The generation of robust causal evidence is of paramount importance for informing policy and assessing the effect of different interventions in the educational setting. The objective of this thesis is to design and apply new methods for causal inference, particularly in observational studies, to answer pressing educational questions and provide evidence of the effect of specific events and policies. This thesis consists of three papers that use different identification strategies, such as a natural experiment, a regression discontinuity design, and a difference-in-differences approach, in combination with matching techniques, to identify the effect that specific educational interventions and a natural disaster had on students' and schools' outcomes in Chile. In the first paper, Vielma, Zubizarreta, and I present a new way of matching in observational studies that is able to (i) balance covariates directly with multiple-valued treatments, (ii) build self-weighted matched samples that are representative of a target population, and (iii) handle matching problems in large datasets in a fast and efficient way. The key insights of this new approach to matching are balancing the treatment groups relative to a target population and positing a linear-sized mixed integer formulation of the matching problem. We illustrate this method using both a simulation study and a case study. In the observational study, we estimate the effect that different intensities of the 2010 Chilean earthquake had on senior high school students' educational outcomes. We find that while increasing levels of exposure to the earthquake had a negative impact on school attendance, it had no effect on college admission test scores. In my second paper, I tackle the issue of generalization in a regression discontinuity design. Regression discontinuity designs are a commonly used approach for causal inference in observational studies. Under mild continuity assumptions, the method provides a robust estimate of the average treatment effect for observations directly at the threshold of assignment. However, it has limited external validity for populations away from the cutoff. This paper proposes a strategy to overcome this limitation by identifying a wider interval around the cutoff for estimation using a Generalization of a Regression Discontinuity Design (GRD). In this interval, predictive covariates are used to explain away the relationship between the assignment score and the outcome of interest for the pre-intervention period. Under the partially-testable assumption of conditional time-invariance in absence of the treatment, the generalization bandwidth can be applied to the post-intervention period, allowing for the estimation of average treatment effects for populations away from the cutoff. To illustrate this method, GRD is applied in the context of free higher education in Chile to estimate effects for vulnerable students. I find evidence that students at the margin of eligibility were positively affected by the policy, increasing both application and enrollment rates to university. In terms of a generalized effect, evidence is also consistent with an increasing effect as we get away from the cutoff. Finally, the third paper in this thesis addresses the question of unintended consequences in school segregation due to the introduction of a targeted voucher scheme. I use a difference-in-difference approach, in combination with matching on time-stable covariates, to estimate the effect that the 2008 Chilean voucher policy had on both average students' household income and academic performance at the school level. Results show that even though the policy had a positive effect on schools' standardized test scores, closing the gap between schools that subscribed to the policy compared to those that did not, there was also an increase in the differences between socioeconomic characteristics at the school level, such as average household income.

As early as 1954, families of children who had been segregated into separate spaces fought and succeeded in having their concerns heard in the landmark Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board of Education. In 1975, P.L. 94-142, Education for the Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) was important because it exposed the history of family-school relations, addressing the multiple forms of inequity, particularly the exclusion of children with dis/abilities from U.S. public schools (Valle & Connor, 2011). Although EAHCA legislation was created to provide solutions to the problems of special education, it appeared to have provided an unequal environment in which the families with the most economic resources could advocate for their children and obtain access to better educational opportunities (Ong-Dean, 2009). Goodwin, Cheruvu, and Genishi (2008) described these policies as based on the “culturally deprived paradigm that compares racially, culturally, linguistically, and socioeconomically diverse peoples to a White, middle-class standard” (p. 4). In this manner, these educational legislative policies are problematic as they have defined parent involvement as meaning families of culturally and linguistically different backgrounds are expected to act or interact with school professionals in particular ways. Moreover, these conceptualizations of parent involvement continue to privilege and perpetuate professional viewpoints based on a Eurocentric middle-class standard (Sleeter, 2001). Bakhtinian theories of language are used to understand how families describe their experiences as they encounter the deficit discourse of parent involvement used by school professionals. This is important because professional jargon or “stratified language” presents a danger in that it is replete with value judgments and beliefs (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 293), assuming power that then comes to inform the ways families understand their experiences and their selves in school contexts. This tells us that it is imperative to know how families of children with dis/abilities experience their communication with school professionals as there is a danger that the discourse of parent involvement will continue to perpetuate particular definitions of family participation that disqualify family knowledge by silencing the potential strengths and contributions of minoritized families (Lareau & Munoz, 2012). Moreover, the way minoritized families experience school professionals and how this is connected to how they come to be involved in their child’s education is not clear. This study, conducted just before and during the coronavirus pandemic, drew from Disability Studies (DS), disability critical race studies (DisCrit), and Intersectionality theories. It examined family-school communication being fully inclusive of all the ways families engage in the education of their children with dis/abilities at the crossroads of race, ethnicity, dis/ability, class, language, and culture (Hernández-Saca et al., 2018; Annamma et al., 2013). To rethink traditional notions of what counts as knowledge, pláticas (personal exchanges) revealed critical raced-gendered epistemologies that allowed the experiential knowledge of Latinx mothers of children with dis/abilities to be viewed as a strength (Delgado Bernal, 2002).

