published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

As a former journalist and a columnist for the very first community newspaper in Chatsworth: the Chatsworth SUN, which is no longer in circulation, and a teacher of English Home Language at secondary school level for twenty years, my research project combines an interest in print media with my efforts to promote a pedagogy in which issues of inclusion, access, and identity are addressed. The impetus for this study was a research assignment I conducted in 2002 for the "Introduction to Research Methods" module of this degree. I carried out a survey at my school that aimed at ascertaining the media habits among a class of Grade 10 learners. The survey revealed important information regarding 'newspaper reading habits' . Almost every learner read the weekly community newspapers or 'knock and drop' publications circulated free of charge to almost every household in Chatsworth, south of Durban, where the majority of learners, of Indian descent, resided. In some cases these were the only publications that learners read. In 2003, I therefore decided to involve the same learners in a research project for the dissertation component of the degree. The Project would allow the learners to become active and critical participants in the media culture that is omnipresent in their lives. Interesting perspectives on issues of identity, ethnicity, and gender would emerge from this heterogeneous sample, which included five African learners, in the deconstruction of community newspapers that targeted Indian readers. Community newspapers, by virtue of their convenience of access, are potentially very influential publications and the research project provided the opportunity to assess and change attitudes to the discourses that arise from reading such newspapers. Particularly important are the ideologies, hegemonies and issues of power found in the language of these community newspapers, as well as the technological and production processes involved. Hence, the main objective of my study was to narrow the divide that exists between educational experience and the real world. I demonstrate this in the thesis through the interactive application of Critical Literacy theories to printed texts by learners who deconstruct, critique, and subvert taken-for-granted assumptions that result from submissive interpretation ofmedia like the community newspapers. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

This study compared the effects of two methods of instruction on the mathematical algorithms for solving linear equations employing as participants high school students identified as having mild-mental handicap. The students received instruction on the mathematical algorithms for solving linear equations. Implementing a multielement design, the participants were taught with different methods on a random schedule, alternating between using manipulative materials and not using them. Correct response data from daily criterion-referenced tests were tabulated and graphed to allow visual inspection of both treatment effects. Comparisons were made to determine solve linear equations seen by the increase in test scores from the baseline data on each student's graph. The method using manipulative materials was shown to have a greater effect on the female participant. / Department of Special Education

The success of small schools in maintaining higher graduation rates has been well documented (Schneider, 2002; Cotton, 1996; Raywid, 1996). This researcher investigated the effectiveness of a small school strategy implemented in a large school setting through the school-within-a school model for reducing the dropout rate, specifically as investigated through an Indiana high school's freshman academy for at-risk students, as an effective intervention for reducing the dropout rate. Data from Goshen High Schools' graduation rates of selected cohorts from the classes 2006 and 2007 were obtained for evaluating the school-within-a-school model as an effective intervention for reducing the dropout rate.Quasi-experimental research was completed with a comparison group of at-risk students and an intervention group of at-risk students who had the advantage of the freshman academy intervention. Five hypotheses were proposed. T-tests were completed on the at-risk indicators of student attendance, credits earned in ninth grade, and disciplinary referrals. Chi-square tests were conducted comparing cohort data on the graduation rate and the pass rate for the Graduation Qualifying Exam. Findings from a t-test indicated the school-within-school model of freshman academy was statistically significant in increased credits earned.The literature review compiled research on the high school dropout problem, problems in gathering accurate data figures on dropouts or graduation rate, the role of NoChild Left Behind (NCLB) on graduation rate accountability, factors identifying students at-risk for dropout intervention (attendance, disciplinary referrals, and grade retention), and research on the school-within-school structural reform.The sample for this study was selected from two cohorts of students based on eighth grade failure on the Indiana Standards Test of Educational Progress. Seventy-five students from the future classes of 2006 and 2007 were identified as students at-risk of academic failure.Student data collected from these cohorts indicated positive trends on absence, disciplinary referrals, and graduation rate. There was a statistically significant difference in the number of credits earned. Recommendations for continuing the school-within school intervention with a distinct identity were discussed. A call for future research on the school-within-school model included ideas for qualitative study, research on a larger scale or over several years of graduating cohorts. / Department of Educational Leadership

