From Surveillance to Vigilance: A Relational Approach to College, Career, Military Readiness

This qualitative study examines how former U.S. public school students who experienced College, Career, Military Readiness (CCMR) initiatives interpret their postsecondary preparedness and navigate the relational, structural, and cultural forces that shaped those experiences. CCMR policy mandates often assume individual deficits and technical compliance, producing a persistent disconnect between policy intentions and students’ lived realities, especially across demographic and geographic lines, by neglecting identity, voice, context, and systemic inequities. Grounded in constructivist epistemology and enacted as a critical ethnography using pláticas, narrative inquiry, and thematic coding, the research centers participant voices to reveal how readiness is co-constructed within place-based cultural relationships. By interpreting findings through Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory, Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory, and Guajardo et al.’s Ecologies of Knowing, the study reconceptualizes CCMR as a relational, culturally mediated process. It introduces the Ecology of Relational Readiness, a theoretical model that preserves distinctions among ecological frameworks while foregrounding care, relational accountability, and justice-centered practice. Policymakers and school leaders should shift from surveillance and technical compliance toward collective responsibility; prioritizing relational accountability, equity-driven leadership, and community partnerships that address systemic barriers. The study calls for policy vigilance that interrogates the language and ideologies producing current conditions and for leadership practices that center student voice and contextualized supports to create truly meaningful postsecondary pathways.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

School Improvement

Grantor

Texas State University

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Faulkner, Emily

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Guajardo, Miguel A.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Martinez, Melissa A.
• Arar, Khalid H.
• Davis, Dionne L.

• ecologies of knowing
• ecology of relational readiness
• education accountability
• postsecondary readiness
• school leadership
• college career military readiness

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10877/24821

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digital.library.txst.edu:10877/24821