Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

Language, Literacy, And Conscientização In American Public Schools, Julie Ward

Theses and Dissertations

Language, Literacy, and Conscientização in American Public Schools synthesizes poststructural language theory to critique literacy teaching and assessment norms in American public schools in order to theorize a pedagogy of racial and economic justice that embraces globalization and immigration. Chapter I creates a theoretical framework for language that rests firmly on both Lev Vygotsky’s and Jacques Lacan’s sociohistorical approach to language acquisition and language use. Mikhail Bakhtin’s work demonstrates the heteroglossic nature of discourse, while Antonio Gramsci politicizes this framework through an understanding of hegemony. Chapter II sketches ethnographic research on teaching practices of various American communities, focusing on ideology …

"We Are...": Creating Discursive Spaces For The Construction Of Counter Narratives Through Photovoice As Critical Service Learning, Amanda F. Hall

Theses and Dissertations

Broader social issues that affect students’ lives manifest in the classroom and the current neo-liberal reform structures in education (e.g., the accountability movement combined with punitive discipline measures and structural classism/racism) fail to acknowledge the impact of these issues on student identity within school and community. While this era of standardized testing has brought about anti-democratic realities in schools of all sorts, it is also the case that schools that pass tests often enjoy a more liberatory climate while schools struggling to meet testing requirements are more likely to possess oppressive qualities. Not coincidentally, the more oppressive schools are often …

An Exploration Of Identity Negotiation In Adult English Learners’ Communities Of Practice, Kathleen D. Rolander

Theses and Dissertations

This study utilizes Lave and Wenger’s (1991) communities of practice (COP) model to explore how ELLs navigate their positions within and between their many language learning communities. Drawing on Norton’s (1995, 2013) work on ELLs’ identity negotiation and Wenger’s 1998 work on the reinforcing impacts of identities between multiple COPs, this study explores what adults consider to be their COPs, how they perceive themselves within and between them, and how past, current, and imagined or possible COPs impact each other.

A constructivist, multiple case study design was used to focus on participants’ perceptions of their identity negotiation processes through their …

Wise Choices? The Economics Discourse Of A High School Economics And Personal Finance Course, Tamara L. Sober

Theses and Dissertations

Today’s high school students will face a host of economic problems such as the demise of the social safety net, mounting college student debt, and costly health care plans, as stated in the rationale for financial literacy provided by the Council for Economic Education’s National Standards for Financial Literacy. These problems are compounded by growing income and wealth inequality and the widespread influence of neoliberal ideology. Although one of the major goals of economics education is to teach students to make reasoned economic choices in their public and private lives and provide the skills to solve personal and social …

Multimodal Pedagogies, Processes And Projects: Writing Teachers Know More Than We May Think About Teaching Multimodal Composition, Jessica B. Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

Multimodal writing refers to texts that use more than one communicative mode to convey information. While there is much scholarship that examines the history of alphabetic writing instruction and the alphabetic composing processes of students, little research explores the historical origins of multimodal composition and the processes in which students engage as they compose multimodal texts. This two-part project takes a fresh approach to studying multimodal writing by exploring the multimodal pedagogies of ancient Greek and Roman rhetoric and writing teachers, analyzing the role of mental and physical images in modern writers’ composing practices, and investigating contemporary students’ processes for …

Recovery From Design, Cassandra J. Ellison

Theses and Dissertations

Through research, inquiry, and an evaluation of Recovery By Design, a ‘design therapy’ program that serves people with mental illness, substance use disorders, and developmental disabilities, it is my assertion that the practice of design has therapeutic potential and can aid in the process of recovery. To the novice, the practices of conception, shaping form, and praxis have empowering benefit especially when guided by Conditional and Transformation Design methods together with an emphasis on materiality and vernacular form.

