ORCID

https://orcid.org/0009-0003-4631-3299

Date of Award

2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Education Specialties (Ph.D.)

Department

Education Specialties

First Advisor

Ekaterina Midgette

Second Advisor

Nikki A. Chamblee

Abstract

This qualitative study employed a hybrid hermeneutic phenomenological design to explore how technical high school teachers experienced and interpreted literacy instruction for Black and Brown neurodivergent students. Grounded in Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit), the research examined how educators’ perceptions, instructional practices, and collaborative relationships shaped access, equity, and empowerment in career and technical education contexts. Data was collected from seven academic and trade teachers through semi-structured interviews, focus groups, lesson artifacts, and reflective journals. Analysis followed Peoples’ (2020) hermeneutic explication process and Saldaña’s (2021) multi-cycle coding methods, integrating in vivo, process, and axial coding within the hermeneutic circle. Six themes emerged: (1) Humanizing Literacy through Relationships, Relevance, and Rigor, (2) Centering Access and Agency, (3) Identity-Affirming, Culturally Relevant, and Restorative Literacy Practices, (4) Bridging Experience, Cognition, and Text, (5) From Deficit to Design- Building Equitable Literacies through Collaboration, and (6) Systemic and Structural Barriers to Equity. Collectively, these findings revealed that equitable literacy practices required more than differentiated. They demanded critical reflection, culturally relevant design, collaborative problem-solving, and resistance to deficit ideologies. From this analysis, the study generated the Praxis of Literacy for Academic-Technical Equity (PLATE) framework, an emergent conceptual model that illustrates how teachers enact literacy as humanizing, justice-oriented, and interdisciplinary practice in technical high schools. PLATE conceptualizes equitable literacy as a cyclical process grounded in reflection, belonging, and multimodal integrative literacy, collaboration, and advocacy. It highlights how teachers work to disrupt racialized and ableist structures while designing learning environments that affirm identity and expand access. This study extends Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) within career and technical education by offering new insights into how teachers act as architects of literacy equity. Implications call for aligned efforts across classroom practice, professional learning, policy development, and community engagement to transform literacy instruction in technical high schools.

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