Operating from Postcolonial theory and using Honneth (1994), and Taylor (1995) conception of Multicultural recognition, Yosso's (2005) Community Cultural Wealth, and studies on Culturally Responsive Leadership, this dissertation presents three empirical studies that evidence the necessity of a global decolonization towards multicultural recognition. The first study shed light of a recognized Indigenous school that struggles for recognition and counters colonial domination. Findings demonstrated how a culturally responsive shared leadership fosters academic achievement and cultural pride. The second study provides an example of resilience and community cultural wealth in a group of repatriated students from the United States to Mexico, at the same time presents a re-conceptualization of cultural capital concept (Bourdieu, 1997), as a guide for recognition of cultural wealth within migrant communities. The final study examines how Southern Arizona principals conceptualize and enact successful leadership in border schools with shifting demographics and high percentages of colonized populations. Findings indicate that, along with Leithwood and Riehl's leadership dimensions, all four principals demonstrate a sociocultural affect as part of successful practice in Arizona border contexts.

Within the broader context of the representation of Latinas in higher education, the purpose of this study is to investigate the post-secondary aspirations of Latinas who were involved in a community-based folklórico program. In addition, this study seeks to understand how participating in folklórico programs can influence the college and career aspirations of Latinas, if at all. Finally, this study examines the skills developed by participating in folklórico programs that are transferable to education and career goals or life in general. The theoretical framework of this study was Yosso’s (2005) concept of community cultural wealth and included the expansion of community cultural wealth by Rendon, Nora, and Kanagala (2014). The method of this study was an instrumental case study using individual semi-structured interviews, a focus group, and document analysis to collect data. The findings of this study described the influence of participation in community-based folklórico programs for Latinas, and the development of transferable skills. This study informs educational leaders about the importance of developing pathways to college for folklórico participants that are equipped with the skills, qualities, and capital necessary to be successful in higher education.

This study employed narrative methods to explore how two Somali-Canadian women formed and understood their identities as first-generation university students. In conceptualizing identity, the study draws on sociological literature that frames identities as a collection of social roles that are performed. Within this framework, university student is a cultural object related to specific kinds of capital. The data are presented in narrative form, based in life history and life story approaches. Within their narratives, participants recounted the ways in which their attempts at developing a university student identity were complicated by their identities as Black, Muslim, economically marginalized individuals from refugee backgrounds. The tension at the heart of each participants’ narrative was not how to perform the university student role, but the cost of that performance on other parts of their identity. These findings reveal the narrow definition university student within the Canadian imagination and its consequence for the lives of marginalized communities.

Dominant education ideology focuses on the numerous challenges encountered by low-income Black youth in urban education settings. Although much of the research seeks to highlight structural challenges faced by these students, the general interpretation of these studies may reinforce the popular belief that academic underperformance by low-income Black students is the result of family structure and maladaptive familial behaviors. The implications of this ideology is that these family characteristics foster low achievement because students enter schools without normative skills and knowledge, in addition to adhering to beliefs that do not value education (Ogbu & Simmons, 1998). Some research argues that low-income Black students that demonstrate success in schools do so because they have adopted White middle-class normative capital (Hubbard, 1999). Yosso (2005) argues that the analysis of student narratives of success through the lens of Critical Race Theory offers a critique of deficit theorizing and shifts the perspective away from White middle-class culture to the cultural capital of minority communities. Yosso posits that low-income minority communities have cultural capital that is not widely recognized in research that she describes as community cultural wealth. This qualitative study explored if community-derived “capital” is utilized by high-achieving, low-income Black high school students in order to succeed academically in educational institutions. This inquiry privileged the narratives of high-achieving Black students from disadvantaged communities in order to understand the factors that contribute to their academic success, from their perspectives. Seven high achieving Black high school students from Philadelphia who were enrolled in a college access mentoring program were chosen for this study. Interviews and observations were conducted to allow the researcher to examine the experiences of study participants in a naturalistic setting while engaging with their life histories through narrative. Participants were selected and observed once a week at their mentor site, in addition to participating in three rounds of interviews during spring/summer 2015. Two of the seven participants were also observed in their high schools. Student-participants engaged in three rounds of interviews that focused on family background and dynamics, educational experiences, and aspirations. Additionally, one mentor for each student-participant was interviewed. This examination of community cultural wealth found that aspirational, familial, and navigational capital are vital in the academic success of the participants in this study. Linguistic capital and social capital only moderately apply to rationalizations for their high academic achievement, and resistant capital does not apply in the explication of their success. / Urban Education

