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Routes To A Western Undergraduate Degree: Chinese Families’ Mobilization Of Capital And Flexible Citizenship, Qinghua Zhao

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Today, an increasing number of Chinese families send their children to study in the West to open up future opportunities. While studying abroad has a long history in China from late Qing dynasty (1836–1911), in the last couple of decades Chinese student mobility occurred on a much larger scale. Chinese families view an undergraduate degree from the West as a way to enhance career opportunities and familial social status. My study examined Chinese families’ intentions and strategies to gain advantage in their transnational trajectory. Specifically, I explore how forms of capital accumulate and transfer through transnational educational routes. Pierre Bourdieu’s …

To What Extent Do L1 Speakers And L2 Learners Have Productive Derivational Knowledge, Emi Iwaizumi

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The present study investigated the extent to which L1 English speakers and L2 English learners could produce the derivatives of 90 head words in a decontextualized derivative recall test. This research also examined whether productive derivational knowledge varied between institutional levels (i.e., graduate, undergraduate, and high school) and vocabulary levels (i.e., 1000-5000). The results indicated that L1 speakers had greater productive derivational knowledge than L2 learners. However, no significant differences were found between L1 speakers and the advanced L2 learners. The results also indicated that the degree to which L2 learners have productive derivational knowledge significantly varied between the institutional …

Teaching For Equity: A Case Study Of Teachers’, Vice Principals’, And Principals’ Perspectives In Three High-Poverty Elementary Schools In Ontario, Canada, Abhilasha Duggal

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Elementary students in high-poverty schools have diverse learning needs. Their academic and social learning, in particular, varies between students - especially so for those students from culturally non-dominant backgrounds. In 2009, the Ontario Ministry of Education mandated that all school boards in Ontario develop and implement equity education policies, as specified in Policy/Program Memorandum No. 119: Developing and Implementing Equity and Inclusive Education Policies in Ontario Schools (2009). This dissertation explored the implementation of Ontario’s Equity Strategy in three highpoverty elementary schools within one district school board in Ontario. This exploratory case study investigated the following research questions: 1. How …

Teacher Professional Learning In Multiliteracies Pedagogy: Exploring The Lived Curriculum Of Preservice And In-Service Educators, Joelle Nagle

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The purpose of this exploratory case study is to examine the lived curriculum (Aoki, 1993) of preservice teachers enrolled in a Bachelor of Education language arts course and in-service teachers enrolled in an online graduate program, both with a focus on multiliteracies pedagogy. Through this study, the rationale is to understand how these formal professional learning experiences shape teachers’ perceptions of their literacy pedagogy. Specifically, the aim is to gain insight into how to promote multiliteracies pedagogy in preservice and in-service professional learning. This dissertation research builds upon two qualitative exploratory case studies (Stake, 2010; Yin, 2012) rooted in a …

Death Of The Clinic: Trans-Informing The Clinical Gaze To Counter Epistemic Violence, Diana E. Kuhl

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This case study research (Patton, 2002, 2014; Flyvberg, 2006) has grown out of an awareness of deep resistance from the psy disciplines to trans-informed epistemologies as a source of legitimate knowledge (Tosh, 2015, 2016; Winters, 2008). It focuses on examining how the closure of The Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) for Children and Youth at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, signaled a paradigm shift from the ‘treatment model’ to the ‘affirmative model’ with respect to clinical approaches for supporting trans and gender diverse children and youth. As such the case study involved tracing the …

Promoting Mentally Healthy Classrooms: Evaluation Of Online Mental Health Literacy Instruction In Pre-Service Teacher Education, E. Robyn Masters

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To better understand how to prepare large numbers of pre-service teachers for their role in creating and leading mentally healthy classrooms, this program evaluation explores outcomes related to an online mental health literacy course at a large central Canadian university. The course was delivered to 275 teacher education students simultaneously over 10-weeks and 20-hours of online instruction and professional reflection. Results indicated significant improvement in self-reported levels of mental health literacy, stigma toward mental illness, and self-efficacy for teaching students with diverse challenges. Qualitative reviews of participant feedback identified the most valuable aspects of the course and the ways in …

