Education Commons^™

Digitally Rural: Identifying How Technological Inequity Impacts Rural Students In First-Year Writing Courses, Jo Anna M. Nevada

English Language and Literature ETDs

To teach composition in this era means to engage students with technology; it is all but an unspoken requirement at the majority of universities. This dissertation theorizes, however, that the imbricated use of technology in first-year writing (FYW) classrooms places rural students at an inherent disadvantage, with issues of inadequate technological proficiency and inconsistent access causing a substantial learning disparity between this student population and their urban peers. Through mixed-methods data analysis of student survey responses and final FYW course portfolios, this study reveals that the expectation of technological access and presumption of digital literacy is detrimental to rural student …

Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics (Stem) Project-Based Learning (Pbl) Education: A New Mexico Case Study For Equity And Inclusion, Kimberly A. Scheerer

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

This research addresses how student participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) education activities encourages underrepresented minority student achievement in STEM career field trajectories. Seven New Mexico high school counselors and 12 STEM organization personnel were interviewed during this study. Their responses represent the nuanced professional voices where New Mexico public education intersects with STEM student interest and cultural influence.

For students, STEM PBL can foster deep integration across educational disciplines and enhance STEM career trajectory interest and readiness. STEM education converged with PBL methodologies has the ability to leverage community support while broadening student networks. …

Student Voice And Choice: Factors Influencing Student Participation In Secondary Arts Classes In An Urban Public School District, Alan D. Lambert Ed. D.

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

The purpose of this study was to capture the student voice regarding the value, importance, and relevance of visual and performing arts education in public schools. The host institution for the study was an urban school district in the southern central United States serving 75,000 students, with 55% students identified as Hispanic, and 52% of students experiencing poverty. Graduating seniors responded via questionnaires with forced choice and open-ended items regarding several topics, including what they do in their free time, how they perceive the value of arts classes at school, access to arts classes and the match of their interests …

Adults Perspectives Of Friendships And Social Interaction Between Students With And Without Complex Support Needs During A Pandemic, Jorden Morales

Special Education ETDs

Social interactions and friendships are important for all individuals including those with complex support needs (CSN). The voices of adults including parents/guardians, primary caregivers, teachers, and related service providers who responded to a survey provided insight into supporting social interactions and friendships for children with CSN during the Covid-19 pandemic This mixed methods study used thematic analysis to explore participants’ responses to open-ended questions while multiple choice questions were analyzed through descriptive statistics. Additionally, this study included a research narrative to speak to the various roles I hold related to this study (i.e., parent, educator, researcher). Three themes emerged from …

Issue In Equity For Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Students With Complex Support Needs: A Comparative Analysis Of District-Level Student Data, Rosalia Pacheco

Special Education ETDs

Research has shown that English learners with disabilities should have access to both special education and Title III services as required by law (de Valenzuela et al., 2006, 2018, 2016, 2022; de Valenzuela & Copeland, 2018; Kangas, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2021). This quantitative study uncovers issues of educational inequities related to: (a) the identification of these students as English learners; (b) their access to Title III services; and (c) the instructional settings in which they are educated for culturally and linguistically diverse students with Autism (ASD), Developmental Delay (DD), Intellectual Disability (ID), Multiple Disabilities (MD), or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). …

Effects Of Inclusive Social Skills Training On Preschoolers, Lauren E. Weiss

Special Education ETDs

Social interventions for children with disabilities are generally conducted in small groups and outside of the classroom; therefore, little is known about inclusive and classwide social interventions in early childhood educational settings. This study evaluated the effects of inclusive social skills training (ISST), a program delivered remotely to inclusive preschool classrooms via direct instruction, video modeling, rehearsal, and feedback, to teach social skills. Educators rated preschoolers' social skills in a nonequivalent pretest-posttest design and evaluated the social validity of ISST. I examined the differences in scores. A significant interaction effect was detected in the program group between abilities. Overall, educators …

Disability Injustice: A Latino’S Creative Autoethnographic Testimonio On The Organizational Culture Of Higher Education, Leonel A. Diaz Jr.