We know that education can be an arduous process. Countries use different approaches based on societal acceptances, but effective education always requires enormous efforts. Whether success is achieved, depends on the development of a rigorous and progressive curriculum, while at the same time providing all students the opportunity to learn” (Ravitch, 2010, p. 225). The purpose of this study was to analyze the success at which web-based curriculum is being utilized to meet the needs of at-risk students by providing them with the opportunity to recover lost credit as a means to keep them on the path to high school graduation. The institutions studied were select institutions that are identified by the Indiana Department of Education as recognized alternative education providers as well as select known public school corporations, in East Central Indiana, who are using web-based curriculum credit recovery programs. This researcher investigated the effectiveness of this credit recovery strategy as a tool to improve academic achievement and ultimately high school graduation. Additional information was sought on the challenges experienced in terms of support from the key stakeholders in breaking way from a traditional school setting when addressing the needs of students who are in jeopardy of failing to graduate. Data was obtained from the Indiana Department of Education and looked at graduation rates, dropout rates, as well as End of Course Assessment results. A survey was distributed to the survey population in an effort to gather a deeper understanding of the successes and failures schools were experiencing in an effort to break away from the status quo, leverage the advances of modern technology in an effort to provide students with multiple opportunities to realize academic success. The literature review compiled research on the current opinions for the utilization of web-based curriculum programs, the national attention being directed at public education as a key element in the economic slump of the American economy, and the economic impact on local and national economies for students who do not complete high school. Student achievement data collected from the survey population revealed positive trends on graduation rates, dropout rates, and performance on the Algebra I and English 10 End of Course Assessment. Recommendations for positive implementation of web-based credit recovery programming were discussed. Future research on this subject was recommended and ideas included a possible longitudinal study on a select group of at-risk students to identify strengths and weaknesses of this type of program. / Department of Educational Leadership

Thesis (M. Ed.), Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1998. / Bibliography: leaves 73-81.

Um modo de ler e escrever na Educação de Jovens e Adultos – Oficinas Biografemáticas transita conceitualmente na e com a Filosofia da Diferença e foi articulada ao Projeto Escrileituras: um modo de ler-escrever em meio à vida, do Observatório da Educação (OBEDUC- Edital 038 – 2010 – Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (INEP). Propõe a utilização do método biografemático como metodologia de trabalho e enfatiza a modalidade de oficinas como estratégia de experimentações textuais. Toma a Biografemática como uma postura de escritura e de leitura, de seleção e de valorização dos signos da vida; a qual, ao invés de percorrer as grandes linhas da historiografia, submete o leitor aos detalhes e aos devires. Reivindicando uma postura multivalente do leitor estabelecida na coautoria entre quem lê e quem escreve simultaneamente, as Oficinas operaram com a noção de Biografema, proposta por Roland Barthes para pensar a escritura de vida aberta à criação de novas possibilidades de dizer e, principalmente, de viver uma vida. Localiza a tradução como desdobramento tomando-a como um dispositivo que aciona e requer diálogos, aproximações e modificação dos textos em processo singular. Utilizou os textos de AnaïsNin, Marina Tsvetáieva, Lou Andreas-Salomé, como propostas de leitura e de escritura para a produção de novos sentidos. Para realizar essas experimentações investiu-se em processos que problematizavam, indagavam e transformavam os escritos em diversas formas, colocando a experimentação como condição própria da aprendizagem. Vislumbra em sua prática resultados a partir de diferentes relações entre os elementos literários, os alunos de EJA e a aposta feita em uma didática oficineira, na tradução da vida em textos com os quais experimentou variações, transgressões e aberturas para outras possibilidades de leitura e escrita. / A way to read and write in adult and youth education – Workshops Biografemáticas!transits in and conceptually philosophy of Difference and was articulated to the Project Escrileituras: a read-write in the midst of life, of the Centre for Education (OBEDUC-038 Notice – 2010-Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES), Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira (INEP). Proposes the use of the biografemático method as a working methodology and emphasizes the modality of workshops as textual trials strategy. Take the Biografemática as a posture of writing and reading, and check of recovery of signs of life; which, instead of traversing the broad outlines of historiography, submits the reader to the details and the affects. Claiming a reader multivalent established in co-authoring between those who read and who writes the Workshops operate with the notion of Biografema, proposed by Roland Barthes to think the deed of life open to the creation of new possibilities to say and, above all, to live a life. Locates translation as unfolding taking it as a device that fires and requires dialogue, approaches and modification of texts in natural process. Used the texts of AnaïsNin, Marina Tsvetáieva, Lou Andreas-Salomé, as reading and writing proposals for the production of new directions. To perform these trials has been invested in processes that problematizavam, indagavam and transformed the writings in various forms, putting the trial as a condition of learning itself. Glimpsed in their practice results from different relationships between the literary elements, students of EJA and the bet is made on a oficineira didactic, in the translation of life in texts with which experienced variations, transgressions and openings for other possibilities of reading and writing.!

