Date of Award
5-2023
Culminating Project Type
Dissertation
Styleguide
apa
Degree Name
Higher Education Administration: Ed.D.
Department
Educational Administration and Higher Education
College
School of Education
First Advisor
Rachel E. Friedensen
Second Advisor
Emeka A. Ikegwuonu
Third Advisor
Hayley Ashby
Fourth Advisor
Laura Greathouse
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords and Subject Headings
community college; developmental education; remedial education; California; AB 705; discourse analysis
Abstract
This critical discourse analysis was conducted to understand how the public entities in California higher education have redefined Assembly Bill (AB) 705, and, in the process, redefined California community college students and the community college mission statement. Current literature on AB 705 has been limited to success stories and data analyses and has been mostly funded by organizations with a stake in the successful implementation of the law. There are currently no studies of the language of the law and the documents that were written to translate the law into layperson’s language. This study used the methodology and methods of critical discourse analysis to delve into the language of AB 705 and nine documents in its discursive constellation to identify the rhetorical strategies used by the authors of the documents and to determine how these strategies were used. The analysis revealed that the language was used to reframe community college students, developmental education, and the law itself, leading to the conclusion that developmental education in California may never “get there.”
Recommended Citation
Kruizenga-Muro, Denise, "Are We There Yet? Where Developmental Education Has Been and Where it is Going: A Critical Discourse Analysis of California’s AB 705" (2023). Culminating Projects in Higher Education Administration. 62.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/hied_etds/62
Comments/Acknowledgements
Completing a doctoral program and writing this dissertation have been very rewarding experiences for me. I am today a stronger writer, better researcher, and more critical thinker than I was when I started this process. None of these things would have been possible were it not for the help of several people whom I would like to thank here.
First, I would like to thank my dissertation committee members—Drs. Rachel E. Friedensen, Emeka A. Ikegwuonu, Hayley Ashby, and Laura Greathouse—for your time, your insight, and your thoughtfulness. I appreciate how much time you all devoted to helping me through this journey and your wise and insightful comments about my work. I am grateful to you all.
I would also like to thank my unofficial committee members: Dr. Jude Whitton, who inspired me to return to school and cheered me on every week, and Jim Dail, who read and commented on multiple drafts of this dissertation.
Next, I would like to thank my husband Juan Muro and my daughter Kayleigh Muro. Thank you both for all the nights you ate dinner without me and all the times you left me alone in the office to work. I love you both. To my parents, thank you for telling me I should have been a doctor, and for instilling in me a solid work ethic. I did it!
Finally, I would like to thank Angela, Calvin, and Ramona and the thousands of students just like them whom I have had the honor of meeting and teaching over the years. I will continue to work as hard as ever to advocate for you and your right to an education. This degree will help me do that.