Seeking The Global Generation:A Comparative Case Study Of Youth From Canada, Georgia, And Saudi, Eva Jaberi

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This study explores how contemporary youth understand their lives under today’s context of globalization. It examines and compares perceptions and practice of high school age (15-18 years old) students from Canada, Georgia, and Saudi; how they think about the world and their place in it, and how they take up their roles as citizens of their local, national, and global communities. The study investigates if there are bases to collectively address these youth as a ‘Global Generation.’ By illuminating the core features of this generation it expounds on the implications of the existence of the Global Generation in relation to …

Essays In Economics Of Education: Teacher Labour Markets And Earnings Of University Graduates, Tomasz M. Handler

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This thesis consists of three substantive chapters, which explore topics related to the economics of education. Two of the chapters examine teacher labour markets, and one chapter examines the earnings of university graduates.

In Chapter 2, I create a new and unique dataset to examine how teacher characteristics affect the probability of acquiring a permanent teaching position in the Ontario public school system. This chapter provides evidence of how difficult it was for recent Ontario teachers’ college graduates to obtain a teaching job. The odds of finding a position in 2006 were, on average, around four times higher than they …

Understanding The Lived Experiences Of Saudi Students Enrolled In Canadian Graduate Nursing Programs, Aisha Namshan Aldawsari

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Despite the increased number of students in the field of nursing, there is a great shortage of Saudi nurses in Saudi Arabia (SA). Cultural issues in SA have influenced the development of the nursing profession. For instance, it is not culturally acceptable for female nurses or nursing students to work for long hours and night shifts in a mixed-gender practice environment in SA. Thus, a large proportion of nursing students tend to look for positions other than working in hospital settings upon completion of their undergraduate degree. Pursuing graduate nursing education overseas is also viewed as a viable option. To …

Who I Am Is Shaped By My Past And Impacts My Future: Exploring Antecedents And Outcomes Of Self-Views Across International, Immigrant, And Canadian Born Undergraduate Students, Anjana Balakrishnan

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This dissertation focused on how various self-views variables (self-esteem, self-concept, and self-concept clarity) differ across and within groups of university students, are influenced by internal and external factors, and predict academic and non-academic variables. Key models of self and group perceptions were used in deriving hypotheses (i.e., Shavelson, Hubner & Stanton, 1976; Bosson & Swann Jr, 2009; Stephan, Ybarra, & Morrison, 2009). Across the four studies, self-report questionnaires were used. Studies 1 and 4 were completed online by international, immigrant, and Canadian born students. Studies 2 and 3 examined only international students, involved an experimental manipulation, and were conducted in-lab. …

Collaborative Mind Mapping To Support Online Discussion In Teacher Education, Rosa Cendros Araujo

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Mind maps that combine text, images, colour and layout elements, have been widely used in classroom teaching to improve retention, knowledge organization and conceptual understanding. Furthermore, studies have shown the advantages of using mind-maps to facilitate collaborative learning. However, there are gaps in the literature regarding the use and study of collaborative mind-mapping in online learning settings. This integrated-article dissertation explores the implementation of online collaborative mind mapping activities in a mathematics teacher education program at a Canadian university. The studies were developed with participants enrolled in three different courses where at least two of the online activities used collaborative …

Cognitive, Neural, And Educational Contributions To Mathematics Performance: A Closer Look At The Roles Of Numerical And Spatial Skills, Zachary C.K. Hawes

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The principal aims of this thesis were to (1) provide new insights into the cognitive and neural associations between spatial and mathematical abilities, and (2) translate and apply findings from the field of numerical cognition to the teaching and learning of early mathematics.

