Adolescent girls often face barriers to fulfill their educational aspirations after childbearing. Unfulfilled goals tend to be associated with low educational attainment and other adverse outcomes for the young mothers, their children, and society. The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of Barbadian young women who parented as adolescents and struggled to graduate from formal secondary school. The goal was to understand their perceptions of support for their educational aspirations by their peers and significant others. Social constructionism was the conceptual framework. Moustakas’ transcendental method guided data collection and analysis. Data were collected by conducting in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 8 Barbadian women who bore children in their teen years and who struggled to complete formal high school. Rich descriptions emerged from the essence of their experiences and provided insight into the academic and emotional needs of school-age mothers. The analysis revealed that they experienced challenges balancing motherhood and being a student, stigma, hopelessness, and determination to reach their aspirations. They also experienced support by their friends, school personnel, and their families but they experienced little support from the fathers of their children. This study has implications that could affect positive social change by informing educators and families of the importance of meeting the unique needs of this vulnerable group. Educational leaders and policymakers could use these findings to guide programs aimed at empowering pregnant or parenting girls to achieve educational success and long-term socioeconomic well being.

The following dissertation presents a historical narrative and an arts (music, dance, and visual arts) curriculum based on the artwork of the quintessential Caribbean-American artist, Geoffrey Holder. The dissertation is a response to a reported lack of research and teaching materials on Caribbean artists. That is, arts educators at the secondary and postsecondary levels as well as art museum educators reported a lack of, and need for, curriculum and teaching materials grounded in Caribbean content and reflective of Caribbean cultural epistemologies. Through the qualitative research methodology of historiography, an historical analysis of Holder’s artwork was conducted to develop a historical narrative, and through the instructional design approach of ADDIE an arts curriculum on music, dance, and visual arts was developed. The framing of the historical narrative was based in concepts drawn from Third Space theory into conversation with creolization to form the conceptual grounding for my exploration into Caribbean epistemologies. The curriculum development is grounded in concepts of intercultural education and inclusive arts education curriculum design. The results of this dissertation confirm the research gap of teaching resources for arts educators and needed for the supplemental materials provided through this research.