Date of Award

Spring 6-13-2025

Document Type

Dissertation in Practice

Degree Name

Ed.D. in Higher Education

Organizational Unit

Morgridge College of Education, Higher Education

First Advisor

Sarah Hurtado

Second Advisor

Darin Stewart

Third Advisor

Chase Catalano

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Keywords

Critical policy discourse analysis, Healthcare policy, Heteronormative healthcare, Liberation, Queer theory

Abstract

In this study I explored and analyzed how the queer experiences of an anonymous higher education institution in the western United States’ self-identified queer faculty and staff intersected with the discursive framing of the college’s dependent healthcare structure and documents. Within a critical paradigm I designed research around a high-density theoretical approach to weaving various branches of queer theory together with critical theory around policy and law in relation to queer bodies and hostile heteronormative policy environments. I arrived at solutions based in complaint, survival, and transformation. I used critical policy discourse analyses to interrogate the college’s dependent healthcare documents and strategic plan as well as my research participants’ interview responses. My findings revealed that the heteronormative discourse that dominated the institution’s strategic plan and dependent healthcare documents created experiences of queer erasure for its queer faculty and staff. Their queer erasure occurred whether they performed heteronormatively to access dependent healthcare or they did not conform to heteronormative definitions of relationships and were thus excluded from access to dependent healthcare. In the final chapter of this study I recommended that the institution operate outside of heteronormative discourse and structure as much as possible, open their policy-making doors to center the most vulnerable of their employee population. I also urged queer families to develop a Liberatory Consciousness (Love, 2018) as a means of complaint, survival, and institutional transformation.

Copyright Date

6-2025

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Dwenna A. Holden

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

English (eng)

Extent

219 pgs

File Size

2.9 MB

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