<p> This exploratory study utilizes a qualitative, ethnographic approach to locate and contextualize Latino/a Artist Educators (LAEs) in Miami, Florida. Foundational and cutting-edge, it brings together many distinct perspectives to illuminate the power and promise of a newly imagined yet group of individuals to build and sustain alternative democratic spaces. Building on critical educators Paolo Freire, bell hooks, Henry Giroux and Howard Zinn, as well as extending the framework of critical theorists Gloria Anzald&uacute;a, Cornel West and others, this research begins to sketch the influence of the LAEs interviewed in Miami from 2003-2013. As a sociocultural ethnographic study positioned at the crossroads of many fields, this research is hopefully the first step toward understanding the central value of LAEs&rsquo; work in Miami. </p><p> Through semi-structured interviews, participant observation, field notes, and archival data, the perspective of 52 individuals who self-identify as &ldquo;Latino/a,&rdquo; &ldquo;artist,&rdquo; and &ldquo;educator,&rdquo; are brought into view for analysis and discussion. Open-ended interview questions included queries ranging from motivation and inspiration, to identity, to perceptions of the Latino/a artist (LAE) community, to opinions on schooling and educational processes, to mentoring and how they sustain themselves. Sample questions included: &ldquo;How does your ethnicity, background and culture shape or impact your art/work/teaching?&rdquo; and &ldquo;What can the art world learn from the &lsquo;culture of education&rsquo; and vice-versa?&rdquo; </p><p> The demographic breakdown of the 52 individuals participating in the research study included 30% Cuban, 26% Puerto Rican&mdash;with the real story in the remaining 44% representing a panoply of many Latino nations. LAEs averaged 36 years old at the time of interviews, with males outnumbering females, 56% to 44%. The average LAE has lived in Miami for 20 years. Although the preponderance of LAEs are performing artists (rather than visual artists), nearly 40% claim to be &ldquo;multidisciplinary&rdquo; or &ldquo;interdisciplinary&rdquo; and practice multiple artistic pursuits. Paradoxically, what LAEs have most in common is their diversity and divergence. </p><p> However, not all analysis yielded a divergence of results. LAEs resonated with synchronicity and strength around the expression of four themes&mdash;necessity, urgency, fluidity and agency. All stated explicitly that their creative endeavors were an inextricable part of their identity, providing expression, connection, mental challenge, and healing. None of the LAEs interviewed saw their art (and to a lesser degree, their teaching) as &ldquo;optional.&rdquo; This necessity, this insatiable, non-negotiable need to create and educate was accompanied by a palpable sense of urgency. Each LAE expressed with enthusiasm and intensity their works-in-progress and the realization that the situation with our youth is both pivotal and critical. Perhaps the most exemplary quality of LAEs in Miami is their astounding flexibility or fluidity, the ability to shape-shift, integrating and capitalizing on the specific milieu as it changes over time and space. Finally, these three combined&mdash;necessity, urgency, and fluidity&mdash;result in a powerful sense of agency; LAEs believe that their creative and educational investments are powerful influences in affecting the health and vitality of our youth, our schools, our communities and our society. </p><p> Many additional findings illuminate the range of LAEs teaching styles, motivational sources, philosophical and political views, and their characterization and critique of the LAE communities where they live, work, and create. These findings could be applied in countless ways to continue this trajectory of research and discovery&mdash;better supporting and understanding LAEs, clarifying the conflicted yet active role of resistance that artists play in the gentrification process, and even understanding how schools and our society need to evolve in order to support, nurture and protect democracy at its core&mdash;creating spaces for diverse views, dissent, dialogue, debate and maintaining the deepest respect in the process. </p><p> Future research should include more detailed analysis of collective and individual efforts of the activities of artist/educators involving gender implications, other ethnicities, and the importance of place by including other big cities. Additionally, other variables might be considered more thoughtfully: the central role of music in the creative process, as well as the impact of audience members, venue owners and emcees/hosts in co-creating alternative democratic spaces. </p><p> LAEs&rsquo; creative and educational work has impacts beyond our scope of measurement; to this day, numerous LAEs continue to create the fabric of the artistic, edgy, latino/a/caribeno/a, bohemian aesthetic&mdash;the &ldquo;image&rdquo;&mdash;that is so alluring internationally, and forms the basis for tourism and wealth in Miami, and the prerequisite for imagining the development of Wynwood. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)</p><p>

