Trans and queer children are experiencing discrimination starting in the earliest years of schooling. In a paradoxical era of increased support for transgender and queer children on the one hand, and persistent gender violence on the other, this study examines how the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) gender policy is taken up in Early Childhood Education practice. In particular, I ask: (a) What are early childhood teachers’ understanding of NYCDOE’s policy? (b) How do the larger social and material contexts, shape teachers’ enactments of the policy? (c) What do teachers’ understandings and enactments of NYC gender policy look like in their everyday classroom practices? I use a critical policy-as-practice conceptual framework that does not take policy for granted but understands that embedded in all the policy processes, there is always a great deal of negotiation of power, where some stakeholders are empowered and other perspectives are silenced. Through semi-structured interviews with district policymakers, school administrators, and early childhood teachers, this study unveils how different actors took up NYCDOE’s gender policy in their practice, in accordance with their own ideas, motivations, and broader social and material contexts. Findings indicate that the policy formation processes excluded the knowledge and perspectives of school communities and grassroots trans activist movements. Principals and teachers had little knowledge of the Guidelines on Gender and resources available, while several policy content and procedures reproduced gender and racial violence. Moreover, the sediment construct of childhood innocence shaped early childhood teachers’ gender-justice practices. Shifting understandings of gender, without revising understandings of childhood, this study concludes, hinders the possibility of transformative change.

Thesis (MEd)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The purpose of this study was to determine the nature of the youths` subjectivity at a school in a diverse rural mining environment. The study was done in an isolated rural mining environment. Space is an important point of departure and a thorough background of the contextual factors are given. The participants in this study are daily confronted with challenges such as long distances, poverty, unemployment and alcohol and substance abuse. Space, subjectivity and cultural capital are used to understand youth development and youth experience. The main premise of the study is that the environments of these youth greatly overlap. There is a dynamic relationship between their living and school environment. Distinctive processes, social networks, relationships and cultural groups are found in each of these environments. Another focus of this study was to determine how these young people bridge their different lived spaces, negotiate and adapt within these environments. Qualitative reseach methods were used in formal and informal interviews. Participants had the opportunity to present their experiences in storyline. A narrative-based, interpretive, -descriptive research paradigm was the most appropriate research method of capturing the wide variety of living experience. The study demonstrates how these youth are positioned within their environments in order to embody their space subjectivity. By making use of their own resources, networks and interactions, they navigate their overlapping spaces and thereby lead meaningful lives. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die navorsing in hierdie studie wou die aard van jeugdiges se subjektiwiteite by `n skool in `n diverse plattelandse mynbou-omgewing vasstel. Die studie vind plaas op `n afgeleë plattelandse mynbou-omgewing. Ruimte is `n belangrike vertrekpunt en `n deeglike agtergrond van die kontekstuele faktore word gegee. Die deelnemers in die studie word daagliks gekonfronteer met uitdagings soos ver afstande, armoede, werkloosheid, tienerswangerskappe en drank-en dwelmmisbruik. In die studie word die lense ruimte, subjektiwiteit en kulturele kapitaal gebruik om jeugwording en jeugmeemaking in `n plattelandse mynbou-omgewing te verstaan. Die hoofuitgangspunt was dat die omgewings waarin die jeugdiges hulle bevind, veelvuldig oorvleuel. Daar bestaan `n dinamiese verwantskap tussen die jeugdiges se woon- en skoolomgewing. Binne elke ruimte is daar eiesoortige prossesse, sosiale netwerkverhoudinge en kulturele groepe. Die studie fokus ook op die maniere hoe hierdie jeugdiges hul verskeie beleefde ruimtes oorbrug en hoe onderhandeling en aanpassing binne die ruimtes plaasvind. Kwalitatiewe navorsingsinstrumente: formele en informele onderhoude is gebruik om my navorsingsvraag te beantwoord. Die deelnemers is geleentheid gegee om hulle ervaringe in storielyn te weergee. `n Narratiewe interpretatiewe beskrywende navorsingsparadigma was die toepaslikste om die ryke verskeidenheid van geleefde ervaringe oor te dra. Die studie toon hoe die deelnemers op spesifieke maniere deur hulle omstandighede geposisioneer word ten einde vergestalting aan hul jeugsubjektiwiteite te gee. Deur gebruik te maak van hul eie bronne, netwerke en interaksies navigeer hierdie deelnemers hul oorvleuelde ruimtes om sodoende sinvolle lewens te leef.

