This study was a qualitative participatory action research study that focused on the lived experiences of Black women who received prenatal care and gave birth in the state of North Carolina. The study was meant to investigate and address the racism and implicit biases these women experienced from the medical community they encountered, and the…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how rural North Carolina teachers, after completing the National Board Certification process, describe how they apply systematic thinking to their teaching practice, reflect on the experience, and learn from experience. Grounded in David Kolb's Experiential Learning Model and The…

In October 2022, the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS) dashboard reported 5,266 full-time White faculty and 714 Black faculty. Only 10% of full-time curriculum instructors were Black, whereas 82% were White (Admin, 2019). Since Black faculty are underrepresented, their voices are often unheard. This qualitative research described the…

The expectation for classroom educators to engage in evidence-based decision-making is standard protocol in most K-12 classrooms, yet translating educational research into effective practice is mired with implementation challenges. The research-practice partnership (RPP) model has emerged as a promising framework to support stakeholders as they…

The aim of this dissertation is to inform policy makers when designing and making decisions on performance measure and performance-based funding models. While performance measures are designed to incent and inform college efforts to increase levels of student success, many of the models unfairly assess college outcomes and fund based on those…

Growing educational research shows that teachers of color are finding themselves working in racially hostile schools, experiencing racism from their white colleagues in explicit and inexplicit ways. There is a need to further categorize how North Carolina teachers of color are experiencing racism in the workplace and identify how they are affected…

This qualitative study was conducted to learn about the lived experiences of Indigenous youth during the transition to emergency remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight students at two schools in the Western part of Robeson County, North Carolina, told their stories. Tribal Critical Race Theory was used in this study as a lens to…

Science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) continue to be a major challenge for the United States (U.S.), as the U.S. continues to lag behind other countries in this area due to ongoing lack of individuals who are entering STEM fields and many who are entering STEM fields but lack the skills necessary to perform adequately in these roles.…

The U.S. South, in spite of its racist Jim Crow era laws and political history, has the fastest growing Latine immigrant population in the country. In North Carolina alone, the Latine population is responsible for over one-third of the state's growth exceeding all other population groups. Despite this rapid-growing change, the state is third to…

School districts across the nation are grappling with the issue of high principal turnover coupled with a decrease in number of experienced applicants to fill vacancies (Guterman, 2007; Hall, 2008; Johnson, 2005; United States Department of Education, 2010; Villani, 2008). In addition, college preparation programs are being called into question as…

This study was designed to explore the unique perspectives of African-American male principals serving in rural high-poverty, high-minority elementary schools regarding the residual effects of the North Carolina School Performance Grade Accountability Model and the perceived role that race plays in their recruitment, placement, and retention at…

This dissertation examines how Black students and workers engaged in movements for racial justice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1951 to 2018 challenged the University's dominant cultural landscape of white supremacy -- a landscape in direct conflict with the University's mission to be a public university in service to all…

This study sought to understand Black male physicians' perceptions of factors that contributed to their academic success while in medical school and residency. The researcher gathered information by interviewing six Black doctors and collecting their demographic profile data. The study used a qualitative, narrative inquiry design. This research…

This study addresses the impact of teacher preparation programs on novice teachers' perceived readiness for the classroom. An explanatory sequential mixed-method, three-phase design was used involving two collections of quantitative data and a focus group convened to explore themes that emerged from quantitative data. Data collected suggest…

Important to issues of writing instruction are the ways in which teachers, specifically those who teach in the discipline of language arts and English, understand and see themselves as writers. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how secondary English teachers positioned themselves and were positioned by others as writers through…