In July 2022, the University of California (UC) permanently eliminated the standardized tests requirement for its freshman admissions in order to alleviate the severed socioeconomic gap and college access barriers that were heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic. This critical policy analysis research explored the immediate effects of UC’s policy reform on higher education equity. All 14 participants were underrepresented minority (URM) students who applied to at least one UC campus for fall 2022’s freshman admissions and were enrolled in four-year universities at the time of this study. From demographic surveys, focus groups, and in-depth interviews, I applied critical race theory (CRT) tenets and internalized oppression theory to explore, interpret, and provide counter-narratives of URM students’ college planning and application experiences after the policy reform. From analyzing these students’ perceptions of the elimination of the standardized tests requirement and UC’s admissions equity, I identified the following four findings: 1. Insidiousness of Higher Education Racism: The Role of Standardized Testing in Admissions 2. Enduring Internalized Oppression: The Lingering Effects of the Legitimization of Standardized test requirement 3. Intersectionality of Race, Income, First-Generation College Students’ Status, and Pandemic Impacts 4. Increased Trust in the Higher Education Admissions System After application and identification, I critically discussed the research findings and provided implications for future policies, practices, and research directions for higher education admissions equity based on the four findings. In conclusion and alignment with the CRT tenet of interest convergence, UC’s policy has increased opportunities for all students and has benefited both White and underrepresented minority URM students in terms of their acceptance into highly selective, four-year universities.

This thesis explores the degree of independent action possible by national governments in deciding their education policies – in other words, what may be termed their sphere of authority (SoA) – in the context of globalisation; whereby Pakistan, perhaps more than many nation states, is subject to a variety of geopolitical and economic pressures. This issue is explored through a study of the recent education policy review process in Pakistan that resulted in a White Paper: ‘Education in Pakistan’ in 2007. In exploring the SoA of the government of Pakistan in deciding its education policy priorities, key areas of enquiry include the tensions between national and global interests and their attempted discursive management by the government of Pakistan. The research uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as its main methodological resource and looks at two kinds of textual data: interviews with key policy actors and selected policy texts. The methodology of CDA draws attention to the fact that texts are embedded within linguistic, discursive and structural contexts, and that these contexts provide resources that are mobilized by different actors. The textual data resources were analysed to see how language shapes the construction of the White Paper; what discourses are being drawn upon and contested in the articulation of the White Paper and thus what broad power structures shape the White Paper and illustrate the SoA of the government of Pakistan. The findings suggest that the policy review process as illustrated by the White Paper reveals various tensions caused by differences between global and national education policy interests. These tensions are visible in the style and genre of policy; the pursuit of global policy prescriptions; trends to privatization of provision; and disputes over the issue of language and about the ideological principles that should inform educational provision. The research suggests that inclusive and ‘soft’ governance discourse along with a process of consultation were used by the government in an attempt to manage these tensions. The expertise with which the government designed the consultation process and deployed discursive resources sought to establish and maintain its SoA.

Education plays a vital role in shaping social structures and influencing social mobility in a society, and thus educational equality is a concern for many societies. Considering the compulsory status of English from basic to higher education in China and its symbolic meaning in Chinese society, this study regards it as a window to explore educational inequality and its association with social structures. This study investigates the roles played by family, geographic divide, and institution, and the way in which the three interplay in structuring the educational pathways of individuals and shaping educational inequality. This study describes a qualitative case study of 36 students of different social milieus in an elite university. Data from the case interviews is complemented by classroom observation of three secondary schools within the educational system hierarchy, classroom observation of the elite university, teacher interviews from the four educational institutions, and collected documents. I draw on Bourdieu's conceptual tools of different types of capital, field, and habitus in order to understand the complexity of educational inequality in China. The data present striking differences in the educational trajectories between social groups. The success of higher-SES students is partly ascribed to the richer volume and types of their families' cultural capital, and the inclination for their families to transfer abundant economic capital to their children's embodied cultural capital. The interview data suggest that disadvantaged students rely heavily on formal education and are inscribed with institutional habitus due to the scarcity of educational resources obtained from family. More importantly, for advantaged students, their family, secondary schools (previous field) and the elite university (current field) work together in a consistent way, resulting in a positive momentum that contributes to a sense of belonging and fitting-in to the elite university. On the contrary, for marginalised students, contradictions and disconnections are found between secondary schools and the current elite field in terms of institutional habitus and practices, which to a large extent can be ascribed to the stratified school system and geographic divides. This situation leads to a negative momentum for them, which causes feelings of alienation and a sense of disorientation when encountering the elite field. This academic disorientation is evident in their transitional period. Their habitus is identified by a transformative tendency with easier access to dominant cultural capital and habitus. However, the transformation is circumscribed by their huge efforts made in overcoming the initial difficulties and their families' lack of capital. Some special cases in my study suggest a more equal admission policy and the critical role that institutions play in compensating for a family's lack of capital. This thesis concludes with suggestions for more inclusive practices for institutions and policy makers in China to achieve a more equal educational context.

