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The key postulation of the research is: learning an additional language should go together with learning its culture. Through personal experience as an EAL learner and EFL teacher, the researcher examines the interconnected system of the learner’s motivations, premising that language cognition could engage a meta-cognitive search for L, as a symbol of the researcher’s inner world, and arising from L such concepts as Language, Learning, Life, Love, and Led Zeppelin. Quest and examination of those concepts analyze sense-data, the researcher’s short literary works written in Russian and translated into English. The canvas of the author’s writing is presented in a symbolic form of literary and musical Islands with which she creates her arts-informed research of new learning-teaching interactions with the learning component as dominating in this interaction. The researcher looks for new perspectives on education as a lifelong process that takes place between I-world and They-world through internalization-externalization.

The key postulation of the research is: learning an additional language should go together with learning its culture. Through personal experience as an EAL learner and EFL teacher, the researcher examines the interconnected system of the learner’s motivations, premising that language cognition could engage a meta-cognitive search for L, as a symbol of the researcher’s inner world, and arising from L such concepts as Language, Learning, Life, Love, and Led Zeppelin. Quest and examination of those concepts analyze sense-data, the researcher’s short literary works written in Russian and translated into English. The canvas of the author’s writing is presented in a symbolic form of literary and musical Islands with which she creates her arts-informed research of new learning-teaching interactions with the learning component as dominating in this interaction. The researcher looks for new perspectives on education as a lifelong process that takes place between I-world and They-world through internalization-externalization.

Bullying has severe consequences for school-aged adolescents who have experienced repeated victimization and for the families as well. While there is a considerable body of research on bullying and its effects on victims, very little research has been devoted to studying the experiences and resistance of the targeted young people and their families in the bullying situations. The literature on bullying characterizes victims as unable to defend themselves; this depiction is limited, simplistic, and one-dimensional. This dissertation presents an alternate view, focusing on the experiences and responses of victims and their families. The thesis draws on a poststructural view and a response-based framework to present a new perspective on the victims of bullying—a perspective that contrasts with the common depiction of “helpless, powerless victims” and foregrounds the personal agency of young people who have responded to bullying. Data for this study was collected in the form of narratives from the families and eleven to fifteen year old school adolescents who have been targets of ongoing bullying. The sample consisted of four families and five adolescents. The interview questions were based on Allan Wade’s response-based approach. The participants’ narratives focused on their responses to bullying. Each narrative was read thoroughly for themes related to the skills and the knowledge adolescents have used in responding to peer aggression. Similarly, parents’ narratives were examined for themes of their responses to the bullying of their children. The conclusion from the findings indicated that the parents and adolescents responded to bullying in many small but prudent and resourceful ways.

Abstract: My inquiry, involving participant-observation and self-study, explores the stories of four older women through verbal and visual narratives. Showing how two specific types of visual narratives—sandpictures and collages—stimulate experiential story-telling and promote understanding about life experiences, I also illustrate how engagement with images extends learning and meaning-making. Effective in carrying life stories and integrating experience, the visual narratives also reveal archetypal imagery that is sustained and sustaining. Considering how visual narratives may be understood independently, I describe multiple strategies that worked for me for entering deeply into the images. I also elaborate on the relationship of visual narratives to accompanying verbal narratives, describing how tacit knowing may evolve. Through this process, I offer a framework for a curricular approach to visual narratives that involves feeling and seeing aesthetically and associatively and that provides a space for learners to express their individual stories and make meaning of significant life events. Salient narrative themes include confrontation with life-death issues, the experience of “creating a new life,” an avid early interest in books and learning, and a vital connection to the natural world. New professions after mid-life, creative expression, and volunteerism provide fulfillment and challenge as life changes promote attempts to marry relationships with self and others to work and service. My therapy practice room was the setting for five sessions, including an introduction, three experiential sandplay sessions, and a conclusion. Data derive from transcripts from free-flowing conversations, written narratives, photographs of sandpictures, and field notes written throughout the various phases of my doctoral process. This study of older women, with its emphasis on lifelong learning, visual narratives, and development of tacit knowing, will contribute to the field of narrative inquiry already strongly grounded in verbal narrative and teacher education/development. It may also promote in-depth investigations of male learners at a life stage of making meaning of, and integrating, their life experiences. New inquirers may note what I did and how it worked for me, and find their unique ways of extending the study of visual narratives while venturing into the broad field of diverse narrative forms.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / Sally J. Yahnke / Jeong-Hee Kim / This study is a narrative inquiry into the lives of physical education teachers in order to gain insight into their identities as physical education teachers and their understanding of what it means to be physically literate as well as investigate into the thoughts of physical education teachers about the concept of comprehensives school physical activity programs. According to Whitehead (2010), physical literacy is a disposition to capitalize on the human embodied capability, wherein an individual has the motivation, confidence, physical competence, knowledge and understanding to value and take responsibility for maintaining purposeful physical pursuits/activity throughout a lifetime. Development of the debate regarding physical literacy was stimulated by the study of existentialist and phenomenological philosophers, such as Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, who articulate a particular stance towards the nature of our mind and body connection. Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/2010) philosophy facilitated the gain of knowledge regarding 1) how stories of physical education teachers help promote physical literacy in schools; 2) how physical education teachers perceive the mind/body connection; and 3) how physical education teachers understand what it means to be physically literate. The contributions to the thought and practice of physical education as a result of this study will highlight 1.) physical literacy is embodied in adapted physical education; 2.) the role of physical education teachers is not just teaching and moving the body, but to help students learn better; 3.) A stressed mind affects the body, and having a healthy body helps students learn better; 4.) A new role of physical education teachers is to bridge the gap between physical education and the classroom by providing ideas to classroom teachers regarding brain breaks. 5.) Teacher education programs need to highlight reflective practices that help future physical educators draw upon knowledge from their own life experiences to enrich their teaching; 6.) Physical education teachers should collaborate with public health officials to implement comprehensive school physical activity programs.

This thesis explores the question “What do teachers who have recently graduated from teacher education programs know, believe, and experience about supporting LGBTQ+ students?” This research was conducted using narrative inquiry and métissage, with a group of six volunteer participants who had completed their teacher education programs since May of 2012. The participants wrote narrative responses to written prompts and the researcher wove those narratives together with his own experiences to highlight points of affinity and tension. This research articulates a number of ways in which teacher education programs can better prepare teachers to support LGBTQ+ students. / Graduate / 2018-12-18