<p> This dissertation was a case study of student perceptions in two history classrooms in a large suburban high school. In each classroom examined for this study the teacher was committed to using social studies inquiry and mobile technology in their instruction. Students were also expected to complete assignments and conduct inquiry with mobile technology. The purpose of this study was to examine the voice and experiences of high school students, and how high school students construct meaning through inquiry and mobile technology in the social studies classroom. 109 students participated in observations, focus groups, personal interviews and submitted completed examples of inquiry with technology. There were four general themes uncovered in the data for this study. The four themes that generated the findings for this study are that students engaged in inquiry using mobile technology (a) embraced the availability of resources and information when planning and conducting inquiries (b) reflected on communication with teachers and peers during the inquiry process (c) expressed that mobile technology provided opportunities to engage in learning and enhance knowledge outside of prescribed assignments (d) and used various creative outlets of mobile technology to communicate outcomes. </p><p>

<p> The research topic is the development of competence as perceived by addiction counselor trainees during supervision. Researchers explored the topic of competence in the fields of social work, psychology, medicine, and professional counseling. Researchers explored competence as it related to multicultural counseling, medical understanding, and specific counseling techniques. Addiction counselor training includes an understanding the 12 core functions within addiction counseling, and the American Society of Addiction Medicine&rsquo;s six dimensions of addiction counseling. However, a gap in the research indicated the need to understand the development of competence within addiction counselor training given the different dynamics of addiction counseling preparation. The following research question was used to guide the research project: How do addiction counselor trainees describe the development of competence during supervision? A generic qualitative approach was used to understand the perceptions of addiction counselor trainees. Participants were 10 addiction counselor trainees in two Midwestern states. The sample included seven female and three males of which seven participants were Caucasian, one was Native American, one was African, and one was Hispanic. Nine of ten completed their Master&rsquo;s degree while one completed an Associate&rsquo;s degree. The data analysis method used after coding the raw data was thematic analysis. The following themes arose from the coding process once analyzed: (a) prior personal and professional experience, (b) consortium training, (c) academic preparation, (d) supervision, and (e) emotional intelligence. The participants believed the development of competence resulted from personal and professional experience, exposure to and active involvement in addiction services during training, academic preparation in college, active use of supervision during training, and the degree of personal emotional intelligence. While most addiction licensing boards identify the importance of academic preparation, training hours, and competency based testing procedures, none have identified the use of prior personal and professional experience and the degree of emotional intelligence. Further exploration in the utilization of emotional intelligence testing during addiction counselor training is indicated for future research based on the findings of this dissertation.</p><p>

<p> The prevalence rate of children with autism has been on the rise for the past 20 years. A hallmark characteristic of this disorder is the presence of stereotypic behaviors. Children who engage in stereotypic behaviors experience difficulties in effectively interacting with their surrounding environment. Both consequence-based and antecedent based interventions have been successful in decreasing these interfering behaviors. The performance of physical exercise has shown positive results as both a consequence based and antecedent based intervention in reducing stereotypic behaviors. The current investigation conducted a meta-analysis on the effects of physical exercise on stereotypic behaviors in individuals with autism. This study was able to run this meta-analysis using both aggregate score studies and single subject design studies. This study identified 10 research articles that met all of the inclusion criteria. The 10 articles were coded according to sixteen primary moderators and four peripheral moderators. The 10 articles produced an overall large effect size of <i>d</i> = -.456. This large effect size demonstrated that physical exercise is effective in decreasing stereotypic behaviors in individuals with autism. However, no significant statistical difference was observed within any of the primary and peripheral moderators. The lack of significant statistical difference within any of the moderators lead the current investigator to conclude that the effect of physical exercise on stereotypic behaviors in individuals with autism may not be impacted by external factors. Further research is needed to determine the internal neurobiological effects of physical exercise on stereotypic behaviors in individuals with autism.</p><p>

