Education Commons^™

Community And Connection In Inclusive Early-Childhood Education: A Participatory Action Research Investigation, Elizabeth Erwin, Victoria Puig, Tara L. Evenson, Madeleine Beresford

Department of Teaching and Learning Scholarship and Creative Works

I really like that everything is matter of fact. The fact that my son doesn't talk as well as other kids-The other kids don't even really pay attention. It may be a little harder for them to understand him sometimes but [he's] just their friend. And that's the beauty of inclusion too. That it's dual-fold. The child in need has a model, which he desperately needed, but in turn the other children become tolerant and accepting of differences and don't see them as different. That's just the way [he] is. (Mother of a preschooler with disabilities.)

Parents' Participation In Special Education In The Context Of Implicit Educational Ideologies And Socioeconomic Status, Priya Lalvani

Department of Teaching and Learning Scholarship and Creative Works

This qualitative study situates parents' perceptions of their participation and role in special education planning in multiple contexts. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 33 diverse parents of children with disabilities. The findings reveal the existence of special education discourses and practices that are entrenched in a deficit-based model and in implicit educational ideologies that sanction segregated education for many children with disabilities. Parents' perception of themselves as advocates was a key theme. Decisions about the placement of children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms appeared to be parent-driven. The findings shed light on the socioeconomic contexts in which family-professional partnerships and …

Examining Transfer Effects From Dialogic Discussions To New Tasks And Contexts, Alina Reznitskaya, Monica Glina, Brian Carolan, Olivier Michaud, Jon Rogers, Lavina Sequeira

Department of Educational Foundations Scholarship and Creative Works

This study investigated whether students who engage in inquiry dialogue with others improve their performance on various tasks measuring argumentation development. The study used an educational environment called Philosophy for Children (P4C) to examine specific theoretical assumptions regarding the role dialogic interaction plays in the development of individual argumentation. Using quasi-experimental research design, we randomly assigned 12 fifth-grade classrooms to two treatment conditions: P4C and Regular Instruction (REG). To document treatment fidelity, we analyzed 36 systematically selected discussion transcripts focusing on various features of classroom discourse. To evaluate transfer performance, we administered 3 post-intervention measures, including an interview, a persuasive …

Teacher Activism: Enacting A Vision For Social Justice, Bree Picower

Department of Teaching and Learning Scholarship and Creative Works

This qualitative study focused on educators who participated in grassroots social justice groups to explore the role teacher activism can play in the struggle for educational justice. Findings show teacher activists made three overarching commitments: to reconcile their vision for justice with the realities of injustice around them; to work within their classrooms to create liberatory space; and to work collectively against oppression as activists. To enact these commitments, they engaged in particular practices common across the teachers despite their years in the classroom or their geographic location. A framework of teacher activism is revealed through the commitments and practices …

A Call To Integrate Religious Communities Into Practice: The Case Of Sikhs, Muninder Kaur Ahluwalia, Anjali Alimchandani

Department of Counseling Scholarship and Creative Works

Sikhs, an ethnic and religious minority group in the United States, have seen a significant shift in their social location since 9/11. They have experienced harassment and violence beyond race and ethnicity to the visible markers of the religion (e.g., turbans). In this article, we address how counseling psychology is uniquely positioned to work with Sikhs given these circumstances. We provide an overview of Sikh Americans, including specific experiences that may affect treatment such as race-based traumatic injury, identification as a part of a visible religious minority group, and the impact of historic community-level trauma. We discuss recommendations for practitioners …

Teacher Counternarratives: Transgressing And Restorying Disability In Education, Alicia Broderick, Greta Hawkins, Stefanie Henze, Corinthia Mirasol-Spath, Rachel Pollack-Berkovits, Holly Prozzo Clune, Elizabeth Skovera, Christina Steel

Department of Teaching and Learning Scholarship and Creative Works

This inquiry aims to explore the disconnect between the disability studies in education (DSE) perspectives on inclusive schooling held by a group of dually certified inclusive educators and the everyday, lived experiences of these same teachers who find themselves teaching students with labelled disabilities within the confines of the special education bureaucracy. Through a collaborative inquiry circle (with a teacher educator who is a faculty member in a dual-certification programme informed by a DSE perspective and seven teachers who are graduates of this teacher education programme), this study aims to: (1) articulate the dominant narratives or storylines about disability in …

Centering English Language Learners In The Praxis Of Dialogic Pedagogy, Ching-Ching Lin

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The mainstream classroom poses critical challenges to ELL students in the era of standardization. As English is used both as a language of instruction and assessment for all content subjects in the mainstream classroom, ELL students have to master a cognitively loaded and culturally specific curriculum while learning basic English. Through the standardization of curriculum and assessment, English exerts a normalizing power for ELL students. Given the role of language in regulating consciousness and controlling access to dialogic process, how does dialogic pedagogy theorize about the relationships between language, power and the needs of ELL students in mainstream, content-area classrooms? …

Tracking The Basic Writer, Timothy Donohue

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Since the 1970s, composition teachers and theorists have been advocating the term “basic writer” to give a space and voice to underprepared students entering college by providing them with basic skills remediation. Despite the various pedagogical approaches to these classes that have been established and put into practice over the years, there is still large disagreement among educators on how to best prepare these students for entrance into the mainstream college environment.

