Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1982. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 49-52).

During the school year 1965 - 1966 the Vancouver East Y.W.CA. took part in a project aimed at improving the school performances of a selected group of children from the Woodland Park Area. This project involved the combined efforts of the school, the social adjustment group and the provision of family services. It was hoped that the team approach, as applied to the problem of school malperformance, would provide optimum service and facilitate future co-operative planning in the district. Although at the conclusion of that first year, there was a general feeling in the schools that the project had had beneficial results, some decisive proof was needed. For this reason, this present study was conceived, in order to evaluate change, if any, which occurred as a result of social work intervention. Initial research was based upon an analysis of rating scale results, and it was hoped, by the research team, that a "before-after" picture would evolve, and provide some correlations which would be useful in evaluating change in the children. However, after only preliminary study of the data, it became obvious that a number of problems hampered further analysis along these lines. The rating scale could not be assumed either valid or reliable; there were discrepancies between verbal and recorded judgements; there were discrepancies in the use of the rating scale amongst both school officials and group workers; in many cases rating scales were left incomplete and no correlations of any significance could be discovered. Added to these problems, were the lack of any control groups, so that there was a prohibitive number of intervening variables, and uncertain and differing criteria used for referral. The focus of the research team then centred on formation of a new design, which attempts to avoid previous mistakes, provides new rating devices, and outlines a statistical method of analyzing the data to be collected. It is to be hoped that with this different basis and focus another research project might be carried out to truly evaluate success of the program, and facilitate future planning and services. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

M.Ed. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

Submitted in accordance with the requirements of the degree of MASTER OF EDUCATION in the Department of SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION of the UNIVERSITY OF ZULULAND, 1995. / This study has investigated the relationship between lodging at private homes by some students, and their educational performance. The researcher is of the opinion that the social environment of lodger homes creates conditions that do not help the educational efforts of the students. The historical background in this study has identified social, economic, political as well as school factors as contributing to the history of lodging. The literature review has shown that these factors can positively or negatively affect the educational efforts of the students. The responses to the questionnaire revealed that students at lodger homes are left to themselves. Lodger students do not enjoy parental support, care motivation and encouragement which would enhance their educational efforts. In the light of the findings, the study recommends that the problems surrounding lodger students be tackled.

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This thesis examines the relationship between status, mechanisms of control, and individual academic autonomy. It is a qualitative study which relies upon previous research in the field of academia in conjunction with data generated by semi-structured interviews of full time academics in the social sciences at McMaster University. It is proposed in this thesis that the accumulation of status has come to play a critical role in the academic market economy which most universities entered as academia expanded during the post World War Two era.. It is suggested that the primary element in the realization of status is the publication of research, especially during the recessionary, no growth situation universities have been experiencing since the 1970's. Published research is viewed as a commodity, valued by both academics and those in positions of authority at the university. To ensure its production a number of controls are erected. Although effective control is often associated with the rigidity of Tayloriam, such a prescription for academics is both ideologically unplalatable and unnecessary. The novitiate to the academic labour process is given little direction in terms of guidance, performance expectations, job description or how to allocate personal resources. When the above are coupled with an ambiguous, institutionally based evaluation format, the result is often the perception that academia is a prime example of occuaptional autonomy -as promoting independence of both thought and action. But perhaps it can also be a means of controlling academics through indirect external pressure, which also shapes the internal controls of academics. The end product of such a scenario may not be an independence for the academic that autonomy would by definition suggest, but a conformity which is ultimately consistent with accumulation of institutional status. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Thesis advisor: Juliet B. Schor / Despite decades of research and efforts to reform schools, racial disparities in educational opportunities and outcomes, often referred to as the "achievement gap," persist and concerns about students' math learning and achievement continue. Among researchers, educational practitioners, and the wider public, explanations for these ongoing problems usually point to structural influences or individual and cultural factors. For example, structures of schooling (e.g. school funding, organization and curriculum) and those outside of school (e.g. family background and neighborhood characteristics) become focal points for understanding educational inequalities and places for intervention. In terms of explanations that look to individual influences, teachers and students are either targeted for their inadequacies or praised for their individual talents, values and successes. Regarding students in particular, racial inequalities in academic outcomes often become attributed to students', namely black and Latino/a students', supposed cultural devaluation of education and their desires to not "act white" and academically achieve. Together, these explanations lead to the assessment that possibilities of teaching and learning are predetermined by a host of structural and individual influences. But how is the potential to teach and learn at least partially actualized through everyday processes? Moreover, how do these processes, which simultaneously involve structures and individual agents, lead to the production or disruption of racial disparities? To explore these questions, I investigated processes of teaching and learning in one well-funded, racially diverse public high school with high rates of students' passing the statewide standardized test, many students going onto prestigious colleges and universities, and enduring racial inequalities in academic achievement. I conducted fieldwork over three years in 14 math classrooms ranging from test preparation classes to honors math classes and interviewed 52 students and teachers about their experiences in school. Through analyzing the data, I find that what happens within the classroom walls still matters in shaping students' opportunities to learn and achieve. Illustrating how effective learning and teaching and racial disparities in education do not simply result from either preexisting structural contexts or individuals' virtues or flaws, classroom processes mold students' learning and racial differences in those experiences through cultivating or eroding what I refer to as students' sense of academic agency and teachers' sense of agency to teach. For students, that sense of agency leads to their attachment to school, identification with learning in general and math in particular, engagement, motivation and achievement. As classroom processes evolve in virtuous or vicious cycles, different beliefs about students (e.g. as "good kids" or "bad kids") importantly fuel the direction of these cycles. Since racial stereotypes often influence those beliefs, students consequently experience racial advantages and disadvantages in classroom processes. As a result, some students fail to learn and achieve not because they fear "acting white," but because they do not always get to experience classroom processes that cultivate their sense of being agentic in the classroom space, a sense that is distinctly racialized. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology.

