University students are increasingly coming together to take action for racial justice and equity. Anti-racist student organizing includes how students collectively work to address racism and oppression at their institutions or beyond through sociopolitical engagement and action (e.g., protests, political education). Minority-serving institutions…

This dissertation study called Young Adults Acting On the World (YAAOW), addresses the injustices of withheld opportunities for critical literacy engagement and the marginalization of refugee-background students through a qualitative experiment of a critical, collaborative project, patterned after social design-based experimentation (Gutierrez,…

In the vacuity created by the global pandemic, George Floyd's broadcasted murder regenerated the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and compelled a national conversation about racial injustice (Associated Press, 2020; Cullors et al., 2013). Institutions of higher education (IHE) immediately responded with anti-racist efforts spanning from action…

In this dissertation, I explore the ways in which childhood is represented in three Korean American narratives for youths: An Na's "the Fold," Lyla Lee "I'll Be the One," and Tae Keller's "When You Trap a Tiger"--to theorize the concept of "Otherhood," that is, a childhood in which the experience of being…

Today's elementary teacher candidates (TCs) are entering a world of public education decimated by decades of neoliberal education reforms (Kumashiro, 2010; Lipman, 2012) exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic (Giroux, 2021) and the current white-supremacist, heteropatriarchal backlash (Pendharkar, 2022). For justice-oriented TCs, finding agency in…

International students' experiences with race and racism in U.S. higher education has received increasing scholarly attention, especially in light of a series of recent environmental hostilities (e.g., anti-Asian hate associated with COVID-19) that have affected the population. This growing body of research has primarily focused on how…

Over the past 30 years, one of the most prevalent models in student leadership education has been the Social Change Model of Leadership Development (SCM), which views leadership as a collaborative, purpose-, and values-driven process working towards positive social change (Higher Education Research Institute, 1996). As issues of social inequity…

The purpose of this qualitative self-study was to investigate my own critical teaching practices in a freshman university classroom and to see what happened to my teacher identity when my curriculum and instruction focused on issues of social justice. Believing that "…the Eurocentric worldview is so thoroughly hegemonized in the United…

While Huey P. Newton has his place in the history books as an outspoken activist and co-founder of the Black Panther Party (BPP), a critical aspect of his life's work is missing from his well-known story. In addition to being remembered for his confrontations with the police, Newton should be known as an educator because that is how he saw…

Laboratory research on sex differences in response to maternal immune activation: We investigated sex differences in molecular and behavioral responses to maternal immune activation during pregnancy. Epidemiological evidence indicates that immune activation during pregnancy impacts brain development, leading to increased incidence of…

School counselors play a vital supportive role in schools. As the needs of students and diverse populations in urban schools surge, the need to improve understanding of school counselors' experiences facing social justice issues also increases. Framed through the lens of Rawls's social justice theory, the focus of this generic qualitative study…

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…

A number of social and ecological justice educators have long recognized the need for educational institutions to foster the development of a critical interest in civic engagement. They also have recognized the lack of appropriate education for students who are already civically engaged. One popular way to address this context in higher education…

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 study is a qualitative analysis of guided reflections on the educational experiences of five former students who attended schools in the poorest congressional district in the United States. While the students did not all know each other or attend the same secondary schools, they all had the same high school social studies teacher, the…