College of Education
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item Crossing the Cultural Bridge: Examining the Cross-Ethnic Interactions and Relationships Between Black Immigrant and Black American Students at a Predominantly White, Public, State Flagship Institution(2024) Ogwo, Ashley; Fries-Britt, Sharon L; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The discourse surrounding Black immigrant and Black American student relationships in higher education has often centered tensions between the two groups related to their enrollment in private elite institutions (e.g., Bennett & Lutz, 2009; Charles et al., 2008; Massey et al., 2007). However, both inside and outside of the private elite context, there is little research that intentionally examines the cross-ethnic interactions and relationships between Black immigrant and Black American students (Awokoya, 2012; De Walt, 2011; George Mwangi et al., 2016; Jackson & Cothran, 2003). Existing literature’s primary focus on circumstances surrounding Black immigrant and Black American undergraduates that are out of their control, such as their respective over- and underrepresentation at elite colleges (Bennett & Lutz, 2009; Charles et al., 2008; Jaschik, 2017; Massey et al., 2007), has left a significant gap in the knowledge base regarding the actual communicative experiences of these student populations across ethnic lines. Few studies have ventured beyond the private elite institutional context to explore these relational dynamics, resulting in limited scholarly understanding of the benefits and challenges of Black immigrant and Black American interactions and relationship-building from the perspectives of students themselves. This study aims to address these knowledge gaps by examining the cross-ethnic relationship dynamics between Black immigrant and Black American undergraduates in the institutional context they more frequently attend: a predominantly white, moderately selective, public, state flagship institution (U.S. Department of Education National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, 2016, as cited in Espinosa et al., 2019).Utilizing communication theory of identity and case study methodology, this study empirically unpacks the cross-ethnic interactions and relationships between Black immigrant and Black American undergraduates at a predominantly white, public, state flagship institution in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. This study was guided by the following two research questions: 1) What do Black immigrant and Black American students at a predominantly white, public, state flagship institution perceive to be the role of their ethnic identities in their cross-ethnic interactions with one another? And 2) What do Black immigrant and Black American students at a predominantly white, public, state flagship institution perceive to be the benefits and challenges of Black cross-ethnic interactions and relationship-building? My study uncovered six themes that were prevalent across participants’ case narratives, including three challenges and three benefits to cross-ethnic interactions and relationship-building between Black immigrant and Black American students: 1) Challenge #1: “I Don’t Really Have Time”: How Students’ Schedules Limit Their Cross-Ethnic Engagement; 2) Benefit #1: “For the Sake of Community”: Developing Strong Cross-Ethnic Bonds to Support One Another at the PWI; 3) Challenge #2: “Instilled from Childhood”: The “Cycle” of Passing Down Cross-Ethnic Stereotypes and Preconceived Notions; 4) Benefit #2: “Breaking Generational Curses”: Combatting Instilled Interethnic Stereotypes through Cross-Ethnic Communication and Relationship-Building; 5) Challenge #3: “Trying to Reach and Understand the Other Side”: How Lack of Cultural Knowledge Limits Cross-Ethnic Interactions and Relationships; and 6) Benefit #3: “There’s So Much to Learn and Love”: Building Cross-Cultural Understanding through Cross-Ethnic Interactions and Relationships. The study’s findings provide critical insight into existing relational dynamics between Black immigrant and Black American undergraduates, detailing how these students perceive, describe, and make meaning of the relationship between their ethnic identities and their cross-cultural communication experiences with one another as well as the utility of their cross-ethnic interactions.Item AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM: THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN RACIAL MICROAGGRESSIONS, COPING, AND HEALTH AMONG BLACK COLLEGE STUDENTS(2024) Brown, Rabia; Lewis, Jioni A.; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Black college students endure racial microaggressions in higher education, and current research highlights how racial microaggressions can negatively impact the health of Black college students. The purpose of this study was to investigate the associations between racial microaggressions in higher education, coping strategies (education/advocacy, resistance, detachment, drug/alcohol use, and internalization), and health quality in Black college students. Participants included 155 Black college students that took an online survey as a part of a larger study conducted at a large Southeastern historically white university. Results from the hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that racial microaggressions were significantly and negatively associated with mental and physical health quality in Black college students. Additionally, results from the mediation analyses found that detachment coping significantly mediated the association between racial microaggressions and mental health in Black college students. This study provides further evidence of the negative impact of racial microaggressions on the health and well-being of Black college students.Item The Geographies and Entanglements of Education and Mobility: A Focus on Black Nations and Black Immigrants, Past to Present(2022) Brantuo, Nana Afua Yeboaa; Brown, Dr. Tara; Turner, Dr. Jennifer; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Using Black geographies – a deliberate, decolonial examination of racialization, spatialization, and Black life, situated at the nexus of Black intellectual traditions and modes of inquiry – this study centers and interweaves the narratives of Black im/migrants, along with their artistic, cultural, and intellectual knowledge and artifacts, to interrogate and revise historic and contemporary understandings of Black im/migrant students’ mobility, migration, and agency. The study answers the following questions: 1) How have Black im/migrants, and Black im/migrant students specifically, understood their multiple, intersecting identities, and how do these understandings shape how they navigate societies? 