Education Commons^™

The Locus Of Preparation And Privilege: College Choice And Social Reproduction, Daniel Allen

Dissertations

Despite the ostensible proposition of American higher education to create a level playing field and advance an individual's life opportunities, the history of access to higher education in the United States has demonstrated a lack of equality in enrollment patterns. This enrollment inequality appears most pronounced when considering family income and socioeconomic status. These differences are particularly notable when considering enrollment patterns of students who are academically qualified to succeed at a highly selective college or university, but who come from low income families. Such variations in enrollment at highly selective colleges and universities aligned with family income and not …

A Case Study Evaluation Of Schoolwide Positive Behavior Support And Its Relationship To Student Well-Being From A Social Justice Perspective, Alissa Briggs

Dissertations

Schoolwide positive behavior support (SWPBS) is proactive, systemic, school-wide intervention aimed at preventing problem behavior and promoting prosocial behavior (Warren et al., 2003). Successful SWPBS implementation relates to reduced office discipline referrals and increased scores on tests of academic achievement (Lassen, Steele, & Sailor, 2006). However, it is not clear how SWPBS relates to other indicators of student well-being (e.g., school climate, safety, relationships, prosocial behavior, and engagement in school). In order to achieve social justice in schools, multiple components of children's well-being must be promoted through proactive interventions (Prilleltensky, 2005), such as SWPBS. Because well-being as a whole encompasses …

Superintendent's Perceptions Of Adequacy In Illinois School Finance, Mark Alan Cohen

Dissertations

This qualitative research study investigated superintendents' perceptions of school finance in the State of Illinois. An online survey instrument, distributed via email, was used to collect the results. Superintendents that chose to participate answered questions about themselves as well as the demographic variables of the district they represent. The participants then went on to answer the finance survey questions. Responses to the finance survey were triangulated with the particular demographic information, much of which was separated into quartiles. The study sought to determine the answers to the following questions: (1) Do public school K-12 superintendents believe that they have sufficient …

Positive Behavior Intervention And Support: An Alternative Approach, Lucy Bridges

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of PBIS on behavior in relation to the number of office discipline referrals, suspensions, and expulsions. Because of the current school discipline policies, black male students have been overrepresented in the exclusionary practices of office discipline referrals, suspensions, and expulsions. PBIS offers a viable alternative to current school discipline practices.

The Systemic Impact Of The Implementation Of The Response To Intervention Model In Elementary Schools, Annette Robin Cronin

Dissertations

The intention of this study was to examine three factors regarding the implementation of the Response to Intervention (RtI) model. First, the study discovered what professional development opportunities were afforded to administrators and certified faculty to support the implementation of the RtI model within schools that make AYP and those that did not make AYP. Second, the study investigated the awareness and utilization of Early Intervening funds within schools that make AYP and those that did not make AYP. Lastly, this study examined how schools monitor student progress within the RtI model for schools that made AYP and those that …

Agnes Nestor: Labor Leader, Politician, And Social Reformer--A Portrait Of A Leader, Timothy Michael Grivois-Shah

Dissertations

School leadership is about effecting change in education and promoting excellence in teaching and learning. School leaders, however, practice leadership in multiple arenas with diverse stakeholders. Students, local community members, faculty, staff, and each layer of government represent unique and often conflicting interests. Understanding how a leader such as Agnes Nestor resolved conflicts of interests has the potential for helping school leaders access various sources of power to effect change in their milieu.

This study explores the life of Agnes Nestor, a labor leader, politician, and social reformer. Nestor's public life included organizing women workers in Chicago in the early …

Culturally Responsive Teaching: An Investigation Of Effective Practices For African American Learners, Antonia L. Hill

Dissertations

Diversity increasingly characterizes the population of the United States. As the number of African Americans, Latina/os, and Asian populations increase, there will be drastic implications for teaching and learning in classrooms where students of color dominate. The purpose of this mixed methodological study was to examine the characteristics, practices and frequency of use of fifty -two strategies employed by two teachers in a predominately African American urban public school to determine their impact on student learning and engagement. The fifty-two effective and culturally responsive strategies used in this study were created by Dr. Johnnie McKinley, Professor in Educational Psychology at …

Superintendent Leadership And Student Achievement In Suburban High Schools: A Sequential Explanatory Mixed Methods Analysis, Steven Reese Kellner

Dissertations

This research study explored the critical nature of the connection between student achievement and superintendent leadership. A great deal of scholarship has addressed either student achievement or leadership and previous evidence has suggested the impact of both parental education and racioethnicity on student achievement, but few studies have investigated the relationship between the superintendent's leadership authority and the achievement of his or her students.

