students. All the concordance lines containing the phrase Black students were downloaded from the Corpus of…

This autoethnographic dissertation research explores Critical White Studies (CWS) and racial trauma and their impact on Students of Color in a higher education setting. This study aims to challenge the deficit thinking of white educators who perpetuate racism in higher education. The relationship is examined to dismantle the white ideology of…

Whiteness is for White people. White people own it, benefit from it, and embody it. But whiteness is also for African Americans--to adopt, embody, or internalize the ideologies and ideals of whiteness as a means to reproduce and sustain white hegemony. Uncle Tom, Oreo, Carlton, and Uncle Ruckus are some of the terms African Americans assign and…

At present, California community colleges serve a large proportion of Black students, but these students are not adequately supported to reach their educational goals (The Campaign for College Opportunity, 2019; National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2022; Cross & Carman, 2022 Simpson, J., & Bista, K., 2021). Extensive research…

This qualitative narrative inquiry study examined the narratives and experiences of White women admissions officers at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) and explored how they engaged with the development of their white racial identity throughout their professional careers. Using Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) and Helms' (1990) white racial…

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact Hip-Hop culture can have on white faculty who are committed to interrogating their identity and the constructs of whiteness, as it relates to implementing a sustainable process to interrogate race as a critically self-reflective educator and the development of a culturally sustaining practice in…

Diversity is an articulated value for higher education throughout the country. This research builds on existing research about how White students experience diversity and how they make meaning of their Whiteness and White privilege. This qualitative study utilized a phenomenological approach to understand White student leaders' experience on a…

This research implements and evaluates the effectiveness of three scaffolds: critical theories in classes, critical friends groups to discuss white identity, dominant ideologies, anti-racist practices and diverse field based experiences. These scaffolds provided white pre-service teachers the opportunity to reconcile how their identities influence…

This qualitative research examined the experiences of college students at 4-year liberal arts colleges who identified as Afro Latin with their non-Latin(o/a/x) Black and Latino peers and how those experiences affected their sense of belonging. Frequently, student affairs leaders and practitioners assume most, if not all, students of color on…

What does it take to create an educational environment committed to social change? What is the role of the teacher in this process? The researcher? Education offers a radical hope of learning for freedom over conformity. Still, this form of liberatory education can only occur through consistent reflexivity that critically examines systems of…

This study aims to understand and explore the lived experiences of six college access practitioners who supported a pathway program for students at an urban research institution. None of the participants in the study no longer work in college access. At least four participants explicitly stated they left their job due to burnout. This research…

This dissertation explores the identity development of Muslim American women (N = 25) in higher education, utilizing intersectionality as both a methodological and theoretical framework. First and foremost, it centers the lived experiences, agency, and autonomy of Muslim women throughout the findings. Second, it takes into account the intersecting…

There is a large discrepancy between the racial identities of current teachers and the students they teach. In the United States, white middle-class women constitute 90% of the teaching population (Picower, 2009), while students of color comprise approximately one third of the population, with an expected increase to approximately two thirds by…