Date of Graduation
Spring 2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Education (EdD)
Department
Education Policy, Planning, and Administration
Committee Chairperson
Kathleen Riley, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Sarah Lightner, Ph.D.
Committee Member
Daris McInnis, Ed.D.
Abstract
Within research on family literacy programming (Lynch & Prins, 2021), few studies bring together assets-based perspectives on knowledge and power alongside critical feminist lenses. This qualitative case study (Dyson & Genishi, 2005; Yin, 2018) informed by ethnography (Alonso Bejarano et al., 2019; Desmond, 2014; Günel & Watanabe, 2024) aimed to understand the culture of one family literacy program serving primarily Mexican-American families, named here the Treehouse Preschool, giving particular attention to the intersecting elements of knowledge, gender, and power as they are enacted across the roles and relationships of families and personnel participating in in the program. Data for this study included participant-observation, ethnographic interviews, and artifact collection, focusing on the specific experiences of 8 focal participants: 5 family members and 3 program personnel. Findings from the study emerged across 3 themes: 1) It’s all about relationship, describing the relational and reciprocal orientation of the site’s culture and approach to knowledge; 2) Es como mi segunda casa, describing how the site serves as a space for mothers that offers a place of rest and refuge; and 3) Not just bilingual, but bicultural, describing how power is negotiated via the interactions around English and Spanish within the space. These findings are discussed in relation to the wider social and historical context, with a particular emphasis on how the findings speak to mutual aid efforts (Spade, 2020) emerging in response to a period of particularly harsh immigration policing of people from Latin America (Beitsch, 2026; Hesson & Hesson, 2026).
Final Version Confirmation
1
Recommended Citation
Mohler, Sara, "From Pañales to Partnership: An Ethnographic Investigation of Knowledge, Gender, and Power within a Family Literacy Program" (2026). West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects. 62.
https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/all_capstones/62
Please use this version - it has the internal Table of Contents linking.
Included in
Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, Early Childhood Education Commons, Language and Literacy Education Commons