Date of Award

Spring 5-15-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Educational Studies

First Advisor

Dr. Victoria Gill

Second Advisor

Dr. Laura Schall-Leckrone

Third Advisor

Dr. Sharifah Holder

Abstract

Chronic absenteeism remains a persistent concern in K–12 education and is often framed through deficit-based narratives that place blame solely on students or families. This qualitative study examines how a multilingual learner (MLL) and newcomer caregiver understands and experiences school attendance within her child’s public charter school community. Grounded in testimonio as both a methodological and epistemological approach, this study centers the lived experiences and knowledge of a caregiver navigating schooling within a new sociocultural and linguistic context.

Data were collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted in Spanish and subsequently translated into English for analysis. An inductive coding process was used to identify themes, informed by Critical Race Theory, Raciolinguistics, and Testimonio frameworks. The study explores how migration histories, institutional interactions, and linguistic identities shape family engagement with schooling and perceptions of chronic absenteeism.

Three major findings emerged from the analysis. 1) migration vulnerability highlighted the participant’s strong educational aspirations, shaped by experiences of gendered exclusion, economic instability, and violence in her home country. 2) Legal violence and institutional distrust revealed how migration-related trauma and interactions with immigration systems influenced the participant’s perceptions of institutions, including schools. 3) Raciolinguistics and marginalization demonstrated how language and cultural identities are shaped by racialized linguistic hierarchies across borders and subsequently school contexts.

Together, the findings challenge dominant deficit-based interpretations of absenteeism by illustrating the deep commitment to education held by newcomer families and the structural conditions that shape their engagement with schooling. This study contributes to a more humanizing understanding of chronic absenteeism by centering caregiver voice and applying critical frameworks to the study of attendance. Implications for practice and policy highlight the need for relational, linguistically responsive, and asset-based approaches to supporting multilingual learners and their families as a means to decrease chronic absenteeism.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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