<p> There are approximately 28,000 to 55,000 undocumented enrolled in postsecondary institutions in the United States (Passel, 2003). In order to achieve their educational ambitions despite the structural social, socioeconomic, political, and legislative barriers facing them, undocumented students utilize various resources they have at their disposal. Minoritized populations, specifically undocumented Latino students, have employed individual and collective agency in overcoming structural racism and barriers enacted to maintain the status quo. This study of eight undocumented Latino student activists in Virginia and Washington reveals the various forms of resources available undocumented Latino student activists and documents how these students utilize them to navigate the barriers they encounter, shape the undocumented student social movement, and achieve their educational aspirations. This study seeks to uncover what resources undocumented Latino student activists have at their disposal and how the usage of said resources impacts policy formation on an institutional, state and national level. </p><p> The study seeks to uncover whether undocumented students utilize their available funds of knowledge to achieve their educational goals and navigate through the barriers they encounter. The study finds that undocumented Latino student activists utilize their funds of knowledge in agriculture, business, construction, mechanics, music, and religion to develop strategies to navigate through educational, financial, institutional, and intrapersonal barriers they encountered. This application of funds of knowledge and community cultural wealth to student activism moves the debate from a deficiency narrative that has long permeated higher education research to an agency narrative. </p><p> This study provides valuable insight into the increase of undocumented Latino students&rsquo; participation in activism and how one can best aid undocumented Latino student activists. Through the thematic narrative analysis, the lived history and stories of undocumented Latino student activists from Washington and Virginia are woven together to unveil individual and collective routes to educational attainment and activism on behalf of undocumented students. </p><p>

<p> African American high school students are underrepresented in study abroad programs, and their lack of intercultural skills and international understanding can impede their personal and professional development, and limit their career opportunities. The purpose of this descriptive qualitative case study was to explore the influence of intercultural experiences through study abroad and immersion programs on African American high school students&rsquo; intercultural competence. The conceptual framework drew on 2 theories: Bennett&rsquo;s development model of intercultural sensitivity and Kolb&rsquo;s experiential learning. Data from interviews and focus groups with 13 African American high school students, 2 parents, and 2 teachers as well as documents and field notes from a Northeast United States urban high school addressed the research questions pertaining to how students perceived travel abroad that fostered intercultural competence skills as well as how teachers and parents perceived students&rsquo; personal development. Findings resulted from provisional codes used to identify pattern of codes, and central themes that indicated predeparture seminars and reflective practices enhanced intercultural skills. The portfolios suggested that most students became more reflective and accepting of cultural differences after their sojourn abroad. Recommendations based on the findings suggest increasing homestay experiences and planning and predeparture trainings. Future research is needed on how to attract more male African American students to such programs. The findings may contribute to positive social change by encouraging investment in homestay study abroad and immersion programs with adequate preparation and planning at inner city high schools that might foster intercultural competence skills.</p><p>

The world of higher education is changing and as such what academics must do is different, they must be different. Academic identity is thus considered to be a necessary site of change. This thesis explores what academics are, their identities, as well as what they might be. Identities are considered to be sites of power, in which processes of power, specifically interactions with discourses, produce subjects who think, act and speak in particular ways. Identities allow academics to exert power, both over themselves and others. They are sites of struggle, as particular identities are constrained or enabled by the exercise of power. Focusing on two discourses, leadership and downshifting, this study explores the identities of nine Principal Lecturers within one post-1992 university. Through a discursive analysis of focus group and interview data, and institutional points of contact including; consultation documents, strategy documents and employee opinion survey results, the thesis renders as problematic both the premise for change and the reorientation itself, of what it means to be an academic. The thesis concludes that the focus on the individual and their need to take personal responsibility for change, to in effect change themselves, averts attention from the institution and its practices as necessary sites of change. Instead, academics are encouraged to focus on the notion of performance and to monitor themselves and others in relation to ever more elaborately refined ‘markers of development’, which diverts their attention from their pedagogical and scholarly practices. This creates the potential for a collective misrecognition, as people battle workloads, and the proliferation of these ‘markers of development’, but fail to recognise, what that work does. My hope is that this thesis provides a place to begin the process of developing an understanding of how identities are limited.

