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This dissertation examines a century of Chinese dancers' bodily citizenship from the 1920s to the 2020s with emphasis on accounts of dance instruction and artistic exchange at the Beijing Dance Academy through a review of historical dance photo and newspaper archives, data collection of lived experiences in artistic practice, and oral history interviews. Engaging with Dance and Performance theory and through an analysis of bodily movement practices, the research examines Chinese moving bodies in and across national borders through a process of shaping how these bodies are performed with new visibility in the People's Republic of China. As a social group, Chinese dancers residing in urban cities in China disrupted socio-spatial structures of gender through choreography, performance, and interactions during the last century. By utilizing Performance Studies as an approach, this dissertation elevates unheard historical narratives and body performance to re-stage the socialist performing body as a national performance in itself. Highlighted are the observations and voices of ordinary dancing bodies and groups in city spaces where their voices and stories are given value in the research process. How do Chinese dancers participate in national projects and embody bio-diversified movements as props to dwell in urban city spaces? What does it mean for Chinese dancers and their dancing bodies to perform the in-between spaces as a whole? Each chapter presents diverse perspectives that analyze the Chinese body as a process of performance that complicates the conventional notion of a moving body. As the first doctoral dissertation to re-stage Chinese dancing bodies at the Beijing Dance Academy through a first-person account and experience, this dissertation challenges the historical archives, bodily memories, and socialist ideologies and uplifts embodied movement research on scholarship and artistic motion in China. Shifting in and out of this performative process, the research not only aims to understand the Chinese body in a mobile form of moving through different times, spaces, and historical experiences but also serves as a translation of emerging Chinese historical dance accounts and exchanges that occurred between China and the US in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation explores how the political economy particular to southern Dallas, Texas impacts a community-based college-readiness program for high school students in a Latino community. A community-based educational space (CBES) operated by a civil rights organization serving Latino youth who would be the first-generation to attend university, sought to craft an effective neoliberal Latino professional by reducing the individual -- the youth participant in a college-readiness program -- into a symbol that reflects a predefined aesthetic -- the excellent Latino American. I argue that the intersecting agendas of the college-readiness program and the Latino civil rights organization unintentionally magnified my study population's historical precarity without addressing the socioeconomic perspectives that led so many to find transitioning into post-secondary education frightening and threatening to familial systems of economics and care. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

There is a problem in Minneapolis communities at the intersection of ecological and social systems. Despite efforts to use native prairie plants for cleaning water, the social justice stories connected to native prairie plants were being ignored. This problem has negatively impacted communities because native prairie plants can be an educational tool for action around water justice, climate change, systemic racism, and habitat restoration. A possible cause of the problem is a narrowed focus on the science behind the native prairie plants without attention to diverse voices, perspectives, partnerships, and capital that people involved in the projects hold. The purpose of this case study was to hear from diverse voices, perspectives, and partnerships involved with a variety of native prairie planting sites in the Minneapolis area. This multiple case study investigated the meanings people made connected to forms of capital through a social constructivism paradigm based on participation in community native prairie planting projects. Four cases with six focus group interviews, alongside triangulation using artifacts and visual methods were used in this study. Analysis included critical theory, ecological citizenship theory, and complexity theory. Participant hands were on plants and in the soil where lessons expanded beyond the tangible environmental science into self-reflection and community relationships related to sense of place, connection, belonging, healing, agency, and knowledge to action. Nine findings emerged from the data. This study teaches community leaders tools and pathways for healing and reconciliation at the intersection of social and ecological systems (Berkes et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2007; Nyborg, K., 2020) and points out gains in forms of capital when native prairie planting projects were completed by individuals, groups, and communities. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