Organization, Information and Learning Sciences ETDs

Using creative autoethnographic testimonio (CAT), a story is told about the injustices within the learning environment and work environment of higher education toward a person with disabilities: sleep apnea, learning disabilities, negative mental health. The author explores the health difficulties of addressing sleep deprivation while attending graduate school and working full-time as a professional. With sleep apnea impacting his health, his mental health declines. As his health declines, there is an increase in discrimination, hostility, oppression, bullying, and toxic masculinity. Initially, the medical system dismisses his declining health and refuses to look further into it. Once he receives medical care …

Parental Choice Of Charter Schools For Middle School Students With Disabilities, Oluwole Ilesanmi

Special Education ETDs

For many decades, traditional public schools were the dominant public schools available for educating students, including those with disabilities. However, in the current climate of school choice, parents can now choose from a variety of educational options for their children. This study sought to explore the reasons parents of students with disabilities enrolled their children in charter schools. Research questions addressed the reasons parents considered when enrolling their children with disabilities in charter schools, as well as their degree of satisfaction and experiences after enrollment in charter schools. A total of 108 parents of sixth-eighth grade middle school students with …

Stories We Carry Into Classrooms: The Literacy Narratives Of Teachers Of Students With Complex Support Needs, Sharon L. Head

Special Education ETDs

In this study, I used a case-based narrative inquiry to investigate the literacy narratives and the thinking about instructional practices of four teachers of students with complex support needs (CSN) from a small, rural school district in the Southwestern United States. I conducted initial and follow-up interviews and facilitated two focus groups across an eight-week period using a process designed to look at teacher narratives across time and after interactions with peers. My data were in the form of transcripts of all interviews and focus groups that I analyzed using two analytic processes: thematic and narrative (Polkinghorne, 1995). I described …

Knowledge And Desires Of Parents Of Middle School Students With Intellectual Disability Regarding Inclusive Education Laws And Practices In South Korea: Qualitative Case Study, Yunji Jeong

Special Education ETDs

The purpose of this study was to examine the knowledge and desires of parents of middle school students with ID regarding inclusive education practices and laws in South Korea. I interviewed seven mothers of children with ID who attended South Korean middle school. Three themes emerged including (a) mother-teacher communication, (b) particular knowledge that suppressed further desires for inclusive education, and (c) culture-based advocacy for inclusive education. I discussed these findings based on Confucianism, collectivism, social and medical models of disability, and Rawls’s theory of justice. The mothers neither knew about inclusive education laws nor valued the laws. Instead, they …

Race, Disability And The Possibilities Of Radical Agency: Toward A Political Philosophy Of Decolonial Critical Hermeneutics In Latinx Discrit, Alexis C. Padilla

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

The present dissertation is a non-empirical methodology project grounded in political philosophy. As a practical exercise, it bridges knowledge workers (e.g., educators, action researchers and other engaged scholars) with activists to explore the situated emancipation possibilities of radical agency at the intersection of blindness and Latinidad. It does so in line with DisCrit and other bodies of literature within critical disability studies, works centered on trans-Latinidades and border-crossing, intersectional decoloniality theorizing, critical hermeneutics, critical race theory and blackness/ whiteness studies. It interrogates performative and movement building spaces for teaching and learning that foster radical exteriority trajectories of decolonial solidarity and …

Drop In Or Drop Out: A Case Study On The Effects Of Academic Track Placement, And Levels Of Student Skill And Will, On Successful Ninth-Grade Completion, Channell M. Wilson-Segura

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

The ninth grade is a transition year from middle school to high school where many students struggle to successfully navigate a new environment, new teachers and peers, new academic and behavioral expectations, and the concept of graduation requirements. This qualitative study examined the effects of academic track placement, and student levels of skill and will, on successful ninth-grade completion in one New Mexico Title I high school. It also provided insight into their perceptions of the success factors and challenges that they felt impacted their ability to successfully promote to the tenth-grade, and thus, remain on-track for graduation.

This study …

The Heart Of K'E: Transforming Dine Special Education And Unsettling The Colonial Logics Of Disability, Sandra Yellowhorse

American Studies ETDs

This paper takes up the roles of ideology and spatiality as they impact Diné students and learners in understanding conceptions of normativity, neuro-diversity and bodily variance. I am concerned with how the movement and creation of Indigenous schools and their praxis still maintain and often times produce settler colonial ideologies of being, personhood, difference and ability. I illustrate the challenges that Diné planners and educators face in entrenching cultural knowledge and language into their educational initiatives, while some of the problematic manifestations and expressions of normativity present themselves through state polices, federal law and mainstream curriculum.

I focus on the …

A Case Study Of Two Taiwanese Students With Hearing Loss Navigating The English As A Foreign Language Requirement At Their University, Yu Chen

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Many institutions of higher education (IHE) students in Taiwan now need to meet the English proficiency requirement to earn their higher education degrees. In this case study, I intended to a) provide the opportunity for IHE students with hearing loss in Taiwan to share their opinions, thoughts, and experiences of learning English as a foreign language in higher education institutes; and b) understand how English as a foreign language policies and educational practices contribute to create opportunities and barriers for IHE students with hearing loss. The research question I intended to examine was “what are the perceptions of the lived …