Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Cultural, Psychosocial, And Educational Factors In Relation To Ethnic Identity Among Cambodian High School Students In The United States, Traci L. Weinstein, Khanh Dinh, Tamara Springle

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This study examined the relationship between preferred ethnic labels an cultural, psychosocial, and academic variables in a sample of 174 Cambodian high school students in the U.S. Results indicated that participants who chose “American” ethnic labels reported higher scores on White/Anglo orientation and on English language usage and fluency, whereas participants who chose the “Cambodian” ethnic label reported more Khmer language usage and frequency. Students who chose the combined “Cambodian American” ethnic label reported stronger beliefs in the utility of education and higher academic aspirations. The findings from this study expand the research on ethnic identity by focusing on 2nd …

Culturally And Socially Responsive Teacher Professional Learning At The American Museum Of Natural History, Jessica Correa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project consists of a series of professional learning sessions to support teachers in their implementation of Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CR-SE) using the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) as a resource and case study. Through the lens of Historically Responsive Literacy, the series also seeks to reestablish social science as a critical element of natural history for teachers. This series can help teachers see the museum as not only a place to explore life and physical science, but also a place to explore identity, social/emotional development, cultural studies and American History. The project includes resources and directions for …

The Use Of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In Esol Classes, Beth A. O. Haddinger

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is organized into five distinct chapters addressing multiple aspects of learning and engagement as it relates to English Language Learners (ELLs) in the classroom. First, the problem of practice is identified and explored. We, as educators, must look closely at instructional and systemic issues, actionable elements, broader strategies of improvement, and leverage, which refers to the ability of a program to motivate students and to generate a sense of practical value in academics. The next aspect of this dissertation proposal reviews the existing research literature. This literature review focuses on the specific learning needs of ELL students. Specifically …

Teachers’ Work: Communicating On Difficult Knowledge In Ontario Schools, Zsofia Agoston Villalba

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines how K-12 teachers in Ontario navigate the complexities of teaching "difficult knowledge"—topics such as racial and ethnic injustices, Indigenous perspectives, immigration experiences, and gender issues—within the parameters of the school and the curriculum. Utilizing an institutional ethnography approach, the study examines the curriculum as an institutional text that coordinates and shapes teachers’ practices. Working with and against the curriculum, teachers find innovative ways to engage their students on difficult knowledge topics. Based on interviews with 12 K-12 teachers, this research explores teachers’ work and pedagogical approaches. They employ diverse teaching methods like storytelling, open dialogues, and collaborative …

Redefining “Lgbtq+ Interculture” In Academia, Samantha Winterberg, Michelle Mccraney

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

Members of the LGBTQ+ community often face discrimination, harassment, and exclusion in academic settings, which can negatively impact their academic and personal success. Studies have shown that LGBTQ+ students are more likely to experience negative mental health conditions, drop out of school, and struggle to find employment after graduation. Cultural humility fosters diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is critical to ensuring an equitable educational experience for all students, particularly those from marginalized communities. Intercultural understanding is essential to develop cultural humility so that attitudes reflect empathy and tolerance of differences, including sexual or gender orientation variances or ambiguity. Understanding how …

Book Review: Qualitative Studies Of Exploration In Childhood Education: Cultures Of Play And Learning In Transition, Transitions In Childhood And Youth Series By M. Fleer Et Al., Ridhi Sethi

International Journal of Playwork Practice

This review of Qualitative Studies of Exploration in childhood Education: Cultures of Play and Learning in Transition outlines the manner in which chapters in the book use qualitative data to inform understandings of how culture affects children’s development. With little research on how play and culture affect the wellbeing of children, this book fills the void. It uses data qualitatively and answers the how and why about play and transitions. The review also looks at how the book informs my work as a developmental psychologist, and some of the book’s limitations or omissions.

Resistencia Indocumentada: Exploring The Lived Experiences Of Higher Education Undocumented Students In The San Diego-Tijuana Border Region, Adan Escobedo Sanchez

Dissertations

Undocumented students face myriad obstacles while attending higher education institutions that would deter them from completing their academic journeys. Furthermore, they are placed with a dual narrative that labels them as either dangerous or exceptional. This study explored the lived experiences of undocumented students in college in the San Diego-Tijuana border region to consider what factors have led to resilience and resistance in their academic journey. By understanding these factors, the research aimed to tackle the dual narrative that burdens undocumented students from the illegality as a master status they possess.

