Educational Sociology Commons^™

Systemic Racism In Education: Perspectives Of Teachers Of Color, Stephany Vallejo

Education | Master's Theses

Many strides have been made in addressing equity, diversity and social justice in the field of education. However there has remained a gap in the representation of the voices of Teachers of Color. Current literature reveals that there is underlying systemic racism deterring People of Color from pursuing a career in education for a variety of reasons including social, financial, racial and political barriers. Applying Critical Race Theory, critical studies of Whiteness and Microaggressions this study analyzes the experiences of Teachers of Color through their educational career. This research uses a qualitative methods approach with an emphasis on a constructivist …

From Start To Finish: Predicting Enrollment And Attainment In Arkansas Postsecondary Education, Katherine Kopotic

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Postsecondary education has become a popular option for students, as evidenced by increases in enrollment over the last two decades. However, while enrollment has increased, completion has not. It is therefore important to investigate the factors that could lead to students’ enrollment, persistence, and completion of college. This dissertation examines two broad topics over three chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 focus examine the impact of a policy change that resulted in backloading the award disbursement of a state-wide merit-based scholarship program in Arkansas on college enrollment and success. Chapter 3 examines factors that influence the predictive nature of high school …

All Eyez On Me: The Socialization Experiences Of African Americans At Predominately White Institutions, Tamara Kuykendall

Curriculum and Instruction Undergraduate Honors Theses

The review of literature section is to analyze the socialization experiences of African Americans that attend predominately white institutions (PWIs). African Americans are defined as Americans of African and especially black African descent for this research. The term “African American” and “black” will be used interchangeably. The paper highlights an overview of the social experiences of African American college students, distinguishes external, non-academic factors that contribute to the black college experience, and describes how African Americans experience social collectiveness within a predominately white campus. It also moves to identify how this interaction shapes African Americans’ perception of ‘blackness’ amongst the …

Voices Of Mixed-Race Asian Students On College Campuses, Amy Sara Lim

Honors Papers and Posters

Research suggests that there are a growing number of people who identify as mixed-race Asian Americans, and thus there is a growing need to understand and document their experiences (Literte,2009; Sims 2010; Tamai, Nakashima, Williams, 2017). The central question of this study is: how do mixed-race Asian students’ racial identities affect their identities as learners within social, emotional, academic and physical contexts? The goal of this research project is to explore the educational experiences of mixed-race Asian students at a Southern California university with the intention of developing a critical mixed-race pedagogy for educators and scholars. Through mixed methodologies involving …

Cultural Capital, Habitus, College Persistence And Graduation Among Black Immigrant-Origin Undergraduates: A Basic Interpretive Qualitative Study, Erica M. Richards Chew

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Black immigrant-origin students are a significant sub-population of the total Black college student population, and they are persisting and graduating more frequently than Black U.S.-origin students. This study explored cultural capital and habitus and how they shaped the college persistence and graduation of Black immigrant-origin undergraduates and alumni from four-year postsecondary institutions. A basic interpretive qualitative design, guided by cultural capital theory, was used to explore thirteen Black-immigrant-origin students’ and graduates’ perspectives in-depth; and to describe their subjective meanings, actions, and social contexts from their point of view. Participants grew up with a habitus of achievement that came from the …

Asians Applying For Postsecondary Success: Students, Schools, And Socioeconomic Status, Avery M.D. Davis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Higher education recruitment rates are rapidly declining as schools are stymied by dynamic demographic shifts and a competitive ecosystem. Despite the constant realities of this challenge for tertiary institutions, the complexities of the interplay for demographics, student motivation, parental influences, and school environments during the postsecondary education application process is often overlooked. This thesis analyses how these four domains impact Asian American students within the Education Longitudinal Study (ELS) in terms of the number of postsecondary schools to which they apply? This study examines a sample (N = 662) of the ELS by employing multivariate regression analysis on the number …

Exploring How Community College Transfer Students Experience Connection In A Commuter University, Christa Michelle Zinke

Dissertations and Theses

Over the last 40 years, the expansion of the U.S. community college system resulted in a growing number of students choosing to begin their undergraduate education at a two-year institution and then transfer to a four-year institution. However, many students struggle to establish connection after transferring, especially if they transfer into a commuter university. For many college students, feelings of engagement and connection influence their persistence decisions. Using Tinto's (1975; 1993) and Astin's (1984) theories of student persistence as a framework, the purpose of this in-depth interview study is to explore how commuter community college students who transfer to Portland …

#Realcollege During The Pandemic: New Evidence On Basic Needs Insecurity And Student Well-Being, Sara Goldrick-Rab, Vanessa Coca, Gregory Kienzl, Carrie R. Welton, Sonja Dahl, Sarah Magnelia, Sarah Magnelia

Rebuilding the Launchpad: Serving Students During Covid Resource Library

In March 2020, the coronavirus pandemic struck American higher education. Colleges closed campuses, students lost jobs, and emergency resources failed to meet the demands caused by the crisis. This report examines the pandemic’s impact on students, from their basic needs security to their well-being, as indicated by employment status, academic engagement, and mental health.

