This year-long ethnographic study focuses on six Spanish dominant, English as a second language learners in an English mainstream kindergarten classroom. The study is based on a theoretical framework which views language as the site of social meaning construction and power negotiations (Fairclough, 1989). Four broad research questions address the local meanings of bilingualism, gender, and friendship and how the ideologies, identities, and social relationships relevant to these socially constructed discourses impact language learners. Broad, mid, and micro level analyses are conducted using standard interpretive analytic procedures. Findings are presented regarding the meanings of the local discourses of bilingualism, gender, and friendship and their implications for the English as a second language learners in the study. Findings indicate that: (1) Bilingualism was not highly valued in this setting and provided no status, and possibly reduced status, to the Spanish dominant students within their mainstream English dominant peer group, in spite of the classroom teacher's efforts to the contrary. (2) The children's gender ideology, which emphasized gender segregation and gender differences, limited the children's relationships, participation in whole class events, and interaction with opposite gender peers. Boys dominated public discussions and constructed themselves as superior to girls. (3) Friendship was highly valued among all the children. Friend relationships were less accessible to the Spanish dominant children due to a variety of contextual constraints. As a result they were not always able to claim the high status identity of close friend in the mainstream classroom. (4) The differing identities related to bilingualism, gender, and friendship had differing consequences for the children in the classroom. Implications of the study for second language learners, teachers, institutions, and the field of second language acquisition are presented. It is argued that a focus on effective second language instruction and language acquisition alone are inadequate for understanding and addressing complex learning environments and the needs of language learners. The consequences of the meanings of local discourses and their inherent power dynamics impact students' identities, classroom participation, access to relationships, access to knowledge, and ultimately their investment in school. A critical analysis of local discourses, their power relations, and meanings is suggested as a means of changing classroom practice when both students and teachers are involved in this process.

At Bridge Street School in Northampton, Massachusetts, all Grade 4 students in three classes were trained as peer mediators. The purpose of this study was to investigate and evaluate how elementary school students perceive the usefulness of their peer mediation training and whether they were able to incorporate mediation skills into their lives. Trainees practiced respectful communication, studied conflict, discussed options for nonviolent resolution, and participated in role plays to learn peer mediation techniques. Data gathered from written student pre, mid and post assessment documents was analyzed to determine student perceptions and responses about program effectiveness, specifically, the value, usefulness, and impact of their training. Feedback from teachers, principal, and parents provided supplemental program assessment data and ideas for curriculum enhancement. This study did not attempt to measure a reduction of violence or violent behavior. By the conclusion of the training, research findings and statistical comparisons document that Grade 4 students: (1) Recognized that skills learned and practiced during their peer mediation training were helpful and useful; (2) Reported immediate implementation of mediation skills for problem solving during school and non-school time; (3) Listed peers and family as primary resources for assistance with conflict; (4) Identified themselves as problem solvers on an open-ended question; and (5) Indicated they would choose peer mediation for conflict resolution, if needed, appropriate, or available. The aggregate research statistics of the training Class of 1997 were summarized, analyzed and compared to aggregate data from the Bridge Street School Training Classes of 1995, 1996, and 1998 that had the same trainer, similar training curriculum, and identical questions on similarly administered self-assessments. Multi-year comparisons expanded this research into a 4-year local study. The research findings strongly support that grade 4 students are capable of understanding and implementing skills learned during peer mediation training. As volunteer school peer mediators or not, everyone can provide valuable community service modeling, promoting and assisting with peaceful conflict resolution. Teaching all students about respectful dispute management and providing them opportunities for integrating learning into classroom and personal life experiences can be a valuable component of elementary school violence prevention education.

After fifteen years of education reform efforts since the publication of A Nation at Risk, a single most effective system of educating elementary school students has not yet emerged. What have emerged are several models of instructional practice and student grouping that show some promise. Is our inability to agree on a single best system for all our students mean that there is no one best system? Recent attention to providing choices for families has fueled this debate. This case study examines a suburban school district's twenty-six year history with an open enrollment system of choice. Little attention has been paid in the literature to intradistrict choice as a way to restructure public schools. By documenting the journey of this district's attempts to offer choices to its families, a context has been set in which a discussion of this option within public schools can take place. Several questions guided this study in order to provide the reader with a context in which this discussion can take place: (1) How did choice start (i.e., what precipitated it, who was involved in making it a reality)? (2) What are the choices that are offered, and how do parents and staff make them? (3) How has it evolved over time? (4) What enables it to continue? (5) What inhibits it from working as well as it could or should? (6) How do the participants feel about the choice system? (7) How does it impact the community as a whole? (8) Does the reality of choice live up to the promise? (9) How will this study inform future discussions? These questions are answered in the context of a review of the education reform literature. The study includes classroom observations, participant interviews, and document review. The data gathered through this process provide a thematic analysis of the issues inherent in an open enrollment system. From this context, implications for other school districts are discussed. The stories of the participants will bring added insight to the practical issues of design and implementation of a choice system for public elementary schools.