<p> Public health institutions and popular media frequently frame weight loss and weight control as primary benefits of physical activity. This exploratory, descriptive study examined how respondents rated statements exemplifying three physical activity frames: a weight control frame, a medical frame, and an active embodiment frame. An anonymous, online survey was conducted in March 2018; respondents rated frame statements in terms of inspiring motivation to engage in physical activity, and in terms of perceived credibility. They also provided anthropometric data and physical activity data. Data were analyzed for the entire sample as well as stratified by multiple variables, including body mass index, waist circumference, age, and physical activity levels. </p><p> Overall, the weight control frame was rated the lowest in terms of motivation, and rated moderately in terms of credibility. The active embodiment frame was highly rated in terms of motivation, but did not rate highly in terms of credibility. The medical frame was rated most credible overall, while achieving moderate motivation ratings. A &ldquo;credibility/motivation gap&rdquo; was identified when frames were rated highly on one scale (credibility or motivation), but not the other. These findings have implications for how physical activity is framed in public health messaging, and suggest that, as no single frame dominated both the motivation and credibility ratings, a multi-frame approach may have greater success in motivating people to engage physical activity than does the current, weight-control dominant approach. </p><p>

<p> Racial injustice in U. S. society cannot be separated from that which happens in U.S. classrooms. Indeed, many battles between white supremacy and antiracism are waged in the public school arena&mdash;such as, the whitewashing of slavery in textbooks, and the Supreme Court decision to ban Mexican American Studies in Arizona. Thus, this dissertation took into account teacher learning and classroom practice around race, racism, and social justice through professional development. Specifically, among teachers committed to social justice, this dissertation investigated the role professional development plays in shaping how their commitment translates into classroom practice. I designed &lsquo;race space&rsquo; Critical Professional Development (CPD) (Kohli, Picower, Martinez, &amp; Ortiz, 2015) to support in-service urban teachers in learning about race, racism, and what it means to engage in social justice teaching. I employ the term &lsquo;race space&rsquo; to describe an aim to engender transformational, reflective, real talk and action around race and racism, through collective effort. With the theoretical groundings of critical race theory (CRT) in education, ideological becoming, and Third Space, I asked: What is the nature of &lsquo;race space&rsquo; CPD? Specifically, among urban in-service teachers committed to social justice, how does a &lsquo;race space&rsquo; CPD cultivate: a) racial literacy; b) social justice teaching, and; c) ideological becoming? </p><p> Methodologically, this research project consisted of an ethnographic case study of the &lsquo;race space&rsquo; CPD. During the 2016-2017 academic year, three in-service, social justice-oriented public school teachers, who teach mostly students of color, participated in twelve &lsquo;race space&rsquo; CPD sessions over the course of eight months. I facilitated the sessions, completed 1-2 classroom observations of each teacher every week, and interviewed teachers and two of their students. Shay is a Black female Academic Intervention Services (AIS) and English Language Learners (ELL) teacher. Josh, a white male sixth grade special education teacher, teaches in a self-contained classroom. Gigi, a white female secondary biology teacher, teaches in a nontraditional high school. Primary data sources included: a) audio and video of &lsquo;race space&rsquo; CPD sessions and classroom interactions, b) field notes, c) teacher and student interviews, and d) pre- and post-questionnaires of teachers. I transcribed audio of &lsquo;race space&rsquo; CPD sessions and teacher and student interviews. Employing descriptive and process coding, I analyzed 591 pages of session transcriptions for narratives and dialogic exchanges around racial literacy, social justice understandings, meaning-making around social justice teaching, classroom practice, curriculum planning, and social justice ideological becoming. I then conducted a critical discourse analysis of focal dialogic exchanges to understand collective and individual racial literacy cultivation, social justice ideological becoming, and social justice teaching engagements. </p><p> Data analysis revealed three major findings. First, &lsquo;race space&rsquo; CPD cultivated racial literacy by being responsive to the racial literacy teachers already displayed while providing support in responding to the racial consciousness of students of color. Second, &lsquo;race space&rsquo; CPD cultivated social justice teaching among teachers through dialogic exchanges that pushed thoughtful and meaningful social justice curriculum planning that co-exists with the organic social justice teachable moments that arise. Third, &lsquo;race space&rsquo; CPD cultivated social justice ideological becoming among teachers, through dialogic exchanges that advanced and critiqued the oppressive nature of school. Through the actualization of a Third Space within &lsquo;race space&rsquo; CPD, participant and facilitator ways of knowing/acting were both welcomed and called into question, for the purposes of interrupting and revising their performances of the present. Implications include extended time and space in professional development initiatives for learning around race, racism, and social justice.</p><p>

