Research interrogating the development, implementation and enforcement of reactionary and conservative social and educational movements and policies has enabled us to show the con- tradictions and unequal effects and the disproportionate and disparate impacts on the lives of mi- nority students (Apple, 2009). This research study examined how the Board of Regents, Geor- gia’s higher education governing body, interprets and enforces the “lawful presence” require- ment set forth in USG Policy 4.1.6. The study gave primary consideration to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients, who the data show have been systematically excluded from access to certain state colleges and universities without legal cause or justification. The study also examined the perceived impacts of Policy 4.1.6 on DACA students seek- ing admission to the state’s most selective colleges and universities. Data collected from partici- pant interviews of DACA students, along with data gathered through participant observation and documents analysis, were used to create a greater understanding of the impacts of Policy 4.1.6 on both DACA and undocumented students. The study is significant because it traverses matters of current legal import, while also contributing to the growing body of literature concerning access to postsecondary education for undocumented students. Using the methodological approach of critical theory, the study incorporated elements of critical race theory (CRT), critical Latino/a studies (LatCrit), and critical policy analysis in the exploration of the various narratives and counternarratives created by the enforcement of Policy 4.1.6. Using Interpretive Phenomenologi- cal Analysis (IPA) of the interview data, a critical assessment of the perceived impacts of Geor- gia immigration and education policy development and implementation is also provided. Finally, this study revealed the ways in which ‘race-neutral’ educational policies result in discriminatory practices against minorities, specifically undocumented students, the majority of who are Lati- no/a. The knowledge gained from this research gives policymakers on either side of this issue with analysis that can more effectively guide them in the interpretation of federal mandates and conflicting state laws that result in the subordination of significant segments of student popula- tions.

This study focused on the disciplining actions given to students of color after the implementation of the zero tolerance (ZT) policy in Texas’ schools. Out-of-school suspension and expulsion data were analyzed to depict trends and/or patterns across school levels as well as gender and race/ethnicity. More specifically, the disciplinary action of 34,047 elementary, middle and high school students of color suspended out-of-school and expelled in Texas’ public schools during the1999-2000 and 2002-2003 academic school years were statistically analyzed then evaluated via specific tenets of critical race theory (CRT). A critical policy analysis, as defined by the researcher, was discussed using the results of the data analysis. In addition, the predictive power of the variables school level, gender and race/ethnicity on the disciplinary action given to students of color were analyzed during the school terms under study. The most statistically significant finding of the study was the influence of ethnicity on out-of-school suspension and expulsion rates of students of color in the State of Texas after the implementation of the policy known as ZT during the selected school terms. Furthermore, of the students enrolled in public schools in Texas during the 1999-2000 and 2002-2003 school years, African-American students comprised 14.3 and 14.4 percent of the population; yet, they received more than one-third of all disciplining actions, second to European Americans who comprised 43 and 40 percent of the enrolled population. When compared to other students of color, African-American students received 53.6 and 53.9 percent of the out-of-school suspensions and 64.3 and 65.1 of the expulsions. Even though the data presented were aligned with previous research studies, the view of disciplinary actions for students of color from a critical race theory (CRT) lens highlights the deficiencies outlined via a critical policy analysis of the ZT policy as it is used to fortify the safety of schools.

In July 2022, the University of California (UC) permanently eliminated the standardized tests requirement for its freshman admissions in order to alleviate the severed socioeconomic gap and college access barriers that were heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic. This critical policy analysis research explored the immediate effects of UC’s policy reform on higher education equity. All 14 participants were underrepresented minority (URM) students who applied to at least one UC campus for fall 2022’s freshman admissions and were enrolled in four-year universities at the time of this study. From demographic surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interviews, I applied critical race theory (CRT) tenets and internalized oppression theory to explore, interpret, and provide counter-narratives of URM students’ college planning and application experiences after the policy reform. From analyzing these students’ perceptions of the elimination of the standardized tests requirement and UC’s admissions equity, I identified the following four findings: 1. Insidiousness of Higher Education Racism: The Role of Standardized Testing in Admissions 2. Enduring Internalized Oppression: The Lingering Effects of the Legitimization of Standardized test requirement 3. Intersectionality of Race, Income, First-Generation College Students’ Status, and Pandemic Impacts 4. Increased Trust in the Higher Education Admissions System After application and identification, I critically discussed the research findings and provided implications for future policies, practices, and research directions for higher education admissions equity based on the four findings. In conclusion and alignment with the CRT tenet of interest convergence, UC’s policy has increased opportunities for all students and has benefited both White and underrepresented minority URM students in terms of their acceptance into highly selective, four-year universities.

