Students who struggle with reading in their elementary years are likely to make poor academic progress, leave school before graduation, and struggle in the workplace. The district leaders at 24 K-5 elementary schools in a large Midwestern district were interested in a formative reading program evaluation to determine reading program effectiveness. This mixed methods study, approached from a cognitive and social theoretical framework, was a formative evaluation of the Balanced Literacy Reading Program implementation at these elementary schools. The purpose of this study was to capture the K-5 classroom teachers' (n = 113), instructional coaches' (n = 18), and principals' (n = 32) perceptions of the program in regard to the resources, staff development, leadership support, and impact on students and teachers. A parallel survey with both Likert and short-answer items was designed for each participant group based on these 4 categories. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and qualitative data were analyzed with open coding and thematic analysis. The primary finding was that participants in all 3 groups cited a need for professional development in the area of increasing student reading proficiency to grade level and beyond. As a result of the findings, a professional learning community was designed with a focus on in-depth collaboration to increase teacher knowledge and student achievement. District leaders were presented with the results of this study and recommendations for program improvement. These recommended improvements can impact social change by increasing student achievement, graduation rates, and workplace success.

Domestic violence is a continuing public health problem. Immigrant women facing domestic violence have additional challenges in dealing with domestic violence and accessing services. Hopeful thinking has been identified as a strategy for intervening and surviving beyond domestic violence. The purpose of this multiple descriptive case study was to explore hopeful thinking in Haitian immigrant women domestic abuse survivors' (HIDAS) conceptualizations of the future beyond domestic abuse. The framework for the study was resilience theory, which emphasizes the individual's ability to bounce back from stressful situations. This framework was used to investigate how HIDAS in the United States experience hopeful thinking and the role hopeful thinking plays in how they perceive the future. Four women participants were recruited from a Haitian community in Florida, and data were collected through interviews. Findings from content analysis showed that while each woman had a different strategy for how to get out of the abusive relationships, they became independent by hoping that things would change for the better. Although the interpretation of findings clarified these survivors' experiences of domestic abuse, the findings are not meant to solve the larger problem of domestic abuse. The study results may influence social change by informing development of operational hope-based community and trauma intervention services for HIDAS and other groups of immigrant women.

Gender diverse individuals experience stigma, discrimination, and transprejudice regularly, in response to daily interactions with society. These negative experiences lead to the development of physical, mental, and emotional instability. Gender diverse individuals experience transprejudice and discriminatory experiences in transpohobic counseling environments. Furthermore, current research highlights the need for counselors to increase training and knowledge to work with gender diverse individuals. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study, grounded in a Heideggerian philosophy, was to illuminate the lived experiences of professional counselors engaging in counseling with gender diverse clients and bridge the gap in the current literature. Data were collected from 7 licensed professional counselors with experience counseling gender diverse clients. using a semistructured interview and followed a structured thematic analysis process incorporating components of interpretive phenomenological analysis, ensuring thematic saturation. The results of this study highlighted 10 major themes and seven subthemes inclusive, but not limited to education and training, understanding gender diversity issues, intentional bias, and professional experience. These study findings provide insight regarding the potential to improve counselor training and preparation. Ultimately increasing knowledge and education may impact and improve the lives for the gender diverse clients by reducing transprejudice, transphobia, and other forms of bias.

In state psychiatric hospitals in the United States, many patients are admitted with a history of trauma. Although trauma-focused interventions are offered within these psychiatric facilities, there remain issues with the higher-than-average length of treatment and rehospitalization rates for patients with a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder or for those who are suffering with a history of trauma. This study investigated between group differences for measured levels of attendance and type of group intervention (which included the men's trauma recovery empowerment model, dialectical behavior therapy, and art and healing) on the risk for violence as measured by scores on the historical, clinical, and risk-20 (HCR-20 v2) checklist. Participants had documented trauma history as well as mental health disorders including schizophrenia, schizoaffective, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse. Cognitive behavioral and social learning theory comprised the theoretical foundations for the study. Archival data from the past 6 years included 16 participants from the M-TREM group, 15 participants from the DBT group, and 15 participants from the Art and healing group. Data were used to complete a nonequivalent control group design and data analysis included an ANOVA, correlation, and regression analysis. The results of this study identified a statistically significant difference in risk for violence based on level of attendance but not by type of group intervention. The findings of this study will assist psychiatric hospital administrators and mental health professionals in the development and implementation of effective trauma programming to lower the risk for violence for patients with trauma.

