The researcher, 5 teachers, and the principal at one elementary school engaged in action research in order to explore, implement and document practitioner initiated change. The research questions included: (1) What changes do practitioners choose to make? (2) How do practitioners make sense of the change process? (3) What is the nature of structural and institutional factors that foster and/or constrain change? (4) What is the nature of school and community culture with respect to educational change? (5) What roles does the researcher play when educational change is initiated by practitioners? and (6) What is the nature of the relationship that develops between researcher and practitioners throughout the change process? / The methods employed in this interpretive study involved the collection of qualitative data through participant observation, ethnographic interviewing, document analysis, and dialogue journals. Following in the tradition of symbolic interactionism, a constructivist epistemology was embodied into collection and interpretation of data. / Three stories of change (the teachers', the principal's and the university researcher's) are reported. The stories of 5 teachers revealed that teacher voice is a necessary component of change efforts. The development of teacher voice occurred when spaces were created at the school-level for teachers' voices to be heard. The principal's story documents the change process of Ted Jones as he engaged in reflective practice to make sense of his roles and the desired changes he wished to make. Metaphors were used as a conceptual tool for sense-making as the principal reconceptualized his roles. The university researcher's story documents the relationship that developed between the practitioners and researcher through an examination of the traditional myths and metaphors that govern educational research. / A collective examination of the teachers', the principal's, and the university researcher's stories reveal that changes in the teachers, the principal, and the researcher all were facilitated through the examination of the nature of voice and through engagement in critical reflection -in and -on practices. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that change is not a linear process. Rather, it is a circular process of reflection, voice, and action. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-09, Section: A, page: 3131. / Major Professor: Kathryn Scott. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1991.

This dissertation reports the results of an ethnographic study of the personal and academic literacies of four students during their first year at Florida State University. This research was shaped by one main question: How do first-year students use personal and academic literacies? / To investigate this question, I followed four students through three semesters of college, beginning the summer term preceding their first academic year. I conducted over one hundred student and teacher interviews, collected over sixty formal essays, observed seventy-plus days of class, and collected other artifacts, including personal journals and class handouts. By analyzing all of this data as well as reading theorists' and teachers' accounts of students' experiences, I constructed a descriptive and analytical account of these students' literacies and lives. / This study concludes that students' literacies relate to their academic success, which is heavily determined by non-academic factors, including family support, confidence, and reliance upon teachers. Student literacies are related to the roles students play. Some students come to college more equipped to handle the various student and writer roles expected of them. / I propose that support services be put into place to help students succeed. Also, this study suggests that keeping personal writing in the first-semester writing course helps students develop confidence in themselves as writers and students. All students should experience at least one safe writing environment. The classroom cultures created by teachers and students prove vital to students' academic success. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 56-08, Section: A, page: 3037. / Major Professor: Wendy Bishop. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1995.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 30-12, Section: A, page: 5529. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1969.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Printout. Vita. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2628. Adviser: Nancy Abelmann. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 232-254) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Sociology, 2007. / Title from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 25, 2008). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-02, Section: A, page: 0770. Adviser: Brian Powell.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Laurence J. Parker. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 309-328) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> This investigation examines the effect of a peer mentoring service-learning program established by the University of Maine on empathy and moral reasoning. The methodology is qualitative in nature, using a semi-structured interview protocol and a conceptual framework based on the review of the literature. Mentoring, empathy and moral reasoning were the focus of the literature review, which revealed these two key components of social and emotional learning are associated with academic performance and pro-social behaviors in adolescence, and mentoring is a service learning modality associated with similar benefits. </p><p> Two rural high schools were recruited to participate in an innovative collaborative effort with the University of Maine. Volunteer mentors, screened by local guidance staff, were trained in peer mentoring theory, skills, and techniques in three all day workshops. Ongoing onsite guidance was provided by a University of Maine graduate school intern and on site counseling staff. Each mentor was assigned a mentee, whom they met with regularly throughout the school year. In the spring, twelve mentors, representing approximately half of the mentor population, was interviewed about their experiences and perceptions.</p><p> A conceptual framework was developed based on a detailed review of relevant literature. A semi-structured interview was based on this framework, which was then utilized to guide data collection in the interviews. The interview transcripts were coded and analyzed to detect the emergence of themes with high frequency and prevalence. Mentor profiles were also developed for each of the twelve mentors who participated.</p><p> The mentor profiles and findings from the interview thematic analysis were then compared and contrasted with the review of the literature, and the conceptual framework was refined into the final concept map. The findings support a strong conceptual connection between moral reasoning and empathy, mediated through the empathic connections of the mentors including family, friends, and mentees, as well as the various moral dilemmas that they encountered in their high school experience. The implications for conceptual development through research with adolescents is reviewed, as well as opportunities for future research to increase the effectiveness of service learning programs that develop social and emotional capacities in youth.</p>