As recent attacks on the rights of women and gender minorities exemplify, sexism and gender privilege are structural forces ingrained in the fabric of U.S. society. Unfortunately, higher education is not immune to such structural forces and can reinforce the power associated with gender privilege. This phenomenological research study, in concert with my own recollections and anecdotes, critically examines how structures within higher education support the empowerment of privilege through the stigma of unpartnered motherhood and the femininization of caregiving. The study explores the experiences of nine unpartnered student parents who directly encounter significant structural barriers related to sexism and gender privilege. Through narrative-storytelling and poetic analysis, this study documents the lived experiences of nine diverse unpartnered mothers living with extreme precarity, facing incredible uphill struggles to make a new and better life for themselves and their children. The research findings uncover a high level of mental health challenge for unpartnered mothers and their children but also a high level of motivation and desire to succeed within their selected programs. The study also uncovers how capitalist influenced ideals of motherhood conflict with standards of ideal scholarship to create an identity crisis whereby one is forced to choose between being a good scholar or a good mother. Practical recommendations are provided for service providers including administrators, faculty, and student service units. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Oppressive social systems are structures and institutions within society that systematically and unjustly restrict the rights, opportunities, and overall well-being of certain groups (Bonilla-Silva, 1997; Feagin, 2013). The current program of research aims to investigate how oppressive social systems impact individuals and explore strategies to address and counteract them. The first paper seeks to understand whether, why, and how people engage in critical action to support Black Lives Matter (BLM). The second paper examines undergraduates' perceptions of whether STEM research mentors should consider race when mentoring students from marginalized backgrounds. The final paper employs a meta-synthesis with the purpose of synthesizing studies that focus on the association between the patriarchy and close male friendships. Across all three studies, the findings are used to generate recommendations for flexible, data-driven interventions that aim to empower participants by instilling critical consciousness. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this study was to determine how secondary mathematics education changes in Hungary between 1867 and 1956 were reflected in journal articles of that time. In an attempt to accomplish this purpose, the researcher sought to identify which major political and socioeconomic factors affected the role and content of periodicals, how the content and approach of the topics changed, and who were the most prominent and influential authors of the periodicals between 1867 and 1956. This research investigates "Journal of the National Association of Secondary School Teachers," the first periodical devoted to Hungarian secondary education published between 1868 and 1944, and "Teaching of Mathematics," the first Hungarian periodical dedicated to mathematic education published between 1953 and 1956. The researcher employed historical-research methodology to examine the articles of the periodicals and categorize them based on similar content such as curriculum, teaching methods, school mathematics, and book/textbook reviews. The study also provides brief summaries of several articles. This research has shown that the history of Hungarian education in general was often influenced by foreign and domestic politics and ideologies. Studying journal articles provides a unique opportunity to observe real-time communication between educators and administrators and to analyze the effect of social and political changes which influenced mathematics education. Between 1867 and 1956, Hungary underwent major political and social changes--a dual Monarchy with Austria, independence as a truncated state, and occupation by Germany and later the Soviet Union. These changes significantly altered Hungary as a country and impacted its education system. While every country has undergone political and ideological influences in its educational history, Hungary was particularly affected by neighboring countries such as Germany and later the Soviet Union. Taking the broader perspective of the evolution of periodicals, this study demonstrated that the history of periodicals as a general form of scientific communication has passed through several stages. The journals, in some respects, are a bridge between educators and were affected by the political atmosphere of the country. In general, this study has shown that "Journal of the National Association of Secondary School Teachers" and "Teaching of Mathematics" were heavily influenced by social and political changes in Hungary, as well as foreign influences from countries such as Germany and the Soviet Union. These factors collectively formed Hungarian mathematics education between 1867 and 1956. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This thesis consists of two projects I worked on simultaneously throughout my PhD. Although neither project builds on the other, both investigate social systems as networks, and draw on a common set of statistical tools and methods.In the first project, I analyse the academic employment and doctoral education of tenure- track faculty at all PhD-granting US universities over the decade 2011-2020, quantifying stark inequalities in faculty production, prestige, retention, and gender. This study represents the first comprehensive analysis of the structure and dynamics of the US professoriate, elucidating the effectiveness of efforts to diversify the professoriate along gender lines, as well as the processes that shape scholarship more broadly.In the second project, I present a novel framework for studying competition in dating or marriage markets and apply it to data on messaging patterns observed within an online dating site. These analyses provide insight into the nature of competition in this market--for example, who is most competitive, who competes with whom, and who faces the stiffest competition--and how this competition arises out of preferences and opportunities. In doing so, I develop a deeper understanding of how population- and individual-level factors interact and impact the romantic market. