published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

In the past, Catholic schools have made a significant contribution to educational provision in Lebanon. In the restructuring of society in post-war Lebanon, Catholic schools are called on to continue to provide academic excellence. To meet this need, principals of Catholic schools are challenged to provide instructional leadership and manage schools effectively. Against this background, this study explores the Catholic school principal's role with regard to its management and leadership capacity. A literature study investigates theories of management and leadership as applied to the principal. An overview of the Catholic school system in Lebanon is given against the backdrop of historical, social, political and economic factors. The role and tasks of the Catholic school principal are examined with particular focus upon the unique spiritual dimension of the role. From this theoretical and descriptive base, the research design is described. A qualitative investigation of the principal's role was conducted. Data gathering was done by means of an preliminary questionnaire, individual interviews and a focus group interview as well as participant observation in a Catholic school in Lebanon. The interviews explored the themes of management and leadership as experienced by a small sample of principals of Catholic schools. Data was analysed, discussed and synthesised. Significant issues discussed included management topics such as delegation, strategic planning, time management, financial management and the evaluation and staff development of teachers; leadership topics comprised vision, mission, faith formation, and school culture. The findings provide a basis for a recommended profile and model for the Catholic school principal. The study suggests that the future effectiveness of the principalship rests upon the clear conceptualisation and implementation of both management and leadership functions. In the light of this, the present formation and training of the principal may fall short in meeting the increasingly complex demands of Lebanese Catholic schools. Without strong endorsement and training for educational management and leadership principals in Catholic schools could face a precarious future. Further research and management training and formation is needed to lead Catholic school principals into a steadfast future. / Educational Leadership and Management / D.Ed. (Educational Management)

Approximately one in two parents across the province of Ontario, regardless of personal religious beliefs, now choose to enrol their children in a public Roman Catholic secondary school over the public secular school counterpart. The Ontario Roman Catholic school system has historically struggled for recognition and independence as an equally legitimate system in the province. Students in modern schools regard religion and spirituality as critical aspects to their individual identities, yet this study investigates the language and knowledge delivered within the systemic marginalization and colonial framework of a Euro-centric school system and the level of inclusivity and acceptance it affords its youth. Using a critical ethnographic methodology within a single revelatory case study, this study presents the voices of youth as the most critical voice to be heard on identity and identity in faith in Ontario Roman Catholic schools. Surveys with students and student families are complemented with in-depth student interviews, triangulated with informal educational staff interviews and the limited literature incorporating youth identity in modern Ontario Roman Catholic schools. Through the approach of an anti-colonial discursive framework, incorporating a theology of liberation that emphasizes freedom from oppression, the voice of Roman Catholic secondary school youth are brought forth as revealing their struggle for identity in a system that intentionally hides identity outside of being Roman Catholic. Broader questions discussed include: (a) What is the link between identity, schooling and knowledge production?; (b) How do the different voices of students of multi-faiths, educators, administrators, and so forth, contradict, converge and diverge from each other?; (c) How are we to understand the role and importance of spirituality in schooling, knowledge production, and claims of Indigenity and resistance to colonizing education?; (d) What does it mean to claim spirituality as a valid way of knowing?; (e) In what way does this study help understand claims that spirituality avoids splitting of the self?; (f) How do we address the fact that our cultures today are threatened by the absence of community?; and (g) What are the pedagogic and instructional relevancies of this work for the classroom teacher?

