Author ORCID Identifier

0009-0005-7164-182X

Date of Award

5-31-2026

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Education/Leadership in Urban Schools

First Advisor

Patricia Krueger-Henney, Associate Professor

Second Advisor

Abiola Farinde-Wu, Associate Professor

Third Advisor

Kandice Sumner, President and CEO Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity, Inc. Member

Abstract

This qualitative study examined how Dominican newcomer youth experience schooling in U.S. secondary schools, with emphasis on language, curriculum, identity, belonging, and students’ visions for more humanizing educational environments. Grounded in student testimonios, the study explored how school structures, pedagogical practices, and teacher–student relationships shape students’ academic engagement, emotional well-being, and sense of recognition as they navigate migration, language transition, and racialized identity formation. Informed by raciolinguistic, culturally sustaining, and critical interpretive frameworks, this study centered Dominican students’ voices as sources of knowledge about schooling, exclusion, and possibility. The findings comprise three central themes. First, students described raciolinguistic schooling and uneven language access, revealing that Spanish functioned as a source of emotional safety and academic support and as a site of regulation, correction, and exclusion. Access to participants’ home language was inconsistent across classrooms, and Dominican Spanish was often positioned as less legitimate than dominant forms of English or Spanish. Second, students described the curriculum as partial and repetitive in its representation of Dominican history, culture, and identity. Participants explained that Dominican presence in the curriculum was frequently reduced to a narrow set of topics, while broader discussions of Blackness, Haitian identity, African heritage, and Dominican racial formation remained limited or absent. These patterns shaped students’ engagement with schooling and their racial and cultural meaning-making. Third, students articulated clear visions for humanizing schooling, calling for emotionally supportive teachers, culturally affirming relationships, fair and respectful school responses, meaningful family engagement, and access to extracurricular and vocational opportunities. Their testimonios highlighted that they were not disengaged from education but were calling for schooling grounded in dignity, joy, care, and recognition. Dominican students’ schooling experiences are shaped by raciolinguistic bias, curricular misrepresentation, and conditional forms of belonging that often require conformity to dominant linguistic, behavioral, and racial norms. Students’ testimonios offered an important counterpoint by identifying the relational, linguistic, and institutional conditions under which they can thrive. By centering Dominican youths’ perspectives, this study contributes to scholarship on immigrant and first-generation youth, culturally sustaining pedagogy, and humanizing education while offering insights for educators seeking to build more equitable and affirming schools.

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