Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Education, 2006. / "Title from dissertation home page (viewed July 10, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-08, Section: A, page: 2874. Adviser: Mary B. McMullen.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Instructional Systems Technology, School of Education, 2006. / "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 26, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2125. Adviser: Thomas M. Schwen.

This is a report of an ethnographic study of a graduate-level Methods course for ESL/Bilingual teachers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The course is organized around task-based, small group, collaborative learning. One of the intriguing aspects of the course is the opportunities it provides for students to learn about Whole Language teaching and collaborative learning both by studying about these topics as part of the course content and by experiencing them as students within the class. This study researched the enactment of collaborative learning by investigating the discourse of one of the course's small groups. My research questions revolved issues of voice--the conditions in which students are both able to speak and to be heard--in the small group. The structure and distribution of voice among group members was a primary research focus. A theoretical framework was developed which allows the concept of voice to be operationalized for purposes of discourse analysis. Voice emerges out of the social interactions of participants engaged in an institutionally situated activity and cannot be reduced solely to the characteristics or performance of an individual (cf. McDermott, 1986). The structure of the group's collaborative dialogue, a set of communal norms operating within the group, and the social context created within the course are investigated through a micro-analysis of the group discourse. The findings reveal a set of norms operating within the small group: active participation, students viewing one another as "resources," and the privileging of members' personal knowledge. These norms, among others, created the social conditions necessary for a truly collaborative dialogue. However, these norms also proved problematic as they fostered a set of communal tensions related to the educational ramifications of muting the instructor's voice and the ways that the discourse structure positioned a Japanese member of the group. Her minimal participation in the group's early meetings, the negotiations which took place to ensure that she would have a voice, and her own revealing views of collaborative dialogue provide rich insights into the complex nature of multicultural, collaborative learning.

Multicultural education focuses on the educational experience of diverse children who attend the nation's public schools. Statistics show that the majority of teachers in American schools are White, middle class women. Previous research has raised the question of whether this population of teachers can be trained to effectively teach students of color, or can utilize strategies that engage non-traditional learners, children of the poor, special needs and linguistic minority students. The purpose of this qualitative study of ten White, middle-class public school teachers was to discover how members of the dominant culture understand the concept of multicultural education, where they learned this interpretation of the concept and how they apply their insights to their pedagogy. The study looked for significant connections between teachers' personal and professional lives, and their understanding of diverse populations. By viewing teachers as people involved in a lifelong process of becoming multicultural, this research looks for insight from classroom teachers themselves. Recent studies demonstrate positive connections when participants are not only involved in the research question, but locate the source of information and interpretation among the teachers themselves. The methodology was phenomenological interviewing: three ninety-minute interviews with each participant. The first interview asked participants to reconstruct their personal background, issues related to diversity as well as events affecting their decision to become a teacher. The second interview focused on the details of curriculum, daily schedule, goals and pedagogy. The third interview included reflections on individual understanding of multicultural education, connecting methodological decisions with diversity in their classrooms. The major finding is that teachers have individual socially-constructed ideas about what multicultural education is, based on both professional and personal exposure to people and perspectives from different cultural backgrounds. Other findings include the importance of experiential education, particularly extended immersion in communities requiring participants adapt to different cultural and linguistic norms. Friendships with people of different cultural backgrounds, and experience standing up to issues of injustice also were important. Community and professional education factors are discussed. The final chapter summarizes participant ideas about support and training teachers in the process of becoming multicultural.

The purpose of this study was to explore and assess creative avenues that challenge racism in urban high schools. A project study was established at one racially and ethnically diverse high school through the development of an anti-racist peer education curriculum model that used perspectives from multicultural education, the arts and media. The school system, with a student population of 25,000, had been experiencing racial problems and welcomed the study. The project study approach was used in order to analyze student responses to creating an anti-racist/multicultural arts and media curriculum. The participants of the project created a problem-solving play entitled "Let's Stop Racism in Our Schools," and performed it three times during the course of the study. The major goal of this research was to discover, through the eyes of students, if their learning, attitudes and behavior were affected by racism. Another goal was to demonstrate the significance of using multicultural arts to address racism in schools. Data collection methods included student interviews, field notes, audience surveys, and production videotapes. In addition, quantitative surveys on race relations and multicultural arts were used as support data. As a result of this study, students were able to identify creative ways of addressing racism in school and share their perceptions of how racism has affected their learning. All of the participants agreed that utilizing their "voice" throughout the project made them feel empowered to reach out to others. The study found that students experienced feelings of discouragement, guilt, anger, and pressure to over-achieve because of racism. The implications of this study are relevant for grades K-12 and beyond because it brings the issue out in the open, thereby enabling a greater chance for reduction. It is important for educators nationwide to take a look at students' points of views and ability to take a stand and make a difference in school curricula. Administrators should consider allowing students to become more involved with curricular development. In addition, this study should encourage all school personnel to consider the arts and multicultural education as integral aspects of education in all basic subject areas.