The central research questions of this study are:

1) To what degree does parental education predict high school student achievement in suburban Chicagoland?

2) To what degree does racioethnicity predict high school student achievement in suburban …

Secondary School Science Department Chairs Leading Change, Julie Ann Gaubatz

Dissertations

Secondary school department chairs are content area specialists in their schools and are responsible for providing students with the most appropriate curricula. However, most secondary school department chairs have limited authority to institute change unilaterally (Gmelch, 1993; Hannay & Erb, 1999). To explore how these educational leaders navigate the change process within their departments, this study examined the change stories of six secondary school science department chairs who had led change attempts. In total, these department chairs shared six stories of successful change attempts and four unsuccessful change attempts. The topics of leadership and change were accessed through department chair …

Examining Female Principals That Lead Within The Same Schools That They Once Taught, Erica Michele Jordan

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine female principals that once taught within the school that they now lead. This study explored the transition from colleague to superior and discussed Sergiovanni's Sources of Authority (1992) that are employed by female administrators to balance social relationships while maintaining high levels of teacher expectations, conducting formal/informal evaluations, and exerting disciplinary actions when appropriate. This study served to explain what happened to social relationships when there was a positional power shift over a person where a friendship had previously been established.

Eleven female principals throughout suburban areas of Chicago, Illinois, that once …

Mystery Motivator Calendar: An Interdependent Group Contingency, Variable Ratio, Classroom Intervention, Eva Aleksandra Kowalewicz

Dissertations

Classroom behavior management problems are often seen as one of the primary barriers to achieving an educational environment conducive for academic and social-emotional growth of students. The literature indicates there is a need for evidence-based, easy-to-implement classroom behavioral interventions that align with the positive behavioral support philosophy. This study examined the effectiveness of the Mystery Motivator Calendar, an interdependent group contingency, variable-ratio, classwide intervention as a tool for reducing disruptive classroom behavior in eight diverse, general-education elementary school classrooms across seven different schools. The study employed a single-case, ABAB (baseline, intervention, withdrawal, reinstatement and follow-up), changing criterion design. The effectiveness …

An Exploration Of Current Practices In Curricular Design Of Resident Assistant Training Programs, Virginia Albaneso Koch

Dissertations

In the last 15 years there has been little research about the design of resident assistant (RA) training programs in higher education (Bowman & Bowman, 1995, 1998; Wesolowski, Bowman, & Adams, 1996). A RA is an enrolled student who is selected, trained, and supervised to serve as a part-time, paraprofessional employee for a housing and/or residential life department at a college or university. The lack of research was surprising given the time, effort, and institutional resources invested in employing, training, and supervising RAs. The purpose of this study was to explore how contemporary RA training programs were designed and the …

Preschool Educators' Perceptions Of Practice In Facilitating/Modeling Oral Language Acquisition And Development, Nicole Alissa Jones

Dissertations

Preschool educators are linguistic models for their students. They prompt students to speak. Educators who are able to understand the critical nature of their role in the students' oracy development and to deliberately encourage conversation may have a profound impact on preschoolers who may be at risk. Oracy is self-expression prompted by discourse activities such as questioning, labeling, turn-taking in conversation, and it is stimulated by a variety of speech events, such as playing or otherwise interacting with peers and adults.

This study explored how preschool educators behaved as models in facilitating oral language acquisition and development. The goals of …

Effects Of Functional Communication Training (Fact) On The Communicative, Self-Initiated Toileting Behavior For Students With Developmental Disabilities In A School Setting, Jinnie Kim

Dissertations

Far less is known about the effects of functional communication-based toileting interventions for students with developmental disabilities in a school setting. Furthermore, the currently available toileting interventions for students with disabilities include some undesirable procedures such as the use of punishment, unnatural clinic/university settings as opposed to more natural school/home settings, and prompt-based as opposed to communicative, self-initiating skills. The current study examined the effectiveness of FCT on the incidence of communicative, self-initiated toileting and of toileting accidents without any punishment components, which were often considered as necessary in traditional toileting procedures. A multiple baseline design was used for the …

Crisis Preparedness, Charles Maida

Dissertations

School disaster planning is important because schools are places of frequent mass gathering. An estimated 53 million children in the United States attend public and private schools each day. As mass gathering places, schools are prone to mass injury in a natural disaster and unfortunately may serve as a terrorist target (Graham, 2007). Schools must prepare for the worst and hope for the best, because the worst disaster to occur is not preparing for disaster in the first place. Comprehensive crisis management plans must be in place, practiced, revisited, and altered to remain effective.

