Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

Culturally Responsive Science Education And Teaching: Current Literature, Preservice Elementary Science Teachers And Lesson Planning, Lundon Pinneo

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

First, a meta-analysis of Culturally Responsive (CR) science teaching characteristics and practices was conducted. Findings revealed that there are a limited number of CR teaching studies at the elementary science level. When studies conducted at the middle, secondary and postsecondary level were included, six themes which encompassed the characteristics and pedagogical practices of effective CR science teachers and teacher development emerged. These themes were academics, cultural competency, social inequities, CR learning environment, rejection of the deficit lens and pedagogical strategies.

Next, the impact of curriculum and practices designed to reflect these six themes on preservice elementary science teachers was explored. …

Introduction: Perspectives On Ignatian Leadership, Thomas M. Kelly, Bridget Keegan Ph.D.

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

No abstract provided.

Behavioral Health Issues Among War Veterans, Michelle Guzman

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The Monterey County Military & Veterans Affairs Office is a government agency that helps Veterans and their dependents with Military services that are offered in the Monterey County area. Some of the main problems that returning veterans are facing from coming back from OEF and OIF are behavioral health issues as far as PTSD, substance abuse and many more different health issues. Behaviors required to outlive in a war zone, such as keeping up a consistent state of alertness, may at first decipher into troublesome behaviors in civilian life, such as feeling tense or unsteady and being easily startled. Some …

Availability And Perceived Effectiveness Of High School Programs, Services, And Approaches To Address Trauma-Related Outcomes In The Upper Peninsula Of Michigan, Jaime Vanenkevort

All NMU Master's Theses

Twelve administrators at Michigan Upper Peninsula (U.P.) high schools participated in 12 separate structured interviews to identify programs, services, and approaches to address trauma-related outcomes. Participants were three U.P. superintendents, eight principals, and one Intermediate School District (ISD) social worker who described a convergence of factors affecting assessment measures of programs, services, and approaches to address student trauma-related outcomes in U.P. high schools. The interviews addressed the identification of programs, services, and approaches to address trauma-related outcomes at U.P. high schools and the assessment measures in use to evaluate available programs, services, and approaches. A systems theory approach and understanding …

A Mixed Methods Study Of Middle School Teachers’ Perceptions Of Schoolwide Positive Behavior Interventions And Supports And Its Influence On Effective Implementation, Tiffany J. Baskin-Downs

Theses and Dissertations

The use of a multi-tiered system of supports framework has been of growing interest in addressing issues related to disruptive behaviors and school suspensions. The purpose of this mixed-methods sequential, explanatory study was to examine middle school teachers’ perceptions (behavioral expectations defined, behavioral expectations taught, and an ongoing system for rewarding behavioral expectations) of their efforts toward implementing Schoolwide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports with fidelity in two middle schools within an urban school district located in Georgia. Data analyses included descriptive statistics, homogeneity of variance Levene’s test, t-tests, factorial analysis, a one-way analysis of variance, post-hoc tests, frequencies and …

Using The Critical Mathematics Pedagogical Framework To Teach Adult Basic Education Learners: A Transformative Convergent Parallel Mixed Methods Study, Matthew D. Gromlich

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The goal of this study was to design and implement curricula in the Adult Basic Education classroom that aligned to the Critical Mathematics Pedagogical Framework. Specifically, this study assessed if ABE students’ mathematics anxiety and mathematics self-efficacy ware affected by curricula that aligns to the Critical Mathematics Pedagogical Framework. Using a transformative convergent parallel mixed methods study, this study showed that students taught using CMPF-based lessons specifically reflected on their own attitudes towards mathematics self-efficacy, mathematics anxiety, number positioning, and the need for societal change around mathematical concepts. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed to highlight student reflections and …

Contextualizing Our Leadership Education Approach To Complex Problem Solving: Shifting Paradigms And Evolving Knowledge: Priority 5 Of The National Leadership Education Research Agenda 2020–2025, Rian Satterwhite, Ariel Sarid, Carolyn M. Cunningham, Elizabeth Goryunova, Heather M. Crandall, James L. Morrison, Kate Sheridan, Whitney Mcintyre Miller

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"Complex problems characterized by uncertainty, interconnectedness, poorly defined goals, and high risk are not new to the human experience. Yet humanity is increasingly faced with multifaceted and pervasive global challenges, and leadership education must adapt accordingly. These complex problems transcend borders and require a collective, adaptive, and iterative learning response. Complex problems such as failure to act on climate change, unemployment, food crises, governance failures, pandemics, cyberattacks, and involuntary migration are interrelated challenges that require paradigm shifts in responses and leadership (Global Risk Report, 2020). "