As systems of accountability and efficiency continue to permeate public education institutions it is important that research engage the various factors that embody how these systems come to be, whose knowledge gains access to informing their designs, and whose interests are served. Texas has long been recognized as a testing ground for such policy designs, although researchers’ points of departure on such systems have solely focused on the outcomes of these policies in practice. Research on the political construction and discourses that define the underlying goals of these systems continue to be ignored by researchers. Analyses of Texas-inspired federal policies have also predominantly taken an outcomes-based approach, or at most have had episodic engagements with political processes peering down from the balcony to observe the interaction of the obvious actors. To this end, this three-year ethnographic study conceptually and methodologically engages the various dimensions—such as race, class, history, interest, power, and agency—that embody the political lineage of Texas’ new system of Accountability and College Readiness across various contexts. This study further contributes to the dearth of literature that examines the role of research and university researchers in policy debates, and the limits and possibilities of politically engaged scholars in such processes. / text

The current economic conditions in the United States have contributed to budgetary cuts to public education at both the federal and state levels. This attention to educational funding and political decisions regarding spending are linked to beliefs about what is valued in education and what proper policy solutions exist. Yet, contemporary actions and issues do not exist in isolation. These economic difficulties are situated in a specific context, history, and have been shaped by political ideologies. This dissertation is directly focused on critically examining the history and context of school finance policy. School finance policy has been an important political issue for over 40 years, beginning with the San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez case (Koski & Levin, 2000). This case was first filed in 1968 and serves as the unit of analysis for this study. While much of the body of work regarding school finance is framed according to traditional economic methods and beliefs, this study is a historic narrative that utilizes critical policy analysis to examine educational funding. Though Rodriguez was a case filed by Mexican American parents on behalf of students in the Edgewood school district, which served a student population that was over 90% Latino, Mexican Americans and the voices of Mexican Americans were glaringly absent from the arguments made in court. This absence of race marks a need for critical policy analysis and work that calls attention to this silent area of political discourse. The purpose of this paper is to examine the inclusion and exclusion of race in the Rodriguez case to find out what is missing from the dominant narratives of school finance and begin to understand how current policies continue to ignore race. Historic methods, guided by a Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) framework, are employed to analyze archival records, newspaper articles, legal documents, and oral histories. Narratives reveal themes of the social context that lead to legal action, the language used in the courts cases, and the lasting implications for continued understandings of school finance policy. / text

Between 2003 and 2007, concerns about the illegal drug crystal methamphetamine (meth) increased dramatically in British Columbia despite research data that indicated usage rates were low among the general youth and adult populations. This dissertation draws on the insights of social constructionist theories that challenge the assumption that social problems are the natural outcome of ‘society’s ills,’ and explores the claims-making activities including public policy, that construct a ‘social problem’ like meth. This project draws on semi-structured interviews with members of citizen groups, policy-makers in the B.C. provincial government, representatives from health authorities and community-based services. It also includes textual analysis of key public policy and other documents. My analysis explores the narratives of illicit drug use that emerged from this data. The findings indicate that public policy officials and citizen groups held different perspectives about what kind of problem meth posed, as well as about the appropriate programs and policies government should use to respond to this drug. To problematize meth, citizen group members drew on long-standing emotionally driven claims informed by law enforcement and media, to shape meth as a uniquely addictive and dangerous agent with the potential to ensnare innocent victims from all walks of life. Public policy officials, on the other hand, insisted that governmental responses to meth must be similar to other prohibited substances, and should be evidence-based to avoid the influence of politics. These evidence-based responses, however, were shaped by values-based frameworks emerging from the marriage between neo-liberal ideas about governing and what Foucault calls ‘governmentality’. The twin pressures of public outrage, and this marriage of ideologies, shaped a hybrid of governmental approaches to the meth ‘problem’ that illustrated the complex and contradictory forces at work inside state institutions and between state institutions and non-governmental actors. Citizen groups pressured government using claims that bypassed scientific ‘evidence’ about drug use, in favour of frightening assertions about the need to protect children from the supposedly uniquely dangerous effects of this drug. These claims were used to gain support from politicians, resulting in new funding and program initiatives such as the Crystal Meth Secretariat that took as axiomatic a criminalized approach to drug use that excluded harm reduction measures. These claims depended upon and highlighted law enforcement and media based claims about meth and illicit drug use. But in neither case did official government responses, or crystal meth groups scrutinize or challenge the health and social inequities that shape illicit drug use. Rather both governmental and citizen group responses focused on change at the individual level eschewing sociological insights about the social conditions that shape illicit drug use and its harms. / Graduate / 2013-04-24

