Education Commons^™

A Phenomenological Study Of Parent Experiences With Postsecondary-Admission Counseling, Anthony Espitia

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to better understand parent experiences with the postsecondary-admission counseling of high school students in California. As a state, California exceeds the ASCA’s student-to-counselor national recommendations, impacting the delivery of postsecondary-admission counseling on high school campuses. To understand the postsecondary-admission counseling experiences in California, a qualitative phenomenological study consisting of 12 parents of current or recently graduated high school students was utilized. Open-ended interviews captured parents’ lived experiences with the postsecondary-admission counseling of California high school counselors. The data analysis for this study was accomplished by utilizing a four-step process outlined by Moustakas (1994), which …

Chinese Transnational Adolescents’ Responses To Multicultural Children’S Literature In Culture Circles, Yuwen Chen

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine how Chinese transnational adolescents (CTAs) negotiate their identity based on their cultural knowledge and experiences through book discussion in Freirean “culture circle” (Freire, 2000, p. 120). This study is an interpretivist qualitative study of community-based action research (Glesne, 2010). The participants were seven American-born Chinese, two current Chinese and Taiwanese, and one Chinese adopted adolescent. Within the culture circles, CTAs responded to seven selected multicultural children’s literature which represents Chinese immigrants’ stories in the United States. The topics of the books included (1) who am I, (2) relationships with extended family I, …

Nothing Down About It: Decreasing The Fear Of The Unknown For Mothers’ Expecting A Child With Down Syndrome, Alexandra E. Greenburg

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Down Syndrome is a chromosomal abnormality that is associated with an intellectual and developmental delay. This is because there is an extra full or partial copy of the 21st chromosome called Trisomy 21, which is diagnosed prenatally or at birth. Parents of children with Down syndrome felt that health professionals displayed a lack of understanding and ignorance when delivering their child’s Down syndrome diagnosis (Mengoni & Redman, 2018). This may lead to concerns on the child’s quality of life and hinder timely appropriate intervention services for a child with Down syndrome. This is why I conducted a workshop in Claremont, …

An Examined Life Of A Language Teacher Of Chinese: An Autoethnographic Investigation Into Agency, Ying Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

There is a paucity of research about and done by L2 Chinese educators regarding the theoretical construct of agency. It is also noted that the qualitative inquiry is marginalized in L2 Chinese research field, let alone the narrative study of the agency of experienced by L2 Chinese-teachers. In this dissertation research, I aim at filling in the gap by conducting a longitudinal autoethnography which captures over a decade (1997-2017) of my personal and professional development with an agency perspective. The highly personalized autoethnographic accounts open up my personal and professional life as an experienced, college-level, transnational, early 40’s female native …

Understanding China’S Discourse On South-South Cooperation And China-Africa Higher Education Exchange: A Field Research Study At Zhejiang Normal University’S China-Africa International Business School, Yi Sun

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation research attempts to distinguish China’s model from that of the traditional North-South relationship, with a focus on how China’s philosophy articulates its foreign policy and the nation’s higher education engagement with African countries. It examines the China-Africa higher education partnership in response to China’s discourse on South-South Cooperation (SSC), Africa’s human resource flows, and the benefits and constraints of current China-Africa cooperation. In order to achieve these goals, the dissertation uses one of the China-Africa partnership universities in China, Zhejiang Normal University (ZJNU) as a site for its field research. The fieldwork looks at both a student level …

Best Practices Of Team Cohesion In Small Schools, Patricia Jean Shaw

Doctor of Education (Ed.D)

This study investigates the best practices of team cohesion in small schools. The conclusions from the study assist future educational leaders with using best practices to influence team cohesion within school settings that have small groups of staff. If faculty can achieve team cohesion, goals can be achieved and success can be attained. Research for large organizations and team cohesion is documented; however, this study fills a gap in research by focusing on small schools. The study’s conclusions help prove that small schools benefit from team cohesion and outline the best practices for reaching team cohesion. This study is a …

The Effect Of Standardised Learning Diaries On Self-Regulated Learning, Calibration Accuracy And Academic Achievement, Avanelle Joseph-Edwards

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

The online learning environment is a dynamic yet complex learning modality. Students are physically separated from their peers, they grapple with feelings of isolation, and they may be unable to self-regulate their learning. Studies have shown that self-regulation is related to academic achievement and student metacognitive monitoring in online settings. The present study investigated the effects of a standardized diaries on students’ self-regulatory behaviors, calibration accuracy and academic achievement within an online learning environment. Using this self-monitoring and evaluation tool, forty online graduate students enrolled in a research methods course at a southeastern university in the United States participated in …