This study used narrative inquiry and a literature review …

Language Laws And Regional Identity: A Case Study Of Euskera In The Basque Country, Jenna Ebel

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the interconnectivity between language laws and regional identity, focusing on education, public health, and transnational systems. Through this case study of the Basque Country, the context and wording of the language laws in the subregions within the Basque Country are utilized to understand how they affect the usage and understanding of the Basque language, “Euskera.” Through this, the study is then focused on the Spanish autonomous community of the Basque Country to understand the effects of a minority language on educational systems, the COVID-19 Pandemic, and the connections to both the EU and the UN. Through a …

How To Be An Anti-Racist Educator: A Book Review Through An Educational Perspective, Maria Cristina F. Soares, Melanie Morales

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

The authors reviewed the book How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi (2019) while reflecting on how Kendi’s brilliant dismantlement of racism and discrimination would help educators become conscious of how racism operates in our society, their schools, and their communities. Kendi’s book could motivate teachers to self-reflect on intrinsic feelings and misconceptions about race and culture built over time, allowing them to adopt new attitudes towards their students and school community. The authors considered the need to reevaluate systemic racism in schools as research has, for instance, found evidence of discriminatory practices towards African American boys (Gregory …

Teaching About The Global Refugee Crisis, Melissa Kafer

Honors Projects

Around the world, there are more than 30 million refugees (UNHCR, 2023) facing language barriers, cultural differences, prejudice, racism, and xenophobia. The number of admitted refugees in 2022 has more than doubled since 2021 (Duffin, 2022), and yet, many Americans do not know or understand the global refugee crisis. There are misconceptions in America that cause lack of empathy, bias, and prejudice towards refugees. Through the creation of four lesson plans, this research project aims to discover Americans’ misunderstandings regarding refugees and teach them about the crisis to remedy the misconceptions. This study includes a literature review detailing appropriate teaching …

The Maldivian Language Predicament: Language Loss Through The Lens Of Students, Azka Hassan

Senior Theses and Projects

This study dives into Maldivian students’ experiences of learning languages in classrooms, as well as how they perceive their proficiency in English relative to their first language, Dhivehi. I investigated the issue of language loss and its contributors via a qualitative study which consisted of 9 semi-structured 45-60 minute interviews with lower secondary Maldivian students who are in public schools in Male’ city. (Key stage 4, ages 13-17) Through this study, I argue that the Maldives is suffering from language loss among youth because students often have negative experiences in Dhivehi classrooms and feel pressure rooted in higher social and …

The International Academy Of Language And Culture: The Global (Pre)K-12 Charter School Network, Dree-El Simmons

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The International Academy of Language and Culture (IALC) is a charter school based on the original concept of charter schools by Ray Budde and Albert Shanker, as an academic environment dedicated and designed to improving the educational outcomes for its students through innovative pedagogy. Committed to American (and global) education reform, the IALC incorporates elements from higher education into the early childhood and adolescent settings. We accomplish this by utilizing an interdisciplinary approach in our language and culture-based program.

The IALC is a multilingual, full-immersion program. Food Studies (including culinary arts), the Arts, the Humanities, Social Sciences, and Martial Arts …

Amjambo Africa! (August 2022), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

Amjambo Arts ......................2/3

Moonglade .............................4/5

Education .............................6-10

Free Community College

In 7 languages

Immigration fraud .................12

In 7 languages

Market Basket ...................14/15

Tips & Info ..............................16

All about the Workforce ........18

Community Happenings .20/21

Girls & women in Africa........22

Central America news ...........24

Health&Wellness. ..............26-27

In 7 languages

Service organization columns 32

Financial literacy ....................33

New Voices feature ...........34/35

Nonprofit updates .............36/37

Promoting The Healthy Development Of All Adolescents Through An Equity Lens: Continuing Education For Secondary-Level Educators, Isabella Simone

Senior Honors Projects

American schools, as an institution, have a mission to educate society’s youth in a way that is characterized by, and promotes, equity regarding educational access, opportunities, and outcomes. Doing so promises to support the individual growth and development of all students. Unfortunately, high school students face challenges regarding healthy development — academic, social, and identity-based — during the transition from childhood to adulthood. These challenges include navigating their identity development, achieving academic success, managing school and family demands, and planning for their futures. Barriers to the successful achievement of these challenges include risk factors associated with family relationships, financial standing, …

Indigenous Mexicans In New York City: Immigrant Integration, Language Use, And Identity Formation, Leslie A. Martino-Velez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As indigenous Mexican immigrants migrate, settle, and raise families in the United States, parents, particularly women, and their children increasingly have contact with community institutions, such as schools. Despite their growing numbers in U.S. schools, indigenous children, youth, and their parents are often invisible due to their ethnolinguistic identities and undocumented status. Understanding what parents do to help their children is essential to understanding the first generation's integration and their children, the second generation.

