This Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) Project was conducted by a graduate student and teaching resident, alongside five middle school students at a public, Title-I charter school in a Southern California city. Together, the research team navigates the space of “yes and-” by examining what a school is doing well to affirm its students and what remains to be done better. The project’s guiding question is: how is positive change effectively created for marginalized communities at school? In pursuit of an answer, the YPAR group conducted a survey of about 220 middle school students, and interviews with five eighth graders. Data suggests that most students feel safe at school and that their identities are respected, but there is still significant room for growth. Implications suggest that the school should support more inclusion of student voice, intervention and practices that would eliminate the burden marginalized students carry.

The field of developmental psychology often underrepresents Latinx individuals within their corpus of published scholarship. In the area of lifespan identity development this is particularly evident from the scarcity of Latinx life story narratives. In addition, Latinx family parenting styles is an underdeveloped area of scholarship. At the same time, a robust literature base demonstrates that for youth from non-dominant culture families, ethnic racial identity increases measures of adaptive well-being and academic achievement. Because academic achievement for Latinx students does not proportionately reach levels of educational success as compared to whites, research investigating foundations of ethnic racial identity within Latinx families is warranted. This investigation extends parenting style literature within the field of developmental psychology by exploring inter-generational practices of Latinx families. Participants within this study include mothers of Mexican descent who have earned at least one Master's degree, a level of high academic achievement attained by only 10 percent of adults within the U.S. Each Latina mother, ranging in age from 36 to 63 years, participated in two or more semi-structured interviews. Protocols were based on McAdams's life story interview; McAdams's life story narrative analysis, based upon Erikson's lifespan theory of identity development, provided a model of analysis. In addition, transcripts of participant interviews, totaling more than twelve hours, were analyzed according to themes of parenting styles and family socialization practices. Familial ethnic socialization was embedded within routines and practices of mothers' families of orientation. Mothers employed a concerted cultivation parenting style within their families of procreation. In alignment with McAdams's framework, mothers narrated life stories in a redemptive manner. In other words, a negative life event was conveyed as having a positive outcome. Implications from my study inform scholars and can offer usable information for parent and teacher education by means of contextualized family activities and parental practices gleaned from participants' life story narratives.

Inclusive education has become a global movement through the policies of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (e.g., Salamanca Statement). These policies led many developing nations to adopt these policies in their national policy agendas. Turkey has developed inclusive education policies that deal with the education of students with disabilities (SwD). However, although SwD are the largest group who are marginalized and excluded from educational opportunities, there are other groups (e.g., cultural-linguistic minorities) who experience educational inequities in access and participation in learning opportunities and deal with enduring marginalization in education. This study examined a) Turkish teachers’ and parents’ conceptualizations of inclusive education for diverse groups of students, namely SwD, Kurdish students (KS), and girls, who experience educational inequities, b) how their construction of students’ identities influenced students' educational experiences in relation to inclusive education, c) how their stories revealed identities, differences and power, and what role privilege played in marginalization, labeling, and exclusion of students within conceptualizations of inclusive education. I used cultural historical activity theory (Engeström, 1999) and figured worlds (Holland et al., 1998) to understand the teachers’ and parents’ interpretations and experiences about inclusive education. This qualitative study was conducted in four different schools in Maki, a small southwestern city in Turkey. A classroom photo, with a vignette written description, and a movie documentary were used as stimuli to generate focus group discussions and individual interviews. I conducted classroom observations to explore the context of schooling and how students were positioned within the classrooms. Classroom artifacts were additionally collected, and the data were analyzed using a constant-comparative method. The study findings demonstrated that students had different equity struggles in access, meaningful participation, and having equal outcomes in their education. The education activity system was not inclusive, but rather was exclusive by serving only certain students. SwD and girls had difficulty accessing education due to cultural-historical practices and institutional culture. On the other hand, Turkish-only language policy and practices created tensions for KS to participate fully in education activity systems. Although stakeholders advocated girls’ education, many of them constructed SwD’s and KS’ identities from deficit perspectives.

This dissertation discusses the findings of a descriptive study of early childhood teachers' musical practices in the state of Arizona. Drawing from socio-cultural and cultural-historical activity theory perspectives, this study utilized an online survey design for 2 months in which 312 participants from distinctive types of programs responded to 42 items that addressed early childhood teachers' music practices, perceived role of music, the teachers' preparation, challenges and needs for teaching music in their programs. The study uses the findings to explore how music is incorporated into the curriculum, its role, challenges and needs for teachers as well as inform policy makers of the effectiveness of music in early childhood curriculum that might bring about a resurgence of thinking about funding opportunities to promote music in different programs that serve children. These results reflected the diversity of most early childhood programs in the U.S in areas of scheduling, types of programs, working environments and curricular approaches used as well as in the duration and frequencies of music activities. However, there was a significant difference between how music was used in elementary versus early childhood centers. The results revealed that, although teachers used music at various times, for various reasons, planned or unplanned and as an integral part of other content areas, there was great variance in the manner in which music was emphasized in the total curriculum. In this study context, music in early childhood education centers was mostly teacher led and its value was geared towards specific behavioral outcome such as enhancement of language development rather than sheer enjoyment and relaxation. Although teachers used music on a daily basis, they were inadequately prepared and most teachers were looking for opportunities to improve their music abilities including required courses and workshops on ways of effectively incorporating music into curriculum/classroom. Funding, time and lack of confidence remain top challenges for early childhood and elementary teachers. The study recommends that music courses be required in teacher education programs and refresher workshops for in-service teachers about how to effectively use music in classrooms be more widely available.