The idea of freedom in education has its roots in the social justice movements of the 1950s and 60s. Civil rights groups coalesced independently of other marginalized groups and movements of its time. While similar in nature, environmentalism and civil rights issues rarely crossed paths. As environmentalism made its way into science education and…

This inquiry takes a critical look at elementary school instruction to uncover forms of oppression in education including linguicism, nativism, neo-racism (cultural racism) and racism. The researcher-participant, a marginalized Chicano educator, employs critical autoethnography through the lens of Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) to…

This exploratory, decolonial feminist teacher inquiry, documents and analyzes my experiences teaching the undergraduate course "Latina Feminisms, Latinas in the US: Gender, Culture and Society." In this study, I interpret seven recursive stages of Gloria Anzaldua's conocimiento theory as transformative acts to guide my research design…

This project is a regional case study of higher education institutions, employees, and students in the occupied Palestinian town of Bethlehem. A three-article format, this project employs autoethnography to explore the ways the author's religious community conceived of the holy land; mapping and photo documentation to explore the infrastructures…

In W. E. B. Du Bois' "The Souls of Black Folk" there is a story entitled "Of the Coming of John" that features two boys named John, one black from a poor family, the other white from a wealthy family. As the two are away at college each family awaits 'of the coming of John,' the title is also a reference to maturity because…

This study is an examination of the outcomes of practicing autoethnography, specifically in the context of first-year undergraduate, writing-intensive courses. The researcher recounts his initial, inspiring encounter with autoethnography and explores the possibility of its pedagogical application in composition instruction. Autoethnography is a…

This dissertation utilizes autoethnography to explore myriad cultural and institutional changes that impacted the author's work as a writing tutor at a Midwestern university over the span of a decade. Utilizing both writing center theories and composition theories, data in this text--presented in the form of narrative nonfiction--chronicles…

A student with Asperger's Syndrome faces a complex myriad of learning disabilities and social difficulties. The co-morbid conditions of dyslexia, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder and anxiety further complicate Asperger's Syndrome. Asperger's Syndrome and these conditions, singularly…

This text performs reading for teaching in an audit culture. Two teachers, myself and Steven, read the memoir "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos and, while reading, recorded our experiences as readers and planned to teach the book to Steven's English class. This study is an inquiry into the phenomenon of "reading to teach,"…

This dissertation study explores how dominant discourses in multicultural education can be informed by perspectives in poststructuralist theories and curriculum studies, and vice versa. This inquiry explores possibilities of conducting identity research that go beyond unitary ways of understanding cultural sameness/difference. A major focus in…

Students of Color are projected to compromise an increasingly higher percentage of the student population in the United States within the next several years, while predominately White teachers will continue to compromise the teaching population. Schools continually fail to serve racially, culturally, and linguistically diverse students,…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to analyze and interpret the stories told by one teacher, Ms. M, in a fifth grade science classroom. In this study, stories are defined as teacher utterances that are used in first person or third person narrative view, and are related to an experience that occurred outside the classroom. This research…

This study evaluated how comic books and graphic novels enhanced the reading comprehension of the students enrolled in the intermediate reading course at Western Pennsylvania Community College. The three research questions are: (1) How can a developmental reading course make use of comics as a learning tool? (2) What impact does reading comics…

This qualitative study guided by portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997) explores the affective side of mathematics teaching which has often been ignored as mathematics research has focused more on cognition. Grounded in social constructivism (Ernest, 1988) and reflective practice (Dewey, 1933; Schon, 1983), this research examines three…

I believe that in-depth exploration of one's gendered sense of self can contribute to both the personal and professional lives of educators and facilitate pedagogical and curricular change within schools and classrooms as students are offered similar opportunities for reflexive thought and learning. In this study, I both illustrate and examine the…