Thesis (M.A.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-03, page: 1153.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2005. / Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Richard Howard. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-143).

Thesis (M.A.)--Bowling Green State University, 2009. / Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 121 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 299-308).

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Duquesne University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 102-107) and index.

Undocumented educations are those educational practices falling outside of legitimated educational institutions or appearing only in marginalized, liminal ways. Through resisting, conflicting with, or simply not fitting into the grammar of school they do not “count” as education. Those educations, and thus the everyday lives of those who practice them, are routinely placed “at-risk.” Often, policymakers and educators propose reforms to this issue, aiming to more effectively include or ensure stronger academic outcomes for populations of students whose educational lives have been marked in precarious ways. Working with 9 recently immigrated youth in New York City, this project explores such undocumented educations in youth’s everyday lives in order to open new understandings of what counts, who counts, and in what ways, in educational discourses. Rather than joining the chorus of reform efforts, I listen to the rigorous, wild, and ethereal educational practices already present in youth’s lives. This project takes up entangled methods of an affective ethnography and a history of the present. Historical work explores prevalent discourses around the education of “newcomer” youth to interrogate how this educational truth came to flourish as an intervention for newcomer youth. Affective ethnography, meanwhile, moves through many places exploring sensations, intensities, and encountering everyday educations and their relationship to the educational life of the school. An affective ethnography opens space to work with youth in exploring educations largely illegible to dominant discourses without submitting these educational practices to new forms of control. Results suggest that linguistically and culturally affirmative schools emerge from understandings of how to better include and improve outcomes for newcomer youth. At the same time, political shifts require schools to constantly evolve to continue pursuing these ideas. Youths’ educational practices change and move through spaces like school or afterschool programs but also connect and flow in a borderless curriculum that challenges the supremacy of educational projects built dominantly on inclusion and success. Failure, daydreaming, and experimentation all play critical roles in youth’s everyday lives. The project ultimately concludes that listening to the already-present everyday educational practices of immigrant youth makes a radically different, ungoverned educational otherwise possible.

This qualitative case study explored the development and exercise of voice at City Workshop, an anarchist-inspired alternative school for middle and high school students. Drawing from the dialogic tradition, I defined student voice as the complex and varied ways students express understanding, make themselves heard, and exercise agency over their educational experiences. In this study, I sought to move beyond traditional approaches to student voice that frame its meaning in instrumental terms and focus instead on its ontological and political dimensions. Through individual and focus group interviews, participant observations, document analysis, and a grounded theory approach to data analysis, I examined how students at City Workshop exercise their voices and how the educational practices of the school empower student voice. This study’s findings revealed the scope and power of student voice extended far beyond its practical effects. As demonstrated through the study, student voice was embodied in things students said, things they did not say, patterns of listening and dialogue, and even the environment itself. Relatedly, I learned student voice is empowered through dialogic governance and relational pedagogy, practices that invite students to play more meaningful roles as both individuals, learners, and community members. I also found City Workshop empowered voice by encouraging students to engage with issues of equity, power, and justice across a wide variety of settings and contexts, while dismantling barriers that restrict participation and engagement. Finally, the significance of this study lies in the attention it draws to the viability of experimental, dialogic approaches to schooling rooted in anarchist-inspired traditions and committed to broader educational transformation.

This formative evaluation of Franklin School was shaped around the implicit and explicit goals of the school and those school practices that are recognized as being effective in schools for students at-risk of dropping out of school. The study served four purposes: (1) to determine how the teachers, parents, and students viewed the school and their experiences with it, (2) to determine what program improvements were needed, (3) to provide a baseline for future evaluations, and (4) to activate the collection of data needed for future evaluations. The participants in the study included the six teachers, 52 students, and the parents or guardians of the students who attended Franklin School during the 1996-97 school year, the year which was the focus of the study. I collected data from the participants through surveys, interviews with teachers and a carefully drawn sample of students and parents, and meetings with teachers and students. Additionally, I analyzed student records pertaining to referrals, attendance, academic achievement, disciplinary infractions, and dropouts. Data from the study indicated that some school goals were being met adequately, and some were not. Teachers, students, and parents agreed that goals related to self-esteem efforts, sense of community, and safe environment were being met. However, the findings from the study indicated that improvement was needed in the areas of career education, counseling, discipline, staff development, parent involvement, and use of instructional technology. Also, the study yielded three important findings in addition to findings related to school goals that need to be addressed. First, there is a leadership problem at Franklin School that needs to be resolved. Second, limited data available on attendance and academic achievement suggested that over time student performance declines at the school. Finally, the data on the referrals to Franklin School revealed an exceedingly high rejection rate with no written notices of admission decisions and no follow-up of students rejected. The findings from the study strongly suggest the need for continued evaluation of the school and for putting mechanisms in place to collect the data needed for such evaluations. / Ph. D.

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