With the adoption of neo-liberal policies and the decline in social welfare, non-profit organizations have been increasingly integrated into public service provision. Such changes raise questions regarding formal policies and access for marginalized populations, no more so than in disaster settings as formal disaster management of sexual health services are still vague. This study identifies the role of non-profit organizations in providing public health and social services through the lens of sexual health commitments following the September 2010 Darfield Earthquake and subsequent major aftershock during February 2011 in Christchurch, New Zealand. The primary goals of this study were three fold, to delineate i) aspects of non-profit organizational culture and agency connections that contributed to the resilience of non-profit organizations by maintaining and adapting access to sexual health and associated wellbeing services over the transition from response to recovery ii) integration pathways of non-profit organizations into disaster risk reduction and iii) appropriate geographic representations of temporal vulnerability change impacting the commitments of non-profit organizations. Mixed methods were used for this study. Data were collected over a two-year period between 2013 and 2015. Data collection techniques included: i) archival research ii) surveys iii) focus groups and iv) semi-structured interviews. Quantitative data were derived from census records and qualitative data from surveys, focus groups, and interviews with non-profit and civil society practitioners. A total of thirty-six non-profit organizations, civil society partners, and agency connections participated. Results show that sexual health needs of youth, families, and migrants arriving for the rebuild, fluctuated following the earthquakes. Sexual health non-profits absorbed the shifting demands for services and supplies by leveraging government partnerships and non-profit agency connections to account for fluctuations in presenting populations, adjust service delivery methods and continue advocacy campaigns. Also, as a result of functional redundancy amongst migrant support groups and their respective agency connections, strategies of long-term advocacy commitment, co-location, and relationship building with diverse ethnic groups benefitted migrants and refugees in maintaining or accessing adequate health and wellbeing support into the recovery phase. By developing programs to increase public awareness of resources, creating engagement opportunities in vacant spaces, and bringing a united voice to authorities, non-profits captured increased social cohesion to address emergent and compounded vulnerabilities of marginalized populations. However, as the recovery progressed, some collective energy was lost. Findings indicate that non-profits operating in Christchurch prior to the earthquakes with flexible organizational structures and those that emerged after were most successful in the emergency response and early recovery. The ability to capture social cohesion resulting from the shared experience of the earthquakes and build bridges with non-profit connections or incorporate emergent populations into service delivery facilitated successful operations into recovery. Non-profits that partnered with the government were better suited for long-term recovery, when interagency collaboration returned to a more competitive state and reliance on co-production of services was reestablished as the preferred method of service delivery, based on their capacity to maintain and build linkages with civil society partners. This research adds to disaster literature and the understanding of organizational behaviors by suggesting appropriate means to assess the potential resilience of non-profit organizations post-disaster. Further, pathways of integration with disaster management are identified for various types of non-profits that contribute to sexual health and related community support services. Methods used to identify vulnerabilities of wellbeing focused non-profit organizations and model integration of culturally appropriate service delivery options into recovery planning and disaster mitigation can be applied to other high-income nations with burgeoning non-profit sectors that experience variety of hazards, in particular on the United States’ West Coast as the health care debate in the United States continues.

Thesis advisor: Lauri Johnson / Traditionally, schools have suspended students of color at significantly higher rates than White students. Culturally responsive classroom practices have been found to reduce these disparities. This exploratory case study examined whether or not teachers with low discipline referrals for African American and Hispanic/Latinx students from a midsized urban Massachusetts district report using culturally responsive discipline practices, and how their principal fosters these practices. It was part of a larger group study that examined how school and district leaders support marginalized students. Data was collected over a four-month period using semi-structured interviews with two principals and nine teachers in two schools. Interview questions were based on the Double-Check Framework (Hershfeldt etl al., 2009) which identifies culturally responsive discipline practices. Data showed that teachers with low office discipline referrals might embrace culturally responsive practices, at least to a limited degree. Additionally, while principals reported that they provided culturally responsive professional learning activities for teachers, teachers interviewed did not attribute their practices to these efforts. Results suggest that school leaders should cultivate positive relationships between students and staff to reduce discipline disparities. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Martin Scanlan / As the populations of public schools in the United States grow increasingly more diverse, it is critical for district and school leaders to understand how educators make sense of their responsibility to improve outcomes for historically marginalized students. Culturally responsive practice (CRP) is a framework of beliefs and practices to enhance these students’ success. Additionally, it is well established that family engagement in schools also supports student achievement. This qualitative case study explores the intersection of CRP and family engagement by focusing on two research questions: (1) How do educators understand CRP in efforts to engage families of marginalized students and (2) How do educators enact that understanding in practice? It is part of a larger case study examining understanding and enactment of CRP in a diverse Massachusetts school district. Along with Mapp’s (2013) Dual Capacity Building Framework of family engagement, I apply Maitlis’ (2005) organizational sensemaking theory to data collected from semi-structured interviews, document review and an online survey. Findings reveal that educators understood CRP in regards to family engagement as the need to know students and families and recognize differences in their cultures. Also, educator understanding emanates from both personal and professional experiences including learning from colleagues, students and families. However, educators lack a common definition or understanding of CRP in regards to family engagement. Consequently, family engagement practices vary and tend to be more traditional versus reflective of CRP. This study revealed the need for stronger district direction and support for CRP and family engagement. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

