Teachers are participating in online communities in ever increasing numbers to find and share knowledge with educators around the world. However, the majority of the studies on online communities of practice often fail to examine the process of knowledge sharing as a complex, dynamically evolving practice that is shaped by local classroom and school contexts as well as other sociocultural factors.

This study was designed to address the need for a more comprehensive and multifaceted exploration of teacher learning in an online community of practice. A Cultural Historical Activity Theory (Leontiev, 1978; Engeström, 1987; Cole and Engeström, 1993; Vygotsky, 1978) framework was used as a guide for examining how teachers acquired and made use of the shared knowledge from the Edmodo Math Subject Community, an online community of practice with more than 250,000 members. Multiple data types were collected in order to examine the teachers' object-oriented actions in two overlapping activity systems.

Data analysis revealed that the participants were driven by the contradictions and limitations of their local school activity systems to take control of their learning and find knowledge in the Math Subject Community. The participants' ability to find knowledge was defined by the roles they performed in the community, the tools they used, the collective knowledge of the community, and the implicit community rules of reciprocity and professionalism. The participants' ability to select and implement the knowledge they found in the Math Subject Community in their classrooms was shaped by their local school activity system tools, the support of their colleagues and administration, their students' range in math abilities, and the community rules.

A Model of Teacher Knowledge Acquisition was developed to display the participants' fluid, ongoing process of navigating between two overlapping activity systems to find new knowledge. The Model of Teacher Knowledge Acquisition presents teacher learning as a complex, socially constructed process that is influenced by multiple activity systems that interact with and shape one another.

Overall, the participants felt that engaging in this process of acquiring knowledge allowed them to make changes, both small and large, in their teaching and learning strategies.

Hacktivists tend to be an anonymous group of individuals asynchronously distributed across widely different locales around the planet. They frequently use computers and other forms of information and communication technologies (ICT) to advance such digital rights causes as free culture and open access to the Internet, in addition to the open source software movement. Their arguments against the encroachments of intellectual property rights on the digital commons have pitted them against government and corporate institutions with vested security and remunerative interests in the World Wide Web. While a great many studies have been conducted on the sociological and historical implications of the hacktivist phenomenon, few if any have been conducted on the underlying stances and arguments of the hacktivist community and the corporations and governments they frequently oppose.

For my research, I have analyzed linguistic framing and metaphor usage in combination with theories of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Frame Semantics, and Cognitive Linguistics as a means to examine the stances of three principal antagonists in the debate over freedom of information on the Internet: 1) hackers and hacktivists; 2) civil rights groups; and 3) governments and corporations. I have focused in particular on the hacktivist, Aaron Swartz, whose authorship of Guerilla Open Access Manifesto (2015, p. 26) coupled with his act of content liberation when he downloaded millions of academic articles, led to his indictment by the Department of Justice.

My eclectic methodology serves to unpack the construction of meaning arising from texts produced by and about hacktivists with a focus on linguistic framing as a tool for analyzing the metaphors that inform stances. Relevant to my study has been the function of metaphorical concepts as ways to create complex frames that in turn capture the attitudes, values, and beliefs that accompany the stances associated with metanarratives and worldviews. Such a methodology has helped elucidate the conflicting epistemological attitude of hacktivists and authorities toward online freedom of information.

The findings of my study reveal that the metaphors used to talk about the social epistemology of the Internet lie at the heart of the debate. Lakoff and Johnson’s expansion on Michael Reddy’s conduit metaphor has been meaningfully applied to an interpretation of the Internet itself in order to facilitate an understanding of the significance of the knowledge ecology in the Information Age. My findings show that Reddy’s conduit metaphor is directly implicated in the downfall of Aaron Swartz and provides a cautionary tale for those fighting to preserve public access to the electronic knowledge commons.

