Education Commons^™

Developing Specialized Master's Programs In Business Schools: The Convergence Of Mission And Markets, Elizabeth Johansson Bristol

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Practical problems can emerge when new academic programs are developed. If program development decisions are driven primarily by desires for enrollment growth and revenue generation, new programs may be created without clear connections to institutional missions or organizational core competencies. Additionally, introduction of new academic programs may generate internal conflict and competition for resources diminishing the capacity of both new and existing programs. Misalignment with mission, lack of connection to faculty expertise, and fierce internal competition for resources can create an environment where new academic programs are unlikely to thrive. The purpose of this multi-site case study was to understand …

Implementation Of Tuning In To Kids Social-Emotional Learning Program In The Kyrgyz Republic, Anasatsiia Iun

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

To date, no research on the influence of social-emotional learning (SEL) instruction on school violence and academic performance in the Kyrgyz Republic has been published. However, the current levels of school violence and poor academic performance in Kyrgyz schools warrant action. According to the UNICEF report (2012), 83% of students reported witnessing or experiencing instances of violence at school. Research has shown positive results of SEL instruction on reducing school violence in various countries (Taylor et al., 2017). Therefore, the goal of this study was to pilot the implementation of a Russian translation of the Tuning in to Kids program, …

“Si Se Puede”: Latinx/A/O Students Thriving At A Selective Historically White Institution, Melisa Alves

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The prevalence of whiteness at selective Historically White Institutions (HWIs) creates hostile and oppressive environments for Latinx/a/o students. Consequently, Latinx/a/o students face racialized barriers that impact their ability to thrive at these institutions. Yet, despite these racialized barriers, Latinx/a/o students have found ways to thrive at selective HWIs. Thriving is a transformative process through which one confronts and copes with challenges but is able to flourish. As part of the process, the transformation happens when one moves beyond the original level of functioning and grows psychologically despite the trauma experienced. The objective of this study was to move beyond the …

Unapologetic! Leading In White Spaces: A Critical Race Grounded Theory Study About The Experiences Of Black Women College Presidents At Four-Year Predominantly White Institutions And Gendered Racisms’S Influence On Their Leadership Approach, Damita A. Davis

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

For higher education to be responsive to the changing national and student population, its leadership must be “reflective of the world around it, (which) will be key to managing the challenges of today and the unknown challenges of tomorrow” (American Council on Education, 2017, para. 4). Unfortunately, despite the increasing diversity of the student body, college presidents remain primarily white; therefore, maintaining a limited view of leadership. Centering the experiences of Black women as a “strength to build, develop, and perform leadership” (Lloyd-Jones, 2016, p. 66), and understanding their ways of knowing, is an important step for postsecondary education in …

The Impact Of Campus Culture On Undergraduate Civic Engagement Outcomes, Kevin M. Kraft

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

One purpose of higher education is to prepare students to participate in a democratic society. This mission is particularly relevant today as the institutions of democracy and the ideas that underpin them are in recession. Despite this, evidence shows that higher education is not achieving its stated goal of fostering civic engagement. The creation and maintenance of an institutional culture can be an effective way to teach civic engagement.

The Carnegie Community Engagement Classification (CEC) signifies that a college or university has institutionalized community engagement. By comparing student civic engagement outcomes at institutions that earned the classification to a control …

The Black Box Of Enrollment Management: The Influence Of Academic Capitalism And Values Of The Public Good, Kamala C. Kiem

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The study addresses the widening income and racial access gap in higher education resulting from enrollment management teams’ operationalization of academic capitalism. The study focuses on the local, micro level, emphasizing how enrollment management leadership teams make sense of enrollment management, recognizing that enrollment management and the work of enrollment management stakeholders exist within an organizational space encompassing the values of both public good and academic capitalism. Using a case study methodology and critical sensemaking theory, the research explored how academic capitalism and values of the public good shaped enrollment management leadership teams’ sensemaking and sensegiving as they enacted decisions, …

