Indigenous communities have inhabited Louisiana since time immemorial. However, the national project of teaching the rise of the West as a heroic story remains the curricular centerpiece in elementary and high school history classes in North America. As a curriculum theorist, and former science and history teacher, I am concerned with the ways in which my teachings of colonialisms cultural, historical, and national narratives suppress and silence the stories of the colonized. Therefore, the purpose of this paper (based on a four-year qualitative study) is to share oral histories of the United Houma Nation in order to illustrate their daily lives inside and outside the colonizers institutional systems. Louisianas political, judicial and educational institutions recently settled the longest desegregation lawsuit in American history. My dissertation research illustrates historically how Louisianas State apparatus dictated educational exclusion through the infamous Jim Crow policies of racial segregation. Like many African-American communities in the south, the United Houma Nation did not have any access to White systems of public education until the mid-1960s. An Indian identity denied the United Houma Nation from having access to African American schools as well. Community members were excludedraciallyfrom Louisianas educational institutions. Very little research has been done the United Houma Nation and their historical relationships with Louisianas educational systems. The potential social significance for revisiting history via qualitative research methods that stress situating and contextualizing local voices is that it becomes a way for transforming both the content and the purpose of history.

This research explored whether there was a difference between two methods of phonemic awareness instruction. Two groups of kindergarten students were selected. One group received an implicit method of phonemic awareness instruction. A second group received an explicit model of phonemic awareness instruction. Of particular concern were these questions: What is the impact of phonemic awareness instruction on reading achievement? How does phonemic awareness instruction delivered via an implicit instructional method differ from an explicit, scripted method of instruction in their respective impact on reading achievement? Triangulation between the qualitative and quantitative data support the finding that an explicit method of phonemic awareness instruction appears to provide greater academic achievement over an implicit method.

Have you ever had a dream that you shared an intimate momentgrew closewith someone who in your waking life you barely knew; or that you knew a language that outside of your dream you did not understand? Or if you are a teacher, have you ever dreamt that you connected with a studentactually taught them something? If upon waking you have felt the residual yet potent ephemeral as-ifness of such closeness, you have experienced what is the focus of this study: the semblance of intimacy. This dissertation, via autoethnography, couples experiences teaching multicultural education and learning to zydeco dance in order to explore semblances of intimacy across self and other; also, to consider the implications of such semblances in terms of thinking about curriculum and research. I use the term semblance to suggest that the intimacy at work in the embodied virtual worlds of zydeco, autoethnography, and curriculum can be a powerful as-ifness, or what Jerome Bruner (1985) might describe as a truth likeness (p. 97). Thrift (1997) explores dance as as an example of play; a kind of exaggeration of everyday embodied joint action which contains within it the capacity to hint at different experiential frames, elsewheres which are here (p. 150). Thrift (1997) calls these hints to elsewhere semblances, which he describes as an embodied meaning that is not taken for real, but it is enacted as if it were (p. 145). In what follows, I borrow Thrifts (1997) notion of semblance to look specifically at semblances of intimacy embodied on the dance floor, and the implications such intimacy might have for thinking about curriculum and autoethnographic research. What might it mean to envision curriculum as an embodied locale much like zydeco dancing: where the play of epistemological forces replaces technocratic force, and where students experience the relative weight of desire, fear, and knowledge; the reciprocal touch of self and other; and the mysterious momentum of the semblance of intimacy?

African American women represent a long line of prophetic women. Women who fought for space in the religious world of the nineteenth century, and who fought to have their voices heard in America. The lives and experiences of such women have been excluded, ignored, and dismissed from academic discourses. This study adds a new dimension (the spirituality of African-American women) to the field of curriculum theory and builds on the scholarship of literary scholars who have and are currently recovering the lost lives of African American women and their spirituality. Therefore, this research examined the spirituality and rhetorical strategies utilized by three African American women of the nineteenth century (Maria Miller Stewart, Julia Foote, and Zilpha Elaw) to break down and challenge nineteenth century ideologies around race and gender. Maria Stewart, Julia Foote and Zilpha Elaw espoused a prophetic pedagogy. Prophetic pedagogy is defined as the art or science of teaching in which the individual appropriates a perceived mandate from God to spread His word in order to teach, preach, and advance a conscious or unconscious political agenda. Narratives, autobiographies, sermons and speeches were carefully examined in order to explore the spirituality and rhetorical strategies employed by these three women. The researcher participated in the literal exhumation of Maria Miller Stewart, Julia Foote and Zilpha Elaw, who were crying out from unmarked graves. The researcher conducted an Academic Autopsy on the remains (autobiographies, narratives, etc.) of these three nineteenth century women who paved the way for so many African American women. The findings of this study conclude that Stewart, Elaw and Foote used rhetorical strategies such as conversion rhetoric, spiritual autobiography, resistance rhetoric, radical obedience, the Jeremiad tradition, a theology of conflict and a theology of empowerment to break down barriers and cross cultural boundaries of the nineteenth century. Black women have used any means necessary to speak out and be heard, but for many, their spirituality and religious lives represent devices that allowed them to share their moral wisdom, to empower their communities, to resist stereotypes, and to survive in the face of oppression.