A growing Latinx population within the United States and California has given rise to an increase in Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) and a proliferation of a new and lesser-known institutional type of HSI, the Hispanic-Serving Research Institution (HSRI). With HSRIs historically being identified as predominantly white institutions (PWI) and HSI designation largely decided by a Latinx enrollment reaching 25%, the question of whether HSRIs are simply “Hispanic-Enrolling” or truly “Hispanic-Serving” is worthy of examination. This study explored and analyzed Servingness and Campus Climate within Hispanic-Serving Research Institutions thorough a qualitative multiple case study design with data collection occurring via interviews with key leaders at two HSRIs. Findings reveal that participants identified a strong focus on community building, intentional organizational structure and planning, leadership engagement at all levels of the institution, and leveraging research institution advantages as important factors contributing to servingness goals and positively impacting campus climate. Moreover, the findings illustrate multiple implications for practice including: creation of a clear and recognizable servingness infrastructure (e.g. Minority-Serving Institution Plans) is critical to meeting servingness goals; intentional efforts to engage with local and external campus vecinos can be a powerful strategy for building community and positively impacting campus climate; and HSRIs are uniquely equipped to enhance the compositional diversity of the professoriate and higher education administration across all HSIs and throughout higher education.

Southeast Asian Americans have vast potential for educational advancement. Statistics reveal drastically different percentages of educational attainment when comparing the percentages of bachelor degree attainment of Southeast Asian American ethnic groups to their overall Asian American counterparts and the overall U.S. population (SEARAC, 2011), with nearly half of Cambodians, Laotian, and Hmong Americans aged 25 or older who have attended college leaving without earning an associate’s or bachelor’s degree (CARE, 2011). This study examined 24 Southeast Asian American students’ experiences in higher education in order to understand the roots and remedies of this problem. The research questions that guided this study were: 1) What are the pathways that led Southeast Asian American students to academically rigorous universities?, 2) Who or what provides support to students, and who or what causes difficulties for students?, 3) How does the university’s campus racial climate affect students’ experiences at their university?, and 4) To what extent are culturally validating environments available to students at their university, and how do these environments support students’ multiple worlds?

To guide this study, I adapted three theoretical perspectives: the Bridging Multiple Worlds Model (2002, 2011), cultural validation frameworks, (Maramba & Palmer, 2014; Museus, Maramba, Palmer, Reyes, & Bresonis, 2013; Rendón, 1994), and campus racial climate frameworks (Hurtado, 1992; Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pederson, & Allen, 1998; Solórzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000; Yosso, Smith, Ceja, Solórzano, 2009). This study used surveys and in-depth individual interviews with 24 Southeast Asian American undergraduate students from two public research universities in California. Students were identified as having Vietnamese, Cambodian, Hmong, or Lao ethnic backgrounds.

Findings suggested that Southeast Asian American students gained educational and emotional support from high school outreach programs, family members, mentors, peers, their involvements in campus clubs and organizations, and campus resource centers. On the other hand, a lack of support during the college application process, their own mental roadblocks, other people, academics, finances, and feelings of loneliness, isolation, and marginalization caused difficulties on students’ educational pathways. In addition to this, the findings also suggested that students at both Coral Tree University and Redwood University experienced a negative campus racial climate. Not only did the majority of students consider there to be an insufficient number of Southeast Asian American students, there was also an insufficient number of culturally familiar faculty, staff, and administrators at both universities. Also, 17 of the 24 students had experienced incidents of racism or racial microaggressions at their universities. However, culturally validating environments such as the Asian American Studies Department, ethnic clubs and organizations, the campus outreach and retention center, campus cultural centers, and the people within these spaces helped students bridge their worlds by: 1) supporting students’ ethnic identity development, 2) opening lines of communication with parents, 3) developing mentoring relationships, 4) supporting students’ sense of belonging, and 5) helping students develop an awareness of or take action on social issues. Despite the fact that 11 of the 24 students considered leaving their university, all 24 students chose to persist through the challenges that they encountered along their educational pathways.

This report examines the readiness of Latino high school students for college-level academic work based on their reading comprehension and verbal reasoning skills. We first review pertinent college admissions test data and educational survey data. Next, we go on to discuss findings from a variety of research fields that sharpen our understanding of factors that can promote or inhibit the development of verbal comprehension and reasoning skills among Latino students. Our analysis of research covers contextual factors, discourse processing, and word recognition factors related to reading comprehension and verbal reasoning performance. We conclude with a discussion of some important questions that need to be pursued in devising effective instruction and interventions based on what research has revealed.

