Digital Commons Network^™

Latino And Latina Urban Elementary Principals’ Entry Into Educational Administration, José Montaño

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

As school enrollments across the United States include increasing numbers of students of color, the number of administrators of color remains disproportionate. In California school districts, where a large percentage of students are Latino and Latina, Latino and Latina principals remain rare. While studies have suggested why Latinos and Latinas do not enter educational leadership, fewer have examined why they do elect to enter the field. This ethnographic exploratory study examines factors that led Latino and Latina educators to enter administrative leadership preparation programs with the goal of becoming school principals. The sample includes interviews with seven Latino and Latina …

Teacher Professional Capital: The Relationship Between Principal Practice And Teacher Job Satisfaction, Christine Annette Burke Adams

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

Criticism of the public school system tends to be aimed squarely at teachers in the classroom (Karpinski, 2012). As school principals lead in this current educational climate, it is incumbent upon them to provide their teachers an environment that is conducive to job satisfaction, emphasizing teacher retention, and mitigating the deleterious effects of teacher turnover on students’ academic achievement. To understand the practices of the principal, this study investigated teachers’ perceptions of their principals’ practice, asking the following questions: What is the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of their principal’s practice of building professional capital and teachers’ job satisfaction? What are …

Access, Technology, And Parental Involvement: A Case Study On A West Los Angeles Charter School, Tanisha M. Barnett

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

Research clearly indicates that parental involvement plays an essential role in the educational process of any student regardless of grade level. However, technology is changing the way schools communicate, which affects the way parents are involved in their children’s education. Research on the digital divide indicates that there are differences in access based on race and family income. In other words, lower income and minority families tend to have less access to technology, and therefore may be less able to fully participate in schools.

This issue of social justice was investigated at a small charter school located in West Los …

Investigating Collaborative Inquiry: A Case Study Of A Professional Learning Community At Lennox Charter High School, Alyce H. Prentice

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate teacher perceptions of Collaborative Inquiry embedded in a Professional Learning Community during departmental collaboration time and to explore the elements deemed most important to creating and/or maintaining this collaboration model at Lennox Charter High School. Teachers at Lennox Charter High School participated in this study.

This mixed-methods case study triangulated survey, focus group, interview, and observation data to examine departmental collaboration and to define the elements most important to maintaining and improving Collaborative Inquiry at Lennox Charter High School.

These elements were explored through the lens of research on Professional Learning Communities …

Unburying The Mirror: An Autoethnography Of A Latino Teacher Who Left The Classroom, Arturo Rafael Acevedo-Febles

LMU/LLS Theses and Dissertations

Despite the expressed need for bicultural teachers, research on teacher attrition has demonstrated that a growing number of bicultural educators are leaving the classroom. Bicultural male teachers, in particular, experience high rates of teacher attrition. Schools, unfortunately, are contexts in which Latino male teachers are constantly experiencing dilemmas related specifically to both their gendered and racialized positionality as males of color.

Grounded in Antonia Darder’s critical bicultural framework, this autoethnographic study explored the complex factors that drive Latino male teachers out of the classroom, through an in-depth and grounded examination of a Latino male teacher who left the classroom. The …