Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons^™

How Well Does The New York State Higher Education Opportunity Program Work For Black Men? A Mixed Methods Study, Michael A. Dejesus Iii

Doctoral Dissertations

Previous research trended towards a deficit-oriented approach to understanding and explaining Black male underachievement. The past education research has focused on discussing the underachievement of Black males in Higher education. Finding solutions often were prescriptive in “fixing” behaviors in Black males to improve academic achievement. Additionally, there has been a trend towards race-neutrality in education policies, programs, and admissions criteria. And there is a lack of research on whether race-neutrality further exacerbates Black male underachievement by ignoring key race and gender targeted supports services that could improve Black male academic outcomes in higher education. While Black men have historically struggled …

The Acquisition Of Advanced Level Chinese Heritage Language (Chl) Learners：A Comparative Analysis Concerning The Aspect Marker “Le了”, Jingjing Ao

Masters Theses

Over the decades, research on heritage language learners has been quite popular, but most studies concern Russian, Spanish and other languages rather than Chinese. The Chinese heritage language learner’s studies focus mainly on K-12 students and their learning motivations, writing characteristics, and identification recognition and those concerned with language acquisition address their vocabulary and verbal Chinese development. There have been very few studies about learning grammar. This study emphasizes on the acquisition of the aspect marker LE among advanced learners.

To investigate the acquisition characteristics of advanced CHL learners, this study adopted the advanced CHL learners as the research group …

Critical Language Awareness In The Multilingual Writing Classroom: A Self-Study Of Teacher Feedback Practices, Emma R. Britton

Doctoral Dissertations

Despite the increasing amount of ethnolinguistic diversity in US schools and universities, traditional approaches to university writing instruction continue to advance the teaching of standard written American English (SWAE) from uncritical ideological standpoints (Bommarito & Cooney, 2016). To disrupt the naturalization of monolingual and standard language ideologies, existing scholarship shows the potential of critical language awareness (CLA), as a pedagogical approach which aims to develop students’ awareness of the relationships between languages, language varieties, language ideologies, power, and social inequities, alongside the teaching of SWAE (Fairclough, 1992). Because the production of student texts is central to a CLA pedagogy (Gilyard, …

The Role Of Translation Style In Fostering Cultural Connections Through World Literature, Bridget Baudinet

Masters Theses

While many high school English instructors in the United States teach world literature in translation, few of them explicitly present the literature as translated. High school English students would benefit from learning more about the linguistic origins of the world literature they read. This awareness would increase student understanding of the source culture and benefit their language skills. Various translation theorists have suggested methods to teach translational awareness, but few have offered advice on the type of translation to select. In my research, I examined the question of whether students would derive more cultural knowledge, and specifically language-related knowledge, by …

Kofifi/Covfefe: How The Costumes Of "Sophiatown" Bring 1950s South Africa To Western Massachusetts In 2020, Emma Hollows

Masters Theses

This thesis paper reflects upon the costume design process taken by Emma Hollows to produce a realist production of the Junction Avenue Theatre Company’s musical Sophiatown at the Augusta Savage Gallery at the University of Massachusetts in May 2020. Sophiatown follows a household forcibly removed from their homes by the Native Resettlement Act of 1954 amid apartheid in South Africa. The paper discusses her attempts as a costume designer to strike a balance between replicating history and making artistic changes for theatre, while always striving to create believable characters.

The Experience Of Chinese Students Enrolled In Graduate Music Education Degree Programs In The United States, Kailimi Li

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the experience of Chinese graduate students enrolled in music education master’s and doctoral degree programs in the United States. Specifically, it explored participants’ perceptions of (a) their educational experiences (past and present), (b) the challenges they faced, (c) their strategies for success, (d) the benefits they experienced as international graduate students in the United State, (e) the effect of this experience on their thinking, self-perception, and behavior, and (f) how they planned to move forward or move on following this experience. Participants were six native Chinese graduate students enrolled at the time …

How Students Of Japanese Perceive And Use Technology, David Rubino

Masters Theses

The role of technology in education has expanded to a near universal reality. In foreign languages the field of Technology-enhanced Language Learning, has long sought to effectively implement instruction with these tools, and often to great success, often through the guise of Computer-assisted Language Learning. However, most studies investigating the student perception of class structures incorporating technology are based on what instructors have implemented.

