This study explored microaggressions that underrepresented students in Communication Sciences and Disorders experience. Phase I included a survey that was sent out to 276 undergraduate and graduate students at one university with 14 questions. Students were asked to identify with demographic variables, rate their sense of belonging, and discuss microaggressions they had experienced. Phase II comprised of individual interviews with six participants that further explored their experience as an underrepresented student in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Interviews were transcribed and coded using a content analysis. Across the two phases, quantitative, mixed-method, and content analyses were completed. Interviews were transcribed and a qualitative analysis included cross tabulating demographic variables with the number and basis of microaggression. The frequency, type, and basis of microaggressions were identified through the mixed-methods analysis. The content analysis resulted in the emergence of two major themes: belonging and feedback. Within the first theme of belonging, there were three codes: facilitators, obstructors, and changes in belonging. In the second theme, feedback, there were two codes: macrointerventions and microinterventions. Findings reveal students from underrepresented groups experience a variety of types and bases of microaggressions at a higher frequency than their peers. Other findings include students with hidden identities report experiencing higher rates of microinvalidations, the need for multiple interventions, and the benefit of connection for underrepresented students. Future research should study additional universities and demographic variables.

Traditional administrative approaches to conflict in schools tend to be punitive, dominated by Western cultural assumptions, and to disregard students’ cultures. Cultural responsiveness attends to different worldviews while appreciating the impact of one’s own cultural lens. This thesis applies a cultural proficiency framework to analysis of the conflict management practices of administrators in secondary schools in a south-central Ontario school board. Analysis of data from interviews with secondary school administrators, students, school board cultural community liaisons, and school board documents indicate that culturally proficient cross-cultural interactions between administrators and students tended to include relationship-building efforts aimed at learning from and about disputants. In contrast to typical punitive and uncommunicative approaches, cultural proficiency was evident in some elements of alternative participatory or restorative approaches. In combining cultural proficiency with conflict management, this thesis helps to fill a gap in research relevant to equitably serving diverse student populations in southern Ontario schools.

Traditional administrative approaches to conflict in schools tend to be punitive, dominated by Western cultural assumptions, and to disregard students’ cultures. Cultural responsiveness attends to different worldviews while appreciating the impact of one’s own cultural lens. This thesis applies a cultural proficiency framework to analysis of the conflict management practices of administrators in secondary schools in a south-central Ontario school board. Analysis of data from interviews with secondary school administrators, students, school board cultural community liaisons, and school board documents indicate that culturally proficient cross-cultural interactions between administrators and students tended to include relationship-building efforts aimed at learning from and about disputants. In contrast to typical punitive and uncommunicative approaches, cultural proficiency was evident in some elements of alternative participatory or restorative approaches. In combining cultural proficiency with conflict management, this thesis helps to fill a gap in research relevant to equitably serving diverse student populations in southern Ontario schools.

As the mosaic of our classrooms becomes more diverse, teachers need to be able to celebrate the multilingual, multicultural students and provide the academic and social opportunities for their students. As well, teachers need to use culturally relevant pedagogy and diverse instructional strategies within the curriculum that will allow all students to develop meaningful language experiences. Through narrative inquiry and through qualitative research, I have examined my teaching practices and methodologies in relation to the observations and critical conversations with EAL teachers directly involved in the instruction and English language development as support for linguistically and culturally challenged students in the elementary school setting. I have taught a community of diverse learners with rich heritages and backgrounds in a multilingual classroom, and I have learned, from these four specialist teachers, to be more knowledgeable in teaching strategies and more adaptable in implementing culturally relevant content. For a brief time, I was able to enter four different classrooms of students, who had come from many different countries and had been removed from their regular classrooms to receive EAL support. Through observations of these students, and interviews and dialogues with specialist EAL teachers, I have been able to critically reflect upon and analyze my results, expanding my repertoire of instructional practices as a multilingual classroom teacher. By allowing me into their professional spaces, and by sharing their teaching practices as English language specialist teachers helping students, I have been both inspired and enlightened.<p> EAL students in our communities and classrooms will bring their personal experiences and rich cultural backgrounds, created from their multigenerational histories. As teachers create welcoming classrooms, all students will receive the language support that they need, without losing their cultural beliefs and values. School families and communities can become the threads that will eventually create a fabric, rich in design and texture. In representing the Canadian mosaic of individuals, this journey metaphorically takes our students, from individual fabrics to quilts of many hues and patterns.

