Digital Commons Network^™

Influence Of Culture On Higher Educational Success: Focus On The Culture Of Persian Immigrants In America, Mahin Shad Oveis

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT Education is a human right and should be equal for everyone. Studies and reports indicate that some people, particularly ethnic minorities and immigrants who have migrated from their country of origin to other countries, suffer from educational inequities. The researchers tried to find the causes of this deficiency and how it could be resolved. Various problems have resulted in educational inequalities among immigrants and minorities, and various ways have been proposed to identify and address them. Cultural differences are among the barriers to educational achievement. Research on cultural capital started by Bourdieu (1970) was a key factor in finding …

Variation In Spanish/S: Overview And New Perspectives, Eva NúÑEz-MéNdez

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

The natural tendency for language variation, intensified by Spanish’s territorial growth, has driven sibilant changes and mergers across the Spanish-speaking world. This article aims to present an overview of the most significant processes undergone by sibilant /s/ in various Spanish-speaking areas: devoicing, weakening, aspiration, elision, and voicing. Geographically based phonetic variations, sociolinguistic factors, and Spanish language contact situations are considered in this study. The sibilant merger and its chronological development in modern Spanish, along with geographic expansion, have resulted in multiple contemporary dialectal variations. This historical lack of stability in these sounds has marked modern regional variations. Tracing and framing …

Government, Citizen, And Social Media : Understanding Police-Citizen Interaction On Weibo In China, Yumeng Luo

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation systematically examined the Beijing Police Department (BPD) daily use of social media and citizens’ comments it received. Previous studies in the field of e-government and political communication in the Chinese context focused only on the measurement of quantitative indicators of government use of social media or a single event. This dissertation incorporates theoretical frameworks of e-government, public relations, and the public sphere to provide a detailed picture of citizen and government interaction in the Chinese context. Using the BPD as my case study, I not only explored government’s daily activities and engagement strategies but also examined the nuances …

Literacy And Covid-19 : Elementary Students' Reading Performance Through A Global Pandemic, Emmett Mcgregor Schweiger

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The critical area of literacy instruction has long relied on the use of measurement tools and the resulting data to identify at-risk readers and deliver needed supports. When the COVID-19 pandemic caused disruption to education, measurement practices were altered and there was limited existing research available to predict the potential impact of the pandemic on literacy development. The primary purpose of this study was to examine the reading performance of students in a Southern Tier New York elementary school before and during the pandemic, utilizing existing data from fall 2019 to spring 2021. Additionally, this study sought to evaluate the …

A Mixed Methods Exploration Of Fairness Issues In Algorithmic Policing Systems, Emmanuel Sebastian Udoh

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Algorithmic governance (AG) systems aim to utilize machine learning (ML) in the form of mathematical modelling and predictive analytics to achieve greater efficiency and accuracy, effect equal treatment and eliminate bias. In its application to policing, algorithmic policing (AP) or predictive policing applies tree-based risk training algorithms on criminal complaint data to predict where and when the next crime is likely to occur, and who the likeliest perpetrators and victims are. Thus, AP preemptively determines where, how, and when to deploy police resources. However, as more and more cities adopt AP, there are fears that AP may be reinforcing age-long …

"We Are The Stories" : Narrative Competence And Cognitive Mapping As A Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy In The Education Of Emergent Bilinguals, Sepideh Yasrebi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Much has been said about the drawbacks of “teaching to the test” in K-12 public education in the U.S. When it comes to English as a New Language (ENL), however, few studies have explored the ways in which ENL literacy and education is framed and conceptualized in the New York State Next Generation Learning Standards (NGLS), which, in turn, decisively shape ENL curriculum and instruction at schools. Considering the issues of deficits perspectives, context and pragmatics in Second Language Acquisition, mechanical approaches to writing, and narrative and agency, this study intends to reframe narrative writing around students’ lived experiences. In …

First-Year College Students' Perceptions Of Writing And Writing Instruction Across High School To College Transitions, Laura Dacus

