Education Commons^™

The Significance Of Jesuit Educational Institution In The Reconstruction Of Postcolonial And Post-Conflict East Timor, Plinio Do Rosario Gusmao Dosreis Martins

Doctoral Dissertations

East Timor, as a postcolonial and post-conflict country, has striven to develop its educational system for almost two decades after its independence in 2002. The current educational system with the Portuguese language as the medium of instruction has been a challenge for teachers and students in the teaching and learning process. The fact that teachers and students are still using Tétum as a supplementary language to explain and express ideas shows that the educators and learners are still struggling with Portuguese despite the efforts of East Timor government to bridge the language gap.

Teachers and students, conversely, acknowledge that the …

Reconciling Hyphenated Identities: Muslim American Youth Reflect On College Life In The Midst Of Islamophobia, Diba Ataie

Doctoral Dissertations

Muslims make up more than 1.8 billion people of the world population and have been displaced globally in waves due to the political tension in their homeland. The tragedy of 9/11 forever changed the landscape of this nation for Muslim Americans and created hostility and fear. Islamophobia has been on the rise after the post 9/11 era, but due to the 2016 election cycle Muslim Americans have been placed under direct scrutiny. Muslim Americans were targeted and threatened with a Muslim registry and implemented a Muslim Ban to further ostracise them. The post 9/11 generation of Muslim American youth were …

Reading Queerly In The High School Classroom: Exploring A Gay And Lesbian Literature Course, Kirsten Helmer

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how teaching an English literature curriculum centered on the stories, experiences, cultures, histories, and politics of LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex) people constitutes a meaningful site for teaching and learning in a high school classroom. The dissertation offers insights on how the teaching of LGBTQI-themed texts in English language arts classes can be reframed by bridging the goals, practices and conceptual tools of queer theory to critical literacies teaching. The project follows principles of critical qualitative research and employs an ethnographic case study approach with the purpose of transforming educational …

Urban Elementary Teachers’ Perspectives And Practices, Meredith Elise Murray

Doctoral Dissertations

Urban teachers alone cannot solve the complex social and economic problems that plague urban communities and schools; however, their efforts to effectively educate inner-city youth can begin to break the cycle of disadvantage. Therefore, urban teachers’ perspectives are essential in understanding the process of effectively instructing urban youth. The purpose of this study was to explore the perspectives and practices of five urban educators through a postpositive theoretical lens. Participants for this study were five urban educators kindergarten through fourth grade, all of whom were teaching at one urban school. The participating teachers were chosen by criterion sampling with the …

Decolonial Multiculturalism And Local-Global Contexts: A Postcritical Feminist Bricolage For Developing New Praxes In Education, Katharine Matthaei Sprecher

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents a conceptual bricolage that explores complex, reflexive, and interrelated dimensions of educational praxes. My work is grounded in the assertion that the ever-changing, local-global nature of contemporary societies requires new approaches to curricula, pedagogies, policies, and practices in U.S. schools to meet the challenges and opportunities of a global era. Presenting my research and findings as four articles, I begin with a dialectical analysis of theoretical and pedagogical literatures to develop an adaptable framework for decolonial multicultural education. In Article 1, I demonstrate how this framework synergizes aspects of social reconstructionist and critical multicultural, global, and …

Identifying Gifted African-American Students: A Case Study Of A Louisiana School System, Donna Lynn Sutton

Doctoral Dissertations

In 1995, the Office for Civil Rights conducted a compliance review of the Bayou Parish School System (a pseudonym) in Louisiana. The review revealed a statistically significant underrepresentation of African-American students in the Bayou Parish gifted program. This case study examined how African-American representation in a gifted program may be increased through the use of research-based interventions implemented by the Office for Civil Rights.

The researcher used both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect and analyze data. Documents from the Office for Civil Rights and the Louisiana Department of Education were examined to: (a) show patterns of African-American and nonminority …

Tellin' It Like It Is: Disempowerment And Marginalization Of First-Generation, Low-Income College Students: A Participatory Research, Charlene P. Lobo

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examined the origins and outcomes of disempowerment and marginalization in five first-generation, low-income college students who were participants in Student Support Services, a federally funded TRIO program at a large urban commuter state university. Using dialogic introspection and participatory research, the participants reflected on their experiences in the areas of disempowerment, marginalization, educational equity, oppression and the needs and concerns of first-generation low-income students. Generative themes fell into three areas: creating conditions for learning; silencing the voice; and resistance, persistence and hope. Themes that created negative experiences for the students included disparities between academic and personal cultures, lack …