<p> 21^st Century skills such as critical-thinking and problem-solving skills are very important when it comes to Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics or STEM. But those same skills should be integrated in social studies. The impact of students&rsquo; learning in social studies as a result of implementing inquiry-based instructional strategies was the problem investigated in the study. Participants in the study included 22 third-grade African-American students in a self-contained classroom in a large urban school system. Instrumental apparatus used in the study were a pre- and post- survey, a frequency behavior checklist, and a 4-point rubric. Students were given a pre- and post- survey to assess their perception of their inquiry skills before and after the study. Observable behaviors were recorded over the next eight weeks. The research design chosen for the study was action research using a mixed-methods approach because action research was commonly used by teachers because of its practicality. The impact of students&rsquo; learning in social studies as a result of implementing inquiry-based instructional strategies was that there was no impact between the inquiry-based instructional strategies and student achievement in social studies among 3^rd grade students based on the data from the Inquiry-Based Instructional Strategies 4-point rubric and the Inquiry-based Instructional Strategies Frequency Behavior Checklist. As a result, implications of the study include improving teacher pedagogy in inquiry-based learning and instructional strategies and more professional development in project-based learning and integration in social studies, and using current events to make social studies relevant.</p><p>

This dissertation examines state-level efforts to mandate the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools, especially following 9/11. Despite longstanding Supreme Court precedent declaring mandatory flag salutes unconstitutional, various state legislatures sought to institute or strengthen pledge mandates irrespective of students’ civil liberties. Driven by personal conceptions of patriotism, fears about cultural unity, and desires for political advantage, legislators pushed to institute new pledge mandates or defend existing ones without substantive consideration of their impact on students and schools. While the full impact of these laws has not yet been seen, some students have experienced harsh discipline and bullying due to pledge mandates, school personnel have needed to negotiate constitutionally questionable state law, and legislative persistence has yielded political victories and also resulted in an 11th Circuit-endorsed qualification of students’ civil liberties regarding compelled pledging. Using historical methods, this dissertation examines efforts to mandate and/or enforce pledging primarily following 9/11. Case-study locations include Minnesota, which experienced a three-year battle over its mandate legislation; Colorado, which attempted to curtail opt-out rights of both students and teachers; and Pennsylvania and Florida, both of which undertook court cases to protect state laws that constrained students’ rights to freedom of expression regarding the pledge. In designing this study, I expected mandate supporters to be advocating a form of civic education labeled by scholar Joel Westheimer as "authoritarian patriotism" and mandate opponents to be advocating a different form of civic education, labeled by Westheimer as "democratic patriotism." I assumed the debate over mandated pledging would largely be a debate over the best form of civic education that was already occurring in schools. While echoes of these debates occasionally occurred, legislators rarely addressed the educational aspects of this issue or its relationship to citizenship development. Instead, legislators emphasized broader concerns about threats to the culture and unity of the nation and focused frequently on gaining political advantage. In essence, little consideration was given to the effects of these laws on students and schools; instead, these legislative debates and laws served more as symbolic ammunition in what other scholars have identified as the "culture wars.” / Education Policy, Leadership, and Instructional Practice

In this dissertation, I undertake a sequential analysis of an elaborate system of forces that contribute to the production of history textbooks in Pakistan. I review longitudinal series of data on education policies and history textbooks from 1938-2012, and examine the decision-making processes, which inform said policies and textbooks, at the federal, provincial and local levels of government in Pakistan. My analysis is grounded in a particular understanding of religious nationalism and identity politics which is essential in conceptualizing religious political extremism and its role in defining what it means to be “Islamic” in context of history education in Pakistan. Findings suggest that a history textbook in Pakistan is produced by seven highly influential and complex variables: (1) Religious ideology: religious ideological direction set through federal education policy, and the international pressures and domestic political events that inform this policy; (2) Identity politics: the scope of identity that the state mandates for its citizens, including the resistance to that scope as captured by student interaction with textbook content; (3) Military revisionism: war narratives and the state’s reconciliation with its past; (4) Political power: perceptions, leadership, and exclusionary tactics; (5) Financial vulnerabilities; (6) Systemic inefficiencies; and (7) Past history textbooks, in how they empower certain interest groups which inhibit curriculum development and revised conceptions of history. My analysis reveals that while state sponsored curriculum material is used for the purpose of solidifying the relationship between religion and state, the content, the process, and the constantly shifting narrative of religious nationalism, selected from a multitude of narratives, are products of strategic choices that may well employ religion but are not entirely religiously motivated. Consequently, I propose the possibility that history education in Pakistan does not foster religious nationalism for the sake of religion, but uses religion as one tool amongst many, to further secular, political, and nationalistic objectives. / Education Policy, Leadership, and Instructional Practice