<p> While adolescent endurance runners are at risk for energy deficiency, limited studies have evaluated the effect of a nutrition education intervention. We evaluated the effect of a 4-week nutrition curriculum on adolescent cross-country runners&rsquo; nutrition knowledge, dietary behaviors, and self-efficacy to optimize intake of nutrient-dense carbohydrate foods, using a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest design. Runners (<i>n</i> = 45; <i>n</i> = 26 F, <i>n</i> = 19 M; age 15.7 &plusmn; 0.2y) attended 4 weekly 30 to 60-minute lessons. Baseline body weight and composition were measured using bioelectrical impedance analysis. Paired samples t-tests measured difference in nutrition knowledge and self-efficacy scores, before and after each lesson. Mean nutrition knowledge scores significantly increased from pre- to post-test for lessons 1 and 2 (<i>p</i> &lt; .001). Mean self-efficacy scores significantly improved pre- to post-test for all lessons (<i>p</i> &lt; .001). Findings suggest a benefit of the curriculum to increase nutrition knowledge, self-efficacy, and support dietary behaviors promoting increase in nutrient-dense carbohydrate intake among adolescent runners.</p><p>

<p> Asthma is an inflammatory disorder (Koterba &amp; Saltoun, 2012) and a common chronic condition of childhood (McCowan, Bryce, Neville, Crombie, &amp; Clark, 1996) that can cause children to experience poorer academic outcomes (Stingone &amp; Claudio, 2006), a lower quality of life (Everhart &amp; Fiese, 2009), hospitalizations, and in some cases death (Center for Disease Control, [CDC], 2017). This mixed methods study explored the relationship of asthma, school attendance, grades in mathematics and reading, and the quality of life in predominantly minority children with asthma and in those without asthma. Data for this study was collected at the Children&rsquo;s National Health Systems (CNHS) in the District of Columbia. A total of 36 children without asthma and 30 children with asthma enrolled in the study at the hospital&rsquo;s Emergency Department (ED) and the Improving Pediatric Asthma Care in the District of Columbia (IMPACT DC) clinic. The children were in grades three to five, 8 to 11 years old, and attended schools in the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) during the 2015&ndash;2016 school year. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANCOVA, ANOVA, Spearman ranked order correlations, and hierarchical multiple linear regression were used to analyze the data. </p><p> The quantitative analysis indicated children with asthma visited the ED significantly more frequently than those without asthma (<i>p</i> &lt; .001, <i>d</i>= 0.8). The quality of life scores were lower for children with asthma compared to those without asthma. Further, as asthma severity increased, the quality of life scores decreased. In addition, children without asthma reported more unexcused days and absence from school than those with asthma. Lastly, children without asthma achieved a lower GPA in mathematics and reading than those with asthma. The findings indicate asthma impacts the quality of life scores in children, and that further research is warranted to determine how asthma impacts academic performance in children. </p><p>

