Education Commons^™

The Black Box Of Enrollment Management: The Influence Of Academic Capitalism And Values Of The Public Good, Kamala C. Kiem

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The study addresses the widening income and racial access gap in higher education resulting from enrollment management teams’ operationalization of academic capitalism. The study focuses on the local, micro level, emphasizing how enrollment management leadership teams make sense of enrollment management, recognizing that enrollment management and the work of enrollment management stakeholders exist within an organizational space encompassing the values of both public good and academic capitalism. Using a case study methodology and critical sensemaking theory, the research explored how academic capitalism and values of the public good shaped enrollment management leadership teams’ sensemaking and sensegiving as they enacted decisions, …

Caged Animals: The Reproduction Of Social And Educational Inequalities In Indian Secondary Schools, Vishakha Agarwal

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

There is a continued crisis in public schooling in India’s low-income and socially disadvantaged communities. Schools are supposed to provide a safe and healthy environment conducive to learning that ultimately helps to disrupt the transmission of intergenerational poverty and leads to social and economic mobility among low-income and socially disadvantaged students. In practice, however, schools have served to disproportionately exclude marginalized populations from attaining quality education. Previous research has revealed that less affluent students attend under-resourced schools in buildings with poor infrastructural facilities and fewer or unqualified teachers (India Infrastructure Report, 2012), where they face hidden normative barriers that negatively …

Substantially Silent: Exploring The Variability Of “Voice” At The Intersection Of Race And Dis/Ability In A Restrictive Special Education Placement, Christopher N. Hall

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The overrepresentation of Black students in special education, particularly in the most restrictive educational placements, is well documented in the literature. In addition, Black students are disproportionately placed into far more segregated educational spaces than their same-aged White peers with similar dis/ability labels. With limited qualitative studies that center the voices of students of color labelled as severely disabled in restrictive educational settings, informed by the tenets of Disability Studies in Education (DSE), this study adds to the growing body of research foregrounding the voices of individuals with dis/abilities in telling their own story from their perspective through narrative portraiture. …

Lost In Translation: Understanding Education Policy Implementation In Nepal, Sushmita Subedi

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the impact of the School Sector Reform Plan (SSRP), a national education reform in Nepal, on primary and secondary education. The study uses mixed-methods to analyze indicators of educational outcomes and identify the underlying environmental, organizational, and individual factors that affect reform implementation.

The first phase of the study is a quantitative analysis of annual, district-level data on 75 districts for 10 years, from 2006 to 2016 using regression models to predict dropout and promotion rates. The second phase of the study is a qualitative analysis of the perceived effectiveness of SSRP using in-depth interviews with 33 …

High School Teachers' Perceptions Of Social Studies In The Context Of Accountability, Kristina M. Kelleher-Bianchi

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe urban public high school social studies teachers’ perceptions of social studies curriculum narrowing and its influence on their professional identity within the context of Massachusetts’ school accountability policies. This study gave nuance to larger quantitative studies by allowing policy and school leaders to hear directly from teachers who mediate the influence of accountability policies on students. It examined these questions: What were public school teachers’ understandings of the influence of testing pressure in their school? What were high school teachers’ experiences with social studies curriculum narrowing? How did teachers perceive their …

Educators Bailan With Policy Et Le Pouvoir In The Educação Of Multicultural And Multilingual Learners (Wida Eld Standards And The Education Of English Learners), Fernanda Marinho Kray

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The larger frame of this study contributes to the literature that examines how educators negotiate, contest, appropriate, and reconstruct federal and state-level policy in their classrooms. More specifically, the study contributes to the field of language education policy, and in particular to how educators make sense of, and implement, English Language Development (ELD) Standards. I focus on WIDA ELD Standards, as they are currently in use in 42 U.S. states, territories, and federal agencies as well as more than 500 international schools throughout the world. The literature review identifies a problem for standards-based education systems using the 2012 WIDA Standards …

Public-Private Partnerships In Education: A Vertical Case Study Of The Right To Education Act (2009), India, Sheetal Gowda

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

One of the most contentious issues that elicits heated debates in the field of international and comparative education is the role of private actors in the provision of educational services using public monies. As the programmatic idea of public-private partnerships (PPPs) gains momentum internationally, educational PPPs has emerged as a key strategy in reducing educational and social inequities. Despite growing research evidence suggesting the contrary, the neo-liberal agenda of positioning PPPs as the best mechanism for achieving educational rights enshrined in international declarations and national constitutions continue to be perpetuated. Of particular relevance to this study is Section 12(1)(c) of …

