Date of Award
8-2024
Document Type
Campus Access Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Education/Leadership in Urban Schools
First Advisor
Patricia Krueger-Henney
Second Advisor
Kerrie Wilkins-Yel
Third Advisor
Joseph Cooper
Abstract
In many ways, advisory courses function as microcosms of the schools and school systems that they are situated within. As such, advisory and advisory-like structures facilitate the same dehumanizing hegemony and social stratification that underlies all of U.S. public schooling, in general. Because advisories are not tethered to familiar, classroom-specific markers of systemic oppression such as federally mandated standards and their accompanying curricula, however, they also provide a unique opportunity for students to exist freely during the school day. The purpose of this participatory action research (PAR) study was to examine the ways and extent to which students could reclaim their humanity from within the oppressive context of an urbanized, U.S. public school, via a collaboratively designed, advisory-based project. Action steps involved developing a collective critical consciousness alongside student co-researchers, aligning our research goals and guiding principles with those of local community organizations, and actively listening for, and adhering to, the social and emotional needs of student collaborators and focus group participants alike as they shared their experiences with one another. Results indicated that students who self-identify as Black and/or Latinx equate schooling with captivity. Furthermore, when considered through the theoretical lenses of Christina Sharpe’s “wake work” and Gloria Anzaldúa’s borderlands theory, findings indicated that students internalize the gaze of their captors and create new identities for themselves to counteract the overlapping and oftentimes conflicting expectations that they are forced to contend with. Implications for the organization include developing advisory-based pedagogical practices to empower students within those courses to further their own critical consciousness alongside leadership and disciplinary practices needed to develop additional community-embedded projects.
Recommended Citation
Cinelli, Antonio Matteo, "Finding Freedoms in Unfreedoms: Resisting and Disrupting Racism, Racialization, and Dehumanization via an Advisory-Based Participatory Action Research Project" (2024). Graduate Doctoral Dissertations. 974.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/doctoral_dissertations/974
Comments
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