<p> There is growing interest in teaching K-16 students where food comes from and how it is grown, as evidenced by school gardens, farm-to-school programs, majors related to food systems, student farms on college campuses, and campus sustainable food projects. Many of these programs, however, do not necessarily highlight social inequities embedded in food systems or engage with the people who feed us, including slaughterhouse workers and restaurant workers. Moreover, there is currently little documentation and analysis of the few programs that highlight food workers and their experiences. Given the dearth of research on the practice of critical food systems education, I designed and researched a 10-week, seminar-style undergraduate course titled &ldquo;Making Visible the People Who Feed Us: Labor in the Food System&rdquo; that I taught over three academic quarters. Using teacher research methodology, this qualitative study explores how three cohorts of 18 students in the course responded to multicultural texts that reflect diverse, marginalized perspectives of food workers, many of whom are people of color, women, and/or undocumented. Following the reflective and reflexive tradition of teacher research, I also reflect on my teaching practices, consider how my biases affected my teaching, and elaborate on tensions that emerged as I taught the course. Data sources included student work, field notes of each class session, post-course and 6-11-month follow-up interviews, and entries in my reflection journal.</p><p> Findings from this study indicated a wide range in terms of how students responded to multicultural texts about food workers, depending on students&rsquo; prior knowledge and experiences. Some students showed a variety of emotions, from frustration to sadness, or expressed appreciation or respect toward the workers, especially if the workers&rsquo; experiences resonated with the students in some way. Other students took a critical, analytical stance, drawing on their prior knowledge of structural inequities. Still other students, especially those who had prior knowledge of the food system, showed resistance, whether by questioning the actions of the people in the texts or questioning the content and authors of the texts. In addition, some students showed evidence of taking on different perspectives that conflicted with their prior beliefs, whether with respect to immigration or the American Dream.</p><p> Ultimately, I advance three arguments in this dissertation. One is that multicultural texts about food workers have the potential to encourage students to make a wide range of connections with their prior knowledge or experiences and to try on or entertain multiple perspectives that underlie labor and social justice issues more broadly. Another is that the food system is a rich context for inviting students to think critically about a variety of social justice issues embedded in society. And a third is that educators who teach about labor and social justice issues in the food system need to be both reflective and reflexive with respect to their own teaching practices and grapple with pedagogical questions that have ethical implications.</p><p>

<p> This study examined the effects of a school improvement project involving Distributed leadership (DL), a perspective for studying or developing organization leadership through the interaction of organizational members and activities. This research was part of a larger DL Project taking place in York City School District, PA, which sought to improve school leadership to enhance student achievement as a final end. While recent studies provided significant findings about DL&rsquo;s contribution to school improvement, the literature begs for more research about the effects of distributed leadership. One of the effects the DL Project wished to accomplish was the development of trust among the DL teams. According to the literature, trust has a direct link to academic achievement and school improvement respectively. Similarly, it was expected that this effect would improve the implementation of the DL Project. This smaller study sought to answer how, if at all, the DL Project implementation changed trust on the teams and in the schools; and how the experience of doing an evidence-based project, within the DL Project, contributed to the changes in trust in the teams over time. The two-month study took place in York City schools and involved the first-year of the DL Project, and as participants, DL team members and members from the staff. An embedded mixed methods approach was used to collect and analyze qualitative and quantitative data from project archives, surveys and interviews. The analysis suggests that trust changed positively or negatively within the first year of the Distributed Leadership (DL) intervention; The DL Project mainly improved respect and integrity (two dimension of trust) among the teams and in the school; The other two dimensions of trust were highly affected during the first year of the DL Project implementation: Competence and personal regard; Improvements in trust are less evident in the first year; The context can greatly affect trust changes; and the evidence-based project proved to catalyze changes in trust during the first year.</p><p>

<p> There has been very limited research on the possible role religion has in its influence on teacher choices, especially within a Social Science classroom. The purpose of this study was to examine how secondary Social Studies teachers explicitly and implicitly treat religion as a factor in the teaching of history and how their own affinity with/to a religion and beliefs about religious institutions influence their curricular choices. The following research question informed the study: How are teachers&rsquo; religious identities, affinities and positionality revealed in their curricular choices? </p><p> Through the use of the multiple case study model using interviews, observations and artifacts, this dissertation examined how secondary Social Studies teachers explicitly and implicitly treat religion as a factor in the teaching of history and how their own affinity with/to a religion and beliefs about religious institutions influence their curricular choices. Using the lenses of positionality and presence, while explicitly being aware of American Civil Religion, religious hierarchies and Christian Privilege, this study examined two Atheist/Agnostic teachers in a comprehensive urban high school settings. </p><p> The findings are presented as single case studies with a cross case analysis. The analysis of findings found that both teachers did not include religion as a significant factor of history and therefore, did not privilege religion as a topic in their classes. The data showed that both teachers, despite their religious identifications, had internalized Civil American Religion and its alignment with Christianity.</p><p>