In recent reports the U.S. Department of Education issued a charge for 21st century skills for college and career readiness. With the ever-increasing societal influence of social media, educators had been grappling with the challenge of understanding the nature of multimodal literacy practices and supporting post-millennial youths’ literacy development. This mixed methods study captured youths’ multimodal literacy practices in the context of a digital storytelling community. Through the examination of a large repository of digital artifacts, the researcher analyzed the emergence of collective productivity rates and trending topics over a multiple year period. In order to investigate the meanings embedded in these artifacts, the researcher also conducted a multiple person case study to trace individuals’ meaning making through the construction of their digital artifacts. Eight youth from the ages of 7 to 13 participated in tasked-based interviews. Once the interviews records were transcribed, the youths’ practices, discourses, and artifacts were analyzed across cases. Through in-depth individual case analysis and cross-case analysis, the researcher identified the domains of meaning youth employed to create their projects. With the archive analysis and the multiple person case study, the researcher found collaboration as a dominant in the digital storytelling community culture. Gender was a key indicator of topic choices in the digital projects. The less experienced youth worked together on common projects. Their repertoires of practice expanded over time as they explored different subject matters and gained command over digital tool uses for creative purposes. Participants, who had more experience with multimodal literacies, were more likely to introduce new, more complex topics from virtual communities and social media platforms to the community. This study opened more opportunities for researchers to investigate ways multimodal literacies could have served other purposes such as cultivation of leadership, promote socioemotional resilience, and provide creative opportunities for youth from historically marginalized backgrounds.

California Community Colleges are mandated by state law to prepare and maintain an evidence-based Student Equity Plan (SEP) designed to coordinate services for disproportionately impacted student populations. Reaching equitable educational attainment outcomes within five success indicators (Access, Course Completion, ESL and Basic Skills Completion, Degree and Certificate Completion, and Transfer) and subsequently closing achievement gaps is the crux of this plan. Each of the 114 California Community Colleges entrusts primary responsibility for SEP activities, which include framing campus-based research efforts, to the Chief Student Services Officer (e.g., Vice President of Student Services) and their designated subordinates (e.g., Dean of Student Services, Student Equity Director/Coordinator, Diversity Manager, etc.). Although the intent of these plans is to utilize data-driven metrics toward the goal of creating policies and practices that support positive completion outcomes for students, many colleges do not currently integrate cultural competency or Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) initiatives into their existing SEPs.

The main purpose of this study was to conduct exploratory mixed-method research to investigate culturally competent student equity practices at California Community Colleges designated as Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). The goal was to subsequently design and implement a statewide student equity report card that is culturally sensitive to HSIs and can be utilized as a lens to gauge college-wide initiatives and strategic planning efforts within a multitude of organizational levels. Moreover, this embedded multiple case study examined several HSI-designated participant’s culturally competency practices embedded with their SEPs by investigating: 1) how equity is measured at the institutional level, 2) assessing how the college’s HSI designation impacts student equity and cultural competency practices, and 3) the organizational alignment of HSI designation within each participating college’s existing initiatives, policies, and norms. A cross-sectional web-based survey was administered to primary Student Equity administrators (N=25) at each of the 93 HSI-designated California Community Colleges. Eleven respondents subsequently agreed to participate in a 30-60 minute follow-up phone interview for the purpose of expanding on their initial survey responses and to gather additional qualitative and quantitative data within several thematic paradigms (e.g., Student Services/Success, Campus Leadership, Mission and Core Values, Collaboration and Collegiality, Integration and Capacity Building, Curriculum and Assessment, Organizational Learning, and Professional Development).

Research study findings revealed key thematic constructs that provide a lens for understanding the integration of equity and cultural competency efforts from a broader structural perspective that ultimately impacts access to completion outcomes for underserved and underrepresented students. Respondents indicated 1) Institutional Capacity, 2) Organizational Culture, and 3) Lack of Equity and Cultural Competency/Sensitivity Mindedness as primary focal points within the process of implementing effective strategies designed to support successful educational and career goals for students, with specific emphasis in Latinx populations.

The widespread adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), since 2010, has led to a growing concern among education scholars and practitioners about how the new standards will impact the educational trajectories of students from minoritized linguistic, ethnic, and racial backgrounds (Bunch, Walqui, & Pearson, 2014; Hakuta, Santos, & Fang, 2013; Lee, Quinn, & Valdés, 2013). In the area of English Language Arts (ELA), the close reading of texts, particularly informational texts, is identified as one of the primary reading skills students are expected to acquire, and is presented as central to students’ academic success in school and beyond. The CCSS narrowly define close reading as the practice of extracting knowledge and evidence from texts, paying limited attention to students’ broader learning contexts and existing funds of knowledge (Moll et al., 1992).