The study was conducted to determine the disparity between the academic achievement of African American students and the academic achievement of white American students in the state of Florida, and more specifically, in five high schools in Orange County Public Schools. The term "African American" included all students who self-identified as that race upon enrollment into an Orange County public school. The study included male and female African American students from different socio-economic levels. The term "differences in academic achievement" is most commonly referred to as "achievement gap." Additionally, this study sought to determine the relationship, if any, in the achievement of African American students' academic achievement in five high schools in Orange County Public Schools, Orlando, Florida. In addition, the purpose was to identify differences in achievement level based upon the school attended, gender, socio-economic levels, class size, and qualifications of the teachers. The methods and procedures used to determine if there was an achievement gap between African-American and white American high school students was to review: (a) gain in African-American students on the reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, from the 2003-2004 administration to the 2004-2005 administration in five Orange County public high schools, (b) difference between African-American students' 2004-2005 reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test percentage at proficient (level 3 and above) and white American students in five public high schools in Orange, (c) the relationship between African-American students' 2004-2005 reading portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test percent at proficient (level 3 and above) and the school poverty rate in all public high schools in Orange County, (d) the characteristics of schools making gains in reading. There were four conclusions based on the review of literature, as well as the data collected from the five high schools. Under the provision and penalties attached to the No Child Left Behind legislation, there was a noticeable gap in achievement between African-American students and their white American counterparts in each of the examined schools over a two year time period. In schools with a greater percentage of white students, African-American students, overall, performed at a higher level. The achievement gap was narrower and the percent at proficient and above was higher for all students in schools where white students represented a greater percentage of the students. In schools with a lower percentage of students on free and/or reduced lunch, the percent of students reading at proficient or above was higher and the achievement gap was less between African-American students and their white counterparts. Furthermore, the data indicated that as the percent of students on free and reduced lunch at a given school increases, the rate of those reading at proficient and above for African-American students was lower. In schools with a wide array of diversity, students overall have higher achievement scores. Based on the data in the study, the school with the highest rate of student proficient and above, was the school with the greatest diversity population of students.

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1950 P38 / Master of Science

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between achievement motivation and academic achievement with externalizing (i.e., aggressive, acting-out) and Internalizing (i.e., Immature withdrawal) emotionally and behaviorally handicapped children. Furthermore, the mean difference in academic achievement of externalizers and Internalizers was examined. Analysis of variance, regression analysis, and t-test procedures were employed to analyze the data.Eighty-two subjects, in grades two through six, currently enrolled In special education programs for emotionally and behaviorally handicapped children, participated in this study. The Child Behavior Checklist-Teacher's Report Form (TRF), and the resultant Child Behavior Profile (CBP) were used to differentiate between externalizing and internalizing emotionally and behaviorally handicapped children. Furthermore, the TRF yielded information on school performance and adaptive functioning. The Thematic Apperception Test of Need for Achievement (TAT), and the Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised (WRAT-R) were administered by the researcher to gather data on achievement motivation and academic achievement, respectively.In general, the children in this study showed little or no motivation for achievement. An analysis of variance, comparing externalizers and internalizers in achievement motivation was not significant. A regression analysis, controlling for Intelligence, showed no difference in achievement motivation between externalizers and internalizers. Knowledge of group membership (i.e., externalizing or internalizing) added little to the explained variance of academic achievement. After controlling for intelligence and achievement motivation, externalizers and internalizers showed no difference in mean academic achievement.On the basis of teacher ratings of adaptive functioning skills considered necessary for success In the classroom, more than 75% of emotionally and behaviorally handicapped children were rated in the clinical range. More than two-thirds of the children were rated below average in school performance. T-tests revealed no difference between externalizers and internalizers in adaptive functioning skills or school performance.ConclusionsBased on the results of this study, the following conclusions were drawn:Emotionally and behaviorally handicapped children are generally lacking in motivation for achievement.Externalizing emotionally and behaviorally handicapped children, and Internalizing emotionally and behaviorally handicapped children do not differ in motivation for achievement.Achievement motivation and academic achievement are not significantly related with emotionally and behaviorally handicapped children.Externalizing emotionally and behaviorally handicapped children, and internalizing emotionally and behaviorally handicapped children show no difference in mean academic achievement.5. Emotionally and behaviorally handicapped children are generally deficient in the adaptive functioning skills judged necessary for school success. / Department of Educational Psychology