This basic qualitative study explored how community college designers-by-assignment (faculty designers) make design decisions when designing online courses to ensure the course is inclusive to all learners. Although many online course designers are faculty designers, few are trained in instructional design models, inclusive design, instructional…

This qualitative study explored the training and preparation of educators who teach sexual health education to students identified as intellectual and developmentally disabled. People with disabilities experience the highest rates of abuse, including mental, emotional, physical, and sexual. Although there are many resources to help improve the…

In this dissertation I explore the collaborative practices of three participants: two paraprofessionals and one music teacher. Using social capital as the theoretical framework, I analyzed the ways in which the participants networked with others to gain resources for expressive action. In order to more fully understand the social structures that…

Students of color and students with disabilities are two underserved populations in our educational systems. At the intersection of these groups is a new subgroup: special education students of color (SESOC), who are highly underserved in schools. The experiences and perspectives of teachers of color who serve special education students of color…

Access to general education is a federal mandate for all students but a major challenge in middle schools. The problem addressed in this study is a lack of access to the general education curriculum in the middle grades 6th-8th. To solve this problem, the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework was created to provide instructional design…

Women student-athletes' perspectives were explored through interviews in this qualitative, interpretive, multiple case study to examine how academic, athletic, peer-social, and spiritual development pathways influence their well-being. The perspectives of their coaches were also collected. Since women student-athletes may have different…

Inclusive education is an agenda that emanated from the Global North, and had as its imperative the eradication of discriminatory policies and practices that prevent some children from accessing a quality education. In recent years, it has increasingly been argued by scholars in the Global South that the supremacy of Eurocentric knowledge, theory,…

BIPOC students attending a community college in the Bay Area bring traumas to school with them and then they relive their traumas in the classroom through professors' pedagogy and the curriculum. This dissertation which was conducted during twin pandemics of COVID 19 and racism, researched a group of English professors that teach first generation…

This qualitative phenomenological study explored the lack of diversity among African American faculty at Ivy League universities. The purpose was to examine African American Ivy League professors' perspectives on diversity initiatives and how the lack of diversity and inclusion policies may hinder African American faculty career development.…

Higher education diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have become an imperative for institutional change in an ever-changing pluralistic society. The impact of diversity on college campuses has come a long way since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Chang, 2005), but there is still needed work. Higher education institutions continue to…

We have observed a change in students, graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), and instructors as more Gen Z members enter the university. Many are facing mental health issues and sharing about them in ways prior students, GTAs, and instructors did not. Knowing in general that Gen Z students have more anxiety and depression, we argue that empathic…

Calls to support inclusive educational experiences for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) have been longstanding. General education STEM classes may provide a rich context for promoting the inclusion of these students within a relevant curricular area. To assess inclusive class participation, we directly observed 15…

Truancy, a complex, unresolved educational issue in countries with compulsory attendance policies, has the potential to cause further educational inequity in times of a global COVID-19 pandemic. At the time of this study, there was a paucity of research regarding youth perspectives of truancy compared to adult perspectives. To address this gap in…

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic brought about several challenges in both learning and instructive styles. Chief among these was engagement in classrooms that were remote, in-person or switched between the two due to quarantine periods. In a content centric biomaterials core course, here we describe an 'inclusive engagement toolkit' that combines…

Students with special needs are being educated alongside their general education peers at a growing rate. With this increase and the movement towards inclusive classrooms, teacher perceptions are critical to analyze to ensure that they are equipped with the knowledge and skills that are needed to instruct students with and without disabilities.…