Every year millions of students seeking access to federal financial aid complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) application which grants an estimated $234 billion in federal aid in the 2020-21 academic year. Upon receiving students' FAFSA, the U.S. Department of Education selects some students for income verification, a…

Within the contemporary anti-union environment fueled by neoliberalism, teachers are organizing and educating each other in order to push back against the corporate reform agenda and envision a public education that supports all students. Using a critical autoethnography methodology, the author narrates her participation in social justice unionism…

Purpose: While Black teachers have engaged in racial justice-oriented teaching for centuries and the body of research on racial justice-oriented teachers is growing, very little is known about how teachers come to this work. The purpose of this paper is to focus on where and how Black teachers who teach with racial justice aims learned to engage…

From microaggressions and exclusionary practices to epistemic violence and racial battle fatigue (Clark et al., 2012; Levin et al., 2013), the social sciences literature has highlighted the multitude of ways graduate Students of Color (GSOC) experience racism. Further, scholars have continued to underscore the prevailing influence of campus racial…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine two teachers' beliefs and practices on teaching writing at an urban, high-performing middle school to determine: What discourses of writing are being taught in an urban, high-performing US public middle school? What factors prevent or enable particular discourses? Design/methodology/approach: Drawing on case…

A series of highly publicized off-campus acts of racial violence between February and September 2020 ignited a national reckoning on race, racism, anti-Black racism, and the role of higher education in systemic discrimination. In response, a number of college and university leaders published public statements attempting to address anti-Black…

The COVID-19 pandemic--coupled with ongoing prominent injustice related to race, poverty, healthcare, and education--has highlighted the interlocking and reinforcing nature of systemic oppression. Now more than ever, facilitators of experiential learning are galvanized to explore and deepen their understanding of systemic change and to enhance…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore the lived experiences of African American female faculty members within the organizational culture at community colleges in the south. Three research questions that provided guidance for this study: How do African American female faculty members describe their lived experiences…

This dissertation qualitatively examined former (18) and current (2) college players' experiences within their athletic department ecology--experiences with teammates, coaches and administrators, team doctors and health professionals, and experiences with various mechanisms of discipline, punishment, and surveillance. Using antiblackness and…

Since the 1970s, there have been gains in access to higher education for people who have faced historical discrimination based on race, but disparities in admission persist at the most selective universities and colleges. College graduation rates mirror the same patterns of inequality that college access rates once exhibited. White and Asian…

There seems to be "open season" on the lives of young, unarmed African American men and women in the United States. Stand Your Ground law/Castle Doctrine has become the tool of legal lynching in the United States. Across varied and diverse communities, leaders are grappling with this phenomenon with a sense of urgency. This qualitative…

Language is a critical social tool for communication in modern society. However, language's role is not often considered in efforts to combat historic and contemporary racism in higher education. Research analyzing racialized dynamics and the complex ties race has to our nation's development recognizes the hidden factors and inequitable systems…

Social justice-oriented teacher education is a way for prospective teachers to learn and practice taking critical perspectives and use reflection for their future teaching practice (McDonald & Zeichner, 2009). Despite preservice teachers' interest and effort in engaging with racially and culturally just educational work, their approaches often…

This project explores the recent paradigm shift within Writing Studies toward a translingual pedagogical approach, situating many of the critiques of this approach as limitations produced by dominant liberal models of Writing Studies pedagogy. Taking up Vershawn Ashanti Young and Frankie Condon's call to move toward a more anti-racist translingual…

Scholars have conducted numerous studies examining the experiences of Black undergraduate students, especially those at historically and predominantly white institutions (HPWIs). These studies have included the development and application of a variety of racial identity models in the context of higher education, and this dissertation project…