Racial Justice Inc.: Deconstructing The Enactment Of Racial Justice In Dei/Social Justice-Focused Higher Education And Student Affairs (Hesa) Graduate Programs, Lorena Fuentes López

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Despite efforts of faculty in Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) programs focused on social justice/Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) to provide equitable educational experiences for their students, studies on these programs have shown that students of color continue to face racialized experiences in the classroom (Harris & Linder, 2018; Linder et al., 2015). This dissertation employed a multiple case study to examine two HESA master's programs with a specific social justice/DEI mission and integrated the voices of both faculty and students. Using intensive interviewing, document analysis, and class observations, the goal of this study centered on understanding the extent …

For Us By Us About Us: Constructing Latinx-Centered Higher Education Institutions, Cynthia K. Orellana

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Higher education institutions’ organizational identities, cultures, and praxis have neglected to honor the values, culture, and knowledge assets of Latinx communities, making it difficult to gain educational justice and equity, which could be attained through Latinx-centered models of higher education. The Latinx higher education experience needs to be deconstructed and reconstructed by resisting whiteness as normative and including People of Color as “holders and creators of knowledge” (Bernal, 2002). Alternatives to normative higher education institutions are limited in the literature, particularly those that have been founded by Latinx communities. Thus, the purpose of the study was to explore how organizational …

Hearing, Seeing, And Reading Is Believing: A Study Of Undergraduate Women And Messages About Careers, Sarah Elizabeth Isham

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This study sought to understand how undergraduate women from different racial and ethnic backgrounds make meaning of the different career messages they receive and how those messages shape their early career decisions. The study was framed by vocational anticipatory socialization (VAS) and meaning making. Participants reflected on the career messages they received from childhood through their college education. By using photos and images submitted in advance by each participant, participants were able to delve deeper into the meaning they derived from each image/photo as it related to their ideas about career paths. This study findings advance the understanding of messages …

An Actionable Step: Evaluating The Impact Of A Text-Based Vocabulary Intervention To Support Middle School Emergent Bilinguals’ Vocabulary Growth, Annisha R. H. Susilo

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Research over the last two decades has shown middle school EBs are at risk for academic failure due to compounded systematic challenges that prevented them from acquiring reading proficiency level required to succeed in academic setting (Bowman-Perrott et al., 2010; Deussen et al., 2017; Sheng et al., 2011; Slama, 2012). EBs face shortages of qualified teachers, lack of access to quality instruction, and lack of appropriate assessment tools (Carnoy & Garcia, 2017; Sanchez, 2017; Umansky, 2016). This crisis is particularly acute for middle schoolers, as academic content often requires extensive reading. Middle school EBs are falling behind academically in comparison …

Impacts Of Attribution Style On Academics, Personal Relationships, And Extracurricular Activities: A Mixed Methods Study Of Learned Helplessness In Secondary Students, Joslyn Vendola

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The phenomenon of learned helplessness is the state in which an individual no longer views their outcomes as contingent upon their effort in response to previous failure outcomes and stressful events which were out of their control. Learned helplessness symptoms are often observed amongst students who experience other challenges simultaneously, such as low academic achievement, emotional disability (ED) diagnosis, and/or low-socioeconomic status (low-SES). The existing LH research focuses on identification, labeling, and offering interventions, such as learned optimism (LO) and attribution retraining. The lack of qualitative data, specifically student input, is a gap in the current body of research that …

Consciousness And Context For Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Crp): A Case Study Of White Faculty Working To Learn About And Implement Crp In Their Teaching Practice, Isabelle A. Jenkins

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Pedagogical practices traditionally used by faculty in U.S. higher education tend to value and center white students and their success, simultaneously disregarding the learning strengths of Students of Color. The misalignment of pedagogical practices with how Students of Color may learn best could be contributing to completion gaps between white students and Students of Color. To close these gaps, it is imperative for faculty to shift their pedagogical practices to ones that uplift, honor, and resonate with Students of Color, particularly white faculty who continue to be the majority among the professoriate. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) is a pedagogical practice …