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Over the past few decades, standards-based educational reforms in the U.S. have sought to enhance students’ college and career readiness. The most recent wave of such reforms has emphasized writing as an essential aspect of college readiness and a 21st century skill necessary for success in the workplace. A common feature of these conversations concerning college writing readiness is a prevailing sense that high school graduates are underprepared for postsecondary literacy demands and, relatedly, that standards-based instruction is the key to bridging this “gap.” Compared to the number of studies that focus on writing at either the secondary or postsecondary …

Effects Of Early Bilingualism On Theory Of Mind Development Among Children In Economic Adversity, Rong Huang

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The present study investigated the associations between bilingualism and Theory of Mind (ToM) development among children from low-income backgrounds. ToM is the capacities of understanding others’ mental states, such as beliefs, knowledge, or emotions, which develops rapidly during early childhood. Previous studies showed that bilingual experience may be associated with an enhanced ToM, while it is less known whether the similar effect can be generalized to the low-income populations. In addition, it remained unclear what role of Executive Function (EF) plays in the relationship between bilingualism and Theory of Mind in economically disadvantaged environments. The current study aims to address …

The Influences Of Equity And School Culture On Black, Latinx, And Mixed-Race Student Enrollment In Advanced Secondary Mathematics Courses, Fyniss Nixon

Doctor of Education Dissertations

This quantitative, descriptive analysis of three large, urban secondary schools in the South used equitable practices to intentionally increase the percentage of Black, Latinx, and mixed-race students in advanced mathematics courses. Each high school observed in this study acknowledged a disproportionately higher percentage of White students taking rigorous college and career-ready courses when compared with the Black and Latinx population. This disparity was not just isolated to the schools in this study. District, state, and national initiatives across the country are becoming acutely aware of the accessibility gap between (Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color) BIPOC and non-BIPOC secondary …

Teacher Self-Efficacy Levels In Providing Reading Instruction To Students In Kindergarten Through Second Grades, Rebekka Powers

Doctor of Education Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficacy levels of kindergarten through second-grade teachers in their ability to provide reading instruction to students with a focus on the five foundational areas of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. In addition, the study sought to make recommendations as to how the district of study can enhance teacher efficacy in delivering reading instruction, as well as assist the district in providing instructional resources and teacher professional development that increase teacher efficacy levels in reading instructional practices. A mixed method approach was used to conduct this study. Data were …

Language Learning And Empathy, Elizabeth Rodriguez

All Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Second language learning and empathy are two concepts frequently explored and employed in schools but are often treated as separate domains. This literature review aims to analyze the connection between learning a second language and the development of empathy in young students, as well as implications for schools in the United States. When looking at this area of study, there are many factors that need to be considered such as the influence of political ideologies, language learning programs, optimal ages for language acquisition, communication skills enhanced by language learning, as well as potential cognitive benefits of learning a second language. …

Do Spanish Immersion Programs Increase Student Proficiency On Reading End-Of-Grade Tests For Students Of Color?, Lavette Alston-Braswell

Doctor of Education Dissertations

This quantitative, longitudinal matched pairs study determined whether elementary Spanish immersion students performed better on reading end-of-grade exams in Grades 3-5 than their non-immersion traditional peers in the same grades. African American and Hispanic students from two Spanish immersion schools in a suburban North Carolina district were studied. Results found that there was no statistical significance between student ethnicity and choice of immersion or non-immersion program. Time over years was found to be statistically significant. Although there was no statistical significance between program type and ethnicity, immersion students outperformed their non-immersion peers in Grades 3-5. African American students scored higher …

The Importance Of Mentorship, Sponsorship, And Politics For Women Of Color Who Aspire To The Superintendency And Other School Leadership Roles, Cicily Mccrimmon

Doctor of Education Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if mentorship and sponsorship could help identify the potential political pitfalls or “hidden rules” of senior-level leadership to increase the identification, recruitment, and retention of minority women, specifically African American women in the role of superintendent or executive at the school and district level. This phenomenological study explored how leadership expectations for women of color have changed over time; however, the narratives illustrate that perceptions related to women of color in senior-level leadership have largely remained unchanged. The absence of the narrative for minority women in leadership, including the limited number serving …

