This qualitative multiple case study explores the intersection of young adult literature and adolescent memory narratives in an undergraduate course entitled Learning about Adolescence through Literature within an action research framework. This dissertation is motivated by two research questions: (1) What influence might young adult literature and memory narratives of adolescence have on undergraduate students' understandings of the cultural construction of adolescence? (2) How does the text we read affect how we perceive our lived experiences, and, in turn, how does this interchange of story affect the way in which we perceive adolescence in general? Building upon reader response theories and critical narrative pedagogy, findings indicate that YA literature and lifestory narratives can facilitate reconceptualizing previously held notions of adolescence, replacing pejorative and generalized assumptions regarding adolescence with an openness and acknowledgement of diversity. Implications for teachers and other youth workers are discussed, as well as implications for adolescents.

This study explores the web-navigation practices of adult learners in higher education and re-conceptualizes the concept of the organizing circumstance of self-managed learning, originated by Spear and Mocker (1984). The theoretical framework draws on funds of knowledge theory from a cultural historical perspective and elaborates a Vygotskian concepts of learning and development by introducing the notion of the distal object and the zone of distal development. The study employed a mixed methods design with an embedded multiple-case study involving half of the twelve participants using a new technology for self-managed learning called Zonebee. Zonebee recorded participants' web navigation, known as Zonebee Trails, providing quantitative data for analysis. Surveys were administered, namely the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (Schraw&Dennison, 1994), the Index of Learning Styles Inventory (Soloman&Felder, 1986), a survey of technology use (created for this study) and a set of demographic questions. Eleven of the twelve participants also provided interviews in which they described their self-managed learning practices.Findings contradicted the premise in the literature that the learning environment fortuitously determines the learning experience. Participants primarily relied on the internet and computer to manage their learning and made deliberate choices about which tools to use depending upon the purpose of the constituent process of self-managed learning in which they were engaged (assessing, planning, implementing, monitoring, evaluating or producing). Zonebee Trails evidenced participants' engagement in considerable planning before generating focused queries to locate specific materials. Thus, this study suggests that the organizing circumstance operates, not through happenstance alone, but through the confluence of four factors influencing the direction the learner takes: funds of knowledge for learning; learning demands (proximity of the learning object, proximal or distal), conditions for learning (affordances for and constraints on learning); and motivation or purpose of activity. The re-conceptualized organizing circumstance of learning, then, offers a methodological and theoretical way to redefine context and understand how learners manage their own learning.

Many of the international, supranational, national, and grassroots development organizations working in the field of education channel their efforts into capacity-building for teachers. My research examines the nexus of such international development by US-based organizations with national schooling systems by naming and theorizing this process as a new field called cross-border teacher education. "Cross-border" is the term employed by UNESCO (2005) and OECD (2007) to describe international cooperative projects in higher education, synonymous with "transnational," "borderless," and "offshore" education (Knight, 2007). I use a critical lens to compare two distinct models of cross-border teacher education: a small locally based non-profit development organization in Guatemala that has worked with one school for several years, and a US government-funded program whose participants are trained in bilingual teaching methods and critical thinking at US colleges and universities, then return to their home communities throughout Mexico and Guatemala. These are programs for inservice teachers and are henceforth referred to as cross-border professional development or CBPD. The research questions for this study are: What institutions shape cross-border professional development in these cases? How are language policies enacted through CBPD? How do teachers make meaning of their CBPD experiences when they return to their classrooms and communities? And finally, What do these case studies tell us about cross-border professional development as a process? These questions generate understandings of national education systems, US-based international development, and cross-border education. Utilizing ethnographic approaches to educational policy that locate regional, class, and ethnic asymmetries (McCarty, 2011; Tollefson, 2002), data was gathered according to the distinct organizational structures of the two agencies. For the larger organization data collection was initiated with electronic open-ended questionnaires and supplemented by semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and program documents. Data on the smaller organization was collected through participant observation in professional development workshops and classrooms, semi-structured interviews, and textual analysis of teacher reflections, organizational emails and documents. The research focuses on the voices of teachers as the target of cross-border professional development efforts, but also maps out the dialogic perspectives of education officials and the organizations‘ administrators to illuminate tensions within the process as well as highlights some surprising roles for teachers as agents of change.

In 2000, the passage of Proposition 203 in Arizona virtually replaced bilingual education with a Structured English Immersion (SEI ) program. In 2006, the State legislature passed House Bill (HB) 2064 which essentially segregated ELL students for four hours of the school day in an SEI classroom in which English Language Development (ELD) was taught. In 2008, the four-hour SEI block was mandated in public schools across Arizona.This study investigated the lived experiences of public school teachers teaching the four-hour SEI block, the relationship between what these teachers know about second language acquisition and the strategies they utilized, and what they identified as the strengths and weaknesses that resulted from the four-hour SEI block and its implementation.Nine K-12 SEI teachers from one school district in Southern Arizona participated in this study. Qualitative research methodologies were used to collect and analyze data.The results of this study showed that teachers' experiences and teaching strategies were diverse and greatly influenced by their classroom composition, professional development, interpretation of the laws surrounding the program, and directives given by administrators. Findings from this research also indicated that teachers identified substantially more concerns than advantages related to the four-hour SEI program. Specifically, teachers thought the SEI classroom provided a safe environment in which students could practice English. However, teachers were concerned about the negative social and academic repercussions experienced by ELLs as a result of the SEI program and also expressed their own professional concerns related to the four-hour model.