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The study addresses the widening income and racial access gap in higher education resulting from enrollment management teams' operationalization of academic capitalism. The study focuses on the local, micro level, emphasizing how enrollment management leadership teams make sense of enrollment management, recognizing that enrollment management and the work of enrollment management stakeholders exist within an organizational space encompassing the values of both public good and academic capitalism. Using a case study methodology and critical sensemaking theory, the research explored how academic capitalism and values of the public good shaped enrollment management leadership teams' sensemaking and sensegiving as they enacted decisions, actions, and practices to recruit and admit students. The main conclusion includes the critical role of the EMLTs and its members' agency in public good enactments, especially driving the sensemaking process, and a more nuanced and complicated picture between academic capitalism and values of the public good in enrollment management. The study is the first to demonstrate that academic capitalism and the public good can coexist and overlap, in various ways, within the field of enrollment management despite existing literature's overwhelming characterization of enrollment management as firmly existing within the space of academic capitalism. Recommendations for colleges and universities include leveraging capitalist tools to drive a public good agenda; using predictive data analytics to have a measured approach to increase access; balancing the use of tuition discounting; investing in hiring organizational actors who can operate with contradictory logics and share public good values; developing key public good metrics; diversifying revenue streams; and for wealthy institutions to be bold in their public good enactments. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In the United States today, there exists a very serious conversation over financial aid at all levels of education. The conversation going on nationally permeates every level of society: politics, the nuclear family, and the economy. Further, at this point in our national history, we have several generation gaps with respect to education and its financing. The ever-rising cost of inflation has nearly quadrupled higher education tuition in a relatively short amount of time. Grandparents, parents, and children have all encountered college tuition in vastly different ways. The government has made attempts over the past decades to make education accessible; for example, the G.I. Bill after World War II made it possible for the current generation's grandparents to achieve higher education. However, the Baby Boomer generation who lived through the Vietnam era found new motivation to attend college; their college education cost a fraction of the present-day tuition bill. This dissertation focused specifically on modern students attending college in the present day. The process of researching and acquiring financial aid if necessary for their higher education presents a stress level which impacts students' academic success. It may also impact their success after completing their education as well. This researcher aimed to understand that impact and determine if there is a more beneficial financial aid system currently in existence. This research involved looking at the Canadian system of providing financial aid, compared to the American system. Each nation is a capitalist system that values education but provides different means of providing financial aid. Data for this project were collected from men and women who have either completed or are in the process of completing their college education. Further, students from the United States and Canada were interviewed and provided questionnaires which they completed and returned to be used as data for the study findings. The results indicated a common theme among all research participants in both countries. This theme is a deep concern over carrying debt into their adult lives. Much mention was made of beginning adulthood post-graduation and the impact any debt would have on their lifestyle. As a result, their decision on which university to attend and how to finance it was impacted. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study focused on the historical perspectives surrounding first-year African American male students at both Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs). Through an examination of archival documents, narratives, and scholarly analyses, this research illuminated the evolving perceptions of these students within the broader context of higher education. By contrasting the experiences of African American males in these distinct institutional settings, the study uncovered nuanced insights into the ways in which prevailing social, cultural, and educational paradigms have shaped their academic journeys and social integration. A qualitative method was utilized to capture information from participants for this case study. The participant group was a small purposeful sample of six African American males enrolled full-time at an HBCU or PWI. Three African American males from an HBCU and three from a PWI. The findings of this study indicated African American males perceive their involvement in informal social systems at HBCUs and PWIs; cultural assimilation related to African American male retention; and the socioeconomic status of African American males' families related to their retention rates at an HBCU or PWI. