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This hermeneutic phenomenological study explored the lived experiences of five Black male music educators (BMMEs) in the northeastern United States. Of the four million educators across the country, recent studies show that only 1.9% identify as Black males, which is a decrease from six percent in 2008. The purpose of the study was to gain a deeper understanding of the influences and lived experiences of these Black male music educators, with the goal of creating music educational spaces within schools that better support Black male musicians. The researcher conducted a series of three interviews with each educator, which focused on their K-12 formative musical experiences, their collegiate music education, and their work as classroom music educators. In addition to two focus group sessions with the five educators, the researcher conducted three teaching observations. The theoretical framework for this study was Critical Race Theory. The study took place in the span of four months in the fall of 2022. The interviews and classroom observations were analyzed by finding themes within them and reading them in the context of the entire interview to gain a deeper understanding of the lived experience of the participants. The findings illustrated the participants’ lived experience through a series of primary themes: family support, strong mentors/teachers, talent identified by others, resilience, isolation, Black church music influence, high expectations in teaching, and creating community.

The COVID-19 pandemic has threatened to widen racial educational achievement and attainment gaps in the United States, reinforcing a need to understand how education policy can work to advance racial equity. Dual enrollment (DE) programs offer a potential policy solution that could increase college-going for these students as participation has consistently been associated with increased rates of college-going and completion. These prior findings are heterogeneous among student demographics. This study expands on this prior research on DE by examining how access to DE and benefits from participation may have differential benefits based one’s intersectional identities. Using a critical quantitative framework, QuantCrit, and multiple national datasets this study investigates three related questions. First, using IPEDS and the American Community Survey and logistic regression I investigate how do demographics of areas of the United States with limited access to widely accessible colleges and universities (called college access deserts) vary from those with greater access? I then consider access to DE with the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection: 2017-18 and linear probability models by examining how access to DE varied across the United States, with attention to Black females and males. Finally, with the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 and linear probability models, I investigate if participation in DE is associated with increased probabilities of attending postsecondary education and does this association vary for Black people based on their gender. I find that areas of the United States that have less access to widely accessible public colleges have lower proportions of Black people, but higher proportions of American Indian/Alaskan Native residents. Analysis of the Civil Rights Data Collection indicates that high schools with less access to widely accessible public colleges were more likely to offer DE. However, schools with higher percentages of Black students and male students are less likely to offer DE. The HSLS analysis shows that DE is positively associated with postsecondary attendance. Of postsecondary enrollees, DE participants were more likely to enroll in four-year institutions, but this increased probability may vary by gender as female DE participants had greater increased probabilities of enrolling in four-year institutions than male DE participants. Taken together, this study’s findings indicate that DE can be a policy to advance postsecondary attendance for all students – however current access is racialized. These findings show that expanding DE for all students could increase postsecondary attendance. I conclude with recommendations for dual enrollment programs to broaden access in areas of the United States with widely accessible public colleges and the utility of open science and anti-racist quantitative methods in educational research. / Policy, Organizational and Leadership Studies

<p>International students are integral in U.S. higher education institutions, and research demonstrates that these students face a range of concerns, with race and racism being understudied. In this dissertation, I present two chapters highlighting the racialized experiences of international students of color. In the first theoretical chapter, I connected international student literature to tenets of Critical Race Theory. I ended with specific recommendations for the field of counseling psychology. In the second empirical chapter, I conducted a narrative inquiry and interviewed 6 Asian Indian international students about how they formed understandings of race and racism in the United States. Through using reflexive thematic analysis, four themes of antiessentialism and intersectionality, social construction of race, sources of racial construction, and impacts of racial construction were developed. Using these results, I provided insights into how international students from India may understand race and implications for clinical practice, higher education, and research. </p>

