Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Education, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-01, Section: A, page: 0113. Adviser: Edward P. St. John. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 24, 2007)."

Thesis (Ed.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4119. Adviser: Steven Aragon. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 152-159) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

<p> The inability of California Community Colleges to produce equitable outcomes for Latina/o and African American students, and provide a successful pathway to higher education, is an educational problem. Although research shows many factors influence student success in community colleges, many of those factors are directly influenced by the availability of resources to support a variety of services, programmatic offerings, transformational practices, and quality facility and staff. The primary hypotheses of this study pertained to whether spending patterns differed with respect to either equity considerations, or to student outcomes. It was observed that colleges which considered equity in their budgetary decisions spent a significantly higher percentage of their core expenditures on academic support than did no-equity colleges however equity considerations were not observed to be related to student outcomes. Student outcome did not show significant relationships with most expenditure types, except lower expenditures on other core expenses were predictive of higher Student Progress and Attainment Rate, after controlling for input/environmental variables.</p>

<p><i>Legum Magister</i>, or LL.M., degrees have come under increasing criticism in recent years in the United States. Observers have accused law schools of offering these and other graduate law degrees simply to increase revenue, and argue that they provide no value to graduates as they are not respected in the traditional legal services market. Despite these negative appraisals, the number, size, and types of these programs have continued to grow rapidly. While much has been written criticizing this growth, almost nothing has been written on how and why these programs came into existence, even though a number of law schools claim that their programs were founded over a century ago. As graduate law programs continue to blossom and law schools attempt to address the rising tide of criticism aimed at them, law school leaders would be well advised to examine the origin and history of these degrees. Is it possible that law schools have been hoodwinking innocent lawyers into getting a useless degree for decades? Who were these degrees originally intended for and who ultimately chose to matriculate into these programs? What were the curricula for these programs like? </p><p> Through historical analysis and archival research, this case study of the development of graduate law programs at the University of Pennsylvania reveals that they were founded in response to a perceived need to make the study of law more scholarly, and to ensure that law school training was not wholly confined to the necessities of legal practice. These programs arose amidst a drive toward professionalization and standardization at the turn of the twentieth century that was visible across a wide sector of American society, and reflected one aspect of the long simmering tension between those who viewed law as a scholarly enterprise much like philosophy or political science, and those who viewed it as a trade, to be mastered like medicine or engineering. This disagreement persists to the present day and an examination of the origins of graduate programs vividly illustrates that the study of law has meant different things to different people from the earliest days of legal education. </p>

<p> &ldquo;Unescorted Guests&rdquo; provides a richly detailed portrait of a fundamental change at one US institution: Yale University&rsquo;s 1969 transition from an all-men&rsquo;s to a coed college. This study disputes several dominant narratives about the 1970s youth and women&rsquo;s movements, and deepens our understanding of three core issues in higher education research: access, the experiences of previously excluded students, and change towards greater equity. I contest the myth of alumni as foes to coeducation, and show that the greatest opposition to equity for women came instead from Yale&rsquo;s president and trustees. I document how women students, absent as powerful figures in youth movement history, played a key role in pushing change at Yale. I show how women administrators, missing from standard social movement depictions of change, created power to advance equity despite efforts to undermine them. I chronicle the key role played by the federal government and the broader women&rsquo;s movement in advancing change for women at Yale, and conversely the ways that Yale used its power to slow progress for women. I challenge, through multiple sources of evidence, the idea that access alone brought equity for women. </p><p> &ldquo;Unescorted Guests&rdquo; also provides for the first time a comparison of the experiences and activism of black and white women students in a predominantly white college, a description of the sexual harassment and assault experienced by women at an elite college in the early 1970s, a joint portrait of women administrators and students at a newly coeducational institution, and 1970s student outcome data broken out by race, class, and gender. Lastly, this study contributes to the literature through using archival evidence, interviews, and contemporary press absent in earlier studies, most notably those providing the voices of women; showing how theory can strengthen the trustworthiness of historical narrative; and probing the practical implications of this historical study.</p><p>

<p> By the end of the nineteenth century, the momentum for the idea of a more practical education better suited to life in a modern, technological world brought the first educational reform movements in the nation. Concurrent reform efforts at the state and national levels influenced both the historical development of Earth science education and the status of the Earth sciences in New York State&rsquo;s secondary schools. Three themes received increasing attention: 1) the nature and college acceptance of the subjects in the secondary courses of study, 2) the time allocation for the subjects, and 3) the emergence and expectation of the incorporation of laboratory and fieldwork. These themes were also prevalent in discussions within the national committees that were meeting at the time. </p><p> The historical richness of educational reform efforts during the late 1800s and the early 1900s establishes an important foundation upon which the Earth sciences are grounded. To understand the influences that shaped the Earth science syllabus into its present form, and to establish a framework upon which recommendations for future curricular development can be made, an analysis of the origin and evolution of secondary Earth science is warranted. The research presented in this thesis explores the historical framework of the individual core Earth science topics (physical geography, geology, astronomy, and meteorology), beginning in 1865 with the introduction of the intermediate level physical geography Regents examination and ending in 1910 with the loss of astronomy and geology as accepted high school graduation courses. The chronological structure of this study is intended to establish a set of specific historical events that contributed to the present curricular structure of New York State&rsquo;s Earth science course.</p><p>

<p> The development of character is one of the objectives of the American educational system. This historical study examined the debate over character education in the 1920s, a decade in which Americans were especially committed to creating moral youth. Specifically, this study investigated the character education work of Edwin Milton Fairchild from 1893 to 1939 and how his work reflects the tension between conservative progressives and liberal progressives in the early twentieth century. Primary source and archived documents such as journal articles, personal correspondences, ephemera, and photographs were used to conduct this study. As a result of this study, it was determined that Edwin Milton Fairchild was a pioneer of secular moral education in America and that the current controversy surrounding how character education should be taught in schools has roots that were established a century ago. The work of Edwin Milton Fairchild during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries played an important role in the secularization of moral education and is a prism through which the debate over character education among progressives can be better understood.</p><p>

This thesis is an examination of Sunday School and the transition of the institution from a society-based program to a church-based program. Primary emphasis is given to Sunday School’s placement under church leadership and the change in purpose that impacted Sunday School’s functionality. Although there were many contributing factors for this transition, this thesis proposes that two—the rise in wide-spread mass education and the shift from paid to gratuitous teachers—are significant factors which contributed to the shift of Sunday School from society to the church. Religious education became one of the main purposes of Sunday School when it transitioned into the church.

<p> Historically Black Colleges and Universities have historically been given less funding than White institutions, a known discrepancy partially rectified by the Civil Rights era desegregation lawsuits. The court-ordered funding, however, came with race-based restrictions for public HBCUs, and many lost academic programs to traditionally White institutions. In numerous situations, Black colleges were closed outright or merged with White institutions. The following study explores the unique case of an HBCU coerced into merging an academic unit with a neighboring historically White university. Using archival data and interviews from the HBCU administrators, the case study presents a narrative of how the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University &ndash; Florida State University partnership was formed, explores the partnership&rsquo;s development over time, and examines differences between the mission and practices of the joint venture from FAMU&rsquo;s perspective.</p><p>