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.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Curriculum and Instruction / Jeong Hee Kim / Sexual orientation is only one facet of diversity (Banks et al., 2005), but teacher preparation may not adequately address sexual prejudice (Lamb, 2013). Sexual prejudice arises when heterosexuality is assumed to be the default for all students. School environments reinforce heteronormativity (Dean, 2010; Foucault, 1990; Himmelstein & Bruckner, 2011) such that when hate speech or physical violence occur against the non-hetersexual or the transgender student, teachers may not be prepared to respond appropriately. Prejudice toward gender or sexually variant students may not be adequately addressed in teacher preparation to challenge the reproduction of heteronormativity in school environments. A mixed method approach was followed to address the beliefs and attitudes of pre-service (undergraduate) and in-service (graduate) teachers toward sexual minorities through an online survey and face-to-face interviews. Group means of the PREJUDICE scale for each independent variable were analyzed for statistical significance. The total variance of the PREJUDICE scale was accounted for by personal characteristics only (political, 38%; religious, 9%; non-heterosexual friends, 18%; and family members, 5%; participant sexual orientation, 8%; and finishing the survey, 6%). Neither demographic nor educational characteristics accounted for statistically significant differences in group means of the PREJUDICE scale. College-level coursework completed in multicultural education did not significantly account for any of the total variance in PREJUDICE scores. Significantly lower levels of sexual prejudice were associated with having non-heterosexual friends and family members or being non-heterosexual, and there were no significant effects from educational interventions. However, one-on-one interviews provided stories of direct experience with sexual minority youth in K-12 classrooms. A majority of qualitative participants had questioned their conservative backgrounds and the familial/societal messages they had received regarding gender and sexual variance. Their questioning was strengthened by having non-heterosexual friends and family members. In addition, several participants had worked directly with sexual minority youth in their own school buildings and classrooms. Had this study been limited to a survey, the lived experiences of these pre-service and in-service teachers would have been lost. Having friends and family members who are non-heterosexual transcended their socialization and facilitated their development as social justice allies.

In my work I am dealing with the value inclinations of Czech journalists from the newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes, the tabloid Blesk (including the Sunday issue Nedělní Blesk) and the magazine Reflex. I have focused on the articles written about socially marginalized squatters in the years 2000, 2008 and 2009. I am interested in the values present in this discourse and what position will these values take towards squatters. In the theoretical part I explain concepts like hegemony, binary us-them, moral panics and body discipline, which will help me in my analysis. Recognized values are put into categories and subcategories according to their content. I describe the development of values within categories in different years. Finally I compare the values of the analyzed media.

