This study focused on the qualities of poetry in reducing professional stress, specifically with higher education poetry instructors. The intent of the research was to address the gap in the literature by examining the rich, authentic experiences of poetry instructors who had experienced stress in their professional or writing lives. This study…

This dissertation describes the experience of a group of international school teachers engaging in a cooperative inquiry exploring the influence of mindfulness-based social-emotional learning (MBSEL) practices on their personal and professional lives. The current reality for educators is one of systemic stress and burnout, with teachers working…

Within the broad, interdisciplinary field of adult education, affective aspects of experience and the roles they play in learning have, thus far, not been properly theorized or researched. This dissertation first explores how John Heron's whole person theory (WPT) conceptualizes feeling as an expansive affective capacity at the root of all human…

The purpose of this dissertation was to experiment with qualitative research methodologies while exploring the complexities of doctoral education, research practices, philosophies of inquiry, and other topics intersecting with(in) educational scholarship. My vision for this work was fueled by postmodernist critiques of humanist education,…

The literature on history education in the United States suggests that history teaching was and still is dominated by traditional instruction methods that have persisted for well over 100 years. Some social studies teachers defy that tradition. They use ambitious approaches and resources to create student-centered learning experiences that enable…

This study asked, what value is created by two education practitioner-scholars who engage in a years-long sustained dialogue about value-creating, or Soka, education inspired by Daisaku Ikeda's ethos of value-creative dialogue? The purpose of this study was to analyze Ikeda's philosophical perspectives and practice of value-creative dialogue and…

Distance education quality assurance is a concern throughout the literature. Standards such as the Quality Matters (QM) Higher Education Rubric, 5th edition, are meant to support course design quality assurance. Professional development is associated with quality assurance initiatives, including the goal to transform faculty's instructional…

Who is the self that teaches (Palmer, 1998)? One way of uncovering a teacher's self may be to allow beginning preservice teachers the opportunity to share their education stories, which may then allow them to explore their initial self-concepts of their roles as future teachers. This study used narrative inquiry and the arts-based activities of a…

All modes of oppression, including psychological, political, and economic, as well as the kinds of alienation that they generate, serve and maintain a caste system of privilege. The belief systems on which the realities of structural oppression rest are especially relevant for people of color and other subordinated identities (e.g., LGBTQ…

Mainstream American environmental education (EE) programs often place undue privilege on inquiry-based scientific epistemologies and settler colonial wilderness ideologies (Cronon 1995b, Wolfe 2006) as the primary drivers in determining program design. Those programs in the urban setting add an environmental justice layer to these frameworks, by…

Understanding the experience of transformation in counselor training provides insight into the phenomenon of four counselors-in-training who were currently engaging in a CACREP-accredited program. The participants comprised two females and two males, whose ages ranged from early thirties to mid fifties. The qualitative methodology of hermeneutic…

Human rights education (HRE) holds the potential for educators to begin an honest dialogue with students and to connect local issues with international struggles for human rights. However, HRE and other teaching approaches that build understanding of systems of power and oppression that lead to human rights violations are not widely embraced in…

With increasing numbers of first-generation college students enrolling in colleges and universities across the US, so too is the need to begin preparing such underrepresented students for graduate school and a career in academia. As a phenomenological case study of student transformation, this dissertation examines the experience of nine…

Having a preterm-born child is often fraught with ongoing challenges for the child's mother. Yet little is known regarding how that experience, over time, may influence the mother's health and well-being, how it influences her perceptions and practices of parenting, and the meaning(s) she attributes to it. The purpose of this study was…

In light of the many social, medical, and political viewpoints on obesity, little is known of the weight loss maintenance experience and the impact on learning processes and outcomes among adults. The purpose of this study was two-fold: a) to explore the experience and meaning-making processes of individuals who have maintained a weight loss and…