Collective Teacher-Researcher Inquiry: Localizing School-Based Curriculum Development In Diversified Hong Kong Schooling Contexts, Zheng Zhang, Sally Wai-Yan Wan, Lai Ha Chan, Pui-Ying Lorelei Kwan, Lai-Ling Sandy Tam, Eunice Wai-Po Wan

Journal of Practitioner Research

Responding to a recent call for turning a focus on advancing practices in curriculum studies, this paper reports collective memory work that disrupted academics’ hegemonic voices in School-Based Curriculum Development (SBCD) studies and elicited teachers’ stories about their school-based curriculum development (SBCD) practices. With post-colonialism as the theoretical underpinning, we explored how the Western-centric construct of SBCD was recontextualized in various Hong Kong school contexts. Findings revealed teachers’ struggles with hegemonic discourses that constrained their autonomy in SBCD projects to benefit diverse learners, such as the accountability mechanism, linguistic imperialism, Western-centrism, and top-down curriculum decision-making. Situated in the local realities …

Racism In Education, Kevin M. Donton

English Department: Research for Change - Wicked Problems in Our World

Racism in Education has been a huge problem in the United States today, and it still is. The presence of racism in the education system is quite controversial and many people have strong opinions on it. Its roots date all the way back to slavery in the United States to the Brown vs. the Board of Education case to the Reagan Revolution to present day in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. Throughout this essay, I will discuss the origins, how it is still happening today, the effects it has on students of color, and ways to dismantle …

Using Monuments To Teach About Racism, Colonialism, And Sexism, Susan Phillip

Publications and Research

This chapter examines how an interdisciplinary high-impact practice approach to teaching and learning using selected contested monuments can reveal intersections of racism, colonialism, and sexism, and lay the foundation for students’ civic engagement. In place-based and virtual experiences, students observe and investigate local and national monuments, integrating knowledge from multiple disciplines, including history, psychology, art, culture, and tourism. Students make critical analyses about how monuments reveal power relationships in our society. Students from various disciplines explore the origin of contested monuments, the evolving national and local debates around them, and their effect on students’ learning to evaluate historical, contemporary, and …

Facilitating Conversations On Difficult Topics In The Classroom: Teachers’ Stories Of Opening Spaces Using Children’S Literature

Occasional Paper Series

For this edition of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, we invited educators to share stories from their practice: times when they utilized children’s literature and conversations to address real life; the difficult topics that children experience through the mirror of their own experiences or the windows of their peers, communities, or world.

Conversations About Death That Are Provoked By Literature, Cara E. Furman

Occasional Paper Series

How do teachers have conversations about death with young children? In this paper, I focus specifically on how teachers might support unplanned conversations that were provoked by children’s literature. In analyzing a series of events in which such conversations occurred, I argue that to do so required going against three conventions in literacy education: close reading, staying on task, and appropriate school talk. I then speak to how teacher educators might prepare teachers for these unexpected but important digressions.

If I Knew Then What I Do Now: Fostering Pre-Service Teachers’ Capacity To Promote Expansive And Critical Conversations With Children’S Literature, Stephen Adam Crawley

Occasional Paper Series

In this article, I reflect on my practices as a teacher educator and respond to the following questions: How do I foster the capacity of pre-service teachers to use children’s literature to promote expansive and critical conversations in the classroom? How do pre-service teachers report their stances and sense of preparedness when reflecting on the course? To address these questions, I share two strategies I employed in my undergraduate course for elementary education majors: 1) emphasizing children's literature as windows and mirrors and 2) considering stakeholder responses. For each strategy, I include preservice teachers’ (PTs’) statements that reflect how the …

Shattering, Healing And Dreaming: Lessons From Middle-Grade Literacies And Lives, Carla España

Occasional Paper Series

In the summer of 2018, I had the opportunity to read the words of Renée Watson, Jewell Parker-Rhodes, Jacqueline Woodson and Nikki Grimes alongside seventh and eighth graders. Our conversations were grounded in the students’ lives and in stories and poems crafted by Black women. I had the responsibility and honor to select the texts, develop the curriculum and co-create a space with students. The authors’ words helped students process not only the authors’ craft but also how students navigated issues from microaggressions to tensions in friendships, from the oppression experienced at the intersections of their identities to the role …

Choosing Difficult, Choosing Important In Fifth-Grade Read-Aloud, Chiara Dilello

Occasional Paper Series

In this essay, I share my critical reflections and pedagogical choices (some more successful than others) while using a whole-class chapter book read-aloud to engage my students in conversation about complex topics, including racism and gender, which we might not have discussed otherwise. It is my hope to model one small way I as a White teacher have tried to disrupt Whiteness in my classroom as part of a larger commitment to anti-racist teaching, and help teachers feel more prepared to undertake similar work in their own settings.

