Over the last generation changes in the social structure of the family and children's command of an increasing share of family spending have led marketers to cultivate children as an important consumer demographic. The designation "tween," which one marketer refers to as kids "too old for Elmo but too young for Eminem," has become a catchall category that includes kids as young as four and as old as fifteen. Music marketed to children--led by the Disney juggernaut, which promotes superstar acts such as the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus across television, radio, film, DVDs and CDs, and branded toys, clothing, and electronics--represents a rare "healthy" area of the music industry, whose growth has paralleled the expansion of portable media technologies throughout U.S. consumer culture. The increasing availability of portable media devices, along with the widespread installation of Internet terminals in schools and educators' turn toward corporate-produced "edutainment" for lessons, has reconfigured schools as central sites of children's media consumption. Off-brand MP3 players packaged with cheap and brightly colored earbuds have become more and more affordable, and marketers increasingly target kids with celebrity-branded music devices and innovations like Hasbro's iDog series of toy portable speakers, which fit naturally among children's colorful and interactive collections of toys. At the forefront of the "digital revolution, children are now active--even iconic--users of digital music technologies. This dissertation argues that tweens, as prominent consumers of ascendant music genres and media devices, represent a burgeoning counterpublic, whose expressions of solidarity and group affiliation are increasingly deferred to by mainstream artists and the entertainment industry. We appear to be witnessing the culmination of a process set in motion almost seventy years ago, when during the postwar period marketers experimented with promoting products directly to children, beginning to articulate children as a demographic identity group who might eventually claim independence and public autonomy for themselves. Through long-term ethnographic research at one small community of children at an elementary school in southern Vermont, this dissertation examines how these transformations in the commercial children's music and entertainment industry are revolutionizing they way children, their peers, and adults relate to one another in school. Headphones mediate face-to-face peer relationships, as children share their earbuds with friends and listen to music together while still participating in the dense overlap of talk, touch, and gesture in groups of peers. Kids treat MP3 players less like "technology" and more like "toys," domesticating them within traditional childhood material cultures already characterized by playful physical interaction and portable objects such as toys, trading cards, and dolls that can be shared, manipulated, and held close. And kids use digital music devices to expand their repertoires of communicative practices--like passing notes or whispering--that allow them to create and maintain connections with intimate friends beyond the reach of adults. Kids position the connections and interactions afforded by digital music listening as a direct challenge to the overarching goals around language and literacy that structure their experience of classroom education. Innovations in digital media and the new children's music industry furnish channels and repertoires through which kids express solidarity with other kids, with potentially transformative implications for the role and status of children's in their schools and communities.

This study examines an interesting phenomenon: the educational gap between boys and girls in the United Arab Emirates. Drawing on literature in sociology of gender, sociology of education, and Middle East Studies, this dissertation explores who is and who is not academically achieving (defined through exams results, event drop out rates, and intention to graduate from secondary school) in the United Arab Emirates. Additionally, student and teacher beliefs about the meanings of schooling were investigated. The study begins with a broad picture of academic achievement in the United Arab Emirates then focuses on one emirate, Ras Al Khaimah. Ministry of Education data from the 2007-2008 school year, 42 teacher interviews, and 117 student questionnaires provided data for this study. Ministry of Education data were analyzed using chi square tests to determine which boys and which girls are achieving academically in the United Arab Emirates. This analysis confirmed earlier studies that indicated boys are more likely to drop out and to fail exams than their female counterparts. In addition, non-Emirati boys were found to outperform their Emirati peers. The remainder of the study focused on 9th grade boys and girls and their teachers in Ras Al Khaimah. Through logistic regression of data from the questionnaire, student academic self-concept was found to be a significant predictor of student intent to graduate. In addition, the study sought to examine the purposes of schooling according to teachers and students. Results showed that teachers saw the purpose of school as providing increased employment opportunities for girls and for non-Emirati boys. However, teachers did not think school was for employment for Emirati boys. Students reported different ideas about school. They saw school as a means to learning, as a social outlet, and as link to employment opportunities. The dissertation concluded with implications for theory, research and practice.

Literature on community-based youth programs generally depicts these spaces as valuable settings that support the academic, social, and emotional development of young people (Eccles & Gootman, 2002; Ginwright, 2009; McLaughlin, 2000). However, little research has explored how these organizations and youth workers "frame" and "imagine" the youth they serve. This study employed a critical ethnographic methodology at Educational Excellence (EE), a non-profit community-based educational program, to understand how youth workers' understanding of social, political, and educational problems inform their framing and imagining of Black youth. Participant observation data were triangulated with semi-structured interviews with all youth workers at EE (N=20), focus groups, and document analysis of organizational literature. Findings indicate that multiple tensions in the framing and imagining of Black youth exist among youth workers at EE, which thusly, shapes how they think, what they say and what they actually do. Additionally, findings from this study show that youth workers have to navigate their feelings regarding how society and the educational system imagines and frames Black youth as deficient "problems to be fixed," and their own deep understanding of the multiple ways society and the educational system have failed Black youth. Further, findings also indicate how the current trend toward deficit framing is directly linked to the current neo-liberal educational market, which incentivizes community-based educational spaces to frame youth as socially, culturally, and intellectually deficient in order to successfully compete with charter schools for funding. This study also demonstrates that both an increasingly privatized educational market, as well as youth workers' sense making about the world - causes them to unconsciously perpetuate the deficit imagining of Black youth they strive to erase. The implication of this finding speaks to the individual and organizational struggles of many youth workers, activists, scholars, and educators engaged in social justice work.

