In democratic education, schools are places where democracy holds center stage, where students explore the aims and assumptions that underpin democracy, and where students develop a shared understanding of core values. Despite the democratic promise of schooling, however, schools often fail to prepare people to interrupt racism, classism, gender…

In online courses, much of the course communication occurs in public spaces. In synchronous courses, the video and audio channels represent a shared space, and although private chat messages are possible, they may not be substantial or frequent. In asynchronous courses, discussion boards are the allocated space for communication. In these…

Online learning has provided pathways for access to flexible educational experiences, but can also feel isolating and impersonal, lacking authentic relationships with instructors and peers. Centering the discussion of humanizing distance education through the lens of three core pedagogical components of teaching and learning (i.e., instruction,…

Education researchers and the US Department of Education interpret chronic absentee data as supporting a causal relationship between absenteeism and negative outcomes later in life (Frydenlund, 2022; Berkowitz et al., 2017; Hopson & Lee, 2011; Thapa et al., 2013). As school absence rates continue to reflect disparities among students of color…

This dissertation investigates student experiences on a four-year public U.S. college campus, focusing on the impact of humanized support services in non-academic administrative offices. Chapter 1 introduces the study's purpose, while Chapter 2 reviews literature on customer service practices through the lenses of Experience Management, Service…

Bang on the System pairs critical race theory (CRT) with the litany of radical democratic analysis guiding the social practices of various revolutionary movements, proposing a new pedagogical framework that deploys a mutually informed critical race praxis as the basis to engage historically dispossessed youth in their own learning. This lens is…

The constant dehumanization of Black fathers and boys in the media, education, politics, pop culture, and society is traumatic. Deficit perspectives and a racialized political climate often negatively portray the moral, familial, and relational practices that Black fathers and boys engage in with their family members in their homes. Using…

Humanizing research online claims to engage practices that care for human learners. Even so, many of the recommended practices are unreflective about the universalizing ethic from which they draw. We argue that humanizing online learning becomes tangled in broader university aims that expect care to happen aside from underlying histories of…

Based on institutional betrayal theory, this research examines whether students' perceptions of being dehumanized by their universities mediate the relationships between different types of interpersonal mistreatment on campus (i.e., bullying victimization, sexual harassment, ostracism) and impaired student well-being. A cross-sectional study (N =…

Given the imbalance in the ratio of male to female ADHD diagnosis, there is a dearth of information on the profile for women with ADHD, especially in adulthood and with those of higher intelligence levels (Rommelse et al., 2016). Each, if not all, diagnoses of ADHD or giftedness come from a parent, teacher, or outside observer's scale of symptoms…

In an effort to explore methods that can challenge the research/practice divide in the field of mathematics education, this project develops a methodology for people-centered classroom-based research. I analyze the process of building teacher-researcher relationships and show how relationships work to support teachers as they make changes to their…

Background: Co-design can be challenging and rewarding as educators explore new roles and ideas. Accounts of co-design rarely examine educators' affective and relational experiences, nor investigate scaffolds for creating humanizing environments. We asked: How did affect and relationship show up in co-design for educators?, How did the affirmation…

In the wake of the U.S. 2016 election, national media has highlighted the divided nature of our country. Considering this division, dialogue is often pushed as the tool for reconciliation, healing, and bridge building. This paper takes up this call through considering the spatial practices of the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network. This turn to…

The Phoenix Players Theatre Group (PPTG) was founded in 2009 by incarcerated men at the Auburn Correctional Facility in Upstate New York. This article explores PPTG's work using Nicholas Mirzoeff's (2011) theory of the 'right to look' in order to understand how prison theatre functions within and against the visual regime of carcerality. This…

This paper is a critical case study, which proposes intellectual solidarity as a grounding framework for education. Our initial assumptions considered the following: first, what are those antagonisms limiting authentic human relationships and social transformation in schooling and society? Second, what are some of the dispositions, pedagogies, and…