Educational Administration and Supervision Commons^™

Narratives Of Longevity From The Perspective Of Seventh-Day Adventist School Administrators In North America: A Multiple Case Study, Janet Ledesma

Dissertations

Problem. The average length of stay for school principals in the Seventh-day Adventist system of education in North America is 2.5-4.0 years. Elementary principals remain in leadership for 2.5 years, day academy principals stay for 3.6 years, and boarding academy principals stay for 4.0 years. Many studies have identified reasons why school principals leave their jobs. However, few studies have been conducted to understand why principals in the organization stay.

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to describe the experiences of principals who have remained in leadership in the Adventist system of education in North America longer than 10 …

Beyond Accomodations: Perceptions Of Students With Disabilities In A Hispanic Serving Institution, Neelam Agarwal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this mixed method study was to explore perceptions of students with disabilities in a predominantly Hispanic serving institution. Factors of transition from high school to college, campus involvement, engagement in student organizations and their perceptions of campus climate were investigated through both a survey with 104 participants and in-depth interviews with 11 participants. This study also explored how undergraduate students with disabilities perceive their academic success and what are influential factors that impact their college experiences. Data were analyzed and interpreted through Tinto Interactionalist Theory of Student Departure, a Social constructivist perspective, Attribution theory, Rendon's model of …

Benchmarks For Transition: Do St. Louis High Schools Promote Graduates That Can Make The Transition To Higher Education?, Kevin Harrman

Master's Theses

Are St. Louis area high schools designed to create graduates that are prepared to enter schools of higher education, or are their graduation requirements structured such that graduates even qualify for entrance to higher education institutions? This study is geared towards answering this question and will do so by comparing two lines of inquiry. First this study will analyze four sets of three randomly picked area high schools (three sets designated by per capita income and one set of private catholic schools). Information will be gathered concerning graduation requirements and how many Advanced Placement and/or International Baccalaureate courses are available. …

Education Language Policy Process In Multilingual Societies: Global Visions And Local Agendas In India, Nigeria And Unesco, Desmond I. Odugu

Dissertations

In linguistically heterogeneous societies, language planning constitutes core institutional practice for maintaining social cohesion as well as unique cultural identities. This critical sociolinguistic and comparative analysis examines education language policy process in India, Nigeria and UNESCO to understand the entrenchment of marginalizational language policies in spite of recent paradigm shifts in relevant scholarship. These include the shift from monolingualism to multilingualism as ideal for individuals and societies, perception of multilingualism no longer as a problem but a resource, heightened interrogation of ideological and political dimensionalities of language decisions in society, and an intensification of commitment to language policy and planning …

Riding The Wave Of Gentrification: Selected Principals' Perceptions Of Gentrification's Impact On Leadership And School Culture, Jose Antonio Jimenez

Dissertations

Gentrification is primarily viewed as neutral to school leadership and school culture (Freeman 2002; Nyden, Edlynn, & Davis 2006; Merriman 2007). Student displacement is seen as collateral damage for the betterment of the community.

Using qualitative research approach derived from the frameworks of Di Primio (1988), Colllins (2001), Fullan (2006), the researcher interviewed nine active principals in Cook County, Illinois to answer the following research questions:

What are principals' perceptions of neighborhood gentrification?

In what ways do principals perceive their school culture being affected by gentrification?

What strategies do principals implement in response to student changes in enrollment caused by …

The Impact Of Title I Program Funding Through A Comparison Of Schoolwide Assistance And Targeted Assistance On Fifth Grade Reading Achievement Scores In Illinois: Implications For Leadership In Public Education, Michael E. Robey

Dissertations

The ability to read with proficiency and comprehension is one of the basic goals of our educational system. Adequacy of funding these goals, particularly for lower income students, continues to be a challenge. Despite the efforts of a variety of educational reforms many students, particularly the economically disadvantaged, continue to struggle with basic reading skills.

The intent of this study is to help school leaders in identifying whether schoolwide or targeted assistance programs funded through Title I schools are associated with higher reading achievement. The study measured reading achievement for fifth grade students in Illinois using data from the Illinois …

How Does Internet Facilitated Communication Impact Teacher And Parent Partnerships?, Mara Paich Grujanac

Dissertations

In 2001, Public Law 107-110, known as the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, mandated that public schools become accountable for the achievement of all public school students. Included in Public Law 107-110 is a section that mandates that schools involve parents in the functioning of the institution and that parents be involved in their child's education. Schools have been utilizing Internet Facilitated Communication (IFC) to facilitate parent involvement within the school community.

