The problem with which this investigation was concerned was that of determining whether role playing could be used successfully to help elementary school children clarify selected values claims. The changes in children's values claims were measured by using the Semantic Differential developed by Osgood and others. This study had a threefold purpose. The first was to determine if children's values claims in the third grade could be changed by a concentrated program of role playing. The second was to determine whether children's values claims in the fifth grade could be changed by a concentrated program of role playing. The third was to determine if there was a difference in the amount of change in third- and fifth-grade children's values claims after both grades had experienced a concentrated program of role playing. The following conclusions were reached: (1) Role playing experiences can be used successfully to change third-grade children's values claims in respect to the concepts of honesty and consideration of others. (2) Whether role playing can be used successfully with third-grade children to change their values claims in regard to respect for property is open to question. (3) Whether role playing can be used successfully with fifth-grade children to change their values claims in regard to honesty, consideration of others, and respect for property is open to question. The study implied that (1) role playing may be more effective with children in the third grade than with children in the fifth grade, (2) role playing may be more effective with some values claims than with others, (3) though the changes made by the fifth grade after role-playing experiences were not significant, they were in the positive direction. Consequently it is entirely possible that role playing could have been more effective with the fifth grade under differing circumstances, (4) significant changes in values occur slowly, and programs to change values should be extended over long periods of time.

Research has demonstrated various ways of improving academic performance of students in public-school classrooms (e.g., Barrish, Saunders, & Wolf, 1969), some of which may be clinically effective but not practical within present school systems. A more practical method is the use of a program involving home-based contingencies. Home-based contingencies simply means that: When children are reinforced by their parents for their appropriate behavior and performance at school, school behavior and performance will improve (Broughton, Barton, & Owen;. 1981). The current study employed a program including home-based contingencies modeled after one created by Shumaker, Hovell, and Sherman (1977), and tested the program's effect on academic performance of disadvantaged middle school youths. The independent variable was the home-based contingency component of the program, and the dependent variables were daily report cards, grades, truancy, attendance, and archival data reflecting previous grades, truancy, and attendance. Results indicated that the home-based contingency program significantly increased appropriate school behavior (t(25) = 13.85, p<0.00), but, did not have any substantial impact on grades (t(2) = 1.53, p>0.08), truancy, or attendance.

This thesis is an examination of the material covered by a sixth - grade health education course and indicates areas requiring improvement. Data for the thesis came from DeQueen Elementary School in Port Arthur, Texas.

This thesis examines the personality, social, and physical needs of children attending the second grade at Horace Mann School in Amarillo, Texas.

This thesis addresses a recent development of elementary school children. Curriculum shifted from societal need toward the particular interests and needs of children is supported by the author.

This dissertation examines how changing neighborhoods and the rise of urban school choice policies shape the experiences of parents raising young children. Drawing on 102 interviews with parents of elementary-aged children across New York City, descriptive network and geographic data from parent surveys, and four years of ethnographic observations of school district meetings, I answer four interrelated questions. First, how do parents integrate their sense of self into their school decision-making rationales? Second, how do ideologies around intensive mothering shape the particular experiences of mothers as they navigate school decision-making? Third, how do parents construct school decision-making networks that they draw on for advice and what are the spatial and geographic features of these networks? Lastly how do parents develop assessments of economically-disadvantaged neighborhoods and how do these evaluations guide their parenting strategies and childrearing logics? Through this research, I make four theoretical contributions. I examine parent decision-making standpoints and demonstrate how parents construct their identities through school decision-making. My findings suggest that socioeconomic differences shape how parents construct their identity as they make school decisions. Working-class parents primarily draw on their past school experiences while middle-class parents integrate their stance for equity into their school decisions. I find that parents across socioeconomic background center their parenting ideals on cultivating their child’s creativity and individuality and seek schools that will nurture their child’s identity. Second, I conceptualize the particular emotional labor mothers expend as they make school decisions. I find that mothers extend emotional labor in their search for schools for their children. Working-class mothers extend emotional labor at the beginning of the application process as they attempt to navigate application procedures. Middle-class mothers extend emotional labor in later stages as they attempt to implement a strategy for enrollment. Important racial and ethnic differences also shape how mothers take on these additional burdens of care work. I find that white mothers extend emotional labor by persistently contacting school administrators to seek enrollment while mothers of color across socioeconomic background extend emotional labor in their search for schools that will reaffirm and support their children’s marginalized identities. Third my dissertation contributes to our understanding of network effects in spatial context. I put forth a theory of cumulative network effects by evaluating the spatial attributes of parents’ advice networks. I find that parents draw on advice from family members, other parents, and organizations as they make school decisions. I find that both working-class and middle-class parents are more likely to enroll their children in non-zoned schools and schools that are greater distances away when they accumulate a large and spatially dispersed network. Lastly, I link together theories on neighborhood perceptions and childrearing by demonstrating how parents’ neighborhood assessments guide their parenting strategies in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. I find that parents’ varying views of economically disadvantaged neighborhoods in turn shapes their child rearing strategies. Parents who view the neighborhood more positively, cultivate relationships with neighbors and encourage their children to do the same, while parents who view the neighborhood less favorably create distance between their family and the neighborhood. Overall, my findings demonstrate that parenting approaches have shifted as neighborhoods have undergone changes and as educational policies in urban areas have emphasized greater school choice options. I demonstrate how parenting is shaped by decision-making standpoints, longstanding ideologies about motherhood, cumulative network effects in spatial context, and parents’ neighborhood assessments.