In Central Texas, one high school (hereafter referred to as Literacy High) has attempted to help bridge the literacy gap in immigrant populations so as to more easily facilitate their success in standard classroom settings. In this high school, recent immigrants can focus extensively on English language studies so that, upon completion of the program, they can return to their neighborhood high schools with the linguistic and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1973, 1974, 1977) they need to succeed in a heterogeneous group setting. The following study focuses on second-year students from Mexico within this school. Basing itself upon Yosso's (2006a, 2006b, 2007) theory of “community cultural wealth”, this ethnographic study looks for evidence of cultural attributes held by Mexican tenth grade students that contribute positively to their English literacy development and performance in Literacy High's coursework. The study has found that, primarily, Mexican students at Literacy High are assisted in their coursework by their previously developed aspirational capital (i.e. their ability to maintain their hopes and dreams for a better future even when faced with real and perceived barriers) and navigational capital (i.e. their ability to maneuver through social institutions, in this case the educational system). These characteristics enable them to pass their classes both at Literacy High and the high schools they transfer to upon program completion. However, this high achievement in terms of grades does not necessarily translate into complete English literacy, especially oral literacy. Potential reasons for these results will be discussed, based upon observations of sampled students in Literacy High classes, interviews with these students, and interviews with all Literacy High teachers. This work will also discuss the relative merit of both formal school settings and nonprofit settings in teaching written and oral literacy. Positive exemplary case studies of nonprofit ESL programs will be compared and contrasted with the results from this case study to determine what skills are most effectively taught in either setting, and how particular practices from both nonprofit and formal school settings might be better incorporated in each to improve achievement. The work will end with recommendations for how English literacy might more effectively be taught in formal school settings like Literacy High. / text

Most research on low-income, racial minority students' access to higher education has been conducted in urban communities. Little research explores these students' experiences within rural settings. Using Ríos-Aguilar, Kiyama, Gravitt and Moll's framework (2011) that bridges Yosso's (2005) "community cultural wealth" with alternative forms of capital, this case study investigated how three alumni students from a low-income, rural, border community accessed information and resources for college within their school, homes and community. Narratives, one-on-one interviews, and a survey questionnaire helped determine multiple forms of capital participants leveraged towards higher education. Participants' college pursuits and choices were influenced by information from family members, teachers and guidance counselors, community scholarships, and emotional support of family, friends, and community members. Research must continue to follow the experiences of rural, low-income, minority students access to higher education and create better opportunities and connections for them to attend college.

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Published Article / Why do African learners continue to be underrepresented in the top 20 positions of the Grade 12 examination results, and what can be done to remedy the situation? Yosso's notion of community cultural wealth shows that it is because our education continues to exclude the African learners' ways of knowing and being that the situation remains as it is. Analysing discourses of top performing white former Grade 12 learners, their teachers, their parents and their former African classmates, indicate that including modes of knowing of all learners in the curriculum irrespective of their race, class, disability or gender may help to create more socially just schooling, which is reflective of sustainable learning environments.

In education today, Latino populations are growing, but Telles and Ortiz (2013) claim they account for the lowest academic levels and the highest levels of dropouts. Latino transfronterizo (literally border crossing) students and their parents in this study have high academic aspirations in spite of challenges of poverty, second language acquisition, and other difficulties which arise from U.S.-Mexico border contexts. Through dissecting the events of the 1990s and early 2000s, the progression of northern migration from Mexico and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 influenced anti-immigrant sentiment along the border and enactment of laws and policies to limit circumnavigating the international line. Misidentification as illegal immigrants creates borderland perceptions that Latinos are suspects and often results in discriminatory treatment from postcolonial dominant culture. This culture is reflected and perpetuated in schools where home language surveys identify native Spanish speakers to segregate them into Structured English Immersion programs for students with Limited English Proficiency. Ethnographic research from January of 2013 to August of 2015 included over 300 observations and 14 semi-structured interviews with seven transfronterizo students and nine parents revealed language disconnects between school and home. Relationships between teachers and students/parents did not exist and trust was lacking. Latino parents wanted to help students with school, but English only requirements limited their assistance. Through the use of Furman's ethic of community and Yosso's community cultural wealth, educational leaders could create communal process at schools to build the capacity of teachers and parents to create relationships and shared cultural competencies.

abstract: There is tremendous value in bringing fresh voices and perspectives to theory and practice, as it is through these novel lenses that research advances in rich and more equitable ways. However, the importance of first-generation college students being involved in this process has been vastly underestimated and undervalued by researchers and practitioners alike. Extrapolating from interdisciplinary research on counterstorytelling and networked counterpublics, the aim of this study was to explore how the proposed theoretical model of networked counterstorytelling—as presented through a grassroots digital storytelling campaign—could create space for first-generation student voice and leadership to help inform current theoretical understandings of social capital and community cultural wealth. Using a multimethodological approach—combining large-scale network analytics with qualitative netnographic analysis (Kozinets, 2015)—this study (1) produced novel methods for measuring and analyzing social capital within social media communities and (2) demonstrated how grassroots digital storytelling campaigns, facilitated by the affordances of social media platforms such as Instagram, can function as means for inviting the leadership, voice, and perspectives of first-generation college students into the design of higher education research and practice. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2020