The purpose of this study was to compare the academic performance of black freshmen at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University who had graduated from predominantly black and predominantly white high schools after their involvement in Intervention Programs on selective variables with those students who have graduated from black and white high schools who did not participate in these programs. Four groups were created for this comparison: Group A--those students who graduated from black high schools and participated in Intervention Programs; Group B--those students who graduated from predominantly black high schools and who did not participate in these programs; Group C--those students who graduated from predominantly white high schools and who participated in Intervention Programs; Group D--those students who graduated from predominantly white high schools and who did not participate in these programs. The 4 groups were compared on their mean high school grade point average (HGPA), Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, math and verbal, the Test of Standard Written English (TSWE) scores, and freshmen cumulative grade point average (FGPA). A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted for type of school graduated, predominantly black or white, and participation or non-participation in Intervention Programs. Also a Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (Pearson correlation) was performed to ascertain relationship between HGPA and FGPA. In addition, a Pearson correlation was performed between FGPA and the following variables: amount of financial aid, citizenship, family income, and kinds of financial aid. The findings revealed the following: Even though black students who participated in Intervention Programs had significantly lower high school grade point averages and standardized test scores, after l year, students who had participated in Intervention Programs mean FGPA was not significantly different from those students who had not participated in these programs. The results showed that there was an association between participation in Intervention Programs and improved academic. performance. Even though black graduates of predominantly white high schools had higher standardized test scores than did black graduates of predominantly black high schools, these higher test scores did not translate into a higher mean freshmen grade point average. Graduates of predominantly black high schools who came from low-income families did better academically than did graduates of predominantly white high schools who came from low-income families. Students who received financial aid had a higher mean freshmen grade point average than did students who did not receive financial aid. Graduates of predominantly black high schools had a slightly higher mean grade point average, from high school through college, than did graduates of predominantly white high schools. For students who participated in Intervention Programs, their high school grade point averages were not good predictors of their college grade point averages. In general, students who participated in Intervention Programs faired as well as students who did not when compared for academic survival. However, for students who did not participate in these programs, their high school grade point averages were good predictors of their college grade point averages. / Ed. D.

Prior to 1954, blacks in Fairfax County who wanted to receive an education beyond the seventh grade were bussed by the county to Manassas Regional High School in Prince William County or independently attended Dunbar High School, Phelps Vocational Center, Cardoza High School or Armstrong High School in Washington, D.C. The purpose of this dissertation was to describe, record and analyze the events and actions that led to the establishment, operation, desegregation and eventual demise of Luther P. Jackson High School, the first and on1y high school for blacks in Fairfax County, Virginia. This study provides useful information to the Fairfax County School System. The population for the study consisted of representatives from community and civil rights leaders, school administrators, students, teachers and secretaries who were involved with Luther P. Jackson at various stages of its existence. / Ed. D.

