The purposes of the investigation were (1) to determine whether differences in attitudes, values, an dogmatisms exist between volunteers for an inner-city student teaching experience and other student teachers prior to a student teaching experience; (2) to determine whether differences in attitudes, values, and dogmatisms exist at the completion of student teaching between the experimental group and a control group composed of student teachers assigned to suburban schools.

This dissertation describes a research study that investigated cooperative inquiry as a strategy for professional learning of inner-city school principals in a large urban centre in Western Canada. The study attempted to identify the central issues of concern and means of redress for school leaders in high-poverty communities, many of which focused on educational leadership, school management, the context of their schools within impoverished communities, and the challenges of personal well-being. The findings suggest that cooperative inquiry was an effective strategy in that the approach was participatory, democratic, empowering, life-enhancing, and fostered community-building among participants. The findings also suggest that the approach was effective in that it was grounded in the action research cycle of planning, action, observation, and reflection. The study further examined the use of dialogue as a means of constructing knowledge regarding these issues, and identified the ways in which such knowledge impacts upon the professional practice of these principals. Findings suggest that participants gained knowledge from each other, offered knowledge from others, constructed knowledge together as a group, and developed deeper understandings of their own perspectives. Findings also suggest that meaning is lost when dialogic interactions are transcribed into print. Thus, dialogue is a form of communication in and of itself, one that cannot simply be transformed into the written word without losing part of that dialogic essence. Further, this study posits that dialogue has unique power to be both a process for meaning making, as well as an ontological means of clarifying one’s own sense of reality. / October 2008

This dissertation describes a research study that investigated cooperative inquiry as a strategy for professional learning of inner-city school principals in a large urban centre in Western Canada. The study attempted to identify the central issues of concern and means of redress for school leaders in high-poverty communities, many of which focused on educational leadership, school management, the context of their schools within impoverished communities, and the challenges of personal well-being. The findings suggest that cooperative inquiry was an effective strategy in that the approach was participatory, democratic, empowering, life-enhancing, and fostered community-building among participants. The findings also suggest that the approach was effective in that it was grounded in the action research cycle of planning, action, observation, and reflection. The study further examined the use of dialogue as a means of constructing knowledge regarding these issues, and identified the ways in which such knowledge impacts upon the professional practice of these principals. Findings suggest that participants gained knowledge from each other, offered knowledge from others, constructed knowledge together as a group, and developed deeper understandings of their own perspectives. Findings also suggest that meaning is lost when dialogic interactions are transcribed into print. Thus, dialogue is a form of communication in and of itself, one that cannot simply be transformed into the written word without losing part of that dialogic essence. Further, this study posits that dialogue has unique power to be both a process for meaning making, as well as an ontological means of clarifying one’s own sense of reality.

This dissertation describes a research study that investigated cooperative inquiry as a strategy for professional learning of inner-city school principals in a large urban centre in Western Canada. The study attempted to identify the central issues of concern and means of redress for school leaders in high-poverty communities, many of which focused on educational leadership, school management, the context of their schools within impoverished communities, and the challenges of personal well-being. The findings suggest that cooperative inquiry was an effective strategy in that the approach was participatory, democratic, empowering, life-enhancing, and fostered community-building among participants. The findings also suggest that the approach was effective in that it was grounded in the action research cycle of planning, action, observation, and reflection. The study further examined the use of dialogue as a means of constructing knowledge regarding these issues, and identified the ways in which such knowledge impacts upon the professional practice of these principals. Findings suggest that participants gained knowledge from each other, offered knowledge from others, constructed knowledge together as a group, and developed deeper understandings of their own perspectives. Findings also suggest that meaning is lost when dialogic interactions are transcribed into print. Thus, dialogue is a form of communication in and of itself, one that cannot simply be transformed into the written word without losing part of that dialogic essence. Further, this study posits that dialogue has unique power to be both a process for meaning making, as well as an ontological means of clarifying one’s own sense of reality.

No description available.

