Education Commons^™

Unpacking The Implementation Of Restorative Practices: A Case Study Of Race, Equity, And Change, Theresa Helyn Holtsbery

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This research examined two types of change enacted by implementing Restorative Practices to address racially disproportionate disciplinary practices at an urban middle school. The first was change at a systemic, organizational level and the second as a paradigm shift in the negotiation of race, equity, authority, and Restorative Practices. The research explores essential change components in the planning, enactment, and sustainability of RP implementation and details the history and rationale for selecting RP. This study also explores the perspectives and actions of school staff as they negotiate the intersections of RP, race, equity, and authority. Qualitative data was collected during …

Educational Leadership In Middle Schools: Informal Teacher Leaders, Mary Ann Luciano

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Quality educational leadership has been shown to have a strong positive relationship with student achievement (Louis et al., 2010). Successful schools do not depend upon a single charismatic leader but on many individuals collaborating and using their collective leadership skills (Grissam et al., 2021; Jackson & Marriott, 2012; Ogawa & Bossert, 1995; Pounder et al., 1995). To attain excellent student success, a school must engage its full leadership capacity (Fullan, 2001; Leithwood & Jantzi, 2008; Klar & Brewer, 2013; Leithwood et al. 2004). This includes teachers. Teacher leadership, an elusive concept with various definitions, has received growing attention from scholars …

Unpacking Athletics: An Exploration Of Identity Development For Division I Women College Athletes, Kathleen E. Scanlon

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This dissertation explored how former Division I National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) women athletes made meaning of their undergraduate experience and how it influenced their post-graduate lives. The study research questions focused on three areas: a) how participants constructed meaning from their athletic experiences and what role those experiences had in shaping their identity; b) how the participants made sense of the various systems they experienced and what bearing various identities had on their meaning making; and c) what concrete knowledge, skills and qualities participants felt they possessed today that they attribute to their intercollegiate athletic experiences.

Three semi-structured interviews …

Teacher Candidate And Standardized Student Interactions Following Verbal Threats Of Harm: Navigation Of Authority, Displays Of Care, And Solutions, Eryka Dever Murphey

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This exploratory qualitative study examines teacher candidate and student interactions in response to verbal threats of harm. This study uses existing data: a single set of 16 clinical simulations and four post-simulation debriefing sessions. Participants include eight female and eight male teacher candidates (n = 16) who interact with one of six presumed male standardized students. This study explores teacher candidates’ dispositions of authority and care and their solutions to threatening behavior in verbal interactions with the upset adolescent student, Casey Butler.

In this study, teacher candidates rely on coercive, legitimate, and personal authority more than competent authority and authority …

The Associations Between Family Socioeconomic Status, Family Expectations, And Child Academic Achievement Via Nurturant-Involved Parenting, Teacher–Student Relationship, And Academic Self-Regulation In Chinese Families, Lei Jin

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Chinese parents place a high value on their children’s academic excellence and have high career aspirations for their children. Family socioeconomic status (FSES) and family expectations on children’s future achievement play pivotal roles in children’s academic achievement. Using data from the 2014 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and structural equation modeling techniques, the pathways of association between FSES and children’s academic achievement through family expectations on children’s future achievement, parenting strategies, teacher–student relationship, and academic self-regulation were examined. The sample included 802 families with children between 10 and 13 years (46% girls and 58.4% children from rural areas). Higher family …

Critical Aspirations: Disability, Education, And Community Cultural Wealth In A Sanctuary City, Chelsea Stinson

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This study explores the needs and experiences of refugee parents of emergent bilingual students labeled as disabled (EB/LADs) and their networks of interpreters and community-based educators. This investigation focuses on the relationships (and disconnects) within these networks related to language, migration, culture, race, disability, and special education experiences in formal and community-based schooling contexts. The bulk of extant scholarship regarding parental experiences in special education typically centers school-based experiences rather than community- and home-based experiences, such as daily acts of nurturing and communication (e.g., Cioè-Peña, 2018). However, school-based spaces, processes, and resources are in many ways inaccessible to EB/LAD families …

“A Sense Of Safe Connection”: An Affective Narrative Exploration With Queer Teenage Writers In An Out-Of-School Time Program, Gemma Cooper-Novack