Latinx Families’ And School Personnel's Perceptions Of Family Engagement In Virtual Learning In Five Nc Elementary Schools During The Covid-19 Global Pandemic, Elizabeth Schrecengost

Doctor of Education Dissertations

The COVID-19 global pandemic of 2020 created many difficulties for both families and schools. Drastic lifestyle changes had to be made, and many schools across the United States were closed indefinitely, with a rapid transition to “remote/virtual/distance learning.” Latinx families, many from diverse backgrounds, were one of many special populations to struggle with the transition to virtual learning, for various reasons. This struggle with transition affected families’ levels of engagement with their children’s schools, which is a limited area of research. A myriad of research shows when there are strong partnerships among families, students, and schools and they work cohesively, …

Bargaining For Abolition, Zohra Ahmed

Fordham Law Review

What if instead of seeing criminal court as an institution driven by the operation of rules, we saw it as a workplace where people labor to criminalize those with the misfortune to be prosecuted? Early observers of twentieth century urban criminal courts likened them to factories. Since then, commentators often deploy the pejorative epithet “assembly line justice” to describe criminal court’s processes. The term conveys the criticism of a mechanical system delivering a form of justice that is impersonal and fallible. Perhaps unintentionally, the epithet reveals another truth: criminal court is also a workplace, and it takes labor to keep …

Report On Comprehensive Mapping, Assessment And Enrichment Of The Dswd Case Management Systems And Practices In The Philippines, Maestral International, De La Salle University - Social Development Research Center

SDRC Projects

This project mapped and assessed the case-management systems and practices of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and local social welfare and development offices. It examined current practices, strengths, structural gaps, challenges, and opportunities across social welfare programs, with particular attention to child protection. It also assessed the feasibility of developing a comprehensive, integrated, and interoperable electronic platform for managing cases involving vulnerable children, families, Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program beneficiaries, online sexual abuse and exploitation of children, and other clients of the DSWD and local government units.

The assessment combined a desk review of policies, legislation, administrative issuances, …

Lpvit: A Transformer Based Model For Pcb Image Classification And Defect Detection, Kang An, Yanping Zhang

Computer Science Faculty Scholarship

PCB (printed circuit board) is an extremely important component of all electronic products, which has greatly facilitated human life. Meanwhile, tons of PCBs in the waste streams become a waste of resources, which puts the recycling and reuse of PCBs in urgent need. In the manufacturing and recycling of electronic products, the classification of PCBs, recognition of sub-components, and defect detection have been the key technology. Traditional manual detection and classification are subjective and rely on individuals’ experience. With the development of artificial intelligence, lots of research efforts have been dedicated to the automated detection and recognition of PCBs. In …

Bilingual Teachers’ Translanguaging Practices And Ideologies In Online Classrooms In Saudi Arabia, Muhammad Alasmari, Fawaz Qasem, Rashad Ahmed, Muhammad Alrayes

Research, Publications & Creative Work

Prior studies in translanguaging have investigated its role in education from different perspectives to understand its efficiency, practicality, and how it promotes or challenges educational and societal aims in different multilingual contexts across the world. However, little attention has been paid to translanguaging in universities with a monolingual environment. To cover this gap, the current study examines teachers' online translanguaging practices and ideologies in Saudi Arabia, where the community language is Arabic but English is commonly a medium of instruction in higher education. The study investigated (a) teachers' practices and perspectives toward translanguaging while communicating online with learners; and (b) …

Improving Performance Feedback Perceptions Through Motivating Language Use, Doreen Hanke, Albi Alikaj, Prity Patel

