Education Commons^™

Winter 2015

Insights

Notes from the interim dean; Ethnographer uncovers America's hidden history; Beck Research Initiative for Women, Gender and Community empowers through community-based research; Program spotlight: Master of Social Work; Professor offers a glimpse into the World of Wine; North-South Dialogue explores key figures across hemispheres; Political Science, WRD take the lead on reframing traditional liberal arts education; Community engagement is at the core of community service studies; In brief; Faculty publications

Teaching Artistry As A Critical Community Of Practice: An Arts-Based Ethnography, Laura K. Reeder

Dissertations - ALL

There is increasing inequity in access to arts education among students in the United States that corresponds to an increase in demand for teaching artists - career artists who apply their artistry to teaching and learning. These increases have been documented both as a benefit and as a threat to arts instruction that is provided within standardized public school curricula. In turn, policy debate has emerged around professional positioning and development of teaching artists. This arts-based ethnographic study investigates resistance by teaching artists in the United States to policy recommendations for formal credentialing of the work that they do (Rabkin, …

Rethinking The Achievement Gap: A Wholistic Humanistic View Of Student Academic Performance And Lack Of Performance, Immaculata Anayo Chukwunyere

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an ethnographic case study that explored minority and low SES inner city high school students’ perception and sense-making of school, learning, academic behaviors, and academic achievement through an integrated theory of human development, learning, and achievement. I sought an understanding of the reason behind the persistent academic failure of inner city minority and low SES high school students, as well as the academic achievement gap within and between this subgroup of students. The aim of this study was threefold. First, I explored the factors operating in high school students’ thoughts, feelings, actions, and reactions to school and …

Partnerships Through Adult Education: Re-Conceptualizing Family Literacy In The New Latino Diaspora, Jennifer Leigh Stacy

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Theses and Other Student Research

Schools are complex social institutions that mediate the experiences of newcomer families in the US. In recent years, a body of scholarship known as New Latino Diaspora has followed the migration of Latino families as they have moved away from traditional gateway communities and settled into territories that have previously been home to few, if any, Latino families. As a result, both institutionalized and grassroots educational initiatives have emerged as vehicles to support newcomer families as they learn English and adapt to living in a new community. This dissertation looks at the cultural space of a family literacy program that …

The Purpose And Value For Students Of Pbl Groups For Learning, Vicki J. Skinner, Annette Braunack-Mayer, Tracey A. Winning

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

Groups are central to problem-based learning (PBL) and educational and professional outcomes relevant to clinical education. However, PBL groups in practice may differ from theoretical conceptions of groups. Therefore, this study explored students’ understandings of the purpose and value of PBL groups for their learning. We conducted a naturalistic study with novice (first-year) students at two dental schools (Australia, Ireland), using observation and interviews analyzed thematically. Students constructed PBL learning as individual knowledge gain, and group purpose as information gathering and exchange; few students acknowledged the learning potential of group processes. Group value depended on assessment and curriculum context. Findings …

The Myth Of The Unteachable: Youth, Race And The Capacity Of Alternative Pedagogy, Cathy R. Borck

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My research consisted of three years of qualitative inquiry, including 62 interviews with members of the Department of Education, school administrators, teachers and students, as well as a yearlong ethnography at a transfer school that I chose because of its history of success with the city's hardest- to-reach youth. To my knowledge, mine is the first formal study of New York City transfer schools. "Transfer schools" are New York City's public alternative schools, which serve "over-age, under- credited" high school students (i.e. students who are "behind" in school). These students experience many challenges and interruptions to their education, including homelessness, …

Lost In Institution: Learning To Write In Midwestern Urban Mainstream Classrooms, Yanan Fan

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

How do recent immigrant students learn to write in mainstream content area classrooms? This article considers this question in the under-investigated American Midwest contexts where schooling is being reframed by rapid changing demographics. Data for this paper come from an ethnographic case study of second language learning of a Vietnamese 9th grader in an urban school setting. Grounded in a sociocultural view of learning, the author examines (1) how the student negotiated the nature and purpose of writing among inconsistent expectations, objectives and responsibilities in mainstream, and (2) how she was lost in a lack of vision in literacy and …

Putting The Framework To Work: An Ethnographic Exploration Of Race-Based Professional Development, Susan R. Adams, R. Helfenbein