"The purpose of this study is to investigate paired groups of Latin-American and Anglo-American children in one community who have attended the public schools approximately the same number of years, to discover difference, if any, in achievement when comparable opportunities for education have been present. Achievement, in this instance, means all phases of the school program: core subject areas, vocational subjects, physical education and health, and participation in extra-curricular activities. Two source of data are utilized in this study: (1) background information concerning the status and accomplishments of the Latin-american child in Texas schools, taken from professional literature in the field and related studies; (2) primary data, consisting of test results and case studies of two selected groups of pupils in the Stuart High School in south Texas, taken from the school records and teacher-observations studies of the Stuart High School ."-- leaf 3.

The thesis is focused on the analysis of the Scottish education system in the context of community education. The thesis focuses on the analysis of the educational system in terms of structure and curriculum documents and analyzes the conception of community education. Great emphasis is placed on linking community education with the school. Work is supplemented with a content analysis of school - political and curricular documents that form the basic theoretical framework for practice. These documents are also an inspiration for the creation of similar documents in the Czech Republic. Conducted content analysis summarizes theoretical information and highlights the importance of community planning and cooperation in the community education. The results of this study allow to dissemination of the Czech comparative pedagogy and contribute to the debate on the conception of community education in the Czech Republic.

No entender do sociólogo francês Pierre Bourdieu, disposições culturais vêm a ser um conjunto de regras, incorporadas de maneira inconsciente pelos indivíduos, as quais perpassam os domínios éticos, estéticos, cognitivos e físicos. Como exemplo, podem ser citadas as disposições linguísticas, sexuais, religiosas e estéticas, que contém a nossa visão de mundo e o nosso posicionamento nele. As disposições produzem nossa visão de mundo e condicionam nossas tomadas de posição. Tais disposições são adquiridas através das experiências de vida e em instituições constituídas em nossa sociedade como a família e a escola. Embora não haja escritos específicos de Bourdieu com relação à Educação de Jovens e Adultos (EJA), acreditamos que as disposições culturais incorporadas acabam por ser fundamentais para influenciar a exclusão de um grande contingente de estudantes dos bancos escolares quando ainda são crianças, bem como consolidar trajetórias sociais desprovidas de escolaridade institucionalizada. Na presente dissertação procura-se investigar os condicionantes que determinaram o fracasso escolar e, supostamente, social, de um conjunto de jovens e adultos inseridos em salas de alfabetização das escolas municipais de Piracicaba, estado de São Paulo. Observa-se que a grande maioria dos pesquisados é proveniente de zonas rurais de distintos municípios da região e que mantinham situações de existência divergentes da ideologia urbana propagada nas escolas formais de ensino fundamental em meados da segunda metade do século XX. Entendemos ser relevante o estudo do tema proposto, uma vez que a EJA surge em decorrência de um sistema social e escolar excludente que, através de sua ação pedagógica, modificou a trajetória de milhares de pessoas que buscam em tempos atuais o que não conseguiram na infância. Contudo, a escolarização é apenas uma das relações sociais das quais essas pessoas estão excluídas. Há o aprofundamento de uma exclusão marcada pela desigualdade. Por outro lado, a escola também pode ser considerada espaço de contradição e de superação das desigualdades sociais. Assim, a EJA pode representar subversão à lógica da exclusão, uma vez que historicamente a despossessão do capital escolar é presente nessas pessoas, e a procura pela escolarização na fase adulta pode representar uma forma de resistência. / To the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, cultural disposition is a group of rules, unconsciously incorporated by people, which pervades ethical dominion, aesthetic, cognitive and physical. As example, we can mention the linguistic dominion, sexual, religious and aesthetic, which contains our world view and our position in it. The dispositions produce our world view and condition our stance. Those dispositions are acquired through life experiences and in institutions as family and school. Although there isn´t specific Bourdieu literature related to Adult and Youth Education (AYE), we believe that incorporated cultural dispositions end up being essential to exclude a large students contingent from the school desks when they are still children, as well as consolidate social trajectory devoid of institutionalized schooling. In the present dissertation it´s tried to investigate the constraints that determine the school failure and, supposedly, social failure, of a group of young and adults inserted in literacy classrooms from Piracicaba´s municipal schools, São Paulo state. It´s observed that a big part of the individuals researched comes from rural zones of the region distinct municipalities and they were in existing situations different from the urban ideology propagated in the formal elementary schools during the midyears of the XX century´s second half. The study of the proposed theme is relevant because AYE arises from an excluding social and school system that, through its pedagogical action, changed the trajectory of thousands of people that seek, nowadays, what they didn´t achieve in their childhood. However, the schooling is only one of the social relations which those people are excluded from. There is a deepening of an exclusion marked by the inequality. On the other hand, the school can also be considered a place for contradiction and social inequalities overcoming. Thus, the adult and youth education can represent subversion of the exclusion logic, since historically the dispossession of the school capital is present in these people, and the search for schooling in the adult phase can represent a resistance form.

