This study examined the lived experience of 10 activist teachers at the kindergarten through 12th grade level. All participants were veteran teachers with 10 or more years of public school experience who have come to terms with bureaucratic elements inside the system and yet continue to practice active resistance to policies, practices, and…

Historically, institutions of higher education (IHE) have been cautious and slow in making changes. Yet in today's fast-paced and dynamic world of content availability and information flow generated by 24-hour news cycles and the ubiquity of social media present a challenging reality for colleges and universities in their public relations and…

An abundance of academic research has focused on identifying, explicating, operationalizing, and analyzing variables used to understand the dynamics of customer service. Despite this scholarly attention, applied researchers and the popular press have long reported consumers' dissatisfaction with the service received during their customer…

It was unknown how campus public safety administrators view the relationship between planning and training for incidents when it came to improving campus safety by implementing emergency preparedness and critical response policies and procedures, in combination with comprehensive training for faculty, staff, and students. Therefore, the purpose of…

This study sought to examine the underlying issues and perceptions of sitting male and female superintendents in order to add to the current literature on feminism in the K-12 school setting. Specifically, this study sought to examine the perceptions of currently employed superintendents about how they experienced the intersection of gender and…

This dissertation examines contemporary issues that 18 (im)migrant university students faced during a time of highly militarized U.S.-Mexico border relations while living in Arizona during the time of this dissertation research. Utilizing critical race theory and public sphere theory as theoretical frameworks, the project addresses several related…

Though Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training (DEI) has proliferated, facilitators still seek effective tools to support the growth of anti-racist consciousness in participants. An avenue with great promise around these needs is how shared reflexive vulnerability can promote the growth of this consciousness. Using the tools of microethnographic…

Learning analytics are starting to become standardized in higher education as institutions use the techniques of Big Data analytics to make decisions to help them reach their goals. The widespread use of student information brings forth ethical concerns primarily in relation to privacy. While the overarching ethical issues related to learning…

This applied dissertation responded to two public problems: digital divides and unequal access to educational opportunities via the growth of virtual schooling in kindergarten through Grade 12 (K-12) in the United States. A qualitative instrumental case study approach was used to explore the relative advantages and disadvantages of public K-12…

Since the early 1990's funding K-12 public education in Oklahoma has faced trials and tribulations. The purpose of this study was to understand, through the lens of Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT), factors that elected educators have experienced that have influenced their ability and their motivation to affect increased funding for education…

Over the past two decades, we have witnessed an abundance of student protests at colleges and universities in the United States. Many of these protests cluster around the issues of white supremacy and anti-Black racism as they function in higher education settings--issues that have historically and contemporarily plagued United States colleges and…

The quantitative study examined diversity training and police service differences on levels of ethnocultural empathy among Florida's public university campus police officers. Enrollment in Florida's public universities has increased markedly along all social, cultural, and racial lines during the last decade (State University System of Florida…

Immigration has been a longstanding conversation, or debate, in American politics and society throughout history. Whether, or how much, to embrace immigrant populations into U.S. society has been a source of polarization over time, specifically as related to the handling or treatment of undocumented immigrants. A particularly acute dimension of…

Closing achievement gaps for students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds is a decades-long issue in public education, particularly for reading instruction (International Reading Association [IRA], 2010; National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2013). Across the United States, initiatives to further integrate technology-based instruction to…

The purpose of this research project was to conduct an exploratory analysis of the 2016 Mississippi Statewide Accountability System (MSAS), which is the model by which all public schools in Mississippi are assessed, rated, and ranked, in an attempt to assess whether or not the system is an effective policy tool, especially in relation to the goals…