abstract: This study investigates Black male students' perceptions of their teachers' curricular expectations in mathematics classrooms. Curriculum in this study refers to what knowledge students are expected to learn, and the manner in which they are expected to learn it. The topic of this dissertation is in response to persisting and prevailing achievement disparities experienced by secondary Black male students in mathematics. These disparities exist at the school, district, state, and national level. Utilizing an action research methodology, multiple cycles of data collection led to the final iteration of the study, collecting strictly qualitative data and drawing from critical race methodology to address the three research questions. The three research questions of this study seek to address how Black male students perceive their mathematics teachers’ curricular expectations, what practices they have found to be effective in meeting their teachers’ higher curricular expectations, and to determine how they view the reform practices as part of the intervention. Research questions were answered using one-on-one and focus group interviews, classroom observations, and student journals. An intervention was developed and delivered as part of the action research, which was an attempt at curriculum reform influenced by culturally relevant pedagogy, warm demander pedagogy, and youth participatory action research. Findings from the qualitative methods, led to four assertions. The first assertion states, despite achievement disparities, Black male students care very much about their academic success. Second, a primary factor hindering Black male students’ academic success, as communicated by participants, is what they are learning and how they are learning it. Speaking to teachers’ expectations, participants believe their teachers want them to succeed and think highly of them. Additionally, participants preferred interactive, enthusiastic, and caring teachers, even if those teachers are academically demanding. Finally, participants found learning mathematics addressing a problem that affects them, while incorporating components that address their invisibility in the curriculum, increased relevance, interest, and academic self-awareness. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2020

America's school-age population is experiencing a demographic shift. In 1972, students of color represented 22% of the school-age population; in 2005, minority students accounted for 33% of public school enrollment (Statistics, 2007 Villegas, 2002). This study sought to explore how these changing demographics affected University Town Community Schools, the district's interventions, and teachers' perceptions to those interventions. This study also explored teachers' feelings of efficacy when teaching minority students. Using a qualitative study among third-, fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade elementary school teachers, a random sample of 9 teachers from schools comprising a minority population of at least 40% were interviewed. Data analysis involved the use of themes that emerged from the interview data, observations, and quotations from participants. The findings indicated that the district acted on a school-by-school basis, with no specific actions to target any one racial group. Meanwhile, teachers were inconsistent when discussing race, behavior, and learning. Teachers felt comfortable assigning behaviors based on race and culture, but were hesitant to assign learning strengths and weaknesses based on race or culture.

The purpose of this was study was to explore the use of two teaching practices (cognitively responsive subject matter and culturally responsive teaching) at Hispanic-Serving Institutions in the United States. The conceptual frameworks for this study were the Multi-Contextual Model of Diverse Learning Environments (MMDLE) (Hurtado et al., 2015), Blackwell and Lawrence’s (1995) framework on faculty work, and Neumann’s (2014) framework on cognitively responsive teaching practices and culturally responsive teaching (Ladson-Billings, 1994). Data for this study were culled from responses of full-time faculty to the University of California-Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute’s 2013 faculty survey, a national, multi-institutional survey of faculty. Using ANOVAs and hierarchical linear models (HLM), the study estimated the effect of individual- and organizational-level variables on subject matter and culturally responsive teaching. The results of HLM models showed that women faculty, faculty who have won an award for their teaching, and those who believe all students can excel have higher culturally responsive teaching scores. In contrast, faculty who believe it is up to individual students to succeed, and those who teach a hard discipline as characterized by Biglan’s (1973) typology of disciplines, have lower culturally responsive teaching scores. Of the organizational-level predictors used in HLM models, the selectivity of an institution was negatively associated with culturally responsive teaching, as was the percentage of Latinx students enrolled. For subject matter teaching, women faculty, tenure-track faculty, faculty who believe all students can excel, and those who spend additional time weekly preparing to teach have higher subject matter teaching scores. Faculty who teach a hard discipline, as characterized by Biglan’s (1973) typology of disciplines, and those who believe it is up to individual students to succeed have lower subject matter teaching scores. Of the organizational-level predictors, the percent of Latinx students enrolled in an institution had a negative association with subject matter teaching practices.

