Graduation Term

Summer 2026

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Department of English

Committee Chair

Lisya Seloni

Committee Member

Eda Özyeşilpınar,

Committee Member

Rasha Diab

Abstract

This dissertation examines the teaching approaches of five BIPOC and transnational writing instructors, focusing specifically on their restorative justice practices, how they address difficult moments, disruptive acts, and microaggressions that might occur in their classrooms, and what guides their relationships with students. In the last decades, there has been an increased focus on (i) culture's role in shaping peoples’ relations and their efforts toward managing conflicts, differences and responding to harm (Abu-Nimer, 2001; Diab, 2016; Murithi, 2009; Zartman, 2000), and (ii) restorative justice practices (Vaandering, 2014; Wachtel, 2016; Zehr, 2002) and how they could enrich educational pedagogy. Thus, this project contributes to our understanding of BIPOC and transnational writing instructors' ways of enacting peacebuilding and restorative practices to create a learning environment where participants work together to create an inclusive, caring, respectful, and egalitarian community that stands for what is right, responds appropriately and fairly to the harm done to individuals, builds/restores relationships among individuals, and transforms individuals when possible. To conduct this study, this dissertation adopts a cultural rhetorics-oriented methodology based on the core belief that rhetorics are always cultural and cultures are persistently rhetorical. As such, prioritizing meaningful relationships, mutual respect, and accountability with research participants, and centering them as legitimate sources of knowledge is central to this study. In addition, this study employs an ethnographically oriented multiple-case study and autoethnography as its research methodology to trace, understand, and examine the peacebuilding and restorative approaches of five BIPOC and transnational writing instructors. As a researcher-participant from Algeria in this qualitative study, I reflect on my approach to enacting peacebuilding and restorative justice pedagogy and propose a restorative justice composition pedagogy rooted in sulh (reconciliation), an Islamic- Arabic practice for conflict resolution, peacemaking, and reconciliation. As I craft my autoethnography and tell my story, centering and honoring the practice of sulh as a legitimate way of doing and knowing, my autoethnography aims to offer an account of how I developed my agentive identities as a learner, teacher, and emerging researcher from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds to articulate a restorative justice composition pedagogy rooted in the principles of sulh. The findings of this study revealed that BIPOC and transnational writing instructors face different kinds of challenges, difficult moments, and microaggressions based on their gender, accent, and ethnic backgrounds. This study revealed that BIPOC and transnational instructors, including myself, experience a teacher identity transformation that brings into conversation their indigenous knowledge and cultural traditions, such as Ori, in the case of Zina, Abusua, in the case of Ahmed,  African proverbs, in the case of Ekene, and sulh in my case, alongside their lived experiences and the newly acquired knowledge from the host country, the United States. Through this process, they develop a localized, culturally sustaining restorative justice composition pedagogy: a “hybrid” framework rooted in their ways of knowing, being, and doing as BIPOC and transnational writing instructors in the US. As such, these findings have important implications for writing program administrators, graduate education, and the development of peacebuilding and restorative guidelines and practices across campus for transnational and BIPOC instructors.

Access Type

Dissertation-Open Access

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Available for download on Saturday, October 12, 2030

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