Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Kay A. Taylor / This qualitative multiple participant case study examined Mexican American women‘s experiences at the intersection of race and gender in public high school. Mexican American women‘s experiences cannot be isolated and described independently in terms of either race or gender. The intersection of race and gender for Mexican American women has not been investigated fully. The few studies that include Mexican American females focus on dropouts and emphasize at risk factors such as gender, race, socioeconomic status, and language. Consequently, the gaps in the empirical literature are caused in part by the shortage of research on Mexican American women and the propensity toward examining Mexican American women from the deficit perspective. Critical Race Theory was the framework for the analysis and the interpretation in this study. The significant findings of this research support CRT, in that racism is prevalent and ordinary in the daily the lives of Mexican American females. The findings of the study included: First, racism is endemic and pervasive in public education. Second, colorblindness is the notion from which many educational entities operate. Third, the participants perceive social justice as the solution to ending all forms of racism and oppression. Finally, navigating the system is necessary to learn to be academically successful. The results contribute to the limited research on Mexican American women at the intersection of race and gender and the racism experienced in public high school to the overall CRT research in education, and in particular, to LatCrit research.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Special Education, Counseling and Student Affairs / Kenneth F. Hughey / African American and Latino students continue to experience lower retention and higher attrition rates then their White counterparts. The aim of this qualitative interview study was to understand how African American and Latino students at a predominantly White institution (PWI) achieved graduation in Agriculture-STEM (A-STEM) disciplines. Based on the global need for more A-STEM and STEM professionals and the under-representation of African American and Latino students in the fields, there appeared to be a gap in the research on this population and success attributes with respect to completing undergraduate degrees. There was a tendency in the literature toward examining African American and Latino students utilizing the deficit model. This study explores the lived experiences of two African American and one Latino alumni of A-STEM programs. Understanding the life stories, via counter narratives, of these students may help universities develop stronger support for student success in college for not only African American and Latino students, but for all students in A-STEM disciplines. Critical Race Theory was the framework used for the analysis and the interpretation of the data in this study. The data consisted of interview transcripts, timeline, documents, photographs, and e-mail conversations. Communicating the findings in qualitative interview studies is the result of constructing the experiences and meanings of events through the eyes of the participants in a manner that portrays a representation of their experiences. Each participant’s counter narratives were created to highlight salient patterns reflected in their experiences. The writing around the participants’ experiences, and the interrogation of data allowed for the identification of patterns that were consistent with each participant’s stories and their individual unique details. The findings revealed: (a) ethnic minority students want faculty and administrators who looked like them because having someone to understand their experiences as people of color in PWI is needed; (b) the need for organizations that support ethnic minority student academic and social success, which in turn helps to create a sense of belongingness and a more inclusive campus climate; (c) more overall faculty support in and out of the classroom; and (d) opportunities for involvement in faculty-led research projects.

Doctor of Philosophy / Special Education, Counseling and Student Affairs / Christy D. Craft / BeEtta L. Stoney / The United States of America’s demographic population has shifted vastly to include a “new” multiracial growing population. Multiracial individuals are those who self-identify as two or more races, which now reflects a very young population. Higher education institutions are noticing an influx of more and more multiracial individuals, and many institutions are grappling with how to recognize and to support this growing population. Specifically, higher education institutions need to understand how multiracial graduate students think about their own racial identities and how they navigate their graduate school experiences. The purpose of this research was to gain a deeper understanding of multiracial graduate students’ lived experiences. There is an imperative to understand the daily experiences of multiracial graduate students to allow these students to retell the stories of their everyday lives in graduate school. The theoretical framework used to guide this study was critical race theory. Narrative inquiry methodology was the methodology chosen to focus on the unique voices and experiences of the participants in this study. Narrative analysis was employed to make meaning of the data retrieved from self-reflective writing samples and two semi-structured individual interviews with each of three participants. The findings from this research revealed the ever-present importance of racism and colorism and their impact on racial identity, the continued challenges of the campus climate experienced by multiracial students at a predominantly White institution (PWI), the impact and influence of religion at a PWI, and how multiracial students manage different types of relationships with peers and faculty. Implications for research and practice are provided as a result of the insights gleaned through this research about the lived experiences of three multiracial graduate students at one predominantly White higher education institution.