The problem of this study was to ascertain the role and status of the specialist in human relations in the desegregation of selected public schools in Texas. Its purpose was to review human relations literature in order to compile a list of representative criteria for human relations programs in industry and to describe the human relations programs and roles of the directors in selected schools. An analysis of available information indicated that industrial organizations have given more attention to human relations programs than have the educational institutions of this country, although their problems have been similar. It was in the workshops of the factories, rather than in the classrooms of America, that social scientists developed human relations skills and techniques. The social issue of desegregation of the races has been a battle often fought on public school campuses. These racial confrontations, coupled with conflicts spawned by the rigidity of traditional schools, have signaled the urgent call for human relations programs to alleviate human problems. The background study included a review of relevant literature, interviews with public school officials, and discussions with state and regional educational administrators. The survey technique was used to collect data for the study. Personal interviews were held with public school officials from five representative districts. The remaining participants responded to mailed questionnaires. The following procedures were used to develop the survey questionnaire: (1) construction of the initial survey questionnaire, (2) selection of a jury panel to validate the questionnaire, (3) validation of the questionnaire, (4) construction of the final questionnaire, and (5) administration of the validated questionnaire.

During the years following Brown v. Board of Education, the U.S. district courts assumed the burden of implementing that decision across the country. The purpose of this study is to examine the role of the district court judges in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in that effort. The primary sources used are the district, appellate and Supreme Court opinions. This study concludes that many background variables used to study judicial behaviour are ineffective in this geographical area because of the homogeneity of the judges' backgrounds. But, as indicated by the Johnson appointments, a president can select judges that have a particular attitude toward an issue such as integration, if he has the desire and the political acumen to do so.

This thesis reports on an investigation of the schemata of trainee teachers from a range of different ethnic and language groups in KwaZulu-Natal who had been educated in racially segregated school systems. Informed by the insight that schemata are the products of life experience and that they constrain linguistic choices (see Tannen 1979), it was hypothesised at the outset that different ethnic groups have some different assumptions of what constitutes appropriate classroom behaviour and that this schematic knowledge is reflected in the surface linguistic forms used by teachers and pupils in classroom discourse. These differences in schemata could have unfortunate consequences for pupils of a different ethnic group from their teacher, and, in particular, those pupils from historically disempowered groups. Data was collected using an eclectic mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. Firstly, students responded to a questionnaire which elicited responses concerning pupil and teacher roles. This was followed by interviews with selected student teachers during which they were asked to comment on those statements in the questionnaire which exhibited the greatest differences between respondents who attended schools administered by racially different educational authorities. Finally, a story recall experiment was conducted. Respondents/subjects were all trainee teachers at a multi-racial college of education. The analyses of the findings of the quantitative questionnaire revealed significant differences between subjects from different education systems. The interview data, however, revealed that the differences were less marked than the findings of the questionnaire suggested. The analyses of the recall experiment suggested that while some differences between the subjects who had attended schools administered by racially segregated authorities do exist, these are not as great as initially hypothesised. Teachers need to be made aware of the problems inherent in cross-cultural encounters, and this awareness should be extended to pupils. This awareness, together with goodwill, should ensure that pupils having different schemata from their teacher and/or other pupils in the classroom will not be disadvantaged. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, 1997.

The thesis studies gender inequality in interpreting studies. In specific, gender imbalances in European interpreting institutions such as the Institute of Translatology of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. At the Institute of Translatology, it investigates the gender ratios among master's and doctoral graduates and the gender ratios in individual language programs from 1989 to the present. Through a survey, it traces the opinions of lecturers and students at the institute regarding gender issues and ascertains their views on the causes and consequences of the high proportion of women in the interpreting studies program.

Black education was unique in Montgomery County, Virginia, during Jim Crow segregation because African American students were able to attend Christiansburg Institute (C.I.), a black secondary school with an excellent reputation. C.I. initially emphasized vocational education, but in the late 1940s administrators expanded the curriculum to include a college preparatory program. C.I. nurtured black activism and culture. Because it was a regional school, it facilitated the development of an extended black community. Blacks organized first for equalization within segregated schools, and then they challenged segregation itself. After the Supreme Court declared school segregation unconstitutional in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), white Virginians resisted desegregation. White Montgomery County residents were committed to segregation, yet they were unwilling to commit to Virginia's "massive resistance” to integration. Desegregation came quietly and relatively quickly to Montgomery County due to bi-racial cooperation, a comparatively small black population, and the growth of the state university located in the county. Once integration was complete in 1966, the county closed C.I. White Virginians, especially those in eastern Virginia, fought so hard to avoid desegregation; yet in Montgomery County it was black residents who paid the highest price for integration -- their school. An institution that held high expectations for its graduates, while providing them with the tools to succeed in a segregated world, is now gone. This thesis explores the costs, the benefits, and the process of desegregation in one predominantly white county in western Virginia. / Master of Arts

