Nan Stein's report "A Gender At Risk" (1988), prepared for the Massachusetts Department of Education, noted a discrepancy in reference to the economic and gender related consequences of schooling, in particular to the Occupational Education programs. A comparison of female enrollment figures in Massachusetts Occupational Education in 1982 and 1985 indicated that female students continue to be disproportionately underrepresented in some of the more highly skilled and lucrative trade areas. This fact is alarming considering the long term economic consequences for females, or as defined in "Equity, Educational Reform and Gender" (Tetrault and Schmuck, 1985), 'the feminization of poverty'. Female students need to develop skills and competencies that will allow them to compete in jobs that offer competitive salaries and opportunities for promotion. The purpose of this study was to examine selected characteristics of female students enrolled in a comprehensive urban vocational education program during the 1988-1989 school year and to identify factors that influenced their selection process. Research included examination of identified characteristics of female vocational students; reasons cited by the female students for choosing vocational education; and the influence of family and school personnel in the students' selection. Thirty-five female students in a vocational program in Cambridge, Massachusetts, participated in this study. Information was gathered from student records, surveys and interviews. The findings were presented qualitatively and quantitatively. The research documented two primary influencing components. A combination of internal and external factors, including the student's interests and skill levels and the influence of parents and teachers, were the culminating factors effecting the student's decision to select a vocational program. Contributing factors included the students math and reading scores and special education needs. Factors that did not impact the student's choice included socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity and single versus two parent homes.

A major premise of this study is that, due to a number of complex socio-economic factors, the schools of the 1990's will be required to provide a different and wider range of services, some having less academic orientation than "traditional" school practices, and more of a "pastoral", advisory nature. Secondly, the literature reviewed sustained my perception of the effectiveness of change emerging from collaboration among teachers, rather than from top-down strategies and management-imposed accountability grids. Additional perspectives developed over many years in educational practice provided a conceptual model which could promote growth and responsiveness within the school. A report tells of a school-within-a-school staff actively reconsidering how to restructure their teaching roles and secure greater resources. Included in the ethnographic narration is a variety of information useful in providing a context for viewing the school and two "target" teachers. By observing the events and episodes of the model in action, key processes and useful concepts may be identified, as well as information on related school issues. Data showed both an improved school climate and greater teacher satisfaction. Teachers in the intervention clearly articulated a mission which spoke to the impact of societal forces on urban students. They identified four themes which dictated operational goals (the advisory role; student-as-worker; student governance; and making student support more central) and spoke clearly about the support required to make such change. Analysis of the report supports the notion that by helping to raise the level of educational discourse and further staff members' perceptions of themselves as decision-makers, school administrators can help achieve many of the results required by our changing school situations. Teachers, if afforded the right resources and conditions, can fill the void left when the public does not involve itself in the educational process. The study also demonstrates that change in school institutions can successfully emerge from viable, personalized, school-within-school units, and offers one way to utilize technical assistance.

This study explores the experience of student teachers working in a track-system, and the meaning they make of that experience. A track-system purportedly separates students according to ability and interest. Most studies of tracking focus on the impact on students. This study focuses on tracking's impact on student teachers. In order to gain access to the meaning and understanding of the student teachers' experience with tracking, three, ninety-minute, phenomenologically based, in-depth interviews are conducted with each participant. This model of interviewing operates on the assumption that a person makes meaning of his or her experience after reflecting on the constitutive details of that experience. Of thirty-one participants, twenty-nine work in a track-system, while two teach in heterogeneous classrooms. The interviews reveal how student teachers' prior experiences with a track-system in high school influence their relationships with students. Some student teachers are uncomfortable working with students in the lower tracks. Some talk about how they do not understand the students in the lower track but feel more comfortable with students in the upper tracks. Student teachers discuss how their cooperating teachers inform them about the kinds of teaching tasks and activities students in different tracks are capable of. The cooperating teachers identify for student teachers those students who will succeed and those who will fail. The classroom students also affect the student teachers' attitudes. In the student teachers' eyes, students exhibit and model the "expected" behaviors of that track. These behaviors become the basis for how some student teachers respond to students. Student teachers often work in schools in which the policies of tracking remain hidden. These policies affect the content of their courses and their evaluation schemes. The two student teachers' experience of working in heterogeneous classrooms offer a qualitatively different experience from the participants working in a track-system. Their experience calls into question the role of the organizational context and the student teacher's biography in understanding student teacher socialization. This study shows how the track-system impacts on the emerging pedagogical practices of student teachers and has implications for teacher education programs.