A considerable amount of work has been written on race and education in the British context since the 1960s. This work has largely focused on policy issues, curriculum development and teacher training. This work has been important largely for developments in multicultural education in the school context. In Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), the teaching of race related modules and courses have flourished since the 1980s (Jacobs 2006). This interest, however, has not translated into work on praxis, that is, anti-racist teaching practices that aim to improve the situation that students and teachers face when challenging racism. This PhD study by publication begins to redress this by exploring student experiences and classroom dialogue. It adopts an interpretist methodological perspective and uses participant observation and interview methods. The observations and interviews are drawn from my classroom teaching, specifically, my modules dealing centrally with race and racism. Most of the writing around race and HEIs focuses on institutional matters rather than those that seek to enable praxis. The original contribution to knowledge advanced in this critical commentary and my published works submitted here is that it underlines the importance of anti-racism as it emerges organically within classroom engagement and exchange. Anti-racist practice, I claim, becomes fundamental to the learning process, where student experiences are first considered within the teaching process. This study focuses on students' learning experiences as found in my second and third level modules on the Sociology degree on which I teach at Wolverhampton University. My publications examine students' perspectives on racism as they arise in class. They explore student identities as they are experienced and classroom interaction. In this endeavour, I focus on the ways that Critical 5 Theory and Feminism and Critical Pedagogy can challenge students' prior perspectives on their identities and those of others. This work seeks to add to analyses of the ways that racism currently operates and could be challenged in HEIs. It argues that it can be challenged through more fully developing anti-racist educational practices that must engage with debates about ethnicity and identity in education, as discussed in Section One. This is because students’ lived experiences are core to an understanding of how racism impacts on students' lives. This commentary advances the argument that anti-racist debates in HEIs that organically evolve from classroom teaching and learning are paramount to the work of anti-racist education in HEi, because lived experience is seen to be powerful material that can counter mainstream discourse on racism. What is distinctive about my model of anti-racist teaching and learning practices is my anti-racist practice. This informs my academic work with students and encourages them to reconsider their thinking in classroom teaching and learning. The use of Critical Race Theory and Feminist theoretical and methodological approaches and Critical Pedagogy is central to my anti-racist teaching practices in HEis.

The use of data to drive or inform the decision making process is gaining traction in education. In response to the data driven decision making shift, an emerging group of scholars are beginning to discuss how the data movement in education may be viewed using a critical race theory (CRT) framework. With a focus on implications for racial equity, this study explores the ways and to what degree data are valued or practically applied in the decision making process in Manitoba. Participants for this qualitative research study include ten Manitoban school superintendents. Drawing attention to the ways in which data-driven practices like all other practice in education, are not neutral acts, this study looks to contribute to the growing research area on Canadian data-driven decision making and CRT. Findings from this study indicate that school divisions in the province of Manitoba are increasingly driven by data that privileges Western or colonial ways of knowing. Some recommendations for further research include, using achievement data to resist racial oppression, exploring the dangers of Gap Talk, and looking at whether data literacy includes notions of power and privilege. / February 2017

Doctor of Education / Department of Educational Leadership / Royce Ann Collins / Nutrition educators traditionally rely on quantitative research to design interventions for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) audiences, such a low-income African American mothers. Such studies indicated the dietary behaviors of this population related to increased risk for chronic disease. Few studies explored the factors that potentially influenced the perceived self-efficacy and affected the dietary habits of SNAP learners. This study addressed the gap between quantitative research findings about the dietary habits of low-income African American mothers and their perceptions of factors influencing those behaviors. A qualitative bounded multi-site case study design was used to explore factors theoretically linked to social cognitive theory (SCT) that affected the dietary habits of low-income African American mothers. The theoretical framework rested on the interaction between SCT and critical race theory (CRT). The research sample included fifteen women, five from each of three public housing sites. The research design included semi-structured interviews supported by multiple data sources. A pilot study took place. Constant comparison was the technique used to analyze the semi-structured interviews and code the findings. The emergent themes aligned with the theoretical framework to answer the research questions. Triangulation helped to ensure the study’s quality. The findings supported the SCT premise that behavioral, personal, and environmental factors interacted reciprocally to influence dietary habits. The findings supported the CRT tenets that race, history, narratives, and interest convergence mattered and influenced dietary habits. The results had implications for adult educators designing effective nutrition programs for diverse learners.

This study examines the privatization movement in the post-Katrina New Orleans education system. Less than a month after Katrina, a well-financed charter school movement was moving swiftly through the ravaged city. Nationally, a network of right-wing think tanks and school choice advocates descended on New Orleans shortly after the storm. Locally, state legislators and local leaders pushed from the inside for reform in the way of charter schools. Aided by a state takeover of schools and federal and corporate financing, the "great experiment" had begun. This study strives to cut through the façade of the charter school movement, and to investigate and explain the real motivations of the expected outcomes of the privatizers. Finally, the current injustices caused by the experiment being conducted in New Orleans are reviewed as an extension of the historical racial inequities of the school system.

