Education Commons^™

Cultivating Family Empowerment In Schools: The Experiences Of Marginalized Families In Special Education, Rachel-Marie F. Sinco

Honors Theses

The provision of special education services to special needs students is largely upheld by federal and state policies and regulations, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) which ensures that children with disabilities have the opportunity to access a free appropriate public education (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2004). However, marginalized families of low-income and linguistically diverse backgrounds continue to face barriers and challenges to effectively participate in their child’s education and secure the necessary and appropriate services for their child. Family Empowerment Centers on Disability (FECs) in California provide a policy solution to assist families navigate …

"Nice, Quiet Hand": The Creation And Navigation Of Feeling Rules In A Second Grade Classroom, Avery Munns

Honors Theses

Emotions are largely viewed as individual and internal, but in reality, emotions are socially situated. This project aims to use a sociology of emotions framework in order to explore how emotional expectations are created, maintained, and navigated within a classroom environment. Through a series of observations over the course of a month, I set out to answer questions surrounding which emotions were encouraged, which emotions were discouraged, and how both teachers and students created and navigated these feeling rules. Overall, I found that emotions were largely discouraged, especially through the overarching feeling rules of “be quiet” and “control your body.” …

Ethnicity And Education: College Attendance Patterns Among Early 20th-Century Maine's Immigrant Community, Jacob M. Nash

Honors Theses

I examine the college attendance patterns of second-generation Russian-Jewish immigrants in Maine in the early 20^th century relative to other ethnic groups using individual-level Census records. I employ the Abramitzky, Boustan, and Eriksson (ABE) algorithm to track second-generation Jewish, Italian, French Canadian, English Canadian and European immigrants from the 1910 Census to the 1940 Census. My logistic regression analysis indicates that second-generation Jewish immigrants in Maine attended college at significantly higher rates than their peers of similar background in every other ethnic group. While I cannot evaluate them, I also discuss potential explanations for the disparity in college attendance …

Effects Of Exposure To Chinese Imports On School Spending And Revenue From Property Tax, Yilei Bao

Honors Theses

I analyze the effect of exposure to Chinese import competition on school revenues per student from property tax, from local sources, and school expenditures per student in 676 Commuting Zones (CZ) from 1990 to 2007. I discover a negative relationship on the CZ level between exposure per worker to Chinese import competition and school expenditure per student, as well as school revenue per student from local sources. In contrast, impact on school revenue per student from property tax is not statistically significant. On average, in a given period, an increase of 1000 dollars in import exposure is related to a …

The Impacts Of Discrimination On Mental And Physical Health, Mahal Alvarez-Backus

Honors Theses

The present studies investigated the role of campus climate and discrimination on college students’ mental and physical health. Young adults completed measures that assessed their perceptions of campus climate, sense of belonging, depressive symptoms, anxiety levels, sleep quality, physical health symptoms, and experiences with discrimination. Despite the fact that there were not any differences in physical health or sleep quality, there were significant differences in phycological health, specifically with depressive symptoms. Across both studies, there were significant group differences in mental health, particularly that students of color reported higher levels of depressive symptoms than white students. Having empathetic faculty was …

Finding Aid To The Collection Of Mary Low Carver Materials, Mary Low Carver, Colby College Special Collections

Finding Aids

Mary Caffrey Low (later Carver), born on March 22, 1850, in Waterville, Maine, was the first woman to graduate from Colby College. In 1871, she enrolled as the college's first female student, to graduate four years later in 1875. She was one of the first women in New England to receive a regular A.B. degree. Low was the only female student at Colby until the fall of 1873, when she was joined by four other women, among them Louise Helen Coburn. In 1874, Low co-founded the Sigma Kappa Sorority. Low was the first woman to appear on the rolls of …

Teaching Amid Destruction: Carol Majdalany Williams '75 'P11 Helped Keep A Nepalese School Open And Students Learning, Gerry Boyle

Colby Magazine

Carol Majdalany Williams '75 'P11 helped keep a Nepalese school open and students learning.

Digital Commons @ Colby: Best Practices For Undergraduate Research, Susan W. Cole, Martin F. Kelly Iii

Faculty Scholarship: Colby College Libraries

Colby College's contribution to the bepress sponsored webinar. From bepress' description:

Undergraduate research initiatives are cropping up at institutions across the country, highlighting the need for undergraduate publication venues. Colleges and universities are finding that publishing undergraduate work not only completes the research cycle for emerging scholars; it also showcases the quality of an institution’s student work to prospective students and their parents, as well as to prospective faculty members.