This dissertation used a mixed method to develop an analytical model from a random selection of one of eight secondary history textbooks for instances of Indians to determine if the textual content: 1) constructs negative or inaccurate knowledge through word choice or narratives; 2) reinforces stereotype portraits; 3) omits similar minority milestones in United States history and politics; and 4) contained the enactments of political milestones in the development of US history and politics with regard to personhood and sovereignty of the American Indian. The methods used to evaluate secondary history textbooks are content manifest and critical discourse analysis and a modification of Pratt's ECO analysis which measures judgment values of descriptive terms. Data mining includes word choice, events, contributions, and governmental relations as these refer to the American Indian. Unexpected outcomes from this research resulted in a spider graph of four relational power axes to visually display diametrically opposed ideological discursive formations. Textbooks introduce students to authoritative content within the public school environment to impart national historical experiences that will shape their national identity, ideology and culture. Negative or inaccurate instances of the United States relationships with 566 American Indian Nations can affect social and political issues of Indian People today. This work will contribute to the field of American Indian Studies, Curriculum and Instruction, Cultural Studies, Critical Discourse, Critical Pedagogy, Indigenous Theory and Pedagogy, Popular Culture, Social Justice, Language Studies, Identity, Ethics, American Indian and Public Education.

This dissertation examines the potential congruencies and complementarities of Waldorf education, Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP), Culturally Responsive Schooling (CRS), Critical Pedagogy and Native American and Indigenous education. Waldorf education, a German education reform developed in the early 1920s, is a little researched schooling system, and previous research on this reform has examined its impacts within its traditional contexts, namely, private schools. At the same time, significant literature exists which addresses the importance and efficacy of reforms for students of color such as those in CRP, CRS and Critical Pedagogy. There is also a body of work which points to key pedagogical components which support Native American/Indigenous students in school. This dissertation examines the interplay between all three of these complex systems by examining attempts to integrate them in the classroom. By examining Waldorf education initiatives in three distinct contexts, I demonstrate that these reforms can work in concert without diminishing the efficacy of any of them. I explore three distinct contexts of Waldorf education. The first examined the impacts of Waldorf education on students who participated in the reform in a private Waldorf school, who transitioned to more traditional, mainstream classes. I conducted participant-observation of a local Waldorf school and in-depth interviews with 14 alumni to explore the impact of this reform. In the second context, I examined how students responded to the use of Waldorf-inspired methods in a community college course I taught, and I investigated their experiences of the reform. Seven students who participated were interviewed in order to investigate the impact of these reforms on their experience as college students. These interviews were complemented by teacher-research I conducted while teaching this Waldorf-inspired course. Finally, I explored the potential of Waldorf education as a reform for Native American students, examining my own incorporation of this reform with other pedagogical tools, such as CRP, CRS, and other forms of critical pedagogy. Included in this section of research are my reflections on a course I instructed with Waldorf-inspired reforms. I also explored various accounts of Waldorf-education reforms by tribal communities, like the Lakota Waldorf School in South Dakota. Several findings from the research conducted here are encouraging. Students from Waldorf school environments demonstrate critical skills and critique schooling environments, invoking stances familiar to critical pedagogues. Students from a Waldorf-inspired community college course were also critical of the typical schooling experiences they had encountered, and spoke of the enriching feeling in their Waldorf-inspired course. Investigation into the philosophical tenets of Waldorf education and Native American/Indigenous epistemologies shows several examples of overlap and similarity, the most striking being elements of spiritual belief and practice as foundational to Native American/Indigenous well-being, and the ability of Waldorf education to address this. While these fields may appear unrelated, this study explores the praxis of these seemingly disparate bodies of work, by examining their similarities and differences. Ultimately, I argue that these reforms can work in concert to support the academic success of culturally and linguistically diverse students and Native American/Indigenous students in particular. The research in these three contexts demonstrates need for further investigation into Waldorf education and its potential to support students of all backgrounds.