This dissertation presents a rich, detailed account of lived experiences of Koreans, Americans, and Korean-Americans in a multicultural Korean business organization. Guided by the coordinated management of meaning theory as the theoretical and methodological framework, this study looks at the organization as a co-created, co-evolving interactive system. Thus, it closely examines communication among the participants as everyday practices in which to explore "goings-on" in the organization. The main focus of this study is on the extent to which cultural differences afford or constrain coordination among people, and create problems such as tensions and conflict in the organization. Six episodes were reconstructed based on various stories "told" and "lived" by the participants, and presented as major "goings-on" in the organization. The main findings centered around the issues of cultural adaptation, differentiation/division/discrimination, harmony, biculturalism, and language. These issues were manifested in various instances of situated interaction. They constrained coordination and coherence, and thus contributed to the creation, sustenance and transformation of tensions and conflict within the organization. The comparative analysis of different episodes, especially revealed the intricate ways in which various patterns of interactive relationships not only emerge and sustain, but also transform over time. The dissertation has two major theoretical implications for intercultural studies. First, it supports and extends literature on general cultural patterns by illustrating detailed ways in which this general knowledge is manifested in situated moments of intercultural interaction. It shows us, in detail, the process in which a particular intercultural situation is constructed in a unique and complex way. The second implication is that this study is capable of accounting for the process of transformation. In other words, this study provides the elaborate ways in which cultural patterns not only emerge and sustain but also transform in practice. This ever changing, rather than fixed, role of cultural differences is unconvered by the comparative analysis of different episodes that occured in different time. The study also introduces the problems of bi-cultural persons in multicultural organizations.

The purpose of this study was to (1) investigate teachers' perceptions of their own ability to embrace diversity, and (2) to explore how their personal, professional and academic preparation influenced their perceptions. Three research questions guided this study: (1) What type of personal and professional experiences affect the perceptions and behaviors of practicing teachers toward embracing diversity? (2) How do practicing teachers perceive that their teacher preparation program has prepared them to teach from a multicultural perspective? (3) What recommendations do practicing teachers have for enhancing the preparation of teachers to educate a diverse population? This study consists of four components: (1) a pilot study of three in-depth phenomenological interviews each with two participants that served as a basis for the current study. (2) one additional study of a novice teacher, using three classrooms observations and three in-depth phenomenological interviews. (3) a qualitative questionnaire, used with practicing teachers who had recently graduated from a teacher preparation program, designed to determine if there was a need for investigation into the research questions. (4) a quantitative questionnaire, used with beginning teachers, which examined how they felt they were prepared to teach a diverse student body. The findings reveal that graduates from one teacher preparation program feel that they were exposed to little or no multicultural education in their course work, and had been inadequately prepared to teach a diverse population. Many of the graduates are employed in school districts which incorporate superficial approaches to multicultural education. Teachers expressed a desire to become a part of a network where they could learn how to incorporate multicultural education into the curriculum. It seemed that what prepared teachers best to work with diverse populations was actually living in the community among diverse people; it was there that people started to understand issues, events and people from a variety of perspectives.* ftn*Originally published in DAI Vol. 58, No. 9. Reprinted here with corrected title.

