This dissertation examines the construction of the label Muslim as an emerging racial and political signifier. I explore how students who identify as Muslim understand their own racial and religious construction, as well as their own subjectivity within the American social, political and cultural landscape. This dissertation asks: (1) How do…

Traditional special education research has excluded personal stories told by those most affected by the special education system. Specialists continue to diagnose, label, and provide assistance to persons with learning disabilities with little input from the persons most affected. The field continues to rely on the medical model, placing the locus…

Researchers have identified the negative effects of labeling associated with curricular tracking. Using a variety of theoretical perspectives, researchers have also suggested how the formal, structural role of tracking was established and has persisted despite strong evidence that tracking and attendant labeling of students negatively affects the…

This study examined an elementary school, located in an urban school district, which was labeled as a Persistently Low-Achieving School (PLAS) by the federal government in 2009 in order to determine how the school planned to change leadership and staff; increase student achievement; and implement new approaches for changes in school climate. The…

The purpose of this study was to provide a clearer understanding of current Korean American adolescents under the recognition that their stories are barely told in educational research. Based on the literature that has described identity as a core concept in understanding adolescence and literacy practice as a dominant tool for identity…

Disability labels and other social categories in school arise out of an educational system which attributes learning problems, perceived weaknesses, and academic failure to individual students. Instead, this dissertation investigates how learning problems are produced and reinforced through cultural practices. Through a two-year, cross-context…

School administrators, educators, psychologists, social workers, the juvenile courts, institutional reformers, and others shape the manner in which children are labeled, portrayed, and treated. However, the agendas, motivations, political language, and influence of these "helping professionals" in "treating" and…

This study examined implicit and explicit attitudes of teachers toward the Emotional Disturbance (ED) label, the strength of association between implicit and explicit ratings, and the variance in attitudes between different types of teachers or among teachers in different settings. Ninety-eight teachers (52 regular education and 46 special…