This thesis examines factors that underscored higher education reforms in Central and Eastern Europe during the transition period from 1990 to 2005. The study explores higher education reforms in three national settings – Hungary, Romania and the Republic of Moldova, and presents a detailed analysis of the Moldovan case. Rooted in critical approaches to development, transition reforms and policy analysis in higher education, it addresses the new realities of global capitalism, inequitable distribution of power between the industrialized nations and the rest of the world, and the ways in which this power distribution impacts higher education systems in Central and Eastern Europe. Historical analyses, a qualitative cross-national analysis of HE systems in three nations, and interviews with Moldovan higher education policymakers provided rich data on higher education reforms in the region and selected nations. Higher education evolved from institutions serving very select elite in the Middle Ages to universities driving modernization in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, and to diverse institutional types - universities, colleges, institutes - underscoring the massification of higher education after WWII. Policies pursued by Hungarian, Romanian and Moldovan leaders to expand higher education were informed by the national socio-economic, political and demographic contexts, the dominant global development agenda, and international institutional practices. The capacity of national leaders to carry out higher education reforms was limited by the colonial and post-colonial relationships that were established over centuries between each of these nations and stronger regional powers, such as the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian Empires, the Soviet Union, and the European Union. Major regional powers had a significant role in the formation of nation states, educational institutions and higher education politics. At the same time, national elites used language and ethnic policies to shape social and higher education developments and build national identities. By bringing an international perspective to the analysis of reforms in Central and Eastern Europe, by focusing on Hungary, Romania and Moldova, and by drawing on critical theory and post-colonial studies, this research study contributes to the international scholarly discussion of higher education and development reforms, enriches methodological developments in the field of higher education, and advances the discourse of comparative higher education.

This thesis examines factors that underscored higher education reforms in Central and Eastern Europe during the transition period from 1990 to 2005. The study explores higher education reforms in three national settings – Hungary, Romania and the Republic of Moldova, and presents a detailed analysis of the Moldovan case. Rooted in critical approaches to development, transition reforms and policy analysis in higher education, it addresses the new realities of global capitalism, inequitable distribution of power between the industrialized nations and the rest of the world, and the ways in which this power distribution impacts higher education systems in Central and Eastern Europe. Historical analyses, a qualitative cross-national analysis of HE systems in three nations, and interviews with Moldovan higher education policymakers provided rich data on higher education reforms in the region and selected nations. Higher education evolved from institutions serving very select elite in the Middle Ages to universities driving modernization in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, and to diverse institutional types - universities, colleges, institutes - underscoring the massification of higher education after WWII. Policies pursued by Hungarian, Romanian and Moldovan leaders to expand higher education were informed by the national socio-economic, political and demographic contexts, the dominant global development agenda, and international institutional practices. The capacity of national leaders to carry out higher education reforms was limited by the colonial and post-colonial relationships that were established over centuries between each of these nations and stronger regional powers, such as the Habsburg, Ottoman and Russian Empires, the Soviet Union, and the European Union. Major regional powers had a significant role in the formation of nation states, educational institutions and higher education politics. At the same time, national elites used language and ethnic policies to shape social and higher education developments and build national identities. By bringing an international perspective to the analysis of reforms in Central and Eastern Europe, by focusing on Hungary, Romania and Moldova, and by drawing on critical theory and post-colonial studies, this research study contributes to the international scholarly discussion of higher education and development reforms, enriches methodological developments in the field of higher education, and advances the discourse of comparative higher education.

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