Transforming Through Power: Teachers And The Negotiation Of Authority In Schools, Madhu Narayanan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Schools are unique institutions where structural and cultural dynamics shape the actions of humans. Teachers work within structures of power to establish themselves as legitimate figures of authority worthy of the right to command respect. Such efforts are complicated by the multi-faceted and swirling relationships of power that exist everywhere in schools, defining and guiding individuals. In this study, I interview and observe the practice of seven secondary teachers working in New York City public schools. All in their third year of teaching, they were at an interesting time in their development, not novice teachers and not quite veteran. Using …

Class Matters: School Affluence And Other Predictors Of Attainment For Wealthy And Poor Students, Alison Brockhouse

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Public schools in the United States are becoming increasingly segregated by socioeconomic status. Though the educational consequences of socioeconomic segregation are well researched, segregation is often ignored or exacerbated by education reform. To learn more about the wider implications of socioeconomic segregation, this study utilizes theoretical frameworks derived from Max Weber’s theory of social stratification to analyze over 10,000 students’ experiences from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Education Longitudinal Study (ELS) 2002, 2004, and 2012 waves of data collection. More specifically, this research explores the impact of attending an affluent high school on long-term educational attainment. It finds …

Nailing Jell-O To A Tree, Jayson Lozier

Master of Arts in English Plan II Graduate Projects

This portfolio contains papers addressing writing instruction, women's studies, queer theory, and literary analysis. “Mr. L 2.0 or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love English Composition” details the implementation of more effective techniques to teach writing in the secondary English classroom. “Educating Women in Afghanistan: Power, Revolution, and Rebellion” examines the feminist struggles around education and the efforts of the Afghan Institute of Learning to bring about change. “Out of the Closet and into the Classroom: Introducing Queer Reading Strategies to the Secondary English Classroom” examines the importance of queer theory and queer reading techniques in high school …

Emerging Adult Career Pathways: Understanding Aspirations And Switching, Tasmiah Amreen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emerging adulthood is a stage of life characterized by a high degree of fluctuation in identity formation and future decision-making (Arnett 2015). During this life stage, emerging adults make decisions about their future career by assessing whether they want to continue with their current career pathway or whether they intend to switch. The present study investigates this process in terms of its overall prevalence – or how often emerging adults intend to switch career trajectories – and the correlates of it. Previous studies on career switching have focused largely on educational switches. This quantitative study operationalizes career pathway by using …

Choosing Information Systems As A Major: Factors That Influence Selection, Carole L. Shook

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of factors affecting the decision to select information systems as an undergraduate major. Additionally, information systems students were compared to other business students to see if significant differences existed between groups. The four factors studied included: (a) personal interest in the major, (b) student competence, (c) value and utility, and (d) external influences of other people and academic experiences.

A convenience sample was used at a public university in the Southeastern region of the United States. Two hundred junior/senior students were selected as participants. One hundred of the students were …

Dropping The Invisibility Cloak: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Of Sense Of Belonging And Place Identity Among Rural, First Generation, Low Income College Students From Appalachian Kentucky, Brenda Abbott

Doctoral Dissertations

In a country that once was 95% rural in the late 1700s, only 19.3% of the population of the United States now live in rural areas (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). The shift in population from rural to urban areas is not simply demographic; it imbues a shift in who and what matters. Only 13.6% of adults over 25 in Appalachian Kentucky have earned bachelor's degrees, 18.9% below the national average (Appalachian Regional Commission, 2016). This phenomenological study seeks to understand how rural, first generation, low income college students from Appalachian Kentucky experience a sense of belonging in their first year …

When Healing And High-Stakes Meet: Restorative Justice In An Era Of Racial Neoliberalism, Dani O'Brien

Doctoral Dissertations

Based on a 3-year ethnography, this dissertation documents the story of Presente, an explicitly critical youth-led restorative justice group attempting to dismantle the school-prison nexus and create a more youth-centered culture at their high-reform high school. This dissertation addresses the questions: How does serving as a restorative justice peer leader impact students? What challenges and opportunities arise as the school tries to transition to more restorative practices? And how do the values central to restorative justice come up against, challenge, and get challenged by neoliberal education reform?

Reframing Internationalization: Faculty Beliefs And Teaching Practices, Marco Tulluck

Ed.D. Dissertations in Practice

This study applies Critical Race Theory as a critical lens to gain a clearer understanding of highly racialized policies and teaching practices around international student engagement in US higher education. The findings help to inform higher education leaders of how to support faculty to foster more inclusive and affirming learning environments for international students of color and other diverse student populations.