Study 1 investigated the structure and interrelations amongst cognitive constructs related to numerical, spatial, and executive function (EF) skills and mathematics achievement in 4- to 11-year old children (N=316). Results revealed evidence of highly related, yet separable, cognitive constructs. Together, numerical, spatial, and EF skills explained 84% of the variance in mathematics achievement (controlling for chronological age). …

Barriers To Policewomen's Promotion: An Ontario Case Study, Susan Dick

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This exploratory case study delved into why many policewomen elect to bypass the promotion process in a large Ontario police service. Although there is research on the number of policewomen at each rank in the Ontario police services and a considerable amount of research about the barriers policewomen face in many parts of the Western world, it is not clear why many abstain from the promotion process. This research asked the question why, and participants provided some insight as to how the situation regarding policewomen’s career promotion could be improved in the future.

Forty-three policewomen participated in this research …

Investigating The Design Of An Aesthetic Mathematical Experience, Maryam Koozehkanani

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In this thesis, I am going to share my analysis of an aesthetic mathematical experience which happened while I designed and created a pop-up math story. My aim in analyzing this experience is to better understand it and to make a model for other educators who are seeking to design aesthetic mathematical experiences. My research question is: What factors come into play when an educator immerses herself in the process of designing an aesthetic mathematical experience? My research uses qualitative analysis with a focus on narrative inquiry. My focus is on my personal experience designing a mathematics curriculum experience for …

Esl Teachers' Self-Efficacy Toward Pedagogical Use Of Digital Technologies: An Exploratory Case Study In The Ontario Context, Aide Chen

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Digital technologies have been intertwined with English language education globally and have yielded ever-emerging opportunities and challenges. This research aims to explore ESL teacher participants’ perceived abilities to use digital technologies for pedagogical purposes, their implemented integration of technology in classrooms, as well as possible solutions to some of the technology-related difficulties they have experienced throughout their teaching practice. This qualitatively-driven mix-methods study utilizes a constructivist theoretical framework and involves multiple bodies of literature such as digital literacy and teacher self-efficacy. Surveys and semi-structured interviews have been used for data collection. The findings show that teacher self-efficacy beliefs are shaped …

A Critical Analysis Of Oecd's 'Global Competence' Framework, Britney Hunter

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The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) proposes that improving students’ “multidimensional capacities” through ‘global competence’ education can result in a more ‘inclusive and sustainable’ world. The purpose of this study is to critically analyze OECD’s ‘global competence’ policy (2018) as incorporated in its Programme for International Student Assessment. This document analysis employs Bacchi and Goodwin’s (2016) poststructural policy analysis, “What’s the Problem Represented to be?” approach, which unearths the assumptions, presuppositions, and potential effects of policy through a solution-problem articulation. This study finds that OECD’s solution of ‘globally competent’ learners constructs a problem that suggests national education systems …

Inclusion And Policy Enactment In Teacher Education: A Focus On Pre-Service Teacher Preparation For The Inclusive Classroom, Ayman Massouti

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Preparing pre-service teachers to enact inclusive teaching practices in the inclusive classroom has become a concern for national and international educational organizations. Adding to these concerns, research on inclusive educati­on policy enactment in teacher education programs, particularly in a continuously growing and recognized diverse society such as Ontario, Canada, is scarce. In order to provide insight to address these issues, this study aimed to examine the enactment of the policy document titled Equity and Inclusive Education in Ontario Schools: Guidelines for Policy Development and Implementation (OME, 2014) in one Ontario teacher education program. In particular, the study focused on exploring …

Affective And Sensuous Critique In The Undergraduate Art Classroom, Claire Bartleman

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Drawing on the ways that art history, art theory, and art criticism have used affect theory, I ask how an affective approach can align the undergraduate classroom art critique with the historical definition of aesthetics, or aesthesis, and create a space for sense and feeling. The first chapter reviews literature in the field and demonstrates the perceived benefits and drawbacks of current critique models. In the second chapter, I consider how affect has the potential to disrupt traditional approaches to critique in order to assist in rethinking stated goals, disrupt power dynamics in the classroom, and generate transformative knowledge. In …