Because of standardized testing in Louisiana, the high school American history curriculum has been reduced to a long list of facts. Students no longer learn the story of American history the people and events that have defined America as we know it. Instead, it is presented to them in fragmented pieces. Teachers move so quickly from subject to subject that they fail to explain the origin and transformation of ideas. This paper proposes teaching a period of history through the life of an important historical figure, in this case, Jane Addams. Through the life of Jane Addams, students can negotiate the issues of the time period from her childhood in the 1880s to her work in the First World War. Janes life can provide the framework for teaching the Progressive Era in a way that will make students think about how the work done by reformers in 1890, still affects our lives today. The reformers of the progressive era pushed for legislation on the local, state, and federal levels so that all people, regardless of sex, race, social class, and religious affiliation, could receive the assistance they needed to live in the new industrial society. Janes personal philosophy about society and social reform became part of a larger philosophy that we now identify as American pragmatism. American pragmatism and the different variations provide the philosophical basis for the progressive movement at the turn of the century. Students will be encouraged to discuss topics like social ethics, democracy, and experience. They will see how Jane Addams put philosophy to practice in her work at Hull House. Learning about the Progressive Era through the life and accomplishments of Jane Addams provides a platform for future discussion of issues both past and present.

Teaching and learning involve reflexive actions and should be chosen thoughtfully and deliberately, not because someone has decided what works. In this study, I examine how complex conversations might offer pedagogical and theoretical (re)considerations in a teacher education course on mathematics. The term math methods is a doubly weighted phrase, for both mathematics and methods connote particular ideologies prevalent in current educational rhetoric. In order to unpack the impact of these words, I engage in research based on inquiry, historical analysis, and personal reflections, all of which I use in an eclectic, thoughtful, and explorative manner. The two main research questions I will explore in this dissertation involve effort by teacher and student in which both are learners, knowers and participants. The first question is how can complex conversationsthose involving multiple perspectivesaid pre-service teachers in becoming reflective practitioners, effective professionals, and inquiring pedagogues? Specifically, teaching mathematics as a relational activityin which a hermeneutical perspective is crucialbrings forth epistemological questions and issues. The historical situatedness of teacher education and mathematics education become relevant with respect to current epistemological perspectives of teachers and researchers, and these influences are examined in the context of pre-service teachers positionalities. The second question involves an examination of how I am transformed as I experience and reflect on participation in these complex conversations. While engaged as an instructor, I am simultaneously influenced by research in complexity theory, curriculum theory, and teacher education. In complex conversations, we can find possibilities for teaching and learning, even potential ways of being that we do not yet know. Complex conversations encourage a different form of interaction, a different way of imagining the worlddifferent from a Ramist method of hierarchies, different from a patriarchal positioning of supervisors over teachers and teachers over students, and different from mathematics as what is. In (re)imagining what mathematics can be, it is important to recognize how mathematics is currently construed. May mathematics education be(come) a field of study that allows for differences, multiple perspectives, and authentic questions, where ideas do not converge or diverge but co-emerge.

Historical plantation museums have been criticized for biased interpretation practices that marginalize the historical presence of enslaved African Americans. This is a curriculum question that is relevant to historical museums that are wrestling with impacting social change and developing equitable practices to serve increasingly broad and diverse audiences. I conducted an action research study with five museum workers at Magnolia Mound Plantation (MMP) in south Louisiana to better understand the limits and possibilities of expanding slave life representations at this museum. I implemented the study using action research and archival research. Action research involved ethnographic methodologies including tour observations, interviews, focus group meetings, and feedback from outside reviewers. The archival research generated a report documenting this sites enslaved community from 1786-1830. Museum workers demonstrated that they were engaged in remembrance learning, a kind of learning to live with loss, when they were faced with revising the museums traditional planter-focused tour to an integrated tour that elevated the historical presence of the enslaved community. Looking through an educational psychoanalytic lens, I found that the newly introduced slave life histories disrupted museum workers understandings of MMPs history, which incited feelings of loss for the iconic meanings of the historical site and for museum workers personal attachments to French Louisiana plantation heritage. Museum workers used expressions of mourning and melancholia to describe their engagement with the slave life histories.