Despite the ruling of Brown vs. The Board of Education of Topeka, segregation in schools is still quite visible with suburban schools educating a student body of more than 70% White and urban schools comprised of mostly Black, Hispanic, and Asian students. Ideally, a school should dispel social and structural inequities through curriculum and quality resources, but fallibly, schools continue to be the vehicles to maintaining the status quo. Students who develop critical awareness and cultivate a critical literacy stance can become agents of change toward a more democratic society. In the current study, urban upper-elementary-age students were asked to engage in a critical literacy event by critically examining the power positions of characters in books that depict historical social injustice. The six female participants met in several sessions to read books and a newspaper article, use a critical reader response tool, and then engage in critical conversations about the books' characters. Their dialogue was recorded and analyzed using a critical discourse qualitative methodology. The findings show that older elementary students are capable of seeing multiple perspectives of an issue and can explain characters' power from born from privilege and fueled by fear and how a shift in power may occur through solidarity. The findings suggest school curriculum enhanced by media narrows the students' view of discrimination as being targeted mostly towards African-Americans, but those experiences through literature have the potential to expand the students' views to include other cultural groups. Subsequently, there is a need for broader teacher preparation using books that enhance students' views of social injustice.

Numerous studies since the 1960s have demonstrated that peer tutoring between two students is an effective teaching practice across populations and academic content areas. However, there has been limited research on peer tutoring beyond the traditional dyad format. We analyze variations of peer tutoring in a series of studies in a 3rd grade general education classroom. During the first study, we compared dyad and group peer tutoring structures for spelling acquisition with 14 participants across 2 experiments. We found that the majority of the students mastered novel words with fewer learn units during peer tutoring in dyads (i.e., lower learn units-to-criterion). However, scores on spelling post-assessments were higher following group peer tutoring conditions. Findings suggest that peer tutoring in a group may be more effective when considering post-assessment accuracy. In the second study we analyzed the effects of peer tutoring with Equivalence Based Instruction (EBI) on inference making, specifically, the emergence of eight 3-member fraction-percentage classes with 8 participants across 2 experiments. We found that participants acquired both baseline training relations during peer tutoring EBI: one directly as a tutee and one indirectly as a tutor. Following peer tutoring EBI, all participants derived the remaining 4 relations. Once participants had formed equivalence classes, they could also sort fraction stimuli, which demonstrated transfer of function. Additionally, we noted that it may be important for instructors to consider response effort for training relations when designing instruction for peer tutoring EBI due to possible adverse effects on student behaviors. Our findings suggest novel and effective means in designing pedagogy to increase learn units, select effective tutoring formats, and plan for inference making in general education classrooms.

In this study the writer intends to examine the literature on the purposes of the school and society as they are served by cooperative planning, select some of the best that has been said in regards to cooperative planing and to point up pathways to future growth through cooperative planning. / Typescript. / "A Paper." / "Submitted to the Graduate Council of Florida State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts." / "August, 1950." / Advisor: H. W. Dean, Professor Directing Study. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 55-59).

This research study invited teachers to participate in an inquiry discussion group in order to disrupt the racial silences that existed in a predominantly white school district. The ways Americans think, act, and talk about racism and white supremacy have become more complex over time as they have shifted from explicit to implicit (Bonilla-Silva, 2015). This is true in American society and also in America’s school systems, where racism has shifted from overt segregation (many school systems remain de facto segregated [Wells et al., 2014]) to covert colorblind silences (Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995; Leonardo, 2004). Even though there have been efforts to disrupt racial silences in schools, previous attempts framed the problem in terms of culture rather than addressing race in explicit ways. These curricular initiatives (e.g., multiculturalism, culturally responsive and culturally sustaining pedagogy) introduced in schools were also problematic in that teachers were treated as technicians (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999), which assumed they could take these curriculum tools and implement them without questioning their own mindset or beliefs about race. Therefore, this study was a next step toward disrupting racial silences in educational settings by explicitly discussing race and positioning teachers as knowledge producers. For this research, intersecting theoretical ideas from Critical Race Theory, Critical Whiteness Studies, and inquiry as stance were used to strengthen an understanding of what happened when the silences that existed around topics of race in white educational settings were disrupted. Data produced in ten weekly inquiry discussion group meetings were analyzed using discourse analysis. Results of this analysis pointed to a gradual shift in the discourse, which suggested a shift in comfort with explicitly talking about race. These results were organized into three phases: discomfort of not knowing, embracing discomfort, and grappling toward change. It is important to note that this study also highlights the complexities of race work in predominantly white schools as is evidenced by the ways this shift was not always perfect (i.e., Discourses of white supremacy and colorblindness circulated throughout). Therefore, teachers in predominantly white educational settings, teacher educators, and educational researchers need to be prepared for tensions and contradictions that may arise when disrupting racial silences. Educators and researchers in the field should encourage educators to embrace the role of knowledge producer and also be aware of the ways “nice white women” typically engage in this work so that important steps toward disrupting the racial silences that exist in predominantly white educational settings can be achieved.