This study compared socio-economic variables of participants, drop-outs and non-participants, of the Polk County, Florida, Adult Basic Education (ABE) program. Ten variables were compared and relationships noted. The variables were sex, age, race, marital status, educational level, occupation, income, family size, urban/rural status and legal status. The investigator formulated a null hypothesis for each variable. The methodology included a personal interview using a descriptive survey instrument. Following data collection, the information was analyzed using Chi-square and a .05 alpha level of significance was set for rejection of the null hypothesis. Eight were rejected and two failed to reject. / Data analysis showed that there was no relationship between sex or family size and participation, dropout, and non-participation. Significant relationships were established between participation, dropout, and non-participation and all other variables examined. The findings duplicated the participation profile of the typical adult basic education student as found in the review of the literature of this study. / Recommendations included the addition of an adult day school to alleviate the dropout rate, as well as adding child care and transportation services to adult education programming. Intensive person-to-person recruiting to attract students defined as "most-in-need" and minorities was urged. The relevancy of what is being taught should be reviewed in light of some dropout claims that needs were not being met. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 43-06, Section: A, page: 1794. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1982.

The purposes of the study were twofold: first, to analyze the structures and characteristics of pretend play, and second, to explain how the second language learner manages extended pretend play interaction with his native-English speaking friend over time. Two preschool children were videotaped biweekly for a ten-month period during sessions lasting approximately one and one half hours. One boy, a native speaker of Korean, was five years old at the beginning of the observation, and the other, a native-speaker of English, was four years and seven months old. For analysis, pretend play episodes were selected according to criteria established by Smilansky (1968) and were transcribed verbatim. / Based on Garvey and Berndt's framework (1977) of analysis of pretend play in first language learners, the data of the study were analyzed in terms of the following aspects: (1) macro-level components of play, (2) themes/internal structures of play, (3) individual performances, (4) topics of communication, (5) communicative strategies, and (6) functions of social language in play. With the extension of Halliday's functions of language (1975), the children's utterances were scrutinized in order to understand what types of functions were generated from the transcribed data. Several salient functions of their social language were identified. / The results of the study demonstrated that (1) the schematic structures of play served as a scaffold for the second language learner so that he could contribute to the unfolding of play and keep the play on track, and (2) what developed most significantly was the second language learner's increased ability to use specific language functions over time. The crucial developmental phenomena were observed in his more frequent use and great familiarity with the following functions: (a) retorts such as negation and challenge, (b) elaboration, and (c) regulatory utterances. In addition, the children's use of demonstration had the function of language teaching. Until the second language learner became able to utilize these functions with frequency and facility, he could not move towards the control of play and his playmate. / The results of the study underline the importance of imaginative play as a problem-solving context in child second language learning that allows second language learners to use the L2 productively in a sustained manner. The observation that the second language learner acquired and practiced various functions of language in such problem-solving contexts as imaginative play without adult intervention further suggests that encouraging young children to interact with peers in sustained pretend play contexts would be beneficial to their learning of communicative, social, and cognitive skills. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-09, Section: A, page: 3352. / Major Professor: Elizabeth Platt. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

This study examined Arabic reading and civics education textbooks used in Iraq to determine whether their content was consistent with the policy of sex equity of the Ministry of Education. Specifically, the study sought to establish whether there was fair representation of both genders in Iraqi textbooks. / Analysis of the narrative content was based on the following variables: sex, age, setting, family role, occupations, traits, activities, character role, vocabulary (nouns and pronouns) and number of male and female characters featured in titles. The pictorial content analysis examined gender, age, setting, and activities. The character was used as the unit of analysis. / The results of the narrative and pictorial analysis showed that male characters outnumber female characters with respect to all variables. These differences were statistically significant. Both genders were portrayed in traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine activities. Intercoder reliability in the application of the content analysis instrument to the material for these results ranged from 0.92 to 1.0. / The representation of female characters in textbooks does not accurately represent the important role Iraqi women play in building and serving the society of Iraq today. / The findings of this study also confirmed those of previous research on the representation of male and female characters in school textbooks in other Arab and non-Arab countries. / Recommendations for further research and policy issues were developed. More research needs to be done to discover ways to promote sex equity in the following areas: (a) coeducational and single-sex schools, (b) testing, (c) classroom organization and climate, and (d) the area of the hidden curriculum. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-12, Section: A, page: 4008. / Major Professor: Byron G. Massialas. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1990.