<p> Approximately 65,000 undocumented immigrants graduate from American high schools annually, among them valedictorians and salutatorians. Only about 6,500 of these prospective future leaders go on to college. There are 50 different state-level immigrant-tuition policies, most of which severely limit undocumented students&rsquo; college/university and financial aid options. This study is situated in the state of California, whose Master Plan for Higher Education aims to grant college access to all Californians and whose favorable immigrant-tuition policies work toward that end; it could serve as a model for U.S. states with restrictive or neutral immigrant-tuition policies. To date, there is limited discussion of undocumented student college choice in the higher education literature. To explore how undocumented students navigate college decision-making in the U.S., this study uses the conceptual constructs of Perna&rsquo;s (2006) contextual college choice model, Hossler and Gallagher&rsquo;s (1987) foundational choice model, and single-element models (chain enrollment and proximity). These frameworks and Dervin&rsquo;s Sense-making Theory (1999-2014) helped me retrospectively explore the college choice of seven undocumented men and women attending a Bay Area Cal State University campus in 2013. </p><p> The study&rsquo;s purpose warranted a qualitative research design and case study approach. I connected with interested students, shared my background, answered questions, and sent them my IRB-approved Study Information Sheet and demographic survey. We developed rapport over several months, engaging in a series of in-person interviews and other interactions. I kept field notes and journaled reflexively. I transcribed all 14 interview recordings via Dragon speech software, coded the transcripts and analyzed the data via MaxQDA data analysis software. </p><p> The findings revealed overarching themes related to: parental expectations and encouragement, habitus (e.g., gender &amp; cultural traditions, birth order &amp; responsibilities, home life), financial situation, K-14 context, higher education context, social context, and policy context. What distinguishes this study is the exploration of undocumented students&rsquo; college choice, inclusion of student voices, and implications for public policy and college enrollment professionals&rsquo; practice. It provides insight into how undocumented youth choose a college located in a state whose country values the common good and economic success yet is torn on its people&rsquo;s higher education rights.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2004. / Adviser: Antoinette Gagne.

<p> Despite the increasing research that lists cultural incongruence in the classroom among the top factors that speaks to the disproportionate numbers of Black females obtaining STEM degrees there is limited research on the actual number of Black female science teachers at the secondary level in education and the impact this plays on Black females in science, technology, engineering, and math classrooms (STEM). The consequence of all this is that we find ourselves with Black female science teachers &ldquo;missing in action,&rdquo; and only 5% of Black females receiving a STEM degree. I employ critical pedagogy, critical race theory, and Black feminist thought to answer: (a) What do the stories of Black female secondary science teachers tell us about issues related to their recruitment and retention within the science teaching force? (b) How do Black female secondary science teachers explain the shortage of Black females entering the STEM field? What do they believe should be done to increase the number of Black females in the field? (c) What contributions do Black female secondary science teachers make or potentially would like to make to increase the number of Black females entering and remaining within the science teaching force? This study explores how Black women are absent in the conversation about recruitment and retention of secondary science teachers. To answer the research questions in a humanizing way, this study was conducted collectively with my participants using the qualitative methodologies of critical narratives and decolonizing methodology. Therefore, this study represents an effort to address this phenomenon by listening to the voices of Black female secondary science teachers and engaging their stories, which often have remained absent from recruitment and retention discussions, to contribute to the scholarship on the recruitment and retention of Black science teachers.</p><p>

Orientador: Maria da Gloria Marcondes Gohn / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-05T12:26:18Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Araujo_DoracinaAparecidadeCastro_D.pdf: 1291599 bytes, checksum: c41f2093f5c98414a85aeabb9f1a9573 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: Esta tese trata da educação escolar no sistema penitenciário do Estado de Mato Grosso do Sul. É o resultado de um estudo desenvolvido no Estabelecimento Penal de Paranaíba, que discute o papel da educação escolar para o aprisionado. O ciclo da pesquisa deu-se mediante o levantamento bibliográfico, o exame da legislação em âmbito nacional e estadual que norteia a educação escolar para presos, o conhecimento da realidade prisional e educacional do sistema penitenciário de Mato Grosso do Sul e, de forma singular, da unidade prisional de Paranaíba. Neste ciclo, o questionário foi utilizado para identificar o perfil dos presos, a entrevista individual com a professora e os alunos das séries iniciais do ensino fundamental e a entrevista coletiva com os alunos visaram analisar a relevância do processo educacional no espaço prisional / Abstract: This thesis is about the school education in the penitentiary system of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. It is the result of the study developed in the penal system in the city of Paranaíba, which discuss the role of the school education for the prisoners. The cycle of the research began by the bibliographic research, the inquiry of the legislation in national and state ambit that leads the education to prisoners, the knowledge of prison¿s reality and education in the penitentiary system in Mato Grosso do Sul and in a singular form of the jail in Paranaíba. In this cycle, the questionnaire was used to identify the prisoners profile, the interview with the teacher and students of initial grades and the collective interview with students, aimed to analyze the relevance of the process of education in prison / Doutorado / Politicas de Educação e Sistemas Educativos / Doutor em Educação