Schooling With Racial Equity At The Center: A Case Study Exploration Of One Elementary School-Based Leadership Team, Michael L. Baulier

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Pre-K–12 schooling in the United States has historically and systemically promoted ideas of Black inferiority while safeguarding the characteristics of white supremacy culture embedded in all aspects of the education system. The notion of white dominance is evident throughout studies, policies, and reports from district, state, and federal officials who have been tasked with closing the achievement gap but instead have assigned blame to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students and families. An analysis of the history of U.S. public education reveals not a single achievement gap but multiple opportunity gaps that perpetuate the subjugation of Black students …

Re-Envisioning Self And Community: The Experiences Of Pilipina American Students With Colonial Mentality And Decolonization, Kristine Angelica Din

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the invisibility of Pilipina American narratives in higher education by investigating colonialism and colonial mentality and how they may shape the experiences of Pilipina American undergraduate students in higher education. This study was framed by Pinayism (Tintiangco-Cubales, 2005; Tintiangco-Cubales & Sacramento, 2009), Strobel’s (2001) decolonization framework, and the Colonial Mentality Scale (CMS) (David & Okazaki, 2006b). Participants reflected upon their life stories to explore and make meaning of the ways their lives have been informed by events that have occurred and the messages they received from their families, peers, teachers, and communities. Participants also engaged with indigenous, …

Caged Animals: The Reproduction Of Social And Educational Inequalities In Indian Secondary Schools, Vishakha Agarwal

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

There is a continued crisis in public schooling in India’s low-income and socially disadvantaged communities. Schools are supposed to provide a safe and healthy environment conducive to learning that ultimately helps to disrupt the transmission of intergenerational poverty and leads to social and economic mobility among low-income and socially disadvantaged students. In practice, however, schools have served to disproportionately exclude marginalized populations from attaining quality education. Previous research has revealed that less affluent students attend under-resourced schools in buildings with poor infrastructural facilities and fewer or unqualified teachers (India Infrastructure Report, 2012), where they face hidden normative barriers that negatively …

Professional Identity Development Of Asian American & Pacific Islander Aanapisi Staff, Sara Boxell Hoang

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

In spite of a swiftly growing AAPI undergraduate student population, higher education staff remain predominantly White with AAPIs significantly underrepresented within the field. The underrepresentation of AAPI professional staff is a problem not only because it may represent a lack of a career pipeline for AAPIs entering the workforce, but it also negatively impacts the large population of AAPI students who struggle to access and succeed in higher education. Contrary to prevalent stereotypes and misconceptions, many AAPI undergraduates are first-generation college students, come from low-income backgrounds, and struggle to obtain bachelor’s degrees (Maramba, 2011). Although AAPIs in predominately White fields …

Substantially Silent: Exploring The Variability Of “Voice” At The Intersection Of Race And Dis/Ability In A Restrictive Special Education Placement, Christopher N. Hall

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The overrepresentation of Black students in special education, particularly in the most restrictive educational placements, is well documented in the literature. In addition, Black students are disproportionately placed into far more segregated educational spaces than their same-aged White peers with similar dis/ability labels. With limited qualitative studies that center the voices of students of color labelled as severely disabled in restrictive educational settings, informed by the tenets of Disability Studies in Education (DSE), this study adds to the growing body of research foregrounding the voices of individuals with dis/abilities in telling their own story from their perspective through narrative portraiture. …

Understanding Environmental Justice Instruction In Higher Education: Activist Epistemic Orientations And A Continuum Of Community Engaged Curricular And Pedagogical Practice, Christopher James Rabe