<p> Studies have shown that when students are engaged, learning increases. This research paper examines the perceptions of a Midwest university faculty's perceptions about student engagement in the classroom. Using qualitative methodology, interviews were conducted with faculty who are currently college classroom teachers, providing rich data to further examine the concept of student engagement. The following questions were asked with responses from the perspective of the college professor: what is student engagement, how does personal experience influence the way teachers perceive student engagement, and how do traditional classrooms influence engagement? The theory of symbolic interactionism and dramaturgy were used to gain perspective into professors' perceptions of student engagement, demonstrating how the traditional education received by present-day teachers has influenced their perceptions of student engagement in their classrooms (Sterling 2001; Bain 2004; Barkley 2010; Kuh et al. 2010; Thoms 2010).</p>

A study of computers and the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Japanese universities was designed to look at interrelations of technology and teachers' theories in these contexts. A review of the literature on technology and education concludes that technology is often given a purposive role in formulating change. However, instead of focusing on the effects of technology, it is argued that technology is better seen as indicative of other purposes. Connections to changing employment opportunities, skills, relations of professionals within the university, as well as problems and issues in teaching and learning with computers, lead to a conceptualization of risk in the teaching approaches in this study. In recent years, Japanese universities face increasing competition for a declining population of students. The financial pressures are concomitant with changes impinging on Japanese universities. These include the first attempts at on-line education in Japan, the need to reduce costs, initiatives from the central government to reform higher education, and demands for new skills. The primary source of data in this study were 14 in-depth interviews with experienced university English teachers who used computers frequently in teaching. A second source was a reflective journal of the author's teaching in a computer classroom for two years. Themes in the data were analyzed and linked to sociological theories of risk. Two strands of risk-oriented theories reviewed, Beck's risk society and Foucault's governmentality, were used to hypothesize simplified approaches to risk, one that is ethical and another that is strategic. Both approaches help explain ambivalences in the pattern of responses in the interview data. How these teachers value the skills of computing in English as necessary but at the same time express reservations for the isolating tendencies of using computers in teaching is an example. The results show that risk is useful in explaining ambivalences while pointing to the need for further research to understand how computing is becoming part of the educational equipment of more and more teaching contexts in Japanese universities and how risk as strategy and ethics opens up possibilities for increased understanding of computers and education.

Most of the focus and support given to student-athletes is during the time of eligibility. After the eligibility expires, some of these athletes disconnect themselves from the athletic department and become a mere memory of the past. The myriad of unique challenges facing former student-athletes who have not graduated or retired from sports are well documented. Dexter Manley of the Washington Redskins tearfully told a U.S. Senate panel on illiteracy that despite his four years at Oklahoma State University, he had neither graduated nor learned to read. Kevin Ross, former basketball player who did not graduate, complained on national TV talk shows that he had never learned to read in four years at Creighton University (Byers, 1995). To alleviate some of the problems, I decided to focus my study on the college experiences of African-American student-athletes to better understand the complexities that they encounter during and after their athletic scholarship. The long-term objective is to establish a service oriented, salubrious program for former student athletes once their eligibility expires along with their retirement from sport. After perusing a myriad of reports of the exploitation of student-athletes in the revenue producing sports, the research questions became: Are these accounts typical? Universal? Do most athletes experience exploitation and abuse? African-Americans more than other racial groups? How representative are these commentaries of the actual sports experiences of college sport participants? In this investigation I will focus on African-American college athletes' attitudes, opinions, experiences, and perceptions surrounding exploitation.