Does Lexical Frequency Affect Rater Judgement Of Essays? An Experimental Design Using Quantitative And Qualitative Data, Mohammad Muneer Ul-Huda

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Many correlational studies show a positive relation between written assessments of language and use of more diverse vocabulary (Lexical Diversity) and more infrequent words (Lexical Frequency). However, there have been no experimental studies that have isolated the effects of Lexical Frequency from Lexical Diversity. In the present study, 14 raters judged two versions of the same essay that differed only in Lexical Frequency. A Paired T-test showed no difference in mean scores between essays (t(13) = .396, p = .70) when the Lexical Frequency of 23.5% of Content Words were changed in a 347 word essay. Comments explaining …

The Predictive Validity Of Ielts Scores: A Meta-Analysis, Tomlin Gagen

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Thousands of education institutions worldwide rely on IELTS scores as criteria for accepting international students whose first language is not English. Individual studies have found varying degrees of strength of correlations and conflicting results between IELTS scores and academic success. These conflicting results were examined through a meta-analysis, while also investigating multiple moderating variables: research funding bias, individual skill scores, level, field, & country of study, presence of additional English courses, and GPA timepoint.

Results from 18 studies show an approaching-small effect size of r =.227 for the relationship between IELTS scores and post-secondary GPA. The majority of macro skills …

The Role Of Child Protection Services In Preventing Child And Adult Domestic Homicides: Missed Opportunities And Barriers To Change, Laura Olszowy

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This dissertation involves three studies exploring the risks children face living with domestic violence (DV) and the critical role of child protection services (CPS) in assessing risk in DV cases. The first study examined the involvement of CPS before domestic homicides cases as reviewed by the Ontario Domestic Violence Death Review Committee (DVDRC). One in five of the homicide cases where children were present in the family system had prior involvement with CPS. The underlying themes of DVDRC recommendations directed to the child welfare sector highlighted the need for enhanced ongoing services to promote safety and hold perpetrators accountable, specialized …

A Situational Analysis Of Municipal Early Childhood Education Policy Documents, Maureen Cullen

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Studies have been conducted at the provincial and federal levels that expose dominant discourses in child care policy documents and reports. However, there has not been a similar examination of documents at the municipal level. This study uses a qualitative situational analysis to investigate discourses that are present in municipal documents of a mid-size Ontario city as they pertain to the child care sector. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of discourse, this study interrogates the discursive functions that dominant ideas might have on policies that inform funding, programming, and subsidies. Through a cartographic exercise of map making, this study reveals and …

Strengthening The School-Family Partnership: Parents' Experiences With The Parents In Partnership With Educators Program (Pipe), Courtney Cadieux

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The Parents in Partnership with Educators (PIPE) program was developed as a brief intervention for families who are struggling to communicate with schools around the needs of their child. It includes instruction in communication and conflict resolution strategies. Parents are also provided with support at school meetings to help them implement these strategies. The goal of this thesis was to explore why parents enrol in the PIPE program and what they gain from their involvement. In Study 1, file reviews were conducted of ten families, eight of whom also participated in an interview about their experience. Interview transcripts were analysed …

Narratives Of Sexuality In The Lives Of Young Women Readers, Davin L. Helkenberg

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In recent years, research on adolescent sexuality in Young Adult (YA) Literature has included a discussion of its potential role in sex education. Based on the extensive yet problematic presentation of sexuality within these texts, it has gained both support and opposition. However, very few empirical studies have been done on how readers say YA Literature has informed their sexual lives.