A significant number of studies focusing on Latino students describe a myriad of challenges that seem to affect their educational opportunities. In the case of Puerto Rican female students, they seem to enter U.S. schools with about the same ability as others to become active learners and successful students, but a significant number of them confront challenges that threaten their academic progress or they drop out before achieving high school graduation. The purpose of this qualitative in-depth phenomenological interview study was to explore the educational experiences of ten Puerto Rican female students in U.S. public secondary schools in order to examine the elements that contributed to their success and frustration in school. The study particularly looked for common experiences and factors affecting their academic achievements, inquired about common problems faced in schools by them, and considered their insights into how to improve the learning conditions for all students. Phenomenological interviewing was the methodology used to gather the data. The first interview centered around participants' life experiences in the United States until secondary school. The second interview concentrated on their present experiences in secondary school. The third interview focused on the meaning of their experiences as students. A thematic analysis of the interviews identified three influential components in the academic achievements of the participants in this study. These are: the significant role parents played in supporting and guiding their daughters; effective teachers affirm participants' culture and language in school; and a college education as the participants' utmost educational goal provided a perspective of achievement for all of them. The study also identified four common problems faced by either most participants or their peers. Moving from one place to another affected their academic progress. The ESL and TBE programs were found to provide effective services for their academic needs, but participants identified limitations of the programs that needed improvement. Dropping out and discrimination were found to be pervasive in participants' academic life. The implications of these findings, recommendations for schools, and gender specific findings are explored in the last chapter.

The problem explored in this study is that African American, Hispanic American, and Native American students have a tendency to experience much lower levels of academic success in United States public schools than do European American and Asian American students. With such a problem defined, the purpose of the study becomes clear; to facilitate increased academic success of African American, Hispanic American, Native American, and other minority youth not experiencing academic success. The problem is shown to be pervasive by examining indicators of academic success and ethnic group membership on both the national level and on the level of the researcher's data from some of his teaching experiences in multicultural classrooms (N = 39) and from surveying experienced ESL teachers in a MAT program (N = 23). A survey was also given to middle and high school teacher interns being trained at a major U.S. university (N = 62). It was found that although these interns were well aware of how ethnic differentials in academic success were manifest in the U.S., they had little factual knowledge as to why these differentials exist and are a serious problem in need of speedy solutions. Hence, this study proposes that one way to facilitate minority academic success is to educate future teachers about the true reasons for ethnic differentials in academic success and about why these differentials are indeed a serious problems. Also generated from the teacher intern survey were data identifying some proposed teacher, school administrative, and teacher training program initiatives that were seen by the teacher interns as being potentially highly effective in facilitating the academic success of minority youth. The study concludes with suggestions for teacher, curriculum, school administrator, and teacher training program initiatives to facilitate increased academic success of African American, Hispanic American, and Native American youth, mainly by reducing the need to adopt alternation models of behavior in order to do well in school. It is proposed that such a goal can be accomplished through the inclusion of minority cultures and knowledge in the curricula, pedagogy, evaluation, and governing of schools.

Immigrant children who experienced mass trauma are likely to experience deep emotional and psychological issues. These issues affect their development and adjustment. It is compounded when they are relocated to another culture especially significantly dissimilar to theirs. The Somali immigrant children who experienced mass trauma bring with them complex traumatic and adaptation issues. These emotional and psychological issues will affect their total development at school, family, and community settings if not adequately addressed. Therefore the purpose of this study is to explore how indigenous Somali cultural knowledge could be used to develop a culturally sensitive school based curriculum to ameliorate the socio-emotional issues of these children. Using a qualitative research approach, immigrant adult Somalis' cultural knowledge will be investigated to learn how they conceptualize trauma or life threatening experiences and their cultural knowledge on healing and coping that could be integrated to develop a culturally sensitive curriculum.

The construction of parental involvement as it was introduced into American schools over 90 years ago marginalizes Latina/o students and families. While research exists on the positive impact of Latina/o parental involvement as well as cultural parenting practices unique to Latina/o culture that foster academic success, much remains to be learned. What teachers and administrators in K-12 and higher education settings have not yet widely considered are how Latina/o students bring with them six forms of cultural capital transmitted to them via their parents to persist in hostile environments such as predominantly White institutions (PWIs). This qualitative study addresses what can be done to accommodate and support a growing Latina/o population by amplifying student narratives on how, and under what circumstances they employ each of the six forms of capital. The findings reflect my research with 37 Latina/o college students at different types of higher education institutions (a selective all-women's college, a large co-educational University, and a community college) to examine how students: describe and interpret parental involvement, employ cultural messages regarding education, and how they utilize cultural capital to persist at these PWIs. This study has implications for policy and practice for teachers and administrators in K-12 and higher education settings. It challenges these institutions to adopt asset-based approaches that propose to work with whole Latina/o families to support the whole Latina/o student. Findings from this study also provide recommendations for how Latina/o students can take active roles in advocating for themselves in higher education.

