Education Commons^™

An Exploration Of Black Church Leaders' Intentions To Develop Critical Consciousness Among African-American Students, Taheesha Quarells

Dissertations

African-American students experience human capital opportunity and achievement gaps. Researchers have called for culturally relevant strategies to help close the gaps. The historic Black Church, a part of many African-American students’ culture and community, is a historic and current source of social capital for positive human capital development outcomes. Critical consciousness develops positive human capital outcomes, such as academic achievement, in African-American and other minority students. Much of the literature on critical consciousness is quantitative in nature and therefore does not include the intentions or the willingness of organizations to develop critical consciousness. Therefore, there is a need to understand …

Higher Education Business And Technology Leaders’ Behaviors That Drive Outcome Alignment, Katherine Lynch-Holmes

Dissertations

Higher education institutions (HEIs) face unprecedented challenges, including capacity alignment, financial sustainability, and even public confidence (Grajeck & Brooks, 2020; Grawe, 2019; Oblinger, 2019; Simone, 2020, Wheeler, 2020, Witt & Coyne, 2019). Financial challenges force HEIs to reduce costs by making decisions like cutting programs, laying off staff or merging institutions to reduce operating costs (Chen et al., 2019; Sellingo, 2017; Witt & Coyne, 2019). Higher education leaders (HELs) must act as trusted partners and broker technology to align processes, support, and outcomes (Luftman 2000; Petkovics, 2018; Reinitz, 2019). Unfortunately, higher education’s business-technology (BITA) alignment remains lower than other national …

A Retro Development In Education: Evaluating The Feasibility Of Integrating Place-Based Education Into Mississippi Curriculum Standards, Colby K. Mcclain

Honors Theses

This thesis evaluates the feasibility of integrating place-based environmental education activities from Think Green, Take Action: Books and Activities for Kids into the Mississippi Department of Education’s (MDE) Frameworks for Science and Social Studies for K-5. As children develop and experience the world, their ability to understand and interpret the surrounding environments expand; however, Mississippi schools are not focused on experiential environmental education, even though experiencing and understanding the surrounding environment is vital in fostering eagerness to learn. Due to a growing disconnect between humans and the natural world, this thesis examined 37 place- and environment-based activities for children, sixteen …

Perceptions Of Segregation, Desegregation, And Integration From Burglund High School Students In Mccomb, Mississippi, Cynthia Loren Lamkin

Dissertations

Black-American history has been, and continues to be, one rich with struggle and progress throughout a multitude of past and current events – including the White resistance to Blacks becoming educated and the segregation and inequality permeating education, politics, and general living for centuries. It is necessary to gather a further understanding of the Black perspective regarding direct experiences of discrimination in education in order to cultivate pedagogy by which all students may have an equal chance to thrive. This study of the memories shared by former students who did and did not participate in the walkout on October 4, …

Gender Inequity In The Representation Of Women As Superintendents In Mississippi Public Schools: The "No Problem Problem", Deidre Joy Seale Smith

Dissertations

This qualitative study investigated the phenomenon of continuing underrepresentation of female superintendents in Mississippi K-12 public schools. The study was conducted during the 2014-2015 school year. At the time of the study, women represented 23% of the overall population of superintendents in Mississippi public schools. Fourteen women who were serving as superintendents in Mississippi during the 2014-2015 school year participated. Interviews were conducted, and the qualitative data were analyzed using the constant comparative method. The data were analyzed using constructs associated with feminist theory, feminist postsructural and feminist standpoint theoretical frameworks. Two primary themes emerged as a result of this …

Faith-Based And Graduate Adult Educator's Negotiation Of Similarities And Differences Among People As An Indicator Of Their Multicultural Effectiveness, Elizabeth Conerly Smith

Dissertations

This study examined the relationship between adult educators‘ multicultural effectiveness scores and their negotiation of similarities and differences scores. The participants were in faith-based institutions, specifically Christian churches and in graduate adult education programs of universities and colleges in the United States. Multicultural effectiveness was measured by the Multicultural Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) that the authors reported measured multicultural effectiveness as the primary, encompassing variable. The MPQ is a five-point Likert scale with 91 items. The MPQ reliability was a Cronbach‘s alpha of .82 (Van der Zee & Van Oudenhoven, 2000). The Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale (M-GUDS) measured the negotiation of similarities …

"Having Our Say": High Achieving African American Male College Graduates Speak About Parental Involvement And Parenting Style, Lynn Cheryl Lanier Odom

Dissertations

This study examined the patterns of parental involvement and parenting styles of a particular sample of academically successful African American males who attended and graduated from historically Black colleges or universities. More specifically, investigated was the presence of any relationships between parental involvement, parenting styles, grade point average, family structure, and parent(s) educational level. An online self­ report instrument was administered to 36 participants. Information gathered focused on how the graduates viewed their parents' child-rearing or parenting style during their educational experiences from kindergarten to the 12th grade. Three students agreed to participate in interviews designed to provide more information …

Tripping With Stephen Gaskin: An Exploration Of A Hippy Adult Educator, Gabriel Patrick Morley

Dissertations

For the last 40 years, Stephen Gaskin has been an adult educator on the fringe, working with tens of thousands of adults in the counterculture movement in pursuit of social change regarding marijuana legalization, women’s rights, environmental justice issues and beyond. Gaskin has written 11 books about his experiences teaching and learning with adults outside the mainstream, yet, he is virtually unknown in the field of adult education. He lists his religion as hippy; he is a member of the Counterculture Hall of Fame (inducted 2004), a convicted felon, a United States Marine, a Korean War combat veteran, and a …

Later Life Decision-Making: Experiential Adult Learning And Successful Aging, Shauna Pearce Breland

Dissertations

The focus of this study was on how aging adults make critical life decisions such as those involving health care and health care benefits, living arrangements for later life, and organizing personal affairs. The participant group consisted of 8 sexagenarians and 4 septuagenarians who had recently made or were currently making these critical life decisions.

The study employed both qualitative and quantitative methods. A qualitative phenomenological approach was used to allow the researcher to examine the phenomena of decision-making and aging within the context of the life experiences of the individuals being studied. Each subject participated in a single in-depth …

Post-Disaster Effects Of Hurricane Katrina On Significantly Affected College Students Compared To Moderately Affected College Students, Charles Thomas Coleman

Dissertations

This quantitative study used independent t tests to explore the level of significance with four dependent variables of educational effects (grades), financial impact (monetary hardship), physiological effects (aches, pains, or injury), and psychological effects (mental stability or illness) related to significantly affected students and moderately affected students of post- Hurricane Katrina. To determine if there was a significant difference between moderately affected students compared to significantly affected students, a questionnaire specific to the dependent variables was administered to The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) students.

Data gathered in this study suggested the greatest significant difference among significantly affected students and …

Differences In Learning Motivations Of Professionals And Nonprofessionals Participating In Two South Mississippi Institutes For Learning In Retirement, Constance Marie Farmer

Dissertations

This study investigated the differences in learning motivations of (a) professional and nonprofessional, and (b) urban and rural members of two south Mississippi Institutes for Learning in Retirement (ILR) programs in an attempt to expand C. O. Houle's conceptual model of continuing professional education into the retirement years and to determine if the life transitions of the older adult unite the learning orientations of these subpopulations into self-actualizing (growth) motives as part of the maturation process identified y Abraham Maslow.

Ninety urban ILR and 60 rural ILR members were recruited. Professional was defined as having completed a bachelor's degree or …