Education Commons^™

Understanding Children's Museums' Approaches To Diversity: A Critical And Socio-Cultural Investigation, Amber Nicole Smith

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Children begin to develop self-awareness and awareness of others at an early age (Marion, 2011). Before they reach kindergarten, children begin to make distinctions about race by noticing similarities and differences between themselves and others (Winkler, 2009). Exposing young children to diversity can help each child embrace their identity, accept and celebrate differences, and be accepting of themselves and others (Cole & Verwayne, 2018).

The purpose of this study is to explore how children’s museums support diversity through their programs and planning. The research of this study focuses on four children’s museums located in the United States. There are many …

Effects Of Engagements And Presentation Order In Informal Science Presentations, William Henry Katzman

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Science museums conduct presentations for their audiences to attract and educate visitors, yet research on presentations has primarily concentrated on whether individual presentations were effective. This mixed-methods, quasi-experimental study looks at how the presenter’s mental and physical engagements within a presentation affects audience members by altering sociocultural context of the presentation.

Physical engagements involve asking audience members to physically participate, while mental engagements involved asking audience members to make predictions prior to observing a demonstration. Audiences were given presentations containing: 1) Both mental and physical engagements, 2) Physical engagements only, 3) Mental engagements only or 4) No engagements (control).

This …

An Evaluation Of The Break Up With Salt Community-Based Hypertension Education Program, Helena L. Salgado

LSU Master's Theses

Introduction: Hypertension is a primary risk factor for heart disease and stroke, and contributes to renal disease, premature death, and disability. More recently, hypertension has also been identified as a risk factor for serious symptoms or as an underlying cause of death from Covid-19. Break up with salt (BUWS) is a 4-session, community-based nutrition education program of the LSU AgCenter, developed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, to help Louisiana’s adults prevent or mange hypertension. The BUWS curriculum focuses on the DASH diet, healthy food selection and preparation skills, and physical activity and stress management. BUWS was piloted in a …

Documenting Desire: Addressing The Educational Needs Of Undocumented English Learners, Alejandra Sofia Torres

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

While research on motivation in second language acquisition is copious and the interest in undocumented youth within the education field is growing, there is a need to closely examine the intersection of being both undocumented and an English Learner (EL) and how this intersection often limits ELs, especially those in underserved schools. Using ethnographic methods, this dissertation documents the educational experiences of thirty-one Spanish-speaking ELs in a predominately of color, urban, working-class high school in the southeastern United States. EL participants were ages fourteen through twenty with varying non-citizen immigrant statuses. Semi-structured interviews and field notes were collected during the …

I Am Complicated, And So Is My Blackness: A Trifecta Exploration Of Educational Spaces And Identity Development, Kala Burrell-Craft

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Myriads of research studies have been written over the past 20 years highlighting the racial gap and disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes between Black and White students, but as revealed in a review of the literature, more studies need to be conducted that examine the intersection of race, space/place, and racial identity development. Using critical race theory as a framework, this study comprised of three separate, but related essays that explore the function of educational spaces in which Black Americans navigate, grow, and develop as it intersects with race, space/place, and identity development. Essay one is a critical narrative …

The Impact Of Video Self-Reflection On Teacher Practice, Michelle Grantham-Caston

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this research study was to analyze the teacher’s ability to utilize video self-reflection as a structured learning tool to enhance their teaching practice and CLASS scores. Research has demonstrated that teachers are better able to be self-reflective when provided with a framework (Calandra, Gurvitch, & Lund, 2008). Literature has documented video self-reflection and CLASS as links for growth in children and professional development support for teachers (Pianta, Mashburn, Downer, Hammer, & Justice, 2008). Results from the present study indicated that the teachers became increasingly aware of the CLASS Toddler tool criteria through scoring their own behaviors, which …

How American Is The American College Fraternity? Examining The European Legacy Within The U.S. Greek System, Andrew Thomas Bell

LSU Master's Theses

In this study, a cultural dissemination model is used to identify the cultural markers a fraternalism across multiple educational environments all in an attempt to answer the question “How American is the American college fraternity?” Aspects of modern fraternities and sororities were broken down and their historical predecessors were identified in order to track cultural dissemination, or diffusion. “Diffusion is the spread of culture traits and, as Wissler (140,146) and Bartlett (7) have demonstrated, this spread may be either conscious or unconscious” (Willey & Herskovits, 1927, p. 263). Primarily systems the broad European Fraternalism, European Universities (German and English), American …

The Influence Of Cultural And Contextual Factors On The Scoring Decisions Of Rural Louisiana Principals During The Implementation Of The Compass System For Teacher Evaluation, Keith Michael Courville

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As a result of the federal grant competition and policy initiative known as Race to the Top (RTTT), states began an examination and reform of the methods by which they evaluated teachers. Upon examination of the historical results of a multitude of evaluation systems, it was revealed that the majority of teachers score in the upper echelons of their performance reviews, in sharp contrast to the level of academic achievement or academic growth of students of US students. After many reforms and the implementation of new teacher evaluation systems, such as the Compass system in Louisiana, the same positive skew …

Taming Place: Faubourg Tremé, The Insurgence Of Interstate 10, And The Redefinition Of Black Educational Space, Reagan Patrick Mitchell

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In most of the United States, the central area situated between boulevards is referred to as the median; however in New Orleans, Louisiana, since the Civil War, the area is called the neutral ground. This qualitative study concerns the neutral ground area of the segment of North Claiborne Avenue which runs through Faubourg Tremé, the oldest Black neighborhood in the United States. My interest in this specific space stems from the fact that I understand it as a space of Black education. The problem is that between the years of 1961 and 1969 the government procured the neutral ground as …