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This dissertation explores three adolescent writers’ and one adult writing instructor’s development of and visceral relationship to writer identity and LGBTQ+ identity through the development of an out-of-school time community of writers, Write It Out, on Zoom over the course of three months. Making critical use of affect theory (Dutro, 2019a & 2019b; Ahmed, 2002; Ehret, 2018), the study asks the following research questions: 1) How do LGBTQ+ teenagers’ experiences and identities manifest in a queer virtual OST community of writers?; 2) How did these LGBTQ+ teenagers’ affective experiences meet those of their instructor, a queer writer and educator, in …

Effects Of Applying A Think-Pair-Share (Tps) Structure To Asynchronous Online Discussions (Aods) On Students’ Performances: A Mixed Methods Study, Tianxiao Yang

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Asynchronous online discussion (AOD) has been a common instructional activity in the online learning context of higher education. However, previous studies suggested that students did not achieve the expected academic performances in AODs. This study proposed the think-pair-share (TPS) structure of cooperative learning as an instructional solution to improve students’ performances in AODs. Through integrating a TPS structure with multiple cooperative learning principles into a set of AODs, the researcher sequentially investigated three research questions: 1) if a student cohort participating in the TPS AODs would perform better than another student cohort participating in non-TPS AODs, 2) which small grouping …

White Out: An Analysis Of Presentations Of Race And Ethnicity In U.S. Inclusive Education Textbooks, Phillandra Samantha Smith

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Textbooks are heavily used in the United States and throughout the world as a medium between students and fields of knowledge. In the field of education, textbooks are a primary source through which pre-service teachers gain expert knowledge and develop their professional stature. Inclusive education textbooks used in introductory courses have a particular significance in that they help to shape the pre-service teacher’s understanding of the field by providing access to information and ideas at a time when prospective teachers are beginning to formulate their pedagogical and philosophical beliefs. The purpose of this study was to analyze engagement with race …

Reading Privileges: Enacting Critical Race English Education In English Language Arts Classrooms, Keith Newvine

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This dissertation uses practitioner inquiry (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, 2009), narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly, 1990; Rolling & Bey, 2016; Schaafsma & Vinz, 2011; Toliver, 2020a), composite character counterstorytelling (Baker-Bell, 2020), and critical discourse analysis (Bloome et al., 2008; Bloome & Power-Carter, 2013; Fairclough, 2003; Power-Carter, 2008; Rogers, 2004; van Dijk, 1993) to present findings from a 10-month qualitative study of the understanding and enactment of critical race English education (CREE) (Johnson, 2018, 2021) in one school and the effect of one teacher’s enactment of CREE (Johnson, 2018, 2021) on youth’s understanding of antiracism. Informed by critical whiteness studies (Applebaum, …

Three Essays On Education And Childhood Health, Stephanie Grau Coffey

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This dissertation is comprised of three essays on education and childhood health. Each chapter examines the effect of health or health insurance coverage during childhood on schooling outcomes. Chapters 1 and 3 estimate the impact of insurance coverage for disability-related healthcare on academic and behavioral outcomes for students with disabilities. Chapter 1 exploits variation in Medicaid coverage for mental and behavioral healthcare generated by the Rosie D. vs. Patrick class action lawsuit. The resulting reforms improved outcomes for students diagnosed with an emotional disturbance and enabled them to be educated in more inclusive settings. The attendance rate for students with …

Examining The Individual And Systemic Factors Associated With School Counselors' Leadership Practices, Derron Hilts

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School counseling leadership is essential in addressing systemic inequities and barriers that negatively impact students' personal/social, academic, and college and career development. The American School Counseling Association has long-identified school counseling leadership as a cornerstone and has primarily operationalized this construct through program implementation. As such, the profession's empirical understanding of school counseling leadership is still in its infancy. Specifically, there is a dearth of literature that has conceptually or empirically identified or examined the individual and systemic factors, specifically through an ecological lens, that influence school counselors' leadership. Thus, using hierarchical regression analysis, this study examined the relationship between …

The Mentoring Relationship As Experienced By Female Counselor Educators, Kellin Murphy Cavanaugh

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Using Constructivist Grounded Theory as a methodological approach and Feminist Standpoint Theory as a theoretical framework, this study sought to investigate and define the processes throughout the mentoring relationship as experienced by female counselor educators. This study yielded the Female-Responsive Mentoring Model for effective mentorship for female counselor educators over the course of their academic and career trajectories. Findings from this study indicate that effective mentorship is a beneficial practice that assists female counselor educators and doctoral students in developing more confidence in their abilities, increase likelihood of doctoral program completion, and increase research productivity.

