The Boy in the Tunnel is a domestic coming-of-age novel told from three alternating perspectives. It is about two white teenage girls who cover up the accidental death of their black friend in Atlanta during the summer of 1994. The novel explored the insidious nature of racial prejudice and the many ways in which Americans deny responsibility for wrongdoing—both contemporary and historical. It also explores the intense nature of female teenage friendships and the harsh realities of the adult world in comparison with the relative simplicity of childhood.

In a moment when visibility and representations of LGBTTQAI+ people are proliferating in North American society, it is important to think critically about how visibility and representations function and to interrogate their meanings and a/effects. This thesis uses data produced from five semi-structured interviews conducted with lesbian identified participants living in non-urban spaces in Ontario to demonstrate the importance of a continued lesbian specificity, to draw attention to heteronormativity and heterosexism in Ontarian society, to challenge femme invisibility and complicate the notion of femme privilege, and to move beyond the urban/rural binary as a way of making sense of sexuality. The methodological framework guiding this thesis draws on interpretive phenomenological analysis as well as feminist and queer methodologies, which facilitated a responsive and reflexive research process. This thesis is grounded in ongoing debates around identity politics and representation, drawing on literature from lesbian theories, lesbian-feminist histories, queer theories, heterosexism, heteronormativity and homonormativity, lesbian-feminist histories, white privilege studies, queer and feminist geography, and LGBTTQAI+ rural studies.

The purpose of the study is to understand different aspects of women's feelings of insecurity when navigating in public areas with a focus on their own place of residence. We highlight some factors that affect the feeling of insecurity, such as environmental factors, previous experiences or the risk of being exposed to xenophobia or sexism. We are also interested in how women handle their insecurity and how insecurity is affected by power structures such as the gender power gap and white privilege. It appears that all of the respondents behave vigilantly towards other people, especially men, when they are in public. This vigilance is expressed in different ways depending on the situation and the positions of the different respondents. The interesting thing is that this vigilance seems to be present regardless of whether the respondents describe themselves as safe or unsafe in public. Another important aspect that is highlighted is how the feeling of security increases when the respondents feel that they can identify with people they meet on the street, as it gives a feeling of inclusion. / Studiens utgångspunkt är att förstå olika aspekter av kvinnors känsla av otrygghet när de rör sig i offentliga rummet med fokus på den egna bostadsorten. I vår studie lyfter vi in några faktorer som har påverkan på otrygghetskänslan, såsom miljömässiga faktorer, tidigare erfarenheter eller risken att bli utsatt för främlingsfientlighet eller sexism. Vi har vidare intresserat oss för hur kvinnor hanterar sin otrygghet och hur otryggheten påverkas av maktstrukturer som könsmaktsordningen och vithetsnormen. Det framkommer att samtliga av respondenterna bär på en vaksamhet gentemot andra människor, i synnerhet män, när de rör sig i det offentliga rummet. Denna vaksamhet uttrycker sig på olika sätt beroende på situation och de olika respondenternas positioner. Det intressanta är att denna vaksamhet verkar finnas närvarande oavsett om respondenterna beskriver sig själva som trygga eller otrygga i det offentliga rummet. En annan viktig aspekt som lyfts fram är hur trygghetskänslan ökar när respondenterna upplever att de kan identifiera sig med personer som de möter på gatan, då det ger en känsla av inkludering.

This work explored the academic success of 10 Latino/a students in Southern View School District, a school district in the state of Utah. The students and their parents, when available, were interviewed and the students' academic records were reviewed. The students were asked to identify a school person, teacher, administrator, or staff person, who could help explain their success. The school person was then interviewed. The data were collated and analyzed using resilience theory and the critical race-based constructs of resistance and resilience resistance. The construct of colorblindness was also used to discuss the participants' attitudes towards less successful Latino/a students and their families. The work revealed that the successful Latino/a students accessed the protective factors of personal strengths and environmental resources to remain resilient and achieve in school. It was also discovered that the students' success was also a form of resistance that was explained using the constructs of conformist resistance and resilient resistance. The student success was revealed as a way to resist oppression and remain in the educational pipeline. It was also discovered that student, parent, and school participants had adopted a colorblind ideology that assumed equal opportunity was available to all without regard to race. These observations led to the conclusion that the school system and the students of color it served would benefit from direct discussion of White privilege and what it means to be of a non-White racial group. The recommendation was that the school should adopt a systematic model of social justice education that could help more student access protective factors and facilitate critical conversations about race

