Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Susan Noffke. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-231) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> Motivation and engagement helps students succeed in school. When students are apathetic and not invested in their lessons, they may experience severe academic problems. Character education is the explicit instruction of positive values and has been found to improve student motivation and engagement. A type of character education is humane education. The purpose of humane education is to integrate animal-related curricula to foster compassion in children&rsquo;s relationships with both animals and people. In this qualitative phenomenological case study, research was conducted to examine the problem of not knowing what aspects of humane education most contributed to student motivation and engagement. The purpose of this study was to explore teacher perceptions regarding how humane education, specifically animal well-being, influenced student motivation and engagement. Eight humane education teachers with a minimum of two years&rsquo; experience teaching humane education were individually interviewed to better understand the most effective ways to use this curriculum to positively impact student motivation and engagement. Semi-structured interviews occurred in person and via telephone. Participants included four teachers from New Jersey, three from New York, and one educator from California. Respondents had both primary and secondary teaching experience in both public and private schools. All participants perceived humane education as being particularly motivating and engaging for their students as opposed to other curricula, and attributed student interest is enhanced because of children&rsquo;s connection to animals. Six particular themes became apparent from the participants&rsquo; perceptions of humane education as being most impactful on positive student motivation and engagement in their learning. These themes involved: 1) teaching techniques, 2) safe topics and species, 3) food and farm animals 4) student and teacher connection, 4) age, gender, and culture of student, 5) administrator, colleague, and parent reaction, and 6) with companion and farm animals being perceived as engendering the most student motivation and engagement. Recommendations for future research include using student participants in a pretest-posttest design to determine if humane education helped them learn more effectively and conducting a quantitative examination of student performance as related to specific components of humane education. The results of this case study could inform educators when choosing effective curriculum and classroom materials for the purposes of assisting student motivation and engagement. The results could also be implemented in the ways educators integrate animals across school disciplines and how teachers could effectively incorporate humane education to motivate and engage their students.</p><p>

<p> This study investigates the experiences of underrepresented minority students pursuing studies in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) who learned Koru Mindfulness Meditation. Through in-depth qualitative data analysis of participant interviews, Koru Mindfulness check-in sessions, and reflection logs, findings examined student experience prior to, during, and after having completed Koru Mindfulness as well as the impact on their personal and academic lives. While many traditional interventions designed to address the persistent underrepresentation of minorities in STEM employ a deficit model, this study was interested in understanding the socio-historical and contextual complexity of the student experience prior to and during college which included mindfulness training. Findings were discussed through the theoretical framework of critical race theory (CRT) which argues that racism is a permanent construct of society with specific implications for social institutions, including education. This study also examined how stereotype threat (ST) and student sense of belonging were affected by mindfulness training. Finally, this study discusses the findings as they relate to the significance of material space in the context of race in education.</p><p>

<p> This multi-year ethnographic study of a K-8 school, referred to as Baker School, in a low-income neighborhood in Philadelphia investigates the ways that hidden curricula of social reproduction and inequity shape students&rsquo; schooling experiences. The study employs ethnographic methods to explore, engage with, and better understand students&rsquo; experiences and perspectives of schooling at an under-resourced, urban, public school in a high-poverty neighborhood. The dissertation also examines how direct and indirect messages of possibility at the school influence students and teachers. I approach this study from an epistemological standpoint that situates students as important knowledge generators from which practitioners and scholars have much to learn. </p><p> This study is guided by a theoretical framework that considers how the naturalization of dominant values, beliefs, and actions has important consequences for students attending schools in under-resourced communities because these dominant beliefs are manifest in schools through overt and hidden curricula. Students&rsquo; perspectives and experiences of schooling processes in under-resourced schools are not often included in empirical research, and this ethnographic study has the potential to generate a new line of inquiry that centralizes students&rsquo; perspectives. </p><p> The study&rsquo;s findings include that there is a hidden curriculum of control at Baker School in which schooling becomes primarily about controlling behavior. Relationships between students and teachers are strained as a result of the culture of control at the school, and to survive and thrive in this environment, students demonstrate <i>micro resistance strategies</i> as well as cultivate what I call a <i>habitus of fierceness.</i> The hidden curriculum of control, the systemic lack of resources, and the resulting power struggles and resistance culminate in, what I term, a <i> deficit default</i> based on deficit orientations of students, teachers, and parents. Finally, the study details the way that invisible macro structural processes impact students, teachers, and parents connected to Baker. However, instead of recognizing these invisible forces, students, teachers, and parents are blamed and blame themselves for the &ldquo;failure&rdquo; of urban, public schools like Baker. The study concludes by presenting implications for theory, practice, and future research based on the findings of this study. </p>