Thesis (Ph.D Ed.) -- Central University of Technology, Free State, 2007 / Since the advent of multicultural democratic governance in 1994, transformation has become crucial in South African higher education. This study is focused on the current discourses in Free State higher education institutions, especially after the mergers of the formerly black institutions and their white counterparts. The learning guide has been used to capture those debates, hence the location of its positioning between the dominant and the dominated discourses. The realisation that African culture and knowledge was being sidelined to the margins of the centre of knowledge production at higher education institutions necessitated this study. The study was qualitative, and has used Buskens-Meulenberg’s Free Attitude Interview (FAI) as an instrument to collect data. The in-depth interview with open-ended questions was used to put into practice Buskens-Meulenberg’s FAI and collect data from the respondents. In-depth interviews with-open ended questions were employed to obtain data from the nine academic respondents who constituted the sampled population. The instrumentation and the mode of data collection were important for this study because of their compatibility with critical theory and qualitative research, giving a “voice” and “space” for the voiceless – the subaltern culture, the formerly and still marginalised and peripheralised, the excluded – to be heard. Textually Oriented Discourse Analysis (TODA) was used in the analysis and interpretation of the texts through which the findings mentioned below were arrived at. The study was able to uncover the importance of the Africanisation of higher education in South Africa which seemed to be excluded in the agenda of the powers that be on the transformation of higher education. Critical theory was essential for this study because of its emancipatory underpinnings. The quantitative paradigm could not be used because of its tendency to maintain the status quo, which in the context of this study could entrench and perpetuate the exclusion and marginalisation of the subaltern culture from the centre of knowledge production. The study has taken care of the basics of TODA, namely ensuring that “textual or conversational structures” derive their framework from the cognitive, social, historical, cultural, or political contexts and in this way has prevented the interpretation of texts based only on surface structures and meanings of isolated and abstract sentences, especially from experts of the dominant discourse. This helped the study to obtain the following findings from the respondents: (i) Although the dominant discourse was diplomatic about benefiting financially from the compilation of learning guides, all indicators essentially pointed towards the existence of monetary gains from the process, even though the guides were purported to be less expensive compared to textbooks. (ii) Learning guides were only effective to the extent of helping students pass their courses, but on the other critical outcomes as outlined in the resource-based learning method document, they were lacking (see Chapter Four). (iii) The dominant discourse generally felt that it would be impossible for all the different cultures of South Africa to be incorporated into the curriculum of higher education. However, for the dominated culture, inclusion of indigenous knowledge systems in curriculum was non-negotiable and fundamental to any meaningful transformation of higher education in South Africa. (iv) The learning guide was regarded by the dominant discourse as neutral in the current debates in Free State higher education. The dominated discourse thought otherwise. In Chapter Four the dominated discourse clearly substantiated their position of learning guides as a tool for domesticating the dominated culture for the maintenance of the status quo. Considering the above findings, the study concluded that higher education transformation still had a long way to go before it bore any meaningful fruits for the downtrodden and poor people of South Africa, who happen to be Black. Under the present arrangement African culture will be dominated, demolished and diminished, and Eurocentricism will continue to reign supreme. A constant inflow of black academics with higher education qualifications (Ph.D.) may eventually tip the scales of justice may provided they continue with emancipatory discourses among the subaltern culture. In view of the above findings and conclusions, the study recommends that policy makers should intervene and formulate African cultural friendly policies as a matter of urgency and stop being advocates of Eurocentricism. In the same way that there are assessment mechanisms for quality control and assurance, there should be mechanisms for assessing higher education institutions on transformation issues. This can assist in a swift integration of the two cultures at the merged institutions for the emergence of a new African Institutional Identity. Moreover, this can only happen if African intellectuals establish Indigenous Knowledge Systems as a centre and a space for the subaltern and alternative “voice” to be heard.