Students, the counterparts of instructors, often own more than one technological tool and will often employ these tools in their studies. For learners of foreign languages, certain aspects of technology are selected for various tasks based …

Verbal -S Productions In The Structured Writing Samples Of Variable Aae-Speaking Fourth-Grade Students With And Without Language Impairment, Jacklyn High Felton

Doctoral Dissertations

Researchers in speech-language pathology and ethnolinguistics have worked to gain knowledge about typical and atypical language patterns of African American children who are identified as African American English (AAE) dialect speakers. Much progress had been made, but limitations in this field of knowledge have persisted, especially for AA children who demonstrate variable use of AAE, presumably through the process of assimilation in the school setting. Therefore, more information is needed to provide diagnostic markers for deviations in typical language development for variable AAE-MAE speakers. Prior empirical research has found that third- and fourth-grade AAE-speaking children with typical language development overtly …

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 …

Translating Françoize Boucher’S Le Livre Qui T’Explique Enfin Tout Sur Les Parents For Us Audiences: Playing With Words And Images, Evgeniya Bugaeva

Masters Theses

The focus of this thesis is my translation of Le livre qui t'explique enfin tout sur les parents by Françoize Boucher from French into English. Chapter one begins with a brief history and definition of children’s literature, as well as children’s literature in translation. I discuss the subgenre of informational picturebooks—its objectives, characteristics, and current trends. What follows is a short biographic and bibliographic sketch of Françoize Boucher. Then, I discuss the content, format, style, and illustrations of Le livre qui t'explique as well as examine the work’s audience, aims, and values. Finally, I discuss my English translation of the …

Inferring Word-Meaning, Morpheme-Based, And Word-Based Second Language Vocabulary Teaching Methodologies, Qingli Liu

Masters Theses

In this study, an experiment was conducted to compare the three teaching methods: the inferring word-meaning method, the morpheme-based teaching method, and the word-based teaching method. The results showed that students taught by the inferring word-meaning method outperformed both the students taught by the morpheme-based method and the word-based method in terms of word retention. The possible reason is that the inferring word-meaning section enabled students to pay attention to and spend more time on each word. On the other hand, the disadvantage of the inferring word-meaning method is that it might not be an efficient way to teach a …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Improving Anti-Racist Education For Multiracial Students, Eric Hamako

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores how anti-racist education might be improved, so that it more effectively teaches Multiracial students about racism. A brief history of anti-racist education and a theory of monoracism – the systematic oppression of Multiracial people – provide context for the study. Anti-racist education in communities and colleges has supported U.S. social movements for racial justice. However, most anti-racist education programs are not designed by or for students who identify with two or more races. Nor have such programs generally sought to address Multiraciality or monoracism. Since the 1980s, Multiraciality has become more salient in popular U.S. racial discourses. …

Through The Camera Lens Of Development: An Exploration Of Ngos' Representations Of Africa, Sebastian Lindstrom

Master's Capstone Projects

The purpose if this qualitative research is to acquire new knowledge in the African visual representational landscape, a digital space carefully filmed and edited by some of the most celebrated and acknowledged, mostly Western, NGOs in the world. The most watched Africa-related video from 50 NGOs were selected, downloaded and analyzed. After continuous re-watching of a 3.5 hour long set of visual data tree themes emerged. One segment relates around the NGOs intervention, another about the term or statement ‘help’, and the last theme is HIV/AIDS. The findings include the realization that the beneficiary was never explaining the intervention of …

Negotiating Invisibility: Addressing Lgbt Prejudice In China, Hong Kong, And Thailand, Hunter Gray

Master's Capstone Projects

This research serves as a consolidation of information regarding the global response to LGBT prejudice, and in particular, the response of organizations situated in China, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Interviews with activists and researchers from organizations that address LGBT prejudice served as the main form of data. Findings and subsequent analysis point to the ways in which organizations respond to the lack of visibility of the LGBT community, and how this invisibility is related to various manifestations of LGBT prejudice. Strategies that organizations have developed to respond to LGBT prejudice reveal how organizations negotiate contextual variables in their attempts to …

The Use Of Multimedia Material In Teaching Chinese As A Second Language And Pedagogical Implications, Zhongyuan Williams

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The use of Multimedia materials has been widely accepted as an useful and effective tool in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Many studies and researchers have examined multimedia material’s effectiveness from a number of aspects, including four skills of language learning: listening, speaking, reading (including vocabulary comprehension) and writing. However, the effectiveness of multimedia material from the aspect of L2 grammar comprehension hasn’t been well explored.

This study examines the effectiveness of multimedia material in teaching second language grammar comprehension among beginning and intermediate-level Chinese learners. In particular, it investigates the relative efficacy of three different modes used …

Contemplative Education: How Contemplative Practices Can Support And Improve Education, Judith Johannes

Master's Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study is to explore how contemplative education can have a viable role in education. In the first part of this thesis I will share my own personal experience with contemplative practices and how they led to my personal growth and transformation.

The second part will give some brief insights about the benefits the ancient wisdom traditions Hinduism and Buddhism attributed to contemplative practices. They claim that those practices help to reach a state of expanded awareness and stillness of the mind. Contemplative practices such as mindfulness, which is a Buddhist meditation technique, were used to better …

Subversive Representations Of Education In Francophone Novels Of The Colonial Maghreb, Whitney Bevill

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Much work exploring alterity and hybridity in the Maghreb ignores representations of education which confront seminal formative experiences, specifically education. French colonial education was problematic because it granted access to the colonizer’s culture, yet it also created a rupture in self-identity for Maghrebi students. In this thesis, I interrogate the literary representations of sites and sources of education by analyzing how these representations discuss the tension between formal French education and informal Maghrebi education.