An Exploration Of Self-Identity Experiences Within The Lives Of Afro-Caribbean Women Undergraduate College Students: A Feminist Phenomenological Study, Shana J. Gelin

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The purpose of this feminist phenomenological dissertation was to explore the self-identity experiences of Afro-Caribbean women undergraduate college students. In doing so, self-identity experiences, ethnic marginalization, and counseling experiences were explored for six participants. Data was collected and analyzed using Simone De Beauvoir's feminist framework of self-discovery/ rediscovery where two semi-structured interviews were conducted for each participant. This study resulted in six individual profiles illuminating the voices of each participant as well as collective themes. Findings from this study show that Afro-Caribbean women undergraduate college students filter their self-identity experiences through their ethnicity; meaning that participants understand other pieces of …

Decision-Making For Teacher Professional Development: An Analysis Of Contributing Factors, Jennifer Heckathorn

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This is a sequential explanatory mixed-methods study of teachers' professional development experiences within two Educational Service Agencies in the northeastern part of the United States. It examines how much and what types of professional development teachers receive, and the factors that contribute to school leaders' decisions for offering professional development and teachers' decisions for participating in professional development. The study was based on what the field knows about the characteristics of effective professional development, and the lack of comparison between those traits and what we know about current professional development practices.

The study is composed of multiple phases, which include …

Pockets Of Promise: A Phenomenological Study Of Experienced Special Education Teachers Working With Students With Emotional Disturbance In An Alternative Program, Jennifer L. Dibello

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Abstract

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and understand, from the perspective of experienced Special Education Teachers, successful practices and barriers in meeting the needs of students with emotional disturbance (ED) in Special Education Alternative programs. The study aims to gain an in-depth understanding, from the lived experiences of special education teachers, the critical elements required for comprehensive instructional and social-emotional learning (SEL) supports and services in meeting the diverse needs of ED students. Additionally, this research was conducted to gain insight into the barriers and systematic challenges in fulfilling the school's original intention of transitioning students …

Mental Health Service Use Disparities Among Latinx Communities: An Intersectional Examination Of The Role Of Skin Color, Acculturative Stress, Racial Discrimination, And Mental Health Literacy, Kirsis Allennys Dipre Montes De Oca

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This study utilized logistic and hierarchical regression to examine the impact of skin color, acculturative stress, mental health literacy, and experiences of racial discrimination on the lifetime use of mental health services through an intersectional lens. More specifically, the current study examined the Latinx ethnic identity, US-born status, across the skin color spectrum to better understand mental health service use disparities. Participants' (n = 173) mental health service use was measured at two levels, first, the overall number of hours of sessions attended and second overall hours of sessions of specific types of mental health services attended. Results indicated skin …

Civic Education And Citizenship Education: A Qualitative Study Of Secondary Social Studies Teachers' Understandings Of The Concepts And Practices Of Citizenship Education For Immigrant Students, Diana Fidaoui

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Citizenship education is the bedrock for the (re)making of future adult citizens in mono and multicultural democratic nations, and social studies is typically and optimally the premier discipline that primes students for engaged citizenry. Anti-immigrant sentiments towards fourth wave immigrants and the nearly absent research on and training for teachers in citizenship education for immigrant students rendered the complex preparation of these youngsters for active and participatory roles an increasingly demanding work in progress for social studies teachers in U.S. public schools. This reality challenges teachers' re-examination of historically contested meanings of civic and citizenship education and their citizenship pedagogies …

How Do The Functions That School Business Officials Perform Affect Teaching And Learning, And Do School Business Officials Take These Effects Into Account In Performing Their Work, Oliver Blaise

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ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study is to investigate the work that school business leaders perform in four different school districts in New York State, and to find what the impact of this work is on instruction. The research is titled, "How Do the Functions That School Business Officials Perform Affect Teaching and Learning, and Do School Business Officials Take These Effects Into Account in Performing Their Work? The method of study is a comparative case study. It requires that the researcher collect data by reviewing documents of the school districts, interviewing district personnel, and by observation of the district's practices …