This thesis enquires into the kinds of citizenship taught and learned in formal and informal settings of citizenship education in Scotland. There has been a ‘perceived’ crisis in democratic citizenry in the UK and elsewhere across the world since the 1990s and this has brought about renewed interests in citizenship education whereby young people are a specifically targeted group. Yet, citizenship education is a fundamentally contested domain where conflicting and contrasting ideologies co-exist and the Scottish version of ‘education for global citizenship’ is an archetypal example of this. By exploring similarities and differences between accounts of ‘what adult practitioners do’ and ‘what young people learn’ in each setting, the thesis emphasises tensions and challenges of citizenship education and their implications for the wider debates about the complex relationship between citizenship, democracy and education. The thesis deploys a synthesised theoretical framework for differentiating and analysing the types of education and learning that are legitimate points of reference in citizenship education for democratic life. It distinguishes between approaches to education for citizenship that focuses on membership of the community (relationships and service work in communities), formal political participation (political literacy in terms of institutions, processes and procedures) entrepreneurial citizenship (employability skills and economic participation) and social and political activism (the commitment and capacity to think critically and act collectively to realise the inherent goals of democracy). These different approaches entail a broad ideological mix of civic republicanism, liberalism and neoliberalism which informs citizenship education. The increasing emphasis on economic participation in educational contexts resonates with what can be termed as a neoliberal version of ‘responsiblised citizenship’ that promotes an individualised and depoliticised conception of citizenship by equipping young people with knowledge, skills and experiences to get on and get into the labour market through their own individual efforts rather than being concerned with the collective needs and interests of young people. Formal education and, to some extent informal community education, tend to overlook the de facto issues, experiences and contributions of young people as engaged citizens and the need to focus on the commitment and capacity to think critically and act collectively in order to realise the inherent goals of democracy as an unfinished project. Consequently, the experience of citizenship education is one young people often feel marginal to or marginalised from. This thesis challenges the dominant assumption of ‘disengaged youth’ to focus instead on the democratic deficit at the heart of citizenship teaching and learning. Along with the ‘invited’ spaces of citizenship education, in both formal and informal settings, the goal of democracy should include the ‘invented’ spaces of citizenship learning which reflects the lived experience, concerns and aspirations of young people.

This thesis describes individual national minorities living on the territory of Czech Republic, under which conditions they can enter the Czech territory and live here and integration process of minorities to the Czech majority society. Each of those minority groups is characteristic by different values, culture, language, color of the skin, religion, and lifestyle and by the ability to adapt new world for them. This integration process is a long-term process and depends also on the Czech society, how those minorities will identify with Czech territory. Already on elementary schools students are getting to know variety of cultures through multicultural education that is trying to build a sense for respecting different cultures and esprit de corps in them. Citizens of Czech society living in abroad are finding a support in allowance organizations called Czech centers, which work also for representing Czech Republic in a lot of countries.

This master's thesis is concerned with the understanding of identity in the multicultural education in the Czech educational system - more precisely by the construction of identity. Multicultural education is the main educational stream, when it comes to the education against racism, xenophobia, intolerance or discrimination. In the Czech Republic, the multicultural education is one of the cross-subjects defined in the Educational Framework Programs. Lately, there have been many criticisms and concerns regarding multicultural education's tools including the identity politics due to its inability of reaching the proclaimed goals and objectives. Sometimes, it does quite the opposite - it reproduces dangerous stereotypes in the society and perpetuates discrimination. Identity is the key element in the multicultural education. How we perceive ourselves and others, influences many spheres of our lives. Whether the groups are constructed positively or negatively influences for example the allocation of benefits. Within this regard, through the discursive analysis, the construction of identity in the multicultural education is examined. It has been proven that the multicultural education tends to either construct the identity on the basis of external characteristics, which are visible on the first sight (skin...