Over the past two decades, efforts to amplify student voice have proliferated as a project or process to increase institutional engagement with young people. Institutionally supported student voice is generally distinguished from, yet not independent of, student activism and youth activism. The designs, outcomes, and impacts of student voice…

This qualitative study explores the experiences and perspectives of disabled student activists involved in the creation of disability cultural centers (DCCs) on college and university campuses in the United States. The main purpose is to advance recognition of disability as a marginalized student identity on college campuses in need of safe spaces…

For decades, Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) has blatantly disregarded and ostracized Black caregivers and community members who have attempted to address concerns about the educational experience of Black students. The only moderately successful strategy was political activism led by Dr. Barbara Sizemore in the 1970s to secure a board majority,…

This qualitative narrative inquiry study examined the narratives and experiences of White women admissions officers at predominantly white institutions (PWIs) and explored how they engaged with the development of their white racial identity throughout their professional careers. Using Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) and Helms' (1990) white racial…

Eurocentric educational philosophy has functioned as an anticipatory regime creating racial, economic, historical, sociopolitical, and intellectual separation and imposing dominant knowledge systems. In 2021, American and Hispanic empires rejected organic movements from scholars and academic activists for embracing a vision of the world outside…

Oppressive social systems are structures and institutions within society that systematically and unjustly restrict the rights, opportunities, and overall well-being of certain groups (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Feagin, 2013). The current program of research aims to investigate how oppressive social systems impact individuals and explore strategies to…

Coloniality permeates across realms and leaves no systemic stone unturned in its path. As such, coloniality manifests in our education system through a variety of practices, policies, and procedures that center Western-European modern rationality and White supremacy. To disrupt and decenter these unilateral paradigms within our schools is to…

Myanmar has been undertaking education reforms since 2012. Tensions have arisen between central-level policymakers and teachers' union leaders regarding the implementation of some reforms. While this give-and-take between policymakers and teacher activists has been reported somewhat in the news media, the academic literature on these developments…

The purpose of this project was to lift up the stories of Filipinx staff and their meaning-making, meanings, and enactments of decolonization. Through journaling, an online group meeting, and individual interviews with five staff in higher education in the United States, I aimed to answer the following research questions: How do Filipinx higher…

We will not end gender-based violence by responding to it. Experts and national organizations agree that effective primary prevention programs are essential to stopping harmful behaviors before they start (DeGue et al, 2014; American College Health Association, 2016; American College Health Association, 2018; Townsend, 2017; Schneider &…

This is a narrative inquiry study that presented types of women's activism during and after the conflict in Aceh, Indonesia (1976-2005). The study sought to explain how divergent women's activism becomes possible against the backdrop of this conflict and how the establishment of peace alters the patterns of their activism. Women's activism here…

In secondary schools in the United States, youth who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, or queer (LGBTQ) encounter unwelcoming and unsafe, if not outright hostile, climates, experiences which lead to negative outcomes, both personal and academic. However, school-based supports such as supportive adults, GSA clubs, and LGBT-inclusive…

This qualitative study utilizes a Chicana/Latina feminist lens and the Latin American tradition of "Testimonio" to explore Spanish-speaking immigrants' experiences of migration, language learning and socialization, paying close attention to the ways in which the multilayered intersections of identity, race, class, gender, nationality,…

Institutions of higher education strive to create a diverse, inclusive, and civically engaged student body. Encouraging students to critically engage in social justice enhances the ability of universities to achieve these desired outcomes and empirical studies link activism to greater gains in civic engagement and democratic ideas later in life…

Taking a critical archival studies approach, this dissertation engages critical discourse analysis as a means of analyzing the analogous treatment and representation of political dissidents from the civil war and alleged gang members in post-conflict El Salvador through the medium of human rights documentation. By analyzing a cross section of…