Teacher recruitment and retention challenges facing urban school contexts provided the impetus for this study. High percentages of historically marginalized students, plagued by high poverty rates and low academic performance, as well as substandard facilities and inadequate material resources, serve as causative factors inhibiting recruitment and retention of credentialed teachers in urban schools (Education Commission of the States [ECS], 1999; Guarino et al., 2006; Horng, 2009; USDOE, 2003; 2004; Wirt et al, 2004). Schools and districts attempt to meet chronic teacher shortages in hard-to-staff urban schools by creating innovative teacher preparation schemes, such as the Urban Teaching Academy (UTA). This study focuses on teacher identity formation and prospective efficacy beliefs among a group of students enrolled in UTA. The research questions were examined using interpretive phenomenological inquiry (Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009) through case study methodology (Yin, 2009). Findings show that the precollegiate student teachers in this study made meaning primarily from a student perspective, thus adhering to prototypical images of teaching characterized by identity markers. Salient components of definitions of teacher identity for precollegiate student teachers are Self and Care. Less relevant components for precollegiate student teachers were Emotion and Context. These components appear most influenced by the temporal distance between the precollegiate Urban Teaching Academy and actual teaching experiences during internship/practicum and subsequent teaching in a professional capacity, suggesting a need to determine whether it is possible for precollegiate student teachers to meet the emotional and contextual demands of teaching at such an early stage. Additionally, this study proposes to extend on the teacher efficacy construct by offering a model for prospective efficacy as it pertains to individuals in teacher preparation at the precollegiate and preservice levels. This model contends that beginning with the self as influenced by personal, social, cultural, historical and political knowledge sources, precollegiate student teachers begin to develop an epistemological stance towards teaching. Over time, precollegiate student teachers build identity capital grounded in the skills, knowledge and dispositions gained through access to varied knowledge sources, which develop as precollegiate student teachers learn theoretical principals of teaching, obtain and learn from performance information, and combine the theory and practice into an epistemological framework that provides impetus for ongoing synergy between theoretical and practical experiences. The broader the base of identity capital from which the precollegiate student teacher draws, the greater the likelihood that she will develop prospective efficacy, or the belief that she will be capable of fulfilling teaching roles and responsibilities in the future. This study informs the literature on precollegiate and preservice teacher identity and extends the literature on teacher efficacy.

This study investigates the management and provision of extracurricular programmes in inner city secondary schools. Literature pointed out that extracurricular provisioning in inner city secondary schools is challenging because of limited physical infrastructure and negative influences from the external environment. An empirical investigation based on a qualitative research design was conducted at five research sites conveniently selected. Through individual and focus-group interviewing it was established that extracurricular programmes in inner city secondary schools are hampered by limited and inadequate facilities, a lack of human resource capacity, an over-emphasis of the curricular programme and financial constraints. Due to the importance of a holistic development of the child to be an all-rounder as adult, it is recommended that all stakeholders of the school be involved in providing a viable extracurricular programme. Stakeholders include the teaching corps, parents, the local municipality, the department of education, and the business community. / Further Teacher Education / M. Ed. (Education Management)

No description available.

This qualitative case study examined the recruitment and hiring practices of an urban district. Participants in this study included five district-level, human resource staff members and six campus principals. Data collected and analyzed including audio recordings of semi-structured interviews of each participant and documents at the district and campus levels used during the recruitment and hiring processes. The findings suggested that there is evidence of the district's use of the fit theory and culturally relevant pedagogy, and there is potential value in uniting and using both theories to identify and hire culturally responsive teachers. Findings also suggested that some tenets of both theories overlap, and some were more evident and more valued in the district processes than others. Since urban schools tend to experience significant staffing challenges and require teachers who are more culturally responsive, this study has the potential to help district and campus leaders examine their current hiring practices and establish stronger connections to the fit theory and culturally relevant pedagogy tenets.