Este trabalho apresenta um relato de pesquisa de campo realizada com os rappers do Grupo Realidade Negra do Quilombo do Campinho da Independência, em Paraty-RJ, de 2012 até 2015. Nosso objetivo foi principalmente compreender os modos de viver desses moradores e de compreenderem-se em um quilombo do século XXI, com características rurais, turísticas e periféricas, em seu processo de construção de identidade quilombola. Outras categorias identitárias também se fazem presentes: negra, de rappers, e de guerreiros, respectivamente em processos de transformação, de acesso e modelo. Nossa pesquisa configurou-se como um estudo de caso de caráter exploratório que se encaminhou para a compreensão dos temas emergidos nas letras das doze canções do CD da banda É prus guerreiro a missão. A metodologia de análise do discurso das letras se deu sob a abordagem textual discursiva, e desse modo nossas entrevistas concentraram-se, principalmente, com os dois MCs compositores da maior parte das canções. O CD foi elaborado em 2009 para homenagear os dez anos de conquista da titulação do Campinho e gravado ao vivo na Festa da Consciência Negra, em novembro/2009. Os temas emergidos subdividiram-se em seis capítulos revelando a intenção formadora da juventude negra, principalmente do próprio Campinho, pelos rappers, quando ao mesmo tempo em que se constituem como quilombolas, procuram formar novos sujeitos políticos utilizando o rap como veículo para sua missão. Apresentam-se com a intenção de autoafirmação e autovalorização do negro e do quilombola; propõem a importância da luta pela terra, procurando denunciar a situação dos quilombos no Brasil; conscientizam sobre a história do negro escravizado no Brasil apresentando modos de enfrentamento do racismo; reforçam a importância dos vínculos verticais, como a ancestralidade e a prole, bem como horizontais, como os vínculos familiares e fraternos e a continuidade da família na busca do parceiro amoroso, de amigos e da própria comunidade. Ainda no plano subjetivo ensinam modos de lidar com as perdas de parentes próximos e a vivência do luto. Demonstram conhecimento do esgarçamento social que resulta no contexto de violência em que se encontra o negro, principalmente jovem, ensinando a contenção da hybris como modo de lutar contra o sistema. Sua educação religiosa evangélica os sustenta em sua intenção formadora e busca de construção da mudança do destino trágico do jovem negro no Brasil, principalmente a partir do modelo do guerreiro. Através da singularidade dos relatos dos autores sobre suas canções, observamos sua busca identitária como quilombolas em seu próprio contexto resultando na reflexão sobre como se dá a formação e educação nos contextos quilombolas e de outras comunidades tradicionais. / This dissertation presents a field research report taken place with the Realidade Negra rap band from Quilombo do Campinho da Independência, in Paraty-RJ, from 2012 to 2015. Most of all, we aimed to understand their way of living and how they see themselves in a XXIst Century quilombo, with rural, touristic and peripheral characteristics in their process of building up their quilombola identity. Other identity categories are also present: Black, rappers, and warriors, respectively under processes of transformation, access and modeling. Our research started as an exploratory case study which was led to understand the themes emerged in the lyrics of the twelve songs in the band CD named É prus guerreiro a missão. The method of discourse analysis occurred under a discursive text approach, therefore our interviews happened mainly with the two main compositors of the band. Their CD was made in 2009 to celebrate the 10year-anniversary of Campinhos land legal conquest and was live recorded in the Black Consciousness Party, in November/2009. The themes emerged were divided into six chapters which revealed the bands educational intention of the youth, mainly those dwellers in Campinho, when we noticed that at the same time they form themselves as quilombolas, they try to form new political subjects by means of their rap. They present themselves with the intention of Black and quilombolas self-affirmation and self-valorization; they propose how important it is to struggle for their land and denouncing the situation of quilombos in Brazil. They try to make youth aware about the history of the slaved Black in Brazil and present ways to face racism. They also reinforce the importance of vertical bonds like ancestry and children, family, brotherhood, friends and community bonds, as well as the continuity of the family in the search of a partner. Subjectively, they teach ways to deal with losses of close relatives and to mourn. They show they know about the social issues resulting in the contexts of violence the Black is immersed in, mainly the young ones, and teach them how to control hybris as a way to struggle against the system. Their protestant religion upbringing assists them on their educational intention and on their aim to change the tragic fate of the Black youth in Brazil by means of the model of the warrior. In the singularity of the authors speech about their lyrics, we were able to watch their identity search as quilombolas in their local environment, which led us to reflect on how education and upbringing is taking place in quilombolas communities, and also in other traditional communities in Brazil.