What Do You Do When You Don't Know How To Respond? Supporting Pre-Service Teachers To Use Picture Books To Facilitate Difficult Conversations, Kathryn Struthers Ahmed, Nida Ali

Occasional Paper Series

In this paper, the authors – a preservice teacher (PST) and a teacher educator – consider how teacher education might better prepare PSTs to use picture books to facilitate difficult conversations in elementary classrooms. They share missed opportunities from their own experiences in a fourth-grade fieldwork classroom and in a graduate-level elementary literacy methods course where they felt unprepared to respond to students’ comments about “controversial” topics. They reimagine how these experiences might have been transformed to be more educative for PSTs, first by considering how they could have responded more thoughtfully in the moment and then by thinking about …

Gender-Inclusive Children’S Literature As A Preventative Measure: Moving Beyond A Reactive Approach To Lgbtq+ Topics In The Classroom, Shelby Brody

Occasional Paper Series

This article addresses the common perception of gender non-conforming and gender-expansive identities as difficult classroom topics. The lack of gender-inclusive curricula in American schools results in a reactive approach to teaching about queerness, specifically about people who identify as transgender and/or gender non-conforming. Teachers need to adopt a proactive approach to teaching about queerness in order to prevent gender-based discrimination, harassment, and violence in schools and in the world. Trans-inclusive children’s literature has become more available in recent years. However, teachers need to be conscious of popular narratives that offer a limited perspective on people who identify as transgender and …

Focus On Friendship Or Fights For Civil Rights? Teaching The Difficult History Of Japanese American Incarceration Through The Bracelet, Noreen N. Rodríguez

Occasional Paper Series

Japanese American incarceration is one of few Asian American historical topics addressed in P-12 curriculum. A dearth of children’s literature is available about Japanese American incarceration, yet given young learners’ limited exposure to World War II historical narratives, simply reading a picturebook about the topic does not ensure that students and teachers will address the injustices involved in the event. This study contrasts the distinct pedagogical approaches taken up by two Texas elementary educators who read aloud Yoshiko Uchida’s The Bracelet, a picturebook that details a young Japanese American girl’s forced removal from her home.

Taking A Journey To The Land Of All: Using Children’S Literature To Explore Gender Identity And Expression With Young Children, Kerry Elson, Kindel Nash

Occasional Paper Series

Children’s literature is a powerful tool that helps shape young children’s understandings of themselves and the world. As such, children’s literature can help young children develop deeper and more nuanced understandings about gender, gender identity, and gender expression. This article shares how teacher Kerry Elson planned and implemented a curriculum with first-grade students that focused on gender identity and expression. In this curriculum, she carefully selected children’s literature to explore gender identity and expression with young children.

Angry Like Me, Catherine-Laura Dunnington, Shoshana Magnet

Occasional Paper Series

In this article we take on a challenging picture book, The Heart and the Bottle written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers, and how one preschool boy’s response changed us. As part of a three-center initiative to discuss hard feelings and grief with preschool learners, we teamed with six preschool teachers to read and work through this text. We explore how both the preschoolers’ and the teachers’ responses challenged us to look at how the disjoint between pedagogy (literature that says we should teach these types of texts) and practice (how this classroom experience actually unfolds) leaves much room for continued …

Storytime Is A Sunrise: Employing Children’S Literature To Mediate Socio-Emotional Challenges In The Life Of A Young Child, Carolina Soto Bonds

Occasional Paper Series

This piece explores the trials and victories of a teacher's literary therapy for Will* a student faced with the ravages of mental health struggles and instability in his home life. The purpose here is to divulge the vulnerabilities of a personal story in the hopes of generating support for other educators who might be battling similar conflicts. Along the way, as varying children's books like My Happy Sad Mummy, by Michelle Vasiliu, and The Colour Monster by Anna Llenas, play integral parts in emotional healing, the teacher confronts her own internal unrests as Will's obstacles inch too close to home. …

Introduction: Facilitating Conversations On Difficult Topics In The Classroom: Teachers’ Stories Of Opening Spaces Using Children’S Literature, Mollie Welsh Kruger, Susie Rolander, Susan Stires

Occasional Paper Series

For this edition of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, we invited educators to share stories from their practice: times when they utilized children’s literature and conversations to address real life; the difficult topics that children experience through the mirror of their own experiences or the windows of their peers, communities, or world.