Experiences Of Lgbtq Students At A Primarily White Institution In The South, Leia Kristin Cain

Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, often Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and/or Questioning (LGBTQ) students are targets of verbal harassment and violence due to their sexual orientation or gender identity and gender expression. Further, 31 states do not offer protection against sexuality- or gender identity-based discrimination (ACLU, 2015). Schools are particularly vexing places, where L, G, B, T, and/or Q-identified students face difficulties due to the privileging of heterosexual students and heternormativity. In universities across the nation, suicide rates continue to climb for LGBTQ populations due to heterosexist policies, procedures, and practices, which lead to negative campus climates (Gortmaker & Brown, …

Framing In Crime News, Gabriele Ward

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate if televised news programs overrepresent or underrepresent certain races as perpetrators or victims. Three weeks of crime news programming were surveyed. The races of perpetrators and victims were identified and coded. Those findings were then compared to 2014 crime statistics obtained from the Philadelphia Police Department. It was hypothesized that (a) Blacks would be overrepresented as perpetrators, (b) Blacks would be underrepresented as victims, (c) Whites would be overrepresented as victims, (d) Whites would be underrepresented as perpetrators, (e) Hispanics would neither be underrepresented or overrepresented as perpetrators, and (f) Hispanics would …

Food Landscapes: A Case Study Of A Cooking And Art- Focused Program For Teens Living In A Food Desert, Jessica R. Norris

Theses and Dissertations

This study constructs themes and propositions about the experiences of youth participants in the fall 2013 Food Landscapes program at the Neighborhood Resource Center in Richmond, Virginia. During the program, youth participated in cooking-based volunteerism with adults with disabilities and created short videos about their experiences. In this study, I analyzed pre- and post-program participant interviews, twice-weekly program observations, and facilitator reflections to understand how Food Landscapes affected youths’ conception of community engagement and communication strategies. This case study offers insight into how youth experience after-school programming of this design. Based on my findings, youth develop and rely upon a …

Understanding The Schooling And Literacy Beliefs, Behaviors, And Self-Efficacy Of Early Head Start Parents Using Confirmatory Factor Analysis: A Pilot Survey Study, Rebecca Short

Theses and Dissertations

Educators need to have a better understanding of the home environment of diverse families. The low-income African American population, which is about 70% of the Early Head Start and Head Start population in the state of Georgia, possess and perform nonmainstream beliefs and behaviors that researchers and educators are unaware of and do not value at school (Compton-Lilly, 2009). Therefore, the purpose of this research endeavor was to develop a valid and reliable survey that measures parental behaviors and beliefs in literacy, schooling, and self-efficacy among Early Head Start and Head Start families. Items on the survey were developed to …

Increasing Parent Involvement Through Homework Assistance Opportunities, Anne Baldwin

Theses and Dissertations

One of the greatest challenges facing the United States in the 21 century is providing a quality education for all children regardless of their socioeconomic backgrounds. Given that children of minorities represent one of the fastest growing segments of the nation's population and the largest component of its public school enrollment, the nation cannot continue to ignore or waste this future source of talent. One finds parent involvement a major component in the school effectiveness movement. The lack of parent involvement is an area of concern. Teachers need the support and cooperation from parents and parents need to be better …

Integrating Multicultural Literature Into The Curriculum At Pyne Poynt Family School, Camden, New Jersey, Corlette Mays

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis documents the importance of multicultural literature in educational environments and provides strategies for implementing the literature into the curriculum. Without the knowledge and the background of what's available in this particular genre and how it can used effectively, integration of materials into the curriculum cannot occur.

The African American and Hispanic American bibliographies were developed from the materials in the Pyne Poynt Family School Library to be used as teaching tools for the staff when developing resource based units of instruction and assignments. With this awareness, usage of the multicultural materials in the collection should increase over a …

The Relationship Between Gender Differences And Writing Topic Choices Of Middle School Students, Elisa B. Probst

Theses and Dissertations

This study was an investigative comparison of free writing topic choices between the genders. For the purposes of this study, twenty male and twenty female subjects were randomly selected from the seventh grade population of a junior high.