This study examined elementary students' perceptions of portfolios and identified instructional strategies that supported students' higher order thinking about portfolios. The participants were 22 students and their teachers from two third grade classrooms during the 1998–1999 school year. Data collection included: student and teacher interviews, classroom and parent/teacher conference observations, portfolio artifacts, teacher logs, and consultations with teachers. Student interviews were coded and scored according to each student's depth of insight. Data were analyzed using the constant comparison method for qualitative analysis. Student interviews were coded using The Ethnograph software program. Two themes were derived from the data: portfolios contribute to third grade students' ability to self-reflect and to the development of students' sense of ownership in the classroom. Results of this study indicated that students used portfolios to monitor their progress, students made judgments based on physical features, choice was a factor in the portfolio process and, instructional strategies supported higher order thinking.

The focus of this study is to understand how students in one second-grade class utilized the social justice principle that they had been taught, to help them negotiate social tensions during Writing Workshop time. I studied the interactions and the writings of children while they composed and they shared their writing with their peers. Although there may be many types of tension present within an elementary classroom, I studied issues related to gender, culture, and friendship and trust. Theoretical constructs supporting this study were derived from grounded theory and sociolinguistic theory. Data collected during daily writing times throughout the school year included: personal student profiles; participant observer field notes; video and audio taped student conversations and student interviews; photographs of student interactions; and photocopies of students' writing. There were three principal findings about students' writings and social interactions during Writing Workshop times. First, students demonstrated within their writing the inclusion of a social justice principle that they were taught, but not in respect to culture. Although there were no negative cases of cultural stereotyping within the students' writing, there were also no cases of positive cultural images displayed. Second, students did not utilize the social justice principle in their conversations to help them negotiate tensions. Third, students' social status among peers influenced their behaviors and their decisions when they were faced with tensions during Writing Workshop. Norms associated with student social status had a stronger effect on their behavior than those from the social justice principle which they were taught. This study suggests the importance of including a social justice component within the Writing Workshop model. It further suggests that objectives be included that bring to the attention of all members of the community the presence of children's social status. It was the influence of student status within this classroom that affected the ways that children have access to learning and that limited participation for some of the students. Direct teacher instruction in social justice may insure that the Writing Workshop is positive and productive for all members of the classroom.

The purpose of this study was to examine elementary students' perspectives of a constructivist approach to enhance their knowledge about stress. Participants were fifth grade students in an elementary school in the northeast. Data collection included a pretest-posttest, teacher reflective journal and student interviews. A multiple choice pre-test was administered to students to obtain information about students' knowledge of stress. The pre-test was followed by a four day unit that focused on the concept of stress employing a constructivist approach. The four day unit was monitored in two ways. First, a daily reflective journal was recorded by the teacher about each lesson. Second, students were interviewed at the end of the unit regarding their perceptions of learning through a constructivist approach. A post-test was administered to evaluate students' knowledge. Data analysis for the pre-test consisted of descriptive statistics. The teaching reflective journal and students' interviews were analyzed using constant-comparison. An overview of the results of the study indicates that students reported increased self awareness, appreciation, and understanding of the feelings of others, and enhanced appreciation of human relations from the unit. Other findings indicate that the females scored higher on the pre and post test than the males. Both the individual groups of males and females improved as a result of the unit. The implications of this study may provide educators with insights into the possible effectiveness of a constructivist approach to teaching various health concepts.

Currently, students in Massachusetts are under pressure to pass Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) testing in order to advance to the next grade or to receive a graduation diploma. The major purpose of this research is to determine upper elementary teachers' perceptions regarding the usefulness of Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) testing for improving the learning of third, fourth, and fifth grade public school students. Specifically, the research questions that guide this study are: (1) To what extent do upper elementary teachers perceive the WAS test inclusive of important learning being taught in their classroom? (2) To what extent do upper elementary teachers think WAS testing contributes to improvements in student learning? (3) What do upper elementary teachers report to be the positive and negative impacts of WAS testing on curriculum and instruction? (4) Why do upper elementary teachers prefer to continue or eliminate MCAS testing as a means for improving student learning? The schools participating in this study came from 254 randomly selected elementary schools in Massachusetts. A total of 310 third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers were selected from 41 diverse public schools that represented 12 of all 14 counties within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Teacher Perception Survey, which included 66 Likert scale items and the Teacher Perception Interview, which consisted of four interview questions were used to gather data for answering the four research questions. Data for research question one suggest that teachers did not consider MCAS testing to be inclusive of important learning being taught in the their classroom. Data for research question two reveal that teachers do not consider MCAS testing as a major reason for improvements in student learning. Data for research question three imply that teachers' view MCAS testing as having more negative than positive impacts on curriculum and instruction. Data for research question four suggest that teachers' preference for eliminating MCAS testing is more extreme than their desire to keep MCAS testing as a means for improving student learning. Seventy-seven percent of participating teachers indicate a preference for eliminating MCAS testing.

