Education Commons^™

Examining Systemic And Dispositional Factors Impacting Historically Disenfranchised Schools Across North Carolina, Raketa Ouedraogo-Thomas

Dissertations

This mixed method sequential explanatory study provided analysis of North Carolina (NC) school leaders’ dispositions in eliminating opportunity gaps, outlined in NC’s strategic plan. The study’s quantitative phase used descriptive and correlation analysis of eight Likert subscales around four tenets of transformative leadership (Shields, 2011) and aspects of critical race theory (Bell, 1992; Ladson-Billings, 1998; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 2006) to understand systemic inequities and leadership attitudes.

The qualitative phase comprised three analyses of education leadership dispositions and systemic factors in NC schools. The first analysis of State Board of Education meeting minutes from 2018–2023 quantified and analyzed utterances of racism …

School Social Workers And Extracurricular Activities: The Unanswered Questions About Potential Role Conflict, Jeffrey Mccabe, Hannah Hagan

International Journal of School Social Work

Abstract

School social workers respond to students’ mental health needs from an education training perspective that defines set professional role boundaries in service provision that may differ from the multiple roles teachers have with students. One of those perspectives is a recognition of what may happen if a boundary crossing was to occur in a dual relationship with a client. Teachers are encouraged to take on a secondary role with students by coaching athletics or advising a club. Taking on dual roles with students has led to both increased job satisfaction and concerns regarding burnout for teachers. There is an …

Citizenship Starts Here: A Community Engaged Approach To Civic Education, Grace Northern

Stevenson Center for Community and Economic Development—Student Research

Abstract:

In 2015, Illinois legislators passed HB 4025 which required every public high school to include a civics course for students to complete before graduation. In 2019, this bill was expanded to include middle school students through Public Act 101-025. In this study, I investigate how the civic education standards as outlined by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) and other school climate factors impacted middle school students’ civic engagement. I used data collected from the Center of Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) and the Illinois Civics Hub. The sample consisted of 497 middle school …

Diversity As A Condition Of Cultures: Querying Assumptions Of Mainstream And Minorities In Education Policy And Curriculum, Sue Saltmarsh

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Highlights

• Discussions of diversity in relation to children’s education are often characterized by binaries of same/different, mainstream/margins, inclusion/exclusion, self/Other.

• Curriculum remains a contested site in educational debate, with differing views about curriculum as reinforcing social norms, beliefs, and values, as addressing the learning and social needs of learners from a variety of backgrounds and worldviews, or as a hybrid of these.

• Policy and curriculum designed or intended to address diversity tend to rest on assumptions of majority or dominant cultures as homogenous and distinct from the cultures of minority Other/s.

• Inequality is often multidimensional, intersecting with, …

Covid-19 And Racial Justice In Urban Education: Nyc Parents Speak Out, Kelly Brady, Mieasia Edwards, Whitney Hollins, José Luis Jiménez, Wendy Luttrell, William Orellana, David Rosas, Nga Than

Publications and Research

The COVID-19 pandemic and global calls for racial justice surfaced tremendous inequities and revitalized the debate about schooling and its purpose. NYC Parents Speak Out is a public engagement project, based on an interactive survey and interviews that records and reflects NYC family educational experiences during the unprecedented school year of 2020-2021. Our research collective, comprised of researchers, parents, advocates, teachers, and school leaders from the Urban Education Ph.D. Program at The Graduate Center (CUNY) identified three key recommendations based on research findings: to improve communication through family and community engagement; give greater attention to social-emotional and mental health; and …

A Geographic Account Of Economic, Health, And Educational Disparities In Hartford’S Sheff Region, Casey D. Cobb

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

In the current study, I use geographic techniques to examine the distribution of key housing, economic, health, and educational indicators in metropolitan Hartford. I focus in particular on factors that bear upon the lives of children in this area, also known as the Sheff region—a reference to the long-standing Sheff v. O’Neill school desegregation lawsuit. The results reveal substantial disparities in the geographic distribution of important resources and outcomes across the racially and economically stratified region. Despite earnest school desegregation efforts, the opportunities, access, and resources available to children in municipalities across the metro Hartford region remain starkly different. Children …

Caring Choices? Supporting And Dreaming With Students In New York City’S Stratifying High School Admissions System, Megan R. Moskop

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In New York City, all eighth graders attending public school must apply for high school. They have 400 schools from which to choose, and they must create a ranked list of twelve choices. They are then matched to one school. The results of this process play a large role in creating one of the most segregated and unequal school systems in the country. In “Caring choices? Supporting and dreaming with students in New York City’s stratifying high school admissions system,” I share an autoethnographic account that spans ten years of work as an activist educator striving both to support students …

Selling College: Student Recruitment And Education Reform Rhetoric In The Age Of Privatization, Paige Marie Hermansen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the success of for-profit colleges and universities (FPCUs) as a socio-cultural phenomenon that hinges on distinct public discursive strains and neoliberal rhetorics. This project examines the role of language in creating and sustaining particular discourses of higher education and how those discourses are reinforced and reflected in channels of discourse like documentary films and advertisements.