Master of Arts / Department of Communication Studies / Sarah E. Riforgiate / Leadership is a phenomenon studied in all cultures (Murdock, 1967), yet representation in the diversity of influential leaders is often limited (Moon, 1996). In order to understand the full breadth of leadership scholarship, it is essential that research focuses on how leadership is both enacted and communicated in underrepresented groups. A group that is currently facing marginalization from dominant culture is the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community. With no national anti-discrimination law in place to protect the individuals belonging to this community (American Civil Liberties Union, 2016) it is vital to understand how leaders within this marginalized group are motivating others to fight to enact change. While influential organizations like The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) are fighting for social justice on a national level, it is important to understand how local organizations are engaging in communicative leadership to motivate others to enact change in their own community. This study seeks to understand how leadership is communicated within a local LGBT rights organization (given the pseudonym the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Campaign, or LGBTC) and to identify the ways LGBT leaders motivate others to enact social change. Using ethnographic methodology, the researcher observed four monthly board meetings held by this group (lasting approximately an hour and a half each) and conducted a focus-group interview where the participants confirmed observations and answered follow-up questions from the ethnographic observations. A qualitative thematic analysis revealed two common themes: the first theme, cohesive communication, was exemplified through organizational procedures that allowed for collective discussion and expression of individuality by emphasizing and depending on group members’ personal expertise. The second theme, proactive communication, emerged through group members’ communication to evoke tenacious defense strategies to counter the opposition and engage in outreach with external organizations. These leadership communication behaviors resulted in two critical implications on the theoretical and practical levels. In regards to the theoretical implications, LGBT leaders, who have been typically characterized as predominantly transformational, were found to enact leadership outside of that typology, actually engaging in relational styles through shared leadership, communicating in a way that relies on interaction and emotional expression. On a practical level, other marginalized groups could benefit from inclusivity, or the mode of collective leadership this particular LGBT Rights Group engaged in. By including multiple voices and having a variety of minority representation, the LGBTC was able to successfully motivate community change. Other marginalized groups experiencing social injustice may be able to motivate others to enact change by adopting this mode of collective communication through shared leadership.

In this paper, a study was conducted to explore social sustainability in HCI. The study focuses on people in destructive relationships and uses the notion of research through design to gain and share knowledge using design patterns. The study focused on creating methods for working more practically with social sustainability in HCI and used several design methods such as story share and capture to gain and share knowledge on the user group which was then presented in a pattern, consisting of a total of eight different patterns. The patterns was later tested with designers who suggested designs which users were then to rate from best to worst. The study show that design patterns can successfully be used to share knowledge, however the study also show some variation in how well design patterns are understood based on experience. Experienced designers tend to create better designs with the pattern than inexperienced. However, designers with the pattern designed better solutions than designers without regardless of experience.

Thesis advisor: Rebecca Lowenhaupt / Purpose and Research Questions: Some educational reform efforts aim to support marginalized populations and narrow long-standing achievement and equity gaps, influencing the ways in which educators implement policy. While researchers have identified ways that educators implement policy, there is a research gap concerning how central office administrators implement policy in support of traditionally marginalized students. This study describes the policy implementation process of one central office administration team with the specific goal of supporting traditionally marginalized students, addressing two research questions: (1) In what ways are central office administrators working together to implement policy in support of traditionally marginalized students? (2) How do central office administrators balance external policy demands with internal goals when implementing policy in support of traditionally marginalized students? Methods: This qualitative study draws upon semi-structured interviews, observations, and document review to answer the aforementioned research questions. Findings: Central office administrators in this turnaround district organize policy work by dividing up tasks according to established goals and benchmarks, and communicating to other central office administrators regarding the progress towards meeting them. These goals and benchmarks represent the primary policy work designed to support traditionally marginalized students. Central office administrators have a shared understanding of and respect for the turnaround plan’s goals and benchmarks. Since this district is under state receivership, central office administrators face demands from the state department of education regarding progress towards meeting the goals of the turnaround plan. As part of this work, central office administrators bridge internal goals of the district to external pressures of the state Department of Education, forming a unique partnership between district and state actors. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

This three-manuscript formatted dissertation interrogated the effectiveness of high-impact educational practices for marginalized students through the use of critical quantitative inquiry. The first empirical manuscript used data from the Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts education to explore the role of race and class on students’ engagement in and effects from high-impact practices. Findings from this manuscript suggest significant differences in academic motivation change over the first year of college when race and class were examined together, while no differences when just class was examined. The second empirical manuscript used data from the National Study of LGBTQ Student Success to examine the intersections of environment and participation in and effect from high-impact practices for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ+) students. Findings from this manuscript suggested that students’ perceptions of overall support and their relations with instructors mediated the influence that participation in high-impact practices had on students’ academic development. Finally, the third main manuscript considered the utility of critical quantitative inquiry and ways researchers can combine critical theory into quantitative research.