Doctor of Social Work / This doctoral thesis presents the findings of a qualitative research project which examines the impact of university study on a group of twenty female and male mature-age students at the University of Newcastle, Australia, who have entered university via a non-traditional pathway. The students who are the subject of this thesis are in the second to final years of their undergraduate degree programs and have all faced significant hurdles in gaining university entrance and persevering with their studies. The majority have come from lower socio-economic backgrounds with little, if any, family history of higher education and little positive experience of prior study. Postmodern feminist theory has primarily informed this research, using a narrative method to gather the data, analyse the results and present the findings. This thesis describes the experiences of the twenty individuals, derived from their individual narratives. As such, it gives voice to their stories: their triumphs and achievements as well as their struggles. It examines the gender issues that are at work in the shaping of their experiences, including the ways in which gender affected the type and extent of help and support on which they could rely. It highlights the transformative nature of these experiences for each of the students in this cohort, as well as potentially the next generation, and makes some tentative connections between these individual experiences and the experiences of the wider mature-age university student population. The narratives that individuals tell are socially and culturally located. Hence it is likely that the experiences of these twenty students may reflect, at least to some extent, the experiences of other mature-age students within a similar culture. The findings of this research also highlight the important role that higher education institutions can play, not only in widening access to higher education, but also in encouraging and assisting students, from a diverse range of backgrounds, to participate fully in higher education and achieve their goals.

Doctor of Social Work / This doctoral thesis presents the findings of a qualitative research project which examines the impact of university study on a group of twenty female and male mature-age students at the University of Newcastle, Australia, who have entered university via a non-traditional pathway. The students who are the subject of this thesis are in the second to final years of their undergraduate degree programs and have all faced significant hurdles in gaining university entrance and persevering with their studies. The majority have come from lower socio-economic backgrounds with little, if any, family history of higher education and little positive experience of prior study. Postmodern feminist theory has primarily informed this research, using a narrative method to gather the data, analyse the results and present the findings. This thesis describes the experiences of the twenty individuals, derived from their individual narratives. As such, it gives voice to their stories: their triumphs and achievements as well as their struggles. It examines the gender issues that are at work in the shaping of their experiences, including the ways in which gender affected the type and extent of help and support on which they could rely. It highlights the transformative nature of these experiences for each of the students in this cohort, as well as potentially the next generation, and makes some tentative connections between these individual experiences and the experiences of the wider mature-age university student population. The narratives that individuals tell are socially and culturally located. Hence it is likely that the experiences of these twenty students may reflect, at least to some extent, the experiences of other mature-age students within a similar culture. The findings of this research also highlight the important role that higher education institutions can play, not only in widening access to higher education, but also in encouraging and assisting students, from a diverse range of backgrounds, to participate fully in higher education and achieve their goals.

This thesis sheds light on differences in health insurance enrolment determinants and uptake barriers between urban and rural areas in the Jirapa district of Ghana. The National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana has made significant progress in terms of enrolment, which has had a commensurate increase in utilization of health care services. However, there are challenges that pose a threat to the scheme’s transition to universal coverage; enrolment in the scheme has not progressed according to plan, and there are many barriers known to impede uptake of health care. Interestingly, these barriers vary in relation to locality, and rural residents appear to carry a disproportionate portion of the burden. A mixed method approach was employed to collect and analyse the data. On the basis of the primary qualitative and quantitative results, the thesis argues that the costs of enrolling and accessing health care is disproportionately higher for rural residents than it is their urban counterparts. It also highlights that the distribution of service benefits both in terms of the NHIS and health care in the Jirapa district favours urban residents. Lastly, the thesis found that whereas rural residents prefer health care provision to be social in nature, urban residents were more interested in the technical quality aspects of care. These findings suggest that rural residents are not benefitting from, or may not be accessing health services to the extent as their urban counterparts. Affordability, long distance to health facilities, availability and acceptability barriers were found to influence the resultant pro-urban distribution of the overall health care benefit.

This thesis sheds light on differences in health insurance enrolment determinants and uptake barriers between urban and rural areas in the Jirapa district of Ghana. The National Health Insurance Scheme in Ghana has made significant progress in terms of enrolment, which has had a commensurate increase in utilization of health care services. However, there are challenges that pose a threat to the scheme’s transition to universal coverage; enrolment in the scheme has not progressed according to plan, and there are many barriers known to impede uptake of health care. Interestingly, these barriers vary in relation to locality, and rural residents appear to carry a disproportionate portion of the burden. A mixed method approach was employed to collect and analyse the data. On the basis of the primary qualitative and quantitative results, the thesis argues that the costs of enrolling and accessing health care is disproportionately higher for rural residents than it is their urban counterparts. It also highlights that the distribution of service benefits both in terms of the NHIS and health care in the Jirapa district favours urban residents. Lastly, the thesis found that whereas rural residents prefer health care provision to be social in nature, urban residents were more interested in the technical quality aspects of care. These findings suggest that rural residents are not benefitting from, or may not be accessing health services to the extent as their urban counterparts. Affordability, long distance to health facilities, availability and acceptability barriers were found to influence the resultant pro-urban distribution of the overall health care benefit. / Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund)

Increasing the number of students of color in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields is critical for America’s economic, technological and scientific advancement, yet many are less likely to enter or persist. National efforts to decrease racial differences in STEM have been ongoing but their outcomes have not markedly broadened participation. Under-examined is the role of students’ STEM-specific identities, such as their math identity, on their STEM outcomes. Qualitative findings suggest learning mathematics is a racialized form of experience where students’ math identities and educational opportunities are shaped by race-based narratives of math ability. However, this hypothesis has not been tested with rigorous empirical evidence. Moreover, the role of students’ learning opportunities on actual outcomes is unclear. Using data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009 (HSLS: 09), this study examines the role of math identity and other math attitudes in racial differences in four STEM-related outcomes: advanced math course enrollment, math behavioral and emotional engagement, and STEM career aspiration. Guided by a sociological perspective, I also examine the degree to which students’ school-contexts effect their outcomes and experiences. Lastly, drawing from intersectionality theory, I offer insight into how the inclusion of race and gender interactions change model results. The findings suggest that there are racial differences in mathematics identity, behavioral and emotional engagement, and school characteristics. However, math identity was not a significant predictor of math course enrollment and had little impact on the other outcome variables when student background and school characteristics are considered. The findings also illustrate how learning opportunities are allocated in ways that mirror the race-based hierarchy of math ability. I conclude by describing the study’s implications for policy and future research. / Urban Education

The problem investigated in this study is that U.S. minority and low socioeconomic status (SES) student participation in advanced academic classes continues to lag behind that of Caucasian and economically advantaged students. The purpose of this project study was to investigate the participation gaps between minority and low SES students compared with non-minority and high SES students in advanced mathematics courses in the study district's middle school. The theoretical framework for the study was gap-analysis theory. A quantitative gap analysis of existing student test score data was conducted, utilizing a secondary analysis of existing Iowa Test of Basic Skills data from 347 middle school students, with 196 students classified as low SES and 129 as minority. Descriptive statistics and 2 one-sample chi square tests were used to examine differences by ethnicity and SES subgroups and to test whether the distributions of students who met the district's 70th-percentile cut-score were different than the hypothesized distribution of equal proportions. The results demonstrated significant enrollment gaps between minority and low SES students versus non-minority and high SES students. The study findings informed a policy recommendation project that offered suggestions for the current mathematics testing and enrollment program at the study site. Implications for social change include providing research-based findings to the administration at the local site on the enrollment gaps for minority and low SES students which may inform future decisions about enrollment policies for advanced mathematics courses.