Critical Black Feminist Mentorship: A Review Of A Middle School And University-Sponsored Program For Adolescent Black Girls, Dyann C. Logwood

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation study aims to illuminate the creation of safe spaces for marginalized youth through mentorship initiatives. Likewise, the study examines the roles of mentorship programs in transforming the lives of Black adolescent girls by providing them with tools to change the narratives depicted by society. A qualitative design was employed that used phenomenological interviewing techniques and ethnographic observations to explore the experiences of the Black adolescent girls in one university-sponsored mentorship program. The findings illustrate what is coined through this research—a critical Black feminist mentorship model that emphasizes an intersectional identity development, the actualization of voice, the creation and …

Career Funneling, Perceptions Of Success, And Their Impact On College Students At Scripps, Pitzer, And Claremont Mckenna Colleges, Carina A. Schick

Scripps Senior Theses

The U.S. News top college ranking lists have created a narrowing definition of collegiate and career success. Students are told an elite education is the ticket to a successful life, one filled with a high achieving career, meaning, and happiness. Through peer, familial, and media interfaces students are inundated with societal definitions of success such as fame, wealth, and status. Socialization primes adolescents to work towards these goals. This idealized type of success is only accessible to a select few, leading to dissatisfaction and creating pressures on students to work towards their college admission at early ages. This thesis examines …

Aviation Education Impacts On Cockpit Culture Of Chinese Student Pilots, Xiaoyu Wu, Yujia Liu, Terrence Kelly

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

The safety of the aviation industry heavily depends on the performance of pilots. A pilot with a good cockpit culture improves safety performance. However, a lack of understanding of how a well-established aviation program impacts student pilots’ cockpit culture regarding power distance, masculinity, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance. This study aimed to investigate the training effect on Chinese student perceptions regarding power distance, masculinity, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance, and its related variables. The study collected 726 Chinese student pilots and analyzed their cockpit culture based on the survey data. The study examined the academic tenure influences on cockpit culture variables within …

Integrating Social Emotional Skill Development Throughout College Access Program Activities: A Profile Of The Princeton University Preparatory Program, Catherine M. Millett, Marisol J. C. Kevelson

Journal of College Access

In a prior study we demonstrated that college access program participants have positive views of the extent to which the program supports the development of their social and emotional skills and related college help-seeking behaviors in college. In this follow-up study, we explore the extent to which participant views vary by length of participation in the program in high school (i.e., dosage) and the extent to which alumni enrolled in college differ from college graduate alumni in their perceptions of the influences of the college access program. Results reveal that a multi-year college access program may influence different social and …

Crushing Debt Or Savvy Strategy? Financial Literacy And Student Perceptions Of Their Student Loan Debt, Gail Markle

Journal of Student Financial Aid

Almost three quarters of American college students use loans to fund their college education, although according to public discourse student debt is a critical problem. Grounded in social reproduction theory and consumer socialization theory this study examines the influence of financial literacy on students’ college financing decisions, perceptions of student loan debt, and education-related behavior. A sample of 429 undergraduate students selected using systematic cluster sampling from a large public university in the southeast completed a survey containing closed and open ended questions. Participants reported moderate levels of financial literacy (72.3%) and student loan awareness (62.7%). Only 20% of students …

Anatomy Of An Exhibit: The Academic Library As Place Of Self-Instruction, Matthew Chase

San Marcos, Fall 2019

This exhibition project addresses the central question: How can we creatively transform academic library spaces to support and engage students in critical information literacy? The project used physical library space to install a series of exhibitions at the San Marcos Campus Library of the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences. Guided by the theoretical frameworks of Foucauldian perspective on knowledge and discourse, Falk and Dierking’s Contextual Model of Learning, and critical librarianship, the exhibit series engages students in a self-guided journey to discover and evaluate how knowledge is constructed, produced, and disseminated. Particular focus is directed to the Fall …

A Phenomenological Study Of Parent Experiences With Postsecondary-Admission Counseling, Anthony Espitia