This project returns to the questions that were once at the center of the urban studies debate over social movements. What are urban social movements, and what impacts do they leave on the cities where they occur? Urban protests in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington are used as the foundation for exploring the following research questions: What urban social movements occurred in the Pacific Northwest during 1990s? What goals were these movements struggling for? What impacts did urban social movements have on daily life in Portland and Seattle? While this project has continuity with earlier attempts to identify, describe, and assess the role that urban social movements play in cities, it also represents a significant departure from the established ways of understanding this phenomenon. Manuel Castells' (1983) theory on urban social movements considered local activism ineffectual, if it could not produce serious revolutionary change. A different portrait of urban social movements emerged in this project. Pacific Northwest urban protests challenged existing social relationships in neighborhoods, at work, in public services, in the construction and use of urban space, and in the imagination of the city. These protests grew out of the everyday life experiences of their participants and sought to transform the patterns and relationships of daily life. Since urban social movements arise from everyday life, their impacts will be evident in a community's use of time, construction of space, development of social relationships, and sense of possibility. The ability of urban social movements to radically alter the everyday lives of their participants and communities of interest is, in and of itself, significant. As these changes reverberate beyond the boundaries of these directly impacted communities, they have the potential to create broader citywide changes. It is these transformations that are the building blocks for the active construction of our urban cultures, spaces, and communities.

Teacher evaluation has the ability to greatly support increased student achievement. However, existing literature on the topic finds evaluations are not meeting the intended purpose. Since principals are responsible for the implementation of the process at their school site, their perceptions of current processes is of value if evaluations are to be of value. Therefore, this study investigated K-12 principals' perceptions of teacher evaluation practices in an urban northern California school district. Data were collected through the administration of a survey. Of the 79 surveys distributed to school principals, 52 were completed and returned. Upon receiving the surveys, frequencies, percentages, means, and dependent sample t-tests were employed to analyze the data. The inductive analysis approach was used to code open-ended responses. The results illustrate that principals find formative and summative evaluation approaches are more effective for non-tenured teachers. However, they find the evaluation process is more supportive of tenured teachers when only formative approaches are applied. Principals find the process time intensive and lacking a clear purpose. Additional barriers ranged from teacher unions, to a lack of district support and inconsistency of implementation among principals. Principals seek reform in teacher evaluations where all parties find the process meaningful despite tenure status. Furthermore, principals seek a more comprehensive process that includes both formative and summative approaches. It is recommended that further research be conducted on the impact of time, school structures that support principals as coaches and evaluators, and how credentialing programs and districts provide training to principals in evaluation processes and barriers.

A phenomenological study was conducted to investigate the experiences of school principals, who exceeded district standards on standardized performance evaluations, in providing effective educational programs for students with emotional and behavioral disabilities (EBD) in an urban setting. The aim of this study was to identify common experiences, practices, or attitudes regarding students with EBD, and their teachers, among school principals who qualified for the study. Data was be collected through principal interviews. Data results were coded, organized, and analyzed using a systematic method of phenomenological analysis to find general themes that speak to the essence of the experience.

This research study addresses the problem of unmet facilities needs in the California Community College (CCC) system with a case study analysis of two major campus construction projects within the City College of San Francisco system (CCSF). Specifically, this study is intended to provide insight into the difficulties facing CCC administrators regarding unmet facilities needs within their campuses, and the overall processes and challenges involved in constructing the 21 st century CCC campus. Interviews with the campus deans of the CCSF Chinatown/North Beach and Mission District Campuses revealed that challenges for construction and modernization projects in the San Francisco City College system derive more from external stakeholder concerns than internal governance systems. In particular, the study focused on a satellite campus dean's role in the shared governance system for CCSF construction projects and how they effectively work in conjunction with CCSF leadership to garner community support, while mediating external opposition for projects. Findings from the study concurred in part with current literature regarding construction delays related to external stakeholder opposition and the role college administrators must play in ameliorating environmental, historical preservation, and corporate interest concerns for projects. Specifically, campus deans in the San Francisco City College system found that the practices of conducting information hearing sessions and forming internal/external/community advisory committees facilitated productive forums for hearing the concerns of key campus personnel and community stakeholders. Additionally, these practices allowed for more efficient project execution and the promotion of improved community relations within the neighboring communities for the campus projects in this study.