Dans la France de l'entre-deux-guerres, les catholiques ne cessent de revendiquer une prise en charge financière de leurs établissements scolaires, dont la situation matérielle s'avère singulièrement précaire. L'enseignement privé catholique subsiste grâce à ses enseignants, subsumant leurs conditions de travail au nom de leur foi. La doctrine affirmée de l'Église catholique en matière d'éducation et l'acceptation des rôles prescrits dans l'institution sont les clés essentielles du maintien du réseau éducatif catholique. Cette revendication s'accompagne d'un militantisme polymorphe. Aux tenants de la réalisation de l'unité catholique, qu'elle soit en opposition au régime politique ou s'inscrivant dans la légalité républicaine, s'adjoint une troisième posture, encore marginale, d'insertion du catholicisme dans la modernité. Rejet ou acception de l'école publique, définition et rôle de l'enseignement privé, signalent ce qui se joue au sein du champ ecclésial : l'acceptation ou non de la pluralisation de la société française et de l'opinion catholique. Dans les années 1920, domine la configuration d'un cléricalisme éducatif, utopie d'une société chrétienne dont l'école catholique serait le fer de lance. Les années 1930 sont l'objet d'une reconfiguration paradoxale : alors que l'épiscopat reprend l'initiative en créant un Comité national de l'enseignement libre en 1931, la décléricalisation de l'action catholique est confirmée. Ce faisant, le militantisme catholique, qui a permis le maintien des écoles, participe en même temps de la politisation de l'espace ecclésial et, in fine, de sa sécularisation. / In France, during the interwar period, Catholics ceaselessly claimed public financial support for their schools, which were in a particularly precarious situation. Private Catholic schools subsisted thanks to their teachers who subsumed their hard working conditions to their faith. The strong doctrine of the Catholic Church in educational matters and the acceptance of prescribed roles within the institution were key to maintain a Catholic education system. This claim went alongside a polymorphous activism. Three attitudes prevailed: first, there where the advocates of the realization of Catholic unity, whether in opposition to the political regime or enrolling in the republican legality; then appeared a new movement which demanded the insertion of Catholicism into the modern world. The rejection or the acceptance of the public school system and the definition of private education and of its role, highlighted the issue for the Church: the acceptance or rejection of the pluralisation of French society and of the Catholic opinion. In the 1920’s prevailed the clericalist educational utopia of a Christian society of which Catholic schools would be the spearhead. The 1930’s saw a paradoxical reconfiguration: in the same time that bishops took the initiative of creating a National Committee for private education in 1931, the declericalization of Catholic action was confirmed. In doing so, Catholic militancy which enabled the maintenance of schools, was also responsible for the politicization of the ecclesial scope and, ultimately, of its secularization.

Thesis advisor: Jane E. Regan / This dissertation considers adolescent girls and what they need from an all-girls’ Catholic school that will prepare them, not just for college and career, but for life in a world that marginalizes girls and women. More than simply trying to make a case for single-sex schooling for girls, it suggests that the single-sex school is an important site for conversations about what it means for adolescent girls to be adolescent girls. This project names the patriarchal forces that marginalize girls and calls for a pedagogical approach that is rooted in the theological affirmation that adolescent girls are created in the image of God and called to exercise a prophetic imagination. Chapter one introduces the history of all-girls’ Catholic secondary schools, a history rooted in the story of women’s religious orders and the ministries of these women religious as educators at a time when the education of girls was not valued. Today’s all-girls’ Catholic schools are informed by this history and the Catholic Church’s commitment to honoring the dignity of each student, thus grounding a commitment to a caring and liberative educational approach. Chapter two argues that contemporary adolescent girls, including those who attend these all-girls’ Catholic secondary schools, are growing up in a cultural milieu that makes them vulnerable to the effects of the conflicting and impossible expectations to which girls and women are held. Chapter three investigates the imago Dei symbol as a theological foundation for fighting this toxic cultural milieu. Taking a cue from feminist theologians who have explored embodiment and relationality as central expressions of the imago Dei, this chapter proposes that creating communities of God’s hesed (loving-kindness) and resisting injustice are two ways that the imago Dei symbol can be expressed so as to best include adolescent girls. Chapter four suggests that, in order to realize this goal of affirming the imago Dei in adolescent girls by creating communities of God’s hesed and resistance to injustice, a feminist prophetic imagination is needed. Drawing on Walter Brueggemann’s identification of the prophetic imagination as the twinned process of denouncing the oppressive forces of the dominant culture and announcing a new and more just way of being in the world, it proposes a feminist prophetic imagination that engages in a feminist critique of the cultural milieu that girls experience and the construction of communities based in hesed and resistance to injustice. Chapter five takes up the pedagogical challenges of teaching with and for a feminist prophetic imagination. The liberative pedagogy of Paulo Freire and the caring pedagogy of Nel Noddings provide the resources for educating adolescent girls to participate in communities of God’s hesed and in practices of resistance to injustice. Chapter six returns to the concrete situation of all-girls’ Catholic secondary schools and imagines how these schools can speak to a commitment to educating for a feminist prophetic imagination in their mission and reflects on how a feminist prophetic imagination can be expressed and formalized in all Catholic schools.

