The quality of interactions between facilitators and groups is critical to the success of social justice educational experiences. Given the importance of these interpersonal dynamics, it is curious that there are few references and no research studies in the literature that explore the phenomenon of triggering events for facilitators and trainers of diversity awareness and social justice educational experiences. The results of this study will help to fill this gap in the social justice education literature by describing the types of situations in which educators feel triggered, the ways they respond to triggering events, and the core competencies and strategies that help educators use triggering events as “teachable moments” that further participant learning. I collected questionnaires from forty respondents and conducted in-depth interviews with fifteen educators from a range of social identities (race and gender), years of experience (6–35), and both formal academic and informal training settings. These educators reported experiencing a wide range of triggering events. They often felt overwhelmed, surprised, and “de-skilled” by the intensity of their emotional reactions and felt that they had responded to the situations in ways that were less effective. A core finding from this study identified the intervention strategies with which educators were satisfied, including using self-management strategies to re-establish a sense of emotional equilibrium, using the self as instrument to diagnose the situation and further participant learning, and engaging the resistance of participants to facilitate honest dialogue. Another critical finding identified ways in which intrapersonal issues and unresolved past traumas of educators appeared to influence how they appraised events as triggers and responded in the moment. Those educators who developed greater self-awareness and participated in personal healing work reported experiencing fewer triggering events and greater satisfaction with how they managed the ones they encountered. Data from this study will help coordinators of professional development programs for social justice educators provide opportunities to gain the competencies to manage emotional reactions and choose more effective interventions during triggering events. This study has implications for professional development programs in other helping professions including counseling, social work, health care, teaching, human resources, and organization development.

What are characteristics of exceptional teaching in terms of academic, social and emotional growth as determined by middle school teachers and students? An effective middle grades teacher transmits a core of common knowledge to his or her students. An effective middle grade teacher makes his or her students feel they are a part of a community, and provides a meaningful and challenging educational experience. The effective middle grades teacher takes the time to talk with his or her students about academic matters and personal problems, and makes the student see that he or she has value and is a success, with a promising future. (Turning Points, 1989). Are pre-service teachers prepared to teach at the middle level? The purpose of this study was to determine if effective middle school teachers share certain characteristics, and if so, how could they become integrated into a teacher education program. Teachers of middle school students, pre-service teachers, middle school students, and middle school administrators participated in this study about effective middle school teachers. Surveys, interviews, and questionnaires were administered to participants in order to determine what is exceptional about them. The data was then used to identify characteristics or methods which effective middle level teachers have in common. The results were grounded in adolescent development theory. The research may help determine teacher characteristics or methods that are most suited in terms of academic, social, and emotional growth for a middle level student.

This study examined elementary students' perceptions of portfolios and identified instructional strategies that supported students' higher order thinking about portfolios. The participants were 22 students and their teachers from two third grade classrooms during the 1998–1999 school year. Data collection included: student and teacher interviews, classroom and parent/teacher conference observations, portfolio artifacts, teacher logs, and consultations with teachers. Student interviews were coded and scored according to each student's depth of insight. Data were analyzed using the constant comparison method for qualitative analysis. Student interviews were coded using The Ethnograph software program. Two themes were derived from the data: portfolios contribute to third grade students' ability to self-reflect and to the development of students' sense of ownership in the classroom. Results of this study indicated that students used portfolios to monitor their progress, students made judgments based on physical features, choice was a factor in the portfolio process and, instructional strategies supported higher order thinking.

The focus of this study is to understand how students in one second-grade class utilized the social justice principle that they had been taught, to help them negotiate social tensions during Writing Workshop time. I studied the interactions and the writings of children while they composed and they shared their writing with their peers. Although there may be many types of tension present within an elementary classroom, I studied issues related to gender, culture, and friendship and trust. Theoretical constructs supporting this study were derived from grounded theory and sociolinguistic theory. Data collected during daily writing times throughout the school year included: personal student profiles; participant observer field notes; video and audio taped student conversations and student interviews; photographs of student interactions; and photocopies of students' writing. There were three principal findings about students' writings and social interactions during Writing Workshop times. First, students demonstrated within their writing the inclusion of a social justice principle that they were taught, but not in respect to culture. Although there were no negative cases of cultural stereotyping within the students' writing, there were also no cases of positive cultural images displayed. Second, students did not utilize the social justice principle in their conversations to help them negotiate tensions. Third, students' social status among peers influenced their behaviors and their decisions when they were faced with tensions during Writing Workshop. Norms associated with student social status had a stronger effect on their behavior than those from the social justice principle which they were taught. This study suggests the importance of including a social justice component within the Writing Workshop model. It further suggests that objectives be included that bring to the attention of all members of the community the presence of children's social status. It was the influence of student status within this classroom that affected the ways that children have access to learning and that limited participation for some of the students. Direct teacher instruction in social justice may insure that the Writing Workshop is positive and productive for all members of the classroom.