To better understand this, I conducted an ethnographic research study at a bilingual Head Start program in New York City, in East Harlem, where many undocumented …

Moving From Harm Mitigation To Affirmative Discrimination Mitigation: The Untapped Potential Of Artificial Intelligence To Fight School Segregation And Other Forms Of Racial Discrimination, Andrew Gall

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Disappearing Acts: The Declining Numbers Of African American Teachers In Public School Settings, Catherine F. Lewis-Brownfield

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

African American teachers are slowly leaving the classroom, causing an imbalance in the student/teacher ratio (NCES, 2019). According to the National Center for Education Statistics, African American teachers make up 3% in California and 7% nationally. This study sought to understand the reasons for the decline in the number of African American teachers in public school settings. Due to the decline in their numbers, African American students have suffered high dropout rates, low standardized test scores, and low college attendance (Gershenson, Hart, Hyman, Lindsey, & Papageorge, 2017). This qualitative study examined the obstacles current African American teachers face and the …

An Unspoken Story Of Education: An Autoethnographic Exploration Of Racism In Education, Elisa A. Perez-Garcia

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Privilege is when one voice is the norm, but some children’s voices are underheard within research. Extensive research has demonstrated that Hispanic face multiple barriers within the education system. This study examines how whiteness within the education system can impact a Hispanic student’s perspective of the world. An autoethnographic approach is used to analyze five stories. A grounded theory approach identified emergent themes from the stories shared. The four themes that emerged among the stories were intersectionality, privilege, social construct, and microaggression. It demonstrated minority students’ experiences and interactions could profoundly affect how they view their identity. There are measures …

Collateral Damage: How Expanding Public Charge Policy Influences Adult Esl Enrollment, Allison M. Eckert

Master's Theses

This study used statistical analysis of enrollment records for ESL programs at community colleges throughout California from 2015-2019 to determine whether adult immigrants’ participation in public ESL programs was reduced under President Donald Trump. Immigrant families’ lesser use of public education services and means-tested federal benefits has been widely documented in the wake of Trump’s expansion of the public charge rule, which counted immigrants’ use of a wider array of public benefits against their case for residency in the United States than had any previous iteration of the rule. Failing the public charge test can block an immigrant’s entry into …

On The Struggles And Experiences Of Southeast Asian American Academics, Long T. Bui

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

This article examines Southeast Asian Americans (SEAA) academics in the U.S. academy, relating their complex positionalities within higher education to their communities and societies. While many educational studies have been done on SEAA students, almost none focus on professional scholars and college faculty. Combining cultural-structural critique with close analysis of public writings and personal interviews, the article finds that that SEAA are ignored, and/or tokenized in the Ivory Tower due to structural as well as epistemological issues. It indicates that the public discourse and policies about Southeast Asians in academia not only neglects racial and class hierarchies, but obscures issues …

My Journey As An Emergent Bilingual, Cynthia Villarreal Cantu

The Qualitative Report

This autoethnography was conducted at an elementary school not far from the South Texas border. I documented how my journey as a kindergarten, first-grade, and second-grade student has impacted me to become a better educator. Through this qualitative study, I planned to determine if my childhood experiences as an emergent bilingual learner have made an impact in my teaching and the connections I have formed with my students. I analyzed observations of my current teaching practices and my elementary report cards and test scores. After observing my students’ interactions among their peers and my reaction towards their conversations, I found …

Human Capital Formation And Return Migration Within Mong Communities In Rural/Semi-Rural Northern California, Chong Yang

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This research uses computational grounded theory to explore the human capital formation and stay/return migration experiences of well-educated Mong adults living in various rural/semi-rural Northern California localities within Butte, Yuba, and Sutter Counties. Rural vitality is dependent on the return of these well-educated rural-raised adults. Out-migration of rurality’s best and brightest contributes towards a brain drain and the hallowing out of rurality’s human capital. Findings of this research is conveyed using two research articles examining two different points on the continuum of rural vitality. The first article examines 19 Mong adults’ educational experiences within their rural communities and college education. …

Bicultural Identity And Academic Achievement: The Second-Generation Immigrant Student Experience, Karimeh Haddad

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

By comparing the academic success and internal processes of immigrant groups, this study aimed to explore the impact of immigration status (first, second, and third-generation) and cultural backgrounds on academic achievement on a holistic level. By measuring acculturation, parental expectations, self-efficacy, goal adjustment, motivation, control beliefs, and vocabulary knowledge of university students, the combination of constructs best correlated to academic achievement was studied with determinants of demographics playing a key role. In addition to quantitative analyses, in-depth interviews supplemented the analyses and further gave insight to the backgrounds of the target population, second-generation immigrant students. The results indicated that there …

