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Urban Adolescents' Field Trip Experiences: A Phenomenological Perspective, Julia Elizabeth Anne Borst Brazas

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

Evidence is mounting that field trips are vanishing from school life, as districts across the nation report reductions and eliminations of these outings because of funding concerns. The matter is of special importance in urban areas, where a wealth of museums are situated nearby neighborhoods in which poor and minority children live and attend school. These children are absent from the museum, less likely to visit with family because of the powerful exclusionary effect that educational attainment and income level have on museum socialization, making school the place where a connection to the museum is formed. However, opportunities for learning …

Looking For A Solution: Social Justice Education And Its Impact On Adolescent Empowerment, Anita Thawani

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

Schooling can often function as a mechanism of oppression specifically for low-income and minority youth. This study is an exploration of how a social justice education impacts adolescent empowerment. It is an attempt to gain a deeper knowledge into the ways participants were influenced by this form of schooling, a pedagogy derived in response to silenced youth to be agents of social change. In an attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between social justice education and empowerment, and to investigate their lived experiences during high school and the ways in which empowerment emerged in their lives, I …

Technology Acceptance In A Mandatory Environment: A Test Of An Integrative Pre-Implementation Model., Mohanned Al-Arabiat

College of Computing and Digital Media Dissertations

Technology acceptance has been studied extensively within the IS discipline. The introduction of the technology acceptance model (TAM) has given researchers the opportunity to produce a vast body of knowledge; however, existing gaps within the technology acceptance literature warrant further investigation of these understudied areas. Namely, few if any have studied end users’ acceptance of newly implemented technologies within organizational contexts before end-users start using the technology. Additionally, leadership is one of the areas that has not yet been sufficiently integrated with the technology acceptance literature. The Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory with its roots in the social exchange theory offers …

From Survivor To Advocate: The Therapeutic Benefits Of Public Disclosure, Katherine Infusino

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the therapeutic impact of public disclosure for survivors of sexual assault. The purpose was to identify how disclosure in a public setting affected the recovery process of survivors of sexual assault. Three adult women were interviewed about their experiences. This study analyzed the meaning of public disclosure for these women in order to understand if it had therapeutic value in their recoveries. Each woman indicated that public disclosure helped strengthen her recovery. Public disclosure helped these women connect with other survivors and supporters, which assisted in alleviating feelings of shame. There is a need to study public …

“Making It Click”: Assigning Value And Confronting Obstacles In An Educational Exhibit, Andrea Thomalla Cavedo

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the development of Choosing to Participate, an educational exhibit presented by Facing History and Ourselves, and teachers’ experiences visiting the exhibit on field trips with students. Presented as an exhibit about “what it means to be a citizen in a democratic society,” teachers found multiple sites of value within the exhibit, but resisted the notion that it was meant to educate visitors about democracy or citizenship. Their descriptions revealed several essential characteristics of processing an educational exhibit, namely constant evaluation in order to inform adaptation for the classroom; as well as key obstacles to fostering …

Exposure To Violence As A Moderator Of The Relation Between Coping Strategies And Outcomes In Low Income Urban Youth, Alexandra Lauren Barnett

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

The current study addresses a paradox in the literature wherein the coping strategies seeming to be most effective for predominantly Caucasian, middle-class, adult samples, sometimes have the opposite effect on low income urban youth. In doing so, exposure to violence is investigated as a moderator of the association between active, behavioral avoidance and cognitive avoidance and internalizing and externalizing outcomes over the short and long term for low income urban youth. Luthar and colleague’s (2000) protective-reactive, protective-enhancing, and vulnerable-reactive models are theoretical bases for this hypothesis. The findings are that the association between behavioral avoidance and internalizing symptoms was protective, …

Ethnic Identity And Coping Efficacy As Moderators Of The Relationships Between Perceived Racial Discrimination And Academic Outcomes Among Urban, Low-Income Latina/O Youth, Alison L. Mroczkowski

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

The present study used resilience theory to explore relationships among perceived racial discrimination, ethnic identity, coping efficacy, gender, and various academic outcomes among urban, low-income, Latina/a youth. Although Latina/as are the largest ethnic minority group in the United States, they attain less education than other racial/ethnic groups (Chapman, Laird, Ifill, & KeweiRamani, 2011). Racial discrimination is one factor that may account for the lower levels of education attained by this group, and research has indicated that racial discrimination is associated with poor educational outcomes among Latina/a adolescents (Alfaro, Umana-Taylor, Gonzales-Backen, Bamaca, & Zeiders, 2009; DeGarmo & Martinez, 2006). Despite exposure …

(Re)Mixing ‘School Spirit’: Spectacular Youth Subcultures As Resistance To Cultures Of Control, Evangeline L. Semark

College of Communication Master of Arts Theses

This project examines the way in which the U.S. nation-state works through cultural institutions such as schools and the media to create ideological cultures of control. A main argument of this project is that control cultures (re)produce an essentialist framework of an “All-American” dominant culture rooted in the ideology of whiteness through which youth identity – and to a larger extent, American national identity – is to be conceptualized and created. Cultural analysis is used to show how the articulation of dominant ideology works through discursive formations to shape the racial identities and regulate the bodies of students, parents, and …

Tectonic Shift: A Scientific Account Of My Young Adulthood, Rosalyn Lederman

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Tectonic Shift evolved from my desire to examine the role that science has played in my life: as a student, a Jewish American, a friend, a daughter, a writer. My personal search for an understanding of the world around me is what ties together the pieces in Tectonic Shift. In these pages I explore everything from my views on creative nonfiction to my burgeoning fossil collection, all in the context of my larger quest to understand myself and my place in the world.

The question I set out to answer in the following pages—how have my ADHD diagnosis and my …

The Politics Of Indigenous Social Struggle In Colombia, Gilberto Villasenor Iii

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

The core research question that this thesis asks is: How can we conceptualize the resistance of contemporary indigenous social movements? This thesis argues that Arturo Escobar's ideas about the ways in which social movements can critically engage processes of development best allow us to conceptualize Nasa indigenous social movements of Colombia as resistance to neoliberal globalization. The thesis uses Escobar’s three concepts: alternative development, alternative modernity, and alternatives to modernity as a conceptual lens with which to analyze three projects by the Nasa indigenous people of Colombia: the communitarian economy, the Proyecto Global, and the Tul home garden project. The …

Youth's Lived Experience Of An After-School Music Program: Understanding The Meanings And Values Placed On Music Learning, Brittany Young

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

The value of arts education in our nation has steadily diminished. As aims for global expansion and development become more geared towards sustaining economic and technological vitality, the role of education naturally follows a similar trajectory, making the permanent implementation of arts curriculum in schooling an obscure reality. Amidst this transition, however, arts educators are relentlessly working to create arts programs for underprivileged youth whose families often times cannot afford private lessons. This thesis will explore the essence of a music educational space that embodies this effort in order to understand the meaning making processes of development and expansion for …

Portraits Of Four African-American Women Who Earned Doctoral Degrees From A Predominately White Institution, Sherry M. Coleman Hunter

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

Within the African-American (AA) community, higher education is one of the ultimate gifts that could lead to success and a bright future. This qualitative study explored the experiences of four AA women who earned doctoral degrees in educational leadership from a predominately White institution (PWI). The research questions guiding this study were framed to learn the following:

1. the experiences of AA women who obtained doctorates at a PWI,

2. the factors the four interviewees perceived as contributing to the successful completion of their doctorate,

3. the elements that facilitated their degree progression,

4. the factors that inhibited their degree …