Community-based strategies have been successful in …

An Analysis Of Barriers To And Strategies For Improving Parent Engagement, Candice Renee Shakur

Master's Theses

Research shows that parent engagement can be a useful tool for improving student achievement. But, in many low-income urban schools, encouraging schools and parents to invest in parent engagement is a struggle. This paper explores some of the barriers that exist in low-income urban communities that work to limit parent engagement; it also identifies some of the strategies available to increase the frequency and quality of parent engagement in low-income urban communities.

Policy-Borrowing And Globalization Challenging French Universities In The 21st Century, Charlotte Stroumza

Master's Theses

French universities are currently undergoing an overhaul and, in my thesis, I analyze the 2007 Loi relative aux Libertés et Responsabilités des Universités (LRU), or law that makes universities autonomous, as a policy borrowed from the United States. This thesis attempted to analyze the process of policy borrowing using Phillips and Ochs' method. It also considered the role that the Bologna Process and globalization may have played in the creation of the LRU. The conclusion is that the LRU is the result of three phenomena: policy-borrowing from the United States; pressures from international and regional agencies; the individual understanding of …

Socially Including A 'Resistant People': Intercultural Education And The Roma In Italy, Mary Cristine Mcsweeney

Master's Theses

As "the situation of the Roma" in Europe has grown increasingly concerning, the European Union (EU) has urged Member States to promote the social inclusion of this diverse population. While the EU has challenged Member States to implement intercultural education, Italy has claimed its own "via Italiana" (or "Italian way") as to how it is going about this process. In an attempt to better understand intercultural education and the role of education in social inclusion projects, this paper aims to address the following questions: What are some of the implications of the intercultural educational initiative currently underway in Italy with …

One Sex, One School, Who Wins: How Single-Sex Learning Environments Impact Educational Attainment, Socio-Emotional Health, And Ambitions, Bradley Kirshenbaum

Master's Theses

Research on single-sex schools has covered a variety of matters regarding the effectiveness of their programs. This paper examines research on single-sex schools over the past 30 years in an effort to harmonize the past discourse with present trends. Journal articles and government research were used to synthesize the variety of methods used to ascertain whether single-sex schools have a positive influence on boys, girls, or both parties. Research trends have overwhelmingly supported all-girls schools, while remaining skeptical of any positive influence on boys. Much of the research supporting all-girls schools also suggests that single-sex schools' benefits are applicable to …

Cristo Rey And Christ The King Jesuit High School: Two Schools, Two Demographics, Two Realities: One Model, Alfredo Astorga-Velasquez

Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to analyze two Catholic high schools that follow the same innovative private urban model called the Cristo Rey Model. In this model the students work one day per week in entry-level jobs in Chicago area firms and through this work-study program students earn money in order to pay a portion of their tuition. Both high schools are in Chicago, are run by Jesuits, and serve youths from low-income families. The model and goals are the same even though the schools serve different demographic groups and communities: one Latino and the other African American. The …

Muppets Abroad: Globalization Of Multiculturalism And The International Co-Productions Of Sesame Street, Julianna Carlson Palm

Master's Theses

In recent years globalization has been cited as the cause or force changing our world, making it more interdependent and "smaller" through new means of technology and communication. As such a force, globalization is seen as pervasive in all aspects of contemporary life. Sesame Street has been used as an educational tool in the United States since 1969 and since that time, the producers of the program have created a presence in various countries throughout the world, using the technology of television to communicate with preschool audiences. In particular in the last decade, new productions have begun and been funded …

The Reasons Why: Student Assignment Policies And Social Mobility In Wake County, North Carolina, Alicia Garcia

Master's Theses

The Wake County Public School System (Wake County) in Wake County, North Carolina has approached the student assignment process in different ways over the years. In 2000, Wake County instituted a policy designed to integrate schools based on socioeconomic status. In 2010, Wake County returned to assigning students to neighborhood schools. After a negative reaction to the 2010 policy, Wake County implemented a controlled choice student assignment policy for the 2012-2013 school year.