No entender do sociólogo francês Pierre Bourdieu, disposições culturais vêm a ser um conjunto de regras, incorporadas de maneira inconsciente pelos indivíduos, as quais perpassam os domínios éticos, estéticos, cognitivos e físicos. Como exemplo, podem ser citadas as disposições linguísticas, sexuais, religiosas e estéticas, que contém a nossa visão de mundo e o nosso posicionamento nele. As disposições produzem nossa visão de mundo e condicionam nossas tomadas de posição. Tais disposições são adquiridas através das experiências de vida e em instituições constituídas em nossa sociedade como a família e a escola. Embora não haja escritos específicos de Bourdieu com relação à Educação de Jovens e Adultos (EJA), acreditamos que as disposições culturais incorporadas acabam por ser fundamentais para influenciar a exclusão de um grande contingente de estudantes dos bancos escolares quando ainda são crianças, bem como consolidar trajetórias sociais desprovidas de escolaridade institucionalizada. Na presente dissertação procura-se investigar os condicionantes que determinaram o fracasso escolar e, supostamente, social, de um conjunto de jovens e adultos inseridos em salas de alfabetização das escolas municipais de Piracicaba, estado de São Paulo. Observa-se que a grande maioria dos pesquisados é proveniente de zonas rurais de distintos municípios da região e que mantinham situações de existência divergentes da ideologia urbana propagada nas escolas formais de ensino fundamental em meados da segunda metade do século XX. Entendemos ser relevante o estudo do tema proposto, uma vez que a EJA surge em decorrência de um sistema social e escolar excludente que, através de sua ação pedagógica, modificou a trajetória de milhares de pessoas que buscam em tempos atuais o que não conseguiram na infância. Contudo, a escolarização é apenas uma das relações sociais das quais essas pessoas estão excluídas. Há o aprofundamento de uma exclusão marcada pela desigualdade. Por outro lado, a escola também pode ser considerada espaço de contradição e de superação das desigualdades sociais. Assim, a EJA pode representar subversão à lógica da exclusão, uma vez que historicamente a despossessão do capital escolar é presente nessas pessoas, e a procura pela escolarização na fase adulta pode representar uma forma de resistência. / To the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, cultural disposition is a group of rules, unconsciously incorporated by people, which pervades ethical dominion, aesthetic, cognitive and physical. As example, we can mention the linguistic dominion, sexual, religious and aesthetic, which contains our world view and our position in it. The dispositions produce our world view and condition our stance. Those dispositions are acquired through life experiences and in institutions as family and school. Although there isn´t specific Bourdieu literature related to Adult and Youth Education (AYE), we believe that incorporated cultural dispositions end up being essential to exclude a large students contingent from the school desks when they are still children, as well as consolidate social trajectory devoid of institutionalized schooling. In the present dissertation it´s tried to investigate the constraints that determine the school failure and, supposedly, social failure, of a group of young and adults inserted in literacy classrooms from Piracicaba´s municipal schools, São Paulo state. It´s observed that a big part of the individuals researched comes from rural zones of the region distinct municipalities and they were in existing situations different from the urban ideology propagated in the formal elementary schools during the midyears of the XX century´s second half. The study of the proposed theme is relevant because AYE arises from an excluding social and school system that, through its pedagogical action, changed the trajectory of thousands of people that seek, nowadays, what they didn´t achieve in their childhood. However, the schooling is only one of the social relations which those people are excluded from. There is a deepening of an exclusion marked by the inequality. On the other hand, the school can also be considered a place for contradiction and social inequalities overcoming. Thus, the adult and youth education can represent subversion of the exclusion logic, since historically the dispossession of the school capital is present in these people, and the search for schooling in the adult phase can represent a resistance form.