This mixed methods study employed a modified version of the Colorblind and Multicultural Ideology of STEM Faculty Measure as well as focus group interviews to gain a more complex understanding of how university faculty members’ beliefs align with colorblind …

A Case Study Of Communities Of Practice In Schools, Stephanie Ann Knipp

Education Dissertations

Abstract

This research is an examination of a community of practice, how it generates teacher social capital, and the implications for school leadership. Grounded in situated learning theory and social capital theory, this case study of teachers in a small school analyzes how communities of practice can generate teacher social capital, and how school leaders can help foster its growth. Situated learning theory is creating meaning from the real activities of daily living, and its implications for educational research and application are extensive. Developed by anthropologist Jean Lave and computer scientist Etienne Wenger in the 1990s, situated learning theory is …

Breaking The Chains: Reversing The School-To-Prison Pipeline Through The Academic Experiences Of Formerly Incarcerated Black Males, Folasade Ogunbanwo

Master's Theses

This case study explores the academic experiences of formerly incarcerated Black males. The goal of the case study is to inform policymakers and critical race scholars who take interest in the prison-to-school pipeline and ultimately dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. The historical impact of slavery has manifested into this vicious pipeline and the overrepresentation of Black males in the prison industrial complex. This case study is to demonstrate how the net is casted on those affected by the incarceration system and that break the cycle for themselves by pursuing an education to create an upward academic trajectory.

Caring Choices? Supporting And Dreaming With Students In New York City’S Stratifying High School Admissions System, Megan R. Moskop

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In New York City, all eighth graders attending public school must apply for high school. They have 400 schools from which to choose, and they must create a ranked list of twelve choices. They are then matched to one school. The results of this process play a large role in creating one of the most segregated and unequal school systems in the country. In “Caring choices? Supporting and dreaming with students in New York City’s stratifying high school admissions system,” I share an autoethnographic account that spans ten years of work as an activist educator striving both to support students …

Adults Formerly In Foster Care Narrate Schooling Experiences, Danielle Walker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Roughly 400,000 children are in foster care in the United States (Lash, 2017, p. 5). These youth are less likely to graduate high school than their non-foster peers (Barnow et al., 2015). While several barriers contribute to the poor educational outcomes for children in foster care, research has noted that the label “foster child” is associated with negative connotations and differential teacher treatment (Altshuler, 2003; Finkelstein, Wamsley, & Miranda, 2002). In spite of such observations, little research has emphasized the perspectives of those in foster care. To fill this gap, this qualitative study posed the following question: How do adults …

Desegregating Schooling In Hartford, Connecticut: The 1996 Sheff V. O’Neill Court Case And Two Decades Of Integration Policy, Adam Bloom

Senior Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Critical Embodied Praxis For Social Justice And Peace Educators: A Story Of Personal Transformation Through Analysis Of My Jewish And Settler Identities, Cara Michelle Silverberg

Capstone Collection

In this paper, I examine definitions of and relationships between violence, oppression, peace, liberation, and embodiment in the context of critical pedagogy in order to construct a theory of critical embodied praxis for social justice and peace educators. Considering the body to be a tangible vessel through which narratives and mechanisms of violence are expressed and maintained, I explore the potential of the body to be a vessel through which liberatory narratives may be generated and shared. After constructing a theory of critical embodied praxis, I illustrate this framework in action through a personal narrative that explores the intersections …

Political Culture And Policy: The Impact Of Culture And Values On School Choice Legislation, Heather Leigh Neal

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Policy actors unite political culture, power, and values to make substantial decisions which are often subjective in nature. Politics and policy are about collective decisions, which rely on the arrangement of a group of people. As values can influence policy actors in their attempt to solve problems, it is important for policymakers to establish a balance among the most essential values. A qualitative case study approach was used to investigate how, and what ways, political culture influenced how state stakeholders interpreted or implemented policy. Power and values were explored as both can connect for the implementation of policy. If values, …

The Use Of Social And Cultural Capital As Refugee Mothers Transition Their Children To Ontario Education, Courtney A. Brewer

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study focused on Syrian refugee mothers’ experiences in transitioning their children to new school systems in Ontario, Canada. In 2015, the Canadian government committed to resettling 25000 Syrian refugees and processing higher numbers of refugee claims in the years following. Despite the increased number of refugees in Canada, there has been limited attention to perspectives of mothers in relation to transitioning children to the Canadian education system (Brewer, 2016). As well, the intersection at which all aspects of this study are situated in—refugees, motherhood, school transitions, and social and cultural capital—lacked scholarly attention. Drawing on Bourdieu’s (1990) theory of …