<p> There is an abundance of research concerning diversity issues in American classrooms. However, researchers have not provided enough attention to religious goals of Muslim parents and their experiences with educational institutions. For this qualitative study, the researcher interviewed 15 Muslim parents, eight females and seven males, to explore how participants&rsquo; experiences and expectations influence the way they negotiate their religious needs with schools/preschool in Southern California. The results showed that cooperation and negotiations were key strategies adopted by Muslim parents to maintain relationships with educational organizations. Schools accommodated religious practices when requested and parents negotiated their needs when necessary. Findings also showed that participants connected the school&rsquo;s role with academic learning and that teachers lacked accurate knowledge of Islam. There was a sense of restraint among participants. Participants did not want to share the name of their child&rsquo;s school/preschool or materials shared by the school.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and delinquent behavior among African American youth. First, this study explores whether SES influences parental monitoring, parent-child attachment, deviant peer associations, and strain among African American adolescents from varying socioeconomic status backgrounds. Next an assessment was conducted to decipher whether theoretical construct variables from foundational criminological theories rooted in social control, strain, and social learning are valid predictors of delinquency among African American adolescents from varying SES backgrounds. Finally, a statistical framework was created to test whether parenting, deviant peers, or strain moderates the relationship between SES and delinquency. </p><p> This study uses simple linear and a hierarchical linear regression to examine the relationship between SES and delinquency while taking into account potential interactive effects of parenting practices, deviant peer associations, and strain experienced by African American adolescents. The results from this study reveal that no direct, statistically significant relationship exists between SES and delinquency for African American adolescents. However, SES plays an important role in influencing parental monitoring, parent-child attachment, deviant peer association, and strain variables. In addition, some of the theoretical construct variables from social control, social learning, and strain theories are strong predictors of delinquent behavior among African American adolescents from varying SES backgrounds. These results offer partial support for social control, strain, and social learning theories.</p><p>

<p> In 2004, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) called for academic health centers (AHCs) to adapt and change through collaboration between their many separate groups of healthcare professionals. Research on collaboration in healthcare organizations to date has concentrated on how collaboration impacts patient care and organizational efficiency. Research has not focused on whether collaboration among healthcare professionals, influences learning for individuals or the organization. Socio-cultural learning theory, which takes into account the individual, the organization and the larger system, emphasizes that &ldquo;collaborative learning&rdquo; is an important component of the learning process. It also emphasizes that problem solving facilitates the development of insights and solutions. On this basis, the link between collaboration and learning needs to be explored. This research focused on exploring the association between collaboration and learning as perceived by clinician educators and other healthcare professionals with whom they have collaborated in AHCs. In-depth interviews were conducted with 21 healthcare professionals who had participated in collaborative activities in the past 18 months, and who had familiarity with relational coordination (RC) as a framework for collaboration. Interview questions elicited interviewee descriptions of positive and challenging collaboration experiences. Data were analyzed using an inductive analysis approach and coded to identify implicit and explicit learning outcomes from those experiences. Findings indicated that all participants had extensive experience of informal collaboration with professional colleagues and learning resulting from their collaboration experiences. Four categories of learning outcomes were identified; process and quality improvement, professional relationships with colleagues, emotional awareness, and growth in technical and adaptive knowledge and skills. The majority of learning outcomes in each of the four categories were implicit, indicating that participants did not recognize the learning that was occurring through their participation in collaborative activities. Learning appears as a currently invisible outcome of collaboration as described by the participants in this study. Further research is needed to determine the potential value of the learning for the individual and the institution.</p><p>

<p> The purpose of this study is to understand how social class background plays a role in student experiences on selective campuses. This study centers the experience of low-income students and extends the work of Ostrove and Long (2007). Previous research has indicated that race, gender, and social class status have each, respectively, been demonstrated to have statistically significant relationships to sense of belonging. This research affirms existing research, but also finds that there are more positive relationships than previously theorized. Minoritized students had higher mean scores related to personal-emotional adjustment and social adjustment. Students from the lowest social class also reported higher scores on the same two adjustment scales than their peers. </p><p> Based in the theory of critical quantitative analysis (Stage, 2007), the research uses the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire (Baker &amp; Siryk, 1999) in order to assess sense of belonging. This survey measures overall sense of belonging, academic adjustment, social adjustment personal-emotional adjustment and institutional attachment. Examining these measures in an intersectional way revealed results that were more nuanced than was previously found in the literature. The data was analyzed using simple linear regression, analysis of variance, and hierarchical multiple regression. The survey was conducted among undergraduate students at The George Washington University, a private, urban institution in Washington, D.C. </p><p> In demonstrating that minoritized and economically and educationally challenged students may be adjusting better than has been previously stated, this study emphasizes the need to affirm students in the identities they hold for themselves rather than studying them through deficit models. Reinforcing the cultural and social norms of marginalized groups aids in their personal growth and development, which often leads to a university&rsquo;s desired outcome, which is retention and graduation.</p><p>

