In this comparative case study, the purpose was to describe how teacher language works during political lessons in order to understand it in one case and compare it to cases in different contexts. Three Macomb County, Michigan teachers were interviewed about their planning and then observed teaching a civics lesson to high school students. In…

This quantitative correlational-predictive study addressed the predictive relationships of County Political Leaning (Republican vs. Democratic/reference) and Poverty of Student Population (operationalized as percentage of students enrolled in Free and Reduced Price Lunch programs) with Out-of-school Suspension in public high schools in California.…

This mixed method sequential explanatory study provided analysis of North Carolina (NC) school leaders' dispositions in eliminating opportunity gaps, outlined in NC's strategic plan. The study's quantitative phase used descriptive and correlation analysis of eight Likert subscales around four tenets of transformative leadership (Shields, 2011) and…

Scholars like Ruha Benjamin have cautioned how hegemonic technologies can reinforce White supremacy and deepen racism against Black and Brown folks due to racial biases in "neutral/normative" Artificial Intelligence and over-surveillance of Black folks. K-12 education can also contribute to this hegemony. Culturally Responsive Computing…

This phenomenological study examines the ways Black students attending predominantly White high schools were connected to their school environment. Set in a suburban county located outside of a large urban city, this study included 15 participants who self-identified as Black American and had graduated between 2017 and 2020 from schools where…

This dissertation is devoted to the history of the Albanian system of education in general, its mathematics education program in particular, and, specifically, the Albanian high school mathematics assessment. Historical in terms of its research methodology, and mathematical-pedagogical in terms of the objects of the study, this research explores…

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and experiences of three Texas high school principals regarding their first-year of leadership involving Career and Technical Education (CTE) programs. A narrative non-fiction methodology was used to present the participants' stories and perceptions of their lived experiences. The three…

With current trends in K-12 education toward curriculum centralization and high-stakes test-based accountability, teachers are in a position of increasingly adapting their practices to demands that originate beyond the classroom. A synthesis of literature on the relationship between these external influences and secondary social studies teaching…

This qualitative study uncovers the voices of five Latin@ students who are high-"achieving" and undocumented and have strong aspirations in science, in a Southern, Title I high school. Through critical race methodology and these students' "testimonios"/counter-stories, these students' struggles and successes reveal their…

In this dissertation, I address the issue of social inequalities in education and the role of the education system in confronting them. The project involves two main parts, one empirical and the other conceptual. In the first part--chapters 1 and 2--I address the practical dimension of how to reduce social inequalities in education by exploring…

The purpose of this qualitative multi-case study was to explore the characteristics of ten novice urban schoolteachers who completed a course in multicultural education and had an early field experience in an urban school. This study draws upon the body of literature related to equity pedagogy, multicultural competence (Bennett, 2001), and…