African American high school students are underrepresented in study abroad programs, and their lack of intercultural skills and international understanding can impede their personal and professional development, and limit their career opportunities. The purpose of this descriptive qualitative case study was to explore the influence of intercultural experiences through study abroad and immersion programs on African American high school students' intercultural competence. The conceptual framework drew on 2 theories: Bennett's development model of intercultural sensitivity and Kolb's experiential learning. Data from interviews and focus groups with 13 African American high school students, 2 parents, and 2 teachers as well as documents and field notes from a Northeast United States urban high school addressed the research questions pertaining to how students perceived travel abroad that fostered intercultural competence skills as well as how teachers and parents perceived students' personal development. Findings resulted from provisional codes used to identify pattern of codes, and central themes that indicated predeparture seminars and reflective practices enhanced intercultural skills. The portfolios suggested that most students became more reflective and accepting of cultural differences after their sojourn abroad. Recommendations based on the findings suggest increasing homestay experiences and planning and predeparture trainings. Future research is needed on how to attract more male African American students to such programs. The findings may contribute to positive social change by encouraging investment in homestay study abroad and immersion programs with adequate preparation and planning at inner city high schools that might foster intercultural competence skills.

Research suggests that participation in the School Breakfast Program positively impacts academic success by improving student behavior, cognitive functioning, and attendance. Additionally, the School Breakfast Program appears to improve food insecurity, overall health and weight-related issues. However, compared to the National School Lunch Program, participation in the School Breakfast Program has been historically low, especially at the high school level. Using an integrated composite framework, a combination of social cognitive theory and ecological systems theory, as the conceptual model, this qualitative case study explored factors influencing student breakfast eating and participation in the school's breakfast program within a college-preparatory high school serving culturally diverse, predominantly low-income students. I used an all-staff survey as a qualitative data collection tool, and semi-structured interviews with school staff, student focus groups, and a Draw-A-High-School-Student-Breakfast Test to collect qualitative data. Using thematic networks as an analysis tool, I examined the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of school staff and students about breakfast eating and participation in the school's breakfast program. The study found that communication about the School Breakfast Program, arriving to school in time to eat, and relationships with food service staff, influence participation in the School Breakfast Program. The findings are discussed in terms of their significance on practice and policy within both education and public health sectors. The study concludes with recommendations for future research.

When cultural values differ, it is difficult for people not to judge one another's behavior on the basis of their own individual and/or cultural values. Given the profound differences in Russian and American culture, the question of what happens when these two cultures interact comes to mind. The purpose of this study was to describe the relationship of culture specific orientation, coupled with a two week sojourn in Russia on the sojourners' perceptions of cultural values. The sojourners were high school athletes participating in the first part of a Russian - American Track and Field Exchange. In order to ascertain the students' value orientations, each student completed six Value Orientation Worksheets. Before the pre-departure orientation the students' completed two worksheets composed of fifteen questions, one according to their own cultural values, and one for their perception of Russian cultural values. The students completed two additional worksheets after the pre-departure orientation sessions, and two worksheets ten months after the sojourn. Analysis of the post-orientation worksheets suggests that the orientation sessions had a greater impact on the students' reported perceptions of their own cultural values than in changing their reported perceptions of Russian values. Unlike the post-orientation responses, an analysis of post-sojourn responses indicated that the sojourn experience appears to have had a comparable affect on the students' reported perceptions of their own cultural values and their reported perceptions of Russian cultural values. Post-sojourn worksheets revealed that agreement among the students after the shared orientation sessions was not a reliable predictor of agreement after the sojourn. In many cases, the individuality of the sojourn experience appears to have overcome the shared informational orientation training. Continued research in this field is needed to determine whether or not the tendencies uncovered in this study can be generalized to include a wider population, specifically - American high school student/athletes traveling abroad for a short term sojourn.

Many at-risk students attending an alternative high school in a northwestern state were not graduating on-time even after a learner-centered blended learning model was implemented. The administration and teachers sought to understand why the change to a learner-centered program was only slightly increasing the graduation rate each year. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore how the learner-centered instructional strategies used within a blended learning model were being implemented and supporting at-risk students. Weimer's learner-centered framework was used to ground the study and guide the research questions which examined teacher and student perspectives about the learner-centered instructional strategies that were being implemented. Interviews were conducted with 6 teachers from diverse disciplines who had taught at the study site for 3 or more years, 4 recent graduates, and 6 current students who were 18 years old or older. Classroom observations of the 6 teachers were conducted and archived student surveys from the previous 2 years were collected. All data were analyzed and coded to identify common themes and strategies regarding learner-centered instruction. The findings indicated the teachers needed professional development in how to implement learner-centered and blended learning strategies and how to help students take responsibility for their education. A yearlong professional development program focused on how to use learner-centered and blended instructional strategies was developed for teachers. Implementation of appropriate learner-centered and blended learning strategies might result in students completing their courses and increased graduation rates. As more students graduate, instead of dropping out, positive social change will occur in the community as they responsibly enter the work force.