Utilizing the tension inherent in conceptualizations of identity as both a fixed and a transient phenomenon, this dissertation explores perceptions of cultural identity as held by the various members of one Armenian day school in the United States, and by the school itself. In the process, it also considers the emerging question that arises out of its participants' perceptions of the school's own identities. While cultural identity is defined as a sense of belonging to national and ethnic cultures in the context of the nation state, the question of the school and considerations of its identities, on the other hand, raises issues within the context of pedagogy, specifically germane to the complexities of ethnic schooling in the United States. The dissertation's methodology is qualitative. It uses a descriptive cultural studies strategy and an instrumental/intrinsic case study genre to discover aspects of the phenomenon it sets out to study, cultural identity, as well as the context that bounds this phenomenon, the school. The findings reveal as well as imply (a) a range of "identity positions"---participants negotiating the boundaries that separate and unite the domains of their Armenianness and Americanness; (b) several shifting roles of enculturation and acculturation enacted by the school, which is perceived to mediate between the family and the mainstream of American society; (c) an array of multifarious perceptions of the school's identities; (d) a preponderance of hyphenated expressions of cultural identity, reflected in the identity positions as well as in samples of the school's literature, characterized by asymmetries of form and content; (e) an intricate mix of conceptualizations of the school's curriculum, particularly of its Armenian Studies component; and (f) a challenge to the traditionally perceived roles of the ethnic family and the ethnic school as providers, respectively, of "natural" and formal knowledge of ethnicity. This dissertation cautions against apriori interpretations of Armenian-Americanness as a symmetrical construct. It recommends careful consideration of the irregularities inherent in the relationship between this construct's form and content, as signified by the members of the school's community, in order to design a curriculum that is appropriate both pedagogically and culturally.

Although the wealth of research on beginning teachers indicates that teachers' transitions from preservice to inservice are often fraught with complexity, the prevalent “sink-or-swim” approach to their entries into teaching does not usually recognize the developmental complexities of each individual teacher's experience. The developmental blindness that some educational stakeholders have developed in regard to beginning teachers is, in fact, vastly different from the way our society views “newness” or “beginnings” in other venues and forms. If stakeholders in education were to take new teachers seriously as learners, we would not expect the same from them as from veteran teachers, and we would, as a matter of regular practice, provide new teachers with adequate support that is rooted in the legitimate learning and developmental demands of each beginning teacher. Using a phenomenological framework and an in-depth interviewing methodology, I interviewed ten (10) first-year English teachers in order to illuminate the nature of the experience of the first year of teaching English. I explored what it is about the nature of the first-year of teaching that has made it such an infamously trying time emotionally, intellectually, and socially. How does the culture of teaching “induct” its newest teachers? How do new English teachers experience their own learning and development in their first year in the classroom? What does the first year of teaching mean to those who experience it? I interviewed each participant on three separate occasions, with each interview lasting approximately 90 minutes. I audiotaped the interviews and transcribed them verbatim. I open-coded salient themes in the interview transcripts and arrived at 12 themes that cut across my participants' age, gender, and school context. Significant issues in my participants' experiences revealed several elements of the nature of the first-year of teaching English. I discuss how the constitutive elements of my participants' experiences in their first year can be incorporated into the development and implementation of more effective and more developmentally appropriate induction and support programs.

The purpose of this study was to explore teacher beliefs and images of students, learning, and teaching. The study was designed to elicit images and beliefs with the use of teachers' symbolic drawing and subsequent interpretation of their drawings. Twelve first grade teachers with teaching experience ranging from 1½ to 25 years, and from a variety of educational settings (i.e., urban, suburban, traditional public schools, non-traditional public or private schools) participated. Data collection utilized two primary methods of qualitative inquiry: teacher created abstract symbolic drawings and interviewing. The combination of symbolic drawings and interviewing provided an effective means for teachers to access, reflect upon, and express their tacit images and beliefs in a cohesive and holistic manner. The twelve teachers in this study appeared on the surface to have similar images of learning and teaching. Teachers talked about learning as a process that involved images of filtering, connecting, becoming stuck, and disconnecting. One major difference emerged that separated teachers into two distinct groups. The majority of teachers, ten out of twelve, viewed learning as a fact-based associative categorization where students either made connections through associations or replaced old information with new information. Only two teachers talked about learning as theory-based, describing learning as making connection through an assimilatory categorization process or making revisions to personal theories. Teachers who viewed learning as fact based also viewed teaching as fact-based. In general, these teachers used discussion, teacher questions, and a large variety of activities to help students collect new facts and make associative connections. Teachers who viewed learning as theory-based used activities, discussion, and teacher questions to promote conversation and thinking. They expected students to use new facts to build and revise theories with the use of logical reasoning.