<p> Motivation and engagement helps students succeed in school. When students are apathetic and not invested in their lessons, they may experience severe academic problems. Character education is the explicit instruction of positive values and has been found to improve student motivation and engagement. A type of character education is humane education. The purpose of humane education is to integrate animal-related curricula to foster compassion in children&rsquo;s relationships with both animals and people. In this qualitative phenomenological case study, research was conducted to examine the problem of not knowing what aspects of humane education most contributed to student motivation and engagement. The purpose of this study was to explore teacher perceptions regarding how humane education, specifically animal well-being, influenced student motivation and engagement. Eight humane education teachers with a minimum of two years&rsquo; experience teaching humane education were individually interviewed to better understand the most effective ways to use this curriculum to positively impact student motivation and engagement. Semi-structured interviews occurred in person and via telephone. Participants included four teachers from New Jersey, three from New York, and one educator from California. Respondents had both primary and secondary teaching experience in both public and private schools. All participants perceived humane education as being particularly motivating and engaging for their students as opposed to other curricula, and attributed student interest is enhanced because of children&rsquo;s connection to animals. Six particular themes became apparent from the participants&rsquo; perceptions of humane education as being most impactful on positive student motivation and engagement in their learning. These themes involved: 1) teaching techniques, 2) safe topics and species, 3) food and farm animals 4) student and teacher connection, 4) age, gender, and culture of student, 5) administrator, colleague, and parent reaction, and 6) with companion and farm animals being perceived as engendering the most student motivation and engagement. Recommendations for future research include using student participants in a pretest-posttest design to determine if humane education helped them learn more effectively and conducting a quantitative examination of student performance as related to specific components of humane education. The results of this case study could inform educators when choosing effective curriculum and classroom materials for the purposes of assisting student motivation and engagement. The results could also be implemented in the ways educators integrate animals across school disciplines and how teachers could effectively incorporate humane education to motivate and engage their students.</p><p>

<p> This study positions itself in the field of international/global Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE). The early years of child development constitute what is often viewed as the most significant developmental period of the entire life-cycle. Studies have pointed to a range of benefits that ECCE programs can provide, leading to a greater interest in the field of ECCE globally. International/global ECCE is predominantly determined by Western derived theories and programs. Some Western derived ECCE programs assert their universal applicability, but there is criticism and opposition to the perceived ethnocentricity of these programs. Such resistance raises fundamental questions about what forms globally orientated ECCE programs should take. </p><p> This exploratory comparative case-study explores the <i>lived-experiences, perceptions</i> and <i>praxes</i> of ECCE educators in Lebanon and Denmark, as well as the <i>habitus</i> from which these arise. These constructs were investigated through the use of a qualitative, comparative, embedded-design case-study. In-depth phenomenological interviews, structured and unstructured observations/participant-observations and document analysis were used to collect data. The data was analyzed thematically utilizing open/axial/selective coding and a priori themes. </p><p> The four participants&rsquo; perceptions converged with regards to the perception that child-educator ratios have implications for ECCE praxis. All the participants held that their approaches to ECCE were child-centered, although their interpretations of what constituted child-centered praxis differed. The participants believed that parents play an important role in ECCE, but the relationship between educator and parent is not always easy. Finally, all the participants felt a deep love for ECCE, and had done so ever since they first came into contact with the field. The Lebanese and Danish cases diverged on their perceptions of ECCE curriculum and whether or not they believed that ECCE praxis is an extension of motherhood.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation focused on the impact of stuttering within the university setting. Data were gathered and examined using a qualitative research methodology. This research design used several data collection procedures including participant observation, ethnographic interviews, and artifact analysis. These procedures captured the use of communicative strategies and barriers as they unfolded in authentic interactions within the university. They also served to illustrate how other social partners perceived PWS (persons who stutter) in the classroom and other relevant university contexts. </p><p> The results of these data were examined using categorization of the context and culture of each environment, conversational strategies employed during social interactions, and the coping and supportive devices used during authentic interactions. The views, reactions, and affective reactions of PWS were also explored and discussed. Patterns emerged from the data that uncovered the types of strategies that PWS employed to overcome communicative barriers within the university setting. This study provides further evidence in support of strategies that consider the context within the university when examining PWS and the value in exploring the real-time behaviors that are implemented by PWS as they negotiate social action within these contexts. This study has important implications regarding the value of qualitative research paradigms in investigating social access and inclusion in PWS in the university setting and exploring the usefulness of partner and advocacy training in universities and other educational institutions.</p><p>

