Laura Parson, PhD is an Associate Professor of Educational and Organizational Leadership. Her Ph.D. is in Teaching & Learning, Higher Education from the University of North Dakota. Additionally, she has a MEd in Adult Education from Westminster College with a certification in Teaching English as a Second Language (TESOL). She received the 2019 NASPA Ruth Strang award for research concerning women in higher education and was the first recipient of the Gloria Nathanson Research Fund for International Research. She is the co-editor of a four-volume edited series titled Teaching and Learning for Social Justice and Equity in Education, the first volume was published in 2020, the second and third in 2021, and the fourth in 2022. She is the author of Polygamy, Women, & Higher Education, a monograph published by Palgrave Macmillan, published in 2019, and has authored and co-authored 21 peer-reviewed articles, 9 book chapters, and 6 invited articles, with many more in press. She also maintains public scholarship on her website (lauraparson.com).
Laura’s research questions seek to understand how translocal practices (institutional discourses, policies, practices and procedures) coordinate the work of faculty and students in higher education. She explores those questions through Institutional Ethnography and Critical Discourse Analysis. Laura teaches courses in higher education structure and organizational culture.
If you are interested in collaborating or would like to speak more about any of these or past projects, please contact Laura.
Selected Publications:
A critical discourse analysis of presidential email communications. Innovative Higher Education. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10755-024-09769-7
Trial by fire: An institutional ethnographic exploration of the impact of neoliberal discourses on women doctoral students’ experiences in biology. Innovative Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-024-09745-1
A Critical Discourse Analysis of Social Justice Language in Introductory HESA Syllabi. The International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE). https://www.doi.org/10.1080/09518398.2023.2203101
Parson, L. (2021). The glass cage or how we no body ourselves and others. Hypatia, 37(1), 187-195.https://www.doi.org/10.1017/hyp.2021.79
Parson, L. & Steele, A, & Wilkins, E. (2021). A Gendered “Ideal?” Discourses that Characterize the Ideal Scientist. International Journal of Gender, Science, and Technology. http://genderandset.open.ac.uk/index.php/genderandset/article/view/735/1171
The language of retrenchment: A discourse analysis of budget cutting in higher education
Digital media responses to a feminist scholarly article: A critical discourse analysis
Gendered student ideals in STEM in higher education
Are STEM syllabi gendered? A feminist critical discourse analysis
Considering positionality: The ethics of conducting research with marginalized groups
If you would like to read any of these manuscripts but do not have institutional access, please contact me.
Laura Parson, PhD 