Over a period of four weeks, ten free writing samples were collected from each student's writing journal. Each sample was analyzed and placed in its appropriate category on Graves' Territorial Distribution Scale of Thematic Choices. A frequency count was conducted. Frequencies between the genders' topic choices were compared using a Chi Square test of significance. The Chi Square Analysis showed no significant …

Teacher Attitude And Teaching The Black Dialect Student To Write Using Standard English, Julia Holmes-Williams

Theses and Dissertations

This descriptive study examined the relationship between low achievement in writing and teacher attitudes, both positive and negative, toward nonstandard language use. The study also examined teacher attitude toward strategies to improve those skills. Finally, this study compared the methods selected to teach Black-dialect speakers with those selected to teach whites.

Participants in this study were language arts teachers in four rural Southwest Georgia counties. The data gathering Instrument was a Likert-scale questionnaire. Comparisons were made based on participants' years experience and level of training. The results indicated that these teachers were positive concerning the Black-dialect speakers' ability to write …

The Development Of Secondary Education For Black Students In Columbus, Georgia 1920-1930, Becky Matthews

Theses and Dissertations

Prior to the opening of William H. Spencer High School in 1930, the highest level of public education that Columbus, Georgia, provided for its black students was nine years of industrial schooling that was designed to prepare them for jobs as manual laborers or domestic workers. The process which led to the development of Spencer High School was complex and protracted and involved a variety of organizations and individuals, but the major impetus for the building of the school came from three sources. These include consistent pressure from black community leaders, the growth of the city's black population, and the …

Thomas H. Brewer And The Struggle For Civil Rights, Earnestine Ridenour

Theses and Dissertations

The winter of 1956 was a turbulent period in the deep South. Blacks were demanding their rights and finally obtaining some of their goals at the nationa1 level. The 1954 Supreme Court decision in the Brown Topeka. Kansas Board of Education case was the prime VS stimulus.1 While the blacks in the South were feeling encouragement over this decision that declared school segregation unconstitutional, many white southerners felt anger, fear, and uncertainty about how this court decision would affect their lives.

Their culture based on racial segregation was threatened with destruction. "Separate but equal, " which had stood for sixty …

An Analysis Of Authors, Characters And Dependency Of Women Protagonists In The Short Stories Of Selected Literary Anthologies, Susan E. Hussey

Theses and Dissertations

This research study evaluated textbooks in terms of frequency of female authors, frequency of female protagonists, and frequency of dependency in female protagonists in selected modern American short stories. The study was limited to selections in Scott, Foresman and Company textbooks used in eleventh grade classrooms nationwide for the past twenty-five years. The samples came from four editions beginning with 1963 and ending with the current 1985 edition. The study revealed that there was no meaningful change in any of the researched categories. The findings of the study were reported in the form of synopses, tallies, charts and tables.

An Analysis Of The Black Image In Children's Literature In Terms Of Characterizations, Illustrations, And Language, Joan Smith Dickson

Theses and Dissertations

This descriptive study analyzed two samples of children's literature to determine the frequency, if any, of negativism toward black people in terms of characterizations, illustrations, and/or language. One sample consisted of eighteen (18) books published prior to 1965 which had been removed from elementary school libraries because they were "outdated and portrayed black characters in a demeaning, stereotyped manner" (Lisby, Note 1). The second sample of twenty-five (25) books published since 1965, depicting at least one major black character, was randomly selected from elementary school libraries. The two samples of books were read and analyzed using a checklist instrument to …

An Analysis Of Twenty Books For Young Adults In Terms Of Family Characteristics, According To Selected Sociological Variables, Elaine Vann Wise

Theses and Dissertations

An analysis of the families in twenty books, five taken from each of the 1980-1983 lists of Books for Young Adults, was used to determine if the families in the books accurately portrayed the American family. Three instruments were applied to the fictional families to gather information on the family history, characteristics, and relationships.

The families in young adult literature were found to accurately reflect the American family in marital status, number of children per family, and the persons with whom children were living. An unrealistic number of the families, however, were characterized as middle class or affluent. Only two …