This critical ethnography focuses on the practice of an Indigenous-serving charter school in Arizona and how it created space to practice culturally responsive schooling for Indigenous youth in an era of school accountability and standardizing educational reforms. Urban Native Middle School (pseudonym) opened for four years before being closed under tremendous state pressure from high-stakes testing accountability measurements. This study uses data spanning two periods of data collection: archived data collected at the time of the school's operation, and follow-up data tracking educators', parents' and students' experiences after the school's closure. Careful examination of student, educator, and parent narratives about the school during its years in operation illuminate how adults and youth co-authored a unique reterritorializing both/and discourse, building a school community of practice around connections to mainstream standardized knowledge and local Indigenous knowledges. The transformational potential of the schools both/and approach offered students access to strength-based both/and identities. The second phase of the study, which followed educators', parents', and students' into new school environments, illuminates practices of educational negotiation on the part of participants within geographies of limited educational opportunity for Native youth, both urban and rural. With four years of data collection, this study expands understanding of how Indigenous families choose among available educational environments in landscapes of limited school options and policy labels which fail to address the on-the-ground realities of schooling in Indigenous communities. For the Indigenous educators and families in this study, navigating school choice in an era of high-stakes testing reflects an enduring struggle of American Indian education with educational policy. This study's findings suggest that the transformative potential of both/and schooling has positive and wide reaching implications on the school experience of Native youth, and further illuminates the persevering practices of Indigenous educational survivance in seeking access to more equitable, culturally sustaining educational experiences. With implications for practice and policy, this anthropologic case study of an Indigenous-serving charter school considers the powerful impacts of human relationships on student learning and critiques the injustice perpetuated by snapshot accountability measurements which deny students' spaces for cultivating bridges to access imagined futures.

This dissertation presents the findings of an on-line survey completed by 222 FYC (First Year Composition) instructors at universities and community colleges across the United States along with supplemental information derived from multiple open-ended interviews with seven FYC instructors in Arizona. Both survey and interview questions were designed to accomplish three primary goals: to determine which conventions of academic English FYC instructors identify as most important; to understand the common problems encountered by instructors in teaching those conventions, and; to solicit instructors' perceptions about ways in which learning outcomes might be improved. Results indicate general consensus among FYC instructors on which skills are both the most critical to academic English proficiency and the most difficult for their students to learn. At the same time, the survey and interview responses reflect widespread dissatisfaction with the ways in which academic English sequences are currently structured, apparently related to the instructors' common perception that the sequences are only "somewhat" successful in terms of preparing students for successful academic writing. Accordingly, the overwhelming majority of FYC instructors suggest changes for increasing the effectiveness of their programs; however, there is surprisingly little agreement among them on what those changes should be. The concluding section of this study presents pragmatic suggestions - congruent with a number of the instructors' observations - for reconfiguring FYC sequences. Additionally, it is argued that, aside from the targeted skills addressed by the instructors, the survey and interview responses indicate that academic English has been implicitly invested with culture-specific values which should be made explicit in instruction and which, given the gatekeeping status of FYC courses, the increasing diversity of student populations and the growing divide between the academic and wider cultures, require critical examination.

This case study explores the Spanish speaking and writing practices of middle-school Latina/o youth in Miami, Florida. Its ethnographic approach aims to re-present students learning English as a second language as emerging bilinguals (Escamilla, 2006; García, 2009) who access, maintain, and develop their first language to varying degrees while learning English. Through my position as an attached member (Wax, 1971) of a Spanish-English dual language school, I examined students' Spanish production within larger socio-historical and institutional frames of reference. Shadowing students in their Spanish-instruction classes (e.g., Mathematics, Humanities, and Spanish), I drew from observations, student work, interviews with students, educators and parents, and student focus groups. Analysis of data sources reveal that students, together with influential adults, created and received messages about language--ideologies of language as standard, evolving, and dynamic. Youth engaged in normative translanguaging and transliteracy practices in mathematics class; confronted institutionally-created labels and articulated their bilingual identities as members of two language programs; and developed their Spanish writing as part of varying, yet often prescriptive, literacy instruction. This study adds to the limited research on Latina/o middle-school experiences and K-12 heritage language education. This research has pedagogical and language policy implications for those who educate and oversee the education of bilingual youth.

Engagement with global children's literature is an effective way to introduce multiple perspectives into the classroom dialogue. Yet teachers are often unfamiliar with ways of helping students understand diverse cultural practices and beliefs. The result is that global children's literature continues to be an underused resource. This action research study looked at 25 highly diverse educator study groups as they used global literature with pre-K - 12 students. The goal was to support the development of intercultural understanding. The study groups received $1,000 grants from Worlds of Words (wowlit.org) to fund their yearlong inquiry. The groups met face-to-face throughout the year to reflect on the interactions taking place in their classrooms. All groups met online on a members-only site. Data collected included proposals, reports, teacher vignettes, and interviews. The data was used to document range of study group structures and interactions with global literature. The study groups and online forum were supported by a grant from the Longview Foundation. Through constant comparative analysis, new transformative understandings were identified. Key elements in the development of intercultural understanding included open inquiry, recognition of complexity and multiple perspectives, thinking about culture at a conceptual level, and engaging in open dialogue. Teachers reported an increased understanding of their competence as professionals, their student's competence as problem-posers and thinkers, and the parents' competence as important contributors to intercultural understanding. The study concludes with implications for practitioners wanting to engage in classroom inquiries using global literature to support developing intercultural understanding. A second set of implications suggests ways in which the study group process can be made more effective. New questions are proposed for future research related to the use of global literature in various contexts, including classrooms, online professional development, and libraries.