The CCSS’s conceptualization of close reading contrasts with a sociocultural orientation to literacy (Castanheira, Crawford, Dixon, & Green, 2001; Hull & Moje, 2012) in which students’ language and literacy practices are viewed as socially situated and constructed. Drawing on the latter perspective, as well as on Neo-Vygotskian sociocultural theory (Rogoff, 1990) and a sociocultural linguistic framework (Bucholtz & Hall, 2005), the present study examines student interactions within and across instructional activities designed to support the acquisition of literacy skills required for close reading and analysis of complex texts. This dissertation presents a discourse analysis of classroom interaction in a 6th grade public school classroom in Southern California that was documented over the course of five months using video and audio recordings, participant observation, field notes, and samples of students’ work. The observations and analysis focus on peer discussions involving emergent bilinguals (García, 2009) from Latinx immigrant backgrounds, several of whom had been recently transitioned out of the school’s English Language Development (ELD) program.

Findings suggest that students fluidly employed a range of linguistic and cultural resources, such as the use of their funds of knowledge and various linguistic registers, to make meaning and co-construct their understanding of texts with others. Students often used academic language as part of these interactions and demonstrated strong awareness of their language choices—particularly how they were connected to discourses about “standard” and “academic” language. Lastly, students’ engagement in different literacy tasks was locally constructed and influenced by factors such as the characteristics of specific texts and students’ affective responses to those texts. These finding have implications for how teaching practices associated with reading can be designed to leverage students’ knowledge and interests and expand learning opportunities for linguistically and racially marginalized students. Based on the findings, I propose an integrative and dynamic sociocultural approach to conceptualizing, teaching, and assessing students’ literacy practices in the classroom.

This study helps advance the understanding of how school experiences relate to Latinx students’ college and career aspirations and self-perception. It used a longitudinal, narrative, multiple case studies design to document changes in nine students' academic, social, and identity pathways as they progressed from high school to college and what factors influenced that change. Results from this study determined that the dominant factor that influenced college decision in high school was financial realities. Background characteristics and experiences that influenced college transition and first year in college were AVID, emotional distress, and campus engagement. After their first year in college, students continued to envision themselves in successful careers and “making a difference” as they did in high school. The case studies further showed that the understanding of the steps needed to achieve their career goal and post-graduation aspirations generally varied according to the institution type they attended. Further, the challenges the students encountered during their first year in college were the amount of time dedicated to work and being unprepared for the new academic college culture, and the resources they utilized to help move them towards achieving their future goals were cultural brokers in and out of their school world. From these challenges and resources, the student narratives demonstrated they had developed a community-centered identity and high-achieving student identity even more by the end of their first year in college. This project has value in that it can help HSI practitioners, support and outreach programs, and administrators have a better understanding of how to serve their student population at the two-year and four-year college level to foster a thriving student population.

This research involved a qualitative case study (N=15) that identified several layers of concern centered around the Black college student experience using Critical Race Theory and Bridging Multiple Worlds Theory. Through two rounds of qualitative semi-structured interviews, the current study addressed the concerns of access for Black students at the UC level. This work explored the relationships between Black students and the UC system in thinking about levels of support and advocacy for Black students on recruitment, retention, and post-graduation career plans. This work also assessed the impact of diversity campaigning on student experiences. Dissertation data suggested that students felt an invested interest in the college they chose and strong belief that their school would prepare them for the future. Students relayed how they viewed their university, what they felt their university could offer them professionally, and provided suggestions for improvements on campus as it pertained to racial diversity and Black representation on campus. Interviews revealed a connection between students’ early educational and career goals and their college pursuits to attaining these goals. This work provided a continuum and breadth of knowledge that allowed for a deeper understanding about Black student access to career-driven opportunity through education. This study provided Black students with a chance to be heard and reflect upon their academic and career journeys thus far. This work could lead to further application of policy and practice changes within 4-year universities across the nation as it pertains to Black enrollment and retention efforts.