My thesis begins with a historical overview of colonial education in the Maghreb. I then discuss literary methods of negotiating identity, contrasting Arab and Western autobiography …

Theatre Of The Oppressed A Manual For Educators, Gopal Midha

Master's Capstone Projects

Promoting social equity and justice, I think, are not just important but essential qualities in a good educator. My experience as a graduate student at University of Massachusetts helped me understand and practice different ways in which this could be done. For instance, I learnt how I could promote social justice through changes in curriculum, co-operative learning, inter-group dialogues or multicultural education. However, my search was for a method that did not require literacy as a pre-requisite and that went beyond mere conversations about social justice. One of the key elements of the power structures which lead to oppression, I …

Assessment Practice And Perception Of Social Science Instructors In Afghanistan, Delawar Darmal

Master's Capstone Projects

This thesis has been prepared with three objectives in mind. First, investigating and identifying the problems and challenge of assessment is essential to the quality of education as well as to the reform of education in Afghanistan. Any reforms and the improvement of education are greatly based on the findings of research. Therefore, this project is targeting to facilitate this process.

Second, this research project is aiming to explain the assessment that is practiced in Higher Education of Afghanistan. This is essential to two critical issues. It is useful not just to Afghan instructors to know about the assessment practices …

The Effects Of English Teaching Methods Course Of The English Department Of Kabul Education University On Secondary School English Teachers, Ali Hikmat

Master's Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Integrated Development: Best Practices For Girls’ Education, Rebecca Paulson

Master's Capstone Projects

Integrated development takes into consideration the multidimensional nature of every issue. This thesis focuses on the issue of girls’ education and examines the many interconnected barriers which prevent girls from attending school specifically in the context of Niger, but also on a broader level. There must exist a supportive environment which enables girls to be able to access, attend and succeed in school, and this supportive environment must be created across sectors by addressing the many issues which prevent girls’ schooling: cost, health, physical access, culture and tradition etc. Multi-level and multisectoral partnerships of local and international NGOs and the …

We’Re Coming Out! – “Home” And “Away” Identities In The Field Of International Education: An Emotional Construction And Negotiation Of The Self, Paul St. John Frisoli

Master's Capstone Projects

Once upon a time, there was a young man from the country of Federation. In this era of postmodernism, Paul St. John Frisoli held fragmented and multiple identities that were at times complimentary and contradictory. He believed that whether he was angry, happy, frustrated, or satisfied that emotions offered clues to these identities. One day, Paul left for the islands of Banga Sharini where he worked on the WEZAP radio project that was funded by the Federation Agency for International Development (FAID). During his stay, he developed new Consultant and Foreign Identity selves while leaving his “home” identities of the …

Permanently Temporary: Roma Refugee Youth Seeking Schooling, Karen N. Binger

Master's Capstone Projects

This study investigates the experiences of education in exile from a small case study of Roma refugee male youths from Kosovo temporarily settled in Macedonia as ‘asylum seekers.’ These refugees are at an overlooked age where they have slipped through the cracks between the post-war, short-term relief and longer-term development efforts in terms of education. Many of the frustrations of this community stem from their difficulties in accessing education, and their uncertain legal limbo or ‘permanently temporary’ situations.

As adolescents, refugees, and Roma, the youth are at a triple jeopardy of marginalization and invisibility. Through conversations with four Roma refugee …

The War On Aids: The Abc's Of Fighting This War, A Historical Perspective, Laura A. Ivey

Master's Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Celebrating Diversity God's Way! Increasing Multiculturalism In Christian Early Childhood Settings: A Practical Manual For Practitioners, Tamari Nduaguibe

Master's Capstone Projects

This project combined an extensive literature review, the creation of a practitioners manual and teaching materials, as well as the presentation of the ideas at a regional conference for Christian early childhood educators. For the literature review, I chose writers who dealt with multicultural education in general (such as Nieto, Bennett, and Banks), with Christian multiculturalism (such as Wilkerson, and Breckenridge), and also with those that wrote about how to affirm diversity and promote tolerance in early childhood education (Derman-Sparks, Spodek, Brown, Vold). I brought these three areas together in the practitioners manual, a seventy-page practical resource targeted for Christian …

Assessing The Impact Areas Of An International Study Tour For Teachers, Raymond Y. Young

Master's Capstone Projects

In the mid-1970’s, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts became federally designated refugee settlement location for many of the people displaced by violence and conflict in Southeast Asia. Since the, large numbers of individuals and families from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, often escaping horrific conditions, have found new homes in cities and towns across the commonwealth. Today, Massachusetts ranks seventh in the national for the number of Southeast Asian Immigrants and refugees that have resettled in the United States, and is home to the second largest Khmer American population outside of California.

Despite federal, state, and local assistance to the communities and …

An Exploration Of Gender Issues And The Role Of The Outsider In Women's Education Programs In Muslim Communities Case Studies In Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Senegal, And Yemen, Jode Lynne Walp

Master's Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Culture On Language Learning And Ways Of Communication: The Japanese Case, Yuri Kumagai

Master's Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.