The contemporary setting of huge unemployment and precarization of work has brought to Adult and Youth Education courses an imaginary that secondary education is fundamental for professional qualification and achievement of (better) jobs. The objective of this work is to problematize the Chemistry curriculum according to young and adults interests in order to qualify them to the world of work. For that purpose, we adopted Michael Apple s curriculum theory and some contributions of Gramsci s Marxist social theory as methodological and theoretical tools to investigate hegemonic aspects in which the curriculum is immersed. By analyzing the curriculum as a space of struggle for social hegemony, we conclude that is promising to explore the historical approach of the chemical knowledge as a mediator element of counterhegemonic educational practices / O cenário contemporâneo de desemprego massivo e de intensificação da precarização do trabalho tem levado para o interior dos cursos de Educação de Jovens e Adultos o imaginário de que a escolarização média é fundamental para a qualificação profissional e a conquista de (melhores) empregos. O objetivo deste trabalho é problematizar o currículo da disciplina de Química frente ao interesse destes jovens e adultos em se qualificarem para o mundo do trabalho. Para isso utilizamos a teoria do currículo de Michael Apple e as contribuições da Teoria Social Marxiana de Gramsci como instrumentos teórico-metodológicos a fim de investigarmos os aspectos hegemônicos nos quais o currículo está imerso. Tomando o currículo como espaço de disputa pela hegemonia social, concluímos que é promissor explorar a abordagem histórica do conhecimento químico como elemento mediador de práticas educativas contra-hegemônicas