This study is based on data from eight interviews with principals who lead schools in particularly vulnerable areas, where gang crime, exclusion, overcrowding and poverty are commonplace. The research questions are about their own view of their work in relation to the context. The purpose of the study is to deepen the knowledge of principals' work in urban schools. The study has a narrative approach and is examined from a hermeneutic perspective. These stories are analyzed partly individually but also together to examine if patterns or categories appear in the stories. The context emerges and is filtered in this way through the patterns formed by the principals' stories. The context studied is the societal and socio-cultural context. In order to be able to put the principals' stories in a common context, sociological thinking is used. The interview material in the study is analyzed as narrative, i.e. coherent stories. The analysis is done in two stages. The first step to create a narrative from the interview material. These created coherent stories are then analyzed as the second step. That analysis is made in two parts where each part is aimed at answering one of the research questions. The results show that four areas appear in the principals' stories. The first is the clear orientation for increased student outcomes described in the stories. Here, a clear shift from a care focus towards a knowledge focus is described. The second category deals with communication patterns and relationship building, which is described as particularly important based on the context the principals find themselves in and which reappears as a cornerstone in all work. The third category appearing is how organization and governance are used to have an effect on student learning. Here school development efforts and changes in roles within the operation are described, for example expansion of two- and three-teacher systems, team leader organization, cooperation with and between first teachers and development of recess activities. The final category is about the social responsibility that the principals describe and trust in education and in students. Within this category, high expectations of and trust in the students recur in stories. / Den här studien är baserad på data från åtta intervjuer med rektorer som leder skolor i särskilt utsatta områden, där gängkriminalitet, utanförskap, trångboddhet och fattigdom är vardag. Detta med frågeställningar om deras egen bild av sitt arbete i relation till kontexten. Syftet med studien är att fördjupa kunskapen om rektorers arbete i särskilt utsatta områden. Detta görs genom att undersöka rektorers berättelser om sitt arbete i denna specifika kontext. Studien har en narrativ ansats och undersöks ur ett hermeneutiskt perspektiv. Dessa berättelser analyseras dels enskilt men även tillsammans för att se om mönster eller kategorier framträder i berättelserna. Kontexten framträder och filtreras på så sätt genom de mönster som bildas av rektorernas berättelser. Den kontext som studeras är den samhällsgemensamma och den sociokulturella kontexten. För att kunna sätta rektorernas berättelser i ett gemensamt sammanhang används ett sociologiskt tänkande. Intervjumaterialet i studien analyseras som narrativ, dvs sammanhängande berättelser. Analysarbetet är gjort i två steg. Det första steget är att skapa narrativ av intervjumaterialet. Därefter analyseras dessa skapade sammanhängande berättelser. Den analysen är gjord i två delar där varje del riktas mot att besvara en av studiens frågeställningar. Resultatet visar att fyra områden framträder i rektorernas berättelser. Den första är den tydliga orientering för höjda kunskapsresultat som beskrivs i berättelserna. Här beskrivs en tydlig förskjutning från ett omsorgsfokus mot ett kunskapsfokus. Den andra kategorin handlar om kommunikationsmönster och relationsbyggande som beskrivs som särskilt viktigt utifrån den kontext rektorerna befinner sig i och återkommer som grundbult i allt arbete. Den tredje kategorien som blir tydlig är hur organisation och styrning används för att ge effekt på elevers lärande. Här finns skolutvecklingsinsatser och förändringar av roller inom verksamheten t ex utbyggnad av två- och trelärarsystem, arbetslagsledarorganisation, samarbetet med och mellan förstelärare samt utveckling av rastverksamhet. Den avslutande kategorin handlar om det samhällsansvar som rektorerna beskriver och tilltro till utbildning och till elever. Inom denna kategori återkommer höga förväntningar på och tilltro till eleverna i berättelser.

No description available.