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to better understand parent experiences with the postsecondary-admission counseling of high school students in California. As a state, California exceeds the ASCA’s student-to-counselor national recommendations, impacting the delivery of postsecondary-admission counseling on high school campuses. To understand the postsecondary-admission counseling experiences in California, a qualitative phenomenological study consisting of 12 parents of current or recently graduated high school students was utilized. Open-ended interviews captured parents’ lived experiences with the postsecondary-admission counseling of California high school counselors. The data analysis for this study was accomplished by utilizing a four-step process outlined by Moustakas (1994), which …

Small Group Learning Is Associated With Reduced Salivary Cortisol And Testosterone In Undergraduate Students, Kristin Snopkowski, Kathryn Demps, Ross Griffiths, Karen S. Fulk, Scott May, Kimberly Neagle, Kayla Downs, Michaela Eugster, Tessa Amend

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Small group learning activities have been shown to improve student academic performance and educational outcomes. Yet, we have an imperfect understanding of the mechanisms by which this occurs. Group learning may mediate student stress by placing learning in a context where students have both social support and greater control over their learning. We hypothesize that one of the methods by which small group activities improve learning is by mitigating student stress. To test this, we collected physiological measures of stress and self-reported perceived stress from 26 students in two undergraduate classes. Salivary cortisol and testosterone were measured within students across …

Food Insecurity Prevalence On College Campuses, The Stigma Associated With Food Pantries And The Best Practices Moving Forward, Olivia Neff

Student Research

Food insecurity among college students is three times higher than nationally representative households (Nazmi 2018: 8). Literature estimates between 12% and 59% of college students experience some sort of food insecurity (Cady 2014). Food insecurity is prevalent on all types of college campuses. However, there is limited data on food insecurity on college campuses and the stigmas behind food insecurity. This article discusses the prevalence of food insecurity on college campuses, the stereotypes which reproduce food insecurity, the stigma behind pantry usage and potential solutions. The article will highlight best practices for food pantries obtained through eight interviews with pantries …

Social Dimensions Of Student Debt: A Data Mining Analysis, Dirk Witteveen, Paul Attewell

Journal of Student Financial Aid

Media commentary on undergraduates' loan debt portrays a crisis in which many students are unable to pay back their loans, having borrowed large sums and lacking sufficient post-college income to repay. Several scholars have questioned the media accounts, noting that indebtedness is highest among students from high income families, while defaults predominate among low debt students. Using a data mining technique known as CART, we analyze national data on the indebtedness of recent baccalaureate graduates, to uncover combinations of social characteristics that are associated with loan pressure: the ratio of indebtedness to post-college earnings. We find that students from lower …

The Campus Human Rights Index: Measuring University Commitment To Human Rights, Charles Crabtree, Volha Chykina, Kiyoteru Tsutsui, Michelle Bellino

Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights

To what extent do universities respect human rights? Despite the prevailing view that universities are bastions of progressive ideas with a bias for rights protection, anecdotal evidence suggests that they diverge significantly in their commitment to promote and protect human rights, even within the U.S. To this point, though, there exists no systematic measure of university human rights commitments. In this manuscript, we introduce the first such indicator - the Campus Human Rights Index (CHRI). We describe the measure and introduce our initial ranking of universities. We then formally assess the construct validity of our measure by comparing it to …

Catalogs, 2019-2020, Anderson University - South Carolina

Catalogs

The 2019-2020 graduate & undergraduate academic catalog and introduction to the university.

The Effect Of Standardised Learning Diaries On Self-Regulated Learning, Calibration Accuracy And Academic Achievement, Avanelle Joseph-Edwards

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

The online learning environment is a dynamic yet complex learning modality. Students are physically separated from their peers, they grapple with feelings of isolation, and they may be unable to self-regulate their learning. Studies have shown that self-regulation is related to academic achievement and student metacognitive monitoring in online settings. The present study investigated the effects of a standardized diaries on students’ self-regulatory behaviors, calibration accuracy and academic achievement within an online learning environment. Using this self-monitoring and evaluation tool, forty online graduate students enrolled in a research methods course at a southeastern university in the United States participated in …

Faculty Senates And College Presidents: Perspectives On Collaborations, Daniel P. Nadler, Michael T. Miller, Eid Abo Hamza, G. David Gearhart

Journal of Research on the College President

Colleges and universities have historically provided faculty members access to sharing authority, and this has been manifest in recent decades through the creation and use of a formal body called a faculty senate. These formal bodies have at times been highly effective at articulating faculty member interests, yet there are few formal definitions or boundaries concerning what areas senates are most appropriately engaged. College presidents similarly recognize that senates have a role in institutional decision-making, yet often lack a clear understanding of where and how they should be engaged. The current study explored faculty senate leader and college president perceptions …

