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African American students constitute 17% of the student population in the United States of America and 36% of suspensions and 32% of expulsions; European American students comprise 59% of this population and 44% of suspensions and expulsions. This disproportionate rate is termed the discipline gap. The most discussed gap in the current discourse on educational statistics has been the achievement gap with numerous studies examining the need for cultural relevancy and consistent conceptual arguments made which present teachers' stereotypical perceptions of African American students as a causative factor of African American students' lack of engagement in public school classrooms. These studies and arguments provide the foundation for the emerging discussions on the discipline gap. Studies investigating this gap have found that the majority of disciplinary moments experienced by African American students are subjective in nature. The current qualitative case study design examines these Subjective Disciplinary Moments by exploring the disciplinary practices of three middle grades teachers in an urban school. The disciplinary reports submitted by these teachers were examined and follow-up interviews were conducted with the teacher and reported students (see Appendices E and F). Grounded theory methods were employed to analyze collected data and extrapolate themes from observed interactions and each participant's perception of these reported incidents. The following emerged as contributing to the construction of subjective disciplinary moments in these inner-city classrooms: not addressing student and teacher expectations explicitly, perceptions of race, class and culture not considered as a reason for understanding and not acknowledging the emotional life in the classroom. / Urban Education

The purpose of this research was to investigate ways classical composers of African descent have been included in the mainstream academic canon. I examined the insights of four scholars who have been committed to including classical composers of African descent throughout their music careers. The initial research questions of this study were: 1) How do participants describe their frameworks for making the commitment to include classical composers of African descent throughout their careers? 2) What have been the challenges and benefits associated with their commitment? 3) What might contemporary scholars view as strategies for integrating classical composers of African descent into the mainstream academic canon? Four musicians, who have contributed to the scholarship related to classical works by composers of African descent in very different ways, participated in this qualitative collective case study: Dr. Ysaye Maria Barnwell, a composer and performer; Dr. Dominique-Rene de Lerma, musicologist; Dr. Anthony Thomas Leach, educator, conductor, and organist; and Mr. Hannibal Lokumbe, composer, trumpeter, and visionary. Through two in-depth interviews with each of the four scholars, a related question emerged: How have the participants contributed to the inclusion of classical composers of African descent throughout professional careers and personal lives? I transcribed the interviews, returned them to the participants for member checks, and prepared final, revised transcripts based on their feedback for analysis. I examined the interview data to obtain a collective representation related to the research questions. I analyzed the data for emerging codes, categories, and themes until details considered substantive to the research emerged. Themes that emerged focused on the need to identify the importance of seeing the contributions for classical composers of African descent from an Afrocentric as well as a Eurocentric perspective; the impact of the Civil Rights Movement on how each participant engaged the music throughout their lives; the importance of informal and formal education and the roles family, community, and school played in their relationship with the music they shared; and, the significance of creating access to their works through publications and professional associations. / Music Education

Recent demographic trends indicate that the number of young Latino Catholics in the United States is increasing. In response, educators and researchers have examined the Catholic school experience of Latino families as a means to provide meaningful support for this growing constituency amid broader enrollment declines and related challenges of fiscal viability. Within this context, this study examined the leadership practices of Catholic secondary school leaders in relation to the development of tuition assistance policies and community outreach efforts intended to serve Latino families. Utilizing a theoretical frame consisting of Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and Culturally Responsive School Leadership (CRSL), this study employed an explanatory mixed-methods design. Quantitative data emerged from a cross-sectional survey, which was distributed to Catholic secondary school administrators within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Semi-structured interviews allowed for the collection of qualitative data, which constituted two case studies representing a spectrum of demographic characteristics within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The findings of this study indicate that Catholic school leaders view the principles of Catholic Social Teaching and Culturally Responsive School Leadership as influential to their roles as school leaders. However, the frequency with which Catholic school leaders employ culturally responsive leadership practices to address Latino families is varied and inconsistent. The research data also indicate a higher frequency of culturally responsive leadership practices among specific demographic subgroups including Latino leaders, leaders with an advanced Spanish-speaking proficiency, and those who work at schools in which a majority of the student body consists of Latino students.