This thesis examines the three student assignment policies used by the Wake County Public School System over the last twelve years to answer the questions: Are any …

A Race To Educate: A Look At The Aims Of The Student Life Programming At Hampton University, From 1930-1940, And Its Intended Effects On The Black American Cultural Identity, Akela Louise Stanfield

Master's Theses

In 2010 President Barack Obama announced a 98 million dollar federal funding increase in the proposed 2011 national budget for Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU). With such an amount of money earmarked for the HBCU, questions arise about the importance of the HBCU in a seemingly integrated 21st century American college and education system. One approach to answering the questions is to look at the aims and outcomes of HBCUs during the 20th century, a time period when most were producing college graduates and compare them to the current aims and outcomes of the HBCUs, to determine the rate …

Building A Climate That Supports And Protects Mandated Reporters: School Principals And Their Perceived Roles And Policies And Procedures In K-8 Schools, Gina Bartucci

Dissertations

Schools are designed to be safe and healthy places for children to grow and learn, and principals are the instructional leader charged with creating this climate. The role of the mandated reporter, which is the role assigned to all individuals who work in schools, is intended to protect children. The mandated reporter is supposed to be the voice for children-not just for the child who actually speaks out against the individual who is perpetrating against them, but also for the child who does not have the words to report the abuse. A suspicion is all a mandated reporter needs to …

The Effects Of Curriculum And Social Capital On Post-Secondary Educational Attainment Among Public High School Students: A Multi-Level Analysis, Elisabeth Davis

Dissertations

Using a social capital framework, the current study examined the effect of curriculum and cohort size in addition to parental and teacher social capital factors on public high school students' likelihood of college attendance. Using Hierarchical Generalized Linear Modeling with the ELS (2002), student and school level factors were examined on the likelihood of postsecondary educational attainment among public high school students. At the student level, girls, students with higher SES, more intergenerational closure and higher parent and teacher educational expectations were significantly more likely to pursue postsecondary enrollment. At the school level, lower percentages of girls in the cohort, …

Perceptions Of Middle School Teachers On The Quality Of Professional Development, Safurat Anike Giwa

Dissertations

Professional learning and professional development are the essential tools employed in schools, districts, and universities in order to increase teachers' knowledge and skills. To gain the most from professional development in middle schools, the experiences and activities must be based on standards. Few researchers explore how teachers think about the context, process, and content of current professional development at the middle school level. This dissertation examines how teacher learning is demonstrated in professional development activities and experience and assesses whether middle school teachers' perceptions of their professional development experiences is aligned to the standards of Learning Forward (2001) (formerly the …

Deconstructing Demand For Women And Girls' Education, Linda Lu

Master's Theses

There is an increasing focus on the recognition of women and girls' education as a universal right. Many feminist scholars have questioned this rights-based approach to gender education and evaluated the challenges and solutions based on the international policy discourse. What is notably absent from this scholarship is a comprehensive look at how women and girls' demand for education is constructed though such universal declarations.

This thesis uses a postcolonial feminist framework to analyze how women and girls' demand for education is constructed through international gender education policy. Ultimately, through an analysis of policy and an assessment of the feminist …

Service Learning In The International Context: How Can It Be Beneficial When Studying Abroad?, Marquita Anna-Belle Butler

Master's Theses

This study focuses on service learning in the international context and the benefits it has on higher education study abroad programs. Study abroad participation at the collegiate level is continuing to rise every year and some programs even require it. Implementing a service learning component into a study abroad program is an increasing trend. For these reasons it was important to conduct this study. The study was based on a program based out of the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. Three cohorts went abroad and had a service learning component. Students went abroad in 2008 and 2010. Interviews about their …

An Exploration Of The Experiences Of First-Generation College Students In Lasallian Higher Education, Kurt Schackmuth

Dissertations

As higher education has become more accessible to traditionally underrepresented groups, more of these types of students - such as first-generation college students - have started to matriculate on campuses across the country. Existing research on first-generation college students focuses on the characteristics common among these students and the strategies often implemented to foster their success in college. There is a lack of more detailed, personalized accounts of the college experiences of these students. This dissertation focuses on an exploration of the experiences of first-generation college students in Lasallian higher education (institutions sponsored by the De La Salle Christian Brothers.) …

A Case Study: The Impact Of An Immersion Experience On The Vocation Of Lay Teacher-Leaders In American Jesuit High Schools, Martin Joseph Schreiber

Dissertations

The purpose of this case study explores the impact of an immersion experience to a least developed country on the vocation of lay teacher leaders in American Jesuit High Schools. Nine lay teacher leaders engaged in a four stage process of immersion from November 2009 to August 2010. The study employed the conceptual framework of Edward Hahnenberg's, "Awakening Vocation" to develop a self-understanding of a lay teacher leader's call. The writings of Paulo Freire, Fredrick Buechner and Parker Palmer informed the study's exploration of vocation. Poetry from Mary Oliver and William Stafford functioned as a method for articulating a lay …