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.

This study was designed to investigate concerns with respect to the delivery of special education services in reserve schools, to identify the special needs of children attending these schools, and to study means of identifying and assessing children with special needs. The information obtained was used to develop a special education funding formula which would be more sensitive and responsive to the specific needs of Indian students in schools on reserves in Saskatchewan.<p> The study which was an exploratory field study involved two or more days of intensive discussion between the researcher and various groups of people on each of six reserves. At the conclusion of the study, a committee comprised of representatives of each band met with the researcher to review the findings and to make recommendations.<p> The study addressed three main areas of concern-the identification and assessment of special education students, the special needs of students in reserve schools, and funding arrangements. Results indicated that current procedures for identifying and assessing special education students are vague, costly, and time-consuming. As well, bands do not have easy access to the qualified personnel to do the identification and/or testing. It was also discovered that large numbers of students in reserve schools are handicapped because they are severely disadvantaged, seriously age-grade misplaced, and/or severely emotionally deprived. These categories of handicap, although not recognized by the the special education funding formulas, do interfere with the academic achievement and success of the students. Bands are experiencing problems with the current funding arrangements. Inadequacy of funds to cover the costs of delivering appropriate programming, lack of firm policies and procedures for accessing and allocating funds or to direct the process of delivering funds to the band level, and ineffective systems at the band level for administering special education funds are the chief problems.<p> It was recommended that the funding formula should consist of three components--a low cost component to offset the costs of programming for the mildly to moderately handicapped; a special needs component to cover the costs of programming required beyond what is provided through the low cost component; a support services component to cover the costs of education psychologists, classroom consultants, speech therapists, and other consultant services. As well, it was stressed that for such a formula to be truly functional, well-defined policies and procedures would have to be developed and implemented.

This study aimed to examine and describe the perceptions of English-medium instruction of tertiary &ndash / level students in a private university in Turkey. The scale which consists of a demographic inventory, a questionnaire, and a semi-structured interview were used by the researcher. The results of the questionnaire were analyzed through SPSS 15.0. This data gathering instrument was implemented on 233 students studying at three different faculties at Atilim University which offer English-medium instruction. In analyzing the data, descriptive statistics as frequency, percent, and standard deviation and inferential statistics such as one sample t-test and Pearson Product Moment Correlations were used. As the second scale of the present study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 students studying at three different faculties at Atilim University which offer English-medium instruction (EMI). The results of the interviews were analyzed through content analysis. The results of the study revealed that students support EMI at tertiary level and they hold positive attitudes towards EMI in terms of the improvement of language skills in English / nevertheless, they experience some difficulties in the learning of the content delivered in English. Results also showed that there is a positive relationship between students&rsquo / proficiency levels and perceptions towards EMI regarding the learning of the subject matters. Moreover, it was found that there is also a positive relationship between students&rsquo / attitudes towards EMI regarding the learning of the subject matters and their academic success.

The purpose of this research study is to identify teachers&rsquo / perceptions on the effectiveness of their teacher education programs in supporting their professional practices. The data to the study were gathered through semi-structured interviews with 17 in-service teachers working in public early childhood institutions in Ankara. The data were analyzed through the emerging codes and themes shaped by the research questions. The results indicated that the 1998 program the study intended to investigate was found to be relatively satisfying in terms of developing professional teach ing competencies. The major weakness was reported to be theory-oriented structure which did not allow for ample practice opportunities both in the courses and in the field experiences. Moreover, due to the infancy ages of the field, the contents of courses offered were perceived to be in line with the essentials of primary and elementary level which contradicts the necessities of early childhood teaching. The findings were further discussed and interpreted.

Online education has changed the way education is delivered. Higher education has been the leader of providing online education. Currently, the fastest growing online degree program in higher education is a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree. This demand is due to employees who are looking to move up in their career but who are not able to attend school full-time. Many accredited not-for-profit business schools as well as for-profit universities have launched their own online business degree programs to meet this demand. This report aims to review best practices for online business degree programs. It will describe the evolution of distance education as it pertains to higher education, the difference between campus, online and hybrid mode and the types of online learning. This report also identifies how higher education and business schools are providing online education and are competing with for-profit universities and explains why Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accreditation is important. I will also discuss the benefits of delivering online business degree programs as well as proves the challenges that administration, students and faculty face in this process. Through analysis of existing research studies, the report will explain which best practices administration, faculty and students can adopt in order to offer and participate in a successful online business degree program. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D. in Special Education)--Vanderbilt University, Dec. 2004. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2009. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-105). Issued in print and online. Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations.

