ABSTRACT FINDING THEIR WAY: A CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF FIVE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN EDUCATORS’ EARLY EXPERIENCES TO DEVELOP INTO CULTURALLY RELEVANT PEGAGOGUES by Rachel Beatrice Dunbar Teacher education programs have been charged with the responsibility to equip all teachers to work successfully in increasingly diverse elementary classrooms around the nation (NCES, 1996). However, the composition of the nation’s teaching force has not kept pace with these changes. Additionally, there is concern that many Pre-service teachers are ill prepared to work with culturally diverse students, partly because teacher education programs (TEPs) often adopt a monocultural, one-size-fits-all approach to preparation, ignoring race, class, and gender considerations (King & Castnell, 2001). African American women who seek preparation are greatly impacted by this singular approach to teacher education, which influences the way in which they experience their training. Consequently, they are often underserved in TEPs (Cozart & Price, 2005). It has been argued that TEPs will have to broaden their approaches to preparation by using a culturally relevant approach to teaching (Gay & Kirkland, 2003). Given the necessity for teachers to be equipped to meet the needs of culturally diverse learners in the classroom, it is imperative that TEPs are designed to cultivate culturally appropriate practices within Pre-service teachers. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the nature of the diversity preparation of five African American women and their teaching experiences following the completion of their teacher education training. The critical ethnographic case studies that developed were theoretically framed in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995), Black Feminist Thought (Collins, 1990), and Womanism (Phillips, 2006). Data were collected from classroom observations, individual, and group interviews. Using a system of open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1998), data analysis resulted in the emergence of three overarching themes: a) the formal diversity preparation offered by the university, b) the women’s individual perspectives of cultural relevance, and c) the ways in which the women incorporated their perspectives into their classroom practices. The experiences the young women encountered significantly influenced their understandings of culture and its impact on learning for diverse student populations. The results of this study suggest the need for teacher educators to reconsider how TEPs are structured to better prepare minority Pre-service teachers in the future to teach culturally diverse students.

The purpose of this study was to identify the link between culture and pedagogy through the implementation of the Common Core Standards with the goal of increasing the instructional outcomes of African-American students. This study investigated culturally relevant pedagogy implementing of Common Core Standards through the variables of teacher efficacy, instructional delivery of Common Core Standards, cultural synchronization, and cultural sensitivity. Furthermore, the research examined Ladson-Billings criterion for culturally relevant teaching and its application to the 21st century student as they encounter Common Core Standards. This research was conducted at a primary public school with a large minority population and located in the suburbs of Atlanta. The participants in this study were certified classroom teachers, support teachers, and instructional lead teachers. Data were collected in a triangulated fashion through surveys, interviews, observations, and attitude scales. The study findings manifested how the characteristics of culturally relevant teaching aligned with regulated standards could create a connection between culture and education for African-American students. The findings and conclusions of this study suggest that cultural characteristics of teachers have an impact of culturally relevant pedagogy implementing Common Core Standards. Teachers are cultural beings and utilize their own cultural backgrounds to identify differences between themselves and African-American students. These differences manifested themselves as teachers worked to implement new standards while using culturally relevant teaching practices. Practical implications and recommendations based on findings and conclusions are offered in this study.

abstract: The Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) policy scheme launched in 2004 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Government of India, aims to provide secondary level education (grade 6-8) for girls residing predominantly in minority communities, the Scheduled Caste (SC), the Scheduled Tribe (ST), and the Other Backward Caste (OBC). Since its launch, the Government of India established 2,578 KGBV schools in 27 states and union territories (UTs). The present study examines the new policy and its implementation at three KGBV schools located in rural villages of Uttar Pradesh (UP), India. The purpose was to analyze the Government of India's approach to increasing education opportunity and participation for educationally disadvantaged girls using the empowerment framework developed by Deepa Narayan. Observations at three schools, interviews with teachers and staff members of the implementation agency (i.e., Mahila Samakhya (MS)), and surveys administered to 139 teachers were conducted over a four month period in 2009. Adopting creative teaching approaches and learning activities, MS creates safe learning community which is appropriate for the rural girls. MS gives special attention to nurturing the girls' potential and empowering them inside and outside the school environment through social discussion, parental involvement, rigid discipline and structure, health and hygiene education, and physical and mental training. Interviews with the state program director and coordinators identified some conflicts within government policy schemes such as the Teacher-pupil ratios guidelines as a part of the programs for the universalization of elementary education. Major challenges include a high turnover rate of teachers, a lack of female teachers, a lack of provision after Class 8, and inadequate budget for medical treatment. Recommendations include promoting active involvement of male members in the process of girls' empowerment, making MS approaches of girls' education in rural settings standardized for wider dissemination, and developing flexible and strong partnership among local agencies and government organizations for effective service delivery. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2011

