Viewed through a social justice lens, preschool expulsion is an educational equity issue. This study focused on prior expulsion from preschool and child-care in a longitudinal study of 203 autistic children, ages 4 to 7. By parent report, 16%--one out of six autistic children--had been expelled from a preschool or child-care setting prior to…

The current wave of educational reform is complex and situated in market-based initiatives coupled with a renewed emphasis on local autonomy, deliberation, and community--middle-of-the-road reforms. In practice, schools are challenged to develop organizational forms that can support collaboration and community engagement, alongside the…

The purpose of this study was to identify the factors that facilitated college persistence and retention among African American males who were enrolled in an undergraduate program at two four-year public universities in Southern California. This research addressed the growing problem of college attrition among Black males by conducting an in-depth…

This dissertation responds to the question: How is sexuality organized in elementary schools? I argue that despite the absence of overt discussions on sexuality in elementary schools, sexuality is "organized" through social processes that are recursively linked to ideology. Due to the widely held belief that "children" and…

This case study examined a multi-college community college district in northern California in a primarily rural area, to understand how their practices compared to management best practices designed to improve student success, barriers that may exist in implementing best practices, and how the institution may improve its own practices. The problem…