Thesis (M.Dev.) --University of Limpopo, 2009 / There is dearth of information about the extent of alcohol abuse by teenagers, focusing mainly on the volume and the frequency of alcohol intake by teenagers especially in a rural setting. Most notable contributions are descriptive in nature and rely on cross-sectional analysis, with little specific focus on rural teenage alcohol abuse. To bridge the gap, this study quantifies the extent of alcohol abuse by teenagers in rural areas by means of a case study in Lebitso Senior Secondary School situated in Mopani District of Limpopo Province. STUDY DESIGN A mixed approach was used with the quantitative method taking the upper hand because of the nature of the variables for the hypotheses formulated which required statistical procedures. Simple random sampling was used as the study was characterized by the representation of the learners of one senior secondary school to represent the homogeneous nature of teenagers in a similar setting, in Limpopo Province. RESULTS The study population consisted of 251 male and female teenage learners of Lebitso Senior Secondary School. In the exploration of alcohol abuse by teenagers, the availability of liquor outlets in respect of the teenagers’households, and the socio-economic status of their families were revealed to have a bearing on their abuse of alcohol. 93% of teenagers had liquor outlets near their places of residence. The study has also shown that 87% of male learners and 13% of female learners had access to finances, which influenced their behaviour towards the abuse of alcohol. CONCLUSION Among the recommendations were that Education, Health, Safety and Security Sectors were to join hands in order to come up with preventative measures to deal with this problem.

Dresher reported that today there is an increased and growing interest among the lay population as well as among educators in the appreciation of the drop-out problem of the public schools of the United States. Some educators believe that one of the most important issues facing education today is the problem of determining ways by which the high school pupil might be encouraged to finish his secondary trainings.

The aim of this research study was to examine high school students' systems thinking when engaged in an engineering design challenge. This study included 12 high school students that were paired into teams of two to work through an engineering design challenge. These dyads were given one hour in their classrooms with access to a computer and engineering sketching paper to complete the design. Immediately following the design challenge, the students participated in a post hoc reflective group interview. The methodology of this study was informed by and derived from cognitive science's verbal protocol analysis. Multiple forms of data were gathered and triangulated for analysis. These forms included audio and video recordings of the design challenge and the interview, computer tracking, and student-generated sketches. The data were coded using Gero's FBS framework. These coded data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The transitions were further analyzed using measures of centrality. Additionally, qualitative analysis techniques were used to understand and interpret systems and engineering design themes and findings. Through the qualitative and quantitative analyses, it was shown that the students demonstrated thinking in terms of systems. The results imply that systems thinking can be part of a high school engineering curriculum. The students considered and explored multiple interconnected variables, both technical as well as nontechnical in nature. The students showed further systems thinking by optimizing their design through balancing trade-offs of nonlinear interconnected variables. Sketching played an integral part in the students' design process, as it was used to generate, develop, and communicate their designs. Although many of the students recognized their own lack of drawing abilities, they understood the role sketching played in engineering design. Therefore, graphical visualization through sketching is a skill that educators may want to include in their curricula. The qualitative analysis also shed light on analogical reasoning. The students drew from their personal experience in lieu of professional expertise to better understand and expand their designs. Hence, the implication for educators is to aid the students in using their knowledge, experience, and preexisting schemata to work through an engineering design.

The purpose of the research reported in this thesis is to investigate the occurrence and recognition of “limit experience” among some Catholic High School students in their final year at selected secondary colleges in Brisbane. “Limit” experience was defined as an experience that reveals a reality of life beyond the self, beyond the here and now. It may be recognition of our own fragility and vulnerability as much as a joyous awareness of a reality beyond our normal encounter with life.” The research work of the Alistair Hardy Research Centre and of Hay (1987) in particular has centred on the question, asked in various ways: Have you ever been aware of, or influenced by, a presence or power, whether you call it God or not, which is different from your everyday life? The survey instrument for this research was designed to divorce questions on such experiences from the direct reference to the term “religious”, although individuals might indeed interpret them as “religious”. To approach the issue, an extensive open-ended survey was administered to senior high school students. It was designed first to determine the extent of recognition of such experiences among the students and second to examine whether factors such as home background, regular religious practice, type of school, subject choice or co-curricula activities may make a difference in enhancing the awareness of such experience. This research has also been designed to enable comparison with similar studies. Major research in Australia by Flynn (1975, 1985, 1993) highlighted the factors above as influencing student achievement. Flynn also made connections to religious practice and attitudes to church but not to religious experience as such. Robinson and Jackson (1987) had undertaken extensive research on religious experience in Great Britain that also has important parallels to this research. Some of the techniques of both studies and in some cases actual questions have formed part of this research instrument. This research has gone further than both studies by incorporating the Hay (1987) categorisation of types of religious experience to form the basis for direct questions on student experience. The data gathering, treatment and analysis focused on four catholic secondary schools in the Brisbane Archdiocese. While the research focus was by definition limited, and while the results have of necessity to be treated with some caution before wider generalisation, the outcomes of the research do illuminate some of the important issues identified in the literature. The results of the survey showed that over 90% of the respondents could affirm some association with a “limit” experience along the lines of the Hay (1987) framework. With significant strengthening of criteria to allow for meaningful statistical analysis, this reduced to 76% of respondents. Results for this smaller group were shown to be essentially independent of home background, type of school attended, co-curricula programs and level of religious practice. With the significant exception of religious education, their recognition of “limit” experience was also independent of subject choice. This last is in contrast to the earlier work of Robinson and Jackson (1987). Exploratory analyses of the data enabled comparisons to be made with a suggested framework for “spiritual sensitivity” and the context of “relational consciousness”, both of which were first proposed by Hay and Nye (1998). This suggests some possible directions for further research into adolescent spirituality. The exploratory analyses also highlight some of the conflict between the reality of these experiences for students and their experience of dissonance with institutional religion.

