This study of the relation between education and earnings in South Africa in 1993 concludes that the private labor-market rate of return to investment in primary and secondary education for Africans is about 15 to 21%. This figure is about half the average for sub-Saharan Africa and does not reflect a large absolute effect of schooling on earnings so much as a very low labor-market opportunity cost, which cost is depressed by widespread youth unemployment. The decision to drop out after only a few years of school may be economically justifiable for students from poor families, who, out of necessity, are constrained by short time horizons. Policies designed to lower the direct costs of education may have little effect on the poorest households. As a result, it may prove quite difficult to achieve a more equal distribution of educational capital. Furthermore, log expected earnings are convex in years of schooling, with the implication that even if schooling does become more equally distributed, increases in mean educational attainment for Africans are likely to be associated with greater economic inequality among Africans (but less inequality between the races).

Parent involvement is one of the factors to which student achievement is consistently and strongly linked in educational research, and is perceived by teachers as a core factor affecting student achievement. Therefore more and higher-quality engagement with students' families has the potential to make a positive difference in urban schools. However, a tendency among educators to focus on perceived family deficits, without a clear understanding of students' families' strengths, may limit urban schools' ability to develop effective family engagement programming. This study involved faculty and staff members at an urban K-8 school in systematically identifying strengths of the low-income Puerto Rican families whose children made up the vast majority of the student body, as a critical point of reference for working with families toward stronger student outcomes. The study was grounded in the principles of Action Research and utilized methods associated with Appreciative Inquiry to involve school faculty and staff members in carrying out, then collectively analyzing the results from, structured interviews with parents of low-income Puerto Rican students at the school. Along with establishing a family strengths inventory for use in ongoing planning for enhancement of family engagement programming at the school, the study included an assessment of the impact of the research process on the perceptions and intended actions of both participating faculty and staff members and those who elected not to participate. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of implications and recommendations related to theory, practice, policy, and research associated with the efforts of schools serving low-income Puerto Rican (and other) communities to strengthen their engagement with students' families.

This study describes the historical development of the Nauvoo, Illinois, public school system, 1841-1845. Many church, civic, and social organizations offered a wide variety of learning experiences to the citizens of Nauvoo. A set of questions was devised for this study to distinguish and to describe the Nauvoo school system from the multiplicity of educational offerings.

In the spring and summer of every year the housing offices of many colleges and universities seek to prepare for the fall term. In colleges with increasing enrollments often a problem exists in housing all the students who have applied for housing. This problem is further complicated in colleges and universities where residency on campus is considered to be an integral part of the objectives and philosophy surrounding their educational offering.

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.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate three different teaching approaches that might improve the social functioning of young children with visual impairment and additional disabilities. These three methods included: (1) the arrangement of ecological variables (child-selected play materials), (2) peer-mediated training procedures, and (3) teacher-directed prompting strategies to promote and reinforce social behaviors. Of the four children studied, two failed to show changes in verbal and physical interactive behaviors across baseline and peer-mediated conditions. However, these same two students demonstrated increases albeit highly variable, during the teacher-prompting phase. For the other two students, physical and verbal interactive behaviors increased during both peer and teacher prompting conditions when contrasted to baseline phases. Overall, these findings suggest that teacher-prompting procedures may be an effective teaching method to improve social skills of young children with vision impairment and additional disabilities.

The dissertation highlights the many deeply rooted problems elementary school teachers in Boston face in trying to be caring, effective teachers. A brief history and demographic information of the Boston Public Schools provide the context for extensive interviews with ten middle-aged, female teachers. The intellectual rationale is provided with an overview of classic theories of adult development but is most strongly grounded in feminist scholarship. The dissertation provides an analysis of how patriarchal patterns and sexist prejudice in society undermine the respect for teachers and strip them of power, and how these patterns and prejudices silence teachers' voices within the Boston Public Schools. By asking these teachers to tell their stories, the dissertation reveals some of the myriad educational and societal factors that influence life in the urban classroom. The voices of the teachers, the heart of the dissertation, provide an eloquent plea for taking elementary school teachers seriously and including them as vital partners in school improvement. The voices of the women are organized according to certain issues that kept surfacing in their interviews. These issues were: the influence of patriarchy, being middle-aged and experienced teachers and a list of teacher concerns, including, sexual abuse of children, over emphasis on testing, the changing role of the school, the imposition of a single basal reader, poverty, and school administration. The reader discovers the remarkable insight, stamina and courage of these teachers in their daily encounter with the societal evils that their children fall prey to. A phenomenological style of interviewing constitutes the methodology of this dissertation. This feminist analysis makes public the lived experience and private reflections of these women who have chosen careers in service to others, often called "women's work." They have long spoken in private; now their public voices beg to be heard and valued as a powerful source for reform of the schools.

