This work comprises three articles centered around access and equity in California with a lens toward school inputs, interrogating the extent to which coursework as well as local planning efforts support student learning and progress. Using descriptive analysis, Chapter 1 examines the availability and accessibility of rigorous English courses for…

The objective of this dissertation was to design and study a transformative model of climate change education that foregrounded sociopolitical processes and was socially relevant to Black and Latinx urban high school students. The intervention was implemented at the Mann-UCLA Community School in South Los Angeles while distance learning was…

This dissertation had a three-pronged approach by examining (1) the role and sustainability of university-based intensive English programs (IEPs), (2) the value of a master's in Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), and (3) relevance of attending an IEP for international/English as a second language (ESL) students. IEPs face…

Despite a 100-year-old history and the existence of schools in nearly every country in the world, Waldorf education is a little known and poorly understood educational model that was developed in Europe by Austrian philosopher Rudolph Steiner. For many years it existed in the United States in the form of private schools. Few of their teachers or…

One of the challenges humans face is making collective decisions with regards to controversial issues related to science, namely socio-scientific issues (SSIs). Genetic modification, nuclear energy, experimental drugs, 5G technology are a few examples of SSIs. Some of the concerns posed by such issues are compromise to privacy and identity, threat…

English language learners represent one of the fastest growing, and diverse, group of students in California community colleges. The successful adoption of translanguaging to English as a second language (ESL) classrooms may provide an equitable way for teachers to ensure students reach their academic goals and foster bilingual identity…

This dissertation brings together three qualitative research articles to interrogate a disjuncture between curriculum development in graduate schools of education and the relations of power it fosters in teacher education and counselor education. In applying biopower and intersectional analyses throughout each article, this dissertation contends…