Bullying, harassment, and horizontal violence (BHHV) is commonly reported by student nurses during their clinical education. Despite decades of mention in the literature, no instrument is available to specifically measure the student nurse’s experience of BHHV during clinical education. Purpose: The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the experience of BHHV in a population of student nurses matriculating during their clinical education in New York. The experience of BHHV is measured with the BEHAVE Survey, the instrument developed and tested for this purpose. Methods: This dissertation is presented in three-manuscripts: (1) a comprehensive review of the literature using The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Statement as the methodological guide, (2) the initial psychometric testing of BEHAVE (Bulling, harassment, and HorizontAl ViolencE) for validity and reliability at a university-based school of nursing in New York, and (3) a descriptive, quantitative survey of baccalaureate nursing students at a university-based school of nursing in New York completed as a field test of the BEHAVE. Results: Despite variations in methodology, measurement, terms, definitions, and coding of behaviors and sources of BHHV, the findings of this literature review indicate that student nurses are common targets of BHHV during clinical education, regardless of demographic characteristics, disability, sexual orientation, geography location, academic institution or program type. Psychometric testing indicated: scale-level content validity index among experts 0.89, r = 0.97, a Cronbach’s α 0.94, and percent agreement 93% in test-retest reliability. BEHAVE was administered to a total of 32 participants (96.7% participation rate). Approximately 72% reporting current experienced or observed BHHV with 46.8% (36/77) of incidents originated from a nurse. Conclusions: The evidence from both the literature and this field trial suggests that BHHV is a common experience among nursing students. This is significant because student nurses are vulnerable to BHHV and studies including students have been limited to date. Therefore, it behooves the research community to continue to explore the impact of BHHV on the student nurse’s socialization into the professional nursing role. Further knowledge may inform targeted interventions to reduce BHHV and improve the ability of nursing students to minimize the impact of BHHV should it occur.

This study reports on a project exploring how a commitment towards teaching mathematics for social justice amongst teachers can be translated into related classroom practice. It recounts how a group of teacher researchers set about achieving this through developing, trying out and evaluating a series of teaching ideas and activities. It contrasts the abundance of research literature on theories of mathematics education and social justice with the relative scarcity of studies on developing practice in this area. Mathematics lessons are generally characterised by too much focus on factual recall and procedural understanding, resulting in unacceptable levels of disengagement and disaffection amongst learners. A critical methodological stance is adopted in arguing that this current situation should not be taken as given. The research design is based on a model of participatory action research, which is socio-political, participative, collaborative, emancipatory and recursive in nature, and aims to bring about desirable social change. Careful consideration is given to the credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability of the research findings, and particular attention is paid to the role of the researcher in facilitating the research group. Data was collected primarily from meetings of the research group and a series of semi-structured empathetic interviews conducted with each teacher researcher. Audio-recordings were transcribed and condensed before being coded inductively and analysed through a thematic approach, using the constant comparative method to draw out meaning from the data. A case study approach was used as a means to capture and report the stories of how teacher researchers' thinking and classroom practice evolve and develop over the course of the project. Findings from the project demonstrate how the five teacher researchers, through their involvement in the project, begin to question seriously and rethink previously held views about the nature of mathematics, their own relationship with the subject and notions of mathematical ability. They exhibit a growing belief that the development of students' mathematical understanding and awareness of social justice issues are inextricably linked, rather than separate objectives. These changes in epistemologies appear to have an impact on teacher researchers' classroom practice and their students' dispositions towards learning mathematics. There is evidence that making mathematics more relevant and meaningful leads to raised levels of student engagement, and that focusing on how mathematics can be used to understand real-life issues and to construct an argument for change leads to increased student agency. The collaborative and participative nature of the research group shows how a mutually supportive environment can be created which promotes the self-efficacy of teacher researchers in addressing issues of social justice in their mathematics classrooms. By relating the findings back to the underlying theories, conclusions are drawn of relevance to practitioners and researchers in the field of mathematics education. These relate to the relationship between teacher epistemologies and teaching approaches, the relevance and purpose of the school mathematics curriculum and the potential of participatory action research as a model of professional development which has a strong impact on classroom practice and promotes teachers' genuine engagement in and with research.