It is imperative to identify the structural characteristics that influence academic performance so that we are aware of the impact that policy change has on the educational outcomes of our youth. This study used district-level regression analysis to identify the influence of socioeconomic status, per-pupil funding, and student-to-teacher ratio on the academic performance of students in Virginia's public schools. The data set was created by linking data from the U.S. Census and the Virginia Superintendent's Report. Four assumptions were tested: as median income increases (socioeconomic status), academic performance improves; as per-pupil funding increases, academic performance improves; increases in student-to-teacher ratios lead to poorer academic performance; and when socioeconomic status is controlled, the influence of race upon academic performance is greatly diminished. Previous literature suggests: that a positive correlation exists between socioeconomic status and academic performance; that a negative correlation exists between student-to-teacher ratio and academic performance; that results are mixed regarding the correlation between per-pupil funding and academic performance; and that residual racial effects persist despite the control of socioeconomic status. The regression analysis yielded significant results concerning the socioeconomic status and race variables, results that are presented and discussed in this paper. / Master of Science

<p>This dissertation examines the interplay between school district assignment and reassignment policies and the elementary public school parents select for their children. The sample in all chapters includes the third and fourth grade students in a subset of growing North Carolina school districts from 2003/04 to 2010/11. The data are derived from historical, longitudinal secondary data sources containing student, school, and district records. All chapters employ quantitative longitudinal data analysis methods. Chapter 1 identifies the groups of students who do not comply with their school assignments. Chapter 2 identifies the groups of students who are reassigned to different schools, and to schools of varying quality, when school districts enact reassignment plans. Chapter 3 identifies the groups of students who do not comply with school reassignments. Together, the chapters demonstrate the interplay between residential decisions, school choices, and the resulting educational opportunities of observably different students. Consistent with existing bodies of literature, the findings demonstrate unexplored processes through which advantaged families maintain the most desirable educational opportunities for their children. Policy implications of these findings are also discussed.</p> / Dissertation

Educational transitions in the UK are related to social background characteristics such as social class and, to a lesser extent, ethnicity and gender. This thesis presents a case study of admission to the University of Oxford to understand why, conditional on application, admissions patterns into selective higher eduction in Britain show an advantage for already privileged strata of society. Specifically, net of attainment, the professional middle class, white, male and state school applicants fare particularly well in securing offers for undergraduate study at Oxford. With the exception of the state school effect, the admissions privilege advantages already privileged strata of society. In the first empirical section, the analysis of purposefully generated survey data on 1,929 applicants for admission to the University of Oxford finds that quantifiable measures of merit fail to fully explain differential admissions patterns. The logistic regression models also uncover that while applicants from the private sector initially have similar gross chances of gaining an offer to their state school educated peers, they actually face a penalty in the selection process when taking into account their higher levels of prior academic attainment. Furthermore, the analysis shows that while measures of cultural capital, motivation, aspiration and learning style are meaningfully related to selection decisions, they do not explain the lower transition rates for ethnic minority applicants, those from non-professional class backgrounds, female applicants and private school applicants. The second step in the empirical investigations then aims to understand the generative mechanisms behind these findings from the perspective of the decision makers in the selection process. This section draws on interviews with 25 admissions tutors and the observation of eight admissions meetings. The analysis here finds that selectors view the admissions exercise as involving risks and uncertainties. Also, many participating tutors routinely considered schooling in their selection decisions and discounted the performance of applicants who had come from very high achieving schools but who were not top achievers within this peer group. The mechanism of homo-social reproduction in decisions involving uncertainty is then put forward as a possible explanation for the unequal transition patterns. Finally, the third empirical analysis section investigates links between degree performance in final university examinations and admissions relevant factors. This section includes the degree performance of Oxford students as well as those who subsequently embarked on their degree course at universities other than Oxford. The most striking finding is that among the Oxford graduates, female and private school students are less likely to achieve first class degrees than their male and state school educated peers. One interpretation of this finding is that the discounting that selectors apply in the admissions process for these applicants is not only justified but may not even go far enough. But it is also possible, in particular with regard to the female effect, that the Oxford study environment or the examination system, or both are more conducive to male achievements. This thesis contributes to sociological theory by showing that existing models of educational transition have paid insufficient attention to the role of gatekeepers and their individual preferences in generating aggregate selection patterns. Incorporating selectors as actors in transition models increases our understanding of unequal access to educational institutions and the challenges faced in striving towards equal opportunities in an education based meritocracy. The findings presented here have implications for other fields of sociological inquiry that need to account for the role of individual decision makers such as labour market research. The work presented here has implications for policy making regarding selection processes within the University of Oxford and British higher education more generally. It could also aid university systems such as Germany, that are moving towards selective admission, to think about the challenges of designing truly equitable selection processes.