The purpose of this study is to listen to teachers’ stories and reconstruct their classrooms in the midst of the global upheaval of people’s movements in the 1960s-70s through teachers’ narratives. The primary research questions are: How did social movements in the 1960s-1970s influence their teaching practices? What was their intention and how did they carry out their daily teaching practice? In the educational research field, narrative inquirers explore teachers’ stories, their life experiences and teaching practices, in order to understand how teachers view the world. I collected stories, through in-depth interviews, of ten Japanese teachers who taught in Japanese public school system, and were active in social and educational movements during the 1960s-70s in order to understand how teachers understood and resisted dominant oppressive forces which create and perpetuate social inequality. Teacher narratives were analyzed using two complementary methods: contents analysis and interactional positioning theory. First, stories of teachers’ struggles in their classrooms and schools were contextualized in a wider social struggle for humanity and a more just society, in order to explore teachers’ understanding of social oppression and their resistance, and multiculturalism in Japanese classrooms in the 1960s-1970s. Through their stories, an indigenous multicultural nature of Japanese classrooms was revealed, even before the multiculturalism became an imported educational topic in the 1980s. Furthermore, using interactional positioning theory, I discussed how teacher activist identities were constructed during the narration, at the same time, uncover how social stigma of being an activist possibly suppressed the participants overtly constructing an activist identity in narratives.

Cette recherche examine les transformations actuelles de l'enseignement universitaire, à partir d'une approche sociologique des curricula. Elle interroge l'action de recontextualisation des curricula et des savoirs dans sa double dimension sociale. D'une part, cette action est menée par une base sociale au sein d'une arène où différents groupes d'agents avec des fonctions spécialisées sont en relation: agents pédagogiques, évaluateurs nationaux et universitaires des formations, producteurs de politiques de l'enseignement supérieur. D'autre part, cette action de recontextualisation porte ses traces dans la structuration interne des curricula, à travers des opérations sociales de sélection et d'organisation des savoirs. Les constats s'appuient sur une analyse qualitative qui associe plusieurs types de matériaux, articulant pratiques et contenus: récits de pratique d'agents universitaires, documents officiels et rapports d'évaluation, programmes d'enseignement des masters professionnels en sciences humaines et sociales. L'analyse permet de mettre en lumière les caractéristiques et les enjeux épistémiques et sociaux de la "régionalisation" des savoirs, générée par la projection des curricula dans des activités professionnelles au sein des champs socio-économiques. Elle permet aussi d'éclairer les enjeux de la construction du débat sur le changement curriculaire: la manière dont le contrôle institutionnel pèse sur la définition des orientations du changement, mais aussi les possibilités d'une révision collective du problème de la transmission des savoirs. / This research examines the current changes in higher education, using a sociological approach to the curricula. The thesis questions the recontextualisation of curricula and of knowledge in its double social dimension. The first dimension refers to the social basis of the process. The recontextualisation takes place within an arena where a variety of groups with specialised functions are in relation: pedagogic agents, national and university experts, producers of higher education policies. The second dimension refers to the effects these actions have on the internal structuring of curricula, through social selection and organisation of knowledge. The findings are based on a qualitative analysis crossing data, by articulating practices and contents. Included are interviews with university agents, official documents and assessment reports in addition to programmes of study of "professional masters" in humanities and social sciences. The analysis reveals the epistemic and social stakes of the phenomenon of "regionalisation" of knowledge, generated by a projection of the curricula to socio-economic activities. It also sheds light on questions about the construction of the debate on curriculum change: what, precisely, is the role played by the institutional control in the definition of orientations for change, as well as what are the possibilities of a collective revision of the problem of the transmission of knowledge.

