As the world contends with a global pandemic, climate catastrophes, white supremacy, coloniality, and concurrent genocides my attention splinters. In an act of futurity, or future making, I ask myself: "What is needed to move from this place toward softer, more liberatory futures?" This body of work finds its answer in exploring two…

This study is focused on exploring ways to disrupt imbalanced power dynamics in educational settings, specifically elementary schools. It includes reflections of the researcher's journey and experiences as a teacher in District of Columbia public and charter schools and how those experiences shaped who she became when she entered school…

This research builds upon scholarship of critical theorists and critical whiteness studies. The "invisibility" of whiteness has been increasingly acknowledged and attended to in counseling psychology. Further, prominent scholars have continuously urged the field of counseling psychology to acknowledge race as a psychological…

This study investigates the effects of different high school scheduling practices on student achievement in Mississippi, considering school economic status as a covariate. Using a robust factorial ANOVA design, the research analyzes reading proficiency, math proficiency, and Mississippi Statewide Accountability System school performance scores…

This post-intentional phenomenological study grounded in Critical Whiteness Studies explored the lived experiences with whiteness, the post-intentional phenomenon, of white international graduate students from Europe. The study was guided by an overarching research question with two sub-questions. Data collection included three separate…

Immigrant parents are being challenged in several different ways to maintain their heritage language (HL) in the United States. Majority White, affluent communities are one of the many complex language ecologies that exist across the variety of U.S. societies. The research setting of this study, Southern California, is one of the wealthiest…

The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to determine the moderating effects of economic advantage and race/ethnicity on graduation rates during COVID-19. Data collected from the Tennessee Department of Education's Graduation Cohort Rates was examined for a numerical relationship between the variable of race/ethnicity with…

Research focusing on White male allies confronting racism on Predominately White campuses remains scarce. White males in higher education dominate leadership roles and these roles still perpetuate White privilege on predominately White campuses. According to Lemaire (2001), White privilege examples can be found in four paradigms. The first is that…

This critical autoethnographic study explored my multifaceted journey of being Black and female in administration within a predominately white higher education institution. I drew upon personal narratives and reflections from 25 years of experience in higher education. This study explored the intricate intersections of race, gender, and power…

Drawing upon three individual interviews with each of five students enrolled in a first-year writing (FYW) course I observed throughout a semester, this dissertation explores how a group of socially privileged students emotionally experienced, interpreted, and responded to discourses of differences encountered in their FYW course. Contributing to…

The many manifestations of social justice education center the experiences of the marginalized and oppressed to create a more democratic society. In recent years, scholars have begun to argue that privileged students, not the marginalized, should be the target of social justice education, advocating for a pedagogy that puts the onus on the…

Elite private institutions, renowned for their exceptional academic offerings and rigorous selection processes, attract top-tier students and faculty; however exclusive private schooling has perpetuated social and economic disparities by granting unequal advantages to select groups, deepening educational gaps in society. This dissertation…

Much public discourse surrounds the intractable problem for some community college students in attaining a bachelor's degree through vertical transfer. Scholars have found 80% of entering community college students plan to transfer, yet this intent to transfer is somehow diverted for most (Jenkins & Fink, 2016). Although a new report showed an…

This dissertation sought to interrogate the ways in which White, rural students from West Virginia conceptualized diversity before, during, and since their transition to a large PWI in their home state. Using Critical Whiteness Studies and intersectionality as driving theory, student participants and I engaged in deconstruction of privilege…

Hostile work environments in the U.S. have been long examined, beginning with the pioneering work of Carroll Brodsky (1976), which produced the idea of workplace bullying. Academic bullying, a term that derived from the concept of broader workplace bullying, is situated specifically within the academic work environment. While academic bullying has…