This book provides concrete examples of humanizing collectivist critical pedagogy, which creates a learning space with students, values their mutual-agency, and invites them to play a leading role in remaking higher education. It redefines student success to include an understanding of positionality, macro social structures, and agency. Each class…

For years now, reports by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) on local and national community colleges consistently show how the number of Black faculty employed at community colleges is relatively lower than the number of White faculty. Recent data show that Black faculty represent only 7.4% of all instructional staff in community…

Communities continue to establish, promote, and monitor the educational outcomes of their citizenry through both explicit and implied norms. Community attributes influence the pursuit of education and level of education completed by individual citizens. The influencers within communities can be attributed to common constructs of communities…

The purpose of this qualitative study was to research how social reproduction perpetuates and replicates the status quo in the community college classroom, especially as perceived by first-generation students. The study investigated two questions: How is social reproduction enacted in the community college classroom? How do first-generation…

Recent media attention concerning the escalation of crime on college campuses has created a sense of urgency to address how crime will impact the largest community college system in the United States, California Community Colleges. Crime can deter academic success and social engagement. This study utilizes social disorganization theory to examine…

Prior studies have found that youth reporting a general sense that "I have a purpose" also describe having social supports that enhance thriving. This study links "specific" social supports to "specific" purposes described by youth. We examined whether developmental level, social-structural supports of gender and…

Interviews with 17 African American students and 19 White students were employed to examine interracial relations at a predominantly White community college campus. Seen through the lens of Granovetter's strength of ties theory, the interview findings revealed that strong intraracial ties and the absence of weak interracial ties inhibited…

This study classified and compared the judicial procedures that mirrored the criminal justice system with judicial procedures that were less formal and more student-oriented. The judicial procedures of Mississippi's Community and Junior Colleges are the focus of the study. Each school's judicial procedure was classified and placed on a continuum…

In this dissertation, I study how Taiwanese vocational students as an oppressed group within the higher education system perceive, interpret, adapt or resist, and struggle to change the inequitable social structure. The theoretical framework in this research is constructed from Paulo Freire's ideas in "Pedagogy of the Oppressed,"…

"It's all up to the individual!" Most sociology instructors have encountered this response from students who have internalized the dominant ideological perspective of "personal responsibility" and therefore resist their efforts to encourage a rigorous examination of structural forces. A number of articles in recent issues of "Teaching Sociology"…