At Colby College, Suzi Cole, Scholarly Resources & Services, Sciences Librarian, and Martin Kelly, Assistant Director for Digital Collections, collaborate with the Environmental Studies program to publish the Colby Environmental …

School Gardens: Cultivating A Child’S Nutritional Habits, Environmental Knowledge, And Sustainability Practices, Jeffrey Meltzer

Honors Theses

School gardens have existed since the late nineteenth century and today are becoming increasingly popular in many parts of the world, including where I studied in Maine and Australia (AUS). Multiple organizations support school gardens in Maine, including the Maine School Garden Network, which has over 125 registered school gardens. In AUS, the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation primarily supports the school garden movement and has over 800 registered school gardens. While many researchers have studied school gardens, few have compared two countries, focused on environmental sustainability, or investigated Maine in particular. This thesis combines information from literature reviews, and …

Pioneers: Colby's First Posse Leaves Changed By Colby--And Mayflower Hill Remains Changed By Posse I, Gerry Boyle

Colby Magazine

The first group of Posse scholars graduated this spring. With faculty and administrators, they recount challenges, trials, and triumphs they experienced as they paved the way for those who followed.

A Long Way From Home: First-Generation College Students Face Obstacles But Find Their Own Ways To Thrive, Ruth Jacobs

Colby Magazine

They come from varied backgrounds and arrive with varied expectations. But as the first in their families to go to college, these students bring a fresh perspective and encounter unique challenges at Colby.

Through The Eyes Of Urban Students: Educational Inequality And Socioeconomic Disparities In Santiago, Chile, Hillary Sapanski

Honors Theses

This project explores student perceptions of educational inequality in Santiago, Chile. Educational inequality in Santiago is statistically well documented; this study is novel in that it gives voice to the students. Despite a major emerging middle class, across all classes there is an overwhelming awareness of inequality. The results in this study are two-fold: not only do the diverse student experiences illustrate the stark divisions in the Chilean education system and society, but their experiences also demonstrate the development of a critical consciousness empowering students to act. Although there are limitations, student contributions to the ongoing conversation about inequality and …

Faculty In The Mist: Ethnographic Study Of Faculty Research Practices, Marilyn R. Pukkila, Ellen L. Freeman

Faculty Scholarship

A report on ethnographic research on college faculty research and teaching methods, with their use of information resources, library services, technology, and academic IT support.

Revitalizing The Signaling Power Of Class Rank At Colby College, Nicholas Van Niel

Honors Theses

Consistent with trends at American colleges and universities nationwide, grades have been monotonically increasing at Colby College over the past decade while controlling for student aptitude. A rich data set that describes every Colby student over three cohorts is used to predict student performance. By comparing the mean predicted grade to the mean actual grade in a department, it is seen that some departments award mean grades that are significantly higher than predicted grades warranted by explainable factors. With some departments giving significantly higher grades than other departments, the current grading system is susceptible to awarding unwarranted higher grades to …

My Teaching Philosophy, Marilyn R. Pukkila

Faculty Scholarship

This is my philosophy of teaching and learning, as developed during the ACRL Immersion Intentional Teacher Track in Nashville, TN in December of 2009

Take A Deep Breath: On Not Losing The Turtle In The Technology, Marilyn R. Pukkila

Faculty Scholarship

Understanding media messages and selecting worthwhile sources of information require the ability to analyze and deconstruct messages.

An Analysis Of Attendance At Major League Baseball Spring Training Games, Michael R. Donihue, David Findlay, Peter Newberry

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the determinants of game-day attendance during Major League Baseball’s 2002 spring training season in Florida. Our model of game-day attendance includes location, quality of game, and time and weather variables. A censored Tobit estimation procedure is used to estimate our model. Our results indicate that the quality of the game, average ticket price, and several location-specific factors affect attendance. Specifically, our results suggest that changes in income have no effect on attendance while increases in ticket prices cause reductions in attendance. Furthermore, the estimated price elasticity of demand for Major League Baseball during the spring training season …

Feminist Spiritualities: A Brief Overview, Marilyn R. Pukkila

Faculty Scholarship

A bibliographic essay on the early beginnings of feminist spirituality literature, from the 1960s to 1998.

The Literature Of Contemporary Witchcraft: Formalists, Femininsts, And Free Spirits, Marilyn R. Pukkila

Faculty Scholarship

A bibliographic essay on the writings of contemporary Witchcraft, from the late 1890s to 1998.

The Literature Of Contemporary Witchcraft: Formalists, Femininsts, And Free Spirits, Marilyn R. Pukkila

Marilyn R. Pukkila

A bibliographic essay on the writings of contemporary Witchcraft, from the late 1890s to 1998.

A Catalyst For Culture: Early Child Development And Education In Japan, Kate Swenson

Senior Scholar Papers

A popular Western perception of Japan is that it is an eminently homogeneous and conformist society. However, both conformity and homogeneity, recognized even by the Japanese themselves, coexist with the concept of individuality, which is valued in a manner unique to its culture. In order to come to a deeper understanding of that dynamic, it is important to comprehend the specifics of child rearing and education within Japanese society. Based in part on the author's observational fieldwork conducted while in Japan in 1994, the thesis explicates the manner in which various core relationships exhibit the socialization of an individual that …