This dissertation uses a cross sectional quantitative design to investigate the relationship between first-year college students' social class and their pre-college interest in engaging in co-curricular experiences during college, their motivations for engaging in co-curricular experiences, and their perceptions of whether co-curricular activities…

Adult numeracy is one of the essential skill sets to navigate through numeric information-rich labor markets in general, and STEM industries in particular. Yet, relatively little is known about how numeracy skills are used in different settings in the USA. This study examined numeracy skill use patterns of STEM and non-STEM workers at work and…

High school music education is not mandated by the Standards of Quality, the Virginia state educational law, and courses offered on the high school level vary among Virginia school divisions. This explanatory mixed methods dissertation study provides an overview of history of development of high school music education in Virginia, reveals what…

In the most recent assessment by the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), approximately 19% of adults in the United States scored at or below Level 1 in literacy (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2019a). Adults who performed at Level 1 were only able to identify one key piece of information from…

This qualitative research study examined the role of student services practitioners in the success of minoritized graduate students at a 4-year private, Christian university. This study aimed to examine the practices of student services practitioners--including their experiential, philosophical, and practical approaches to student success--through…

Following the racial unrest of 2020, anti-racist rhetoric from K-12 schools and university teacher education institutes magnified. Despite claiming alliance with anti-racism, it became unclear whether the actions of teacher education, both in-service and pre-service, matched their rhetoric. To determine how, if at all, teacher education informs…

It is critical that educators learn about the concept of implicit bias and contemplate any unconscious biases they may hold since Black students disproportionately experience punitive school disciplinary consequences and placement into programs for students with disabilities. Greenwald and colleagues' early (1998) research on implicit association…

In recent years, an ongoing conversation has emerged about the need for museums to address how collecting practices reinforce and perpetuate racial oppression (Jennings et al., 2014; Lynch & Alberti, 2010; trivedi, 2015), ultimately creating unwelcoming environments for groups of color (Jennings et al., 2014; Sandell, 2002; trivedi 2015). Of…

As intersectionality gains more prominence, scholars still face difficulties of incorporating principles of intersectionality into empirical research. Key concepts of intersectionality theory include moving away from additive thinking, relationality, and social constructionism. An important challenge is how to incorporate these concepts into…

In order to meet the significant staffing challenges to health care provision in South Africa, the need to support the training and retention of Black medical specialists has been identified. This small qualitative study aimed to explore experiences of mentorship among a group of Black medical specialists in hopes of understanding the value and…

As a way to develop a more somatic response to race and the legacy of injury and violence towards the first peoples of the Hawaiian nation, this paper's aim is to draw a connection between the early writings of American women to Hawai'i and my own positionality as a feminist scholar in present day Hawai'i. Using a feminist, postcolonial lens, I…

In this article, I analyze, evaluate, and problematize the structure of settler colonialism and demonstrate how it is a process that remains entrenched in the U.S. educational system. I build on previous work done on settler colonial ideology by linking structural forms of settler colonial power to the lived experiences of Indigenous students,…

This article is an examination and a refusal of education as a site of making-up kinds of people. "Indian," "Aboriginal," "Black," "refugee," "special needs," "citizens," "white," "boy," "girl" are but a few of the kinds of people education continues to make…

The author describes a literacy activity that took place in an 11th-grade English language arts classroom: student-created role-play. Through a discussion of two such role-plays, the author explores how these performances illustrate students' engagement with raciolinguistic ideologies that marginalize certain speakers through the simultaneous…

Diversity is a ubiquitous concept in Education. Our contemporary racial discourse has been taken over by diversity talk. That is, to talk about race in the colorblind era in the contexts of school admissions or educational policy is to do so through the language of diversity. However, the hegemonic ascendancy of diversity has been dependent on the…