Research, Publications & Creative Work

This study examines the link between leader motivating language and follower performance feedback perceptions It also explores whether follower/leader gender compositions moderate this relationship. Results show that a follower’s performance feedback perceptions benefit from a leader’s use of motivating language. This relationship is further positively moderated by the presence of certain follower/leader gender matches and mismatches. The results provide support for a stronger use of motivating language in diverse workforces. This characteristic gives motivating language the potential to support diversity in organizations. Implications of the study’s findings and future avenues for research are discussed. Considering the increasing need for more …

Eiser Infrastructure Ltd V Kingdom Of Spain: The Icsid Convention, Sovereign Immunity, And Federal Court Of Australia Dealing With A Supposed "Zombie Judgment", Ylli Dautaj

The International Lawyer

This extended case note underscores a perplexing contemporary issue of public international law as it interacts or intersects with international arbitration law. The Federal Court of Australia was recently tasked to adjudicate an issue that once again exposed the nuanced question of whether the ICSID Convention preserves immunity from enforcement and execution, or only for the latter. The international case law on this point has been sparse, whereas one of the leading cases in comparative international law dates back to 1986 and comes from the Southern District of New York-the case of Liberian Eastern Timber Corporation (LETCO) v. The Government …

Security Hardening Of Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces Against Adversarial Machine Learning Attacks, Ferhat Ozgur Catak, Murat Kuzlu, Haolin Tang, Evren Catak, Yanxiao Zhao

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Next-generation communication networks, also known as NextG or 5G and beyond, are the future data transmission systems that aim to connect a large amount of Internet of Things (IoT) devices, systems, applications, and consumers at high-speed data transmission and low latency. Fortunately, NextG networks can achieve these goals with advanced telecommunication, computing, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies in the last decades and support a wide range of new applications. Among advanced technologies, AI has a significant and unique contribution to achieving these goals for beamforming, channel estimation, and Intelligent Reflecting Surfaces (IRS) applications of 5G and beyond networks. However, the …

Direct Democracy: From Theory To Practice Symposium Direct Democracy: From Theory To Practice Symposium: Introduction, Anthony B. Schutz

Nebraska Law Review

On November 13, 2021, the University of Nebraska College of Law convened four panels of experts to discuss direct democracy in Nebraska. The articles appearing in this issue of the Nebraska Law Review are a result of that symposium. These articles are one part of the larger project. A video recording of the symposium is available on You-Tube < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0CPaTiZ1Ng >, and subsequent work will be connected to the project’s website.

This brief introduction situates the articles appearing here within the larger project in three parts. Part II describes the events that necessitated the symposium, focusing on uncertainty attending the single-subject …

Evaluating The English-Turkish Parallel Treebank For Machine Translation, Onur Görgün, Olcay Taner Yildiz

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

This study extends our initial efforts in building an English-Turkish parallel treebank corpus for statistical machine translation tasks. We manually generated parallel trees for about 17K sentences selected from the Penn Treebank corpus. English sentences vary in length: 15 to 50 tokens including punctuation. We constrained the translation of trees by (i) reordering of leaf nodes based on suffixation rules in Turkish, and (ii) gloss replacement. We aim to mimic human annotator?s behavior in real translation task. In order to fill the morphological and syntactic gap between languages, we do morphological annotation and disambiguation. We also apply our heuristics by …

Teacher Education For A Rural-Ready Teaching Force: Swings, Roundabouts, And Slippery Slides?, Philip Roberts, Natalie Downes, Jo-Anne Reid

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The preparation of teachers for rural schools has been a significant focus of research for many decades. In this paper we update previous reports of the extent of Initial Teacher Education courses that prepare teachers for rural schools in Australia. We found that despite significant and continued calls for rural teacher education, there are still very few rural-teaching units offered in teacher education courses, and there are no courses at all that seek this as an explicit outcome. As the Australian Professional Standards for Teaching claim the importance of teachers understanding students and their contexts, we argue that effective teacher …

Changing Needs Of Special Education Preservice Teachers In The Practicum, Stella Gidalevich, Maayan Shalev