Exploring The Implementation Of Reading Common Core State Standards In An Elementary School Setting, Lacy Alane Davis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study explored the implementation process of five teachers and two administrators of the Common Core State Standards in Reading. This ethnographic case study investigates one groups’ attitudes and instructional practices. The researcher focused on three questions in order to provide an in-depth analysis of the data collected. These questions include: How do educators implement and develop reading curriculum from the Common Core State Standards? How does the mandated requirements of the CCSS impact the attitudes of reading teachers? How do primary grade teachers approach the CCSS in comparison to upper elementary teachers? The study followed an ethnographic analysis method …

Voices From The Coolest Corner Of Hell: A Content Analysis Of Slave Narratives In The Study Of Creolization In The Education Of 19th Century African American Slaves, Gina M. Rizzuto

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The general argument made by Southern historian, Ulrich Bonnell Phillips in 1918, is that the plantation functioned as a type of school for the slave. Similarly, in 1976, Anthony Gerald Albanese examined the plantation system as an institution that conditioned the behaviors of both slaves and slave owners. I maintain that the plantation system was not only an educative agency that conditioned behaviors, but also a conduit for the creolization process. The focus of this study is creolization in the education of African American slaves in the nineteenth century. This is a mixed methods content analysis of African American slave …

Teacher Insights On High-Stakes Standardized Assessments: The Impact Of School Reform Policy On The Classroom, Jennifer Timmer

LSU Master's Theses

Education reform policies have focused on high-stakes assessments primarily utilizing standardized tests for accountability purposes. As testing practices have evolved due to a variety of factors throughout the past century or so, they have become fully integrated into public schooling in the United States. These tests are having a marked impact on teachers and education, as teachers feel pressure to produce exceptional student results and modify their instructional practices, often “teaching to the test” and narrowing the curriculum in order to focus on the requirements of the mandates. This study examines a survey of public school teachers to ascertain their …

The Lived Experience Of Discovery Of Purpose In Student Affairs Among Emerging Professionals, Nicholas Anthony Clegorne

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Clegorne, Nicholas Anthony, B.M. University of Florida, 2002, M.M. University of Florida, 2004 Doctor of Philosophy Major: Educational Leadership and Research The Lived Experience of Discovery of Purpose in Student Affairs among Emerging Professionals Dissertation directed by Associate Professor Roland Mitchell Pages in dissertation, 146. Words in abstract, 297. ABSTRACT Some researchers estimate that as many as three out of five new professionals will leave the field of student affairs within the first five years. Furthermore low job satisfaction has been cited heavily among new professionals in student affairs. The alarming recognition that so many young professionals are unhappy and …

A Study Of The Louisiana Community And Technical College System's Leadership Development Institute And The Impact Of Participation, Peggy Leonard Hohensee

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Begun in 2001, the Leadership Development Institute (LDI) was created by the Louisiana Community and Technical College System (LCTCS) as a means of improving the leadership abilities of faculty, staff, and administrative personnel throughout the system, a “grow your own” leadership program (Leadership Development, 2006). LDI has evolved into a nine-month program of presentations, lectures, mentoring, self-exploration activities, and internships. The purpose of this mixed methods study was to determine the impact of participation in LDI on the career and educational goals of former cohort members. Phase One of this research project, the qualitative portion of the study, was composed …

Propelled By Faith: Henriette Delille And The Literacy Practices Of Black Women Religious In Antebellum New Orleans, Donna Marie Porche-Frilot

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The ability to imagine literacy influences the way we historicize literacy and research its dilemmas and challenges. Recent trends in literacy theorizing and research forwarded by New Literacy Studies scholars such Deborah Brandt and Brian Street have converged around contextualized approaches to literacy, directing educators to new imaginings of both our literacy-present and our literacy-past. This study draws upon this expanded literacy framework to theorize literacy in the lives of antebellum black women religious of New Orleans. The focus of the study is Henriette Delille (1812-1862), a free woman of color who founded the Sisters of the Holy Family (1842), …

"I Pray It Happens In My Lifetime": The Life History Of Clara Byrd Glasper, A Black Woman Educator Fighting For Educational Equality, Carol Marie Miller

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to write the life history of a black woman educator is order to enhance our understandings of educational activism and social change in the Deep South. African American educators have been marginalized and under represented in their communities despite the roles they have played in ameliorating educational inequalities. The life history of seventy-year-old Clara Byrd Glasper’s activism as a black woman educator is one example. Life history, as a method of research, reveals an individual’s life experiences from their perspective and provides the appropriate methodology to explore the following research questions: In the context …

Literacy As A Performing Art: A Phenomenological Study Of Oral Dramatic Reading, Neva Virginia Cramer

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Based on semiotic, aesthetic response, reader response, and drama in education theories, this phenomenological study seeks to describe the literary experience of text through oral interpretation for middle to high SES, fourth and eighth grade students as compared to Low SES fourth and eighth grade students. Using the research methodology of Moustakas (1994) and data analysis of Teddlie (2000), this study proposes to describe and understand the relation of literary understanding and oral dramatic expression implicit in the descriptive paralinguistic and chronemic patternizations of the oral rendition of text and describe the act of reading as phenomenology. Descriptions of the …

Reconceiving Curriculum: An Historical Approach, Stephen Shepard Triche

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation reconceives curriculum through an historical approach that employs Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. Curriculum is more than the knowledge taught in school. Curriculum, as I a theorist conceives it, is concerned with the broader intellectual and ideological ways a society thinks about education. Hence, the current school curriculum’s focus on specific learning outcomes offers a limited view of the knowledge fashioned by a society, thereby offering an intellectual and social history that is highly selective. Wittgenstein’s concept of “language-games” offers curricularists a way to re-include some of these stories. The concept of curriculum emerges at the end of the …