Such personality idiosyncrasies of creative persons as a preference for disorder and complexity rather than neatness and simplicity may erroneously have earned them the nomenclature of maladjusted, emotionally unstable and eccentric. This field study explores the conventional approach to the evaluation of creative behaviour and suggests that there is an urgent need to revolutionise our acceptance and encouragement of such behaviour in an integrated social and educational sense. Chapter 1 reviews various definitions of creativity and in particular the sociological discrimination against creativity in contemporary society. The notion of the relativity of the predominant social, educational and psychological research perspective is raised. The confusion in meaning which the terms &quotegiftedness&quote, &quotegenius&quote and &quotecreativity&quote evoke in the context of classical research efforts is discussed in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 reviews traditional psychoanalytic, psychiatric and psychometric research into creativity. Orthodox methodology which fragments the total human individual, is seen as detrimental to understanding, accepting and facilitating research into creativity. It has only been where total personality has been considered, that research has proved meaningful. Chapter 4 attempts to correlate the theoretical viewpoints of various authors on creativity, in particular Jung, Barron, Maslow, Assagioli and Hudson. The empirical chapter 5 is divided into four sections. Section I explores teacher attitudes towards creative personality characteristics using Torrance's Ideal Pupil Checklist. The results of the sample of A.C.T. teachers surveyed,correspond closely with those found by Torrance in five other countries, although creativity is markedly less encouraged in Australia than in the United States. Section II explores the attitudes of a sample of Year 10 A.C.T. high school students towards creative personality characteristics. Results show an alarmingly low correlation with expert rankings. Section III compares the teachers' and students' responses on the checklist and finds interesting discrepancies. Section IV is concerned with identifying &quotecreativity&quote in students using a number of instruments, in particular the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator. Additionally, results on this instrument are compared with WL/WQ results and career preferences, where few trends emerged. Chapter 6 restates the necessity of adopting a total personality perspective when considering creativity. The &quotepsychosynthesis&quote model is suggested as fundamentalising and facilitating creative growth personally, educationally and socially. Futuristic aspects of evolution and creativity are raised. Wholeness as opposed to separatism and synthesis as opposed to fragmentation are considered paramount contemporary psychological issues, as exemplified by the &quotesoul searching&quote associated with the drug culture. The need to achieve growth and balance between the different, diverse and complementary, aspects of the psyche, both in individuals and in society is seen as being paramount and of increasing sociological relevance.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Adaptive Behaviour group intervention effected a greater immediate positive change on 'poorly adapted' student locus of control, self esteem, group evaluation and perceived behaviour than Helping Skills, Relaxation Training or No Intervention group after eight weeks. The three independent variables - Adaptive Behaviour, Helping Skills and Relaxation Training Group Interventions - were devised and led by the Researcher and two school counsellors respectively. Measurement of the dependent variables was by the use of the following instruments pre-test and post-test: Locus of Control Scale for Children (Nowicki Strickland 1972); Coopersmith Self Esteem Inventory (Coopersmith, 1982); and researcher designed questionnaires. A pre-test post-test group design was used in the study. The subjects were years 7-9 High School students identified by Student Year Advisers and the Assistant Principal Student Welfare as being 'poorly adapted' and 'well adapted' to the school environment. Students were randomly allocated - in year groups - to the intervention and control groups. Results indicated no short term significant positive change in locus of control for any intervention or controlgroup; no short term significant positive change in self esteem for any intervention group; no significant correlation between locus of control and self esteem scores for any intervention group; positive pre and post-test group evaluations for all groups; some positive short term change in teacher and student perceptions of student behaviour in regard to all three interventions. In some cases students' behaviour in the experimental group (Group A) was perceived more positively by teachers and students. Some recommendations for further research are: replication of the study over a longer period of time with some modification to the experimental programme, the research design and methods of measurement.