2) How do they understand and engage with/disengage from advocacy, activism, and politics, 3) What do they envision for themselves as students, as migrants, and as citizens (a status that continues to hold loosely for Black people across borders)?, and 4) What bonds and/or communities sustain them transnationally and how do they envision the roles of those bonds and communities in their futures? Also drawing on and in conversation with scholarly literature, archival materials and documents, reports and white papers, government surveillance records, journal entries, letters, laws, policies and treaties, news periodicals, interviews, organizational records, photographs, and speeches, the study elucidates the politics and interrelationships of education, migration, and empire for Black im/migrants across time and space. Implications for theory and research are presented with an emphasis on students’ Diasporic worldmaking praxes and networks as central to reviving and revising the historical and contemporary record of educational and migration research and scholarship.Item THE INTERSECTIONS OF MASCULINITY, GENDER, AND RACISM: EXPLORING THE LIVED EXPERIENCES AND INTERACTIONS OF BLACK MALE GRADUATE STUDENTS ATTENDING A PRIMARILY WHITE INSTITUTION(2021) Perry, Jamar J; Slater, Wayne; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Negative perceptions of Black boys and men have persisted and have been analyzed through numerous studies over the years, showcasing both educator’s low gendered schooling expectations of them and their racial trauma and stress they experience attending PWIs if they are able to graduate from secondary school. Placing Black men in deficit positions starts in our nation’s PreK-12 public schools through their experiences in college, affecting their ability to participate successfully in the labor market, obtain higher earnings and savings, and their professional and personal mobility. Research that focuses on these negative perceptions impoverishes our understandings of Black men who do succeed in schools, from PreK-12 through doctoral study. The purpose of this collective case study was to explore Black male doctoral students understanding of their lived histories of masculinity, race, and racism through their connection with their childhood, schooling, and doctoral study. Data sources included an individual interview, journal entries, member checking, and a focus group. This study took place at a primarily white institution (PWI) in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and focused on three Black male doctoral students. Through the adoption of racial/critical race literacy, Critical Race Theory, and Black masculinity literacy as theoretical frames, the findings highlight four common themes—or what I call “dimensions”—from participants’ interviews and journal entries of their experiences and interactions with doctoral study based on their historical understandings of themselves: a) feelings of loneliness/not being able to forge closeness with other Black male doctoral students; b) negative perceptions of and racial microaggressions attending a PWI; c) the influence of Black masculinity to progress; and d) the ways PWIs can establish progressive spaces for Black men. One participant inhabited a dimension that was unique to him with how he claimed masculinity for himself based on his historical positioning and socialization: e) using traditional masculinity to claim manhood. The findings from participants’ focus group highlight two common dimensions of participants’ understanding of their experiences as they reflected together: a) reflecting and learning from Black masculinity in relation to white spaces; and b) recommendations for recruiting and retaining Black men in doctoral study. These findings show how Black male graduate students reflect upon their masculinity histories and schooling and connect them to their understandings of themselves as Black doctoral students. This work contributes to our understanding of successful Black male doctoral students and breaks new grounds by showcasing that Black men do uphold ideals of progressive masculinity that do call for the liberation and protection of all people of color. It also shows how Black men are historically socialized and grounded as gendered and racial beings and how they view white spaces from these lenses as navigational tactics. It also demonstrates how Black men can and do communicate with each other when given the chances to, interrogating their own masculinity practices in conjunction with modeling their own behavior in progressive ways for other Black men. Finally, this study advocates for educational stakeholders to act in concrete and tangible ways to increase Black male doctoral student presence at PWIs.Item Portraits of the (In)visible: Examining the Intersections of Race, Religion, and Gender for Black Muslim Women in College(2017) Daoud, Nina; Griffin, Kimberly A.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Although anti-Islamic sentiments have existed before 9/11, the past 15 years have brought about a distinct set of challenges for Muslim Americans, ones that have seldom been explored within the context of college campuses. Further, higher education scholarship has not addressed diversity among Muslims and the reality that students facing numerous forms of oppression often have unique challenges negotiating their multiple identities. This project recognizes the distinct subjectivities of Black Muslim women, examining how they navigate college at the intersections of their racial, religious, and gender identities. Through the qualitative methodology of portraiture and a Black feminist lens, this dissertation utilizes Patricia Hill Collins’s matrix of domination to present portraits of four Black Muslim women, focusing on how they make decisions about which of their identities to embody throughout their undergraduate years. Data were collected between October 2016 and March 2017, the months leading up to and following the 2016 Presidential Election. As such, this study’s primary contribution lies in uncovering how contextual influences shape the college experiences of students from marginalized backgrounds. More specifically, findings from this study reveal the significance of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s notion of the decisive moment as well as how Erving Goffman’s conceptualization of impression management can be used to explicate Black Muslim