This dissertation qualitatively explores 55 Thai 4th grade students, a teacher, and 7 community members from a low-income public school in Bangkok, Thailand in order to develop a design framework for creating school-based maker experiences that are culturally relevant to lower income Thai students. Co-teaching and co designing a two-year design-based research project named, “Little Builders,” I worked with a local science teacher to engage the students in a constructionist learning experience that involved designing and building social innovations to solve problems in their community. I propose the Culturally Relevant Constructionist Design framework as a way to (1) create constructionist learning experiences that align with students’ values and goals, and (2) engage important people in the students’ lives, such as teachers and community members, in the process of making. Designing the learning experience for Thai students from 2017-2019, I draw from the life and work of the late King Bhumibol of Thailand. For 70 years, King Bhumibol was a unifying figure in Thailand and widely admired as “The Developer King” (Nicholas & Dominic, 2011) as he dedicated his life to creating inventions for the good of the country. Students “followed in the King’s footsteps” by making inventions to better their community in the midst of a nation-wide mourning period after the King’s death in 2016. This dissertation builds upon the literature from constructionism, sociocultural views of learning and identity development, community-centered making, and culturally relevant pedagogy. Little Builders provided opportunities for students, teachers, and community members to build projects and relationships. They learned about making while also learning more about each other and about how to support one another. During the Little Builders project, teachers and community members explicitly expressed new appreciation and awareness of students’ skills and strengths, gradually moving away from deficit narratives. Similarly, the students saw themselves as someone who could create and invent while helping others.

As schools have become more diverse ethnically and linguistically, the likelihood of cultural mismatches among students, families, and teachers has increased (Frank, 1999). Culturally relevant pedagogy has at its core the understanding that incorporating students‘ culture into the practices of the school and the classroom through culturally relevant curriculum is likely to improve student cooperation, inspire a greater understanding of the educational program, and increase academic outcomes (Brown, 2004). These pedagogies have the potential to be a vital tool toward closing the achievement gap, yet the practices associated with them are in danger of meeting the same fate as multicultural education. A lack of knowledge about the theory, practice, and implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy has led to ineffective attempts to meet the needs of students most at risk (White-Clark, 2005). Using the five themes of Critical Race Theory (Solórzano & Yosso, 2001) as the theoretical framework, the research examined how teachers perceive and implement culturally relevant pedagogy, and how students and their families perceive and evaluate these practices. This research conducted at a inner city, charter elementary school was grounded on Ladson-Billings‘ work on culturally relevant pedagogy and the three concepts of knowledge that she identified that teachers must bring to the classroom and impart to their students: a) Academic achievement, b) Cultural competence, and c) Sociopolitical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 2001). The educational significance of this study resides in an analysis of its potential to influence teaching practices in many existing classroom settings that have an ethnically diverse population of students. On a micro level, through the use of catalytic validity and ongoing dialogue with the participants, the potential arose for members of the school community to have greater input in the structuring of their children‘s education. As members of the school community engage in future decisions regarding culturally relevant strategies, these research findings offer them an informed and critical perspective to work from.

The purpose of this study was to examine technology integration and the application of Culturally Relevant Teaching (CRT). This inquiry evolved as a result of trying to understand the unique intersectionality of student identity, which is inclusive of youth culture, and whether teachers understood this dynamic and hence leveraged it in the classrooms and school communities they taught. Given that youth culture is a “mash-up of cultures and the membership transcends ethnic and racial lines,” there was evident value in exploring how youth cultural competence is unpacked and applied by educators to both deliver content and build relationships (Keuss, 2012), Understanding that a major youth cultural referent is technology, the study observed how teacher’s Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge manifested itself in the classroom and the types of technology students shared they were exposed to, in addition to their perceptions of teacher competence of technology and/or youth culture. This exploration was further framed by using a Culturally Relevant Teaching framework to analyze teacher-student interactions, based on the principles, behaviors and mindsets outlined by Ladson-Billings in her construction of defining the characteristics of a CRT educator (2009). This was a qualitative study that included 10 teachers and 20 student participants that were members of a technology-rich middle school in an urban environment. Teachers participated in classroom observations, interviews, and CRT reflective tasks. Students participated in grade-level focus groups that leveraged interactive and reflective tasks. As a result of the data analysis, implications from the study presents school leaders with practical insights on how technology integration can be woven into the fabric of the school to strengthen teacher development, support content delivery and enhance the quality of student learning experiences. Additionally, there is evidence of a need for commitment by schools to train teachers in Culturally Relevant Teaching practices in order to attend to the whole child, operate with a more student-centered approach, and adequately prepare scholars for the digital world. / Educational Administration

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One of the most critical issues impeding African American liberation today is the American education system, which overwhelmingly and disproportionately, negatively impacts African American youth. In defiance of the hegemonic system, African American adolescents have created alternative modes of expressing their native African sensibilities, connecting them back to traditional ancestral philosophy; one of the resulting cultural productions is Hip-Hop. The proceeding pages will offer a critical analysis of literature on Philosophy for Children (PFC/PWC), Africana Philosophy, and the use of Hip-Hop as a pedagogical tool in the classroom (CHHP), in order to discover connections between these three elements. The results showed significant similarities in the PFC/PWC and CHHP programs, supporting the hypothesis to develop a program incorporating both practices in the classroom as an alternative to Eurocentric pedagogy. Additionally this project creates space for future consideration of the connections between traditional Africana philosophy as praxis and Hip-Hop performance. / African American Studies