O fortalecimento dos governos locais, previsto na Constituição de 1988, garantiu aos municípios maior autonomia para gerir seus recursos tributários e, no âmbito do Estado Democrático de Direito, é de responsabilidade do poder público municipal, a regulamentação da oferta e o acesso ao ensino fundamental obrigatório. Diante disso, os gestores das Escolas do Município de Caxias do Sul, ao disporem dos recursos provenientes dos Governos Federal, Estadual e Municipal, estabelecem suas prioridades para uso dos valores alocados. A pesquisa buscas relacionar os investimentos financeiros em educação, tomando por base os resultados quanto à evasão, aprovação e reprovação no triênio 2010-2012.Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa-quantitativa, com dados primários e secundários, os quais foram obtidos a partir de entrevistas semiestruturadas realizadas em dez escolas, bem como a análise documental contendo informações quanto aos valores dispensados no triênio a cada uma das escolas e os respectivos resultados finais. A técnica de análise de dados adotada foi a de conteúdo uma vez que ela auxilia a compreender melhor um discurso, de aprofundar suas características e extrair os momentos mais importantes e esta tomou por base as ideias de Paulo Freire e Paro, bem como as determinações previstas na Constituição Federal. Os resultados levaram a concluir que a relação dos investimentos com os resultados quanto aprovação e reprovação é verdadeira, uma vez que os valores liberados a cada escola, dependem do número de alunos. Assim pode-se concluir que quanto maior o número de alunos, maior será o índice de aprovação e consequentemente, menor a reprovação. Quanto aos evadidos, não há relação com os investimentos, podendo este dado estar vinculado à região onde a escola está localizada. / The strengthening of local authorities, foreseen in the 1988 Constitution, reassured wider autonomy to cities so they would be able to run their tributary resources and, within the scope of the Rule-of-Law State, it is the responsibility of the municipal government, the offer regulation and admission to mandatory basic education. Therefore, the city schools managers of Caxias do Sul; when obtain the federal, state and municipal resources – establish their priorities so the appropriated funds can be used. The research aims to list the financial investment in education, taking into account the evasion, approbation and reprobation results in the period of 2010 to 2012. It’s about a qualitative-quantitative research, presenting primary and secondary data which was obtained through semi-structured interviews and took place at ten different schools, as well as the analysis of the documents which provided information about the revenue that was appropriated in the period of three years to each school and the respective final results. The data analysis technique which was used was the content analysis one. Once it enhances the understanding of a speech, the deepening of the technical features and it elicits its most important moments. The research was based on Paulo Freire and Paro’s principles, as well as the resolutions foreseen in the Federal Constitution. The results led to the conclusion that the connection between the investment and the approbation and reprobation results is real. Once the revenue appropriated to each school depends on the number of students. Therefore, it can be concluded that the more students are enrolled in a school, the higher the approbation rate will be and, consequently, the reprobation rate will decrease. Regarding the evasion students, there is no connection with the investments, so this data may be linked to the area where the school is located.

Using archival sources, this dissertation argues that ideas and norms about disability shaped the experiences and careers of every city teacher and every prospective teacher in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit between 1930 and 1970. This work contributes both to the historiography of disability in U.S. education and to the historiography of U.S. teachers with two assertions. First, historians of education need to reconsider the ways in which we approach, analyze, and write about disability. Second, by adding a discussion of teachers’ bodies and disability to the historiography of teachers, we can better understand teachers’ experiences and the ways in which school leaders attempted to define and enforce standards of normality. After the first chapter of this dissertation establishes the work’s argument and contributions to the historiography, Chapter 2 explores how a bevy of research on teachers’ maladjustment and health, published between 1930 and 1970, undergirded educational leaders’ ideas about teachers and disability. The analysis of these studies reveals four themes: the idea that women with inherent personality defects and deviations were attracted to the teaching profession, a concern that these unbalanced women would irreparably harm their students, a reliance on unsubstantiated data and subjective measures or claims, and a focus on a woman’s physical appearance or beauty as emblematic of her teaching ability. Chapter 3 is an analysis of how boards of education and board officials in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, and a number of southern cities linked disability with teacher incompetence and granted medical doctors an enormous amount of power in determining which candidates were fit to teach. Chapter 4 contains an analysis of how these city boards of education appropriated disability discourses for their own agendas, using the language of the eugenics movement and linking age with disability to weaken tenure and pension protections. Boards of education also associated speech “defects” with other disqualifying disabilities in order to justify racist and xenophobic hiring practices. Chapter 5 examines the agency of individual teachers and missed opportunities for group agency. This chapter is an analysis of the tactics teachers, professional organizations, and teachers’ unions used to counter or, more often, to indirectly enforce medical examinations and disability policies. Chapter 6 concludes the dissertation with a cursory look at how Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 forced the Los Angeles Board of Education to amend its disability policies and a call for further analysis of how disability discourses have shaped the U.S. education system. The conclusion also reiterates this dissertation’s overarching argument: while disability rules and regulations most affected the teachers school officials identified as disabled, all teachers had to establish their competence through proving their lack of disability at various points throughout their careers. Thus, fears and stereotypes about disability affected all teachers—disabled and nondisabled—in these particular city schools between 1930 and 1970.