abstract: Despite its rich history in the English classroom, popular culture still does not have a strong foothold in first-year composition (FYC). Some stakeholders view popular culture as a “low-brow” topic of study (Bradbury, 2011), while others believe popular culture distracts students from learning about composition (Adler-Kassner, 2012). However, many instructors argue that popular culture can cultivate student interest in writing and be used to teach core concepts in composition (Alexander, 2009; Friedman, 2013; Williams, 2014). This dissertation focuses on students’ perceptions of valuable writing—particularly with regards to popular culture—and contributes to conversations about what constitutes “valuable” course content. The dissertation study, which was conducted in two sections of an FYC course during the Spring 2016 semester, uses three genre domains as a foundation: academic genres, workplace genres, and pop-culture genres. The first part of the study gauges students’ prior genre knowledge and their beliefs about the value of academic, workplace, and pop-culture genres through pre- and post-surveys. The second part of the study includes analysis of students’ remix projects to determine if and how students can meet FYC learning outcomes by working within each domain. Through this study, as well as through frameworks in culturally sustaining pedagogy, writing studies, and genre studies, this dissertation aims to assist in the reconciliation of opposing views surrounding the content of FYC while filling in research gaps on the knowledge, interests, and perceptions of value students bring into the writing classroom. Ultimately, this dissertation explores how pop-culture composition can facilitate student learning just as well as academic and workplace composition, thereby challenging course content that has traditionally been privileged in FYC. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2017

This study examined experiences of teachers in ex-Model C secondary schools in Port Elizabeth with specific reference to the strategies adopted, challenges and rewards of teaching in diverse classrooms. It is located in the realm of diversity pedagogy and multi-cultural education and contextualized against the socio-political and colourful historical climate of education in South Africa. This study was conducted by using the qualitative research approach against the backdrop of the phenomenological design according to the interpretivist paradigm. Data were elicited through in-depth semi-structured interviews with 16 teachers from 4 ex-Model C English medium secondary schools (formerly White schools) who had experiences of teaching both pre-1994, when schools were mono-ethnic, and post-1994 when the schools were multi-ethnic. The interviews were transcribed and the rich thick data were analysed and categorized into themes and sub-themes by adopting a constant comparative method. The findings of the study indicate that teachers failed to embrace diversity to its fullest, although they did not mind teaching diverse learners. Furthermore, it is evident that they have not made concerted efforts to implement culturally responsive teaching strategies to cater for diversity in their classes as the approaches tend to be cosmetic and superficial. The findings indicate that teachers are stuck in the quagmire of business as usual-, colour-blind-, assimilationist, contributionist approaches that militate against culturally responsive pedagogy. It is recommended that teachers be empowered with skills in diversity education by various stakeholders such as School Governing Bodies, the Department of Basic Education and teacher unions so that they are better equipped to implement strategies in their classes that cater to the needs of a diverse learner population.

abstract: This study investigates Black male students' perceptions of their teachers' curricular expectations in mathematics classrooms. Curriculum in this study refers to what knowledge students are expected to learn, and the manner in which they are expected to learn it. The topic of this dissertation is in response to persisting and prevailing achievement disparities experienced by secondary Black male students in mathematics. These disparities exist at the school, district, state, and national level. Utilizing an action research methodology, multiple cycles of data collection led to the final iteration of the study, collecting strictly qualitative data and drawing from critical race methodology to address the three research questions. The three research questions of this study seek to address how Black male students perceive their mathematics teachers’ curricular expectations, what practices they have found to be effective in meeting their teachers’ higher curricular expectations, and to determine how they view the reform practices as part of the intervention. Research questions were answered using one-on-one and focus group interviews, classroom observations, and student journals. An intervention was developed and delivered as part of the action research, which was an attempt at curriculum reform influenced by culturally relevant pedagogy, warm demander pedagogy, and youth participatory action research. Findings from the qualitative methods, led to four assertions. The first assertion states, despite achievement disparities, Black male students care very much about their academic success. Second, a primary factor hindering Black male students’ academic success, as communicated by participants, is what they are learning and how they are learning it. Speaking to teachers’ expectations, participants believe their teachers want them to succeed and think highly of them. Additionally, participants preferred interactive, enthusiastic, and caring teachers, even if those teachers are academically demanding. Finally, participants found learning mathematics addressing a problem that affects them, while incorporating components that address their invisibility in the curriculum, increased relevance, interest, and academic self-awareness. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2020

