Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Renee Clift. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 197-210) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> When elite men's colleges began to open their doors to women in the late 1960s, elite women's colleges were faced with a dilemma that threatened their institutions' continued existence. These colleges needed to redefine their purpose and communicate a new image in order to remain successful in a challenging environment. To investigate this process, I studied how three elite women's colleges responded to the challenging landscape of the 1970s, particularly the specific challenge of responding to elite men's colleges' conversion to coeducation. These elite women's colleges were successfully able to promote a new image of their institutions that argued for their validity, and the women's movement was an important influence on that process. Mount Holyoke, Smith, and Wellesley decided to remain single-sex colleges for women after the elite men's colleges moved to coeducation, and I argue that they were able to do so because student opinion drastically changed in the early 1970s due to the influence of the women's movement. Despite similar goals, the elite women's colleges and the women's movement have not always supported each other. Although their relationship was strained, women's colleges benefited from the women's movement, not only because it changed students' opinions, but also because the women's movement opened up career opportunities and encouraged women to pursue them. This made it possible for women's colleges to successfully create and disseminate a new image based on the assertion that they best prepared young women for professional careers. This new image, grounded in an attack on coeducation that also borrowed from the women's movement, made it possible for women's college to justify their continued existence.</p>

Photographs contain a wealth of information which may be used effectively in historical research. Visual images may be used as evidence, for illustration, for comparison and contrast, and for analytical purposes. Somewhat perplexing is the relatively minimal use of photographs as primary sources in historical inquiry concerning schooling. Many visual clues exist which can help to explain the activities, methods, resources and quality of schooling, and the people involved in schooling, in selected locations. Visual clues may be coordinated with text and with other artifacts to present a more complete picture of schooling in a specific time and place than text alone can provide. Photographs provide opportunities to compare systems of schooling and to engage in longitudinal analysis of a single school system. They can be useful in helping to investigate elements of schooling that may have elevated selected school systems to exemplary levels. The presence of a large collection of educationally related photographs reveals opportunities for utilization which are not present with individual photographs or small groups of photographs. The potential uses of photographs as primary sources for inquiry are not limited to professional historians, but may be taught to, and used by students, as well. This study shows benefits and possibilities of utilizing photographic images as primary sources in historical research in education, and in teaching historical research methods, through the use of examples contained in the Albert W. Achterberg Collection of photographs. The collection was developed during the period of 1940-1999 over an 8,000 square mile area in south-central Nebraska and features a school system in the town of Holdrege, Nebraska.

<p> Assessing student learning has been part of education since the beginning of formalized schooling. Developments at the national, state, and local level have led to grading reforms over the past quarter century. The purpose of this study was to explore students&rsquo; and teachers&rsquo; perceptions of standards-based grading to determine if there was a significant difference on standardized tests scores between students graded using standards-based grading and students graded using traditional grading. Teachers and students from one Missouri high school were interviewed to determine their perceptions about standards-based grading. A stratified sample was utilized to select interviewees. Artifacts from the district were analyzed to determine the process in the implementation of standards-based grading. Quantitative data were obtained from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to compare the Missouri Assessment Performance (MAP) Index scores and means on end-of-course exams from the participating high school with Missouri students. A <i>t</i>-test was utilized to determine the difference between the two means. The data revealed teachers&rsquo; perceptions of standards-based grading were varied, with only two teachers who preferred standards-based grading. Student perceptions were more positive than those of teachers, with 50% of students who were interviewed preferring standards-based grading. Quantitative data revealed no statistically significant difference between the means on end-of-course exams of students assessed with standards-based grading and students assessed with traditional grading in five of the eight subject areas studied.</p>

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

For many critics, the demise of Saint-Cyr stemmed from the transformation of the institution into a convent six years after its opening. This seemingly conservative shift has been used as "proof" that Maintenon abandoned a progressive and feminist pedagogy. A study of Maintenon's writings intended for Saint-Cyr suggests that, though she wavered between theory and practice, she never gave up her utopian and feminist impulses. This dissertation argues that, in the end, despite numerous social constraints, Maintenon found ways to maintain her principles by adopting practices suitable to the context. Chapter I is a study of Saint-Cyr's genesis and Maintenon's goal in creating this institution. Chapters II and III analyze the educational system at Saint-Cyr, its curriculum and methodology. Chapter IV is a study of the theater as practiced at Saint-Cyr, with particular attention to the girls' performances of Racine's Esther, the ensuing scandal and the changes implemented by Maintenon. Chapter V analyzes Maintenon's letters, Conversations, Instructions and Proverbes with respect to the question of the condition of women, arguing that Maintenon possessed a deep desire to free the girls and to give them a better life. Chapter VI analyzes Maintenon's image in modern fiction, specifically, Yves Dangerfield's La Maison d'Esther (1991) and Patricia Mazuy's film Saint-Cyr (2000). In this chapter, I consider to what extent such an image is based on Maintenon's writings, to what extent it is constructed and, finally, how her character is still important for today's public.

