With globalization and migration of people and ideas becoming an increasing reality around the world, the needs of immigrant families and students is vital for countries to consider, particularly within their educational systems. This is true especially in the Nordic countries, where the national discourse of equality and egalitarianism are increasingly questioned due to increased awareness of inequality in society as immigration from outside of Europe continues to rise, particularly in Finland. Multiculturalism and integration are thus a relatively new but pressing concepts gaining attention in the Finnish education system. Research in the Nordics that has looked at approaches to integration has typically looked at the institutional practices of integration, particularly in schools, but research on families’ responses to these efforts has often not been nuanced enough to consider their experiences holistically and in depth. Literature from the Nordics has often also taken deficit perspectives on immigrant families and their communities. This study takes an asset-based, narrative approach to understand the knowledge of immigrant parents of their experiences with schools in Finland and their aspirations for the education of their children. Using a sociocultural framework to understand identity as constructed through practice, it combines narrative inquiry with ethnographic approaches to decolonize research on immigrant families in the Nordics. Through the narratives of three racialized immigrant parents, their experiences with belonging and engaging in practices that span across national borders allow for new conceptualizations of integration that move beyond traditional assimilationist and deficit perspectives.

Discussions of the Deep South often ignore Florida and neglect to note the complexities of race relations throughout the state's history. Central Florida particularly has been overlooked and historians have yet to establish firmly the history of mid-twentieth century race relations in the region. Since there are few existing written accounts of the civil rights movement in Central Florida, this study attempts to contribute to the scholarly discourse about race in the region by investigating the desegregation of Orange County public schools. The bulk of this study is devoted to the 1962 case Ellis v. Board of Public Instruction of Orange County, Florida and how the case eventually desegregated the county's schools. The desegregation process was a long and arduous effort, but progress continued steadily and ten years after the suit was initiated, the county's school system bore little resemblance to the rigidly operated dual system of just one decade prior. This thesis sheds light on a previously overlooked segment of Central Florida's history and demonstrates why the untold story of Orange County's school desegregation effort is an important part of America's nationwide civil rights movement.

There are many ways parents can improve their offspring’s outcomes. For example, they can invest in offspring’s education or health. They can provide better social connections to obtain job information or personal references. In addition, they can exert political influence to obtain better labor market outcomes for their offspring. Understanding exactly how parents improve their offspring’s outcomes is very important for the formation of political perspectives and policy designs. However, it is very difficult to disentangle the factors, as parents of high socioeconomic status do many things to help their children succeed. This dissertation presents three quasi-experimental studies to understand the causal mechanisms of parents’ influence on children’s outcomes in the context of China and United States. Chapter two examines the implementation of court-ordered racial desegregation of schools and finds that school desegregation increases biracial births. This provides the first evidence of how an education policy that affects racial integration also has demographic implications and an intergenerational impact on social and economic opportunities. Chapter three examines the effect of school desegregation on infant health. This chapter adopts the same empirical strategy and data as chapter three. I extend the paper by examining the effect of school desegregation on infant health. I find that for black mothers, school desegregation improves infant health, as measured by preterm birth. It also increases maternal education and fertility age. These may be important pathways to improve infant health. Chapter two and chapter three add to the growing literature on the impact of school desegregation beyond academic achievement. Chapter five examines the effect of fathers’ political influence on offspring’s labor market outcomes in China. It presents a difference-in-difference approach that exploits the variation of political influence in three dimensions: parent bureaucrat occupation, retirement status instrumented by retirement policy, and offspring gender. Using cross-section data from China Household Income Survey, it finds that the retirement of a bureaucrat with political influence translates into a decrease in offspring’s income of 13 percent. Chapter six provides a summary and conclusions and discusses future research directions.

It has been just over twenty years since the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas decision was handed down by the Supreme Court. During this period, educators, and in particular, school administrators have found themselves in a unique position between two masters—the public that supports public education through taxes, and the orders of the courts they are legally required to follow. Therefore, school administrators, functioning as social engineers, have devised various practices to provide a smooth transition from segregated to desegregated school systems. This study was designed to determine the practices used by selected school districts to cope with this change and to determine the effectiveness of these practices as perceived by central-staff administrators. Selected large city school districts with enrollments of 30,000 students and above, located in the six southern states under the jurisdiction of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, were selected for this study. These districts, of which there were thirty-four, also had to be under a federal court desegregation order to be included. The survey data reveal that the most effective desegregation practice for students is the provision of alternative schools and programs to assist students unable to cope with the regular school environment. Training administrators in conflict management was perceived to be the most effective practice for administrators, followed closely by training in the shared decision-making process. For teachers, the recruitment of minorities and using teacher aides were perceived to be the most effective practices.

published_or_final_version / abstract / Education / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

