In this study, Michelle M. Espino uncovers the ways in which twenty-five Mexican American women PhDs made meaning of conflicting messages about the purpose of higher education as they navigated within and through educational structures and shifting familial expectations. Participants received "consejos", or nurturing advice, from parents…

This article maps how narrative inquiry--the use of story to study human experience--has been employed as both method and form to capture cross-cultural learning associated with Western doctoral students' travel study to eastern destinations. While others were the first to employ this method in the travel study domain, we are the first to…

Training programs that combine learning English with career and vocational skills are highly desired to prepare many displaced workers that are English speakers of other languages (ESOL). Globalization has caused jobs to be exported and brought to this country, people with needed skills that do not have full command of the English language. The…

This article speaks to the special issue's goal of disrupting the deserving/undeserving immigrant narrative: 1) the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides temporary deportation relief and work authorization for young adults who meet an educational requirement and other criteria, and 2) current and proposed…

This special issue of the "Journal of Educational Foundations" explores the struggles faced by Latina faculty. These struggles became evident through an examination of Latina faculty members at a specific Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). The essays in this special issue examine the experiences and trajectory of several Latina faculty…

Coming to understand how cultural differences influence interactions between educators and students and their parents is a complex and perhaps life-long discovery. Culture helps to define groups' belief systems and expectations for appropriate behavior, often at a hidden level. Pre-service teachers need multiple opportunities to interact with…

This phenomenological narrative study investigated the perceptions of successful experiences of novice alternative certification teachers in Northeast Texas rural school districts. The five questions that guided the research examined participant's personal characteristics, classroom strategies, administrative support, challenges to overcome for…

One of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) Basic Characteristics of a Fully Developed Honors Program is that it creates opportunities for undergraduate research, opportunities that frequently culminate in a senior thesis or capstone project. This article describes how the University of Texas at Arlington Honors College integrated…

The problem researched in this study is that many African American secondary students are not reading as proficient as their peers. In addition, parental involvement in secondary education is significantly less than during their elementary school years. The purpose of this qualitative, narrative phenomenological study was to explore parents' or…

This qualitative phenomenological research study used narrative inquiry to explore the lived experiences of African American male community college instructors using interviews, classroom observations, and personal testimonies conducted at a Southeast Texas community college. Brown (2009) previously conducted a study on African American male…

The purpose of this phenomenological narrative study was to investigate the lived experiences of female secondary principals who have been recognized by their peers as "Principal of the Year" by the Texas Association of Secondary School Principals (TASSP) regarding their experiences leading secondary campuses. Seven secondary female…

Guest speakers are a common feature in institutions of higher learning. Being so common, we might assume that exposure to individuals discussing a distinctive life experience has a positive impact on students. However, there is virtually no research on assessing the impact of guest speakers intended for the entire campus community. This paper…

This narrative inquiry studied the influences of coaching methodology, critical incidents, and critical relationships on three specific teacher knowledge communities--the Portfolio Group, the Houston ISD literacy coach network, and the Imperial ISD Secondary English Language Arts helping teacher workgroup. This inquiry is situated within the…

This paper draws from data from a year long study looking at teachers' perceptions of border violence in tandem with my autoethnographic exploration of the lived experience of border violence as a teacher, mother and as a daughter still grieving for her murdered father. The first steps in starting my research critically exploring educator…

Classrooms tend to be absolute spaces, places where fluidity is rejected and nearly everything--from people, to ideas, to practices and policies--is viewed and organized through binary logic. Because binary logic is implicitly accepted as the natural order in schools and the structures resulting from it are highly unmalleable, individuals who…