The purpose of this was study was to explore the use of two teaching practices (cognitively responsive subject matter and culturally responsive teaching) at Hispanic-Serving Institutions in the United States. The conceptual frameworks for this study were the Multi-Contextual Model of Diverse Learning Environments (MMDLE) (Hurtado et al., 2015), Blackwell and Lawrence’s (1995) framework on faculty work, and Neumann’s (2014) framework on cognitively responsive teaching practices and culturally responsive teaching (Ladson-Billings, 1994). Data for this study were culled from responses of full-time faculty to the University of California-Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute’s 2013 faculty survey, a national, multi-institutional survey of faculty. Using ANOVAs and hierarchical linear models (HLM), the study estimated the effect of individual- and organizational-level variables on subject matter and culturally responsive teaching. The results of HLM models showed that women faculty, faculty who have won an award for their teaching, and those who believe all students can excel have higher culturally responsive teaching scores. In contrast, faculty who believe it is up to individual students to succeed, and those who teach a hard discipline as characterized by Biglan’s (1973) typology of disciplines, have lower culturally responsive teaching scores. Of the organizational-level predictors used in HLM models, the selectivity of an institution was negatively associated with culturally responsive teaching, as was the percentage of Latinx students enrolled. For subject matter teaching, women faculty, tenure-track faculty, faculty who believe all students can excel, and those who spend additional time weekly preparing to teach have higher subject matter teaching scores. Faculty who teach a hard discipline, as characterized by Biglan’s (1973) typology of disciplines, and those who believe it is up to individual students to succeed have lower subject matter teaching scores. Of the organizational-level predictors, the percent of Latinx students enrolled in an institution had a negative association with subject matter teaching practices.

This dissertation qualitatively explores 55 Thai 4th grade students, a teacher, and 7 community members from a low-income public school in Bangkok, Thailand in order to develop a design framework for creating school-based maker experiences that are culturally relevant to lower income Thai students. Co-teaching and co designing a two-year design-based research project named, “Little Builders,” I worked with a local science teacher to engage the students in a constructionist learning experience that involved designing and building social innovations to solve problems in their community. I propose the Culturally Relevant Constructionist Design framework as a way to (1) create constructionist learning experiences that align with students’ values and goals, and (2) engage important people in the students’ lives, such as teachers and community members, in the process of making. Designing the learning experience for Thai students from 2017-2019, I draw from the life and work of the late King Bhumibol of Thailand. For 70 years, King Bhumibol was a unifying figure in Thailand and widely admired as “The Developer King” (Nicholas & Dominic, 2011) as he dedicated his life to creating inventions for the good of the country. Students “followed in the King’s footsteps” by making inventions to better their community in the midst of a nation-wide mourning period after the King’s death in 2016. This dissertation builds upon the literature from constructionism, sociocultural views of learning and identity development, community-centered making, and culturally relevant pedagogy. Little Builders provided opportunities for students, teachers, and community members to build projects and relationships. They learned about making while also learning more about each other and about how to support one another. During the Little Builders project, teachers and community members explicitly expressed new appreciation and awareness of students’ skills and strengths, gradually moving away from deficit narratives. Similarly, the students saw themselves as someone who could create and invent while helping others.

As schools have become more diverse ethnically and linguistically, the likelihood of cultural mismatches among students, families, and teachers has increased (Frank, 1999). Culturally relevant pedagogy has at its core the understanding that incorporating students‘ culture into the practices of the school and the classroom through culturally relevant curriculum is likely to improve student cooperation, inspire a greater understanding of the educational program, and increase academic outcomes (Brown, 2004). These pedagogies have the potential to be a vital tool toward closing the achievement gap, yet the practices associated with them are in danger of meeting the same fate as multicultural education. A lack of knowledge about the theory, practice, and implementation of culturally relevant pedagogy has led to ineffective attempts to meet the needs of students most at risk (White-Clark, 2005). Using the five themes of Critical Race Theory (Solórzano & Yosso, 2001) as the theoretical framework, the research examined how teachers perceive and implement culturally relevant pedagogy, and how students and their families perceive and evaluate these practices. This research conducted at a inner city, charter elementary school was grounded on Ladson-Billings‘ work on culturally relevant pedagogy and the three concepts of knowledge that she identified that teachers must bring to the classroom and impart to their students: a) Academic achievement, b) Cultural competence, and c) Sociopolitical consciousness (Ladson-Billings, 2001). The educational significance of this study resides in an analysis of its potential to influence teaching practices in many existing classroom settings that have an ethnically diverse population of students. On a micro level, through the use of catalytic validity and ongoing dialogue with the participants, the potential arose for members of the school community to have greater input in the structuring of their children‘s education. As members of the school community engage in future decisions regarding culturally relevant strategies, these research findings offer them an informed and critical perspective to work from.

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