This qualitative case study focuses on renaming an elementary school in Tulsa, Oklahoma from a Confederate namesake (Robert E. Lee elementary) to a name reflecting Indigenous roots of the Muskogee Creek Nation (Council Oak). The renaming took place during a national movement of removing Confederate symbols and names from public places. The…

The value of business school pedagogy has received increased attention in recent years (Delgado and Stefancic, 1992; Giacalone and Wargo, 2009; Podolny, 2009; Grier & Poole, 2020; Prieto & Phipps, 2021). This qualitative study examined the ability of higher education business faculty to include chattel slavery in the history of American…

This dissertation shares the voices of five Black female student-athletes who have attended Division I (DI), Predominately White Institutions (PWI) in the Southern part of the United States. In the ongoing discourse of collegiate athletics and the context of southern institutions and their structures of injustice, one must hear the thoughts and…

Since the racial reckoning during the summer of 2020, there has been a conservative backlash toward discussing race and racism in schools. Therefore, it is crucial that we learn more about how children think about racism to include their voices in the decisions being made about how racism should be taught in schools. In this study, I drew on Black…

African American males have been overrepresented in the prison system in the United States since the 1970s. This comprehensive survey examines the influence of the prison reentry program on the lives of African American males after they are released from jail and prison in the United States. Jail is a place of confinement for persons held in…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how agency service providers describe their practices for building autonomy and relatedness for trafficked homeless youth in the Southeast. The theoretical foundation was self-determination theory, with a focus on the components of autonomy and relatedness. The guiding research…

Institutions of higher education opine that Black women and mothers are important demographics to retain in doctoral education; however, they fail to recognize that Black doctoral students may also be mothers whose graduate school experiences are informed by the combination of race, gender, and motherhood. This study examined the ways that race is…

The 2014 genocide against the Yazidi community, perpetrated by ISIS, represents one of the most devastating humanitarian crises of the 21st century. This qualitative case study explores the lived experiences of Yazidi women, aged 25-40, who have resettled in Nebraska after surviving unspeakable atrocities, including mass killings, sexual…

While the completion of a baccalaureate degree is the gateway to a greater quality of life in areas of employment, health, housing, civic engagement, mortality, and economic wealth, the college experience for Black American students is typically coupled with the accumulation of a disproportionately high amount of student loan debt. While the most…

This arts-based dissertation explores the stories and silences of the Winston branch of my family in order to consider how families reproduce ideologies, with the focus of this study being white supremacy and to lesser extents capitalism and patriarchy. In social studies education, is one way not only to learn about each of us, but to demystify…

This dissertation examines how past U.S. colonial education in the Philippines impacts the ways in which Filipino bodies are commodified and racialized under contemporary education and training systems in both the Philippines and the United States. This research project utilizes participatory action research and in-depth interviews with over 50…

Social studies teachers in the United States are often unprepared or hesitant to teach about race and racism. This is especially true among White teachers. If teachers are to teach American history, they must be prepared to teach about race and racism, starting with the construction of race in Colonial America and continuing to emphasize the…

National data indicated approximately 80 percent of the teaching force is white while the student population continues to become increasingly racially diverse. Teacher education programs continue to graduate and recommend for licensure a disproportionate number of white teachers. Research indicates overwhelmingly pre-service teachers suffer from a…

This dissertation aims to illuminate divergent ideologies of literacy and personhood in the United States and England, utilizing literary and non-literary texts from the nineteenth century to shed light on the historical constraints and conventions shaping our current moment. My version of the nineteenth century is a long one, since I look at…

This study utilized an action research design with qualitative methods to explore the transformative potential of a multicultural literature curriculum within a general education setting. Providing young students with opportunities to develop perspective taking and empathetic responses to others who are different, offers the critical potential for…