This study begins by examining the history of the basic writing movement, acknowledging key figures and the salient ideas of their works. A broad overview is given to …

The Problem Of Moral Statements In Historical Writing, Alexandra Katherine Perry

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Bernard Williams (1985) begins his skeptical look at the history of ethical theory with a reminder of where it began, with Socrates’ question, "how should one live?" (pg. 1). This question is relevant to historians, who ask a similar question, “how did people live?” in their own work, To wonder “how one should live” or to make statements about the ways in which people have lived is to rely on the work of historians. The question of what historians can know about the past, however, is a very philosophical question, and it is dependent on our views about such things …

Serving Two Masters : A Study Of Quantitative Literacy At Small Colleges And Universities, Jodie Ann Miller

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

The past twenty years have seen a growing interest in promoting quantitative literacy (QL) courses at the college level. At small institutions, financial realities impose limitations on faculty size and therefore the variety of courses that may be offered. This study examined course offerings below calculus at four hundred twenty-eight small colleges to gain a thorough understanding of the approaches to developing QL among the general population of undergraduate students. Using a three-phase model of examining progressively narrower subsets of QL programs at small institutions, document-based data from college catalogs and communication with mathematics program chairs were studied to summarize …

American Mathematical Association Of Two Year Colleges Reform Policies In Practice : Implementing Standards In Classroom Instruction For Basic Skills Mathematics At One Four-Year College In New Jersey, Patricia J. Garruto

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

High school graduates continue to enter post-secondary education lacking in basic mathematical skills and thus not academically prepared to enroll in college-level mathematics courses (ACT, 2010). Although it can be argued that those mathematical concepts should have been mastered in grades K-12, educating those students in basic skills mathematics has become the responsibility of universities and colleges. Two publications of the American Mathematical Association of Two Year Colleges (AMATYC), Crossroads (1995) and Beyond Crossroads (2006) set forth standards for mathematics programs and courses offered to students during their first two years of postsecondary education, which includes basic skills programs. Those …

A Deweyan-Based Curriculum For Teaching Ethical Inquiry In The Language Arts, Maria Aurora L. Buenaseda-Saludo

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Informed by Dewey’s account of ethical experience and the nature of philosophical inquiry, my theory of ethical inquiry has four components: body-based reasonableness, moral imagination, emotions as judgments, and ethical content. Bodybased reasonableness is thinking that is critical, creative, committed, contextual, and embodied (Sprod, 2001). Exercising embodied reasonableness in aesthetic education means that we pay critical attention and seek to address the ethical and social aspects of art. We pay attention to fiction that will potentially engage students in a constant process of ethical judgment, depicting characters and situations that call for our moral evaluation. In a similar vein, exposure …

Fairy Tales Redux: Jon Scieszka’S Revitalization Of A Genre For The 21st Century Kid.”, Laura Nicosia, James Nicosia

Department of English Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Student-Counselor Development During The First Year: A Qualitative Exploration, Dana Levitt

Department of Counseling Scholarship and Creative Works

This qualitative study examined the experiences of 9 first-year master’s-level counseling students. Data revealed that students progressed through a constructivist sense making process in which previous experiences as well as personal expectations were used to make sense of their current experiences. A comprehensive—yet tentative—grounded theory based on in-depth interviews and a focus group is described. Implications for counselor education are provided.

Using Their Words: Six Elements Of Social Justice Curriculum Design For The Elementary Classroom, Bree Picower

Department of Teaching and Learning Scholarship and Creative Works

This article provides a framework of six elements of social justice curriculum design for elementary classrooms. The elements move from students learning self-love and knowledge about who they are and where they come from to learning respect for people different from themselves. Students explore social injustice, learn about social movements, raise awareness, and engage in activism. By addressing all six elements, students develop an analysis of oppression and tools to take action. The elements help teachers visualize social justice education by providing examples of projects, making social justice in K-6 settings accessible, practical, and achievable.

"Americans With A Twist" : Identity Negotiation Of Second Generation Adolescents Of Asian Indian Descent, Lavina V. Sequeira

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Achieving a sense of identity includes not only the ability to know and understand oneself as an individual, but recognizing one's particular place in society. Adolescents of Asian Indian descent carry the burden of straddling two different cultures, two different worlds; often switching between the two in order to know and understand oneself, and be known and understood. While their social location suggests a middle class status and privilege, their appearance signifies a racial ethnic identity. The conflict therefore lies in the acceptance of dual cultural identities and sense of self, and how the same is negotiated through their everyday …

Volume 20, Nos. 1 & 2

Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children

Cassidy, Claire. “Questioning Children.” 62­-68.

Ferreira, Louise Brandes Moura. “Philosophy for Children in Science Class: Children Learning Basic Science Process Skills through Narrative.” 73-­81.

Karaba, Robert. “Reconceptualizing the Aims in Philosophy for Children,” 50­-54.

Kennedy, David. “I Must Change My Life: Review of A Life Teaching Thinking by Matthew Lipman.” 11­-21.

Küçük, Nimet. “The Education of Thinking Course: Innovation in Turkish Schools.” 69­72.

Moriyón, Félix García. “Matthew Lipman: An Intellectual Biography.” 22­-32.

-----­­­­­ “Review: Discussions in Science.” 94-­96.

Murris, Karrin. “Review of Talking about Feelings and Values with Children by Michael Schleiffer with Cynthia Martiny.” 88­-90.

Naji, Saeed and Ghazinezhad, …