Através desta pesquisa, analisou-se a argumentação no gênero textual redação, a partir de um corpus constituído por vinte redações dos alunos do programa Travessia Médio em uma escola estadual do município de Igarassu, estado de Pernambuco, que não concluíram o ensino médio no período regular que seria até dezoito anos de idade. Considerando o exposto, esta pesquisa se justifica pela necessidade de se olhar cada vez mais criticamente a prática pedagógica de produção textual, possibilitando novos comportamentos de promoção do ensino. O objetivo geral desta pesquisa é verificar em que medida os alunos do Travessia Médio usam a argumentação nas redações dissertativas em interação com a sociedade da qual fazem parte. Para tanto, são objetivos: verificar como os alunos do Projeto Travessia médio usam a argumentação na redação escolar em interação com a sociedade da qual fazem parte. Para tanto, são objetivos específicos: perceber os tipos de argumentação mais usados pelos alunos nas redações dissertativas e identificar a ocorrência da coesão e coerência nas argumentações das redações dissertativas. Através dessas e de outras questões, acreditamos que poderemos encontrar novas práticas didáticas pautadas nos paradigmas sociointeracionistas. Assim, o interesse por essa temática partiu das discussões realizadas durante as aulas de produção textual e em momentos de formação continuada, em que diferentes concepções sobre o ensino e a aprendizagem foram estudadas. Uma vez que, ao compreendermos os argumentos que os educandos usam para dissertar sobre um tema, poderemos refletir sobre questões relativas à motivação para o posicionamento crítico mediante as temáticas propostas e a organização do trabalho pedagógico do professor como mediador do conhecimento. Desta forma, sabemos que é muito importante refletirmos sobre atividades que promovam aprendizagens significativas para a construção das argumentações nas redações dissertativas dos alunos. / Through this research, we analyzed the arguments in the Essay writing genre, from a corpus consisting of twenty essays of students crossing East program at a state school in the municipality of Igarassu, state of Pernambuco, who have not completed high school in regular period would be to eighteen years of age. Considering the above, this research is justified by the need to look increasingly critical pedagogical practice of textual production, enabling new behaviors promoting education. The overall goal of this research is to verify to what extent students Crossing East use the argument in essay writing in interaction with the society of which they are part. Therefore, objectives are: to determine how students use Projeto Travessia Médio argumentation in writing school in interaction with the society of which they are part. For this purpose, specific objectives are: understand the types of arguments used by most students in newsrooms essay and identify the occurrence of cohesion and consistency in the arguments of the essays essay. Through these and other issues, we believe that we can find new teaching practices ruled in sociointeractionists paradigms. Thus, interest in this topic came from discussions during lectures and textual production in times of continuing education, in which different conceptions about teaching and learning were studied. Once, when we understand the arguments that students use to speak about a topic, we can reflect on issues of motivation for the critical position by the proposed themes and organization of the educational work of the teacher as facilitator of knowledge. Thus, we know that it is very important to reflect on activities that promote meaningful learning to construct arguments in the essay student essays.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-26T13:44:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 texto completo.pdf: 7635738 bytes, checksum: 61bcd8db02ec036647fcf02fe56dd994 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-04-23 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Nowadays Brazil experiences a moment in which opportunities to access to education go through wide-ranging changes: it is possible to observe an expansion of increase in literacy rates, which demonstrate democratization of education. But other research data show that an alarming number of people remain illiterate and the functional illiteracy rates expanded, it means that the number of people who are unable to read and write efficiently rose, although they recognize the linguistic system (through literacy). So, the study is affiliated to theoretical basis of New Literacy Studies (COOK-GUMPERZ, 2002; KLEIMAN, 1995, 2007, 2008; ROJO, 2008; SIGNORINI 2007; SOARES, 2004), which aim to understand and promote means so that literacy practices and events will be able to transform the subjects into competent users of reading and writing resources in a certain language, besides that, the basis use the methodology of Didactic Sequences, suggested by Dolz, Noverraz and Schneuwly (2007), as a way for, in a Portuguese language classe, to the basic education second cycle of a core dedicated to youth and adults education promoting literacy events and practices in native language. That happened through linked to the transformation of a text from a didactic discourse, which dealt with sexually transmitted diseases, in a text of discourse of divulgation (which should be directed to readers of a popular newspaper of the city where the core is located). About the Didactic Sequence establishment, it happened through collected data through a research with ethnographic and participant basis, carried out between the months of March and June 2012, and also through practices of writing presented by the students in the classroom. The study is about the writing of five subjects (two men and three women) and the results show that the Didactic Sequence was effective in helping students in related issues, mainly, to textual aspects, adequacy of their writing to the studied discursive genre and utilization of discursive procedures related to the recontextualization of didactic discourse in scientific discourse divulgation; which was analized through theoretical basis of Discourse Analysis related to Scientific Divulgation (CIAPUSCIO, 1997; CASSANY, LÓPEZ, MARTÍ, 2000; CALSAMIGLIA et al., 2001 and CATALDI, 2003, 2007ª, 2007b, 2008). In contrast, it was found that some linguistic movements showing inadequacies to the native language, its morphosyntactic and phonological standard, remained in students writing practice, even after the Didactic Sequence. / O Brasil vivencia, na contemporaneidade, um momento em que as oportunidades de acesso à educação passam por amplas modificações: observa-se uma expansão relativa às tentativas governamentais de garantir, em Lei, os direitos de acesso à educação e uma elevação dos índices de alfabetização, os quais demonstram haver uma democratização do ensino. Porém, outros dados de pesquisas demonstram que um número alarmante de pessoas permanecem analfabetas e que os índices de analfabetismo funcional ampliaram, isto é, subiu o número de pessoas que, apesar de reconhecerem o sistema linguístico (por meio da alfabetização), não são capazes de praticar a leitura e a escrita com eficiência. Sendo assim, esse estudo filiase às bases teóricas dos Novos Estudos de Letramento (COOK-GUMPERZ, 2002; KLEIMAN, 1995, 2007, 2008; ROJO, 2008; SIGNORINI 2007; SOARES, 2004), que visam compreender e promover meios para que práticas e eventos de letramento sejam capazes de tornar os sujeitos usuários compententes dos recursos de leitura e de escrita em determinada língua e, além disso, utiliza a metodologia das Sequências Didáticas, proposta por Dolz, Noverraz e Schneuwly (2007), como meio para, em uma sala de língua portuguesa referente ao segundo ciclo da educação básica de um núcleo voltado para a educação de jovens e adultos promover eventos e práticas de letramento em língua materna padrão. Isso ocorreu por meio do estudo do gênero e atividades de escrita que se relacionavam à transformação de um texto proveniente do discurso didático, que versava sobre as doenças sexualmente transmissíveis, em um texto de discurso divulgativo (o qual deveria direcionar-se aos leitores de um jornal popular da cidade em que o núcleo está localizado). Sobre o estabelecimento dessa Sequência Didática, tem-se que ele ocorreu por meio de dados coletados através de uma pesquisa de base etnográfica e participante, realizada entre os meses de março e junho de 2012, e também por meio da prática de escrita que os próprios alunos apresentaram em sala de aula. O estudo se relaciona à escrita de cinco sujeitos (dois homens e três mulheres) e os resultados mostram que a Sequência Didática foi eficaz para auxiliar os alunos em questões relacionadas, principalmente, à textualidade, à adequação de sua escrita ao gênero discursivo estudado e à utilização de procedimentos discursivos relacionados à recontextualização do discurso didático em discurso de divulgação científica; o que foi analisado através das bases teóricas da Análise do Discurso relacionada à Divulgação Científica (CIAPUSCIO, 1997; CASSANY, LÓPEZ, MARTÍ, 2000; CALSAMIGLIA et al., 2001 e CATALDI, 2003, 2007ª, 2007b, 2008). Em contrapartida, constatou-se que alguns movimentos linguísticos que demonstravam inadequações relativas à língua materna tida como padrão, em termos morfossintáticos e fonológicos, permaneceram na prática de escrita dos alunos, mesmo após a realização da Sequência Didática.