Thesis (Psy.D.)--Fairleigh Dickinson University, 2001. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 62-01, Section: B, page: 0597. Chairperson: Judith Kaufman. Available also in print.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4081. Adviser: Bonnie Armbruster. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-183) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Education, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-08, Section: A, page: 2923. Adviser: Jerome C. Harste.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2559. Adviser: Andrea Golato. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 169-177) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-04, Section: A, page: 1216. Advisers: Jesse H. Goodman; Mary B. McMullen. "Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 14, 2007)."

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Sociology, 2006. / "Title from dissertation home page (viewed June 27, 2007)." Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-06, Section: A, page: 2334. Adviser: Donna Eder.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Curriculum and Instruction / Michael Holen / Research shows the practice of incorporating English language learner (ELL) students’ native languages (L1) into instruction to be a major factor enhancing their success in school. In this study, 327 predominantly English-speaking (PES) teachers in the state of Kansas were surveyed on their perspectives and self-reported behaviors related to this practice. Participants were divided among three targeted teacher groups: pre-service teachers with no ESL-specific university preparation (PS), experienced teachers with no ESL-specific university preparation (No-ESL), and experienced teachers with significant (at least three courses) ESL-specific university preparation (C-ESL). Findings from descriptive analyses indicated that while teachers generally supported L1 use in instruction, they tended to show stronger support for its underlying theory than for its practical implementation. Results from a series of ANOVA’s suggested a clear link between ESL-specific university preparation and an increased support for the theory and practice of L1 use in instruction. Findings further suggested links among some combination of teaching experience and an increase in support for this practice. A series of inter-correlations produced various modest to moderate significant relationships among experienced teachers’ perspectives and demographic variables (gender, experience with ELL students). While both No-ESL and C-ESL teachers reported behaviors incorporating L1 use into instruction to some degree, results from independent samples t-tests showed that CESL teachers reported these behaviors significantly more often than No-ESL teachers. For both experienced teacher groups, inter-correlations showed modest to moderate significant relationships among a number of perspective items and behavior items. Results further indicated that although both groups shared some common relationships among variables, for the most part, the relationships shown to be significant varied considerably by group. Open-ended questions revealed a variety of approaches used by teachers as well as a number of obstacles perceived by teachers in incorporating L1 use in instruction. Findings from this study are discussed in relation to strategies and directions for teacher educators with the responsibility of preparing PES teachers to effectively serve increasing ELL student populations.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / John A. Hortin / This study focused on migrant parent involvement in the educational experience of their children. Specifically, the study investigated parent involvement in the domains of (1) Community Setting, (2) School Setting, (3) and Home Setting, and its relationship to student achievement in reading and mathematics assessments. Research has clearly indicated that parent involvement in the education processes of children is a critical facet to their academic success. Nevertheless, research has also indicated that parent involvement programming in educational institutions has been structured to address a stable, middle class, language and culturally homogeneous patron. Given the dynamics that impact migrant families, districts that are heavily impacted by migrant families must ameliorate parent involvement programming to address the unique needs of migrant families and their children. The participants in the study comprised 51 migrant families. The response rate for participation in the study consisted of 25% of the total migrant population within the school district. Data were gathered through a survey and an interview. Four research hypotheses were identified and tested. The procedure employed to test the strength of the relationship between the individual domains and the scores was the Pearson's Product-Moment Correlation. Additionally, a two-tailed test was used as the procedure for all hypotheses tested. The results indicated that there was not a significant relationship between the domains and student achievement scores. Nevertheless, there was variability among the students' achievement scores despite the level of involvement demonstrated by the parents. Therefore, based on the range of scores, student success was not predicated on the level of engagement that parents demonstrated on the survey. Other factors accounted for the academic success or failure of the student. These factors may have included constraints such as teacher training and dispositions, the level of second language development that the child possessed, and the resiliency of the student. Nevertheless, for students within the same family, where one student scored extremely high and the other child scored extremely low, parent involvement could have been the deciding variable that could have assisted the low scoring child succeed academically, if the parent training had taken into consideration the factors that impact migrant families.

Lao folk opera is a unique blend of popular theatre and sung poetry performed among Lao-speaking people of rural Southeast Asia for a wide range of social and religious purposes. As a traditional medium for popular education, its primary function has been to preserve the cultural identity of the ethnic Lao by re-enacting ancient myths, local folk legends, and morality tales based on the penultimate lives of the Buddha. This dissertation explores the role of Lao folk opera as a medium for constructively addressing problems of cultural conflict and acculturative stress that have arisen among lowland Lao refugees and their children in urban America. The central focus of the inquiry is on the ways Lao folk opera currently functions as a learning medium in the resettlement context. The need for validation of such locally produced endogenous media has become increasingly apparent as long term resettlement issues continue to emerge as threats to linguistic and cultural identity. The review of literature encompasses the role of oral specialists in traditional societies, Buddhist epistemology in the Theravada tradition, and community education in rural Lao culture. These sources provide the background necessary to an understanding of the medium's capacity for encapsulating culture and teaching ethical values in ways that connect past to present, distant to near. The field research, which was accomplished in collaboration with a Lao folk opera troupe based in New England, adapted the action research model originally proposed by Kurt Lewin to the principles of Buddhist community education. The videotaped performance of a drama based on the refugee experience and subsequent audience reactions formed the main body of qualitative data. Group reflections revealed that the medium provides a viable context for performance artists to assume the role of critical culture makers with a potent educational agenda. Recommendations include the encouragement of local media producers to take advantage of community access facilities to counteract the homogenizing influences of the dominant media and the more active inclusion of elders in the transfer of language and culture across generational borders.

This dissertation reports findings from a study of the social interactions of second graders as they engaged in daily periods of classroom free play. The purposes of the study were: (a) to examine how students used oral language and literacy practices to construct social identities and status relationships; and (b) to analyze how these everyday literacy practices and peer relations on the local level of the classroom were linked to broader, macrolevel social relations. The study focused on a group of children—consisting primarily of working-class Latina and African American girls—who played regularly in a play office that was set up in the comer of a Spanish-immersion classroom within an urban elementary school. Data collection included thirty-one hours of audio and videotape. Analysis consisted of thematic analysis fieldnotes, taped data, and students’ written artifacts, and microanalysis of key peer-play events. The microethnographic analysis combined Fairclough’s (1989; 1992) approach to critical discourse analysis with Bloome and Egan-Robertson’s (1993) framework for analyzing intertextuality as a social construction. The findings show that children used literacy practices, and formed complex play identities and relationships, which drew upon multiple discourses, including domestic family life, the adult workplace, the peer group, and romantic love. The results of the study were ambiguous and contradictory: girls defined themselves as strong females in their interactions with boys and in their fantasy play as ‘bosses’ of their own ‘companies’. However, their conceptions of being ‘boss’ were closely bound to performing clerical tasks and child care. Girls both sustained and resisted traditional love ideologies in the contradictory ways that they appropriated popular-culture texts. The results of the study indicate that peer-play literacy practices and social interactions are not politically neutral, but rather are deeply connected with how children form identities, status relationships, and ideologies of gender and class. Social theories of discourse need to develop more dynamic terms for adequately describing the complex, ambiguous, and contradictory processes in which subjectivities and relationships are constructed in children’s everyday peer play.