The purpose of this dissertation is to examine, explore, and describe the phenomenon of teaching with a focus on self-esteem, or teaching with a focus on the affective or psychological domain of development. This phenomenon is called humanistic education which is rooted in humanistic psychology, an American school of psychology that evolved in the middle of this century. Humanistic education is on the rise in educational institutions across the country because of a positive relationship between self-esteem and constructive learning and because of the growing self-esteem needs of our nation's children. This study sought to gain a grounded understanding of the experience and significance assigned to the experience of teaching with a focus on self-esteem by learning from fifteen teachers who actually do teach with such a focus. The qualitative method of in-depth phenomenological interviewing was employed. The data is presented in the form of narrated profiles of selected participants and in the form of key themes that comprise the phenomenon.

The purpose of the study was to examine beginning preschool teachers' conceptions of teaching young children and their perceptions of the origins of these ideas. The participants were six preschool teachers employed during their first two years after graduating with A.S. degrees in early childhood education from five different two-year colleges. This qualitative multi-case study used observations, videotapes, and in-depth interviews to collect data about the experiences of the six teachers. The Ethnograph (Seidel, 1988) software program was employed to manage the data. An adapted model of pedagogical content knowledge, as described in the literature on teacher knowledge (Shulman, 1986; Grossman 1990), was used to organize the data along a learning-to-teach continuum, as described in the teacher socialization literature (Feiman-Nemser, 1983; Zeichner & Gore, 1990). This continuum begins with early experiences, progresses through formal teacher education, and continues throughout a teacher's career. The major findings of the study indicate earlier experiences provided the teachers with predispositions toward particular curriculum content and interactional styles. Their conceptualization of what and how to teach to young children was developed and enriched during formal teacher education with coursework contributing primarily to curricular knowledge. Practicum experiences, including opportunities to bring on-campus learnings into settings for young children, were a major source of the development of instructional strategies. A combination of coursework and direct experiences with children of varying ages and in various contexts contributed to the teachers' overall understanding of children. The teachers reported learning from colleagues, trying things out, and "just being with children" as rich sources of practical knowledge (Elbaz, 1981) during their early years of professional experience. Both explicit and implicit connections were made between how knowledge was gained during these induction years and the content and process of their formal teacher education programs, as well as with their prior experiences. This study, in contrast to previous studies of preschool teachers, provides descriptive data of the substance and process of five early childhood teacher education programs from the perspectives of their graduates. Insights were thus gained into the aspects of the teacher preparation experiences the teachers found have made valuable contributions to their present work.

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Agriculture teacher demographics continue to shift with an increase in early career and female teachers entering the profession. Female teachers have been shown to report lower student motivation and lower self-efficacy compared to males (Martin, 2006; Hastedt et al., 2021; Tran, 2015; Klaussen & Chiu, 2010). Within agricultural education, early career teachers have reported concerns with student motivation and self-efficacy (Stair et al., 2012; Blackburn & Robinson, 2008.) Even though student motivation has been identified as a major issue, student motivation and its effects on agriculture teachers have not been studied within agricultural education. The purpose of this study was to identify the current perceptions of female early career agriculture teachers in relation to student motivation. A grounded theory approach using semi-structured interviews was used in this qualitative study. An analysis of the data revealed that these teachers have difficulty motivating students in relation to SAE/FFA participation, valuing of the content, and classroom engagement and persistence. Teachers mentioned student teacher relationships, classroom management, and past success as factors that increase student motivation. Teachers also discussed the effects of low student motivation on their careers which included feelings of anxiety, stress, and questioning of ability. It is recommended that teachers in agricultural education focus on improving the adaptive dimensions of valuing of school and persistence. Additionally, stakeholders within agricultural education should offer professional development in the areas of student motivation and SAE implementation.

Korea's intense quest for globalization, combined with rapid growth in economic development, has caused the number of young students (secondary school age and younger) leaving Korea for overseas study to rise steadily in recent years. This phenomenon of young Korean students studying overseas is termed jogi yuhak, which can be directly translated as Early Study Abroad (ESA). The phenomenon of ESA has stirred both interests and concerns to Korean society for more than a decade. At the same time, American schools are beginning to see more of these ESA students in their classrooms, as a result of the United States being the preferred destination country for more than one-third of the ESA students in Korea. Although the growing presence of ESA students in school classrooms has begun to attract increasing attention from educators and researchers in the United States, there are no clear statistics investigating the numbers of ESA students in the United States, and that most school officials are even unaware of the trend. The qualitative phenomenological study was used to explore the lived experiences of Korean ESA students in the United States in relation to their adaption to their new environment, as well as the factors that they perceive to help or challenge them in attaining successful adaption. Ten Korean Early Study Abroad (KESA) students attending schools in the Washington Metropolitan region were recruited for this study, and face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gather information regarding experiences and perceptions of KESA students in the United States. Findings show that most KESA students feel that having friends, participating in extracurricular activities and maintaining contacts with their families and friends in Korea using social media and instant messaging helped them as they made the transition into American culture. Students also indicated that the language barrier, being away from family, not owning a car, difficulty keeping in touch with old friends, cultural differences and racism are the most serious challenges for them during their adaptation period. This research documents the unique challenges faced by KESA students and provide a helpful guideline for counselors and educators working with ESA students from Korea, as well as indicate the directions that should be pursued by further research. / Ph. D.

