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In 1900, Umeko Tsuda founded the Joshi Eigaku Juku (Women's Institute of Language Studies, which later became Tsuda College), the first private institution of tertiary learning for women in Japan. Tsuda was one of the first females in Japan's history to study in the United States, spending eleven years of her childhood (1871–1882) on a Japanese government-sponsored study program in the United States, and returning in 1889 for three years of study at Bryn Mawr College, another pioneering institution of higher learning for women. Tsuda's establishment of the Joshi Eigaku Juku marked her as a true educational innovator; her success in founding it secured her place in history as a pioneer in the higher education of women in Japan. This dissertation sets out to understand the catalysts found in the social, economic, political, and educational milieus that shaped Tsuda both in Japan and in the United States, and to understand what place Tsuda's experience at Bryn Mawr under M. Carey Thomas held in her development as an educational innovator. Through a comprehensive examination of the social structures, political and economic trends, and educational polices in place during the latter third of the nineteenth century in both nations, this dissertation examines what forces compelled Tsuda to take the revolutionary step of founding her school and establishing higher education as an option for women in Japan, when such an institution was thoroughly unwelcome by the Japanese populace at large.

The purpose of this study is to listen to teachers’ stories and reconstruct their classrooms in the midst of the global upheaval of people’s movements in the 1960s-70s through teachers’ narratives. The primary research questions are: How did social movements in the 1960s-1970s influence their teaching practices? What was their intention and how did they carry out their daily teaching practice? In the educational research field, narrative inquirers explore teachers’ stories, their life experiences and teaching practices, in order to understand how teachers view the world. I collected stories, through in-depth interviews, of ten Japanese teachers who taught in Japanese public school system, and were active in social and educational movements during the 1960s-70s in order to understand how teachers understood and resisted dominant oppressive forces which create and perpetuate social inequality. Teacher narratives were analyzed using two complementary methods: contents analysis and interactional positioning theory. First, stories of teachers’ struggles in their classrooms and schools were contextualized in a wider social struggle for humanity and a more just society, in order to explore teachers’ understanding of social oppression and their resistance, and multiculturalism in Japanese classrooms in the 1960s-1970s. Through their stories, an indigenous multicultural nature of Japanese classrooms was revealed, even before the multiculturalism became an imported educational topic in the 1980s. Furthermore, using interactional positioning theory, I discussed how teacher activist identities were constructed during the narration, at the same time, uncover how social stigma of being an activist possibly suppressed the participants overtly constructing an activist identity in narratives.

America is again in a period of intense education reform designed to improve teaching and learning. Since 1983, when America was declared "at risk" highly publicized and widely disseminated reports criticized the state of the nation's schools and suggested global remedies for perceived weaknesses. Such generalized calls for education reforms initiated by those outside the individual school historically failed to significantly alter the learning environment and effect improvement. A growing body of research suggests legislated reform efforts do not succeed because they do not recognize the unique character of each school. Further, research findings relative to the change process itself is consistently ignored by outside-the-school policymakers. A crucial step toward education renewal at the local school level is the identification of improvement priorities. The purpose of this study was to investigate practices and perceptions of the improvement priority determination process in the local school. Three research objectives guided the study: (1) To describe priorities identified by teachers and principals to bring about improvement; (2) To describe how teachers and principals determine priorities for improvement; (3) To describe the degree of teacher satisfaction towards the process for determining priorities for school improvement. Data was obtained from principals and teachers in the eleven core schools of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst school/university partnership, the Coalition for School Improvement. Analysis of findings for the first objective indicate that less than half (44%) of principal-identified priorities and only 10% of teacher-identified priorities were stated in terms of student learning. Analysis of findings for the second objective indicate general congruence between principal and teacher perceptions of procedures employed to establish priorities but that principals felt teachers had greater involvement in determining priorities than did the teachers. Findings for the third objective indicate teachers were satisfied with their degree of involvement in establishing improvement priorities although they expressed a higher degree of satisfaction with their role in initiating priorities than they did regarding their role in determining priorities. The determination of priorities to address learning problems of students is an immediate step that can be taken to make schools even more adequate to their tasks of preparing children and youth for constructive participation in their democracy. The tendency of educators to describe goals in terms of the program rather than in terms of the learner suggests that concerns for the means has relegated concern for the learner to a lesser place in the hierarchy of school renewal priorities.

