Education Commons^™

Umass School Of Education Receives Funding To Support Higher Education In Afghanistan, Joseph B. Berger

Center for International Education Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond Pronade: Ngos And The Formal Education Sector In Guatemala, Jacob A. Carter

Master's Capstone Projects

In Guatemala, the Ministry of Education (MoE) is overburdened with challenges;these include the most basic provision of services and support for public schools across the country. In the absence of a capable state presence, countless nongovernmental organizations (NGO) have sprung up to provide, sustain and/or take over basic education services. These NGOs come in all shapes and sizes, with different motivations, from different countries and receiving funding from a variety of national and international sources. The combination of rapidly increasing numbers of NGOs along with minimal state coordination means that the Ministry is unaware of the number of NGOs operating …

Strengthening The Education Management Information System (Emis) In Tanzania: Government Actors’ Perceptions About Enhancing Local Capacity For Information-Based Policy Reforms, Assela M. Luena

Master's Capstone Projects

Strengthening the Education Management Information System (EMIS) in Tanzania is an important task, as the government needs quality data and information to support the creation of sound policies, making plans and managing educational resources. Well-functioning EMIS can ensure achievement of national goals to provide quality education, which is the basis for facilitating economic growth and sustainable development. The government also needs quality data and information in order to enhance monitoring and evaluation of the education sectors’ performance and ensure the right direction for achieving the intended goals and objectives.

Creating a sustainable and efficient EMIS is a challenge that requires …

A Child With Two Motherlands: Child Sojourners And Cultural Identity, Krayushkina Tatiana

Master's Capstone Projects

The main focus of the research for my Master’s Project has been children who sojourn in a different culture for several years. When studying social phenomena, social scientists often focus on adults, representing their perceptions and attitudes towards these phenomena. Children are assumed to follow the parents as silent absorbents of the parents’ views, decisions and attitudes. I, however, have foregrounded the perspectives and voices of children themselves. In this research, I have explored the following:

How children view their cultural identity/ies;

how they practice agency in choosing one;

how identity/ies change over time;

and what influences such changes

In …

Experiencing Shadow Education: The Rural Gambian Context, Colleen King

Master's Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study is to gain insights into the practices that emerge at the community and school level to promote change and to understand the underlying values at play in local educational practice compared to and inside the larger structure of national or state level educational planning. The phenomenological approach to this study focuses on the lived experience in the provision, monitoring and receiving of educational services in the rural Gambian context. Attitudes and perceptions are explored, divorced from assumptions about universal educational goals. This provides a descriptive, rather than evaluative, record of the relationship and meaning that …

Recognizing Culture In Experiential Education: An Analysis And Framework For Practitioners, Valerie J. Kurka

Master's Capstone Projects

Experiential education is an intentional educational process that relies on experiential learning theory. This paper categorizes common features of experiential education and analyzes them with a cultural framework. Common features of experiential education include individual development, student-centered teaching, individual challenge and learning, challenge-by-choice, “emotional safety”, and reflection/processing activities. The features of experiential education that I have analyzed have basic cultural assumptions of high individuality, low power distance, low uncertainty avoidance, high achievement, emphasis on internal control, and possible interaction with ascriptive dispositions and masculine characteristics. These assumptions may have implications for practitioners practicing cross-culturally. In an increasingly global world and …

Contemplative Education: How Contemplative Practices Can Support And Improve Education, Judith Johannes

Master's Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study is to explore how contemplative education can have a viable role in education. In the first part of this thesis I will share my own personal experience with contemplative practices and how they led to my personal growth and transformation.

The second part will give some brief insights about the benefits the ancient wisdom traditions Hinduism and Buddhism attributed to contemplative practices. They claim that those practices help to reach a state of expanded awareness and stillness of the mind. Contemplative practices such as mindfulness, which is a Buddhist meditation technique, were used to better …

Description Of A Species For International Education: Zoos A Literature Review, Thomas A. Coon

Master's Capstone Projects

Zoos are an international phenomenon and are behaving strongly as complex multifaceted educational institutions. With hundreds of institutions around the world and hundreds of millions of annual visitors zoos, as a community, have a tremendous international and educational reach. However, despite these characteristics, zoos consistently remain off the radar of the comparative and international education field. The strongest reason for this, perhaps, is that literature, research and discussion about zoos, education and learning has largely remained confined to literature published by and for zoo professionals and within zoo industry journals. With regards to the international education field this is unfortunate …

Assessing Stakeholders Perceptions On Private Tuition In Zanzibar, Mshauri Abdulla Khamis

Master's Capstone Projects

This study investigated the perceptions of key education stakeholders on the issue of private tuition in Zanzibar. The key stakeholders invited to participate in this study were parents, head teachers, Advanced School Students (ASSs) and Senior Education Officer from the Ministerial level. The study sought their perceptions on factors that influence the growth of and access to private tuition, its advantages and disadvantages. The purpose of this chapter is to present a general overview of the study. The chapter has seven sections: the motivation and rationale for conducting this study; the context of the study including my personal working experience …

A Renovation To Develop Community, Build Connections And Support Student Needs In The Southwest Residential Towers At The University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Brittany L. Haughton

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

In a time of increased admissions at State Colleges and Universities students are at risk for various concerning factors including decreased academic performance, feelings of isolation and alienation from faculty, staff and their peers, and other issues of mental health. Intentional architectural programming, primarily the public spaces within residence halls, can help to alleviate these issues for students and ensure that they are connected to their residential community not only academically but personally.

This thesis will discuss how the increase in college admissions has affected residence hall communities and the personal development of students attending large academic institutions. It will …

Environmental Design Research And The Design Of Urban Open Space: A Study Of Current Practice In Landscape Architecture, Jennifer Masters

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

A large and growing body of research exists on how the design of the environment can positively or negatively affect people’s health and well-being, as well as influence their behavior. Researchers in this field, known as “environmental design research,” have long acknowledged the challenge of translating their findings into formats that are accepted and used by practitioners. This study explores how environmental design research on urban open space and the practice-oriented translations of it are used by landscape architects who have been recognized in the profession for their designs of parks, plazas, and streets in urban areas. Through interviews with …

Rewriting The Balkans: Memory, Historiography, And The Making Of A European Citizenry, Dana N. Johnson

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This thesis explores the work of historians, history teachers, and NGO employees engaged in regional initiatives to mitigate the influence of enduring ethnocentric national histories in the Balkans. In conducting an ethnography of the development and dissemination of such initiatives, I queried how conflict and controversy are negotiated in developing alternative educational materials, how “multiperspectivity” is understood as a pedagogical approach and a tool of reconciliation, and how the interests of civil society intersect with those of the state and supranational actors. My research sought to interrogate the field of power in which such attempts to innovate history education occur, …

Wind Power, Susn Reyes

Science and Engineering Saturday Seminars

No abstract provided.

The Intersectionality Of Race, Adoption And Parenting: How White Adoptive Parents Of Asian Born Children Talk About Race Within The Family, Jen H. Dolan

Rudd Adoption Research Program Dissertations from UMass Amherst

Transracial adoption has been a controversial form of adoption since it came into vogue in the United States in the 1950s. In 1972, The National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) established a decree stating transracial adoption was akin to cultural genocide because they were concerned that under the tutelage of White parents, Black children would not learn the skills needed to survive in a racist society. Whereas the NABSW was looking out for the well being of domestic children of color, there was no corresponding advocate for children of color adopted internationally.

Recognizing that large numbers of children are …