The goal of this Dissertation in Practice was to design a School Improvement Plan focused on improving reading performance of African American students at Suburban Middle School (SMS). The problem of practice was that African American students at Suburban Middle School have performed significantly lower than their White peers over the course of the 2009-2013 school years in reading performance. The reading deficiencies of African American students needed to be directly addressed in a new School Improvement Plan (SIP). The literature review of this study found that there are many different components that influence the reading performance of African American students. For this Dissertation in Practice, a new School Improvement Plan focused primarily on 6 different areas will be the end result. The components that will be examined are: 1) school climate, 2) utilization of data, 3) parental involvement, 4) professional development, 5) instructional strategies, and 6) collaboration. While these are the 6 key elements of successful models, there were also additional sub groupings within each element that also had an influence on student achievement levels. In addition to examining previous School Improvement Plans at SMS, the end result and final deliverable was a School Improvement Plan designed to close the existing achievement gap in reading between African American students and their peers at SMS. Suggested use for the new model of the School Improvement Plan was to focus specifically on the 6 key elements to address the reading performance of African American students.

The transformation of urban space is determined by the social and economic relations in every mode of production. Under the condition of capitalist accumulation, the transformation of squatter areas is a significant debate. Therefore, the transformation of squatter areas should be analyzed in respect to the rent and the rent distribution by considering structure and agency relationship. In order to understand the rent distribution, political interest groups and capitalist power holders should be scrutinized. In other words, this thesis has focused the transformation of squatter areas in the capitalist production relations. Urban space is the most significant field in which the neoliberal policies are embedded. In the squatter areas, various urban transformation processes have realized post 1980. Two basic legal regulations constitute the frame of these transformation models. These are Law Numbered 2981 which entails the improvement plans and the 73th article of Law Numbered 5393 which facilitates the urban renewal projects. The basic motivation of the thesis is to indicate the differences between the development rights given to squatter owners in the transformed areas in accordance with these laws. After the discussion of urban transformation in terms of rent and property concepts, different transformation areas implemented in Ankara-Mamak District are analyzed comparatively. Then, difference of the development rights of squatter owners in urban renewal projects is indicated by considering the transformation process in Ilker Neighborhood.

The learning environment has been the focus of considerable educational research over a long period of time. The study reported in this thesis utilises the perceptions of 208 junior science students from a North Queensland state secondary school to inform classroom environment improvement plans developed and implemented by their teachers' in an attempt to improve the cognitive and attitudinal outcomes of the students. The five stage process on which the study is based combines theory and practice in providing the participating teachers with a structured means of bringing about change in their classrooms. Students' perceptions of actual and preferred teacher interpersonal behaviour and the laboratory learning environment are measured using the QTI and SLEI respectively. Particular aspects of teacher interpersonal behaviour and the laboratory learning environment are targeted for change through the classroom environment improvement plans. The study identified which aspects of the learning environment had changed after a period of intervention. It also identified associations between students' perceptions of aspects of their laboratory learning environment and attitudinal outcomes as well as associations between teacher interpersonal behaviours and attitudinal outcomes. While no direct associations were found between aspects of the laboratory learning environment or teacher interpersonal behaviours and cognitive outcomes, students' cognitive outcomes did improve over the duration of the study thus supporting a previously established link between student attitudes and cognitive outcomes.

Esta investigación presenta un sistema de indicadores para la autoevaluación institucional de centros educativos de Infantil, Primaria y Secundaria, con la finalidad de ayudar a los mismos a desarrollar una atención eficaz a la diversidad del alumnado desde una perspectiva inclusiva. En primer lugar se diseñó el sistema de indicadores, contando con la colaboración de un prestigioso grupo de expertos. Seguidamente, se procedió al diseño, depuración y validación del instrumento ACADI (Autoevaluación de Centros para la Atención a la Diversidad desde la Inclusión), estudiando su validez de contenido a través de dieciocho jueces y su fiabilidad mediante su pilotaje en centros de la Región de Murcia. Los resultados de este estudio confirman que el instrumento diseñado es válido y fiable, siendo capaz de generar procesos de reflexión colegiada que alumbren planes de mejora que contribuyan a la creación de contextos educativos cada vez más inclusivos. / This research presents an indicator system for the institutional self-evaluation of Infant, Primary and Secondary schools, aiming to help them develop an effective attention to the diversity of students from an inclusive perspective. In the first place, the indicator system was designed, with the collaboration of a prestigious group of experts. Next, the design, cleansing and validation of the instrument ACADI (Self-Evaluation of Schools for the Attention to Diversity from Inclusion) was carried out by studying its content validity through eighteen judges and its reliability by means of a pilot study in schools in the Region of Murcia. The results of this study confirm that the designed instrument is valid and reliable, and it is capable of generating group reflection processes which give birth to improvement plans that contribute to the creation of more and more inclusive educational contexts.