Morris High School: A Biography, Naomi Sharlin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Morris High School was conceived and built in the Bronx with a lofty mission: to provide a comprehensive, world-class secondary education to the children of immigrant and working-class families, and in so doing to elevate the American public education system and America itself. Such a weighty mission for an institution would result, one could expect, in painstaking record keeping, the lionization of great leaders, consistent investment in the building, and attention given to problems encountered or created over the years. And yet, the life of Morris High School remains elusive. Key figures in its story are lost to obscurity like …

The Equal Right To Sing: The American Zeitgeist And Its Implications For Music Education, Youngeun Kim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

According to music educators and proponents of arts education, music education in U.S. public schools seems to be in jeopardy. This thesis brings attention to several issues in current music education. It is a case study of music education in New York City public elementary schools. First, it shows that music education is not equally distributed to all students in the public-school system and is especially unequal among elementary schools. Next, it investigates possible causes for this inequality, from the current system’s limitations to more fundamental causes including the cultural perception of music among the U.S. public. The consequences of …

Exploring Educational Journeys, Barriers, And Motivating Factors Of Tribal College Students Through Capabilities Approach, Francis Arpan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Educational attainment and success have often been linked to an increase in opportunities in life and when viewed from the lens of lifelong earnings, the greater an individual’s educational attainment, the greater the lifelong earnings. As a population, Native Americans have the highest poverty rate of all racial categories in the United States at 26.2% (Economic Policy Institute 2016). When looking at the connection between education and poverty, it is vital to note that only 14.1% of Native Americans over the age of 25 have a bachelor’s degree or above (US Census 2015). This lack of educational attainment falls well …

Caring High School Teachers: Promoting Students’ Social And Emotional Development, Roberta Jean Geosling

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

High school students are experiencing increasing numbers of social and emotional stressors in their lives. While Illinois and other states have adopted state standards to address social and emotional development in the classroom, care theorists posit that the answer may lie in positive relationships between caring teachers and their students. This study explores the perspectives of six teachers from a Midwest high school who were nominated by their students as being caring teachers. After a series of three 45-minute interviews and two to three 45-minute observations, data were analyzed within the framework of Noddings’ Theory of Care (1984) and the …

Youth’S Conceptualization Of Peace, Violence, And Bullying And The Strategies They Employ To Address The Violence And Bullying In Their Lives, Charles H. Goesel

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation allowed the researcher to analyze 171 pieces of youth-created artwork and narratives by children aged six to nine who took part in the peace education, mentorship, and literacy program, READING PEACE PALS, implemented with an underserved population at a Boys and Girls Club in the U.S. Qualitative content analysis (Krippendorf, 1980; 2004) was used to analyze the artwork and narratives to gain insight into children’s conceptualization of peace, violence, and bullying and their strategies for addressing bullying and violence.

The findings uncovered the myriad of unique ways youth conceptualize and define peace and the strategies they employ to …

The Concrete Rose: A Phenomenological Study Of African American Women’S Postgraduate Matriculation Experiences, Anne-Marie L. Soto

Department of Conflict Resolution Studies Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the educational matriculation experiences of African American (AA) women in pursuance of postgraduate degree status from the pre-kindergarten to doctoral levels. This study used a transcendental phenomenological approach, guided by the following research questions: 1) What are the elements within academia that define and influence the educational experiences for post-graduate degreed AA women? 2) What (if any) challenges to post-graduate degree attainment, were experienced by the population; what meaning do they find in those experiences? And 3) What are the perceptions of this population regarding how their intersecting identities pertaining to …

A Critical Ethnographical Exploration Of Disability Under Apartheid Conditions: The Promising Potential Of Palestinian Higher Education Institutions, Yasmin Snounu

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Utilizing a critical ethnographical methodology, this dissertation explores the experiences and practices of professors and administrators towards accommodating disabled students mainly in Palestine, but also taking into consideration the importance of the both political and disability contexts of the United States, primarily in light of critical disability studies, while also drawing from critical discourse analysis in regard to aspects of language, power hierarchies, and identity. Elements of teacher development theories are used in relation to transformational ways of thinking and the role of educators in combating stigma and promoting/adopting inclusive pedagogical practices towards accommodating disabled students in higher education. My …