women’s resistance. As it relates to the decisive moment, or the specific time in which an artist is able to capture a snapshot of a broader image, participants discussed how political discourse about each of their social groups (e.g., Black, Muslim, woman, immigrant) shaped their campus interactions. Additionally, the decisive moment galvanized participants to fight against racial injustices. Relatedly, participants engaged in impression management, employing strategies to resist stereotypes related to one or more of their marginalized identities. In particular, participants intentionally performed their racial and/or religious identities (e.g., through wearing a headscarf, being vocal about racism) as an act of resistance. Overall, findings illuminate issues of power and privilege in different spaces, including the Muslim community, the Black community, college campuses, and the U.S., thereby disrupting narratives of universality among those who identify as Black or Muslim, within higher education and beyond.Item Living in the Grey: Racial Sense-Making of Second Generation African Immigrants(2018) Belay, Kurubel; Griffin, Kimberly; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study explored messages of racial identity received by second generation African immigrants in order to better under their racial sense-making experiences. As a result of the growth in the Black immigrant population in the United States, which has grown to nearly 10% of the overall Black population (Pew Research Center, 2017), research has shown that Black immigrants experience and understand their racial identities differently than their African American counterparts (Jackson, 2010; Mwangi & Fries-Britt, 2015). Despite the scholarly attention given to Black immigrants, very little research exists on their second generation immigrant children, and how they make sense of their racial and ethnic identities in a U.S context. Given the impact of racial identity on academic experiences, social engagement, and psychological well-being (Chavous & Byrd, 2009; Cokley & Chapman, 2008; Harper, 2009), the continued growth and representation of this population in higher education warrants further inquiry. Guided by a reconceptualized model of the Learning Race in a U.S. context framework (Fries-Britt, Mwangi, Peralta, 2014), this research was guided by two research questions: (1) What messages do second generation African immigrants receive about their racial identities? (2) How do these messages inform their understandings of their own race and race generally? Employing a narrative inquiry methodology, this study examined how three, second generation African immigrants have made sense of their racial identities. Three salient themes emerged from the participant narratives that demonstrated how each of their understandings of race and racial identity were defined by environments bound by space and time. The findings of this study have implications for research and student affairs practice by providing a nuanced exploration of the racial identity constructions of this segment of the ever growing Black immigrant population.Item (inter)FACE: A Study of Black Families Advocating for their Children’s Education(2016) Morant, Tamyka; Brown, Tara M; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Black students are consistently overrepresented in categories of academic underachievement. Parent engagement has long been touted as an effective strategy for improving the educational outcomes of Black children. However, most parent engagement research reflects deficit based perspectives frame Black parents as problems that must be fixed or mitigated before they can positively contribute to their children’s education. Consequently, parent engagement research and frameworks ignore the perspectives of Black parents and the assets they use to participate effectively in parent engagement. In this case study, I draw on individual and focus group interview data, documents, and observations, to examine how fifteen Black families, collectively known as FACE: 1) define and participate in parental engagement, 2) experience barriers to and opportunities for engagement, and 3) experience benefits of engagement for their children and their own personal development. Guided by Black Feminist and Critical Race Theories, I show how Black families in this study used a myriad of engagement strategies to improve their children’s educational experiences which were invisible to schools and how they used school-sanctioned engagement activities to meet their own objectives. Ultimately, I argue that school-centered parent engagement frameworks and models are ineffective for empowering Black families and accounting for the essential ways that these families contribute to the well-being of their children. Based on my findings, I discuss implications for theory, practice and policy, and research, and make recommendations for a more family-centered approach to parent engagement.Item "Natural Enemies" or Intentional Allies? Teachers' & Parents' Perspectives on Middle School Boys of Color(2016) Lowe, Shasha Yolande; MacDonald, Victoria-María; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examined the perspectives and “shared knowledge” of parents and teachers of boys of color. The following overarching research question guided this study: “What do parents and teachers want each other to know about their middle school son or student of color regarding academics, engagement, and behavior?” Additionally, it explored the challenges and opportunities for shared knowledge and understanding of their (respective) son’s’ or students’ academics and engagement. The methodology was qualitative in nature and the intent in conducting this case study was to describe, interpret, and explain the “shared knowledge” between these stakeholders at a predominantly minority middle school. A sample of seven parents and seven teachers from one school in a mid-Atlantic state participated in interviews and focus groups. Results indicated that parents and teachers of boys of color viewed each other as “intentional allies.” Results further showed that parents and teachers were aware of the challenges faced by boys of color in and out of school. That awareness was reflected in strategies that both groups employed to support, prepare, and protect their son/students. Lastly, the study found that teachers received no formal training in building parent-teacher partnerships, but gathered experimental knowledge on how to build those relationships. These findings have implications for teacher education programs, schools, parents, and teachers.