This study examines the socioeconomic lives of artisans of German descent who worked within Wythe County, Virginia from 1780 to 1830. It is particularly concerned with how a distinct German-American culture manifests over time as seen through these artisans' produced materials and structures. This thesis traces this manifestation through a careful examination of Wythe material culture, wills, probates, inventories, court records, account books, receipts, invoices, census records, personal correspondence, and personal property tax assessments. Scholars of early America and the southern backcountry have often narrated German cultural identity transformations along the lines of language and marriages. This work diverts from those tendencies, thereby complicating prior understanding of German-Americans settlement and development patterns in early America. Beginning in the 1780s entire German families, neighborhoods, and communities left their prior American homes and settled within a relatively unsettled area of southwest Virginia. These predominately second-generation German descendants brought with them to the backcountry a culturally-constructed material culture lexicon passed onto them by their ancestors. This thesis argues that artisans of Wythe County operated as major agents of economic and social development while also providing a hybridized cultural resource for their neighbors and surrounding Great Road communities. These German families and congregations, composed of farmers, hausfrauen (housekeepers), and craftsmen by trade, sought to maintain a familiar and distinct cultural landscape and ethos through the many wares and structures they produced. These German neighborhoods accommodated and diversified their trades to fit within a burgeoning early-American society while still aware of their predominately German community's cultural character and needs. / Master of Arts

Young children grow cognitively competent through joint processes of guided participation and appropriation wherein children use past interpretations of experiences in their lives to make sense of new events (Rogoff, 1990). While young children are deemed competent meaning-makers when supported by their everyday social contexts (Fivush and Hudson, 1991, Rogoff, 1990) in the early years of schooling, traditional classroom discourse styles do not facilitate the child's ability to access their personal meaning. Based on findings from three pilot studies, it was hypothesized that four features of the social context--the teacher's valuing of their personal meaning, encouraging children to personalize their narrative, use of informal conversational discourse, and encouraging peer contribution--would enhance children's meaning-making. In order to examine the relationship of these social context features on the process of meaning making, memories were collected from children in a four step memory book activity. Thirty-six teachers from five different socioeconomic settings conducted the memory book activity with 199 children wherein the children verbally reported on and made pictures of a self chosen event from their past. Transcripts, developed from the videotapes of the memory book activity, were rated for coherence and completeness of the memories, and the degree to which the four context features were in evidence. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to determine whether there was a relationship between the children's ability to access and communicate their memory and the four independent variables. The results indicate that the teachers valuing and commitment to children's personal knowledge is a significant predictor of coherent and complete memories. In this study, meaning-making and guided participation can be described as social and collaborative in nature, and proceeds in a four stage process.

Hersh (1986) states, "One's conception of what mathematics is affects one's conception of how it should be presented. One's manner of presenting it is an indication of what one believes to be most essential in it." In this research study, three hundred ninety-seven urban early childhood teachers were given a survey that examined their attitudes toward mathematics and mathematics teaching, their views of mathematics, views of teaching mathematics, and views of children learning mathematics. The purpose of this study was to identify the attitudes and beliefs of early childhood teachers in two urban school districts to determine if mathematics reform efforts made a difference in teachers' attitudes and beliefs about mathematics and its teaching. Questionnaires were mailed directly to teachers in one school district and principals distributed questionnaires in the other. Summary scores were calculated for parts of the instrument. The researcher performed descriptive statistics, comparative analysis, and conducted frequency distributions, t-tests, ANOVA, and Pearson Correlations. Findings revealed that teachers with 30 or more years of teaching experience had more positive attitudes toward mathematics than teachers with 1-3 years of experience. African American teachers had more positive attitudes toward mathematics and its teaching than other ethnic groups. Teachers who held a minor or major in mathematics had more positive attitudes toward mathematics and its teaching than teachers without a minor or major in mathematics. Teachers in District-A favored constructivist learning while teachers in District-B favored rote learning. Both school districts' teachers favored the problem-solving approach to teaching mathematics. If instruction is to be transformed, reformers need to understand teachers' beliefs about mathematics. Beliefs, which are essential for teachers' development, seldom change without significant intervention (Lappan and Theule-Lubienski, 1994). Therefore, school districts must be informed about the changes necessary for the reform of mathematics teaching and identify and implement through staff developments and other measures what they perceive mathematics to be and how it should be taught.