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Starting in the early 1980’s, the environmental justice (EJ) movement was critical in drawing much needed attention to how communities of color, low-income groups, Indigenous peoples, and other marginalized groups have experienced a disproportionate burden of environmental and ecological harms. The EJ movement sparked the birth of the EJ field of study. While originally focused on quantitative and distributional understandings of toxic waste in communities of color, the EJ field of study has since expanded to comprise community-based methodologies and new ways to understand justice, including participatory, recognition, and transformational approaches. The EJ field now represents multiple areas such as …

The Boston Opportunity Agenda: A Historic Case Study Of Public-Private Partnership In Education (2007-2019), Timothy M. Lavin

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This historic case study studied the development of the Boston Opportunity Agenda (BOA), a public-private educational partnership, from 2007-2019. Despite significant prominence, influence, and investment from the partners involved, public-private educational partnerships in Boston have been understudied. The intention of this dissertation was to bring an understanding of how this urban educational public-private partnership developed; the motivations of the partners to participate; the partner perceptions of the successes and challenges of the partnership; and the extent of the partnership's influence on the Boston Public Schools.

This case study utilized qualitative methods of document analysis and semi-structured interviews of partnership leaders …

Critical Transformations Through Community Service-Learning Programs For Students Of Color At Predominantly White Institutions, Varsha Ghosh

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Service-learning has become deeply embedded in higher education, as both a co-curricular and curricular tool to achieve learning outcomes, promote civic engagement and promote diversity. Yet it has also struggled with the critique that service-learning, unintentionally, reinforces deficit thinking by promoting a dominant narrative centered on the White middle-class perspective. This narrative excludes the experience of students and faculty who reflect the demographics of the community served or who are simultaneously from the community and the institution. This qualitative study seeks to challenge the traditional narrative to understand the service experience of students of color from low-income backgrounds at predominantly …

Let's Play A Story: Early Educators' Experience Implementing Story Drama With Support From Coaching, Amanda Wiehe Lopes

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

While imaginative play, music, movement, and the visual arts are established components of the curriculum in early childhood education (ECE), teacher-guided story drama, or “improvised role play stimulated by a story” (Booth, 2005, p. 8), is an underutilized arts-based practice that supports children’s early literacy skills, creativity, and enjoyment of learning. There are numerous practitioner books and resources about the benefits of and strategies for how to incorporate storytelling, dramatic play, theater, and creative dramatics into the early learning environment (Bolton & Heathcote, 1999; Booth, 2005; V. Brown & Pleydell, 1999; Carleton, 2012), however, there is little research examining the …

The Activity Of Abstraction In Physical Chemistry Problem Solving And Instruction, Jessica M. Karch

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Productive problem solving, concept construction, and sense making occur through the core process of abstraction. Although the capacity for domain-general abstraction is developed at a young age, the role of abstraction in increasingly complex and disciplinary environments, such as those encountered in undergraduate STEM education, is not well understood. Undergraduate physical chemistry relies particularly heavily on abstraction because it uses many overlapping and imperfect mathematical models to represent and interpret phenomena occurring on multiple scales. To reconcile these models, extract meaning from them, and recognize when to apply them in problem solving requires processes of abstraction. This dissertation aims to …

Don’T Ignore My Voice: A Call To Action By And For Gender-Expansive Youth, Sam Hoyo

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Gender-expansive youth are regularly discriminated against because they do not fit into the socially constructed gender binaries of the schools they attend. Nor, typically, do they have a general sense of personal safety, often feeling socially and academically excluded from their dominant heteronormative school culture. This youth participatory action research mixed method study advocates for the academic success of gender-expansive youth by documenting how gender expansive young people embody damaging educational experiences and to what extent these experiences can also lead to solidarity, resilience, and perseverance. The research findings include that gender expansive youth feel tolerated but not supported by …

A Framework For Justice-Centering Relationships And Understanding Impact In Higher Education Community Engagement, Melissa M. Quan

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Community engagement in higher education has been promoted as critical to fulfilling higher education’s responsibility to the public good through teaching, learning, and knowledge generation. Reciprocity and mutual benefit are key principles of community engagement that connote a two-way exchange of knowledge and shared power and decision making. However, it is not clear, from existing literature, whether community engagement impacts communities in meaningful or positive ways.

