Mazzei, LisaMcGregor, Kristidel2021-09-132021-09-132021-09-13https://hdl.handle.net/1794/26619While every public school in the United States has to accommodate the bathroom needs of those who work and learn there, the bathroom spaces themselves are understudied in education research. Simultaneously, school bathrooms occupy a distinct place in the social consciousness. News reports reveal schools having policy debates about who belongs in what bathroom space, while children in under-resourced schools face locked and broken facilities. Schools are closed, and students suspended, for writing threats of violence on bathroom walls, while administrations remove bathroom stall doors, and discuss the merits of installing surveillance cameras in that most private of spaces. Evidence suggests that school bathrooms are disciplinary sites, enforcing normalization of certain cultural norms, but further investigation is needed, both on the historical functions of school bathrooms as well as on their role in contemporary schools. School bathrooms are spaces at the center of many of the current issues facing public schools, but educational researchers have not studied bathrooms enough to be able to make informed recommendations to school administrators and policy-makers. This study seeks to open space to begin a more nuanced conversation about school bathrooms, in order to begin to make policy recommendations and find directions for further research.en-USAll Rights Reserved.feminist phenomenologyKaren Baradnew materialismpost-phenomenologyqualitative methodsElectronic Thesis or Dissertation