Public schools are faced with a shortage of women superintendents in the United States. Although women dominate the teaching profession and outnumber men in educational leadership and doctoral programs in education, there is a disproportionate number of men compared to women leading the nation's public schools. Using feminist theory and social…

In 2011, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) acknowledged the absence of trend data to predict the representation of women in future academic leadership. This gap in the literature coupled with non-representative female leadership numbers and imminent shortages in leadership in the community college sector predicated the…

There is a looming crisis in California community colleges due to an unprecedented number college presidents retiring. African American women presidents have played a vital role in supporting the success of students of color, particularly African American students. It will be critically important that a new generation of talented African American…

This critical feminist scholarship utilizes Social Reproduction Theory (SRT), a Marxist Feminist theory, to explore the connection between social reproduction and higher education labor. Given capitalism's quest for accumulation, the neoliberal university is an important reproductive site to consider labor exploitation. Social Reproduction Theory…

The purpose of this study was to understand how resources in the community impact rural single mothers' access, participation, and success in higher education. In particular, this study focused on how rural single mothers' community ties impact their social capital resources and perception of agency and achievement in pursuing higher education.…

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of women high school principals to uncover challenges contributing to the underrepresentation of women in secondary school leadership. Moreover, this work is situated within the larger movement of educational leadership for social justice, with a focused application of a…

Social movements on college campuses often encounter resistance by supporters of the status quo because change can be viewed as a threat to the traditions, power, and privilege afforded to the dominant population. This is evident in one case at a university where the Greek life social climate was heavily influenced by gender inequity issues and…

Engineering has traditionally been and continues to be a male dominated profession. The National Academies' "Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing America for a Brighter Future (2005)" warns that in the long run, the United States might not have enough scientists and engineers to meet its national goals unless the number of…

This dissertation study contributes to the research on filmmaking and identity development by exploring the ways that film production provided unique opportunities for a team of four girls to engage in science, to develop identities in science, and to see and understand science differently. Using social practice, identity, and feminist theory and…

This dissertation examines the important affective labor of diverse feminist activists and sexual assault survivor advocates and contributes a theory of feminist affective resistance. I define feminist affective resistance as the transformative rhetorics and literacy practices feminists employ to challenge dominant pedagogies of emotion while…

This dissertation explores the diversity and depth of scholarship at the intersection of feminist studies and science and questions where and how these inquiries might be taken up in the university curriculum. The dissertation theorizes a postmodern, reconceptualist curriculum as it intersects with critical and complexity theories that takes up a…

In feminist standpoint theory (FST), the marginal social status of women provides them a nuanced perspective; this particular standpoint of reality holds potential in producing knowledge that challenges and goes beyond the dominant point of view. Since it characterizes "relations between the production of knowledge and practices of…

This qualitative study investigated the scarcity of females in the superintendency in the U.S. public school systems through the lens of the little-studied female assistant superintendent. Females remain underrepresented in the superintendency, with very little change in the last century. While 76% of the K-12 educators in the United States are…

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…

The purpose of this study was to explore how one woman negotiated an educational and professional path that led to leadership within the advertising industry's creative departments, where most of the leadership positions are held by men. This qualitative study was conducted using purposeful sampling, as the single participant represented a truly…