Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, Arts Administration, Education and Policy

Did Brown v. The Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 1954, have an adverse impact on the employment of Black art educators? In this study, I questioned what specifically happened to Black art educators and Black art education in desegregated schools after Brown? Also, with the disappearance of Black and minority culture being taught in primary schools after Brown, how was Black and minority art impacted? The sub question of my research explores the capacity in which Black art educators were teaching art to Black students prior to Brown and the possible implications Brown had on their employment in desegregated public schools. Included in this study is a brief history of art departments established at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) by pioneering Black art educators. As there is scarce research regarding how Brown potentially effected the employment of Black art educators, this research explores the possible connection between Brown and the displacement of Black art educators. In this study I aim to articulate why Black art educators and culturally inclusive art curricula could have been rejected from desegregated public primary schools.

Committee: Joni Acuff Ph.D (Advisor); Karen Hutzel Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: African American Studies; African Americans; Art Education; Art History

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, History

Jewish involvement in civil rights for African Americans has often been shrouded in myth. Typical tropes declare that Jews built an alliance with African Americans based on a sense of common oppression but that Southern Jews stayed quiet concerning civil rights issues fearing antisemitic repercussion. This dissertation uses archival research and builds on past scholarly work to overturn these tropes and reveal the complex situation of Jews in the South who promoted higher education for African Americans. Jews interested in civil rights between 1910 and 1965 did not formally build an alliance with African Americans, and those who lived in the South were not quiet; however, they operated in different and unorganized ways compared to their coreligionists in the North. Southern college campuses provided a unique site for Jews to take part in the struggle for enabling African Americans to pursue higher education. By its very nature, the college campus fostered a liberal atmosphere but was surrounded by a landscape riddled with antisemitic, antiforeigner, and anti-Communist sentiments. Jews who chose to take part in this struggle in the South simultaneously questioned their own identity as both nonwhite and nonblack and also American (insider) and foreigner (outsider). This constant negotiation hindered their ability to make inroads, thus Jewish contributions in the South were neither obviously nor immediately successful.

Committee: Robin Judd (Advisor); Steven Conn (Committee Member); Matthew Goldish (Committee Member); Isaac Weiner (Committee Member) Subjects: Adult Education; African American Studies; African Americans; American History; American Studies; Black History; Black Studies; Education History; Ethnic Studies; Higher Education; History; Judaic Studies; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Modern History; School Administration; Secondary Education; Teacher Education; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2010, EDU Policy and Leadership

This dissertation is the result of a year-long ethnographic case study of a nationally ranked high-performance, high- poverty college preparatory public high school in Ohio. As a multi-sited qualitative study, it brings together field work, interviews, and focus groups with historical and policy document analysis. Through a sociocultural analysis of policy as practice it examines how a complex set of federal and district policies are negotiated and re-appropriated by critical schooling actors as material practices aimed at supporting equity and excellence in urban student achievement. At the same time by unraveling the discourses that overburden urban educational identity with notions of disadvantage and risk, it uses an analytics of disruption to unfix urban students from these constructions to resituate them as educational agents on their own terms. This project makes apparent that even after Brown v. Board of Education and the No Child Left Behind Act, race continues to matter in school and hopes that bearing witness to such “difficult knowledge” will bring us closer to meeting our expectations for a more just and democratic education.

Committee: Patricia Lather PhD (Advisor); Antionette Errante PhD (Committee Member); Sarah Fields PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Education