Many individuals prefer the ability to choose options as opposed to being directed toward a certain path. School choice programs in the United States allow parents to exercise their democratic right to choose what is best for their children with respect to choosing a school for them to receive their education. The problem is that many African…

General chemistry is a foundational course that most STEM students are required to take at some point in their academic careers, as such, thousands of students find themselves in a chemistry classroom every year. Students come into the classroom not only from different academic backgrounds but also from a variety of social and emotional…

This phenomenological qualitative research aimed to examine transformational leadership practices that cultivate an affirmative school culture amid post-traumatic events such as COVID-19. The study explored the extent to which crisis management was incorporated within the school safety plan. This research was grounded in two theoretical…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, schools and teachers had to change how they taught overnight. Career and Technical Education (CTE) teachers had a particularly difficult task of shifting their classes to an online format due to the hands-on nature of the courses. This qualitative study examined the perceptions of high school CTE teachers and how…

The purpose of this qualitative study is to analyze the perspectives of parents and teachers regarding the barriers and successors of educating African American students through a global pandemic, or unexpected school closure. The study researched successful practices and impediments African American students experience and suggested future…

Adjustment to college has been demonstrated to be a multifaceted process with several developmental challenges for young adults entering higher education. As colleges and universities in the United States increase in racial and ethnocultural diversity and as LGBTQ students become more visible on campus, it has become crucial to cater support…

Cairo School District has a chronic truancy rate that far exceeds the State of Illinois' average. The purpose of the study was to understand the reasons for truancy at Cairo School District. Through data review and semi-structured interviews, the researcher was able understand recent graduates attitudes and perceptions regarding school attendance.…

Most schools find it challenging to effectively manage disruptive student conduct such as violent outbursts, antisocial behavior, bullying, talking back, and truancy. One management tool utilized by teachers and administrators attempting to quell unruly behavior is exclusion through the use of suspension. Out-of-school suspension rates within the…

This dissertation investigates the effect of phonetically cued emotional information (i.e., emotional prosody) on spoken word recognition. Even words whose meanings are not emotionally laden (e.g., "pineapple") can be uttered in a way that conveys anger, happiness, or sadness through phonetic modulation, and the current work investigates…

This study re-frames learning disabilities (LD) through the emotion-laden talk of four Latina/o students with LD. The research questions included: 1) What are the emotion-laden talk of Latina/o students about being labeled with LD? 2) What are Latina/o students' emotion-laden talk of the idea of LD? I identified master narratives, the…

Patterns of conceptualization reflected in figurative language are motivated by embodied experience, and comparisons of emotion metaphors in English, Mandarin Chinese and other languages have shown widespread similarity in such metaphors cross-culturally (Lakoff & Johnson 1980, 1999; King 1989; Yu 1996; Kovecses 2005). Nonetheless, we can also…

Students with learning disabilities present a diverse spectrum of learning needs; research suggest they may have difficulty making the transition to the postsecondary environment. Learning disabled students at the subject high school were not successfully making the transition from the secondary to the postsecondary environment. This study was…

In 2010 Washington State's persistently lowest performing public schools were identified and published by the superintendent of public instruction. However, no research has described the lived experiences of teachers and administrators who work in those schools. Guided by the combined frameworks of Van Manen and Moustakas, this qualitative study…

The purpose of the study was to examine and describe the lived experiences of the adult African American woman who had lived in multiple foster care placements. Eleven adult African American women ages 22-25 participated in semi-structured, face-to-face interviews to tell their stories and provide data of the memories of the experience. The…

The aim of this dissertation project was to explore and extrapolate the work of the left-libertarian social theorist, Murray Bookchin (1921-2006), paying particular attention to his theory of social ecology and to examine its implications for and use as a comprehensive philosophical/theoretical framework for alternative secondary education that…