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It is vital that feminist theory and critical white studies be combined in order to form what I call critical white feminism. Both critical white studies and feminist studies are often limited in their ability to adequately address the complex interconnectivity of racial and gender privilege and oppression. In general, feminist scholarship produced by white feminists excludes and oppresses women of color and is therefore inadequate. I refer to this problem as white feminist racism and argue that white feminists are ignorant of the ways in which whiteness and privilege facilitate problematic theorizing. Unlike white feminist theories, the emerging field of critical white studies provides a foundation for exploring whiteness in a racist society. However, critical white theories often examine racism and whiteness without attention to gender, and are therefore inadequate, as well. Consequently, another approach is necessary for the development of liberatory theories that sufficiently conceptualize social change. As a solution to the limitations of both feminist studies and critical white studies, I propose critical white feminism, which encourages white feminists to interrogate whiteness and privilege. The purpose of critical white feminism is to a) conceptualize an inclusive and transformative antiracist feminist framework and agenda, b) challenge white feminist racism and white feminist hegemony, c) encourage open and honest communication between feminists across differences, and d) facilitate feminist solidarity and mobilization.

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This thesis takes an unconventional approach to environmental racism. Through the lens of white privilege and racial capitalism, I analyze hazardous waste procedures, work site dynamics, and governmental enforcement. Southeast Los Angeles encompasses 26 neighborhoods and the communities racial demographic is 85.8% people of color. The region is home to an abundance of hazardous waste generators, and the area is disproportionately burdened by pollution compared to the rest of LA County. I chose white privilege as a framework because more often than not, discrimination in the workplace is unintentional and covert. White privilege manifests through hazardous waste management in four forms: devaluation of worker training, lack of language accommodations, disenfranchisement of employees of color, and enforcement-heavy regulation. The four factors listed impact facility operations and risk health and safety of personnel, especially employees of color working in closest proximity to toxic chemicals. To prioritize the needs of workers of color, I recommend creating a free hazardous waste consultation service modeled after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s service. Ineffective online instruction must be eliminated and replaced with learner-centered empowerment training. Finally, generator management must facilitate a more supportive culture that empowers employees of color as agents of change in the workplace.

Many of America's schools are populated with diverse student populations, while the teaching population remains largely White. This creates dissonance for White teachers and students of color. Possibly mentoring can assist novice White teachers as they enculturate into the profession and their culturally diverse campuses. This qualitative research, conducted from an Interpretivism paradigm, used a case study of a White female novice teacher at a culturally diverse campus to understand the role mentoring played in a White female novice teacher's perceptions of her enculturation into a culturally diverse campus. Several methods of data collection were used, including 9 semi-structured interviews with the novice teacher, email dialogues, 3 days of shadowing, as well as two semi-structured interviews with the subject's principal and mentor. The data was analyzed using the constant comparative method. This White female novice teacher taught at a campus with a large Hispanic student population. She struggled to feel confident in her work and in her relationships with her mentor, her fellow teachers, her administrators, her students and their parents. She relied heavily on her faith and her fellow novice teacher and teammate. Her mentor visited her once a week. She liked her mentor, but never felt she received the assistance desired. She recognized she knew little about the Hispanic culture of her students; she was willing to learn more, but failed to see her own privileged membership in the dominant White culture and its effect on interactions with her students. The discussion of this study looks at the structuring of an effective mentoring program for novice teachers, and the new teacher?s frustrations with the mentoring received; her relationship struggles with her principal and other staff, but also some successes in forming friendly relationships; her desire to understand her Hispanic students and their culture, yet her inability to see her membership in the dominant culture, as well has her school and district's "color-blind" approach to race; and her perceptions of her enculturation into the profession of teaching. The conclusions of this study discuss mentoring new teachers, the role of principals in the induction of new teachers, cultural differences between teachers and students, and the influence of faith and character with a teacher and his/her teaching.