This dissertation documents historical patterns of language planning activities in American deaf education during the 19th century from a sociolinguistic perspective. This comprehensive study begins in the early 1800s, prior to the opening of the first public school for the deaf in Connecticut, tracing and categorizing available literature related to the language of signs and English as the languages of instruction for the deaf through 1900. Borg and Gall's (1989) historical research methodology was employed to ensure that a consistent historical approach was maintained based upon adequate and/or primary references whenever possible. Utilizing Cooper's (1989) language planning framework, each article in this extensive historical collection was categorized according to one of three major types of language planning activities: status planning (SP), acquisition planning (AP), or corpus planning (CP). Until this time, a comprehensive study of this nature has never been pursued in the field of deaf education. As a result, language planning patterns were discovered and a number of myths based upon inaccurate historical evidence that have long misguided educators of the deaf as well as the Deaf community were revealed. More specifically, these myths are related to the belief that 19th century linguistic analysis and scientific descriptions of the language of signs were nonexistent, and that 19th century literature related to the role, use and structure of the language of signs in education was extremely limited. Additionally this study discovered myths related to the status and use of sign language in this country, the history of deaf education programs, the growth and development of oralism and its impact upon existing programs for the deaf and the employment of deaf teachers. It was also revealed that several terms used in the 19th century have been misinterpreted by educational practitioners today who mistakenly believe they are using strategies that were developed long ago. Therefore, this study attempts to 'correct the record' by using primary sources to bring to light a new understanding of the history of deaf education from a language planning perspective.

This dissertation is about the first ever federal bilingual education policy. The research for the project comes from three major resources; lay and professional literature, archival documents, and structured personal interviews with over forty analysts and architects of the policy. The presentation of the dissertation follows a case study format. The purpose of the dissertation was to review the historical and immediate precedents that gave rise to the policy, narrate the story of how and why the policy was passed, and tell what those who supported and crafted the policy intended to promulgate. Although called a Bilingual Education Act, the major conclusion drawn from this research points in another direction. The concerns and problems that spawned Title VII of 1968 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) had less to do with language or bilingual education and more to do with providing support for experimental programs designed to increase school completion by Latino students in the Southwest. This dissertation examines policymaking through several prisms, some specific to language planning analysis. The touchstone for this analysis is Ruiz' Language Planning Orientations (1984a). The conclusions drawn in this dissertation with regard to the original Title VII and to subsequent government policies and school practices is that both emanate from a Language-as-Problem orientation. The recommendations are that bilingual education programs and practices follow a Language-as-Resource orientation. In this way, children can develop and enrich both of the languages they learn in school and the result will be balanced bilingual proficiencies in language use and literacy.

Research in the area of bilingual education language policy has focused generally on: (1) its relation to curriculum development and instructional design, (2) its relation to the legislative process, and (3) its relation to issues of power. Past research, however, failed to concentrate on the meanings of policy assigned by students and the relationship between the letter of policy and the spirit of its enactment at school. The purpose of this humanistic, cultural study was to examine school language policy from both historical and student-centered points of view. By addressing what they have to say in a historical context, I gleaned new insights into the possibilities for future design and evaluation of language policy. I focused on the historical relationship between the lived experiences of students regarding language choice and use at one elementary school and the central language policy statements initiated by the respective state's legislature, issued by the school district's administration and governing body, and interpreted by classroom teachers. The various policy statements and oral histories--by three generations of students--in addition to U.S. census data for the respective historical period were analyzed to understand the relationship among history, social context, policy, and language experience at school in new ways. The findings were interpreted and presented in terms of continuities and discontinuities in the relationship between students' lived experiences and policy over time. In terms of the continuous aspects of this relationship, I found the following: teachers persist in standardizing children's oral and written language expressions; children are indoctrinated by the culture of the school to abide by "American" values; and English is regarded as the language of privilege and accomplishment. In terms of discontinuities, I found the following: indigenous languages and Spanish spoken by children were no longer prohibited but sanctioned in the classroom; teachers began speaking languages other than English for instructional purposes; and faculty demographics changed from predominantly monolingual, white women to largely bilingual Hispanic women. In sum, my study is important because I offered a critical interpretation of the prevailing historical realities that have governed language policies and their ensuing practices in a South Tucson neighborhood school for the past sixty-one years. Also, in this study, I revealed the importance of opening a forum for students to voice an evaluation of language policies that regulate the course or methods of action in bilingual elementary education programs.

Most studies of higher education examine the university as either economically determined--relying on Louis Althusser's notion of ideological state apparatuses--or culturally determined--embracing either traditional or multicultural approaches. Alternatively, this dissertation blends postcolonial and Marxist theories to show that the U.S. public research university responds to the historical exigencies of a multivalent and dynamic political economy. I trace the evolution of this university system in conjunction with changes in the capitalist political economy and focus on the construction and reconstruction of the professional as the site of individual and collective agency. Chapters One and Two historicize the U.S. public research university system and argue that it has always been a vital component of the capitalist political economy. While the popular narrative of public higher education emphasizes civic preparation and upward mobility, these chapters demonstrate that supposedly egalitarian policies like the Morrill Land-Grant Act and the GI Bill serve the changing interests of capitalism. Such legislation forges and enables a university-produced professional class that functions both ideologically and structurally to facilitate transitions in the capitalist political economy. Mapping economic and cultural globalization onto the university system, Chapter Three discusses how contemporary university professionalization contributes to new methods for producing surplus value. Chapter Four examines how the U.S. public research university model circulates outside the United States, changing the global political economy as well as the production of surplus value in its wake. Focusing on a range of U.S. public research universities, I argue that the rhetoric and structure of mission statements move overseas through supranational organizations such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and becomes implemented through policies attached to World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans. To conclude, Chapter Five develops specific strategies for the professional who opposes the capitalist logic of this global university system. Informed by Marxists scholars, like Althusser and Antonio Gramsci, critical pedagogues such as Paulo Freire, Peter McLaren, and Paula Allman, as well as the U.S. Third World politics of Chela Sandoval, Gayatri Spivak, and Edward Said, this chapter proposes concrete options for engaging and redirecting globalization.