This dissertation concentrates on parent-teacher communication specifically as it pertains to student achievement. This study examined the ways parents and teachers utilize electronic communication to invite …

Political Activity As Advocacy: Through The Eyes Of The Illinois Superintendent, Julie Fogarty

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to expand the research concerning Illinois School Superintendents' perceptions of the importance of understanding, responding to and influencing the political context of schools in Illinois. The overarching research question for this study asked: What are Illinois superintendents' perceptions of the effectiveness of political activity as they advocate for resources and services to improve opportunities for student learning? The findings for this study were gathered through interviews with eleven active Superintendents in Lake County, Illinois. Interview transcripts were compared to the literature review including the political and economic climate in Illinois, networking, lobbying and working …

Illinois Administrator's Perception Of The Existence And Implementation Of School Policies And Practices In Teacher Classroom Supervision In Schools Having Kindergarten To Fifth Grade, Maria Martinez-Valiukenas

Dissertations

Negligence in the school setting is one legal issue that exists and, if case law is any reflection, is a pervasive problem in the educational system. Although negligence affects students, parents, teachers, and staff, the issue has the most impact on administrators' legal responsibility role.

Using a quantitative approach, the researcher surveyed Illinois principals working in Illinois public schools in schools having Kindergarten to Fifth grades. This study was designed to examine Illinois administrators' perception of the existence and implementation of school policies and practices with regard to teacher classroom supervision in elementary public schools having Kindergarten through Fifth grade. …

Response To Violent Prone Female Adolescents: The Chicago Public School Approach, Marian E. Dozier

Dissertations

School violence has become increasingly more prevalent among adolescent females over the last ten years. As administrators, teachers, parents, and law enforcement officials try to control and decrease the number of violent incidents that occur in our schools, adolescent females continue to exhibit inappropriate and violent behavior at an alarming rate within our school communities. Adolescent females who behave badly have historically been overlooked or ignored, as girls have often been perceived as being incapable of demonstrating hostile conduct in an academic setting.

The purpose of this study was to investigate, describe, and analyze the frequency and nature of violent …

The 1995 Chicago School Reform Amendatory Act And The Cps Ceo: A Historical Examination Of The Adminstration Of Ceos Paul Vallas And Arne Duncan, Leviis Haney

Dissertations

This study provides a historical analysis of the 1995 Chicago School Reform Act, as well as an analysis of the tenures of Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officers Paul Vallas and Arne Duncan. It provides an analysis of words and actions of the two CEOs through the interpretive framework of Thomas Serviovanni's Five Sources of Authority. The sources of authority are bureaucratic, psychological, technical-rational, professional and moral. Each source of authority represents certain assumptions that are dominant if the particular source is primarily utilized.

This dissertation will answer six questions through the lens of Sergiovanni's Five Sources of Authority: What …

Education, Fascism, And The Catholic Church In Franco's Spain, Joan Domke

Dissertations

Societies in transition are vulnerable to strong forces for political change. When Franco's fascist government defeated the socialist party that had taken control from 1931 to 1936, it aligned itself with Spain's Catholic Church. For most of Spain's history, the established Church culture had been inseparable from Spanish identity and Catholicism was taught in all schools, private and public. Therefore, under the guise of religion, the government used the educational system as a means of socialization, connecting nationalism and religion to promote their fascist agenda. The purpose of this historiographic study is to examine the relationships among the school, government, …

Three Instances Of Western Colonial Governments And Christian Missions In Cameroon Education: 1884-1961, Asenju Callistus Tamanji

Dissertations

This dissertation is a historical comparative education study that revisits colonial education in Cameroon. The purpose of the study is to undertake a broad, documentary, synthetic analysis of the colonial policies of the three formidable Western powers that colonized the country: the Germans (1884-1914), the British (1914-19621), and the French (1914-1960). This study focuses on the interactions that these Western colonial governments had with various Western Christian missionary organizations; these interactions and collaborations led to the establishment of the German, British, and French colonial formal schools in Cameroon up until Independence from colonial rule in 1960 and 1961. The official …