How do rap artists in Bogota, Colombia come together to make music? What is the process they take to commodify their culture? Why are some rappers able to become socially mobile in this process, while others are less so? What is technology’s role in all of this? This ethnography explores those questions, as it carefully documents the strategies utilized by various rap groups in Bogota, Colombia to create social mobility, commoditize products and to create a different vision of modernity within the hip-hop community, as an alternative to the ideals set forth by mainstream Colombian society. Resistance Art Poetry (RAP), is said to have originated in the United States but has become a form of international music. In conducting ethnographic research from December of 2012 to October 2014, I was able to discover how rappers organize themselves politically, how they commoditize their products and distribute them to create various types of social mobilities. In this dissertation, I constructed models to typologize rap groups in Bogota, Colombia, which I call polities of rappers to discuss how these groups come together, take shape, make plans and execute them to reach their business goals. I was also able to document the inconsistencies, problems and negotiations that the members of these entities encountered as they attempted to become successful musicians in the current global economic environment. This dissertation offers explicit details of how the rap musicians in the polities under study, were able to utilize their social networks in the process of commodifying their products for distribution in the hip-hop market place. I also tackle current academic discussions about how the rappers use digital technologies to assist them with this process. Engaging with concepts from economic anthropology, social mobility literature, political economy and globalization studies, the findings here demonstrate various entrepreneurial strategies utilized by rap musicians in this location.

<p> Student retention has been studied more than any higher education subject (Vlanden &amp; Barlow, 2014). Attempts to better understand the retention process through predictive modeling have become more common (Bingham &amp; Solverson, 2016). However, modeling efforts have failed to properly account for elements of social integration and sense of belonging, both of which serve as key tenants in Astin&rsquo;s (1975, 1999) theory of student involvement and Tinto&rsquo;s (1982, 1993) model of college dropout and theory of student departure (Bingham &amp; Solverson, 2016). In this study, social integration was evaluated in isolation using <i>z</i>-tests. Several forms of social integration were found to have a statistically significant difference in the proportion of retained participants versus non-participants including campus fitness programs, fraternity or sorority programs, recreation facilities, and student activities. Participants in intramural sports and on-campus living were not found to have statistically significant results. Additionally, binary logistic regression was used to analyze how social integration variables interplayed with demographic, student attribute, and academic performance inputs. The model produced through the analysis successfully met previous goodness-of-fit standards established in prior research (Bingham &amp; Solverson, 2016; Jia &amp; Maloney, 2014). Findings of this research are especially relevant to higher education administrators. A key method to the promotion of persistence and student retention is the ability to predict attrition (Harvey &amp; Luckman, 2014). By including social integration data, higher education leaders could seize upon the opportunity to more accurately identify those students who are less likely to persist than their peers (Bingham &amp; Solverson, 2016). </p><p>

<p> Classism is a recently studied, but historically existent form of oppression. Classism may involve students feeling that they cannot pursue a degree or career due to discrimination related to their social class status. This study explored the relationship between classism, gender, age, race, socioeconomic status, and career agency through survey design research. Career agency is the primary dependent variable in this study. Career agency includes career choice, career forethought, and career related actions related. Psychometrically established instruments including The Experiences With Perceived Classism Scale&ndash;Short Form and The Career Futures Inventory&ndash;Revised were used to assess classism and career agency. Using this design, data were collected from undergraduate university students of various genders, races, socioeconomic statuses, ages, career anticipations, and potential experiences of classism at a large Midwestern university in the United States. Student data were collected to explore any potential associations between any self-report of perceived classism and students&rsquo; reported career agency. Student responses were then analyzed through correlations, an independent samples t-test, and a multiple linear regression analysis. </p><p>

<p> This dissertation study explores the association between principal leadership behavior and school climate with an end goal of impacting student achievement. Certified staff members in a large suburban Illinois school district were involved in this study. Data were collected through the use of the Leadership Behavior Description Questionnaire Form XII (LBDQ Form XII) and the Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire (elementary OCDQ&ndash;RE, middle OCDQ&ndash;RM, and high school OCDQ&ndash;RS). All of the 10 leadership domains examined in this study showed statistically significant associations with various school climate areas. The leadership behaviors of Consideration, Integration, and Tolerance of Freedom were found to have the strongest correlations consistently across levels.</p><p>

U.S. merchants and traders helped sustain Spanish imperial commercial networks in Venezuela and the Spanish Caribbean. Shipping foodstuffs, arms, re-exported European manufactures, and slaves to the Spanish colonies were profitable enterprises for neutral U.S. traders. Through private negotiations and even Spanish-government contracts, partnerships between Venezuelan and U.S. merchants provided the shipping tonnage and merchandise that Spanish officials and colonial elites needed most to maintain their rule and to fend off the challenges of economic and environmental crises, slave conspiracies, and revolutionary plots before 1810.