Submitted by Leonardo Cavalcante (leo.ocavalcante@gmail.com) on 2018-05-17T16:39:14Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Arquivototal.pdf: 3267764 bytes, checksum: ec15b2ca6608bf6f43350a4931df9cdd (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-05-17T16:39:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Arquivototal.pdf: 3267764 bytes, checksum: ec15b2ca6608bf6f43350a4931df9cdd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-28 / Gender issues are present in social relations in an invisible and naturalized way. Therefore, choices and actions are conditioned by the dictates of a patriarchal, androcentric, heteronormative society. Considering that the sexual division is the largest social division of the world today, research on gender conditioning in school and especially in secondary school allows visualizing prejudices and stereotypes in order to seek strategies for gender equity. Along this line, based on a quantiqualitative exploratory and descriptive approach, this dissertation aimed to analyze students’ relationships with technology and choices of higher education, seeking to understand whether they are influenced by gender naturalization and/or stereotypes, leading women to choose traditionally female specializations and occupations, and men to pursue socially prestigious careers that are considered masculine. The students attended an integrated technical/high school offering courses in Informatics, sponsored by the Military Police, located in João Pessoa, in the state of Paraíba, Brazil. A questionnaire was answered by 185 students (1st to 3rd year), 101 female and 84 male. Guided by Content Analysis and gender theories, data analyses are presented in tables and graphs, according to sex and school year. They show that students have a strong connection with technology and that there are gender differences in how they relate to it, one being the propensity of girls to seek information and of boys to seek entertainment when they navigate on the Internet. In addition, the naturalization of gender stereotypes in social relations seems to influence the youngsters’ identification with knowledge areas and thus to reflect on their choices of higher education. Such choices were associated with the feminine attributes of care, leading girls to choose Humanities, Social Sciences and Biology, and with traditional masculine attributes, leading boys to careers in Science and Technology. Thus, it was observed that girls, although enrolled in technical courses in the area of Informatics, do not intend to pursue a career in this area; likewise, the percentage of boys intending to continue in this area was low, raising questions for new investigations. It was also observed the influence of military culture in the school, affecting intentions of professional choices, as the Course of Military Officers was pointed out by both sexes. / Questões de gênero estão presentes nas relações sociais de forma invisível e naturalizada. Dessa forma, as escolhas e o agir são condicionados pelos ditames de uma sociedade patriarcal, androcêntrica e heteronormativa. A divisão sexual é considerada a maior divisão social do mundo atual, portanto pesquisar sobre condicionamentos de gênero na escola e, principalmente, no Ensino Médio permite visibilizar preconceitos e estereótipos para buscar estratégias de equidade de gênero. Diante disso, esta dissertação teve o objetivo de analisar a relação com a tecnologia e as perspectivas de escolha de cursos superiores de jovens estudantes do Ensino Médio integrado à área da Computação da Escola Estadual Estudante Rebeca Cristina Alves Simões/PB, mais conhecida como Escola da Polícia Militar (CPM), buscando compreender se são influenciadas por naturalizações e/ou estereótipos de gênero, levando as mulheres a escolherem cursos/ocupações/especializações tradicionalmente femininos e os homens a buscarem carreiras de prestígio social em redutos considerados masculinos. Para tanto, foram aplicados questionários com 185 estudantes (do 1° ao 3° ano), sendo 101 mulheres e 84 homens. A pesquisa assume uma abordagem quanti/qualitativa e um caráter exploratório e descritivo. Sistematizados em tabelas e gráficos, destacando sexo e série/ano, os dados foram analisados com base na Análise de Conteúdo de Bardin e nas teorizações sobre gênero. A análise evidenciou que os/as estudantes possuem uma forte ligação com a tecnologia e que há diferenças de gênero na forma como estes/estas se relacionam com a mesma, sendo uma delas a propensão das meninas a buscarem informações e dos meninos a buscarem o entretenimento quando navegam na internet. Além disso, verificou-se que a naturalização dos estereótipos de gênero nas relações sociais parece influenciar as identificações dos/as jovens com as áreas do conhecimento e se refletir nas escolhas de cursos superiores. Tais escolhas estavam associadas a atributos de gênero, levando as meninas a escolherem carreiras da área de Ciências Humanas, Sociais e Biológicas, ligadas ao cuidado, e direcionando os meninos para as carreiras de Ciências Exatas e Tecnologia. Dessa forma, percebeu-se que as meninas, mesmo estando inseridas em cursos técnicos da área da Computação, integrados ao Ensino Médio, não pretendem seguir carreira na referida área, mas também o percentual de meninos que pretendem prosseguir nessa área foi baixo, suscitando questionamentos para novas investigações. Também se observou a influência da cultura militar, presente na escola investigada, nas pretensões de escolhas profissionais, pois o Curso de Formação de Oficiais (CFO) obteve destaque entre as escolhas declaradas por ambos os sexos. Palavras chave: Gênero. Escolhas de cursos superiores. Ensino Médio. Computação.

The problem with which this study is concerned is to analyze the impact of the local cooperative teacher education centers on teacher education programs at institutions of higher education in Texas. A survey instrument was designed around seven research questions; after the instrument was evaluated by a panel of experts, it was sent to 142 individuals who are involved with the Texas teacher centers, 111 of whom responded.