This dissertation examines the important affective labor of diverse feminist activists and sexual assault survivor advocates and contributes a theory of feminist affective resistance. I define feminist affective resistance as the transformative rhetorics and literacy practices feminists employ to challenge dominant pedagogies of emotion while…

Amidst the vast amount of research that measures, evaluates, and suggests best practices for social and emotional learning (SEL), less attention has been given to the underlying cultural values, emotional investments, and relational patterns that shape and uphold SEL at a "root level." The purpose of this dissertation was to create a…

This qualitative study explores a pedagogical approach that centered participants' epistemic authority to select the ways of knowing and focus for their practices of science. Guided by Black feminist theory, the program facilitators and participants engaged multiple cultural practices to (re)define science practices and (re)center participants'…

I have developed a Feminist-Humanities model for social justice education that demonstrates pedagogical potency for building students' capacity for transformative social change. This dissertation presents the model, describes its theoretical framework, assesses its impact on student learning, and considers what the findings can offer to social…

The pandemic and uprisings against police terror have heightened the devastation of white supremacy and capitalism. During this time of heightened devastation, revolutionary organizing efforts have amplified. As people are coming together to resist and create alternatives to these murderous systems, the purpose of this project is to strengthen the…

There has been little work on entangled intra-actions, or the simultaneous constitution of subjectivities and performances, between these discursive and material understandings of racial difference in higher learning. As a result, research and practice endorse a binary narrative either privileging discursive constructivism (looking to what…

Antiracism and feminism are interrelated projects, and this research concerns the complex roles that White women play in their histories, development, advocacy, and fissures, specifically in the academy--a unique, contradictory place. This dissertation documents my co-inquiries with eight of my Sugarhill College colleagues--White women faculty…

This dissertation intervenes in antiracist scholarship's recent trend of acknowledging/openly critiquing whiteness as primary means to dismantle white supremacy in Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy (Ratcliffe, Inoue). I use intersectional Black Feminist thought (Lorde, Cohen), buttressed by Black Studies (DuBois, Godwin-Woodson, Weheliye) and…

Social change and social justice have become an increasingly important movement within the profession of counselor education. Feminism shares a philosophical foundation with social justice movements. Despite the overlapping philosophy, feminists within counselor education have little visibility, and a dearth of literature regarding their…

This is a narrative inquiry study that presented types of women's activism during and after the conflict in Aceh, Indonesia (1976-2005). The study sought to explain how divergent women's activism becomes possible against the backdrop of this conflict and how the establishment of peace alters the patterns of their activism. Women's activism here…

This dissertation describes qualitative research on the worldviews of environmental justice activists and feminist environmentalists via an interpretive inquiry of narratives. The terms "environmental justice activists" and "feminist environmentalists" are used broadly to describe persons who explicitly or implicitly identify…

White, middle-class women make up the majority of public school teachers in the United States of America while the student population is diversifying rapidly (Taie & Goldring, 2017). The need for these educators to cultivate a critical consciousness is high if our education system is to be equitable for all students (Winans, 2012). This study…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of women high school principals to uncover challenges contributing to the underrepresentation of women in secondary school leadership. Moreover, this work is situated within the larger movement of educational leadership for social justice, with a focused application of a…

Scholars in the helping professions have become increasingly concerned with how the fruits of their labor can promote social justice (e.g., Vera & Speight, 2003; Swank & Fahs, 2013, North, 2009). At present, there is a lack of theoretical convergence around what social justice consciousness, aptitude, awareness, or orientation actually…

The following project uses both narrative and feminist poststructural lenses to consider how narratives operated in one undergraduate social foundations of education class purposefully designed around issues of social justice. These theoretical frameworks were useful in exploring the ways students and myself, the course instructor, were variously…