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In a study by a high school guidance counselor in the Burr School District, one factor identified as having a positive correlation with students leaving school before graduation is being over-age for grade as a result of being retained or participating in a pre-one program. This research on over-age middle school students in a rural community in Northwest Rhode Island: (1) identifies the 36% of the student population who are over-age for grade, (2) reports the reasons for not being grade appropriate in terms of being retained or having participated in a transitional program, (3) through school records, identifies which members of this population are not attending school regularly or succeeding academically and behaviorally, and (4) through responses from a questionnaire and interviews, gained insights from students as to their attitudes toward school and their perceptions of the relationship of school to success in later life. The information gained through this research assisted the District's Administrative Council and Middle School staff in identifying, developing, and implementing interventions. An evaluation of student academic and behavioral success indicates that some change is taking place. Additional strategies are being developed to increase the extent to which all students feel cared about and have the desire and ability to succeed.

This dissertation explores the meaning the rural inhabitants of the North of Cauca region in Colombia make of the rural primary school teacher. It examines the themes and metaphors used by rural teachers, community members, and youth to describe the teacher's present image, their perspectives on the possible changes, and the implications of these perceptions for future educational interventions. The themes and metaphors that emerged alluded to two general images. The researcher has named these the portrait of the teacher as a hero and as a ordinary human being. The first, she proposes, is an ideal image that comes from people's collective memory. The second, she attributes to their real life experiences. The heroic image of the teacher is depicted through metaphors such as that of an apostle, a pillar of society, a second parent, and a community catalyst. The real image refers to the short-comings of teachers to fulfill this heroic image. The point of reference for the heroic image is the teacher's archetype that comes from a glorified perception of the past. It contains symbols, archaic images, and motifs that are embedded in people's collective memory. The researcher suggests that the teacher's true image is neither its ideal and heroic image nor its real and descriptive one but an amalgamation of both. She recommends the incorporation of this complex and dual image in teacher training programs. She suggests that, beginning teachers be encouraged to reflect on their own impressions of the teacher figure, to analyze the sources of these perceptions, and to situate their viewpoints in the cultural context in which they are embedded. This process of critical reflection allows teachers to become aware of their own contradictions and prepares them for the complex reality of their profession.

雷万鹏. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2004. / 參考文獻 (p. 184-199). / 中英文摘要. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI : ProQuest dissertations and theses, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Lei Wanpeng. / Zhong Ying wen zhai yao. / Lun wen (Zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2004. / Can kao wen xian (p. 184-199).

Thesis (M.Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 1974. / Also available in print.

<p>Using semi-structured interviews, this research brings to light the lived experiences of thirteen people participating in adult literacy programs. Despite the popularization of situated approaches to literacy in pedagogical models and practice in the field of adult basic education, few studies have emphasized the role of identity in shaping the educational experience and its effects. Symbolic interactionism offers a theoretical map from which to examine the varied experiences of adult literacy learners.</p> <p>Gaining insight into learners’ negotiation of a literate identity yields a nuanced appreciation for how the experience takes shape as part of the broader processes that adults undertake as they seek access to the literate world. Three distinct pathways were identified in learners’ reasons for signing up for, and participating in, the literacy programs: the role fulfillment pathway, the personal betterment pathway and the instrumental pathway. Acquiring a literate identity had differing effects for learners on each pathway either by allowing them to fulfill socially desirable roles through status passage, by acquiring a more positive self-concept, or by acquiring the knowledge and skill to independently accomplish specific tasks.</p> <p>Introducing identity change to the literature on the effect of adult education offers a twofold benefit. First, identity change can motivate adults’ investments in education and, more so than earnings as instrumental models predict, reflects the actual experience of adult learners. Second, identity change may be a mechanism through which education has its diverse effects on a variety outcomes.</p> <p>Though one might assume that those with higher educational and employment goals benefit the most from literacy programs, it appears to be the opposite: those who seem the least likely to pursue education derive the greatest benefit – a finding akin to studies of broader educational effects. Implications for future research of the mechanisms by which these effects manifest themselves as well as considerations for policy development in adult literacy are discussed.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Over the past few decades, issues of school violence and crime have received international attention. High profile events, such as the Columbine or Virginia Tech school shootings, have led schools and boards of education world-wide to create and implement numerous policies and procedures in an attempt to keep students safe. However, data on school violence trends demonstrate a far more equivocal situation. School violence trends demonstrate stability over time at low levels of actual violence. In this dissertation, I attempt to account for the gap between the high number of school responses and the relatively low and stable trends in the prevalence of school crime and violence. Three main hypotheses, stemming from the culture of fear, institutional theory, and confirmatory bias, account for this gap. The culture of fear hypotheses suggests that the gap has been created by widespread fear that is pervasive, decoupled from the ecology of school crime and violence, and generated widely by the mass media. Although this is a cultural theory, institutional theory takes an organizational approach to account for this gap. Institutional theory suggests that the gap has been created by institutional processes of schools seeking legitimacy and reflecting how centralized hierarchies respond to the institutional environment, where fear takes a more loosely coupled form, and can be sensitive to the ecological variation of school crime and violence. The third hypothesis is a cognitive one, and suggests that confirmatory bias processes are the mechanisms by which scattered and sporadic acts of school violence receive large scale exposure, and therefore not only are able to generate cultures of fear, but also serve to legitimate policy. These three hypotheses are tested using a mixed-methods approach, including 66 interviews with key-players associated with schools (students, teachers, administrators, and parents), descriptive analyses of existing survey data (e.g., National statistics; Safe Schools Survey), and a content analysis of the media’s presentation of issues surrounding school crime and violence. This mixed methods approach provides a unique and holistic approach to test these hypotheses, asking several different research questions of various levels of analysis (from the individual to the community). Explaining the gap between school violence trends and school responses provides a unique contribution to the literature: it furthers our understanding of the complexities associated with school safety; it operationalizes and tests the culture of fear theory which, to date, has not been accomplished, and; it utilizes institutional theory and confirmatory bias in new ways, by applying them to issues of school safety.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)