Class Matters: School Affluence And Other Predictors Of Attainment For Wealthy And Poor Students, Alison Brockhouse

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Public schools in the United States are becoming increasingly segregated by socioeconomic status. Though the educational consequences of socioeconomic segregation are well researched, segregation is often ignored or exacerbated by education reform. To learn more about the wider implications of socioeconomic segregation, this study utilizes theoretical frameworks derived from Max Weber’s theory of social stratification to analyze over 10,000 students’ experiences from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Education Longitudinal Study (ELS) 2002, 2004, and 2012 waves of data collection. More specifically, this research explores the impact of attending an affluent high school on long-term educational attainment. It finds …

Emerging Adult Career Pathways: Understanding Aspirations And Switching, Tasmiah Amreen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Emerging adulthood is a stage of life characterized by a high degree of fluctuation in identity formation and future decision-making (Arnett 2015). During this life stage, emerging adults make decisions about their future career by assessing whether they want to continue with their current career pathway or whether they intend to switch. The present study investigates this process in terms of its overall prevalence – or how often emerging adults intend to switch career trajectories – and the correlates of it. Previous studies on career switching have focused largely on educational switches. This quantitative study operationalizes career pathway by using …

Choosing Information Systems As A Major: Factors That Influence Selection, Carole L. Shook

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of factors affecting the decision to select information systems as an undergraduate major. Additionally, information systems students were compared to other business students to see if significant differences existed between groups. The four factors studied included: (a) personal interest in the major, (b) student competence, (c) value and utility, and (d) external influences of other people and academic experiences.

A convenience sample was used at a public university in the Southeastern region of the United States. Two hundred junior/senior students were selected as participants. One hundred of the students were …

An Education In Sexuality & Sociality: Heteronormativity On Campus, Jason K. Wallace

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

In An Education in Sexuality & Sociality: Heteronormativity on Campus, Dr. Frank Karioris discusses the role of universities in creating sexed and gendered relationships and hierarchies within society. Through his ethnographic study, Dr. Karioris explores homosociality and challenges heteronormativity on college campuses. This book review provides an overview of this work along with critique and implication for higher education.

Career Pathway Through Exercise Science, Renee Cloeter

Honors Projects

College students have many choices for choosing a major that will lead to a profession or post-graduate school following graduation with a Bachelor’s or Associates degree. For many, making this decision can be daunting and time-consuming as it is important to select the right major for future endeavors. Several students change majors multiple times throughout the course of their college careers causing them to remain in school for an extended period of time to complete graduation. Researching and analyzing potential majors as a new student is a part of the process, but some students may skip this step as there …

Social Care Graduates’ Judgements Of Their Readiness And Preparedness For Practice, Fiona Mcsweeney, David Williams

Articles

While research has been conducted on social work graduates’ views of their readiness and preparedness for practice, the views of social care workers have not been specifically researched. This paper reports on the views of social care graduates in Ireland of how ready they are to join the workforce and how their educational programme has prepared them. Two semi-structured interviews were conducted with the same participants. The first was at the end of their final year in college and the second between 9 and 12 months later when they were in employment. Findings indicate that participants, while apprehensive, felt ready …

Afghan Students’ Academic Experiences And Cultural Adjustment In The United States, Ayesha Sabri

Capstone Collection

This study explores Afghan students’ academic experiences in pursuing graduate studies in the United States and contributes to the scarce literature on the adjustment experiences of Afghan students in the US. Data was obtained by employing a qualitative research methodology, particularly phenomenology, through individual interviews with four participants. The findings of this study reveal that the education these participants received throughout their schooling in Afghanistan was rote learning and teacher-centered. Studying in the US, Afghan students experienced a range of academic challenges (teaching methodologies, educational practices, language, research, and educational facilities). They were also confronted with non-academic challenges (social, cultural, …

The Impact Of Socioeconomic Status On College Students’ Experiences, Shaafi A. Farooqi

Pitzer Senior Theses

This qualitative research project examines the role of socioeconomic status in shaping the experiences of students attending Pearson College, an elite liberal arts college in Southern California. One hour-long, semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten Asian Pacific Islander Desi American (APIDA) students in order to better understand APIDA student experiences and their views on the college’s efforts to support class-based diversity and inclusion. Findings include insights into challenges faced by college students, how they understand privilege and identity, and where college students find support. These results have implications for Pearson College, and similar liberal arts colleges, to implement changes to …