This dissertation includes background on influences of mathematics, mathematics education, and who is viewed as a mathematician leading into three articles exploring students' and teachers' perceptions of mathematics through their lived experiences in both mathematics classrooms and their communities. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis for the methodology, all three articles analyze mathematics autobiographies and semi-structured interviews with five student participants enrolled in the same Algebra I course; Paper 3 also includes the Algebra I teacher. Paper 1 focuses on how students describe their lived experiences in mathematics classrooms. Three themes emerged from the participant data: 1) lack of autonomy and access, 2) feelings hinge on performance in mathematics, and 3) the need for support in mathematics. Each participant shared different experiences, but these experiences can help inform educators how to improve students' experiences in the classroom. Paper 2 sought to understand how middle grade students make sense of what it means to do mathematics in their community. The three themes include: 1) navigating the usefulness of mathematics outside of school, 2) who directs mathematics outside of school, and 3) the need for mathematics in future plans. Connections students made between mathematics and the lives outside of school varied suggesting how broad …

The rapid expansion of computers and digital technology requires citizens to be digitally literate. Teachers must prepare students for a digital world despite the lack of consensus on a definition or its components. This multiple case study explored the digital literacy instruction and interactive decision making of teachers with varied levels of expertise. Each participant completed a survey and the General Decision Making Style Questionnaire prior to a series of interviews and classroom observations. Findings from a qualitative analysis of the data suggest variations in the use of digital literacy components during instruction and that skills are related to one another. Findings also indicate similarities and differences in interactive decision making and teaching expertise behaviors related to instruction. Based on these findings, recommendations to better promote digital literacy are directed toward teachers, administrators, teacher preparation institutions, and future researchers. Current events emphasize the need for increased efforts in turning the key of digital literacy for students.

Using Black feminist thought and BlackCrit/critical race theory frameworks, this qualitative study examined Black educators' practices in addressing the behavior of their students in an urban school district. It utilized counternarratives and storytelling to explore the cultural dynamics at play between Black educators and their Black students. The Black educators in this study operated under several behavior systems, including positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS), socio-emotional learning (SEL), restorative practices (RPs), and zero tolerance policies (ZTPs). Such systems have been implemented based on research that they have the capacity to train Black students to make appropriate decisions regarding their behavior. These systems are also reinforced under the notion that they create learning spaces which promote academic achievement. Due to their own experiences and understanding about how institutional practices and disciplinary interventions result disproportionately in oppression and violence against Black students, these educators disrupted these practices and utilized cultural approaches that centered Black-ness. In doing so, they were able to address behavior and affirm Black students' well-being. The cultural approaches conceptualized as disruptive pedagogies include aspects of othermothering, otherfathering, critical caring, sermonizing, womanist caring, and Black masculine caring. An analysis of the stories and counternarratives illustrated that Black principals, counselors, and …

Including all students through the educative processes is instrumental to their success. Each student's journey through education is therefore impacted by the ways they are included in the classroom. As such, social inclusion, and academic inclusion underpinned by a general sense of belonging are key elements impacting students' successes in schooling. Both globally and nationally school systems face challenges in enacting policies, pedagogies, and practices to meet the needs of increasingly diverse student populations. Student voice which has historically been absent from the literature can be a valuable tool in accounting for the lived experiences of diverse students with or without a formal label of dis/ability. Student voice can (re)present a revelatory tool that can be acted upon in responding to these diverse needs. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore how secondary students in Grenada with or without a label of learning dis/ability but who are considered as part of responsive inclusive education, experience a sense of belonging through academic and social inclusion. This qualitative study using critical narrative inquiry pursued through semi-structured interviews with students, their teachers and parents revealed resonant threads of strained responsive education, childism and coloniality, the pedagogy of nice and an elusive …