<p> The purpose of this dissertation is to extend General Strain Theory (GST) to examine prosocial, asocial, and antisocial behavior in response to bullying. In GST, Agnew (1992; 2001; 2013) asserted that negative emotions can lead to criminal or aggressive coping but there are a number of factors that increase or decrease the propensity to respond aggressively (Agnew, 1992; Richman &amp; Leary, 2009). In this dissertation, I examine whether and how rejection (operationalized as bullying victimization) is associated with aggressive responding as opposed to prosocial (e.g., befriending others) or asocial (e.g., avoiding people and social events) responding. This dissertation consists of three studies testing theoretical variables of bullying victimization as well as behavioral responses to four types of bullying: physical, verbal, relational, and cyber. Study 1 of this dissertation examines risk and protective factors for types of bullying victimization. Study 2 applies GST to test the effect of social support, or the availability of alternative relationships (i.e., having others to count on or turn to for social support), on responses to four types of bullying. Study 3 tests the effect of power dynamics on responses to physical and relational bullying. In conducting this research, I hope to: 1) integrate interdisciplinary bodies of literature to examine risk and protective factors of bullying victimization and behavioral responses to bullying and 2) improve understanding of how these experiences are affected by the power dynamics involved in bullying. Overall, the results of this dissertation suggest that types of negative emotions and behavioral outcomes vary by type of bullying victimization. Cyber bullying was found to have more negative consequences than any other form of bullying. Across all four forms of bullying, social support was found to be associated with an increased likelihood of youth engaging in prosocial behavior. Implicit power, or the perception that one&rsquo;s bully has a high social standing at school, significantly influenced responses based on the type of bullying. However, even when controlling for power dynamics, social support was still associated with increased prosocial behavior in response to bullying victimization. Theory and policy implications are discussed. </p><p>

<p> The purpose of this project was to identify a potential funding source and write a grant to fund a community program that centers on strengthening family dynamics. The city of Compton in Los Angeles County is stricken with poverty, systemic and economic challenges that often impact the daily living of families and the ability of the communities to thrive. It has been evidenced that child maltreatment contributes to disruptions in family dynamics and community relationships. To counteract these rates of maltreatment, an innovative community program was proposed, which focused on fostering positive family relationships and increasing social supports through effective community engagement to reduce transgenerational child maltreatment. The goal of this project is to increase interactions and social supports for children and families by providing a variety of activities and resources within their community. The actual submission of the grant application was not a requirement of the thesis project.</p><p>

U.S. suburbia is rapidly changing, becoming home to increasing numbers of poor families and immigrants. However, traditionally disadvantaged students who attend well-resourced middle-class suburban schools have been largely neglected in educational inequality research. In this study, I spotlight this overlooked population and find that class background takes on heterogeneous meanings and significance, as it is situated in contextualized hierarchies, systems of meaning, and boundaries that are forged within everyday school interactions. I illuminate the heterogeneity in the effect of class among youth who share demographic background characteristics but attend diverse suburban schools. These racial and contextual contingencies in the effects of class background—or how class “works”—shape the experiences and outcomes of traditionally disadvantaged students so that two students who share the same demographic background but attend different schools have different social and academic outcomes. The power of social background and school-level forces in shaping educational outcomes are among the most robust findings in the sociology of education literature. What is missing from this quintessential portrait of American educational inequality, however, is a nuanced understanding of a race-class-context interaction that abandons the assumption that race and class intersect to produce uniform effects, and that school contextual effects are uniform for all students. Through mixed methods, I show that race, class, and context interact in a two-stage process whereby (1) race and class interact with each other, and then (2) jointly interact with school context, to exert non-uniform effects on how traditionally disadvantaged students integrate into suburban schools. In this context, what it means and how it feels to be an economically disadvantaged student varies greatly depending on who you are and where you are. For immigrant students, who are an important subset of this population, these dynamics further shape incorporation processes and pathways into the minority middle class. Through studying how social background and school-level forces interact in complex ways to impact how immigrants forge identities vis-à-vis natives and coethnics, I complicate the assumptions underlying segmented assimilation theory and the predictions that follow from it. In doing so, I highlight the need for an updated understanding of immigrant incorporation that reflects the heterogeneity of 21st century immigrants. Finally, in studying school-level forces, I expand on traditional school-level forces and foreground campus spatial layout as an overlooked yet agentic force that regulates group dynamics. Specifically, I argue that spatial layout and organizational practices like tracking interact to structure social relations, differentially predisposing some schools to more unequal group relations than others. This research has broad implications for theories of educational inequality and immigrant incorporation, as well as for the contours of social inequality amidst a rapidly changing social landscape. / Social Policy

