For centuries, minority groups, students from low socio-economic background, and girls in public schools especially K-12 educational institutions in the United States have experienced prejudice, injustice, and bigotry. Unfortunately, the conventional approach of education, based on a one-size-fits-all approach, has failed to deal with these obstacles. In the past decades, however, there has been an increasing demand for the adoption of the Competency-Based system of education, a personalized learning approach that focuses on the acquisition of concrete skills rather than abstract knowledge. In a Competency-Based model, students advance based on the demonstration of mastery of knowledge and skills other than the amount of time spent learning. Many researchers have argued that equity is at the core of Competency-Based Education, yet critics opine that competency-based education will rather deepen inequity. The purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth understanding of how competency-based education can enhance equity in K-12 classrooms in the United States of America. Through a rapid review, the extent to which competency-based education can enhance equity in K-12 classrooms in the United States will be evaluated. This review could serve as a guide for further research on competency-based education and equity, and how competency-based education may be used to increase equity in the teaching and learning process in K-12 schools.

There are different factors associated with learning a second language such as English. Among the factors including motivation and socioeconomic is the element of cognates that may impact second language acquisition. Through exploring multiple studies, this secondary research paper aims to examine the impact of cognates on language acquisition among different participants with different language backgrounds. Through different research methodologies, the findings of each published study revealed that students whose mother tongues do share cognates with their second language have an advantage over speakers of languages that do not share cognates with a second language such as English. On the other hand, those students whose first language does not share cognates with a second language face challenges and difficulties in learning the second language. Consequently, the latter speakers might not equally benefit from academic opportunities, which are more prevalent among other students, whose first language does share cognates with a second language, due to experiencing fewer language barriers.

<p dir="ltr">For 20 years, engineering education scholars and policymakers have consistently witnessed a low number of women compared to men graduating in engineering in the US. However, in many other countries, like Tunisia, we see near gender parity in terms of the number of women and men graduating in engineering. These contrasting trends are observed beyond the sole case of Tunisia and the US. They are, in fact, part of a much larger phenomenon called the “Gender Equality Paradox” (GEP) in STEM. The GEP posits an inverse relationship between, on one hand, a country’s level of material affluence and gender egalitarianism and, on the other hand, the gender gap in STEM graduates. Despite the increased scholarly attention that the GEP has attracted since its inception, the GEP literature has consistently framed and examined this phenomenon from a Western perspective. That is, scholars ask, why do we see small numbers of women compared to men graduating in engineering despite the high level of material affluence and gender egalitarianism in Western countries?<br><br>Little, and largely marginal, space has been given to the voices of women engineers from non-Western countries. This dissertation addresses this gap by investigating Tunisian women’s motivations to become engineers. Specifically, this research examines the translocational experiences of Tunisian women immigrants in the US to understand the different gender orders at play in the US and Tunisia and how they produce different representations of women in engineering. Grounded in postcolonial feminism, this interpretivist qualitative study answered three research questions:</p><p dir="ltr">1. What individual-level factors do Tunisian women describe as motivating their participation and persistence in engineering education and practice?</p><p dir="ltr">2. What societal, cultural, and policy factors in Tunisia do participants describe as supportive of their participation and persistence in engineering education and practice? Which ones are not?</p><p dir="ltr">3. How does the translocational positionality of Tunisian women engineers in the US (re)shape their perception of engineering?</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">The findings indicate an interplay between individual agency, structural factors, and historical contingency in determining the participants’ pathway to engineering. The participants described having to respond to different codes of meaning associated to engineering that were signaled to them by their family, the Tunisian society, and the Tunisian state. The participants’ translocational experiences indicate that they had to navigate different types of masculinities in the US and Tunisia, thus producing different perceptions of what it means to be women engineers in both countries. The results of this study center non-Western voices of women engineers in the GEP scholarship, challenge colonial assumptions made by GEP scholars, and interrogate the colonial legacies of the Tunisia education system. They also showcase the limitations of categoricalism-based conceptions of the GEP based on summary indices of material affluence and gender egalitarianism.</p>

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Thesis advisor: Matthias von Davier / Children internationally are entitled to quality education. International education initiatives monitor education system quality through complex evaluations, historically relying on academic benchmarks operationalized by robust comparative achievement data. However, quality in schooling is evolving to comprise development beyond academic abilities – it should support emotional, social, and psychological development. Valid systems-level evaluations of these features internationally require well-defined benchmarks for school conditions suitably supportive of this development. Emerging international initiatives, such as UNESCO’s Happy Schools Framework, define frameworks for non-academic facets but have not been empirically tested. This study defines school climate health as the intersection of the Happy Schools Framework, existing literature on school climate and wellbeing, and the Trends in International Mathematics and Science (TIMSS) Context Questionnaire. This research aims to provide a first step towards defining benchmarks by exploring an international dataset to define existing patterns of interrelated school context variables. This study is responsive to empirical literature and relevant theoretical frameworks for evaluating social systems (systems evaluation, ecological systems theories). An exploratory multilevel latent class analysis (MLCA) of 22 variables is conducted for the 58 participating countries to define four school clusters and three country classes defining the composition and distribution of school climate health internationally. Combining response variables from students, teachers, principals, and parents is a novel application. Characteristics of each school cluster and country class are described. Secondary analyses investigate possible confoundedness of school demographics and possible relationships between school-level average achievement. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2024. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Education.