The purpose of this dissertation was to develop a theory-based approach to guide institutional level analyses of student dropout. In constructing this approach, models of student departure were expanded to include a framework for guiding the identification of the student-learning environment mismatches inhibiting student learning and success. This approach was applied to a community college in Southern California, Riverside Community College, with a large and diverse student population. To account for observed variation in degree attainment and transfer rates by age and ethnicity, student-types were developed based on the habitus and capital students possessed at the time of college entry. In the present work, measurement of student-types was based largely on students' initial approach to college attendance, which was viewed as a reflection of the underlying differences in students' habitus and available capital. Five student types were identified: traditional, developing, student-worker, life-job changer, and life-job explorers. These student-types were found to account for age variation in success and much of the variation in success associated with ethnicity. The behavior of transfer students who did not earn an Associate's degree or certificate was not adequately captured with the typology. When "success" was restricted to degree or certificate attainment at RCC, the typology adequately accounted for ethnic variation in success. A common departure model was not able to provide a plausible description of students across ethnic or student-type subpopulations. Relations among students' goals and commitments, institutional integration, and academic integration were found to differ by ethnicity and student-type. Therefore, the impacts of institutional integration, academic integration, and students' goals and institutional commitments on long-term persistence were modelled within student-types. For student-workers and life-job explorers, students' goals and institutional commitments were found to have statistically significant impacts on long-term persistence. The persistence of other student-types was not significantly impacted by institutional factors.

Adult basic and literacy education (ABLE) is a unique social and educational site, a borderland where marginalized youth and adults can be found. This project sought the voices and stories of women literacy learners with disabilities. The project had a dual purpose of creating practical products and conducting research. The project sought to create knowledge for program improvement and produce two products, a list of recommendations to the field and a brochure of advice to new women literacy learners (both included). The research explored the social categories of gender, literacy, and disability to contextualize existing theories with the lived experiences of low-income women with disabilities. The project was grounded in critical and feminist standpoint epistemologies that were actualized through a dialogic, participatory action research design. The data collection and management technique of the Unfolding Matrix (Padilla, 1993) was adapted to an Unfolding Venn diagram with three interlocking circles labeled Women, Literacy, and Disability. Fifteen women participated in the year-long series of monthly focus dialogues. The participants ranged in age from 20 to over 60 years old, represented a range of disability and impairment experiences, various lengths of involvement in the adult education program, and a range of ethnicities and geographic areas of childhood. The structure of the dissertation follows the design of dialogic research conducted with the technique of the adapted Unfolding Matrix. Three levels of data were analyzed: contributions to the diagram, four key discussions, and focus dialogue transcripts. Specific findings are presented as chapters in Part II: Finding Ourselves in Contradictions, Part III: Hinged Themes and Dreams, and Part IV: The Way Forward. Findings indicate the critical need for adult education and literacy programs to recognize women's unique learning needs and to engage women in dialogue so that those needs can be discovered and articulated. Access to literacy and the power of literacy includes instruction and support sensitive to individual needs. Disability issues need to be openly addressed with an attitude of critique and advocacy that can empower learners and the field to move forward on eligibility and service structures.