The questions of how to improve educational practice at scale, and what role scientific investigation can or should play in that endeavor, have been central to the enterprise of education research since its beginning (Dewey, 1929). In one approach, researchers produce evidence regarding the effects of standardized instructional procedures on student learning, and then school- and district leaders manage teachers’ faithful implementation of those procedures. In another approach, teachers are encouraged to use their expert judgment and flexibly apply research-based principles of effective instruction in order to meet students’ unique learning needs. While these contrasting frameworks have each been influential in research and practice, little empirical work exists comparing the relative effectiveness of each of these approaches in advancing outcomes of interest in varying contexts. In the two separate studies that comprise this dissertation, I analyze data from a school-level cluster-randomized trial in which schools were randomly assigned to implement READS – a summer literacy intervention for elementary school students that includes school-based and home-based components – under a fidelity or flexibility management approach. In the first study, I investigate – and find evidence consistent with – the hypothesis that the optimal approach to educational program implementation may be a scaffolded management sequence, in which implementers first develop proficiency with a program through a fidelity phase of management, and then make program adaptations under a flexibility management phase. The second study is motivated by the growing body of theoretical and empirical work demonstrating the numerous ways in which teachers’ social capital affects school improvement efforts. In this study, I investigate the effects of management approach on outcomes related to teachers’ social capital. I find that the flexibility approach caused participants to form more intervention-related consultation ties and caused them to consult more frequently about instructional adaptation, as opposed to implementation. At the same time, the expansion of participants’ intervention-related networks under the flexibility approach may have been offset by participants’ shrinking consultation networks in instructional areas unrelated to the intervention. Both of these studies have implications for research on how school improvement initiatives are introduced and managed.

Abstract not available.

Rapid social change in the Canadian Arctic has led to circumstances which make it increasingly difficult for young Inuit to develop and maintain a distinct cultural identity. Inuit, and many other Aboriginal groups in similar circumstances, are looking to education to play a role in cultural maintenance and revitalization. This study explored the experience of Inuit youth in Nunavut Sivuniksavut, a post-secondary program for Inuit youth from Nunavut. The findings indicated that the students experienced positive changes in all areas of ethnic identity, developing attitudes of pride and respect for their culture, an increased sense of belonging to it, an understanding of their cultural history, as well as an understanding of the relationship of Inuit with the majority society. The findings also identified program elements contributing to this change. The study develops a framework for viewing ethnic identity development in other settings and presents a model which describes how students developed a valuing of their cultural distinctiveness in a contemporary context.

This thesis is a study of the circulation and reproductive impact of public representations of the Burnage Report, a document which loomed large in the public debates in Britain on the issue of antiracism policies in schools in the late 1980s. Emanating from an inquiry into a student's murder at Manchester's Burnage High School, the Report was held up in much of the British press as having concluded that antiracism policies were a blameworthy factor in the murder. Such conclusions were contested by the authors of the Report, who maintained that racism, not antiracism, was the primary factor in the murder. Making use of methodologies and analyses derived from the fields of Cultural Studies and Critical Discourse Analysis, this thesis examines the apparent disjuncture between the Report and its representations, comparing a "preferred reading" of the Report with press readings, and analyzing the discursive sources of press representations of antiracism. Also examined are the representations of the Report in the subsequent academic production on antiracism, in order to ascertain the impact of press representations on understandings of the Report's significance.

This study examines the process of organizational culture development within a new school of education, focusing on the various factors that influence culture as perceived by faculty. The research is situated within a mid-sized university in Canada. From the data analysis emerged the following factors that participants saw as influencing culture: leadership; other members of the organization; programmatic influences; the mission statement, goals, and conceptual framework; organization structure and size; physical space and location; resource and financial considerations; the fact that everything was new; workload and time constraints; the wider university; other external influences; and the field of study. The significance of the study is threefold. One is that it contributes to a sparse body of literature regarding the development of culture in educational organizations. Secondly, it informs organizations of considerations to be made in regards to the development of culture, and finally, the study informs the research locale.

No description available.

I investigate the influence of race upon high school student's approaches to education, sports participation, and high school test scores. The theoretical perspective employed suggest that the effect of race upon these items will vary across schools. To explain this school level variation, I employ two theories of race relations: competition theory and the cultural division of labor perspective. Using the National Longitudinal and Educational Study of 1988 (NELS: 88) and multilevel model statistical procedures, support for both theories is found. I conclude that race relations in schools impact student's cultural activities and test scores.