This dissertation addresses the problem of how best to teach undergraduate literature courses in the climate of challenge and hostility which surrounds traditional literary studies today. The practical purpose of the dissertation is to recommend that teachers of undergraduate literature classes not only become thoroughly familiar with current academic debates over how and which literature to teach, but that they incorporate these debates into the curriculum. The dissertation further recommends that undergraduate literature courses teach the historical circumstances which shaped literary study in America and subsequently created the issues and positions with which the current debate is concerned. The five chapters of the dissertation present an historical account of the development of literary studies in American higher education. Particular attention is paid to the influences of power and class which were brought to bear on this process from its origins in classical Greek education to its institutionalization in the late nineteenth century. This history is intended to serve as resource material for literature instructors who wish to expand their curriculum and teach undergraduates that the historical and cultural background to any text is essential to understanding its purpose and meaning. The dissertation concludes with recommendations for how teachers can incorporate cultural history into the undergraduate literature curriculum.

This case study is intended to heighten awareness and draw attention to the fact that in spite of the enlightened intent of the Brown decision and the educational opportunity initiatives of the Great Society, broad, dramatic and troubling inequalities continue to separate American society today. These inequalities are pervasive and show themselves along racial, social and economic parameters. Across America, and most dramatically in urban cities like Boston, disparities in employment, income, housing, health, and educational attainment are pervasive. As a result, there is a compelling need to continue to expand educational opportunities. The primary purpose of this study will be to provide a detailed account of the development and evolution of educational opportunity programs at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. This study will examine the interplay between the university's mission and the development and implementation of programs designed to advance equal educational opportunity for historically under served students. Woven within the fabric of this analysis will be a contextual discussion of certain public policy and economic events at the national level which influenced the development of programs at the Boston campus. The study will begin in 1966 with the establishment of the College Preparatory Program and chronologically trace the development of a unique set of other educational opportunity programs at the University. The study will conclude with a discussion of the Upward Bound Math Science Initiative funded in 1990. Each of the programs studied will be reviewed from a number of different perspectives. The analysis will show the specific need each program was designed to address as well as the specific goals, objectives, and activities that would be implemented to meet these needs. The study will also highlight significant developments over time and key lessons learned. This study will, therefore, trace the evolution of policy and programmatic initiatives which were developed and pioneered at the University of Massachusetts at Boston to address education needs of disadvantaged students. In doing this, important insights will be gained into the contextual and programmatic elements which most effectively meet the needs of this increasingly important population. Finally, this study will show that as UMass/Boston is pulled to become a more traditional university, the educational opportunity programs discussed in this study play an important role in helping the campus to maintain a clear focus on services and programs designed to address the disadvantaged student population cited in UMass/Boston's founding principles.

The purpose of this study is to create in the Bilingual Puerto Rican Teachers an awareness of his/her role as a transmitter of Puerto Rican cultural values. This dissertation proposes the development of a Teaching Handbook which teachers can use to amplify his/her knowledge of his/her own culture and which can serve those teachers that are not Puerto Rican as a learning/teaching guide. The investigator conducted a review of literature which includes: (a) aspects of the culture learned through literature; (b) aspects of the culture not necessarily found in literary sources and is acquired. The investigator presented the results from the findings of the present study that reveal that the majority of Puerto Rican teachers in the United States come here for different reasons. Later they became teachers in different parts of Western Massachusetts. Each one of the teachers agreed that they are and should be transmitters of the culture. Other findings were the fact that some students had problems or cultural shocks in the new country. For example: language, climate, foods and in high school a greater problem communicating with other students and teachers. Those parents that were interviewed agreed that they came to this country to help their children in receiving a better education. Another of the parental worries of those parents that were interviewed, was that their children's adaptation to the new school system was difficult. The parents were concerned that the education of their children should include the Puerto Rican culture. They saw it as something that they could learn in the schools via the teacher. The investigator introduces a model for a handbook to serve as an outline for the transmission of cultural knowledge to Puerto Rican teachers and non-Puerto Rican teachers and the students they teach. It was concluded from the study that through the proposed cultural workshops, bilingual teachers will be able to acquire a wider knowledge of Puerto Rican culture. Through the handbook s/he will get a clearer idea of the possible way in which s/he can communicate this knowledge to his/her Puerto Rican students.

During the 1960s, the University of Salvador (UES) was a normally functioning university, graduating thousands of professionals to feed El Salvador's rapidly-growing economy. By the end of 1980s the school had become a battleground. Almost every day student protests took place. Army troops surrounded the school on several occasions. Within the University itself rival groups struggled for control. How and why did this happen? The purpose of this study is to investigate how the University of El Salvador struggled to accomplish its educational mission in midst of the political and economic crisis that overwhelmed El Salvador during the last three decades. Essentially, I am concerned with the unwritten history of the UES. To accomplish this, I am relying to large extent on primary sources. These include interviews with members from the inside and outside the university community, including those living outside the country; periodicals available in El Salvador; and Salvadoran newspapers available on microfilm here in the U.S. The situation of the UES is a complex one that needs to be analyzed from a number of different perspectives. My study will help us to better understand the pressures that face a university under critical conditions. Its findings will help us to comprehend not only the situation of the UES but also that of other universities in Latin America.