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this qualitative study was to assess the ways current higher education approaches to career education, counseling, and preparation models served, or disserved, economically marginalized first-generation Latinas (EMFGL) and their career identities. In centering EMFGL-identifying college graduates, this study used interviews to glean an understanding of what the EMFGL career education experience was like and how forms of career preparation in college equipped, or unequipped, students' career pathways. Driven to assess how higher education institutions can come to eradicate the generalization of their career counseling and education practices and ideologies, this work further uncovers how EMFGL graduates use their career counseling and education realities as a faculty--a sensibility--to (a) critique and question the dominant forms and depictions of career success operating under Western and capitalistic paradigms and (b) to (re)define the spaces that constrain, define, and drive EMFGL steps beyond the collegiate space. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study examines a group of four English educators, two women of color and two white women, who self-identified as teachers for social justice as they formed a teacher inquiry group, called a teacher inquiry circle, as they attempt to become antiracist. The purpose of the inquiry circle was to answer the call to action for more equitable racially just schools that permeated the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic and after the murder of George Floyd in the summer of 2020. To conduct the study a feminist practitioner action research methodology was used, and a racial literacy framework was applied to examine the lived experiences of the members of the teacher inquiry circle who were working in a variety of contexts as they embarked on their journey to becoming antiracist. Over the course of seven months these English teachers engaged in a collaborative dialogic group that used shared inquiry and critical storytelling and attempted to take action against the structures and systems that perpetuate race-based inequities. The research found that although challenging, difficult, and uncomfortable, small antiracist actions can be achieved when a group of English teachers committed to becoming antiracist worked across communities and contexts, racial and geographical, to form a community of solidarity. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

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 himself, that is what his actions proved him to be, and his time in front of a classroom epitomized what it means to be an activist-educator. His calling as a teacher went beyond the instances of educational activism for which he is already known, like the Party's community education classes and its liberation schools. Newton was a college lecturer as well as a founder and trustee of a primary school, the Intercommunal Youth Institute (later renamed the Oakland Community School). Analysis of documents Newton wrote for his courses and about the Intercommunal Youth Institute (IYI), reveal his main goal as an educator and the steps he took to reach it. As an educator, Newton aimed to teach people how to identify and overcome oppression. He went about reaching this goal not just with readings and lectures, but by offering his own life as a living curriculum. With my first paper, I chronicle Newton's journey from a student-activist to a teacher-activist at Merritt College. Newton is well remembered as an activist, or someone who worked to improve his community and the world as a whole. He took his first steps toward activism as a student at Merritt College pushing to make the school a more just place. Once he graduated, he became a teacher-activist, or an educator devoted to making the world better while simultaneously using his classroom to teach others to do the same. Working from both autobiographical and archival sources, I start by explaining Newton's motivation for attending college and the classes he took. Next, I describe his role in the student activism that led to the creation of a Black Studies department. Then, I detail the lecture series he designed and taught in the same department that his advocacy helped to create. I tell this story to illustrate how becoming a teacher-activist is a holistic experience influenced by lessons learned in a classroom and time spent boldly challenging injustice. Newton's time as a student at Merritt College influenced who he became as a teacher at that very same institution. The more Newton learned, the more he saw a link between learning and liberation, which compelled him to teach others to be free. His curriculum choices as a lecturer were influenced by his course of study and the culmination of his educational activism with organizations like the Afro-American Association and the BPP. From Newton, teacher-activists today can learn to: 1) proclaim what they believe like Newton and the BPP did with their 10-point program; 2) to act based on their beliefs, even in the face of hostility, to call for and make a difference, to organize, boycott, riot, resist and teach. Newton developed a thirst for knowledge and justice while he was a student at Merritt College. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]