Education Commons^™

First-Generation, Income-Eligible Peer Mentor Study, Charlotte L. Giscombe

Dissertations

This study was designed to determine how mentoring affects the peer mentor. Despite the proliferation of peer mentoring programs, little research has been conducted to consider how mentoring affects the peer mentor's attitudes, leadership ability, and academic accomplishments when engaging in a mentoring relationship.

The focus of this study is on the at-risk peer mentors who are part of the federally funded Student Support Services (SSS) located on a midwestern university campus, and seeks to ascertain whether their grade point average, retention, graduation rates, self-confidence, self-esteem, self-worth, and leadership abilities are changed by serving in a mentoring relationship. Since these …

Effective Intervention Approaches For Increased Student Achievement With At-Risk Middle School Students: Voices From Parents, Susan J. Peets

Dissertations

Parent involvement is closely linked to student achievement. Research suggests that students, families, and schools benefit from active participation by families in the process of educating children. Many parents provide a broad range of support to their children, although, currently no common agreement on the most effective forms of parent support exists.

This study focused on the gap in the literature as to the needs of middle school at-risk students' parents. Qualitative methods were used to explore how parents of twelve at-risk middle school students (identified by low academic achievement scores of reading at least one year below grade level …

Bilingual Education, Federalism, And The Political Culture Of American Public Education, 1964-1980, Robert Harold Duke

Dissertations

Five decades of English-only orthodoxy in American public schools came to an end with the passage of the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 (BEA). This research investigates how the convergence of community activism, ethnic pride, and union clout shaped and reshaped bilingual education programming at thelocal level within the broader context of post-WWII American society. By comparing and contrasting the experiences of communities in Texas and Michigan with the newly enacted BEA, this study illuminates the changing political culture of school governance from the high-water mark of Johnson-era liberalism tothe surging tide of Reaganite conservatism. It asserts that the tradition …