Education Commons^™

Portfolio For Soci 346: Environmental Sociology, Gwendwr Meredith

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Environmental sociology, SOCI 346, is the study of how social systems interact with ecosystems. As such, it is a very broad course that is tasked with understanding complex and often controversial questions about the social causes, consequences, and responses to environmental disruption. In this teaching portfolio, I enumerate how I use a backward design for crafting assessments that cater to my specific teaching goals and learning objectives for the course. In the first stage of this process, I reflected on what learning outcomes I wished to achieve and determined that structuring the course in modules aligned with the learning objectives …

With Liberty And Justice For The Wealthy: The Criminalization Of The American Poor, Ashlyn Dickmeyer

Honors Theses

The last phrase of the Pledge of Allegiance states “with liberty and justice for all”. However, not everyone has access to this liberty and justice. Liberty and justice can be bought in this country for a price, and those who can’t afford to pay it are often left in the hands of those who can. One of the most prominent ways to see this is by analyzing the criminal justice system. Despite clauses in the Fourteenth Amendment and court cases like Gideon v. Wainwright (1963) establishing and upholding that the poor are entitled to equal treatment within the criminal justice …

Centering Black Women Faculty: Magnifying Powerful Voices, Christen Priddie, Dajanae Palmer, Samantha Silberstein, Allison Brckalorenz

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

While much of the quantitative research on Black women faculty has taken a comparative approach to understanding their experiences, this study provides a counternarrative, centering their experiences as faculty. This large-scale, multi-institution glance at Black women faculty helps to give us an overview of these women across the country, looking at who they are, where they are, how they spend their time, and what they value in undergraduate education. This study allows us to strengthen various arguments made in qualitative studies of Black women faculty and amplify their perspectives and experiences. Furthermore, it reaffirms and reinvigorates the need for educational …

Islamophobia In U.S. Education, Shabana Mir, Loukia K. Sarroub

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Anti-Muslim sentiment has grown in scale and visibility far beyond its association with the horrific attacks of 2001. The US government’s “War on Terror,” which began after the attacks, often pervades the domestic landscape as a war on Islamic religious “extremism.” The definitions and content of such religious extremism are so extensive that they encompass large numbers of Muslims, and they highlight Muslims as being inherently problematic. For example, the success of the 2016 presidential campaign can be said to have relied significantly on a right-wing Islamophobic fear-mongering that shariah was set to take over the US. As we grappled …

European Spaces And The Roma: Denaturalizing The Naturalized In Online Reader Comments, Theresa Catalano, Grace E. Fielder

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

With the entry of several Eastern European nations into the European Union (EU), a “third” space has developed in the discourse for nations perceived as not fully integrated “inside” the EU system. This article investigates the construction of this “third space” in the resultant “moral panic” about undesired immigration from other EU countries and its potential drain on the social services of the United Kingdom and links it to Euroskeptic discourse in British media. The article uses construal operations from cognitive linguistics combined with critical discourse studies as a way of denaturalizing the discourse in online comments that focus on …

Transforming The Classroom At Traditionally White Institutions To Make Black Lives Matter, Frank Truitt, Chayla Haynes, Saran Stewart

To Improve the Academy: A Journal of Educational Development

In recent years, many college campuses across the United States witnessed a significant increase in campus activism regarding the range of experiences and conditions facing racially minoritized communities in higher education. As critical and inclusive pedagogues and scholars, we embrace the belief that a focus on making Black Lives Matter in the classrooms of traditionally White institutions (TWIs) provides educators with the best chance to improve the educational outcomes of all students. In this essay, we examine seven principles of critical and inclusive pedagogies that have the potential to make Black Lives Matter in TWI classrooms and identify several implications …

The Persistence Of Working Poor Families In A Changing U.S. Job Market: An Integrative Review Of The Literature, Richard J. Torraco

Department of Educational Administration: Faculty Publications

This article explores the persistence of working poor families in the United States— families that live on the threshold of poverty despite at least one family member working full-time. The persistence of poverty in the United States has been exacerbated by recent changes in the job market that have altered the composition and availability of jobs due to technological unemployment, the polarization of jobs, declining job quality, and stagnation in job growth. The relationships between the persistence of working poor families and these changes in the job market are examined. The article concludes with a review of human resource development …

Exploring The Factors That Influence And Motivate Female Students To Enroll And Persist In Collegiate Stem Degree Programs: A Mixed Methods Study, Rosemary L. Edzie

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Nationally, the need for an increase in interest, enrollment, and degrees awarded from science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degree programs continues to suffer. While students are enrolling in collegiate STEM degree programs, it is not occurring at a rate that meets the workforce demand. In addition to the concern that there is not a sufficient amount of collegiate STEM majors, there is a concern over too few females enrolling and persisting in collegiate STEM degree programs.

