UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
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Item Race, Space, and Equity: How Local Youth, Longtime Resident Parents, and Local Policymakers Perceive and Experience School Gentrification(2024) Quarles, Bradley; Galindo, Claudia; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Public education has become increasingly entwined with gentrification, which involves the transformation of historically underinvested, predominantly minority neighborhoods for middle- and upper-income residential and commercial use. This phenomenon is supported by neoliberal reforms that marketize urban schools, with some policymakers and reformers assuming that these practices will attract parent gentrifiers, who will drive urban school transformation. However, this reform agenda rests on an uneven literature base that primarily highlights the perspectives of parent gentrifiers. This three-paper dissertation applies critical racial and spatial perspectives to three complementary qualitative investigations in Washington, D.C., a critical site of gentrification and market-based education reforms, to deepen our understanding of the relationship between gentrification and educational equity and amplify voices underrepresented in the existing literature. Study 1, “‘It Feels Like the City Pushed Us Aside’: Mapping Local Youths’ Experiences of Gentrification and Education in Washington, D.C.,” draws on data derived from participatory mapping activities and focus groups involving 23 Black and 7 Latinx public high school students. It explores how these young people depict and utilize space, perceive gentrification’s educational and environmental impacts, and construct narratives of belonging and justice in a gentrified city. The analysis delves into how racism, spatial disparities, and various forms of oppression mold the landscapes encountered by local youths, shaping the narratives they construct about themselves and their surroundings. The findings highlight their complex understanding of gentrification as a source of both opportunities and challenges, with many conveying that city leaders view them as disposable. Through their words and maps, a counter-narrative emerges to essentializing discourses that undermine the agency and capacity of local youth to propose policy solutions for improving neighborhood and school dynamics central to their lives. Study 2, “‘A Prisoner’s Dilemma: How Longtime Resident Black Parents Navigate School Choice, Gentrification, and Antiblackness,” uses retrospective interviews with 19 longtime resident Black parents with deep ties to the community that predate revitalization. It investigates how the intertwined dynamics of race, place, and power influence their experiences of gentrification and decision-making. The findings illuminate the tension between neoliberal school choice policies that assume all families operate in a minimally restrictive marketplace and the racial hostility and spatial disparities constraining Black parents’ agency within a gentrified school choice landscape. Instead of empowering families and compelling schools to be more responsive, the study reveals that for many longtime resident parents, school choice bred precarity, offering them “a chance, not a choice,” at securing academically rigorous and culturally affirming educational opportunities. Study 3, “Local Policymakers Sensemaking on Gentrification and Education: Working Towards Equity Across a Contested Landscape,” examines how 21 elected officials and education administrators responsible for citywide education reforms process the multiple messages and sources of influence concerning the competing interests of longtime resident families and parent gentrifiers. The study explores how local policymakers conceptualize whether gentrification enables or constrains educational opportunities throughout Washington, D.C., emphasizing its impact on longtime resident families. Additionally, it investigates how local policymakers’ conceptions of race, space, and equity shape their sensemaking of gentrification. The findings challenge simplistic portrayals of all local policymakers as advocates for gentrification catering to parent gentrifiers. Instead, participants voiced a deep commitment to advancing transformative and adequacy notions of equity and centering marginalized families in their decision-making. Transformative policymakers aimed to disrupt racially spatialized disparities, whiteness, and entrenched power dynamics, while adequacy policymakers sought to address inequities within the city’s existing policy frameworks. The findings provide insights for urban policy agendas that prioritize the needs of longtime resident families and other racially minoritized, historically disenfranchised communities.Item Principals Leading for Educational Equity: Social Justice in Action(2012) Eldridge, Cynthia; Mawhinney, Hanne B.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This qualitative case study examined how principals promote educational equity in schools.. The study examined the experiences of three principals in a school district that mandated that principals lead for equity. The school system defined equity as the elimination of racial predictability in student achievement. To conduct this examination, the researcher conducted an analysis of transcripts from semi- structured interviews. The study's findings overview four conditions that are commonly promoted by principals to address inequities within their schools: leadership for equity, an equity focus, equity enhancing practices and structures. The findings from this case study added to current knowledge about the need for an equity plan model that principals can apply in planning and leading for educational equity in their schools. Studying how principals promote educational equity in schools proved a significant way to learn about how today's schools address inequities facing African American and Hispanic students. The study also added to current knowledge about social justice in education, as the foundation for educational equity work. Suggestions for further research include: investigating principals leading for educational equity in a district that did not mandate this idea; further comparison studies with the principal as the primary unit of analysis; including teacher and student perceptions would be beneficial. Research that provides further description of the experiences of principals working to become leaders in educational equity will extend our professional knowledge on this topic.