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Self-determination theory (SDT) suggests that people strive to fulfill three basic needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness. In teacher education research, fulfilling those needs is connected to positive skill development and increased wellbeing of preservice teachers and their students. Teacher education programs for special education preservice teachers (SEPT) include a professional experience in various school settings with neurodiverse students. This professional experience gives rise to specific needs for these SEPT. In-depth interviews were conducted with 12 SEPT, studying at various stages of two teacher education programs. The findings were analyzed qualitatively. Results revealed developing and changing needs throughout the educational …

Positioning Dispositions In Initial Teacher Education: An Action Research Approach, Qilong Zhang, Joanne Hayes, Rawhia Tehau-Grant, Roberta Skeoch, Lois France, Ke Jiang, Ruth Barnes

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

In spite of debate, ambiguity, and tension around teacher dispositions, in the past over two decades, the place of dispositions in initial teacher education (ITE) has been widely supported among policy makers and researchers. Specifically, debate on whether dispositions are teachable has largely given way to action to foster dispositions. Adopting a two-cycle participatory action research design, this study explored ways to teach the first-year teacher candidates’ dispositions in an early childhood ITE programme in New Zealand. The intervention included eight focus dispositions and corresponding strategies to teach each focus disposition. Data collection methods included student self-assessment surveys, individual and …

Foreign Language Teachers’ Knowledge Base And The Influence Of Teaching Experience, Marianna Levrints (Lőrincz)

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The present paper elucidated the issue of foreign language teachers’ knowledge base and the influence of teaching experience on their beliefs. A self-report questionnaire was utilised to explore what domains of knowledge language teachers prioritised in planning and delivering instruction, what sources they drew on to gain professional understanding and to compare teachers’ views relevant to the length of their experience. The analysis of data revealed quantitative dissimilarities in the assumed sources and knowledge domains, as well as teachers' instructional preferences. The study’s findings lend empirical evidence to the influence of experience on teachers’ cognitions and yield additional insight into …

Broadening Ontological And Epistemological Possibilities Within Early Childhood Teacher Education For Sustainability, Kassahun Weldemariam

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The dominant sustainability ethos and discourse within early childhood education pursue a normative ontological and epistemological direction aimed at empowering children’s agency and thus, building certain predefined moral values, knowledge, and skills. Likewise, mainstream early childhood teacher education programmes strive to build early childhood pre-service teachers’ sustainability knowledge and skills, especially to enhance their capacity to be transformative agents and motivators for change to engage children with sustainability challenges. In this conceptual article, drawing on posthuman concepts, I highlight the limits of such orthodox assumptions in early childhood education for sustainability (ECEfS) teacher education and invite broader ontological and epistemic …

Collaborative And Traditional Practice-Models As Perceived By Preservice Teachers: The Potential Impact Of Culture, Ilana Klima Ronen, Alexandra Danial-Saad, Rachel Holsblat

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

A differential cultural aspect manifested when we compared the experiences of 96-Jewish and 107-Arab PSTs who participated in a collaborative academy-class-practice- model (ACPM), or a traditional-practice-model (TPM). The attempt to implement the collaborative ACPM was hesitantly accepted by Jewish-PSTs, whereas the Arab-PSTs welcomed it warmly. This led us to question whether culture played a role in the groups’ perceptions of the ACPM\TPM. A mixed methods questionnaire has been used to examine PSTs` pedagogical knowledge, the perceived benefits they gained during the practicum, and the importance they attributed to the advice of staff members and peers. Although the PSTs from both …

Preservice Teachers’ Encounters With Dual Language Picturebooks, Nicola Daly, Kathy G. Short

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

Our action research explored the potentialities of dual language picturebooks related to language inquiries with preservice teachers. For six weeks, preservice teachers browsed picturebooks featuring English and another language, starting with a familiar language and moving to unfamiliar languages. After browsing, we shared our responses to the books, made connections across books, and engaged in experiences to think about language. Initial comments indicated that readers were not familiar with dual language picturebooks and connected to their own complex personal relationships with language. The preservice teachers engaged in inquiries around audience and book design, including issues such as Indigenous books signalling …