The majority of urban minority students, particularly Black students, continue to perform below proficiency on standardized state and national testing in all areas that seriously impact economically advanced career options, especially in areas involving science. If education is viewed as a way out of poverty, there is a need to identify pedagogical methodologies that assist Black students in achieving higher levels of success in science, and in school in general. The purpose of this study was to explore White teachers' and Black students' perceptions about the teaching strategies used in their low socioeconomic status (LSES) urban science classrooms, that led to academic success for Black students. Participants included three urban middle school White teachers thought to be the best science teachers in the school, and five randomly selected Black students from each of their classrooms. Methods of inquiry involving tenets of grounded theory were used to examine strategies teachers used to inspire Black students into academic success. Data collection included teacher and student interviews, field notes from classroom observations, group discussions, and questionaires. Data were analyzed using open, axial, and selective coding. The teachers' perceptions indicated that their prior belief systems, effective academic and personal communication, caring and nurturing strategies, using relevant and meaningful hands-on activities in small learner-centered groups, enhanced the learning capabilities of all students in their classrooms, especially the Black students. Black students' perceptions indicated that their academic success was attributable to what teachers personally thought about them, demonstrated that they cared, communicated with them on a personal and academic level, gave affirmative feedback, simplified, and explained content matter. Black students labeled teachers who had these attributes as "nice" teachers. The nurturing and caring behaviors of "nice" teachers caused Black students to feel a sense of community and a sense of belonging in their classrooms. Black students demonstrated that they respected and always "had the back" of these "nice" teachers. Results from this study could play a significant role in teacher retention and in informing best practices for preservice and other teachers who are struggling to meet the needs of LSES urban students.

A comparative case study was used to explored the orientations to teaching of three college teachers. The educational conceptions about teaching and classroom learning environments were investigated to determine how ideal orientations to teaching matched the reality of classroom practice. Each of the teachers was observed for the duration of eight class sessions (introductory level and upper level). Participants were interviewed on four occasions using a semi-structured interview format consisting of open-ended questions that focused on their conceptions of teaching and learning. Teachers' identified influences that affected their orientations to teaching and discussed their academic discipline, design and use of course syllabi, and their conceptions of students. Interpretation of the data revealed that the participants' ideal teaching orientation was based on their experience as a student and conceptions of the requirements of their academic discipline. Ideal teaching orientations were compromised based on a variety of contextual influences. The study builds theory on teaching orientations and forms a foundation for further research to investigate the influences of professional development, academic discipline, and gender on teaching orientation.

This exploratory descriptive case study aimed to identify key issues in the transformation of mathematics teaching in elementary schools. This study told the story of what happened to sixteen elementary teachers who embarked on a quest to improve their mathematics teaching by participating in at least two in-depth professional development experiences over an interval of three years. It traced their ideas about how and why to improve instruction, identified their challenges with prevailing school organizational conditions, and reported perceived changes that were made in their teaching. The research data, comprised of quotations from teachers' writing while they were engaged in professional development experiences at SummerMath for Teachers of Mt. Holyoke College and the researcher's notes from interviews, formed the data for analysis to answer four interrelated research questions: (1) What changes in instruction do selected elementary teachers of mathematics report that they made as a result of participating in professional development for improving the teaching of mathematics? (2) What do selected elementary teachers of mathematics report are the reasons for the changes they made in instruction? (3) What changes in instruction do selected elementary teachers of mathematics report that they regard as most effective for improving student learning? (4) What organizational conditions in their local elementary schools do selected elementary teachers of mathematics report helped or hindered their changes in instruction? The major findings based on the collected data were summarized and presented according to the four research questions that guided this study. The major findings related to changes in instruction fell under five prominent categories: increased emphasis on student thinking and understanding, increase in student-centered activities, changes in classroom discourse, increase in conceptually-based mathematics content, and a shift in the teacher's role from an authoritarian model of instruction to one that is student-centered. Findings from this study suggested some recommendations for educational practice for institutions preparing elementary teachers of mathematics, for in-service teacher professional development programs, and for school policies and organizational structures. One primary recommendation involved engaging pre- and in-service teachers in revisiting the mathematics content that they currently teach or will teach within an inquiry-based teaching and learning environment so that they might draw their own conclusions as to the implications for teaching mathematics.