The education of young people is a vital task in a democracy with significant implications for both for young people themselves and for the state. How authority over schooling should be shared and organized is, therefore, a vital question in a democracy. This dissertation takes on that question and ultimately defends a broadly democratic account…

This dissertation examines what professional organizations, specifically the American Teachers Association (ATA) and the National Education Association (NEA), communicated with their members about participatory democracy in the Civil Rights Era, 1954-1968. Major publications of the ATA and the NEA as well as archival records of the NEA-ATA Joint…

Neoliberalism is a far-reaching ideology that has impacted public higher education since its inception. This ideology poses significant challenges to historic and contemporary promises of public higher education. In this paper, I explore the complex and often contentious relationship between neoliberalism and public higher education beginning with…

Community colleges play a significant role in the higher education landscape. Open access missions and diverse student bodies are often used to indicate that community colleges are democratizing higher education. This study begins broad questions about what it means to do the work of democracy at a community college. De Anza College in Cupertino,…

This case study attempts to better understand the nuances of charter school impact by documenting the story of the Board of La Escuela Freire (the Board), a group attempting to open a democratic, social justice charter school in Santa Ana, California. In asking the question: "What has been the development process of La Escuela Freire?",…

Educators can play a vital role in reclaiming education from its current status as a system dominated by increased standardization, surveillance, and other hegemonic practices. If there is any hope that schools can become sites of resistance, which promote greater democracy, humanity and justice, then it is essential that educators arrive on the…

This dissertation explores the history of the Truman Commission, the United States' first national commission on higher education policy, and the origins of its case for federal aid to support universal college access. Historians and higher education scholars cite the Truman Commission's report, "Higher Education for American Democracy,"…

The purpose of this dissertation is twofold. First, the dissertation aims to critique "images of thought" in mathematics education which have ontological underpinnings that maintain oppressive practices and which prevent transformation. The second aim of the dissertation is to launch the transformation to a postcritical mathematics…