This critical ethnographic study explores the possibilities and challenges of dialogue across differences within a school-university partnership between a state university and a low-achieving urban elementary school. The focal point of the study is the dialogue (reflection and action) that occurred in a focus group composed of school and university educators, parents, and community members. The study uses “third space” as a metaphor and theoretical lens to illuminate how dialogue complicates understanding through the collision of multiple perspectives, and, in some cases, produces a hybrid consciousness that results in novel action. In addition, the study draws on the postmodern notion of discourses to show how societal discourses permeate the multiple perspectives that constitute “third space.” The findings of this study suggest that creating a time apart from normal routine, positioning participants as learners and co-inquirers, and expecting and valuing different perspectives contribute to a dialogue process and to the building of parity among participants. Moreover, multiple and different viewpoints are crucial for complicating understanding in ways that lead to a hybrid consciousness that has the possibility of creating new agency. This study shows that the potential for hybrid understanding and negotiated agency is diminished when participants draw on primarily middle class discourses. The study concludes that a commitment to issues of social justice must occur at several levels of a partnership: (1) gathering a diverse group of participants whose perspectives are shaped by dominant and non-dominant discourses; (2) posing questions about the school context and teaching/learning practices in relation to sociocultural, political messages; (3) participating in social action that addresses the political and economic factors that produce inequities in schooling.

School climate has been described as “the set of internal characteristics that distinguish one school from another and influence the behaviors of each school’s members” (Hoy, Smith & Sweetland, 2005). In the landmark study by Brookover, Schneider, Beady, Flood and Wisebaker (1978), school climate was found to be a more significant factor in student achievement than the variables of race and socioeconomic status. Principals need training in the phenomena of school climate and to develop the skills needed to alter it as needed for the benefit of students. This phenomenological study explored the conceptual understanding of school climate by experienced elementary school principals. Further, the study sought to identify strategies used by experienced leaders to manipulate the school climate under the conditions imposed by standards-based curricula and high-stakes testing. Specific efforts were made to distinguish between the terms school climate and school culture that are often used interchangeably in the research and by practitioners. The findings indicate that many of the principals had an understanding of school climate consistent with the research. In most cases, these principals were still involved in coursework, extensive professional development or were avid readers of professional literature. It was also determined that principals who possess an understanding of the phenomena of school climate also acted with intention in efforts to alter it. For the roughly twenty five percent of the principals who did not have a conceptual understanding of school climate, their leadership had an accidental influence on it. For the benefit of all learners in all schools, all principals need pre-service training and support in school climate and its cultivation.

School feeding programs enhance the efficiency of the education system by improving enrollment, reducing dropouts and increasing perseverance. They also have the potential to reach the poor, directly making them an effective social safety net. In many low-resource countries, school feeding programs are designed to protect children from the effects of hunger. Unfortunately, the continuity of such programs is threatened by over-reliance on external funding. Given the patterns of withdrawal of external support, countries that rely on donor funds to implement such programs need to develop plans that will move them from external to localized support. It is well documented that programs that involve community members are self-sustaining. Regrettably, even though community members are involved in school feeding programs in Malawi, their participation is restricted to food storage and preparation and doesn't include decision making. Thus the transition plan for Malawi has to deliberately involve community members and influence them to take ownership of the school feeding programs. This dissertation explored the use of Social Marketing, a strategy for influencing behavior change that applies traditional marketing techniques to persuade a target audience to adopt, adapt, maintain or reject a behavior for the benefit of individuals, groups, or society as a whole to plan school food programs in Malawian primary schools. Using focus groups and individual interview techniques, I carried out a qualitative study at a primary school in Malawi where the community has initiated a school feeding program with the aim of understanding the barriers and benefits of supporting such an initiative from the community members' perspective. The results show that the cost of producing food, particularly the use of chemical fertilizer, is the main barrier whilst ensuring that all children regardless of social-economic status have access to a meal at school is the drive behind this initiative. The Social Marketing campaign therefore focuses on promoting the use of eco-san toilets whose output is humanure in this school community so as to minimize the cost of producing food to ensure sustainability of this initiative.