The problem addressed through this study was how campus-community partnership stakeholders define impact. This was a study of how impact was determined; it was not an assessment of whether identified outcomes were achieved. Using …

Daring To See: White Supremacy And Gatekeeping In Music Education, Brian A. Gellerstein

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Music education in the U.S. maintains a legacy of cultural hegemony that has historically and systemically benefited the White students it was designed to serve, at the expense of Black and Brown students and teachers. As a subdiscipline concerned with cultural production and reproduction, the persistence of White supremacy within music education contributes to its indefatigability within the broader society.

This study is cast within a theoretical framework that connects critical race theory and critical pedagogy in order to address the ways in which music teachers make meaning of gatekeeping practices mediated within hidden structures of White supremacy. This inquiry …

Educator Perspectives On English Learner Identification: An Explanatory Mixed Methods Study, Rachel E. Hoffman

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore English learner identification and placement through the lens of teacher knowledge and attitude, with the goal of identifying ways to ensure that the intended outcome (correct identification and placement) occurs. Employing explanatory mixed methods research, data was collected from teachers and other educators in the Jackson Public School district through both a web administered survey and one to one phone interviews. The survey data showed that the number of ELs that an educator has had in the past few years had a statistically significant effect on educator knowledge, but none of the …

Convergence Of Senior Administrators And Professional Employees: Case Studies Of Institutional Transformation Via Convergent Hybrid Planned And Emergent Change, Michael C. Metzger

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Higher education institutions are struggling to engage in transformational changes to meet novel environmental forces. These struggles in part may be due to change approaches that lack coordination of professional employee and senior administrator change activity. Kezar’s (2012) Kaleidoscope Convergence—could address such separation of change agent activity. However, a limited understanding of the approach currently exists. This study seeks to gain a better understanding of how and why convergence is used for institutional transformation and engage in analysis to improve the utilization of convergence methods. Research has been organized for this study with a conceptual framework assessing institutional context, desired …

More Seats At The Table: An Examination Of The Role Of Natural Supports In Promoting Postsecondary Transition For Students With Disabilities In Rural Maine, Elizabeth Stone-Sterling

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Students with disabilities who receive special education services are entitled under federal law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, to have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that includes measurable postsecondary goals and identifies the transition services that are needed in order for the student to reach those goals. Transition planning for students with disabilities in rural areas can be uniquely challenging due to lack of access to transportation, service providers, and accessible programs. Failure to prepare for postsecondary education or employment is correlated with life-long challenges, including poverty, un/under-employment, and limited educational attainment. Natural supports, in the form of family …

The Entanglement Of Gender, Science, And Interdisciplinarity: Standpoints Of Women Phd Students In Interdisciplinary Traineeships, Kate Bresonis Mckee

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Grounded in the suggestion by Rhoten and Pfirman (2007) that the core practices of interdisciplinary research were embedded with gendered properties and thereby held the potential to offer more welcoming spaces for women’s participation and advancement in scientific fields, this study investigated how women PhD students’ participation in the specific context of interdisciplinary training programs influenced their educational and professional socialization. Narrative inquiry methodology guided in-depth interviews with 19 women PhD students who were participating in one of three National Science Foundation-funded Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) programs at three research universities in the greater Northeast region of …

Lost In Translation: Understanding Education Policy Implementation In Nepal, Sushmita Subedi

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the impact of the School Sector Reform Plan (SSRP), a national education reform in Nepal, on primary and secondary education. The study uses mixed-methods to analyze indicators of educational outcomes and identify the underlying environmental, organizational, and individual factors that affect reform implementation.

The first phase of the study is a quantitative analysis of annual, district-level data on 75 districts for 10 years, from 2006 to 2016 using regression models to predict dropout and promotion rates. The second phase of the study is a qualitative analysis of the perceived effectiveness of SSRP using in-depth interviews with 33 …