This qualitative case study used practitioner research methods to address the question: How does a Mexican American teacher create counter-hegemonic spaces in a Spanish Language Arts classroom utilizing critical race and borderlands theories? The research focused on how I as a teacher-built trust and respect through "place"--here, the…

This transcendental phenomenological study will explore the lived experiences of Southern Texas Mexican American/Chicana women pursuing a doctorate. The Chicana's experience achieving a doctorate has been overlooked by the literature, with much of the research on Mexican American women being outdated or focusing on completing high school or…

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore the lived experiences of seven Mexican American community college philosophy students in their journeys to becoming philosophers in the U.S.-Mexico border, between El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Philosophy is one of the least diverse academic fields in the United…

This study was an autoethnography of the turnaround efforts of a Chicano leader in four low-performing schools in Texas. The U.S. Government and the State of Texas both impose sanctions on schools that fail to meet minimum standards on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) exams. The focus in the research was on how life…

This qualitative case study pursued to describe the different strategies Mexican American adult students in a local community college used to graph function transformations. Participants in the study were purposefully selected using a criterion sampling to ensure participants were atypical, above average students between the ages 18-22, and had a…

This research explored the struggle and resiliency of a Mexican American community in Central Texas as they attempted to maintain, teach, and celebrate their Mexican American roots, customs, knowledge, and celebrations through community education. The research employed critical ethnography to explore history and its impact on self, organization,…

Although the Latino population is exponentially increasing, the number of Latinas obtaining higher education degrees continues to be alarmingly low. It appears to be more difficult for Latinas, and more specifically, for Mexican American women, to pursue a higher education. For those who manage to beat the odds and become higher education…

This narrative inquiry qualitative study analyzed eleven community cultural wealth (CCW) capitals (cultural strength and assets) to determine whether they were utilized by first generation Mexican American students to thrive in their trajectories from high school to elite universities. The 11 explored capitals--"academic,"…

The dissertation examined the significance of disaggregated data in relation to college students' sense of belonging among Latinx ethnic subgroups. Sense of belonging has been positively associated with student persistence, retention, and completion of degree (Korpershoek et al., 2020). Latinx consist of numerous ethnic subgroups, and…

Although the Mexican population is experiencing tremendous growth, they continue to lag behind the national average in, and have amongst the lowest, educational attainment levels of all Latinos/as (Perez Huber et al., 2015). Some studies have looked at the experience of Mexicans along the K-12, undergraduate, and doctoral educational pipelines.…

This dissertation investigates secondary educators' participation in a community of practice to determine how educators' discourse reveals a discerning stance of cultural humility and an understanding of culturally sustaining pedagogy. Applying critical race theory and Chicana feminist framework to a qualitative auto-ethnographic study, the author…

This study examined the perceptions of three individual Mexican American teachers and explored their lived experiences and the qualities deemed necessary for their success in the educational to teaching pipeline. The research specifically addressed the factors contributing to the participants' completion of a college degree and earned teaching…

Since the U.S. Recession of 2008, more Mexicans are leaving than coming to the United States. Many Mexican families return to Mexico with their U.S.-born--or "American Mexican"--children and youth. Approximately 700,000 American Mexican children and youth are now living and attending K-12 schools throughout Mexico (Gandara & Jensen,…

This project explores how the variation in language experiences and attitudes that Mexican American Spanish heritage speaker bilinguals in the United States have affects their speech perception in both their languages. Heritage language bilinguals speak as a first language a minority language that they have cultural ties to (e.g., Spanish in the…

With dramatic population growth and redistribution, Latinx are becoming increasingly dispersed across the country, particularly in states that previously had very few Latinx residents. Considering this phenomenon, there is a need for educational research that does not attempt to operate under the same assumptions within regions where the Latinx…