This in-country grounded theory study examined the lived experiences of 24 Chinese returnees who completed advanced degrees in the United States. The study found that the four types of organizations in mainland China determine the social context of the application of Western education of the Chinese returnees. Returnees working in multinational corporations apply their Western education more than the returnees working in the other types of organizations. Themes that revolved around the international educational experiences of the Chinese students, including the development of cultural intelligence and new understanding of the ‘other’, and their realization of the differences between their home and host cultures, are included in the findings of this study. The relationship between these themes has led to the construction of a new concept concerning their self-cultivation that, in the Chinese perspective, is integral to Chinese leadership. This study introduces the concept of the bridger as a role that some Chinese returnees take on within their Chinese organizations and the third space that bridgers occupy.

This case study uses post-colonial and dependency theoretical lenses to investigate the forces influencing policy, procedures, and participation in international activity in the post-colonial African university environment of Kenya’s first national public university—the University of Nairobi (UoN). The research addresses (1) the approaches and strategies adopted by UoN to engage in international activity; (2) the changes that have taken place over time in international activity engagement at UoN since the attainment of political independence by the Republic of Kenya; and (3) the rationales driving participation in international activity. This investigation included library research, document analysis, multiple campus visits, and 20 formal interviews with the faculty and administrators of the University of Nairobi, Kenya. I argue that even though the University of Nairobi now exhibits some degree of agency in her international engagement as an independent post-colonial African University, limitations to this agency are evident given her colonial genesis as a university college linked to the University of London. Despite the fact that greater control has been realized in curricula issues, institutional level governance, income generating projects, and joint research collaboration and international partnerships, the road to independence in international engagement in a post-colonial university environment is still under construction. The University of Nairobi faces many challenges in her efforts to find a place in the global community of higher education. These challenges include, but are not limited to, lack of resources for human capacity building, shortage of faculty and staff, heavy teaching load, bureaucracy, loss of faculty control in setting their research agendas, commercialization of higher education, intellectual property rights violations, and brain drain. Rationales driving internationalization at the University of Nairobi are a consequence of contextual factors, some of which are external to the university and others internal and individual in nature. For example, whereas the academic rationales for participation, including research outlet, professional development, and networking are commonly cited as key motivators for international engagement, equally powerful economic motivators drive participation. I conclude this investigation by questioning the assumption that there can be balanced interdependence between marginalized African institutions of higher education (IHEs) and the developed world, as internationalization proponents suggest, arguing that these institutions are yet to break away from the colonial mold that led to their creation. KEYWORDS: African Higher Education, Internationalization, Post-colonialism, Dependency, Agency

In the 21st century, cosmopolitanism has become an ever emerging concept, as scholars turn to this worldview with the hope to address the unavoidable impacts of globalization. Simultaneously, the new educational trends in Europe in combination with the ongoing socio-political changes create new needs that demand a more cosmopolitan interference. With this in mind, the present research attempts to examine whether and how cosmopolitan ideals are promoted through education policies in Europe and to what extent these cosmopolitan ideals succeed to reach national policies and school practice in a country as Greece. To this end, the author conducts a qualitative multilevel study between Europe and Greece and bases her study on two research methods: interviews and document analysis.     The interview and document analysis that follows leads to a comparison not only between the European and the Greek context but also between the policy and practice level that spawns a better and deeper understanding of how education promotes and can promote cosmopolitanism. The findings of the research highlight that the dilemma of whether to employ an ethnocentric or cosmopolitan educational approach can be acute. Parallel to that, the conflicting conceptions of cosmopolitanism between Greece and the European Union tend to render the moral aspects of education quite numb. Finally, the research closes with some recommendations for the future and suggestions for further studies.

The purpose of this study was to determine how Florida (FL) private, middle school (MS) leaders define highly qualified (HQ) MS science teachers, and how congruent their definitions are. The study also determines how congruent these leaders’ definitions are with FL, national, and National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) definitions. Lastly, the study determines the major challenges these private MS leaders have in hiring MS science teachers who meet the NSTA definition of HQ. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection