<p> Darder (2012), in <i>Culture and Power in the Classroom,</i> argued that a system of educational inequality is promoted through the consistent production and reproduction of contradictions between the dominant culture and subordinate culture. More significantly, she noted that these dominant and subordinate culture contradictions create a necessity for bicultural individuals to navigate the dialectical tensions between dominant and subordinate cultures and the processes by which education perpetuates dynamics of unequal power and reproduces the dominant worldview. Hence, she urged educators to challenge prevalent power structures and re-imagine the process of schooling as a more inclusive form of pedagogy, geared towards establishing and sustaining cultural democracy in the classroom.</p><p> This study responded to the call to work with a Pilipino/a student organization in creating an inclusive space in the schooling experience. The learning process for many Pilipino/a students has historically been steeped in a colonialist mentality and directed toward assimilating these students into the practices of mainstream culture in order to survive. This qualitative research intended to address the unjust issues rooted in the dominant structure of schooling and the persistence of a form of colonizing education that fails to incorporate Pilipino/a sociohistorical knowledge and practices of knowing. More specifically, it addresses issues and tensions related to the process of biculturalism, which Pilipino/a students are required to manage in order to utilize their voice and lived experiences as a basis for action. The methodology of this study was influenced by Pagtatanung-tanong&mdash;a Pilipino/a equivalent to participatory action research. In utilizing this approach, the study was formulated through the voices of Pilipino/a students at a community college engaged in community building actions toward cultural affirmation.</p>

<p> Students receiving special education services for an emotional and/or behavioral disorder (EBD) have shown minimal gains academically and behaviorally in longitudinal studies conducted since the 1980&rsquo;s (Bradley, Doolittle, &amp; Bartolotta, 2008). The purpose of this study was to investigate the functional relation of a self-monitoring strategy with a cross-aged peer-mentoring intervention on the disruptive behaviors of elementary students with EBD who struggle to regulate their behaviors in the classroom. This study used a multiple-baseline across participants and changing conditions combined design to investigate the functional relation of self-monitoring with a cross-age peer mentor component for students with EBD. The results from this study did not indicate a functional relation between the use of a self-monitoring checklist and the use of a self-monitoring checklist with a cross-age peer mentoring component. However, there were promising components to continue to build on intervention research for students with EBD.</p>

<p> This research project employs youth development and critical race theory to understand the participation gap in social media. It does this by prioritizing youth voice as the focal point of knowledge creation. It explores why this is such vital topic for academic discussion within education and youth development. It delves into previous work on the topic through a literature review. This qualitative study is based on four focus groups (6 -8 youth each) and three in-depth follow up interviews across four different high schools in the Sacramento area. An inductive grounded theory approach was used to analyze the focus groups and interviews. This paper will explain that process as well as state findings and potential implications for youth, parents, and teachers. This research will provide an examination of the online trends of youth activity and help inform strategies for healthy social media use.</p>

<p> At a critical time in educational transformation, NCLB incorporated the notion that parents would assume power and engage with schools around this monumental shift for accountability concerning the success of all students. Now the Every Student Succeeds Act, which reauthorized the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, upholds this task and calls for parent and family engagement in district and school improvement processes and the development of parent and family engagement policies. Traditional notions of parental engagement have rarely addressed partnerships for educational reform and policy change (Cooper, 2009). Furthermore, narratives regarding parents of color are dominated by a deficit discourse of what families &ldquo;lack,&rdquo; described as, &ldquo;empty vessels&rdquo; that need to be &ldquo;filled&rdquo; with knowledge to be able to engage in schools like their White middle-class counterparts (Lightfoot, 2004).</p><p> This qualitative study examines a counternarrative definition of parental engagement according to Latino parents in a particular community in which White privilege contributes to and perpetuates the marginalization and continued exclusion of particular groups. I employed a critical race methodology to focus on the lived experience of Latino families through counterstory that challenges the dominant narrative created and sustained by White privilege and traditional White educational discourse.</p><p> Findings in this study centered on Latino families&rsquo; limited access to the school, school programs, and institutional knowledge and power; systemic barriers maintained by White privilege; the cultural funds of knowledge and expertise of Latino parents as educators and advocates; a critique of the system from participants&rsquo; perspectives; and recommendations participants had for change in current practice. Through the findings, major implications for practice surfaced, including an examination and elimination of systemic barriers, the use of counterstory to disrupt deficit narratives of families of color, and educators&rsquo; and educational leaders&rsquo; utilization of practices to structure venues for authentic dialogue for reform.</p>

<p> English learners typically score below their English o0nly peers on state and national standardized tests, demonstrating that there is a need to explore possibilities as to why this achievement gap is widening. Applying a conceptual framework stemming from the concepts of social and cultural capital from sociologist Bourdieu, this study examines the language as social and cultural capital of English learners at a school site and its influence on student engagement. This qualitative study used narrative inquiry and a semi structured interview protocol to gain insights from teachers, students and district personnel. Although the findings in this study are not generalizable, it suggest language influences a student&rsquo;s ability to be engaged in the classroom through access, relationships, trust, identity, success, and cultural diversity and awareness in this particular school site found in a local Southern California school district. Having a deeper understanding of how language, social and cultural capital influence engagement will assist educators in planning instructional lessons that are academically rigorous and relevant to the student in order to provide access and upward social mobility to English learner students. </p>

<p> Despite the growing population of Muslim students in U.S. public schools, few empirically grounded studies appear in the literature that have reported the opinions and viewpoints about U.S. public schools from the perspective of Muslim parents. This study deeply investigates the perceptions Muslim parents hold about U.S. public schools and focuses on how Muslim identity and other factors shape those views. <i>Q</i> Methodology, a mixed methods technique for the systematic study of subjectivity, is applied to reveal and analyze a varied set of distinct models of shared viewpoints held by Muslim parents about public schools in the U.S. Data were analyzed from 54 Muslim parents in the metropolitan New York City region. This study identified and examined 8 models of shared viewpoints held by Muslim parents. Further analysis demonstrated the relative prevalence of each of the revealed shared viewpoints about U.S. public schools and ways in which the identified models reflect disagreements, consensus, and absence of salience in views about U.S. public schools. Muslim parents&rsquo; Muslim identity, their experience attending schools in the U.S., their children&rsquo;s experience attending schools in the U.S., their experience as school teachers or administrators, their gender, and their highest level of education were examined to predict the likelihood a parent would share views with a particular <i>Q</i> model. Understanding the shared viewpoints of Muslim parents can be useful for educational policymakers, leaders, and teachers, who must ensure an effective and comfortable learning environment for all of their students.</p>

<p> Existing research on peer-to-peer mentoring has focused mainly on cross-age peer mentoring with several years&rsquo; difference between mentor and mentees (Karcher, 2005, 2007; Lawon, 2014; Willis, Bland, Manka, &amp; Craft, 2012) and the impact of peer mentoring on the mentee. I aimed to examine the relationship of participating in a high school based peer-to-peer mentoring program and the impact on the high school upperclassmen mentors in this study. School is a social organization where peers can develop school connectedness and expand their prosocial skills and through their social networks increase social capital. The impact of peer mentoring programs on high school peer mentors is an area that has not been sufficiently investigated. The current exploratory case study used data from surveys, interviews, and field notes to understand the experiences of mentors and the impact of peer mentoring in a high school mentoring program on these mentors in terms of their school connectedness, social capital, and prosocial skill development. Researchers have identified increases in mentees who are involved in peer mentoring programs (Karcher, 2005, 2007). Further research is needed to investigate the impact of these social connections on high school peer mentors. In this study, data was collected from the Hemingway Survey, mentor interviews, and field notes. Findings of this study support the conclusion that the peer mentors&rsquo; prosocial skills of school involvement, school connection, and social capital increased as a result of participating in a peer-to-peer mentoring program. Additionally, mentors did not report identifiable differences between matches that were same gender or different genders. Results from this study demonstrate the impact of increases in the development of prosocial skills and social capital in peer mentors.</p>

<p> This qualitative study examined the perspectives of American students, focusing on the factors and characteristics that frame an individual as a global citizen. The study focused on nine American students who were enrolled in a California State University. This population of students brought knowledge of their personal perspectives and experiences, pertaining to their own ideals of global citizenship, as well as to how they believed it was integrated in their educational experience. Key themes from the participants included: the importance of a period of self-realization, individual effects as a result of the current political climate, the importance of language, and the lack of priority given to global citizenship within the K-12 public education system. </p><p>

<p> This dissertation examines the special issue of peer harassment of students with disabilities through a legal lens, exploring the legal standards used in cases involving three federal statutes&mdash;Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (&ldquo;Section 504&rdquo;), the Americans with Disabilities Act (&ldquo;ADA&rdquo;), and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"). Using legal research methods, litigation trends regarding the number of cases and the legal standard used and applied were explored. There has been no Supreme Court case on the legal standard to be used under Section 504, the ADA, or IDEA in peer harassment of students with disabilities, and circuit courts of appeals have not reached consensus on which legal standard should apply. Instead, courts have applied several different legal standards, including the Davis standard, a modified <i>Davis</i> standard, bad faith and gross misjudgment, deliberate indifference, disability discrimination, intentional discrimination, and denial of a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). This dissertation synthesizes the relevant legal standards used in each federal circuit and identifies trends that might guide the future of this type of litigation.</p><p>

Educational credentials are clearly linked to economic success, but the reasons for this link are not clear. Common theoretical approaches provide explanations but lack direct employer perspectives on credentials' meaning and the context in which employers make sense of credentials. In this study, I used an alternative perspective based in Meyer's (1977) theory of education as an institution, labor market sociology, the sociology of work, and organizational theory to examine the role of social context in how employers make sense of the associate degree for IT technician jobs. I conducted comparative case studies of contrasting labor markets: Detroit and Seattle. I interviewed 78 hiring managers in 58 organizations of varying types about their perceptions and ways of using degrees in hiring IT technicians. Hiring managers' perspectives on associate and bachelor's degrees for IT technician jobs reflect their ideas of degree holders' social roles. They expected associate degree holders to be eager to please and to lack ability, skill, and initiative relative to the bachelor's degree holders. In contrast, they expected bachelor's degree holders to feel entitled. These expectations of traits found in different degree holders illustrate the relative status differences between these credentials and degree holders' reaction to these differences. Hiring managers held ideas about associate degrees specific to their local labor market. Detroit hiring managers more commonly expected associate degrees to signify commitment to career, while Seattle hiring managers more commonly expected them to signify lack of ability, skill, and initiative. These differing views may be associated with the level of education in the local population and the reputation of local community colleges. Some evidence indicates that bureaucracy in hiring may also influence the use of educational credentials. Further research is needed to understand the role of organizational context. The key finding of this study is that credentials exist in a relational context. Degrees take on meaning in relationship to social context, including: other degrees, the occupation, the local labor market, and potentially the organization. This finding exists in contrast to common theories that propose standard meanings associated with educational credentials but miss these more specific, situated meanings.