Determining why and what motivates students to succeed is a prominent question in todays educational arena. Often accountability measures cycle around the classroom teacher, their preparation, and perceived effectiveness. To assure that teachers have adequate knowledge, minimum grade point averages are required from accredited institutions. Teacher preparation is carefully monitored by NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education). Each state uses a similar process for awarding initial teaching certificates. Teaching certificates are issued after candidates have completed a rigorous curriculum and proven that they possess the qualities and dispositions of effective teaching. Unfortunately, very few assessments exist to measure teacher effectiveness among tenured faculty. The primary measure used to evaluate teacher performance after initial certification is quantitative data from standardized testing of students. Similarly, the promotion and tenure process dictates the criteria for evaluating teaching and scholarly productivity at the college level. Attributes of scholarly productivity are directly related to the new professor; however, student outcomes and evaluations play a key role in the overall perceived effectiveness of the teacher (instructor), untenured assistant professor. The purpose of this study is to determine how administrative decisions impact student outcomes and teacher effectiveness. Throughout each step in the methodology, continual synthesis was utilized to determine the connection between, extant data sets such as grade distribution and student progress, and instructor/professor perceptions about the effects of managerialism. Through this process patterns of decision making can be identified and linked to emerging themes and connections. The study yielded results to support the theory that administrators and managers in academic settings do impact teaching effectiveness and student outcomes. Due to the fact that administrators rarely have direct instructional contact with students whom they are not the instructor of record, the connection to student outcomes is a direct result of the perception of managerialism. University faculty members who perceived that their input was valued during change were receptive to the changes that occurred. This study could be replicated across any university campus and is not limited to a college of education.

This study sought to extend the literature on parent participation in the Individual Education Plan (IEP) process by implementing an intervention aimed at fostering parent participation in IEP meetings and comparing its results to those obtained using one school districts standard IEP meeting procedures. This study also sought to determine the effects of SES and disability on parent participation in IEP meetings. Specifically, a mini-conference between parent(s) and special education teachers prior to the IEP meeting informed parents of their childs competencies and allowed for collaboration on a proposed IEP. A control group of parents was exposed to routine procedures involving no conference. The effectiveness of the mini-conference compared to no mini-conference was determined. Differences on dependent measures according to disability as well as SES were determined. Dependent measures included a researchers coding form designed to allow the investigator to numerically document the amount of parental input in IEP meetings and questionnaires completed by both parents and professionals at the conclusion of the IEP meeting. The questionnaires were intended to solicit parent, teacher, and administrator perceptions of parental comfort and participation in the IEP process. For parents who received the mini-conference, questionnaires were used to determine whether parents, teachers, and administrators felt the mini-conference was helpful in preparing the parents for the IEP meeting. Fifteen special educators participated in the study. The return rate of parent consents was 41.9%. No differences were found in either parent or administrator survey responses to items relating to parent comfort or satisfaction with meeting outcome between the experimental and control groups. However, differences were present for the teachers on the same survey measures. Parent education level was correlated with parent participation in the IEP meetings. Parent participation was no different depending on the percentage of the school day a student received special education services. There was no difference in parent participation by conference group, as measured by number of unsolicited parental contributions. However, parents, teachers, and administrators all responded that the mini-conference was helpful in preparing for the IEP meeting, would be beneficial before all IEP meetings, and increased parental participation.

By examining major documents for tensions regarding the teaching of literature in the field of secondary English education, this dissertation addressed the following questions: (1) What assumptions about learning and knowledge helped to shape the field? (2) To what extent does the field demonstrate consistency or change in its discourse defined-positions? and (3) How might current conversations in the field fit within a larger historical, social, and political context, thus equipping English educators to better articulate and situate their own pedagogical beliefs? Stephen Toulmins (1958) model of an argument served as a means of analyzing the fields ongoing conversation about the teaching of literature, as revealed in its central documents and publications. The study examined these works, which were generally offered in response to texts from outside of the field, during three periods throughout the history of English education as a profession: the inaugural era of the field, the social reform era, and the era of accountability. Analyses, which focused on asserted claims and the data and warrants supporting them, demonstrated that the field has remained relatively consistent in its claims about the purposes and methodologies for the teaching of literature, particularly with its emphasis on experience, a concept commonly associated with the progressive movement in education. This study, which provides insight into the shared values among English education, serves as a continuation of the conversation in the field. It highlights the relevance of key works from the field and of the voices of major historical figures as well as of current participants, and it provides a historical lens for examining contemporary issues in English education. In doing so, it promotes a synonymous, rather than dichotomous, relationship between tradition and reform. Throughout history, when English educators have felt outward pressure to redefine their field, they have turned to the progressive notion of experience as their guiding tradition. Despite the connotations usually associated with traditional education, this analysis demonstrates that reform or progresstypically juxtaposed against traditionis the tradition for the field of English education. Reference Toulmin, S. E. (1958). The uses of argument. New York: Cambridge University Press.