The purpose of this study was to investigate the nature and function of Korean schools, based on data collected from three schools located in southern California. The study addressed the following questions: (1) What are the characteristics of Korean schools? (2) What are the characteristics of the curriculum? (3) What are the characteristics of the teachers, parents, and students? (4) What are the attitudes of Korean-American children, parents, and teachers toward their Korean schools? (5) What are the similarities and differences among the three schools? The study analyzed data collected from three schools: two in densely populated urban areas and one in a suburban area. The findings are based on a sample of 170 students, 146 parents, 44 teachers, and three principals. Data were collected through interviews, written questionnaires, and classroom observations. The study found that Korean Americans are very interested in helping their children develop and maintain appreciation for the Korean culture and language. While creating a positive Korean identity was given as the primary goal of the Korean school, actual instructional objectives were focused more on teaching the Korean language. Children usually attend Korean schools on Saturday or Sunday. Instructional activities are devoted to Korean language and culture. Instructional methodology tends to be traditional and teacher-centered with whole-class activities predominating. Patents express strong support for the schools but tend not to participate in formal instructional activities. Compared with their children, parents engage more frequently in activities that indicate a positive identification with Korean culture. The parents' dominant language is Korean, while children primarily rely on English. Although children state that learning Korean is important, they often express ambivalent and sometimes negative attitudes toward Korean school, as compared with the positive views held by their parents and teachers.

The purpose of the study was to examine the growth of English academic language proficiency by language minority students who were learning English as a second language in an urban school setting. In light of Cummins' theory of language proficiency, the research investigated English development over a one year period in the areas of language most needed for academic success in school, reading and language. Growth in English academic language proficiency was examined across socioeconomic groups, language groups, years of instruction in the district, places of birth, and levels of oral language proficiency. The research sample included 4,663 students in two groups: a focus group of 2,460 students learning English as a second language in school, and a comparison group of 2,203 students from an English language background who had never received second language instruction. All the students were enrolled in grades 4 and 5 and had participated in districtwide standardized test administrations in Spring 1988 and Spring 1989. In addition to test results, information was collected pertaining to the following background characteristics: socioeconomic status, primary language background, length of time in the district, birthplace, and level of oral language proficiency. Statistical analysis with t-tests and Anovas indicated significant differences in CTBS Reading and Language gain scores favoring the second language learners compared to the national norm group and the non-second language learners. Although there was a narrowing of the achievement gap, it would take 5 to 7 years to close it at the observed rate. Among second language learners there were no differences in Reading and Language growth by socioeconomic status; all SES groups were narrowing the gap. There were differences in Reading and Language gains by years in the district; the students with fewer years were exhibiting the greater gains. In Reading growth there were no significant differences by language background, birthplace, or oral language proficiency; however, in Language growth there were differences. These differences were in the test area which is more dependent on formal schooling. It is recommended that emphasis be placed on reading and writing instruction and that students be given bilingual/ESL support for a longer period time.

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This qualitative study followed thirteen students from various American colleges and universities who participated in a College Semester Abroad Program focusing on Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Studies in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The purpose of the study was to see whether students' experiences of their own sexual identity shifted over the course of their four-month, cross-cultural experience and if so, to identify facilitating conditions and obstacles to identity changes. By using interviews, observations and students' written work, eleven shifts in sexual identity were noted, including shifts in feelings, cognition and practice. By reviewing pre-program and beginning-of-prograrn interviews and application material, students' identity profiles also showed a variety of sexual identity functions, some of which were congruent with Dutch culture and others which were dissonant. A direct relationship was found between the number of sexual identity shifts a student experienced during their stay in the Netherlands and the number of Dutch-dissonant identity functions which they brought with them from the United States. This study proposes that future research combine social constructionist theories of sexual identity with Piagetian theories of cognitive development in a new process model of sexual identity development.

