School lunch is a universal experience for students everywhere and yet remains largely understudied by educational researchers. This dissertation explores school lunch through the lens of adolescent identity theory, with the purpose of investigating the unarticulated and overlooked complexities inherent in the lunch block, from issues of the…

In this personal narrative, I reflect on how I have approached teaching about and for disability justice as a White crip feminist educator. I focus on how I have attempted to be accountable for my Whiteness in my teaching about an activist framework and movement grounded in the lived experiences of queer and trans disabled people of color (Sins…

Women have been the majority of undergraduate and graduate students in U.S. postsecondary institutions for the past 35 years, but their representation is decreasing at each step of leadership ranks in higher education institutions. The problem addressed by this qualitative phenomenological study was the underrepresentation of women in higher…

The research topic explores the social belonging experiences of undergraduate student-parents had on college campuses specifically through campus integration practices. This study demonstrated the importance of being acclimated within the campus culture, specifically for student-parents, a marginalized group often unable relate to their childless…

This dissertation intervenes in antiracist scholarship's recent trend of acknowledging/openly critiquing whiteness as primary means to dismantle white supremacy in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy (Ratcliffe, Inoue). I use intersectional Black Feminist thought (Lorde, Cohen), buttressed by Black Studies (DuBois, Godwin-Woodson, Weheliye) and…

In the current American context where culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students frequently experience schools as uncaring spaces, exploring school leadership that values student identity is vital for providing an affirming environment for meaningful learning. Towards such ends, we echo the recent call for culturally sustaining…

In this paper, the authors seek to analyze the perceptions, motivations and experiences of young women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education projects aiming to incentivize gender equity, based on the theoretical framework of feminist studies on science and intersectionality, as well as academic literature on equity…

This paper reports on the findings of a Design-Based Research (DBR) study that investigated the transformative learning of six high school computer science teachers after they participated in a professional development (PD) training with a focus on Culturally Responsive Computing (CRC). Findings from the statistical analysis of pre-and…

In 2020, George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, was murdered by Minneapolis Police. As social media and news outlets reported on Floyd's death, racial justice activists began to organize under the Black Lives Matter movement. The United States was also on lockdown due to the global pandemic -- COVID-19. Prior researchers have noted that the lockdown…

This holistic single-case study design grounded by Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence explores the perspectives of renowned emeriti engineering faculty on the future of the engineering professoriate and the factors that can lead to a successful professional trajectory for early-career, tenure-track engineering faculty. The emeriti…

Educators and school staff often overlook students with intellectual disabilities and students who are LGBTQ+ within public schools. They recognize even less students who identify in both these areas. The purpose of this study is to add to a small pool of research about how to best support students with intellectual disabilities who are gender…

The Pentecostal movement continues to expand throughout Latinx communities. Pentecostalism has traditionally held a hostile attitude toward college education and secular academic institutions. Conversely, Latinx churches have had a positive influence on academic success. This interpretive phenomenological study extends the College-conocimiento…

Internationally, there is increasing concern regarding the disengagement of marginalized students, particularly girls, from the formal education system, particularly since COVID-19. Students experiencing oppression/marginalization within urban education systems are considered at-risk from poor attendance, early school leaving, underperformance,…

Drawing on transformative, critical, and culturally responsive and sustaining traditions of pedagogy and instructional design, we present a technology-focused framework for decentering normative forces along the lines of race, ethnicity, class, language, religion, ability, sex, and gender in online higher education learning spaces that honors each…

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…