In the context of shifting demands on and representations of higher education, this project critiques the evolving rhetoric of American education and the shift toward a wider acceptance of privatization efforts, as well as the effect this shift has had on prospective …

When Words Inflict Harm: Documenting Sexuality And Gender Identity Microaggressions In Schools For Lgbtqq Youth, Darla Linville

Georgia Educational Research Association Conference

With the adoption of anti-bullying laws and policies, it may seem that things are looking up for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer or questioning (LGBTQQ) youth. We might assume that these laws and policies would better protect them from insults, harassment and violence at the hands of their peers and teachers. In fact, this is sometimes the case. But it is also the case that the insults become more covert, more implicit. Looking at microaggressions gives educational researchers and school personnel the opportunity to examine how gender nonconforming or non-heterosexual youth, or those perceived to be non-heterosexual, are assaulted, invalidated …

The Massachusetts Early Education And Care: Professional Development Study, Anne Douglass, Alice Carter, Frank Smith

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

This study is a research-policy partnership. This study used workforce registry (n=55,768) and professional development attendance data to examine early educator characteristics and patterns of professional development participation in one state.

In the paper, we describe how these new workforce data can inform professional development. We present the concept of density in professional development participation, discuss its potential benefits, and highlight the utility of state-wide digital tracking of early educators’ patterns of professional development for informing policy. We suggest that professional development policy can impact professional development participation density, and can thus be used intentionally to promote investments that have …

Teacher Professional Standards, Accountability, And Ideology: Alternative Discourses, Katarina Tuinamuana

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Teacher professional standards and accountability are today writ large on the landscape of both schooling and teacher education practice around the world. This paper explores some of the related debates through a discussion of four discourses on teacher professional standards: namely, discourses of commonsense, professionalism and quality, managerialism/performativity, and strategic manoeuvring. It is argued that each of these discourses legitimises particular understandings of standards and quality, illustrating the competing set of lenses through which they are viewed, as well as the broader ideologies from which they emerge, including neoliberalism and technical rationality. These discourses also represent the interpretive practice that …

Part-Time Faculty In Higher Education: A Selected Annotated Bibliography, Robert Pankin, Carla Weiss

Sociology Department Faculty Publications

At this writing (Fall 2011), two-thirds of the faculty in higher education are contingent part-time or full-time. Only one-third of the faculty is tenured or on the tenure-track. This selected, annotated bibliography is organized by year of publication, from 1977 to 2010. (An earlier version was published in 2008.) It is the purpose of this publication to facilitate understanding of the meaning and implications of this major change in the structure of higher education. The annotations in the bibliography were written from the perspective of a part-time faculty member, unlike most of the literature, which is written from a management …

The Face Of Society, Roger D. Clark, Alex Nunes

Faculty Publications

We have updated Ferree and Hall's (1990) study of the way gender and race are constructed through pictures in introductory sociology textbooks. Ferree and Hall looked at 33 textbooks published between 1982 and 1988. We replicated their study by examining 3,085 illustrations in a sample of 27 textbooks, most of which were published between 2002 and 2006. We found important areas of progress in the presentation of both gender and race as well as significant areas of stasis. The face of society we found depicted in contemporary textbooks was distinctly less likely to be that of a white man, very …

Balancing Yin And Yang, Roger D. Clark, Angela Lang

Faculty Publications

The first three-quarters of the semester flew by. We learned about quantitative data analysis and I loved it. I really enjoyed the numerical manipulations and seeing how it all related to people. Everything was there in front of me. Not too much imagination on my part was really needed. Then it all ended. Professor Clark introduced qualitative methods and the anxiety began. I soon realized I had to reinvent my creative side, which is something that as an undergraduate I am not required to do very often. I was nervous that I would discover that I was not creative at …

Alternative School Administrators "At Risk": What Does It Mean For Children?, Christopher Dunbar Jr.

Trotter Review

Alternative public schools have evolved from their origins in school choice and the progressive education movement of the 1920's into a system of schools that have become the assigned "dumping ground" for a population of ill-prepared, behaviorally disruptive youth, a population that is also disproportionately composed of minority students. Research suggests these schools fall short of providing an optimal educational opportunity for their students. There are multiple factors that place alternative school administrators "at risk" of failing in their charge to educate. Using a case study from a Midwestern alternative school, the author focuses on policy and the role of …

Rhode Island Teachers Ahead Of The Crowd, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"For teachers this is the time to enjoy the summer break to travel, stay home with their own children or just take a vacation. But for the majority there is something called professional development. Summer is the usual time when teachers go back to school to hone their skills, learn more about their subject area, work for advanced degrees or pick up some new practices for that high tech equipment sitting in the classroom. Like may other professionals who want to advance their careers and keep up with new ideas and practices, teachers also take courses during the school year …

There's Good News From The Nation's Classrooms, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"Last May at the finals of the National Geographic Bee held in Washington, DC, Alex Trebeck was getting concerned because he thought that he would be running out of questions for the ten finalists who came from throughout the country. Well, he did have enough, although it was close.