Education, Hurricanes, And Bananas: Studying Abroad In Honduras, Daphne Fauber

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

The College of Education Honduras Study Abroad program has been sending students to Honduras for a 17-day investigation of Honduran history, educational systems, and social justice in education since 2003. Honduras is a Central American country with a long history of exploitation, political conflict, and environmental disasters. The country began with a swift and brutal colonization by the Spanish, which left the indigenous people persecuted and massacred. In 1998, Honduras experienced a devastating hurricane that decimated many buildings and infrastructure. Large-scale farming operations run by foreign investors has resulted in political turmoil and a struggling working class. However, Honduras has …

A Language Barrier To Human Capital Development: The Case Of Guatemalan Students, Fidel Pérez Macal

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Not being proficient in a school’s predominant language of instruction can represent a language barrier for students’ human capital development. In Guatemala, 24 languages are spoken apart from Spanish, which is the language of instruction in the majority of schools, and about 40 percent of the total population has a non-Spanish language as a mother tongue. National standardized tests show that non-Spanish mother tongue (non-SMT) students are outperformed by SMT students in elementary and secondary schools.

My thesis analyzes whether non-SMT students face a language barrier and traces its source. Two main findings emerge. First, non-SMT students are not yet …

Dual Immersion Programs And Their Implications: Focused Analyses On The Educational History, Francisco Reynoso Barron

International Studies (MA) Theses

As a social construct, education fulfills the necessary elements, ideologies, and rituals required to construct social norms for society. What a society deems as a norm determines the sentiments and direction that a nation will take. These normative tendencies lead to national identity and national security through policies and legislation within the nations' utilization of sovereignty. National interest being influenced by global events and ethnocentric ideologies has seen cycles leading to different immigration, educational, and economic policies. This paper analyzes dual immersion programs, which have been treated as a controversial topic due to its implications on national security and identity. …

Narratives Of Black Identifying Newcomer Youth, Saniyyah Lateef

Master's Theses

This study seeks to explore and understand the unique and individual experiences of Black identifying newcomer youth in the United States. Current research related to the experience of newcomers is limited in regards to Black identifying newcomers. Through narrative inquiry methodology, this study seeks to share the experiences of Black identifying newcomer youth. It does this while recognizing the omnipresence of racism in the United States, and acknowledging the influence of life prior experience on identity development. The intent of this study is to help educators and community members better understand the integration and assimilation processes of Black identifying newcomers. …

Inequality In Ethnic Representation In Secondary-School Literature Textbooks And National Examination In Vietnam, Anh Nguyen

Honors Projects

This essay studies the dynamic between ethnic minorities and majority in the Vietnamese education system. By examining the appearance and representation of ethnic minorities in national literature curriculum, textbooks, and examinations, the analysis reflects the government's perspectives regarding the “appropriate” portrait of ethnic minorities' heritage and relationship with the majority. The study finds that Vietnamese education framework and content comply with the national construct of a Vietnamese identity across ethnicities. The state determines educational materials and selectively permits only aesthetic, politically benign, and Kinh-like narratives of ethnic minorities’ cultures, many written and/or chosen by Kinh authority rather than the ethnic …

Iskay Simipi Yachay: El Papel De La Educación Intercultural Bilingüe En La Preservación Y Valoración De La Lengua Quechua En Perú, Tori Wiese

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Perú es un país multicultural y multilingüe, con una historia rica, especialmente con respecto a sus poblaciones indígenas. Específicamente, Perú tiene una población grande de quechua hablantes que viven principalmente en la región andina en el país. Más de tres millones de personas hablan quechua en Perú—el 13 por ciento de la población del país. Con un número tan significativo, el peligro que rodea al quechua puede no ser aparente, pero sin embargo existe. Durante su historia, Perú como un país sofocó la lengua quechua a favor de la lengua castellano. Esta represión de la lengua quechua también incluye la …

Spatial Distribution Of Chinese Language Education And Historical Development Of Chinese Language Pedagogy In Higher Education In The United States, Jing Zhao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project includes two major components: an interactive digital map that displays the geographical distribution of Chinese language programs in colleges and universities in the United States, their program starting years, the types of such universities and colleges, and their names and states; and a multimedia essay on the evolution of Chinese language pedagogy in colleges and universities in the United States. Data has been collected on the program start year, school names, states where schools are located, school types, and whether the school had been funded by two federal sponsored language programs: the National Defense Education Act in …