Urban public secondary education has come under constant scrutiny from government agencies, foundations, and educational researchers for more than a decade. It is the quality of public education that is now in question. In conjunction with this trend, is the concern for how this decline of public education may influence the future development of our nation. This dissertation provides some understanding of the complexities of developing and maintaining collaborative programs between academia and the urban secondary schools attempting to achieve effective change. Through an in-depth study of one collaborative, the Boston Secondary Schools Project (BSSP), the study shows how the role of the university or college is of pivotal importance in providing assistance to secondary school educators developing needed changes. In an attempt to remain objective, all aspects of this collaborative were investigated. Included in the study is the organizational structure, growth, evolutionary changes, and the impact of the BSSP on the Boston Public Schools. Additional research was also conducted regarding the value of the program to the participating graduate students. The BSSP has retained its longevity due to the dedication of the University of Massachusetts School of Education faculty, and to the perseverance of the graduate students in their determination to retain the program. The collaborative has been able to include the most essential elements needed to maintain a successful partnership. The program has provided a clear agreement of goals, maintained administrative support, operated under a system of coequality between university and school faculty, worked to overcome the continuous obstacles to its objectives, and has continued to focus on realistic expectations of stated goals.

Many new secondary teachers will begin their careers in urban schools because so many vacancies exist there. Because secondary urban teacher education programs are virtually extinct, many teachers will be unprepared to work in the urban classroom. Cooperating teachers may not be familiar with a wide variety of methods for managing urban classrooms. College/university supervisors, while some may be familiar with current research on urban teaching, do not usually spend enough time with student teachers. Full teaching loads also preclude both from devoting adequate time to student teachers. Urban student teachers may be left on their own. Many urban student teachers become frustrated and quit, or survive long enough to finish their practica, but do not seek employment in urban schools. Alternative methods must be found to prepare urban student teachers.

The continued interest in creating equitable educational outcomes for all students across the United States has heightened the need to understand teachers' influence within the classroom as a significant school factor in impacting student outcomes. As a result, this study aims to continue building upon the critical work done in educational spaces to improve teaching and learning through detracking. Thus, this hermeneutic phenomenological case study explores experienced ninth- and tenth-grade English Language Arts teachers sense-making of teaching mixed-ability heterogeneous classes in the first year of detracking using Blumer's (1986) symbolic interactionism theory aligned with Vygotsky's (1962) social constructivism theory. Data for this Dissertation research was collected from five (5) experienced ninth- and tenth-grade English Language Arts teachers who currently teach mixed-ability heterogeneous classes and previously taught tracked classes in two suburban high schools in Florida through a series of two (2) semi-structured, in-depth interviews, a series of two (2) participant written reflections, and the researcher's reflexive entries. The qualitative data analysis followed Smith et al.'s (2022) interpretative phenomenological analysis. Findings revealed seven (7) group experiential themes and 19 corresponding sub-themes of developing understandings of teaching mixed-ability classes, acknowledging challenges during the first year of detracking, raising teacher and student expectations, focusing on differentiated instruction, experiencing hurdles with balancing pace and rigor for varied abilities, discussing benefits and concerns for students, and expressing perspectives of previously tracking students. The goal was understanding the teaching and learning environment in mixed-ability heterogeneous classes.

Because many schools systems are expending great amounts of time and money for restructuring, documentation and examination of restructuring efforts may provide models that can be used by schools initiating restructuring efforts. This study will explore the efforts of one urban public school system to restructure its four junior high schools from a traditional organizational model to one that is built around interdisciplinary clusters. By documenting the restructuring efforts of four urban junior high schools, this qualitative case study will contribute to the growing body of restructuring literature, and offer an examination of a practical application of restructuring to the field. This type of dramatic change in organization prompts a number of important questions that will guide this study: (1) Why was this change undertaken, and who initiated it? (2) What are the formal district level policies dictating the restructuring? (3) How are the district level policies being implemented at the school level? (4) Who has provided the leadership for successful restructuring (has it varied among the four junior highs)? (5) How have these efforts been impacted by the changing demographics and fiscal crisis in the city? Following a review of the restructuring literature, the design of the study will include research of archival records to construct an accurate picture of the community, guided interviews with key central office and building level administrators, and a sampling of teachers in each of the four junior highs, and analysis of program documents generated by the restructuring efforts. This study offers a unique perspective in its examination of restructuring in a large urban school system, which in its size and complexity presents many challenges. Centralized decision making, the implementation of one policy in four different schools, team-building, pedagogical changes, and impact on students will all be affected by the district's size. Further, this urban area is challenged by a fiscal crisis which cripples both the funding of the school system and the necessary services a city must provide, as well as the impact of a state school choice program. Attempting to restructure in these most challenging circumstances presents an interesting case study. Documenting the efforts, including both the successful and the unsuccessful elements, may provide pragmatic approaches for other districts undertaking restructuring efforts.

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