This thesis investigates how narratives of sexuality found within YA Literature may inform the sexual lives of young women readers by examining both readers’ experiences and YA texts. First, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 11 female participants (aged 18 …

Multimodal Dissertations: Opportunities For Multimodality In Higher Education, Annie Tran

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multiliteracies, multimodality, higher education, technology, communication, dissertations, graduate education

In an era when communication and higher education are rapidly changing, there is much to learn about multimodality and the dissertation. For example, how can multimodality be used to forward an argument or inform research in a dissertation? How is technology changing the format of the dissertation? And how might multimodality and technology change the experience of composing a dissertation? This study addresses dissertations and the problem of understanding how research can be argued, represented, and presented in multimodal ways, and considers the lived curriculum of Ph.D. graduate students. My work …

A Critical Narrative Inquiry Of English Teachers’ Experiences Of Enacting A Pedagogy Of Multiliteracies In China, Lin Sun

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When China’s Ministry of Education issued a series of curriculum change policies in 2011, major curriculum reform was initiated. Given the significant role that teachers play in curriculum reform, it is critically important to understand their experiences in their professional knowledge landscapes so that intentional and meaningful support for changes can be provided. This information will enrich the scholarly conversation on the theoretical and practical application of a pedagogy of multiliteracies in China and remind policy makers to consider the needs of teachers charged with implementing changes.

Situated in the global and local scholarship of multiliteracies, this empirical study explored …

Exploring Young Children's Encounters With The More-Than-Human: A Multispecies Ethnography, Sarah Kathleen Black

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Foregrounding moments from an early child care centre, this thesis employs a multispecies ethnography methodology to explore the opportunities children from a preschool class have to encounter the more-than-human in the ecological epoch of the Anthropocene. Drawing on a posthuman and common worlds theoretical framework, this thesis works to explore children/more-than-human entanglements that occur in a local, urban cemetery space while challenging practices of human exceptionalism in the field of early childhood education. Participants in the study included one preschool class of 16 three to four-year-old children and the diverse nonhuman residents of the cemetery space. Using a diffractive method …

The Stranger In Contemporary Practice: A Critical Autoethnography, Michelle Pajot

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The Stranger in Contemporary Practice explores the perils (Şenocak, 2009; 2016) of negotiating differences in public sector organizations dominated by neoliberalism. This autoethnography draws on my lived experience as a critically-informed workplace consultant to explore the existential issues I have confronted in striving to align my practices with espoused values of justice in contemporary practice environments. I draw on a critical incident (Tripp, 1993) in which I reached a communicative impasse – and found myself critically challenged in communicating with professional associates whose clinical views I found irreconcilably different from mine. My research question is: how do I discern right …

Inclusion Of Muslim Students In Ontario Public Education: A Qualitative Inquiry Of Elementary School Principals, Farah Ghonaim

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In order to include Muslim students in Ontario schools, inclusive principals are expected work to understand the inclusion of Muslim students in order to grant them with equal recognition and opportunities as other students in schools. In Ontario, school principals can influence students’ learning and achievement through their leadership role and through their routine duties for leading schools, enacting policies, and ensuing quality of instruction at schools. As leaders, principals can enhance the inclusion of Muslim students through working with staff and teachers, and creating working conditions that support Muslim students learning. Ontario policies call for inclusion of all students …

Contributors Of Pre-Service Teachers’ Self-Efficacy For Teaching In Inclusive Classrooms: How Predictors Of Self-Efficacy Change Over Time, Evan Charles

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This study investigated the extent to which demographic, experiential, and belief factors at two points in time predict pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching in inclusive classrooms, and how predictors change over time. Two hundred sixty-four Canadian pre-service teachers completed a demographic questionnaire, the Beliefs about Teaching and Learning Questionnaire (BTLQ) and the Teacher Efficacy for Inclusive Practices scale (TEIP) toward the beginning and at the end of their teacher education. The results showed that at both times, Canadian pre-service teachers have very strong pro-inclusion beliefs and have very high levels of self-efficacy for teaching in inclusive classrooms. Significant improvements over …