Three OLPD Students Receive Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships

In the current political climate, long-standing initiatives such as ‘inclusion’ have come under attack in public institutions, such as K-12 education. Alongside this federal attack, Minnesota educators and school leaders are balancing implementing new policies incorporating culturally responsive practices in teacher evaluation, behavior management, and curriculum standards (E12 Education Omnibus Bill, 2023). Policy decisions and public rhetoric have created additional stress, exhaustion, and dejection for general and special education teachers in co-teaching roles, leading to confusion and weariness about their roles as inclusive educators. As co-teachers navigate their changing roles together, their day-to-day decisions in the face of conflicting messages about race, ethnicity, and ability affect how their classrooms remain inclusive spaces for students with disabilities. To explore how school leaders can support teachers in maintaining inclusive and culturally responsive practices in the face of political opposition, it is essential to understand how teachers respond to these policy shifts so that students marginalized by race, ethnicity, and ability can continue to access high-quality learning opportunities. This ethnographic study follows six high school co-teachers throughout the 2024-2025 school year. Through analyzing teacher and school leader interviews, artifacts, and observations of planning periods, this dissertation explores how co-teachers use their collaborative partnerships to make sense of their shifting roles. 

The DDF’s support will allow me to reach my professional goals of working with school districts to bridge the theory-to-practice gap. I have over a decade of experience working as a high school teacher, and I look to continue working with school partners as a researcher and consultant. The funding from the DDF will allow me to focus exclusively on analyzing around 200 hours of observation and interview data. Alongside writing the dissertation, this opportunity would allow me to address the most significant gap on my CV: my inexperience in peer-reviewed publishing. I want to submit at least two manuscripts for publication in journals to strengthen my candidacy for any future research jobs, share my findings, and begin building a network of other researchers and practitioners interested in a growing culturally responsive co-teaching field. Co-teaching, culturally responsive practices, and ethnography are about collaborative, trusting, reciprocal relationships. The DDF will provide me with the time, funding, and influence to begin building these lifelong partnerships and networks. Through this joint work, we can collectively improve schools for students of color with disabilities.