Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2009. / Vita. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 184-232).

Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on Feb 25, 2010). The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Dissertation advisor: Dr. Sandy Hutchinson. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.), Eastern Illinois University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 44-48).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--West Virginia University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 156 p. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 130-139).

Thesis (B.A.)--Haverford College, Dept. of Psychology, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Lehigh University, 2009. / Adviser: George J. DuPaul.

The purpose of this study was to explore parent-school interactions in an early childhood education setting from a micropolitical perspective. Relying on the interpretivist perspective, a case study was undertaken as the methodology for exploring the interests, conflicts, strategies, and the patterns of interactions between parents, teachers, and administrators. This research was conducted in a private non-profit community-based early childhood development center in central Texas. Data were gathered through interviews, observations, the school documents collection, and field notes. The researcher first portrayed a general image of parent-school interactions at the research setting, the Big Bend Child Development Center (BBCDC). The BBCDC created an open and friendly environment for children and their parents based on the center’s philosophy and the Developmentally Appropriated Practice guidelines. Most of the parent-school interactions happened in informal arenas. Administrators and teachers provided different ways to get parents involved, and daily communication played an important role in building relationships within the BBCDC. Moreover, parents actively got themselves involved. Under the context of the BBCDC, parents’ school choice, the non-deficit discourse, and the process of socialization helped to reduce tension between parents, teachers, and administrators. Three groups of participants developed their own strategies of working with each other. Two types of strategies were found, including day-to-day strategies and facing-conflict strategies. All the day-to-day strategies were also used during the process of managing conflicts. The day-to-day strategies were “preparatory strategies” (Malen & Cochran, 2008), which were employed to accumulate resources that might be converted to influence at a later time. By analyzing the strategies, the researcher found that relationships, information, and authority were all resources of power which these three groups of participants gave every effort to gain. Four patterns of politics were found in this study, including operating cooperation, facing conflict, preventing conflict, and suppressing conflict. The important roles of administrators and daily communication on the micropolitics of parent-school interactions were discussed. Based on the findings, the researcher suggested implications for early childhood education administrators, for early childhood education research from a micropolitical perspective, and for future research. / text

Educational policy increasingly prioritizes early intervention and enrichment for children from historically disadvantaged populations, and this push is relevant to Latino/a children, especially those from language minority families. Beyond increasing the enrollment of such children in early education programs, the highly variable nature of the programs serving them has been a concern. To address this concern, this dissertation provides a picture of the instructional settings of children from Latino/a language minority families. Following a mixed methods strategy, statistical analyses of national data provide an overview of the intensity of reading and math instructional practices in preschool and kindergarten classrooms serving children from Latino/a language minority families, and then qualitative analyses of local data parse out the interactional quality of instruction in primarily Spanish-speaking classrooms as well as the challenges teachers faced in their instructional mission. Findings revealed that, although children from Latino/a language minority families appeared to be advantaged in terms of frequencies of many instructional practices at the national level, they appeared to be at a disadvantage in terms of instructional quality at the local level, possibly reflecting teachers' perceptions that issues of language and literacy, the socioeconomic background of students, and difficulties connecting to parents complicated their instructional abilities / text

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A central problem in community colleges' developmental education programs concerns the over-emphasis on basic skills instruction to the possible exclusion of higher order thinking. Although the ability to read, write, and compute establishes an indispensable foundation for future academic success, basic skills instruction alone does not teach students how to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate ideas--all of which are imperative in the global, knowledge-based economy where creative thinking constitutes the primary form of capital. The purpose of this study, therefore, was to synthesize creativity research and developmental education by investigating the significance of creative thinking in developmental courses taught at Florida Community College at Jacksonville's Kent Campus. To fulfill the study's purpose, the researcher employed a qualitative research design and methodology through which she explored the perspectives and practices of twelve participants selected through stratified purposeful sampling. Representing different disciplines, the participants varied in their instructional classification (full-time versus part-time) and developmental teaching experience. Having designed a basic interpretive qualitative study, the researcher, as a human instrument, sought to understand the participants' perceptions regarding the importance of promoting creativity in developmental courses; the characteristics of classroom environments that facilitate creative thinking; as well as the instructional approaches and methods that foster such thinking. By triangulating the data collection through interviews, observations, and document analyses and by obtaining member checks of the interviews from the participants, the researcher endeavored to enhance the trustworthiness of the findings. Presented in the rich, thick description distinctive of qualitative analysis, the study revealed that the enthusiastic, caring, and learner-centered participants possessed the personality characteristics necessary for the cultivation of creative thinking among students. Despite being intended to promote the acquisition of basic skills, many of the participants' approaches and methods, particularly the use of personalized instruction, verbal praise, cooperative learning, and figurative language, could also be employed to establish learning environments that facilitate creative thinking. Upon reviewing the data, the researcher made recommendations designed to contribute to the limited body of knowledge about the synthesis of creativity research and developmental education. / text