Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Walter Feinberg. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 201-210) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (D. Ed.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-111). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-166). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 288-299). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2002. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 149-157). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Studies on education evolve closely along the debates of social reproduction and students’ actual responses in the process of schooling. Structural influences of class, gender, race or ethnicity are often highlighted and resulted in more or less coherent and consistent student subcultures and typologies. The aim of this study is to capture and explain the neglected complexities and dynamics of schooling by studying a group of ordinary students in a community college in Hong Kong. Ordinary students are under-studied because of their assumed normality and uninteresting experience. By stepping into their world of everyday schooling using an ethnographic approach, it is found that their hopes in life are ordinary but their lives extraordinary with selectivity, inconsistency and transiency as the defining features. Such features result from the everyday interplay of school routines, connections with people, ethics of conduct, as well as visions in life of these students. These interactions shape a certain narrative of life over time and are deployed as cultural tools in particular situations of schooling. The deployment of cultural tools by ordinary students allows an understanding of culture in action although it is fragmented and incoherent, and the lives of them as a whole are characterised by drifting across states of being, rather than formation of any coherent, linear or cumulative narrative. The study contributes to existing scholarship by offering new empirical observations on how thirty two community college students went through and reflected on their schooling experience over a two year span. The study adds to the ongoing theoretical attempt to grasp the complex interaction among structure, institution and agency in social life by capturing the fluid states of drift in ethics and visions among students amidst the highly structured routines of competitive education. Through these we are able to better understand the lives and cultures of ordinary students in a world where to be ordinary is almost like an impossible dream. / published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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<p> This monograph presents the perceptions of Writing Center assistance that three groups at community colleges have: composition students, Writing Center tutors, and English instructors. While the three groups have been highlighted often separately in many studies, this study adds to those that compare how the three groups respond to the same issues about writing and Writing Center assistance. The study examines three questions: (1) What are the writing challenges that English instructors, center tutors, and students served in Writing Centers identify and expect the Writing Center to assist students with? (2) How do Writing Center models (mandatory or voluntary) provide or deliver the assistance that is needed? (3) What are the perceptions of the three groups of the efficacy of Writing Center assistance? </p><p> Four community colleges in southern California participated in the study and the three groups included individuals from developmental, college-transfer, and advanced levels. Matching surveys with the same question sequence were used to gather the responses of the three groups, and comparisons of their responses in the form of frequency counts, means, and standard deviation were made. Results reveal: (1) The three groups have differing priorities of what is important in writing. (2) The three groups have differing perceptions of what Writing Center assistance is focused upon. (3) The three groups have a few overlapping recommendations about improvements that Writing Centers might implement. </p><p> The majority of the differing priorities in writing involve the writing process and mechanical/proofreading issues vs. analytical approaches. While tutors and instructors agree on a few writing features, students exhibit wide discrepancy in their priorities. The differences in perceptions of Writing Center assistance also reveal wide discrepancies in what students express that they need help with, what they actually take to the Writing Center, and what they believe they received help with. Instructors and tutors also have differing perceptions of what the Writing Center assists students with, or should assist students with. Survey results also suggest a slight preference for Writing Center assistance being mandatory (requiring attendance) as opposed to being voluntary (not requiring attendance), and the participants recommend that Writing Centers have more tutors, expanded hours, and an interesting suggestion of &ldquo;other&rdquo; for flexibility in how Writing Centers can assist students. The implications for that recommendation for flexibility indicate that additional studies of Writing Centers can yield valuable insights for the ongoing development of Writing Centers.</p>

<p> Administrators of 2-year colleges are working in an environment where they seek to balance the social development of the student and the community&rsquo;s demand for a trained workforce to achieve economic development. This balance has resulted in ambiguity about the mission and purpose of 2-year colleges. The purpose of this case study was to explore a community college&rsquo;s experiences with mission change by exploring the interaction between a neoliberal public policy environment and the traditional social democratic mission of academia. Harvey&rsquo;s conceptualization of neoliberalism was used as the theoretical framework. Data were collected through 15 semi-structured interviews with members of college leadership, faculty members, staff, and members of the college&rsquo;s advisory council. Other data included documentation about policy, mission, and publicly available documents related to the mission change at the institution. These data were deductively coded, and then subjected to content analysis. Key findings indicated that the college initially stalled in the mission change process, and as a result, identified alternative pathways to achieve the goals of career-relevant training the neoliberal environment demanded. In this sense, the perspective of academic capitalism was born from necessity for self-reliance and illustrates the commonality of finding entrepreneurial solutions. The implications for positive social change include recommendations to leaders of 2-year colleges on managing mission change in a way that responds to the needs of the college community while retaining the relevance of students&rsquo; social development.</p>