A research project submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of BA Masters (Educational Psychology) in the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, January 2017 / Educational Technology (ET) is fast becoming a part of South African classrooms. Educators play a major role in the effective and successful integration of this technology within the classroom. This study explores the relationship between educators’ level of access to ET, their attitudes towards ET and their use of ET for various teaching related purposes. The factors of perceived competence, cultural relevance and perceived usefulness are also explored. Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations Theory and Ajzen and Fishbein’s Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory of Planned Behaviour were used as the theoretical framework for this study. A convenience sample of 119 educators from various schools in Gauteng (both public and private) completed a questionnaire consisting of a demographics section, the Attitudes towards Computer Scale (ACTS) and the Information and Communication Technology Survey. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regressions. The study found that while educator’s attitudes towards ET are positive, levels of use and integration of more complex ET items are still low. Varying levels of access were recorded for different ET items at home and at school. Both, perceived usefulness and levels of access were found to be the most significant predictors of educators ET use and integration. These results are in keepings with both Roger’s Diffusion of Innovations Theory and Ajzen and Fishbein’s Theory of Reasoned Action and Theory of Planned Behaviour as attitudes were shown to predict use and integration of ET. This research has potential to contribute to teaching policy, practice and research in South African schools / XL2018

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 195-200). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

This study explores the relationships between the integration experiences of adolescent newcomers in one francophone secondary school in Montreal and the current policies and programs related to educational integration. The research draws on observations and participants' descriptions and insights to address three principal questions: How is integration experienced by adolescent newcomers in a francophone school in Montreal? How do these students' experiences inform our understanding of the relationships among host (second) language learning/teaching, integration, and identity construction? What are the implications of these newcomer students' integration experiences for educational theories, policies and programs/practices that target such newcomers? These questions emerge from a consideration of theories of identity construction current in a variety of disciplines. / The study offers an overview of Quebec's past and present immigration and integration policies and programs. It considers those policies in light of identity theory and, more specifically, focuses on the relationships between language learning, integration, and identity in the experience of adolescent immigrants within a francophone secondary school in Montreal. Based on interviews and participant observation conducted over 15 months, the study describes the ways in which the participants' integration and identity are shaped by school discourses and the standardizing imperative of most North American educational institutions. Findings suggest that the participants resist the school's discourses in order to assert themselves dialogically and relocate their sense of identity in their host society. However, the dialogic relationships that the students are able to establish with and within the school discourses are imbalanced, leaving several students to feel dislocated both physically and psychically throughout the study. The study indicates that a distributed notion of the Self might improve theory, policy, and pedagogy related to newcomer integration. Finally, specific suggestions are made for building on current educational-integration research and practice.

This research explores the experiences of African learners in a school in which they constitute the minority. The aim of the study is to investigate how African learners perceive of their day to day experiences in an ex-House of Delegates school that still has a predominantly Indian learner population. The study was conducted in a primary school situated in a small suburb south of Durban. Ten African learners from grade seven were interviewed through semi-structured interviews in this qualitative study. This was followed by a focus group discussion with the ten respondents to further investigate specific issues and to serve as a debriefing since strong emotions had surfaced. Interviews were recorded on audiotape, and non-verbal indicators were recorded in the form of written notes. Non-participant observations were also conducted on the playgrounds. The content analysis method was used to analyze the data. Themes were identified and related to the conceptual framework of the study. The analysis revealed that learners experienced various exclusionary pressures as African learners in a predominantly Indian school. Unequal power relations are perpetuated through the intersection of race, class and ability as well as through a hidden curriculum. Racism as a form of oppression was evident in the racist name-calling and racist stereotyping. There appears to be a lack of a caring pedagogy as African learners feel marginalized. The findings reveal the need for a whole-school policy on anti-racist education. In addition, educators need training to help them interrogate the cycle of socialization to which they have been exposed. The implications are specific to the context. The formulation of a whole-school policy on anti-racist education and an educator intervention program are some of the recommendations. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

The principle of quality education for all learners is embedded in all policy documentsand legislation and this emphasis on quality education for all suggests that schools have to meet the diverse needs of all learners. However, throughout South African schooling contexts, there are many learners who face barriers to learning and participation in view of the fact that schools are unable to respond to the diversity of needs in the learner population. The issue is not how the learners adjust to the learning environment but whether the learning environment is flexible enough to accommodate the diverse needs of all learners. The responsibility of achieving the goal of a non-discriminatory education system lies heavily on the shoulders of classroom teachers. The purpose of this study is to examine how teachers at a primary school experience diversity within the classroom. The research was undertaken in a historically Indian boys' only state primary school in KwaZulu-Natal, with a learner population of almost 95% African, 4% Indian and the other 1% comprising White/Coloured learners. The focus of the study was the teachers. I sought to investigate how teachers construct and respond to diversity in their classes. Within the context of the post apartheid South Africa, the classroom has become a microcosm of the 'rainbow nation', with teachers having to deal with many differences at varying levels within the classroom. How teachers interpret and respond to differences is likely to be subjective. In light of the fact that teachers' interpretations are subjective, for the purpose of this study, symbolic interactionism was used as a theoretical framework. Qualitative research , methodology, which took the form of a case study was used. Teachers experiences were examined through semi-structured interviews, observations and document analysis. Throughout the study, there emerged the "them" and "us" syndrome in teachers. The study shows that while the teachers did not treat African learners unfairly, there are numerous exclusionary practices at the school. Very little attempt is made by the teachers to change their teaching behaviours in ways that make the curriculum responsive to their learners. In fact, very little was done to change the ethos of the school, and African learners where expected to 'fit in' and become part of the existing culture of the school. There emerges from the study, a definite need to train teachers to think and work within a new frame of reference, that is, a human rights framework which constantly interrogates unequal power relations and inequalities that schools perpetuate. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.