This mixed methods sequential exploratory research study considered the factors that influence and motivate undergraduate female students to enroll and persist in collegiate …

Ageism In Academic Librarianship, Melanie Chu

E-JASL 1999-2009 (Volumes 1-10)

Background

Nearly one out of every ten librarians is under the age of thirty. The average age of a graduate student in library and information science is 30-35 years old. Between 2010-2020, 45% of librarians will reach the retirement age of 65 years old. The relative age of the profession will continue to decrease as retirements increase. Statistically, the population of young librarians is a growing minority.

Young, new librarians face age discrimination, including disrespectful treatment in the workplace and unrealistic expectations of performance. Ageism in academic libraries results in job dissatisfaction and loss of retention for these new librarians. …

When Disability Enters A Teacher’S Life, Must The Teacher Stop Teaching?, Laura L. B. Border

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Disabilities are usually discussed in academe in the context of the undergraduate student population; nevertheless, graduate students and faculty also represent a certain percentage of persons with disabilities. This essay presents a case study and an analysis of a consultation with a graduate instructor, inviting us to examine the issues of disability in the life of a teacher.

Leveling The Field: Using Rubrics To Achieve Greater Equity In Teaching And Grading, Dannelle D. Stevens, Antonia Levi

Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education: Archives

Rubrics can be used to assure greater consistency in grading and as a teaching tool to promote greater equity, especially with students who are first generation and /or non-native speakers of English.

The Americans With Disabilities Act And Academic Libraries In The Southeastern United States, Linda Lou Wiler, Eleanor Lomax

E-JASL 1999-2009 (Volumes 1-10)

Individuals with disabilities are one of the fastest-growing segments of United States society. In 1970, 11.7% of the United States population was limited in activity, a major factor in measuring and identifying people with disabilities. In 1990, because of the aging of America, 13.7 % of the population could be so identified. By 1994, 15% of the population fell into this group. During this latter period, the older population stayed fairly stable but children and younger adults with disabilities increased greatly. Many different figures, depending upon the method of counting, e.g., age groups included, or whether residence was in a …

Leadership And Nonverbal Behaviors Of Hispanic Females Across School Equity Environments, Helen A. Moore, Natalie K. Porter

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Nonverbal behaviors of Hispanic elementary school students and their peers were examined in a small-group cooperative task with a total of 202 subjects. Thirty-five randomly selected groups were videotaped in ten desegregated schools, each group was gender-homogeneous, with three Hispanic and three Anglo students. Analysis of the videotapes revealed that Hispanic females used less vertical and horizontal space than Anglo females, and were also less likely to verbally interrupt or physically intrude on other group members They had similar rates of handling the group resource cards and were given similar leadership scores by multi-ethnic trained observers. Among males, Hispanics are …

The Desegregated School And Status Relationships Among Anglo And Hispanic Students, Peter Iadicola, Helen A. Moore

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Desgregated elementary school students display verbal and non-verbal indicators of status relationships in a structured, videotaped interaction game. Both Hispanic and Anglo third grade student responses are analyzed across ten schools for a case study of factors that influence racial/ethnic integration outcomes. Variance in student outcomes are primarily explained by socioeconomic dimensions of the schools. These findings suggest that school desegregation poses a contradiction for Hispanic students.

Hispanic Women: Schooling For Conformity In Public Education, Helen A. Moore

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

The educational experiences of Latinas are tied to norms of an Anglocentric and androcentric school system. Based on a sample of 1,000 male and female Hispanic and Anglo elementary school students, we analyze teacher expectations for three dimensions: behavioral, social and academic achievements. Teachers do rate Hispanic females as more conforming to the behavioral norms of the school. Regression analyses indicate that higher teacher ratings are assigned to Hispanic females who combine high academic scores with low scores on behavioral conformity norms. These findings indicate that teachers reward assertiveness, leadership and action when considering future student success. The dilemmas of …