The purpose of this integrated review of literature was to explore the relationship between and among females in abusive relationships, self-esteem, and positive self-talk. Various models are discussed that provide possible explanations in the understanding of the complex social and psychological nature of cyclic abuse. These models are: learned helplessness, psychological entrapment, self-verification theory, and feminist theory. It is suggested that positive self-talk statements used by the female survivor as a basis for cognitive restructuring can act as a self-esteem building technique, thus promoting healthier cognitions over time. Furthermore, it is argued that self-esteem enhancement can assist females in developing strengths necessary to abandon abusive relationships. In summary, a review of the literature suggests that self-esteem is an important construct in understanding how individuals evaluate and ultimately determine their own sense of competency, self-worth, and success.

Documented as serving in the midwife capacity from the 1880s to the 1930s, the “granny-woman,” often was the only line of defense regarding childbirth support practices for many childbearing age women living in the region during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The early twentieth century saw the granny-women discredited and subject to elimination as a result of a purposeful campaign conducted by the male-dominated medical profession. Using knowledge of herbal remedies, the granny-woman played an integral part in the survival of the inhabitants of the region, especially related to childbirth. These centuries-old, herbal-based ministrations have been explored to aid in dispelling the erroneous conclusions related to the vital community role fulfilled by the Southern Appalachian granny-woman. Possessing knowledge of herbal-based childbirth prevention measures, the Southern Appalachian granny-woman rarely provided specifics related to the use of these measures by the women living in the region during that era.

Following the Proclamation Act of 1763 growing numbers of colonists arrived in upper East Tennessee to settle and build wherever they could make arrangements with local groups of Cherokee. While these first families were occupied with survival, the British colonies continued to thrive. Concurrent with growing prosperity was the increasing determination of colonists to exercise control over their property and economic interests. Frontier exigencies affected family strategies for dividing labor and creating economic endeavors. A commonly held view asserts that where women were scarce and needed, rigid sex-role distinctions could not prevail. This thesis will present research of the earliest Washington County Court records and other primary evidence from the late eighteenth-century through the early Republic period to examine the place of women in the upper East Tennessee frontier and argue that despite frontier conditions the underlying attitudes about women did not change.

In a large urban school system located in a metropolitan city in the southeastern United States, third- and fifth-grade minority students in Title I elementary schools are performing below proficiency in social studies on the statewide standardized assessments. The lack of exposure to the social studies curriculum continues to hinder minority students from successfully comprehending complex informational text, which is important to their success in the newly adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS). The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the problem teachers faced with an insufficient amount of time for teaching social studies content and the recent requirement to increase student exposure to informational text. The research used Lev Vygotsky's theory of social constructivism to provide a framework for the methods used in this paper. To address these problems, this study explored two third-grade and two fifth-grade language arts teachers' perceptions of integrating social studies text during their reading-language arts block. Further, the study observed teachers as they integrated social studies text to teach reading. Data for this case study were compiled from interviews, observations, and focus group discussions. The data were reviewed and coded to identify major themes and were then analyzed to generalize data findings. Teachers reported integrating social studies text afforded them the opportunity to maximize instructional time, teach the CCSS, and expose students to more informational text. Implications for positive social change include enabling teachers to identify the benefits of integrating social studies text during reading-language arts instruction and enabling minority students to increase their scores on the statewide social studies assessment.

Abstract INTERDISCIPLINARY CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SCIENCE & THEATRE Jessica Nicole Dotson A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015. Major Director: Dr. Noreen C. Barnes, Director of Graduate Studies, Associate Professor of Theatre In the 1990s, astronomer Peter Usher was searching for new ways to teach his introductory astronomy class at Pennsylvania State University. He began to engage his students by searching for astronomical connections from other disciplines. His focus was turned to the arts, especially the works of William Shakespeare. Usher found, while searching through the canon of Shakespeare's work, astronomical references that explored the “new astronomy” of the Elizabethan age (Falk 171). This thesis will explore the writings of Usher, in regard to the astronomy of Hamlet, along with the interdisciplinary connections between art and science in and outside the classroom and museum theatre. From interdisciplinary classroom methods, to arts and scientists collaborating together for the betterment of man-kind, the use of theatre is a way of rediscovering the humanity of human history. The collaboration between the disciplines serves as one of theatre's greatest purposes, to educate and represent a living history of man.

This study explores what oral history interviews with my mother reveal about the familial and community dynamics that influenced Finnish-American children growing up on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula between 1930 and 1950. Close to four hours of oral history interviews were conducted with Viola Nixon, who is second and third-generation Finnish-American on her father’s and mother’s sides, respectively. After conducting a narrative analysis of the interviews, five themes emerged as significant to community function: family, language, education, work and church. I grouped some of these themes together to create three stories informed by materials drawn from the interviews, a cookbook, and my personal experience. These stories were written for oral performance. The stories provide audiences the opportunity to learn about and feel empathy for America’s immigrants, as well as to explore their own immigrant roots. Opportunities for further studies exist to explore the immigrant experience on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.