Scholarship and Professional Work – Education

Louie F. Rodriguez’ (2012) Teachers College Record conceptual paper issues a call to “researchers, practitioners, and policy makers [to]…problematize the concept of recognition…and to introduce a conceptual framework to understand, examine, and help rectify the crisis facing [Latina/o youth]” (p. 1). Though Rodriguez has explicitly named Latina/o youth within the title of his Framework of Recognition, Rodriguez clearly states his intent to extend applications of the Framework beyond Latina/o youth to include other marginalized students, including “students with disabilities, English language learners, immigrants, gay/lesbian/bisexual youth, and students who identify with alternative forms of music, art, and culture” (p.25). Indeed, Rodriguez …

Cultural Norms Of Clinical Simulation In Undergraduate Nursing Education, Susan G. Mcniesh

Faculty Publications

Simulated practice of clinical skills has occurred in skills laboratories for generations, and there is strong evidence to support high-fidelity clinical simulation as an effective tool for learning performance-based skills. What are less known are the processes within clinical simulation environments that facilitate the learning of socially bound and integrated components of nursing practice. Our purpose in this study was to ethnographically describe the situated learning within a simulation laboratory for baccalaureate nursing students within the western United States. We gathered and analyzed data from observations of simulation sessions as well as interviews with students and faculty to produce a …

Ethnography And Filmmaking For Indigenous Anti Tobacco Social Marketing, Kishan A. Kariippanon, Datjarranga Garrawirtja, Kate Senior, Paul Kalfadellis, Vidad Narayan, Bryce Mccoy

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

The smoking rates of 82% in Aboriginal communities of North East Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory of Australia are the highest in the country (Robertson et al. 2013). Macassan traders introduced tobacco as a trading commodity (Berndt, 1954) in Aboriginal communities in the 18th century and has since become part of culture. The influence of the Methodist Mission (Cole 1979) has also had a profound effect on tobacco consumption. Anti tobacco social marketing that is sensitive to Indigenous culture and history supports a more complex and gradual approach to reducing uptake amongst young people. The limitations of the Health …

Dual Language K-2 Latina Teachers: Juxtaposing Linguistic Identities And Pedagogical Practices On The U.S.-Mexico Frontera, Brenda Oriana Fuentes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This ethnographic study explored the linguistic identities and pedagogical practices of Latina bilingual-certified K-2 teachers in a dual language (DL) program in the U.S.-Mexico border area. Drawing on sociocultural theory, methods of data collection and analysis focused on linking DL Latina teachers' identity formation with both their conceptions of teaching and their actual pedagogical practices related to language use. The findings from this study painted a portrait of how DL teachersâ?? languages, literacies, and identities intertwined to shape their pedagogical practice. The linguistic backgrounds of DL teachers on the border were shaped by country of origin and languages, schooling experiences, …

Cultural Norms Of Clinical Simulation In Undergraduate Nursing Education, Susan G. Mcniesh

Susan McNiesh

Simulated practice of clinical skills has occurred in skills laboratories for generations, and there is strong evidence to support high-fidelity clinical simulation as an effective tool for learning performance-based skills. What are less known are the processes within clinical simulation environments that facilitate the learning of socially bound and integrated components of nursing practice. Our purpose in this study was to ethnographically describe the situated learning within a simulation laboratory for baccalaureate nursing students within the western United States. We gathered and analyzed data from observations of simulation sessions as well as interviews with students and faculty to produce a …

‘‘Where I’M From’’ And Belonging: A Multimodal, Cosmopolitan Perspective On Arts And Inquiry, Tiffany A. Dejaynes

Publications and Research

The paper draws upon a year-long practitioner inquiry with adolescents who conducted auto-ethnographies as part of a research course in their urban public high school. Through ethnographic data collection, youth researched their own lives, cultures, and beliefs with the end goal of producing multimodal films that represented their embodied senses of ‘‘Where I’m From’’, broadly defined. As youth collected and interpreted culturally and personally meaningful artifacts, stories, memories, and family discourses, the cosmopolitan habits of mind and heart that it is argued are important for nurturing reflective citizens of the world. In the process of video production or self-curation, youth …

"I Want To Do More And Change Things": Reframing Cte Toward Possibilities In Urban Education, Korina Jocson

Korina Jocson