This dissertation interprets a qualitative study designed to investigate the pedagogical practices of experienced science teachers who, through their teaching practices, promote learning and achievement of urban African American middle school students between the ages 10-13 years. Based upon the theoretical frameworks of the theory of third space and culturally-responsive pedagogy, this study targeted the pedagogical practices that connected home-to-school experiences. The study sample consisted of 17 students, 2 experienced science teachers, and 1 principal from the same urban middle school. Data collected over a six-month period include in-depth individual interviews, classroom observations, audio recordings, videotaping, and review of documentation. Interviews focused on the participants' experiences, views, and the role each played in learning and achievement. Classroom observations provided additional insights into the classroom setting, participants' actions, and participants' interactions with the teachers and other students. The student focus group emphasized the students' perspectives of their teacher and her teaching strategies. A whole-text analysis of the interview transcripts, observational field notes, video recording and documents generated three major categories: connection to students, classroom management, and instructional pedagogy. The following significant findings emerged from the data: (a) the beliefs and views of teachers affect their classroom practices; (b) when teachers build rapport with African American students, they are better able to create trust, increase the comfort level in their classroom, and motivate learning; (c) a teacher's use of home-to-school connections motivates students' interest in learning while helping them to make connections to curriculum, (d) the type of classroom management practices a teacher uses can enhance effective content implementation, and (e) a teacher's varied instructional pedagogical practices can provide African American students the opportunity they need to demonstrate knowledge and achievement. Implications for middle school teachers, students, parents, administrators, and teacher educators are included. Suggestions for future research are also provided. The results from this qualitative study strongly suggest that third space theory provides a theoretical framework for understanding the connections necessary for bridging a culturally-responsive disposition and a continuum between home and school experiences, which is critical in a science classroom populated by urban African American students. / Ph. D.

Minoritized students in public schools in Texas and across the nation continue to underachieve academically compared to their white peers. Despite similar academic achievement and socioeconomic backgrounds, minoritized students are often perceived more negatively by a predominantly white teacher workforce. The idea of cultural dissonance or mismatch between teachers and their students has led to the development of pedagogical frameworks such as culturally responsive teaching (CRT) that seek to bridge this cultural gap. This embedded multiple case study examined the perceptions, lived experiences, and level of preparedness of four school principals and one assistant superintendent in a white-majority school district with rapidly changing demographics. My findings support previous studies that show the limited resources and continued failure of universities and school systems in building educator capacity in culturally responsive school leadership CRSL. Furthermore, culturally responsive and visionary leaders may be more critical than previously thought due to school systems imbued with the dominant white culture and its deeply ingrained stereotypical views towards minoritized individuals. Despite these findings, my study also provides compelling evidence that meaningful relationships and diverse experiences alone can play an important role in fomenting and enhancing individuals' cultural proficiency, regardless of their racial/ethnic background. Finally, the implications of these findings are discussed in detail, followed by recommendations.

Culturally responsive education has been an actual topic in teacher education for decades, but most teachers still finish their education without appropriate knowledge and skills for teaching in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms. Providing quality education to diverse learners remains a challenge, particularly in the fields of mathematics and sciences. The purpose of this systematic literature review was to describe intervention programs preparing in-service and pre-service math and science teachers for teaching in culturally diverse classrooms, and the outcomes of such programs. A search for scholarly journals evaluating such intervention programs has been carried out in several databases, resulting in nine articles included in the analysis. Intervention programs described in these articles covered several important aspects of culturally relevant education and had a limited success in developing cultural responsiveness of teachers. The construct of culturally relevant education is complex and multi-layered, and thus hard to measure without simplifying it to measurable constructs. Limitations of the study and implications for the future research and practice are discussed.