Working within the framework of critical postmodern perspectives, and based on fifteen sources of ethnographic data, and two methods of data analysis, this research explores how Tibetan students construct a variety of social identities through their discourses. The postmodern concept of a variety of social identities is coded here as an individual construction of “a portfolio of social identities,” which facilitates the negotiation and mediation of intercultural tensions and identity differences. Five key themes that emerged were tensions and intercultural challenges in the field of scholarship and socialization, specifically in (1) negotiating access and opportunity for higher education in forming specific student identities through university and program access and affiliation, (2) accommodating bicultural learning and teaching approaches, and future professional identities, (3) constructing a network of academic support, (4) accommodating change in gender social identities, and (5) negotiating core and intercultural social identities. Research findings indicate that individual ideologies, goals, and intercultural salience or difference plays a major role in the construction of social identities, as students, as Tibetans, and so on. Tibetan women, and to a lesser degree, Tibetan men respondents expressed greater sense of self-empowerment through acquisition of student and professional identities, financial independence, and intercultural competency. Participants negotiated and accommodated social identities that were biculturally valued by American and Tibetan societies, but these sites were also contested individually, due to differences in ideologies, goals, and so forth. Generally, student and professional identities were more easily accommodated, while other group social identities, such as gender and cultural identities presented more tensions and identity contestations. Students strategically negotiated intercultural tensions by foregrounding salient, and backgrounding contested social identities, while at the same time, maintaining and reaffirming core cultural and intercultural social identities, as Tibetans, as Buddhists, and as western, educated students and professionals. The individual construction of a “portfolio of social identities” can be grouped into three social identity schemas, consisting of modern social identities as individuals, students, and future professionals, political social identities based on negotiated gender and group cultural identity constructs, and thirdly, identity support networks consisting of academic and life-long support sources which facilitate identity constructions.

This dissertation argues for a novel methodological approach to the investigation of phenomena of second language acquisition (SLA). The field of second language acquisition arose in a historical academic context which traditionally linked it to primarily quantitative research methodologies. Introspective verbalized articulations of learners had been devalued in favor of observational examination of behavioral characteristics, an approach which, despite massive investments of research energies, failed to yield a coherent theoretical understanding of the SLA process, especially in adults. An individually conducted, dialogically oriented, open-ended or phenomenological interview enables the exploration of the concerns, interests, experiences, and meanings developed by a second-language learner during the course of the process of second-language acquisition. Approximately two dozen such interviews were carried out with international speakers of English as a Second Language (ESL) studying in a community college in the United States. Analysis of these interviews permitted the demonstration of distinctive interests and focuses of attention and awareness by learners both individually, and collectively, as emergent themes came to be delineated from the group data. In sum, the argument is made that it is ultimately the recognition and the revelation of the individual learner's awareness, through the dialogically articulated learner voice, that proves more significant to an understanding of the phenomenon of SLA within learners from a theoretical research perspective, as well as to a potential enabling of enhanced pedagogical efficiency.

The primary purpose of this proposal is to evaluate the strengths and weakness of an Afrocentric education in an urban school to promote the academic achievement of impecunious black children. This study is important to understanding ways to improve the academic achievement of low-income and disadvantaged black students who are marginalized from the mainstream of American society. This proposal analyzes educational and social forces that prevent poor black children from achieving in urban schools and policies that separate them from the general school population. The study addressed the state of blacks in America today, and shows reasons why urban schools must change to save black students. The study also shows that the current educational system in urban communities does not work. The study discusses whether or not school integration has helped black children improve in their overall educational experience. This study examines and explores the development, characteristic, learning style, and cultural backgrounds of teachers and students who interact in traditional public schools in insolvent urban communities. This study also examines a critical pedagogy in the sociology of the black experience. This part of the study explores black children in a social and historical context in American society. The major finding in this study showed a significant improvement in students' academic achievement based upon documents from the state's DOE and it has renewed Bannker's charter. The sentiments from the major stakeholders appeared to be satisfied with the overall performance of the school and in the direction its going. The positive results on standardize norm reference test has soften the opposition once held by some of the stakeholders in respect to its radical departure from integration. Many parents have witnessed the positive changes in students' self-esteem and self-worth at Banneker and in the community. Therefore, many of the stakeholders believe that education programs of a cultural relevant motif designed does enhanced low-income and disadvantaged black students' academic achievement. This study was limited to low-income and disadvantaged black children attending urban schools where every effort to desegregated these schools has failed and the majority of children has failed and is continuing to fail.

