Education Commons^™

Urban Teacher's Perspectives On Teaching Diverse Students., Julie Chancellor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Teachers who are mostly White often do not understand their cultural disconnect from their mostly non-White students (Blaisdell, 2016; King, 1991). Having teachers exposed to, and competent with, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy (CRP) (Ladson-Billings, 1995) and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy (CSP) (Paris, 2012) can help bridge that divide. Since CSP is a relative newcomer to educational pedagogy, this study was designed to discover what CSP traits teachers have and how these traits impact their students. This qualitative case study is comprised of four teachers at one urban high school that has historically been designated as not making adequate progress. These teachers are …

Pedagogies Of Possibility : A Study Reconceptualizing The Teacher's Role In A Reggio-Inspired Urban Preschool Classroom., Christina Louise Angleton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education is an innovative and often imitated “way of being” with young children (Rinaldi, 2006). Reggio-inspired teachers enact rich pedagogical stances in their work with young children. In North American contexts, the approach is frequently associated with wealthy, suburban communities. Adopting a feminist methodology, this dissertation explores the pedagogical moves one teacher made as she enacted the identity of a Reggio teacher in an urban preschool classroom. The theoretical framework guiding this study is grounded in feminist poststructural, postmodern, and decolonization scholarship, each of which inform a movement known as Reconceptualizing Early Childhood …

A Collective Case Study: Student Voice And The Implications For Partnership, Activism And Leadership, Brian Eric Duwe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative, collective case study was to explore urban high school student and teacher perceptions of student voice, specifically in the areas of partnership, activism and leadership. This study addresses the Civic Opportunity Gap, which impacts urban youth and the disjuncture between the civic ideals of the United States and their day-to-day experiences within the civic institutions that shape their lives. This study was designed to examine the following three questions: What opportunities exist within the urban high school setting for partnership, activism and leadership? What are the perceived barriers that influence opportunities for partnership, activism …

Hope's Voice: Listening To Urban Youth, Michael Stephen Roth

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For several decades, there has been a large gap between the achievement scores of urban youth of color and their white counterparts. This achievement gap persists despite the efforts of educators and policymakers to close it. This descriptive study examined the perceptions of urban youth of color regarding their role in school and the support and barriers they encountered related to academic achievement in school.

Duncan-Andrade (2009) compares schooling in underserved communities to growing roses in concrete. He argues that the conditions of life for urban youth of color are in themselves oppositional forces. He writes that hope is required …

The Impact Of Access To Books On The Reading Motivation And Achievement Of Urban Elementary Students, Lee-Anne Spalding

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this research was to study the association that reading motivation and reading achievement have with increased access to books provided by the non-profit program Book Trust, could have on urban elementary students, specifically second graders being educated in a large school district in Central Florida. Teacher data collection sheets, the Motivation to Read Profile (MRP): Reading Survey and the Florida Assessment for Instruction in Reading (FAIR) were used to measure the aforementioned associations. Findings revealed that increased access to books in these elementary schools did not have a statistically significant impact on reading motivation or reading achievement …