This study aims to understand the experience of a non-White family trying to adopt a transracial child. ‘Transracial adoption’ is defined as a family adopting a child from a different race than theirs. My overarching focus is on how society comes to understand transracial adoption as a one-way transfer of minority children into White families, however, when the roles are reversed there is a lack of acceptance for minority families adopting transracially – specifically, when the adoptive child is White. The purpose of my study is to share my mine and mother’s life experience of fostering, social workers, child welfare and adoption so that minorities who are looking to adopt transracially may use mine and/or my mother’s life experience to help guide their adoption process if they feel they are being discriminated against. This study will also explore motivations, values, ethics and possible biases regarding transracial adoptions. Highlighting the contradictions that exist in transracial adoption practices I will use my own research as a platform for awareness of how social work practice can influence the lives of minorities who would like to adopt transracially, and for the need at both a macro and micro to create clearer transracial adoption policies for minority and White families. / Thesis / Master of Social Welfare (MSW)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the personal, cultural and structural experiences and barriers faced by highly skilled Canadian university graduate immigrants regarding finding a good job related to their qualification in the labour market, and how this struggle has shaped their lives. Data was collected through individuals by semi-structured questionnaires. Interviews were the deep source of skilled immigrants’ experiences and problems they have faced in the labour market. Applying the critical race theory perspective and using the Thompson PCS Model as investigating tool, this study sought to capture the participants’ reality. The findings suggest that immigrants are facing many structural and systemic barriers and racial discrimination in the labour market. It is affecting them not only individually but also affecting their families and because of that these skilled immigrants have a plan to leave Canada for better job opportunities because even after graduating from Canadian universities they were unable to find work according to their field of study and work experience. Major themes emerging from this research include: why skilled immigrants pursued more education if they were already graduated from their home countries; immigration policies and labour market policies mismatch; non-recognition of immigrants credentials and work experience; inadequate settlement services; racial discrimination in job market; and what difference they feel before and after graduating from Canadian university in finding a job. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

This dissertation walks the balance between the western structures of academia and Indigenous ways of storytelling and knowing. Stories are how knowledge is shared and passed down in many Indigenous cultures. This study utilizes Indigenous Storywork methods, alongside western case study methodology, to explore how colonialism and the structures of public, non-Native higher education institutions and engineering programs impact the lived experiences of Indigenous STEM students. Using Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCrit), this study also connects individual student experiences through stories to systemic structures of universities and engineering programs in a way that honors and amplifies Indigenous ways of thinking and doing. The study was situated at a university in the eastern U.S. and had three primary forms of data: public documents such as university historical documents and program policies and structures, focus group discussions with a university Council of Elders from the Indigenous community, and individual interviews with Indigenous STEM students from the Lumbee and Coharie nations. The findings demonstrate the ways that the Indigenous STEM students at North Carolina State University hold community as a cultural value from their Tribal backgrounds that is paramount to their success at the university. The students utilize community to access knowledge and build power for themselves as well as for the whole university Indigenous community. NC State's Indigenous engineering students perceived the structures and policies of their engineering programs to be disconnected from community and relationality and thus did not utilize or connect to these structures as designed. This work also provides an example of a framework for engaging with university Indigenous communities to co-create meaningful and impactful research and demonstrates the differences in the experiences of Indigenous students in the eastern U.S. from those in the west, specifically in terms of their invisibility in the larger community, both on and off campus. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation walks the balance between the western structures of academia and Indigenous ways of storytelling and knowing. Stories are how knowledge is shared and passed down in many Indigenous cultures. This study centers Indigenous methodologies and theories to explore how colonialism and the structures of public, non-Native, higher education institutions and engineering programs impact the lived experiences of Indigenous STEM students. This study also connects individual student experiences to the systemic structures of universities and engineering programs. The study focuses on a university in the eastern U.S. and used three forms of data: public documents such university historical documents and current policies, a group discussion with a Council of Elders from the Indigenous community, and individual interviews with Indigenous STEM students. The students were members of the Lumbee and Coharie nations. The findings highlight the way they hold community as a cultural value deeply tied to their Tribal backgrounds. This community is key to their success at the university and used community to access knowledge and build power for themselves as well as for the whole university Indigenous community. In particular, the Indigenous engineering students perceived the structures and policies of their engineering programs to be disconnected from community and relationships, and thus they did not use or connect to those structures in the intended ways. Instead, they went outside the system to gain the knowledge the needed. This work also provides a framework, grounded in Indigenous value of respect, reciprocity, responsibility, reverence, holism, interrelatedness, and synergy, for engaging with university Indigenous communities to co-create meaningful and impactful research and demonstrates the differences in the experiences of Indigenous students in the eastern U.S. from those in the west, specifically in terms of their invisibility in the larger community, both on and off campus.

Excerpt: This article argues that that transnational movement of Melvin van Peebles is crucial in ending the dearth in African American feature film production in the United States after Oscar Micheaux’s The Betrayal (1948).

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