This dissertation is a narrative self-representation, one that employs auto/ethnographical methodology to illustrate the process of the transformative learning experience of an international graduate student. This narrative focuses on showing the process, including the continually nature of personal transformation and transformative learning experiences. Through auto/ethnographical portrayal, I show how the process of self-knowing and self-understanding enables me to relate and then transform my knowledge and my understanding of interrelationships between interdisciplinary discourses on education for (social and personal) development and the pedagogical approaches that are employed in formal and nonformal learning settings for empowerment and for the achievement of (social and personal) transformation. I also show how reflexivity enables me to realize possibilities to apply theoretical insight and knowledge that I have acquired from my graduate study in my future practice as a nonformal educator. I use a variety of auto/ethnographical representations to illustrate how the historical shifts and changes in theoretical and epistemological assumptions have continually affected the transformation in the articulations of international development policy and the development of educational models as well as pedagogical interpretations and practices of education for empowerment that are implemented in various societal contexts and institutions. Using self-reflexivity during the process of writing auto/ethnography, I show how my personal experiences, which I attained from different learning contexts, influence the transformation in my understanding, my interpretation and my practices of specific pedagogical approaches for empowerment.

Generally, mentoring programs are important in providing an opportunity for minorities to acquire the requisite training for their career advancement. Specifically, this particular dissertation examined a minority-based mentoring program from the perspective of the factors that were known to be crucial to success among participants in the Connecticut Community Technical Colleges Minority Fellowship Program. This study examined data involving 106 African Americans, including Latino and Asian professionals between 1989 and 1999. The purpose of this study was to explore the mentees perceptions of the Minority Fellowship Program and ascertain what factors contributed to the success or failure of their mentoring relationships. A five-point Likert type scale of 65 items and 10 open-ended questions were utilized to measure the perceptions of mentoring experience among the participants of the Minority Fellowship Program. An overall analysis of the data revealed that the participants in the program felt a high degree of satisfaction with their goals and objectives throughout their involvement in the Minority Fellowship Program. Additionally, the training derived enabled the participants to become more effective in carrying out their assigned responsibilities. Furthermore, it was found that the participation provided the fellows a considerable opportunity to establish successful teaching/administrative careers within the community college system.

This study examines how racial oppression is challenged and reconstituted through the narrative process of a mediation. Qualitative research methods are used to identify, describe and analyze themes in the mediation discourse and the narrative strategies employed by the participants, mediators, and coordinator in this case study. Each person in this multi-racial and multi-ethnic group is interviewed twice and their interpretations are used in both the data collection and data analysis phases. In this way, this research project responds to a gap in the literature by including the voices and insights of the mediation service providers and participants in the research process. The theoretical foundations of this study are based in several literatures: mediation scholarship, social justice literature, critical race theory, and narrative theory. The findings are analyzed using narrative theory and interrogated from a critical race perspective. They demonstrate that the use of narrative strategies based on the U.S. mediation field's core values of neutrality and symmetry result in the reconstitution of racial oppression in this mediation. The narrative analysis reveals that the story of the negative racialization of one of the participants is underconstructed and that the stories about rules told during the mediation are fully elaborated upon and serve as the basis for the agreement. The analysis from a critical race perspective offers that the colorblind grand narrative of rules in society provides cultural resonance for the stories of rules and for the narrative strategies based in neutrality and symmetry; however, not for the story of negative racialization. The cumulative effect is the domination by the rules stories of the story of negative racialization. This domination is only briefly challenged through several strategies periodically employed by a participant of color and a mediator of color. The results are that racial oppression is perpetuated both procedurally and substantively in this case. It is hoped that this study will stimulate further research on how racial oppression can manifest in mediation as well as encouraging the exploration of new strategies for narrative facilitation to prevent this from occurring.