This qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study describes the lived experiences of school leaders who worked through the processes of school mergers in New York State. The central research question that guided the study was: What are the lived experiences of school leaders who worked through the processes of a school merger? In addition,…

Improvement science enables researchers to focus on a theory of change in structures and processes in classroom practices. This improvement science intervention was designed to reorient practitioners toward new instructional norms that promote discourse between teacher-students and student-student during instruction. The purpose of this research…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how the organizational culture of the after-school program within the Inn Dwelling Comprehensive Youth Initiative (IDCYI) after-school program provided by the Inn Dwelling organization, which serves two communities in Philadelphia, PA influences student academic achievement. The sample…

The purpose of this study was to understand how academic deans describe the competing logics influencing academic program development. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from eight participants employed as academic deans in mid-sized, private universities with a Basic Carnegie Classification as a Doctoral University. The study…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of a professional learning intervention on conceptual coherence and inquiry orientation for teachers and leaders participating in a K-12 Mathematics Committee (N = 18). This 9-month mixed methods single case study, conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, was designed using the principles and…

This dissertation explores North/South partnerships in higher education, shedding light on their practices and underlying logics. Recognizing the growing importance of these collaborations in addressing global challenges, universities are actively working to strengthen these ties. However, concerns about the potential replication of imperialistic…

Co-production theory has been defined as the process by which organizations and individuals contribute to providing a good or public service that betters specific outcomes. This dissertation probes four different research questions related to understanding the coproduction process in schools. These questions are grounded in organizational theory…

Higher education institutions' organizational identities, cultures, and praxis have neglected to honor the values, culture, and knowledge assets of Latinx communities, making it difficult to gain educational justice and equity, which could be attained through Latinx-centered models of higher education. The Latinx higher education experience needs…

The aspiration of achieving equitable outcomes for all students is a focus of schools, districts, and communities but has largely remained unattainable with the top-down implementation of change ideas and directives that come and go as quickly as they are implemented. Too often the direct users, students and classroom staff, are left out of the…

The study of employees' intention to comply with information security policies in higher education is limited. This research thus embarks on an empirical analysis of the factors predicting employees' intention to comply or the lack thereof with respect to their institutions' policies. The theoretical frameworks utilized by the study's model for…

This dissertation explores the conceptualization of education equity as manifested in the work of the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), a UNESCO institute with a technical mandate on research, training, and technical cooperation in educational planning and management. The study raises the questions of how UNESCO-IIEP…

A common theme of school reform efforts over the past many decades is the difficulty of spurring substantive improvements in teachers' underlying practice in spite of structural or organizational changes (Mehta, 2013; Tyack & Tobin, 1994). But organizational theorists have noted that this quality of schools--though frustrating for reformers…

This study explored school district adoption and implementation of a learning management system. A substantial body of literature exists on school district data systems. However, this literature is highly rational in its view of data system adoption, and contains limited studies on learning management systems. With these liabilities in mind, this…

Business schools have transformed from organizations that solely provide a business education to organizations that train future business leaders, perform extensive research, and serve as major revenue generators for the university systems in which they belong. Organizational mindfulness, a concept created from high-reliability organizations, to…

Culturally responsive practice (CRP) is a popular approach educators utilize to improve the gaps in achievement and discipline within U.S. schools. Current research provides insight into singular experiences of both school leaders and teachers working individually to enact CRP (Khalifa, Gooden, & Davis, 2016; Ladson-Billings, 2009). Although…