Leadership Practices Of Science Department Chairs In Secondary Public Schools, Kathryn Marie Baal

Dissertations

This study was designed to explore the transformational leadership practices of science department chairs as perceived by both science department chairs and their principals as measured quantitatively by the third edition of the Leadership Practice Inventory (LPI) (Kouzes & Posner, 2007). In addition to transformational leadership, three other paradigms of leadership were essential to this study: transactional leadership, teacher leadership, and distributed leadership. Science department chairs are recognized as formal teacher leaders, primarily because their situational position makes them formal leaders; in addition science department chairs teach, to some degree, hence they are acknowledged as teacher leaders. The study further …

William G. Spady, Agent Of Change: An Oral History, John Anthony Hader

Dissertations

What series of circumstances, events, individuals, and factors have shaped and changed the life and career trajectory of William G. Spady, sociologist, educator, and agent of change? This dissertation provided many answers to this guiding research question. What made this dissertation unique was that the answers were provided by the subject himself during a series of interviews at his home in Colorado. This dissertation was an oral history of an important agent of change in the midst of his work.

Examining Leadership Styles In Ten High Poverty Elementary Schools, John Will Cook

Dissertations

This qualitative research study examines the construct of leadership styles as perceived by the principals and the teachers. The personal experiences of the participants, their perspectives, and their insights will be an important element of this researcher's inquiry and significant to understanding how leadership is perceived at 10 elementary schools with a high poverty student population.

The research questions of this study are as follows:

1. What is the perception of principals and select teachers of the leadership style of five principals at low SES area elementary schools (kindergarten through eighth grade) that achieve adequate yearly progress overall for 3 …

An Examination Of Internet Pornography Usage Among Male Students At Evangelical Christian Colleges, Paul Olaf Chelsen

Dissertations

Internet pornography access among male students at Evangelical Christian colleges presents two dilemmas. First, Internet pornography access is institutionally prohibited based on a Biblical view of sexuality. The second dilemma is that individual students who choose to follow the teaching of Jesus Christ in the context of Evangelical Christian faith tradition can experience internal distress in response to Internet pornography access. No empirical study to date has examined Internet pornography access only among male undergraduates only at Evangelical Christian colleges. The first guiding research question is, "To what extent do male undergraduates at select Evangelical Christian colleges in the Midwest …

Australia V. Usa: Indian Engineering Students Pursuing Graduate Degrees Abroad, An Analysis Of Factors Influencing The Choice And Location Of Institution, Louis Berends

Dissertations

The global market of higher education is growing at a rapid pace. Prospective graduate students in engineering have more options - domestically and internationally - than ever before. At this moment, the international setting of engineering graduate programs continues to shift and expand. This study analyzes the decision-making processes of students from India who pursue graduate education in Australia and the United States of America. In this setting, decision-making processes of student choice were examined after study participants selected higher education institutions in Australian and U.S. The research question is: why do graduate degree-seeking engineering students from India pursue studies …

Depopulation And Education In A Mexican Migrant Town: Schools In Villa Juarez, San Luis Potosi, 1942-2000, Magda Banda

Dissertations

While educational systems have been governed by the policies of the nation-state and have been contained within state borders, the transformations brought about by the economic, social, and political repercussions of globalization have added layers of complexity to issues in education. This is true in particular of agrarian communities, such as Villa Juarez, San Luis Potosi, Mexico. National educational policies have led to new challenges in agrarian societies as they undergo not only ideological exchanges but the movement of populations that have led to international and national demographic shifts. One of the main issues that this research will investigate is …

Principals Attitudes Toward Inclusion In Dubai Public Schools: Where Do They Stand?, Fouzia Usman

Master's Theses

Inclusion in the UAE has been a concern for many over the years and lately, has gained the attention at national level. Through this study, the researcher confines the research within Dubai only and looks forward to the responses and expects that the results will be used as a guideline to enhance special education services in a fast developing city such as Dubai.

This study discusses the purpose of the study, available literature and research conducted on the topic, sample population, instrumentation, and procedure and data analysis techniques to carry out the research. Based on that, primary research questions are …