Social reproduction is well established in educational literature. Diminished outcomes for students marked by class and race persist despite analysis and educational policy. Teachers articulate discourse to explain student success and failure and satisfy personal and professional investments (Miles, 1989; Popkewitz, 1998). Interviews with teachers in urban secondary schools point to the operation of discourse in the reproduction of inequality with profound effects on students on the margin. Meritocratic, individualist discourses privilege white, middle-class students, excluding others. Constructing students as Other and beyond reason (Popkewitz, 1998), teachers articulate discourses of motivation as explanatory of student success and failure and posit a neoliberal normative subjectivity as explanatory of success. Social, historical and economic factors are silenced. The instability and arbitrary closure of discursive articulation offer possibility for a progressive, ethical pedagogy.

Schools are sites of great power and influence where the “obesity” discourse is often taken uncritically as truth and reproduced, to the detriment of young people. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how theories of fatness can inform theories of culturally relevant pedagogy with the goal of helping teachers create spaces where increased size acceptance is possible for secondary students. Literature from both these areas of study was reviewed and applied to the Ontario secondary curriculum documents for science and physical education. This analysis demonstrated a body acceptance orientation in teaching these disciplines, and that doing so can mitigate many of the negative effects of living in a fat hating world.

This thesis explores the influences of social networks and social support on the literacy engagement of 7 high school students from a multicultural, multilingual, and economically disadvantaged urban neighborhood in a large, diverse North American city. Specifically, this study describes (1) students’ social networks and social literacy interactions; (2) the types of social support the network relationships provide for participants’ literacy; and (3) the ways in which this socioliterate support might affect participants’ literacy engagement. Guided by Ecological Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1992/2005), at three times during an 18-month period the 7 participants completed social network maps and interviews, checklists about their reading and writing choices, and retrospective interviews about their reading and writing practices on self-selected texts. These data were analyzed on the basis of Tardy’s (1985) typology of social support and the tripartite model of engagement proposed by Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris (2004), then individual case reports were created for each participant. For cross-case analysis (Stake, 2006), the individual reports were compared across similar, predetermined themes. Two primary conclusions are supported by the data and analysis: These adolescents received varying amounts and types of socioliterate support from certain members of their social networks, particularly teachers and family members, and this support positively influenced their literacy engagement when they were facing difficult or uninteresting tasks. The study provides an understanding of the relationship between social support, motivation, and engagement in single literacy events, including proposed relationships between these three concepts, as well as perspectives on the role of technology in adolescent social network formation and on the sources from whom adolescents seek literacy-based social support. The study describes pedagogical spaces that can provide and activate such literacy support and suggests topics for future research relating to adolescent literacy, socioliterate networks and support, and literacy engagement.

Schools are sites of great power and influence where the “obesity” discourse is often taken uncritically as truth and reproduced, to the detriment of young people. The purpose of this thesis was to investigate how theories of fatness can inform theories of culturally relevant pedagogy with the goal of helping teachers create spaces where increased size acceptance is possible for secondary students. Literature from both these areas of study was reviewed and applied to the Ontario secondary curriculum documents for science and physical education. This analysis demonstrated a body acceptance orientation in teaching these disciplines, and that doing so can mitigate many of the negative effects of living in a fat hating world.

This qualitative study investigates how the views of student leaders (and some of their staff advisors) illuminate the discussion in the broader literature around issues of student leadership, conflict, diversity and social justice in secondary schools. Eighteen one-hour, semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve student leaders and six teachers from six provinces across Canada. This study contributes to educational research by considering the ways student leaders (rather than adult administrators) can impact social justice. While students envision their leadership role in terms of social justice with the goals of inclusion and societal change in mind, the present schooling structure, established expectations and strategies chosen for initiatives often hinder the realization of such a role. Schools also seem to avoid local controversial issues by encouraging student leaders to focus on international concerns. This study explores opportunities for schools to address equity issues through reconceptualizing student leadership and its goals.