Thesis advisor: Marilyn Cochran-Smith / In 2002, voters in Massachusetts passed a referendum, commonly referred to as "Question 2," requiring that, "All children in Massachusetts public schools shall be taught English by being taught in English and all children shall be placed in English language classrooms" (M.G.L.c.71A§4). This dissertation investigates the system of education for secondary bilingual learners and their teachers resulting from the passage of Question 2 by examining assumptions and ideologies about race, culture, and language across policy and practice. Drawing on critical race theory (CRT) and the construct of majoritarian stories, two distinct and complimentary analyses were conducted: a critical policy analysis of state level laws, regulations, and policy tools, and a critically conscious longitudinal case study of one teacher candidate who was prepared to work with bilingual learners and then taught bilingual learners during her first three years of teaching. The critical policy analysis, conducted as a frame analysis, exposes that legally sanctioned racism and linguicism are institutionalized and codified through Massachusetts state policy. Additionally, Massachusetts state policy consistently and strongly promotes four common majoritarian stories regarding the education of secondary bilingual learners and their teachers: there is no story about race, difference is deficit, meritocracy is appropriate, and English is all that matters. The longitudinal case study demonstrates the power of these majoritarian stories in classroom practice and how they limit the opportunities of bilingual learners and their teachers while also perpetuating institutionalized racism and linguicism. Taken together, the two analyses that make up this dissertation reveal a problematic system deeply affected by majoritarian stories that obscure the role white privilege and white normativity play in perpetuating issues of inequity for secondary bilingual learners and teachers. This dissertation argues that in order to disrupt institutionalized racism and linguicism, these stories must be consistently, proactively, and powerfully challenged across all levels of policy and practice. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

The democratic elections in 1994 marked the formal end of apartheid. During apartheid 'race' was, for the most part, a somewhat rigid construct which, despite many nuances and complexities, typically seemed to frame whiteness as dominant, normative and largely invisible, and blackness as subordinate and marginalised. The transformations brought about in post-apartheid South Africa have heralded many positive reformations, such as macrolevel institutional changes. However, many of apartheid's racialised patterns of privilege and deprivation persist and 'race' continues to influence the identities of South Africans. Furthermore, an inherent tension exists in South Africa's social fabric, where ‘race’ and racism are often juxtaposed against narratives of the Rainbow Nation and colourblindness. This study, which is framed by critical 'race' theory and social constructionism, aims to explore the extent of the fluidity and rigidity of 'race', racialisation and racialised identities in post-apartheid South Africa by exploring the narratives of black and white first year students. This study collected the narratives of seven black and seven white first year South African university students. It was found that South African youth identities can be seen to be functioning in relation to and reaction against both South Africa’s racialised past as well as its present socio-cultural context. It was found that the racialised patterns which characterised apartheid still impact on black and white youth identity in contemporary South Africa. For instance, despite the many disruptions to whiteness post-1994, it was noted as still being a normative and dominant construct to some extent. Similarly, despite attempts to rectify power imbalances in the new South Africa, blackness is still constructed as being somewhat other and inferior. However, many alternative voices emerged which subverted these narratives, suggesting that identity is in a state of flux. Thus, despite the continued influence of apartheid’s racialised patterns of identity, shifts and schisms are appearing in post-apartheid racialised identity, where issues of racialised dominance and power relations are no longer as clear cut as they once were.

abstract: This dissertation investigates the origins of dual enrollment (DE) writing courses that give students the opportunity to receive college credit for writing in high school. While no previous research dates DE programs to before the 1970s, this dissertation analyzes the development of the self-proclaimed “longest-running” DE program that began at the University of Connecticut in 1955. In this work, I contend that the University of Connecticut’s DE program began as a complacent act that further advanced already privileged (white affluent) students and further marginalized students of color, which extends marginalizing aspects of the origins of the first-year writing requirement. I first establish the historical, social, and political context for the development of DE programs at the University of Connecticut with an overview Brown v. Board of Education, whites’ resistance to integration, and the white complacency of citizens in Connecticut in the 1950s. Using whiteness theory and feminist research methods, archival research conducted at the University of Connecticut focused on the development of DE programs shows an institutional absent presence, that is, there is an absence of reference to Brown, integration, or race of students where it concerns the construction, inception, and operation of the first DE writing courses. And finally, an attempt at a disparate impact analysis of current assessment practices that determine enrollment in DE writing courses highlights access and assessment as a connection between the history and the present state of DE programs and DE composition courses. With the inclusion of DE composition, my dissertation project fills at least some of the identified gap in historical research in Rhetoric and Composition Studies during the 1950s and extends arguments of how white complacency has and continues to influence the field and first-year writing. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2018