<p> Hybrid High School education is a disruptive innovation that has begun to replace traditional brick and mortar schools for many students world-wide. In addition to a traditional school model are the traditional metrics by which schools are compared. These metrics have been achievement data, success rates, and funding analyses. These metrics do not account for the lived experience of the high school students, in the same way that the traditional model of education does not account for the changing methods available for learning. This study is a phenomenological analysis of the lived experience of high school students who have attended hybrid educational programs. These programs utilize the digital advances available for learning by offering at least half of their curriculum online, while maintaining face to face instruction during the rest of curricular time. The premise of this study is that high school provides an <i>ethos</i>, or manifested culture, for each student served. The questions used in nine interviews to understand this ethos were created using research in the area of adolescent life satisfaction. The research resulted in focus areas to be discussed: autonomy, engagement, social capital, and community connectedness. Participants in this study age 18&ndash;20 recently graduated from four years attending a hybrid program. The participants were introspective and detailed in their explanations of life experiences during their time in hybrid programs, and how their ethos was shaped by experiences in each of the areas of life satisfaction listed above. The interview analyses led to four conclusions regarding hybrid high school student life. First, the hybrid program graduates interviewed have a rich sense of community. These communities vary and most are members of multiple communities. All feel a sense of belonging and are connected to groups beyond family. Second, the hybrid program graduates are highly self-reliant. Participants pointed out that they have relationships with people who are supportive, but that they are independently responsible for overcoming life&rsquo;s obstacles. Third, these conclusions are intended to influence design of future innovational programs. Finally, the hybrid high school did serve as a disruptive innovation which had clear benefits for the adolescents participating. This study, in combination with additional studies focusing on specific program elements, could result in quality innovative programs that meet the needs of a changing adolescent population.</p><p>

<p> <b>Purpose:</b> The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study is to discover the factors which contribute to the positive transformation of a comprehensive public high school&rsquo;s culture as perceived by the school&rsquo;s administrators, teachers, and classified staff. An additional purpose of the study is to determine what similarities and differences exist between the perceptions of administrators, teachers, and classified staff. </p><p> <b>Methodology:</b> The researcher identified comprehensive public high schools within the state of California where measurable growth in positive perceptions of school culture had been achieved within the preceding two to four years. Of this target population, six schools were identified, through which the researcher conducted individual interviews with each principal and focus group discussions with separate groups of six to eight teachers and six to eight classified staff members at each school site. Additionally, the researcher participated in observations at each school site and gathered artifacts to support the data garnered through the interviews and focus group discussions. </p><p> <b>Findings:</b> Participants recognized trust, relationships, and shared values as the fundamental components of a positive school culture. Principals perceived shared leadership and decision making as vital, while teachers and classified staff members responded strongly to the inspiring vision of a passionate school leader. Classified staff members also responded strongly to the importance of communication within the organization. </p><p> <b>Conclusions:</b> Cultural change efforts require time, patience, empathy, and willingness to engage in conflict and honest discourse. Additionally, schools with strong, positive culture create an environment that is student-centered, feels like home/family, and values all stakeholders as equally important. All decisions, goals, and plans are rooted in the shared values of the school community, which are communicated constantly in various ways. </p><p> <b>Recommendations:</b> School leaders hoping to positively shift their cultures must engage all stakeholders in the development of shared values, implement structures that facilitate the building of relationships, celebrate risk-taking and small wins, demonstrate and inspire trust, and develop methods to assess and constantly reassess the aspects of their schools&rsquo; cultures in order to spark a call to action that will resonate with stakeholders.</p><p>