America’s schools were founded on the principle that a democratic nation needed informed, active, and knowledgeable citizens in order to realize the promise of democracy. Over the last 400 years, we have lost our way. Today’s schools do a poor job of preparing our students to be engaged, open-minded, and purposeful participants in a system of government that cannot thrive without their meaningful involvement. The costs of our neglect are significant and evidenced by growing economic, social, and political disparities that threaten our core values and ideals. Fortunately, all hope is not lost. We know that quality civic education programming can be a powerful tool in shaping youth into the citizens we need. We also know that effective civic education programming can lead to a host of desired outcomes at the individual, school, and community levels. Unfortunately, we also know that this type of programming rarely finds its way into schools. My strategic project with Community Law in Action, a Baltimore nonprofit organization, first focuses on how I designed and implemented one particularly promising type of civic education programming, youth organizing. Youth organizing empowers and values youth by offering them the opportunity to authentically engage in the process of bringing change to their communities. I discuss the best practices in youth organizing programming and reflect on the challenges and successes I encountered in introducing youth organizing into a classroom of juniors at a large, urban high school. The second stage of my project addresses the thorny issue of how to scale a successful program within the broader civic education sector. I begin by describing the obstacles that can impair any effort to scale within the civic education sector and make recommendations for sector-level solutions with a focus on establishing a more compelling value proposition for civic education generally. I then draw upon scaling research and theory to outline how a small nonprofit can develop a robust youth organizing model capable of successfully scaling within the sector.

This study examines the representations of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis geographies within a contemporary grade-nine Canadian geography textbook. Although First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples have lived on the territory now known as Canada for thousands of years, in the past two hundred years, with the exception of some place names, colonialism has worked to largely remove evidence of their presence from the landscape and to exclude them from the dominant narratives of Canadian geography. In this study, I conduct a critical discourse analysis of a textbook currently approved by the Ontario Ministry of Education's Trillium List for the compulsory grade-nine applied-level Canadian geography course: Canadian Geography: A Sense of Place. First, I consider how the textbook creates knowledge of First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples and their geographies. Next, I examine how this creation compares to the textbook's representation of Canadians. Finally, I explore what an Aboriginal geography might look like and how Aboriginal perspectives could be incorporated into the text. The grade-nine Canadian geography course is the only mandatory geography course for students in the applied stream. If students do not continue with geography, the text they use in this course or used by the teacher to organize this course will be their last exposure to geography texts and formal discussions of Aboriginal geographies. This textbook is important because for many students, it will be the only time in their lives that they are systematically exposed to knowledge about First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples. While there are attempts at inclusion, old misrepresentations appear again in new forms within this textbook. A major task of this textbook is constructing the nation and presenting a nationalized geography.

<p> In light of earlier research pertaining to empathy, it is reasonable to believe that certain teachers feel empathic toward students in remedial classrooms. It is also evident that teacher empathy is something that students relish. However, a perceived lack of teacher empathy among students in remedial classes is a concern. The general problem addressed in the study was the effect of teachers&rsquo; lack of empathy on remedial college students&rsquo; perceptions of teacher&ndash;student conflict. The specific problem addressed in the study was the limited research on the impact of teachers&rsquo; empathy on remedial students&rsquo; perceptions. The purposes of the study were to understand remedial students&rsquo; perceptions of teachers&rsquo; empathy and to assess the perceived impact of lack of teacher empathy on teacher&ndash;student conflict. Participants consisted of 10 students enrolled at Cuyahoga Community College remedial English classes in Cleveland, Ohio. The phenomenological study explored the lived experiences and perceptions of these students in developmental/remedial classes. Students participated in face-to-face recorded interviews. Data were analyzed using NVivo software. Four main themes and several subthemes emerged from the data. Recommendations were offered to help facilitate resolution of teacher&ndash;student conflicts that may emerge out of perceived lack of teacher empathy.</p>

In this phenomenological investigation, a qualitative approach to research methodology is utilized to explore the resiliency experiences of Black, Indigenous, people of color counselors in training (N = 12) at historically or predominantly White institutions. The participants represent multiple regions of the United States, spanning from the northeastern United States to the Pacific Northwest. Five themes were uncovered as a result of the interviews: (1) strategies for resiliency; (2) experiences with discrimination and oppression; (3) experiences of allyship and affirmation; (4) awareness of intersections and identity; and (5) call to action. I offer suggestions for ways to increase BIPOC student resiliency as well as increase student retention within counselor education programs and recommendations for creating nurturing and equitable classrooms to provide safety for marginalized students within counselor education programs.

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