This study focuses on the relationship between high school students' level of satisfaction, students' academic achievement, and their level to remain in school. Many studies and researchers have been blaming the school system for its failure to recognize that variables or factors outside the school environment are taking place and affecting students' level of satisfaction, academic achievement, and their interest to remain in school and complete a high school diploma. This study focuses on the base of students' perceptions or expectations regarding their school environment and an examination of significant correlations among variables that might distinguish particular factors. A Likert Rating Scale was used to measure students' level of satisfaction and their interest to remain in school. It was administered to 282 students. Student achievement was measured by their grades upon entering high school and the grades they received at the end of the marking period. The statistical analyses included frequencies for all variables, Chi-Squares, t-Test and Analyses of Variance, and multiple correlations. Four specific research questions guided the study. The analysis of the open-ended section of the survey instrument provided evidence that the students feel responsible for their success or failure in school. They acknowledge other sources that are interfering with their school work: lack of time to complete homework and personal/family problems, as well as peer pressure. Students' responses showed evidence of satisfaction with the school environment. The more favorable the school environment is, the more likely students are to remain in school and move ahead. Students perceive their parents' interest in their education is a main element in their satisfaction and motivation to remain in school. Students' part-time and full-time jobs could contribute to both students' level of satisfaction and dissatisfaction. It provides some valuable skills to the students, but in some cases it creates obstacles that make students fall behind in school. Students' level of satisfaction was indeed related to students' academic achievement and their interest to remain in school. They do want to finish high school.

The purposes of this study were to provide an historical overview of the development of post-secondary technical education in Puerto Rico within the framework of the expansion of higher education; and to examine the implications and consequences of the development of technical education as it relates to social stratification, social division of labor, and social class conflict. During the 1940s, Puerto Rico began, for it, an unprecedented economic development program with the objective of industrializing the Island. This industrialization process brought about a rapid transformation of the occupational structure of the labor force on the Island. This process also influenced changes in the structure, orientation, and curriculum of public post-secondary education. In the 1960s, the University of Puerto Rico underwent a rapid and remarkable transformation. An important part of this process was the establishment and development of a system of regional colleges that became responsible for the development of two-year technical programs. The apparent shortage of technical personnel necessary to sustain the process of industrial development, and the high unemployment rate among four-year college graduates were two of the most influential arguments that sparked the establishment and development of these programs. The findings show an imbalance in the social demographic composition between regional college students and those in the more prestigious campuses. Students from the higher social class are over-represented at the main institutions, while the lower social class is better represented throughout the regional college system. Data used in this study do not support the claim of a technical personnel shortage nor the allegation that technical education yields economic success, facilitates upward social mobility, and helps to alleviate unemployment among four-year college graduates. Finally, the data do not support the existence of a social-class tracking system within the regional college institutions.

Teacher empowerment has emerged as an important theme in the educational reform of the 1980's. Increasingly the commitment of capable teachers to their work has come to be seen as vital to the success of public schools. Low pay, lack of prestige and status, burnout, unfulfilled expectations, disinterested students, intrusive administrators, isolation from other adults, etc. have been cited as factors that lead to lack of commitment or turnover in the teaching profession. In the absence of nationally led reforms, individual states have begun to look at how teachers might be empowered in their work as a means of countering these issues. In the fall of 1986, the Massachusetts legislature funded twelve fellowships named after the 19th century educational reformer, Lucretia Crocker. These fellowships were intended for experienced, capable public school teachers who had designed and successfully implemented their own programs in their home school districts. By means of the fellowships these teachers spend one year relieved of their regular teaching duties in exchange for sharing their educational approaches with other public school teachers. The fellowships were to be a means of changing the teaching profession by permitting empowered teachers to share the means of their empowerment with others in the profession. Yet to more fully understand teacher empowerment we need to understand the meaning which it occupies in the daily life of the teacher. After interviewing six Lucretia Crocker Fellows at different points in their fellowship year, the study discovers that these teachers feel empowerment when there is an alignment of their values with the operational values of the system in which they work. Yet current educational reform in ignoring the values of the individual teacher in favor of technical and structural solutions to educational issues frequently risks being irrelevant or contradictory to the daily life of the teacher. This study concludes that for these six fellows empowerment was more often a result of their personal initiative and fortuitous chance rather than a consequence of organizational planning or educational policy.