Award Date

5-1-2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Teaching and Learning

First Committee Member

Katherine Wade-Jaimes

Second Committee Member

Merryn Cole

Third Committee Member

Danielle Mireles

Fourth Committee Member

Steven Nelson

Number of Pages

180

Abstract

This ethnographic study investigates how science education is facilitated within a disciplinary alternative school (DAS) and how the property functions of Whiteness shape its structure, access, and implementation. Drawing from Critical Race Theory, and more specifically Harris’s (1993) concept of Whiteness as property, this study analyzes the racialized dynamics embedded in the everyday practices of science instruction at a disciplinary alternative school.Data was collected through science classroom observations and semi-structured interviews with two science teachers who were new to the U.S. school system and participating in the J-1 Exchange Visitor Teaching Program. Although both teachers brought over a decade of experience teaching in the Philippines, they faced a distinct set of challenges within the disciplinary setting, shaped by institutional constraints, scripted curriculum, and heightened behavioral surveillance. Findings are organized around the four key property functions of Whiteness: the right to disposition, the right to use and enjoyment, the right to status and reputation, and the right to exclude. These themes reveal how Whiteness operates materially and symbolically in alternative education, influencing who is granted access to meaningful science learning and under what conditions. Science instruction was frequently overshadowed by behavioral management, institutional interruptions, and a pervasive culture of surveillance, resulting in a learning environment focused more on control than on scientific inquiry. This study contributes to growing conversations at the intersection of race, discipline, and science education by highlighting how educational equity is undermined through the racialized mechanisms embedded in alternative school structures. The findings call for a critical reimagining of how science is taught in carceral-like educational spaces and how policy and practice can better serve students systematically excluded from comprehensive classrooms.

Keywords

Carceral Logic; Disciplinary Alternative School; School-to-Prison Pipeline; Science Education; Surveillance; Whiteness as property

Disciplines

Curriculum and Instruction | Curriculum and Social Inquiry | Educational Methods | Science and Mathematics Education

File Format

pdf

File Size

3100 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Download

Available for download on Wednesday, May 15, 2030


Share

COinS