Black Family Engagement Through Communication Technology: A Phenomenological Study From The Perspective Of Urban Public High Schools Parents In The Greater Boston Area, Mariette Bien-Aime Ayala

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Black family engagement is the key to improving the life outcomes of young Black students (Clark, 2015; Mestry & Grobler, 2007). Recently, as a response to a need for better family engagement in K-12 education, new technologies have emerged. As educators, it is important to study the effectiveness of these new communication technologies, as well as how Black families are experiencing opportunities for engagement through them. Guided by critical race theory and capital theory, I ask: How do Black families experience opportunities for engagement with their children’s high schools through the use of communication technologies? To find this answer, in …

Academic Capitalism And The Public Good In Public And Private U.S. Higher Education: A Grounded Theory Study Of Internationalization, Asabe W. Poloma

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Within the context of U.S. higher education, market forces inform institutional strategies at public and private universities alike (Rhoades & Slaughter, 2006). Despite existing studies on market-driven forces in the internationalization and transnationalization of U.S. higher education (Knight, 2004; Marginson, 2012; Rhoades, Lee and Maldonado-Maldonado, 2005; Stromquist, 2007), there is a relative lack of theoretical or methodological engagement with how the theory of academic capitalism informs our understanding of the dominance of market-driven strategies in internationalization and how those strategies and practices blur the boundaries between the market and the public good. Furthermore, no studies have explored how the intersection …

'Whose Goals Am I Meeting?' Policy And Practice Dilemmas In Adult Basic Education (Abe) In The Era Of Accountability, Alma Hallulli Biba

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

For the last two decades, federal legislation and Massachusetts’ state ABE policies have linked adult learners’ educational outcomes to performance systems and accountability requirements. These outcomes, represented as ‘goals’, reflect an emphasis on return-on-investment strategies and outcome-based accountability measures. Greatest emphasis is placed on that subset of adult learners’ goals that are easily measured, attainable, and that are associated with public outcomes. This dissertation, in contrast, seeks to understand the goal setting process from the perspective of learners and local ABE stakeholders. Using a novel, mixed-method approach, this dissertation presents ABE learners’ goal setting as a decision problem in order …

The Politics Of Official English: Exploring The Intentions And The Outcomes Behind English-Only Policies In The United States, David Gonzalez Nieto

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Although the Constitution did not declare English the official language of the United States, its complete linguistic dominance in such a linguistically diverse nation is unparalleled. Despite its supremacy, the last three decades have witnessed a renewed nationalistic movement that claims the role of English is threatened and that its establishment as the official language of the United States is crucial to protect the language and the unity of the nation.

So far, attempts to institutionalize English at the federal level have failed, but 28 states have adopted English as their official language and/or legislation that limits the use of …

Does Increased Family Income Reduce Fade Out Of Preschool Gains?, Colin C. Rose

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

The current study examines the connection between a change of family income and the retention of academic gains for children in low-income households who have attended a center-based preschool program. These children are often shown to lose the academic advantage they gain during preschool as they move through k-12 education in a phenomenon called fade out. A theoretical framework was constructed positing that material and psychological effects of poverty inhibit the ability of these families to support and maintain growth during this critical time when children are highly nested in the family unit.

Treating family income as a causal risk …

"True, She Has The Culture You Need": A White Teacher In An Urban School Critically Reflects On The Hidden, Social, And Academic Curriculum, Mathew Arlen Mclean

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is an auto|ethnography , meaning it places the author's experiences at the center of analysis. The thesis argues that educators from the dominant culture can share the burden of change placed on students of color by critically reflecting on their positionality--or the way they socially construct their understanding of who they are in the world and therefore their relationship to educational structures and school actors. The analysis focuses on the author's transition from suburban to urban teaching and how this experience, combined with a broadening of theoretical perspectives, increased his criticality and, therefore, ability to re-conceptualize his …

The Association Between Elementary Teacher Licensure Test Scores And Student Growth In Mathematics: An Analysis Of Massachusetts Mtel And Mcas Tests, Life Legeros

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

This quasi-experimental value-added study provided evidence for the predictive validity of the Massachusetts MTEL General Curriculum Mathematics Subtest by finding an association between the licensure test results of 130 teachers and the growth of their 2640 grade 4 and 5 students. The study took advantage of a natural experiment that arose due to a policy change made by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (MADESE) in response to the initial administration of a new highly rigorous math-specific licensure subtest for elementary and special education teachers in March, 2008. The emergency amendment allowed test takers to conditionally pass the …