O fortalecimento dos governos locais, previsto na Constituição de 1988, garantiu aos municípios maior autonomia para gerir seus recursos tributários e, no âmbito do Estado Democrático de Direito, é de responsabilidade do poder público municipal, a regulamentação da oferta e o acesso ao ensino fundamental obrigatório. Diante disso, os gestores das Escolas do Município de Caxias do Sul, ao disporem dos recursos provenientes dos Governos Federal, Estadual e Municipal, estabelecem suas prioridades para uso dos valores alocados. A pesquisa buscas relacionar os investimentos financeiros em educação, tomando por base os resultados quanto à evasão, aprovação e reprovação no triênio 2010-2012.Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa-quantitativa, com dados primários e secundários, os quais foram obtidos a partir de entrevistas semiestruturadas realizadas em dez escolas, bem como a análise documental contendo informações quanto aos valores dispensados no triênio a cada uma das escolas e os respectivos resultados finais. A técnica de análise de dados adotada foi a de conteúdo uma vez que ela auxilia a compreender melhor um discurso, de aprofundar suas características e extrair os momentos mais importantes e esta tomou por base as ideias de Paulo Freire e Paro, bem como as determinações previstas na Constituição Federal. Os resultados levaram a concluir que a relação dos investimentos com os resultados quanto aprovação e reprovação é verdadeira, uma vez que os valores liberados a cada escola, dependem do número de alunos. Assim pode-se concluir que quanto maior o número de alunos, maior será o índice de aprovação e consequentemente, menor a reprovação. Quanto aos evadidos, não há relação com os investimentos, podendo este dado estar vinculado à região onde a escola está localizada. / The strengthening of local authorities, foreseen in the 1988 Constitution, reassured wider autonomy to cities so they would be able to run their tributary resources and, within the scope of the Rule-of-Law State, it is the responsibility of the municipal government, the offer regulation and admission to mandatory basic education. Therefore, the city schools managers of Caxias do Sul; when obtain the federal, state and municipal resources – establish their priorities so the appropriated funds can be used. The research aims to list the financial investment in education, taking into account the evasion, approbation and reprobation results in the period of 2010 to 2012. It’s about a qualitative-quantitative research, presenting primary and secondary data which was obtained through semi-structured interviews and took place at ten different schools, as well as the analysis of the documents which provided information about the revenue that was appropriated in the period of three years to each school and the respective final results. The data analysis technique which was used was the content analysis one. Once it enhances the understanding of a speech, the deepening of the technical features and it elicits its most important moments. The research was based on Paulo Freire and Paro’s principles, as well as the resolutions foreseen in the Federal Constitution. The results led to the conclusion that the connection between the investment and the approbation and reprobation results is real. Once the revenue appropriated to each school depends on the number of students. Therefore, it can be concluded that the more students are enrolled in a school, the higher the approbation rate will be and, consequently, the reprobation rate will decrease. Regarding the evasion students, there is no connection with the investments, so this data may be linked to the area where the school is located.

O fortalecimento dos governos locais, previsto na Constituição de 1988, garantiu aos municípios maior autonomia para gerir seus recursos tributários e, no âmbito do Estado Democrático de Direito, é de responsabilidade do poder público municipal, a regulamentação da oferta e o acesso ao ensino fundamental obrigatório. Diante disso, os gestores das Escolas do Município de Caxias do Sul, ao disporem dos recursos provenientes dos Governos Federal, Estadual e Municipal, estabelecem suas prioridades para uso dos valores alocados. A pesquisa buscas relacionar os investimentos financeiros em educação, tomando por base os resultados quanto à evasão, aprovação e reprovação no triênio 2010-2012.Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa-quantitativa, com dados primários e secundários, os quais foram obtidos a partir de entrevistas semiestruturadas realizadas em dez escolas, bem como a análise documental contendo informações quanto aos valores dispensados no triênio a cada uma das escolas e os respectivos resultados finais. A técnica de análise de dados adotada foi a de conteúdo uma vez que ela auxilia a compreender melhor um discurso, de aprofundar suas características e extrair os momentos mais importantes e esta tomou por base as ideias de Paulo Freire e Paro, bem como as determinações previstas na Constituição Federal. Os resultados levaram a concluir que a relação dos investimentos com os resultados quanto aprovação e reprovação é verdadeira, uma vez que os valores liberados a cada escola, dependem do número de alunos. Assim pode-se concluir que quanto maior o número de alunos, maior será o índice de aprovação e consequentemente, menor a reprovação. Quanto aos evadidos, não há relação com os investimentos, podendo este dado estar vinculado à região onde a escola está localizada. / The strengthening of local authorities, foreseen in the 1988 Constitution, reassured wider autonomy to cities so they would be able to run their tributary resources and, within the scope of the Rule-of-Law State, it is the responsibility of the municipal government, the offer regulation and admission to mandatory basic education. Therefore, the city schools managers of Caxias do Sul; when obtain the federal, state and municipal resources – establish their priorities so the appropriated funds can be used. The research aims to list the financial investment in education, taking into account the evasion, approbation and reprobation results in the period of 2010 to 2012. It’s about a qualitative-quantitative research, presenting primary and secondary data which was obtained through semi-structured interviews and took place at ten different schools, as well as the analysis of the documents which provided information about the revenue that was appropriated in the period of three years to each school and the respective final results. The data analysis technique which was used was the content analysis one. Once it enhances the understanding of a speech, the deepening of the technical features and it elicits its most important moments. The research was based on Paulo Freire and Paro’s principles, as well as the resolutions foreseen in the Federal Constitution. The results led to the conclusion that the connection between the investment and the approbation and reprobation results is real. Once the revenue appropriated to each school depends on the number of students. Therefore, it can be concluded that the more students are enrolled in a school, the higher the approbation rate will be and, consequently, the reprobation rate will decrease. Regarding the evasion students, there is no connection with the investments, so this data may be linked to the area where the school is located.

This study is concerned primarily with comparisons in subject matter achievement between the pupils in the small rural schools and the pupils in the city schools.