Master of Arts / Department of Curriculum and Instruction / Thomas Vontz / The Honor Flight Network is a national non-profit organization based out of Springfield, Ohio, with the mission to “transport our heroes to Washington D.C. to visit and reflect at their memorials.” Kansas Honor Flight – Wamego High School pairs high school students from the local chapter of the National Honor Society with area veterans. This experiential service-learning project provides America’s next generation the opportunity to connect with and learn from America’s “G.I. Generations.” Veterans of World War II, the Korean War, and the Viet Nam War are accompanied by student-guardians who serve as their assistants and guides. The avowed mission is accomplished with students first and foremost providing service for their veteran through the duration of the trip. Yet, the promise of the journey is realized when the student-guardians are able to witness the memorials through the eyes of those who exemplified courage, fortitude, patriotism, service, and sacrifice – flesh and blood representatives of civic virtue. Similarly, the veterans behold the beneficiaries of their sacrifice providing respectful service; virtuous acts voluntary, not obligatory. Different generations of constitutional stakeholders – those who actively preserved the republican experiment, others preparing to be engaged participants therein – experiencing hope for the future as well as gratitude for those who came before. This report includes a narrative of the inaugural mission of Kansas Honor Flight – Wamego High School. Using said narrative as exemplar of following flights, the report chronicles the creation of bridging social capital through implicit reciprocity and the emergence of intergenerational trust-building. The spanning of generations is discussed through the sharing of enduring republican principles. Heroes are democratized as witness is bore by the soldier who lived to tell the tale.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Socorro G. Herrera / Teresa Miller / The purpose of this study was to identify where secondary public school principals are spending their time while at school by using the population of secondary school principals in Nevada as a study group. A secondary purpose was to identify any statistically significant differences between how Nevada secondary public school principals spend their time in relation to grade configuration: middle school vs. high school, the size of the building they serve, age of the principal, gender of the principal, years of administrative experience and annual yearly progress classification. All secondary principals in the state of Nevada were sent the Time Management for Secondary School Principals’ survey instrument with a (Likert-type) rating scale developed by the researcher. Two statistically significant differences emerged as a result of this study. One, principals of schools with student enrollments of 1,001 students or more rate themselves as spending more time on management items than do principals with student enrollments of 1,000 students or less. Two, females rate themselves as spending more time on instructional leadership items than do their male counterparts. Also, the need to focus on critical components of instructional leadership so that principals can adequately address the 43% of schools not making annual yearly progress in Nevada is discussed. The intent of this study was to identify areas where time was being wasted so that recommendations could be provided to help principals balance their time in a more efficient manner. Principals identified strategies that could prevent focusing all their efforts on managerial issues and allow time for instructional leadership activities. Also, the perception vs. reality and practice vs. theory topics are discussed in relation to time management and instructional leadership. The findings derived from this study are reported in chapter 4 and recommendations to principals regarding effective time management strategies based on responses of Nevada principals are reported in chapter 5.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Margaret G. Shroyer / This study was designed to investigate teaching practices of mathematics teachers in rural high schools in Kansas in the context of the NCTM Principles and Standards. National reports advocate for change in the mathematics classroom while state assessments force teachers to focus on test scores. This study investigated the extent to which teachers whose students experienced repeated success on state assessments integrated the NCTM Process and Content Standards into the mathematics classroom. Those data were then compared with the teaching practices in schools whose students repeatedly did poorly on state assessments. This two-phase study used both quantitative and qualitative data from four main sources: survey, interview, observation, and collection of artifacts. Phase I surveyed all mathematics teachers in high performing and low performing rural high schools throughout the state of Kansas. Data collected in Phase I were used to examine differences and similarities in teaching practices of teachers from high and low performing schools. During Phase II qualitative data were collected and analyzed to further explore any existing patterns among high performing and low performing schools. Results from teachers in high and low performing schools were compared and contrasted to determine if there were differences between the teaching practices that were demonstrated by each group of teachers. Results of surveys, interviews, observations, and artifacts revealed teachers in high performing schools used a variety of different representations to teach and assess a topic while those teachers from low performing schools used one or two representations. Students from high performing schools had more frequent opportunities to communicate with the teacher to gain additional assistance in learning the mathematics content. Teachers in high performing schools also used formal assessment strategies as part of the learning process more consistently than their counterparts from low performing schools. Results from interviews, observations, and artifacts reveal that teachers in high and low performing schools implement teaching practices aligned with the algebra content standards in a very similar manner.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Diane McGrath / The goal of this study was to explore the use of interdisciplinary PBL projects for teaching mathematical concepts according to NCTM (2000) goals for mathematics instruction. This study sought to answer the question: what are the teaching issues and evidence of student learning of mathematical concepts over a series of three interdisciplinary PBL projects involving STELLA™ modeling software which are designed to engage students, integrate technology, and provide a context for learning mathematics based on the 5 NCTM (2000) goals? HyperStudio™ was used as a communication tool with which students built artifacts of understanding. This study was a naturalistic case study employing videotaped observations, interviews, student-peer reviews and student generated artifacts of learning as data sources. Data were categorized into two variable clusters: Teaching and Learning. Implementation issues for three computer-based PBL simulations are discussed. Themes that emerged from analysis of the data are grouped into teaching themes and learning themes. Themes relating to teaching include the struggle to form a community of learners, relevancy of the simulations to middle school students, need for group-worthy projects, helping students balance creativity and content, lesson adaptation, and critical review and student reflection on constructive feedback. Findings of the study suggest the students were able to meet a majority of the expected content goals. Themes relating to learning include the struggle to find a balance between creativity and content, ownership and control, engagement with the simulations, and students’ ability to think and express themselves mathematically. Recommendations are made for teachers who wish to implement PBL, simulations, and similar teaching strategies and for researchers who are studying similar learning environments.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Socorro G. Herrera / Four high schools with high ELL enrollment and a high percentage of teachers taking graduate-level ESL courses participated in this quantitative study. The content-area teachers completed a Survey of Teachers’ Knowledge and Value of Implementation of Content and Language Objectives. The survey included two sections: (a) a demographics section and (b) a support section in which respondents self-rated their knowledge and value on content and language objectives. Descriptive statistics were used to generate the mean, standard deviation, and frequency distribution of the demographics of the samples, which were independent variables of this study. Inferential statistics on the research hypotheses were calculated using multiple correlation/regression and one-way ANOVA. Results from the support section indicated respondents perceived their knowledge and value on content and language objectives were not lacking. However, results also revealed that teachers rated themselves lower on knowledge and value on implementing language objectives than they did on knowledge and value on implementing content objectives. In addition, data analysis revealed that percentage of students who were ELL last year and hours of ESL related training can be linked to the teachers’ self-rated degree of knowledge and value on implementing content and language objectives. As a result of this study, five recommendations for practice were made. Of these, the researcher believes the following to be most crucial: (1) Because the number of ELL students continues to increase, even those teachers who currently have a small number of ELL students in their classrooms must be willing to enhance their knowledge and value on content and language objectives; (2) Teacher educators for pre-service programs should place greater emphasis on the integration and implementation of content and language objectives; and (3) Staff developers should be informed of a need to increase the professional development of in-service teachers with regard to language objectives. Among other recommendations for future research, the researcher suggests the need for future studies to include more specific investigations on how teachers construct language objectives. Furthermore, future studies should pursue ways to encourage educators to participate in ESL related workshops or trainings and to form mentoring relationships with colleagues.