My dissertation focuses on a major problem found in Cree language retention efforts and in Cree education across the Cree Nation of Canada: the lack of a standard Cree orthography. My arguments for standardization are broad-based due to factors of cultural, religious, sociopolitical and educational biases that vie for their regional voice on Cree language matters. Meanwhile, Cree language and culture continue to ebb with each passing generation. This sets the parameters of my study. Information has been gathered from literature review, as well as from interviews, observations and other miscellaneous field sources. To help resolve the predicament of multiple versions of written Cree as practiced today, the thrust of this study proposes a standard phonemicization of Cree in Roman that is compatible to the current needs of the five main Cree dialect populations. I view Cree language and Cree culture as almost synonymous, being that Cree culture is keeper of the Cree language. This interdependency of Cree language and Cree culture is the key to Cree identity. The native language and cultural survival efforts of circumpolar indigenous cultures are increasingly threatened by external pressures. This I illustrate by presenting parallels in the geography, material culture, livelihood, traditions, sociopolitics, education, etc. of the Crees, Samis, and northwestern Siberian aboriginal groups. All the above arctic indigenous groups have common problems in areas listed. All arctic native peoples are a shrinking minority in an expanding global population. The Crees, as other circumpolar native peoples, have no alternative but to move ever more expeditiously in their efforts at Cree language and culture preservation that adapts to changing times, if expectations are that Cree is to survive and function as a working language well into the first century of the third millennium. Perhaps, this study may help persuade the Crees toward cooperative interaction with circumpolar groups striving to save their threatened native languages and lifeways. Interaction between the Crees, Samis and the Siberian Ob-Ugrians and Samoyeds could be a step in the right direction for all concerned.

Today, increasingly attention has turned to the impact that school experiences have on gay youth. However, research to date has focused disproportionately on crisis intervention strategies or on meeting individually based needs rather than on the school setting. This study contributes an organization-wide examination of one public school district's efforts to address the needs of gay youth at the high school level. This study examines the role of this public school district Safe Schools Committee and their participation in the Massachusetts Department of Education Safe Schools Program for Gay and Lesbian Youth and assesses the impact these efforts have had on the overall school setting in relation to gay youth issues. Two social justice change models provide the theoretical foundation for this study: multicultural education and multicultural organization development. The data for this study were gathered and analyzed using traditional qualitative research methods. Students, educators, parents, administrators, community members, and consultants at the statewide level were asked to describe their perceptions of change in the high school. The four recommendations of the Massachusetts Department of Education Safe Schools Program for Gay and Lesbian Students, the Stages of Multicultural Awareness model, and the Continuum of School Change Strategies provided useful perspectives in understanding how change initiatives impacted this school setting. Factors important to the success of this school district's change initiatives were identified. The importance of prior experiences in creating a state of organizational readiness for change, the role of the Safe Schools Committee as a subsystem for change in the organization, and the importance of collaborative relationships across the organization, with community stakeholders, and with statewide resources and experts emerged as significant. Conclusions drawn from this study indicate that a systemic perspective can be critical in supporting school-based change efforts to meet the needs of gay youth and that addressing the needs of gay youth in school settings can make important contributions to increased multicultural awareness and organization development. Organization factors and behaviors of members of the Safe Schools Committee identified as particularly important to the success of these efforts are also presented.

The fields of multicultural counseling and education have given increased emphasis to the relationship between minority students and academic performance in our classrooms. The literature on minority students' achievement has shown that public education in this country experiences criticism and controversy and fails to meet the educational expectations and demands of minority students, particularly those of Hispanic heritage. In addition, Hispanic students are affected by their high dropout rates and academic underachievement. In search for solutions and strategies, social scientists, educators and multicultural school counselors have identified minority students in our classroom as a vital part for teachers development. This study explored Puerto Rican first generation students' perceptions of their guidance counseling services and their opportunity to achieve a post-secondary education. The study explored how those perceptions enhance the educational and learning process. By using a phenomenological survey, data was gathered from 60 Puerto Rican first generation students. A triangulation strategy was used, as well as factor analysis and cluster methods for the data analysis, in search for patterns, categories and themes among participants' responses. There were four major findings in this study. It was found that these students want to be more aware of their guidance counseling services. It was found that the participants' perceptions in regards to their parents assistance with their school matters were important to them. It was also found that their perceptions in regards to their teachers' advising is a vital factor for their academic performance. Finally it was also found that these students believed that an academic after school program can benefit them with their academics and personal matters and furthermore it serves as an important liaison between students $\leftrightarrow$ teachers $\leftrightarrow$ counselors $\leftrightarrow$ principals and parents.