À travers le cas des sciences économiques et sociales, au niveau du secondaire, cette thèse interroge le processus de construction des contenus d'enseignement et leur évolution à partir d'une approche sociologique des curricula. L'action de production s'ancre dans des processus sociaux et cognitifs à la fois antérieurs et latéraux qui impactent la sélection, l'organisation et la hiérarchisation des savoirs au sein d'un programme scolaire. Cette action est menée par une base sociale : enseignants du secondaire organisés en association, associations patronales, groupe d'experts etc. Ces différents groupes d'acteurs, à la fois externes et internes au champ pédagogique, officiels et officiaux, entrent en relation dans l' « espace public » qui devient une arène sociale où se manifestent des conflits d'intérêts et des enjeux de pouvoir. Dans leur structuration interne les curricula scolaires officiels portent les traces de ces opérations sociales de négociations et décisions pour la sélection et l'organisation des savoirs. Les constats s'appuient sur une analyse qualitative qui associe plusieurs types de matériaux : récits de pratique des experts, rapports officiels, communiqués de presse, programmes scolaires. L'analyse met en lumière les transformations qui ont lieu à la fois dans les curricula de SES et dans leur processus de production. Les différentes formes de savoirs sont davantage projetées à partir des champs universitaires et professionnels. Quant au processus de production des programmes il fait l'objet, lui-même, d'une « épreuve de négociation » à travers laquelle les différents acteurs négocient la reconnaissance de forme d'expertise spécifique. / Through the case of Economic and Social Sciences, at the secondary level, this research examines the construction process of teaching contents and their evolution, using a sociological approach to the curricula. This action of construction is fixed in social and cognitive processes in both anterior and lateral that impacts the selection and hierarchical organization of knowledge within a formal curriculum. This action is conducted by a "social base": secondary school teachers organized in association, employer association, expert group, associations of higher education teachers, and producers of secondary education policies. These different groups, both inside and outside of educational field, official and unofficial, come in relation within the "public space". It becomes a social "arena" where manifest conflicts of interest and power issues. The internal structuring of formal curriculum brought out these social negotiations and political decisions for the selection and organization of knowledge. The findings are based on a qualitative analysis crossing data, included are interviews with experts produced formal curriculum, official documents and assessment reports in addition to programs of secondary level and Economic and Social Sciences. The analysis reveals the transformations that occur in both formal curriculum of Economic and Social Sciences and in their production process. The different forms of knowledge are more projected from academic and professional fields. As for the process of formal curriculum production is the subject itself of a "test negotiation" among social groups for the recognition of their expertise.

La mixité à l’école est souvent considérée comme un moyen privilégié pour tendre vers une meilleure égalité entre les filles et les garçons. Si les différents dispositifs institutionnels encourageant sa mise en oeuvre ont contribué à une égalité de droits, ils n’ont pas abouti pour autant à une égalité dans les faits. La recherche analyse finement les formes concrètes que peut prendre la mixité dans l’éducation physique et sportive (EPS) dans le second degré où certaines inégalités entre les filles et les garçons sont encore souvent considérées comme « naturelles ». Allant à l’encontre de cette idée reçue, la thèse montre que si la mixité n’est pas, a priori, un obstacle à une meilleure égalité entre les sexes, les choix pédagogiques pouvant y être associés sont susceptibles de mettre en difficulté une partie des filles. Méthodologiquement, le travail s’appuie sur plusieurs dispositifs articulés entre eux : une observation ethnographique de 200 heures d’enseignement ; une vingtaine d’entretiens avec des professeurs d’EPS ; l’analyse secondaire de deux enquêtes nationales ayant permis d’interroger par questionnaire 1 954 élèves et 1 317 enseignants du second degré. La recherche montre, entre autres, que les formes de regroupements choisis, les contenus d’enseignement privilégiés (à forte connotation masculine), les interactions entre le professeur et les élèves sont autant d’éléments susceptibles d’entretenir une inégalité de traitement des filles et des garçons. En somme, le travail souligne que la mise en oeuvre de la mixité en EPS ne peut faire l’économie d’une réflexion approfondie permettant l’élaboration de dispositifs pédagogiques autorisant une réelle prise en considération des différences entre filles et garçons (que celles-ci soient d’ordre biologique ou culturel). / Coeducation is often considered an ideal way to foster equality between girls and boys. Although, in theory, various institutional initiatives encouraging coeducation have contributed to fostering equal rights, they do not always lead to equal opportunities in practice. This study focuses on the tangible aspects of coeducation at secondary school level in the specific fields of physical education (PE) and sport, where some inequality between girls and boys is still often considered ―normal‖. Countering this preconceived notion, the thesis demonstrates that whilst coeducation does not initially stand in the way of greater gender equality, the educational strategies that may be associated with it are likely to put some girls at a disadvantage. In terms of methodology, the research is based on a combination of several studies, including ethnographic observation of 200 teaching hours; some twenty interviews with PE and sports teachers; and secondary analysis of two national surveys based on questionnaires completed by 1,954 secondary school pupils and 1,317 secondary school teachers. The study shows, among other things, that the type of group activity and educational content chosen (which is often male-oriented), as well as the way teachers and pupils interact, are all factors that are likely to promote disparities in the way girls and boys are treated. Finally, the work underlines that teaching PE and sport in a coeducational environment cannot be done without careful consideration of the differences between girls and boys, and the development of educational strategies that take these differences into account (be they biological or cultural).

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