Recent research suggests that culturally responsive teaching (CRT) practices have the potential to increase student educational outcomes, as well as to reduce unnecessary or inappropriate placement referrals. Examination of the core components in CRT, teacher efficacy and cultural competence, is proposed to be a critical step to reduce unwarranted referrals of culturally and linguistically diverse students. However, there is limited empirical support for the relationship between CRT and instructional referrals, and even among existing studies there is inconsistency regarding the relation of these constructs. The purpose of this study is to examine teacher factors (i.e., teacher role, degree earned, years of teaching, ESL certification held, language proficiency and ethnicity) as a predictor of teacher competence, and the role these factors play in teachers’ referral decision making. To investigate these relationships, a national sample of elementary teachers (N = 258) completed a survey addressing their background, profession endorsements, sense of teaching efficiency, and the instructional decisions they would make in the scenarios presented. The results of this study revealed that teacher role (i.e., general, ESL or special educator) and ESL certification were important predictors of teacher competency. A statistically significant mean difference in teacher competency was found between teachers with and without ESL certification, indicating ESL certification as an important factor in deciding the level of teacher competency. Finally, teacher competency was found to improve teachers’ instructional decision making in scenarios in which the students displayed linguistic difficulties. The findings provide valuable insights to teacher training programs and other professional development entities regarding how to prepare educators to work more efficiently with ESL students.

Extant research suggests the necessity for teachers to be culturally responsive to teach effectively to a diverse classroom. Extant research has also examined the perspectives of immigrant students in Western countries and the perspectives of teachers teaching to immigrant students. However, few studies have examined the perspectives of Canadian teachers lived experiences teaching first-or second-generation Chinese students. This qualitative study used a phenomenological approach to examine the experiences of six Canadian teachers who have taught first-or second-generation Chinese students and who have interacted with family members. The participants included four female and two male teachers with one teacher who taught in primary school and five teachers who have taught, and continue to teach in high school. The participants presently reside in British Columbia, Canada. The study’s data were gathered by semi-structured interviews, which were transcribed and analyzed to find common themes and the essence of the participants’ experiences. The study’s results indicated that Canadian teachers find teaching first-or second-generation Chinese students to be both positive and challenging. There are numerous differences between Chinese and Canadian preferences of learning, communicating, expectations, values, and perspectives of success, education, mental illness and learning challenges. The participants also provided recommendations for teachers and schools when teaching first- or second-generation Chinese students. / Graduate

abstract: One of the major issues confronting education in Arizona and across the United States has been the consistent low performance of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students in comparison to their peers as evidenced by the disparity of the achievement gap at every level in the educational pipeline. A contributing factor has been the lack of teacher preparation focused on teaching CLD students. Preparation focused on a culturally responsive curriculum about dispositions and pedagogical knowledge and skills as well as field experience placement with CLD students have been previously identified areas to consider when training preservice teachers (PSTs). Therefore, this study examined how a Culturally Responsive and Linguistic Teaching (CRLT) Framework would raise preservice teacher’s critical consciousness about teaching CLD students. The CRLT Framework focused on two specific areas; (a) a culturally responsive curriculum and (b) a team-based service-learning experience. The CRP curriculum included lessons designed to increase PSTs understanding about how their sociolinguist views influenced their pedagogical knowledge about teaching CLD students. In addition, the team-based service-learning approach, as a community of practice, provided experiences for PSTs to apply theory to practice. A mixed method analysis was employed to collect and analyze the quantitative data (surveys) and qualitative data (interviews and photovoice). Results from this study suggested increases in PSTs’ knowledge, self-efficacy, and perceptions of usefulness of CRP in their future practices. The team-based, service-learning component, which was based on a community of practice framework, enhanced the learning experience by allowing students to move from theory to practice and served as an important contributing factor to the overall results. Given the findings of this research study, it appeared that an introductory course focused on a culturally responsive and linguistic teaching influenced PSTs’ dispositions, knowledge, and skills. Thus, providing an introductory course, earlier rather than later, has the potential to change the trajectory of preparing PSTs so they were more prepared to teach CLD students as they continued through their program of study. Results showed effective work with CLD students was about so much more than ‘just good teaching.’ / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2019