As the mosaic of our classrooms becomes more diverse, teachers need to be able to celebrate the multilingual, multicultural students and provide the academic and social opportunities for their students. As well, teachers need to use culturally relevant pedagogy and diverse instructional strategies within the curriculum that will allow all students to develop meaningful language experiences. Through narrative inquiry and through qualitative research, I have examined my teaching practices and methodologies in relation to the observations and critical conversations with EAL teachers directly involved in the instruction and English language development as support for linguistically and culturally challenged students in the elementary school setting. I have taught a community of diverse learners with rich heritages and backgrounds in a multilingual classroom, and I have learned, from these four specialist teachers, to be more knowledgeable in teaching strategies and more adaptable in implementing culturally relevant content. For a brief time, I was able to enter four different classrooms of students, who had come from many different countries and had been removed from their regular classrooms to receive EAL support. Through observations of these students, and interviews and dialogues with specialist EAL teachers, I have been able to critically reflect upon and analyze my results, expanding my repertoire of instructional practices as a multilingual classroom teacher. By allowing me into their professional spaces, and by sharing their teaching practices as English language specialist teachers helping students, I have been both inspired and enlightened.<p> EAL students in our communities and classrooms will bring their personal experiences and rich cultural backgrounds, created from their multigenerational histories. As teachers create welcoming classrooms, all students will receive the language support that they need, without losing their cultural beliefs and values. School families and communities can become the threads that will eventually create a fabric, rich in design and texture. In representing the Canadian mosaic of individuals, this journey metaphorically takes our students, from individual fabrics to quilts of many hues and patterns.

This qualitative case study explored the response of four practicing non-Aboriginal teachers related to preservice training and effectiveness. Each of the participants involved in this research project was an experienced teacher with a minimum of five years of teaching experience. This case study is framed within the conceptual context of cultural responsivity. The research questions were: What do four non-Aboriginal teachers with over five years experience working with Aboriginal students describe as qualities of effective teaching in this context? What are some of the major social justice issues that teachers need to address in order to be both successful and effective when working with Aboriginal students? Methods for data collection included semi-structured interviews during which the participants shared their stories. These conversations were audio taped and the audio tape recordings were transcribed. The transcriptions were analyzed to determine insights from the stories. Those teachers who are interested in learning about being an effective teacher of Aboriginal students will find the stories insightful. While the researcher and participants were non-Aboriginal the stories may be helpful for all teachers, regardless of their ethnic or cultural background, as they work with both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students. The implications of this study are that further research is needed in the areas of Teacher Education, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, and Teacher Effectiveness.

The purpose of this grant proposal is to develop a toolkit to support school teams in the development and implementation of culturally responsive Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS). The toolkit is necessary to help school teams address lingering disparities in discipline and to improve school climate. Exclusionary discipline, such as out of school suspensions and expulsion, disproportionately affects ethnically and racially diverse students, and has a devastating effect on student outcomes, including academic achievement, attendance, and graduation. Ethnically and racially diverse students are also more likely to be given a disciplinary consequence for behaviors that require a subjective interpretation of the student’s behavior, which can be influenced by implicit bias. In schools that have implemented PBIS, exclusionary discipline has been shown to decrease overall, but disproportionate discipline persists. The development of a culturally responsive toolkit will support the efforts of school PBIS teams to decrease disproportionate discipline outcomes. The toolkit will assist school teams with the cultural adaptation of core features of PBIS by providing a process for addressing contextual fit of the school and soliciting feedback from the school community. The methodological approach for this project includes both qualitative and quantitative processes. An expert panel will be convened to address the complexities of implementation and cultural adaptation within the context of PBIS. The culturally responsive PBIS toolkit will consist of a comprehensive series of recommended practices, contextual considerations, evaluation tools, and resources, to be used concurrently with analysis of schoolwide data. The toolkit will be piloted in schools in the Pacific Northwest and then disseminated.