This project speaks to those with broad research interests in rhetorical studies, the ethnography of working class students and scholars, and the role of socioeconomic class in education. In this dissertation, I take as the object of my study two groups of primary sources---the autobiographical rhetorical pieces that appear in a set of five main books of essays by and about working class people and postings to a national working class academic listserv. My purpose in examining these texts is to compare definitions and experiences of "working class scholars" as conveyed by the writers and to explicate and analyze these definitions and rhetorical strategies. This study argues for the existence of a shared discourse among working class intellectuals that developed from the autobiographical essays the scholars created for a core set of published texts, the working class listserv, and additional related texts. These shared narratives give insight into working class scholars' beliefs, actions, education and worldviews as the writers attempt to understand the ways class has acted on their lives and their scholarship. On a larger scale, this study investigates how people tell stories about themselves and how these stories evolve over time to become stronger and more similar to each other, the longer the discourse exists. In their discourse, the working class academics give voice to members of an emerging and identifiable common discourse. Texts in this discourse include commonalties of form and thematic content that circulate freely among members even though the discourse community is widely dispersed geographically. The working class writers use a common language to characterize their experiences and to speak meaningfully to each other about them. Exploring the classed discourse and difficulties expressed in these texts sheds light on American class structures, and suggests ways in which universities might better serve and retain working class people.

This thesis is concerned to evaluate Local Education Authority Off-Site Special Units for Disruptive Pupils. By reviewing the relevant literature, and by ascertaining the views of Local Education Authorities, the thesis develops the argument that schools are ambivalent in their reasons for referring disruptive pupils to Off-Site Special Units. Whilst maintaining primary concern for the pupils' reform, a greater concern seems to be evident for the removal of recalcitrant pupils in the best interests of the referring school. Either way, the decision to refer the pupil to an Off-Site Special Unit probably rests upon a failure to appreciate the causes of disruptive behaviour, which in practice are less likely to be explained in pathological terms than in institutional ones. In consequence, the idea that a suitable measure for evaluating units is to be found in rates of successfully reintegrating pupils from units back into mainstream schools is open to question. Since many pupils indicate a desire to return to mainstream school whilst others express a wish to enter employment where recognised patterns of good behaviour are necessary, a criterion for evaluating Off-Site Special Units remains the ability of the Unit to produce behaviour change in pupils attending the Units. The dictum is employed in the present thesis. The Bristol Social Adjustment Guides and a Behaviour Checklist, developed by the writer from one used by the ILEA, are used as before and after measures to show that the behaviour of pupils referred to three Off-Site Special Units in one LEA, does improve during the period of intervention. The behaviour of matched control pupils who remain in mainstream schools does not show a similar improvement. The comments of pupils in the Off-Site Special Units confirm that there are positive gains in the Units.

Societies in general, and the developed ones in particular, are trying hard to control the use of the new educational means to re-educate adults in accordance with the high speed developments in all fields of life. In developing countries, there is still a tendency to identify adult education with literacy campaigns and other basic education programmes. Therefore, whatever the interest and whatever the country, adult education means education for life in its widest sense. Its main purpose is to give a chance to men and women to increase their actual activity in their societies, their responsibility towards them and their share of knowledge. The Egyptian society is facing the following problem: the necessity of reorganising educational programmes for adults in different specialisations with the aim of modernising their knowledge and giving them new skills to meet the continuous changes in the methods of production. To achieve this, we should review first what the advanced world is doing to know where exactly we are. The aim of this study is to throw light on the experiences of the advanced countries in the field of adult education with the purpose of benefiting from them and applying them in the Egyptian society after processing and assimilating them within the characteristics of the society. The task of this thesis is to compare the experiences and ideas of an advanced country, England, which has a very comprehensive "system" of adult education, with those of a developing country, Egypt, in the hope that the two countries can learn something from each other.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-10, Section: A, page: 4251. Adviser: Luise P. McCarty. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 20, 2008).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Curriculum and Instruction, 2005. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 66-12, Section: A, page: 4279. Adviser: Ellen Brantlinger. Title from dissertation home page (viewed Oct. 11, 2006).