This study uses the concept of stage-environment fit (Eccles et al., 1993) in conjunction with self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985) to guide an investigation of at-risk eighth graders' motivational and academic resilience. A developmentally-calibrated method was used to divide students into motivational and academic resilience groups based on their resilient, average, or stress-affected levels of academic engagement and GPA. Data from 167 eighth graders and 155 sixth graders were used to examine the extent to which students' ratings of autonomy, teacher support, peer support, and engagement in garden-based education were related to resilience group membership, and whether these four resources seemed more important to eighth graders than to sixth graders. Results provided support for the overall hypothesis that the four developmental resources (autonomy, teacher support, peer support, and garden engagement) seemed to serve as motivational and/or academic resources, but did not, generally, provide support for their being more important for eighth graders than for sixth graders. Analyses of variance and regressions showed that autonomy, teacher support, and garden engagement were all resources for eighth graders' motivation and achievement, with autonomy and teacher support as the strongest resources. Peer support was only a resource for motivation, and only for eighth-grade boys. In terms of unique effects, only autonomy uniquely predicted eighth graders' dual (motivational and academic) resilience group membership when controlling for the other developmental resources. In contrast, autonomy, teacher support, and garden engagement all uniquely predicted sixth graders' dual resilience group membership. Autonomy's status as the only unique predictor of eighth-grade resilience contrasted with an overall trend in which correlations among all variables were weaker for eighth graders than sixth graders. This contrast suggested that one part of eighth-grade risk might be an increased immunity to motivational resources. Autonomy seemed to fully mediate the relationship between teacher support and dually-resilient group membership for eighth graders, highlighting autonomy's role as a key component in motivational processes for at-risk eighth-graders. The study shed light on the educational risk posed by "eighth-gradeness" in conjunction with having an at-risk demographic status and a being traditional middle school setting, and suggested that autonomy might be a necessary, if not sufficient, route to eighth-grade motivational and academic resilience in light of this risk.

Many youth are able to be successful in the traditional school setting. Large numbers are not successful. Dropout rates are alarming. There is little research that examines the drop out problem from the perspective of the youth. Traditionally programs that are designed to help have been designed by adults. This qualitative study focused on the voices of youth. Participants in this study were male clients aged fifteen to seventeen who were adjudicated and court mandated to receive treatment in a drug treatment center. All of the participants had a history of delinquency and poor academic achievement. They had dropped out of school prior to entering the treatment program. This qualitative study addressed two questions: 1. What are the factors that prevent at-risk youth from being successful in school? 2. What can schools do to help these youth be successful at school? This study provided information about what schools could have done to help these youth be more successful. It also looked at their current academic success in the treatment program as a possible model to help other youth. Five youth volunteered to participate in the study. All interviews were confidential. Interviews were also conducted with a probation officer, program administrator, teacher, and a parent that had a youth in the program in order to triangulate results. The voices of students supported the literature with respect to the factors that contribute to students being at risk for delinquency and dropping out of school. Some of these factors include issues surrounding anger management, academic issues, nurturing at school, family situations, school at a treatment center, hiring teachers, childhood experiences, drug use, obtaining drugs, crime and drugs, treatment programs, dual diagnosis, communication and issues surrounding success and failure. The strength of this qualitative research project lies in the fact that the real voices of students did support the quantitative literature in this field. / Graduation date: 2004

This study was designed to assess teachers' and counsellors' knowledge and experiences related to ADHD and the use of stimulant medication. The sample population was comprised of elementary, middle school, and high school teachers and counsellors from two school districts in southwestern Canada. A descriptive, cross-sectional design using a self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain information. Results revealed that the teachers and counsellors responding to the questionnaire have limited knowledge about ADHD and the use of stimulant medication, although a large majority of them have experience with students with ADHD and are involved in the diagnosing and assessment process of ADHD. These results suggest that there is a need for in-service training regarding the diagnosis and characteristics of ADHD, different intervention strategies, and assessment of the effectiveness of these strategies. Teachers and counsellors need to become more familiar with empirical research and to base their practice on it, rather than on popular opinion. Finally, further collaboration is needed between teachers and counsellors and allied professionals, such as physicians and psychologists. / x, 77 leaves ; 29 cm.