abstract: Across the globe, schools are seen as an essential context for building socio-emotional capacities in adolescents, particularly for marginalized youth, who have been systematically and historically excluded from accessing opportunities and resources typically available to members of different social groups (Gil-Kashiwabara, Hogansen, Geenen, Powers, & Powers, 2007). However, despite this ideal, education has not yet reached its potential in promoting equal outcomes for all children andadolescents (American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Educational Disparities, 2012; Burkham & Lee, 2002; Gurria, 2016; Hampden-Thompson & Johnston, 2006). There exists a need to identify school practices that may enhance socio- emotional development and have implications for reducing disparities in academic achievement, educational attainment, and other indicators of well-being. The aim of this dissertation, therefore, is to explore school and classroom practices that may be particularly effective in supporting the socio-emotional development of marginalized adolescents. I focus on two distinct populations: youth affected by violence in Colombia, and students of color within the United States. In Study 1, I explore whether three aspects of school climate – safety, connectedness, and services – buffer the negative implications of violence exposure for adolescent development in a Colombian sample. In Study 2, I determine how culturally responsive teaching practices in schools with high concentrations of students of color in the United States can be integrated into our current conceptualization of what constitutes high quality teaching, by examining profiles of teaching practices and associations between these profiles and teacher and classroom characteristics and student behaviors. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Family and Human Development 2018

Thesis advisor: Lauri Johnson / Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth are a marginalized student population in school settings. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine whether and how district and school leaders’ knowledge, attitudes/beliefs, and practices regarding LGBTQ students affected school policies for advocacy, anti-discrimination, and proactive care for this marginalized population. It was part of a larger group case study of how leaders support marginalized students in a Massachusetts urban school district. Data was gathered and analyzed from eight semi-structured interviews, document reviews, and observation of a student organization meeting. Results showed that leaders created and sustained safe environments in schools for LGBTQ youth, made efforts to urge the normalization of LGBTQ advocacy and discourse, and afforded opportunities for LGBTQ student-led activism. The study also found that district and school leaders need to further their systemic efforts toward establishing and implementing inclusive LGBTQ curriculum and instruction. Implications of this study reveal that district and school leadership practices must be explicitly designed, implemented, and sustained in order to effectively support LGBTQ youth. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

This dissertation investigates aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion, adaptive management, and evaluation in environmental education (EE), and is composed of and introduction, three stand-alone manuscripts (Chapters 2-4), and a conclusion. The introduction gives a brief overview of EE and explains why the topics of study included in this dissertation are important to address. In Chapter 2, we used pre-experience student surveys to understand how preparation, adult support, and students' racial identities influence student attendance to a residential environmental education program. Chapter 3 identifies areas and approaches for improving evaluation processes in EE and practitioner satisfaction with those processes. We collected these data using an online survey promoted on social media and emailed to EE practitioners involved in the North American Association for Environmental Education and the Association of Nature Center Administrators. Chapter 4 outlines a culturally responsive evaluation framework for use in EE. The results of these studies show there is far more to be done in the field of EE to create a welcoming and inclusive space for all audiences, to promote the use of evaluation as a tool for continuous learning and improvement, and to ensure evaluations are valid for and reflective of the culture of program participants. The conclusion discusses the two prevalent themes embedded in these manuscripts, namely diversity, equity and inclusion, and evaluation in EE, and ends with a reflection on my time here as a Ph.D. student and where I see my career path heading. This dissertation is meant to provide ideas and suggestions to environmental education practitioners that they can implement in hopes of improving EE and evaluation to meet the needs of all audiences and to address global environmental challenges. / Doctor of Philosophy / To work collaboratively and find solutions to the sustainability challenges and social justice issues we face as a society requires new generations to obtain a wide range of knowledge, skills, and motivations. Environmental education (EE) has been shown to equip students with these necessary skills, including increasing knowledge and awareness about environmental issues, enhancing or changing attitudes as they relate to the environment, promoting environmentally responsible behaviors, and building critical thinking, leadership, and collaboration skills. There is a growing recognition that the field of EE must continually adjust and improve its programming to meet the needs of all audiences and to remain relevant for our ever-changing world. The foundations of EE stem from White, Eurocentric values and world views, which can perpetuate inequities in program attendance, participation, and impact between Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and White people. The research included in this dissertation investigates aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion, adaptive management, and evaluation in EE. Results show there is far more to be done in the field of EE to create a welcoming and inclusive space for all audiences, to promote the use of evaluation as a tool for continuous learning and improvement, and to ensure evaluations are valid for and reflective of the culture of program participants. The conclusion of this dissertation discusses two prevalent themes embedded in these manuscripts, namely diversity, equity and inclusion, and evaluation in EE, and ends with a reflection on my time here as a Ph.D. student and where I see my career path heading. This dissertation is meant to provide ideas and suggestions to environmental education practitioners that they can implement in hopes of improving EE and evaluation to meet the needs of all audiences and to address global environmental and social challenges.