Exploring North Texas Elementary Principals’ Viewpoints Regarding The Influence Of Culturally Responsive Teaching On School Climate And School Culture, Monica Latrice Tatum

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Public schools in the United States have become more diverse due to immigration and the mass exodus of the White population to the suburbs. Growing demographic changes and a consistently White educational labor force raise concern regarding how schools address the needs of their diverse student populations. Much research exists concerning teachers’ implementation of culturally responsive teaching (CRT) practices. However, a void remains in the literature regarding the role of school leadership in this process. An understanding of culturally competent principals’ perspectives on CRT needs more attention to address how school leaders create safe and equitable environments for diverse …

The Therapeutic Nature Of Qualitative Interviewing: Benefits Of Research Participation, April Perry, Mary Grace Bigelow

Journal of Research Initiatives

This research explored the notion that interview studies can be therapeutic for participants. It examines the common themes that participants report as beneficial from participating in a study about the transition from higher education to post-university life. The findings are presented as common themes and illuminated by participant excerpts. It is concluded that there are therapeutic characteristics to the qualitative interview process that mirror some of the benefits individuals can receive from the counseling process.

Education, Hurricanes, And Bananas: Studying Abroad In Honduras, Daphne Fauber

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

The College of Education Honduras Study Abroad program has been sending students to Honduras for a 17-day investigation of Honduran history, educational systems, and social justice in education since 2003. Honduras is a Central American country with a long history of exploitation, political conflict, and environmental disasters. The country began with a swift and brutal colonization by the Spanish, which left the indigenous people persecuted and massacred. In 1998, Honduras experienced a devastating hurricane that decimated many buildings and infrastructure. Large-scale farming operations run by foreign investors has resulted in political turmoil and a struggling working class. However, Honduras has …

A Comparison Of School Climate Ratings In Urban Alternative And Traditional High Schools, Aaron Perzigian, Michael Braun

Journal of Educational Research and Practice

We investigated whether there are significant differences in ratings of school climate from the perspectives of students, parents, and school staff across four types of urban secondary schools. Data originated from a school climate survey administered in a large urban Midwestern school district to students attending traditional and alternative high schools. We coded all high schools in the sample district into four school types, including traditional, innovative, behavior-focused, and academic remediation-focused. We analyzed data using linear mixed-model regression. Results showed statistically significant differences in specific dimensions of school climate across stakeholder groups and the four school types. Analysis of student …

Reflections On Bodies And Absences In The Covid-19 Interregnum, Matthew Weinstein

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This is a meditation on the role of absence during the COVID-19, especially the ways absences are felt and experienced. It explores the roles of bodies as both symbols and material. Bodies are both thought through the logic of borders and difference but also as the raw resources of scientific investigations. This is all examined within and against “education” both in my and in my students’ (pre and in-service teachers) classes and our anxieties of not knowing the what or how we of our jobs in these conditions.

Teacher Education In A Dangerous Time: (Re)Imagining Education For Diversity, Democracy And Sustainability, John J. Lupinacci

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This article amplifies the importance of social movements like Black Lives Matter and diverse critical educator responses to social suffering, COVID-19, and related critiques of current dominant assumptions of teacher education and Western schooling. The author offers an ecocritical conceptual framework to support education to recognize the importance of how teachers, and teacher educators, can take action as leaders (re)imagining education in support of valuing diversity, democracy, and sustainability. This article calls for an ecocritical pedagogical (re)imagining of how teacher education might be (re)constituted through local activist teaching in collaboration with social movements and in support of social justice and …

Are They Safe? Are They Fed?: Reimagining Inclusion In Schooling During A Pandemic, Teresa Anne Fowler

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This paper, using the method of currere, offers a rendering of the relationship between technology, inclusion, and social justice within education amid a walking through of Roy's Pandemic as a Portal metaphor. Educators are sitting in a critical moment to which pedagogic approaches can shift from educators responded to students assumed needs towards students expressed needs as we are seeing happening during the global pandemic.

Understanding Conflict In Education For Democracy. A Response To "The Value Of Conflict And Disagreement In Democratic Teacher Education", Steven P. Camicia

Democracy & Education

Teachers are often apprehensive about facilitating deliberation in classrooms because conflicts can develop when deliberations surround issues of authentic concern to students. However, conflict is central to deliberation, and the identities and experiences of participants must be reflected in deliberation. These differences challenge the assumptions of neutrality and a common good that can restrain conflict. Harell’s article focuses upon many of these aspects of deliberation and the essential role of facilitators as conflicts emerge from deliberation. In my response to Harell, I extend his findings by developing the themes of conflict, identity, and inclusion. These themes are conceptually linked and …