Published Work

Use the button below to access my doctoral dissertation.

Abstract

Sexist ideologies in society are present in school curricula and contribute to children’s socialization to gender norms. The problem of women’s representation in history curricula is urgent as it contributes to the cycles of marginalization experienced by women. The purpose of this qualitative instrumental single case study was to describe how women were represented in California’s 10th-grade World History curriculum through a critical feminist lens. This study employed critical feminist theory as the framework, supported by bell hooks’ work. The constructs of critical feminist theory used were sexist oppression, intersectionality, critical consciousness, and transformative action. California was the selected site for this case study due to its status as a critical case. Data sources included California’s 10th-grade World History state standards and framework, three current textbooks, and open-ended questionnaire responses from five current teachers who identified as women. These findings showed women were included less frequently than men, White women dominated the curriculum, women were restricted to certain areas of the curriculum, political and military narratives were prioritized, and participants had a critical consciousness of women’s representation and made transformative recommendations for the future. Major conclusions include a need to rewrite world history standards and frameworks to incorporate women meaningfully in the future. Implications emerged for state, district, and school site curriculum decision-makers in and beyond California to critically review women’s representation in history curricula. Future research can replicate this study in other history courses and states and should consider incorporating more student and teacher perspectives as data sources.

Use the button below to see a publication I co-authored for the journal Delta-K.

Summary

Working with a mathematics education professor, we reviewed responses from preservice teachers (PSTs) in a mathematics methods course at a Southeastern United States university. Preservice teachers in the mathematics methods course were asked to research the historical development of a mathematical topic (i.e., Pythagorean Theorem, the concept of zero, or others), and then present that history in narrative form. Moreover, PSTs had to explore the real-world applicability of the mathematical topic in the past and present. Finally, PSTs were asked to reflect on their experience with the assignment. The PST responses from the reflection portion of the assignment, where PSTs were asked to explore what they learned through the assignment and how it might benefit them in the future, served as the data for this particular article. Other aspects of the data have been presented at conferences and symposiums. These data were explored through thematic analysis and transitioned through open, axial, and selective coding. Final themes, implications, and recommendations for the future are included in the article, linked below.

Grant Research Project

In addition to the co-authored journal article, I also served as the graduate research assistant on a research project funded by the American Institutes for Research. During this process, I contributed to

• the research and writing of the literature review,

• recruitment of participants from Florida State Colleges,

• conducting the semi-structured interviews of participants,

• distribution of recruitment emails and surveys and ongoing communication with participants,

• analysis of survey responses in Qualtrics to create visualizations,

• creation of data visualizations in Google Sheets,

• communication with a manuscript editor,

• transcription of interviews,

• coding of participant responses for emergent themes,

• and the writing and editing of the final manuscript.

Please click the button below to see a PDF version of this work.