In the previous year it took just 80 questions to determine a winner of the Bee, an annual event sponsored by the National Geographic Society in which over five million kids nationwide from grades four through eight compete. In 1999, however, it took 140 questions before a winner was determined. In …

Excellence In Geography In The Schools, Chester Smolski, Anne K. Petry

Smolski Texts

"Most people know of the National Geographic Society through its well-know magazine, nine million of which are mailed out each month and most of which now reside in attics throughout the world.

"But what many do not realize is the $80 million effort over the past 12 years that the Geographic has made in the schools of the country to make our teachers an children better understand the world around them. This it has done throuh its support of the Geography Alliances established in every state, Canada, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia."

Helping Teachers Help Students Enjoy Geography, Chester Smolski, Anne K. Petry

Smolski Texts

"The concern to improve the education of your young people, whether at the national, state or local levels, is manifesting itself in a variety of ways. One of these is the national program sponsored by the National Geographic Society.

Turned On Teachers Help Students Tune In To Geography, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"If you hear your youngster just home from school talking about some local issues related to transportation, land use, natural resources, air quality, water pollution, zoning, population growth or economic development, you can bet that she has been turned on by her geography teacher."

Teachers Make Marks In, Out Of Classroom, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"Doing field work on the Northern Fur Seals of Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska; laboring in the lab at the University of Texas; examining gender and geography at Trinity College in Hartford; finding out about China at Yale; doing surveys on tourism and sustainability at the University of Maine; studying with the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. and teaching and working with other teachers at Roger Williams University and Rhode Island College, 20 Teacher Consultants (TCs) of the Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance had themselves a busy and productive summer."

On Students, Standards, Employers And Jobs, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"The recent an first national census survey on hiring, training and management practices in business in this country statistically reaffirmed the complaints of business leaders made a decade ago--young people coming out of our schools are not ready nor qualified for the workplace."

Geographically, R.I. Teachers Are Among The Best, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"Isn't it time that we recognize the good teachers and good work being done in the schools of this state rather than constantly harping on problems with education and how our students don't measure up to those in other countries?"

Bringing Geography To Life!, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"When Gil Grosvenor, president of the National Geographic Society, called a meeting of Kit Salter and other geographers from California nearly a decade ago, he had no idea that the discussion would have a profound impact on the teaching of geography in the nation's schools."

Attacking Geographic Illiteracy, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"It has been clearly demonstrated through numerous surveys that US residents are among the most geographically illiterate people in the world. Whether trying to locate our own country or the Soviet Union on a world map, we score among the lowest of the major industrial nations of the world in such a simple exercise. But the future looks brighter, both in the nation and in Rhode Island, thanks to the efforts of the National Geographic Society.

Our Place On The Map, Chester Smolski, Anne K. Petry

Smolski Texts

"National Geography Awareness Week (Nov. 11-17) will have special significance for the schools of Rhode Island. The National Geographic Society has just awarded a $1000 planning grant to the two of us, one of such seven awards granted this year, to begin the process by which all of our schools may again bring geography to its full importance in the curriculum."

Wanted: Live-In Teachers, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and Cleveland all have it--a residency requirement--and so does Providence. Having to live in the city for which you work has been deemed to be an important measure in helping to bring people back into the city, and that was the reason it was included in the 1980 Home Rule Charter."

How To Keep Teachers In R.I., Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"Should Providence city employees be forced to live in the city? The Home Rule Charter, adopted five years ago, requires them to do so. The executive secretary of the Providence Teachers' Union states that this requirement should not apply to teachers. But, is dropping the residency requirement the answer to the problem of finding adequate numbers of substitute and full-time teachers?"

Residency And The Charter, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"When Providence voters approved a home rule charter in 1980, they took a major step forward in choosing their own destiny, rather than relying on the General Assembly to approve many of their actions. To implement the resulting changes, the date for full compliance of the charter was set at 1983. And since that time, newly hired city workers are required to live in Providence."

Education: Catalyst For Work Skills, Chester Smolski

Smolski Texts

"When Swarthmore College awarded a full scholarship to an indigent teenager it had little idea that Eugene Lang would become a successful New York business executive who would, in time, become a major benefactor to the college. But Eugene Lang is better known for his investment in an even younger group of students at his former elementary school to whom he promised full college scholarships if they would finish high school. And early returns from this group of children, most of who are poor ad minorities, is that they are still attending school and looking to the future."