Thesis advisor: David Scanlon / Changes in policy and practice that originated with the 2004 Reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ([IDEA], US Department of Education) created systems that exposed students to earlier and more consistent research-based intervention (Fuchs & Vaughn, 2012) thereby reducing the rate and increasing the mean age of students diagnosed with learning disabilities. Despite these documented positive outcomes, research has identified 2 -5 % of students who continue to demonstrate an “inadequate response” to evidence-based instruction that has been largely effective for their peers (Greulich et al., 2014). Little research has traced the educational histories of “inadequate responders,” and no known case studies have included children’s perspectives together with those of their parents and teachers. There is also a dearth of special education literature that is situated in private, faith-based schools where students function without all of the protections and structures of IDEA (Russo et. al., 2011; Scanlan, 2009a). This dissertation was an exploratory, comparative case study (Yin, 2014) of three third grade boys who were identified by their Catholic school staff as having demonstrated an inadequate response to intervention in reading. Each student was observed in a combination of his general education classroom and reading intervention periods, and interviews were conducted with the students and their parents and teachers. The learners’ Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), test reports, and cumulative records were also analyzed. Findings indicated that the students’ identification as inadequate responders did not accurately reflect their early reading experiences in which their instruction did not align with evidenced-based practices for students with learning disabilities (Ehri, Nunes, Stahl, & Willows, 2001). The students shared the deep emotional impact of past school-related events, and demonstrated patterns of sadness, anxiety, and avoidance during reading instruction. Parents and educators expressed their dedication to the students’ achievement as well as their frustration with the lack of comprehensive on-site academic systems of support within the boys’ schools. Implications for creating evidenced-based systems of intervention that honor and take into account the strengths and emotional-needs of students struggling to read are discussed. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

Year 12 has been identified as a critical decision point in the career decision making process for students. Students have been found to make decisions in different ways some having already defined goals for the future others are doubtful and make tentative goals. At the end of Year 12 students are faced with the task of career decision. During the final two weeks of year 12 these students will have to make choices about their imminent future that is whether to do tertiary studies/seek apprenticeships look for immediate employment or defer studies for a time and seek employment. A review of major theories relating to career determination was undertaken. Decision-making theories have identified twelfth grade/age range 16 - 18 years, as being one of the critical decision periods for an adolescent. 355 A.C.T. Year 12 students from Catholic Colleges were given a questionnaire designed to probe students' self awareness in relation to study habits coping abilities, as well as a description of some of their personal qualities relating to school life, subject interest, and career benefits derived from the future career considered. The information gained from the Questionnaire was reduced to a number of sets of relationships by factor analysis. The personal factors of subject interest, career benefits and further study interests were examined by canonical correlation techniques with Career Types. Students with an interest in scientific careers exhibited an interest in the physical science subjects. Those with an expressed interest in a blend of science and expressive arts career were a group of students with creative ideas / leadership aspirations,an interest in cultural and physical science subject, and a desire for further- studies. Another group of year 12 students involving more girls than boys showed an interest in a cluster of careers with a social involvement component but a rejection of routine activities. Students with an interest in environmental subjects with a possession of management and living skills looked towards careers that provided out of doors activities involving social work and selling. There was a positive correlation between these personal factors and the students' choice of a career.

Though the establishment of educational institutions is not necessarily surprising in Counter Reformation France as the church was obliged to foster education, what was innovative about Lyon’s écoles de charité is that “professional education” was stressed alongside Catholic doctrine in the seventeenth century. Catering to Lyon’s poor youth, these schools taught proper Catholic comportment, reading, writing, counting, and the acquisition of craft skills. Official and unofficial records reveal the charity schools’ daily practices and pedagogical exercises as well as the goals of the state, church, and local elite in fostering and supporting these institutions. The schools molded children into “moral, productive workers and faithful subjects” who could act as agents of the state, church, and community. Students had the responsibility of “elevating the morality, Christianity, and education” of their families, improving the “lower sorts” literally from the bottom-up. This thesis also addresses parents’ incentives in sending their children to these institutions. This projects spans several historiographies including that of early modern education, childhood, and the Catholic Reformation. Though other studies have mentioned the establishment of écoles de charité as part of a wider impulse of charitable giving spurred by the Catholic Reformation, little work exists on the schools’ specific dynamics or on the relationship to the state and community embedded in the routine life of these schools. Additionally, this project uses “childhood” as a category of historical analysis, investigating how different early modern social groups used children to change society. Finally, this project engages the Catholic Reformation as these schools were part of a larger project to expand knowledge of Catholic beliefs onto the people propelled by local as well as elite interests. / text

Approximately one in two parents across the province of Ontario, regardless of personal religious beliefs, now choose to enrol their children in a public Roman Catholic secondary school over the public secular school counterpart. The Ontario Roman Catholic school system has historically struggled for recognition and independence as an equally legitimate system in the province. Students in modern schools regard religion and spirituality as critical aspects to their individual identities, yet this study investigates the language and knowledge delivered within the systemic marginalization and colonial framework of a Euro-centric school system and the level of inclusivity and acceptance it affords its youth. Using a critical ethnographic methodology within a single revelatory case study, this study presents the voices of youth as the most critical voice to be heard on identity and identity in faith in Ontario Roman Catholic schools. Surveys with students and student families are complemented with in-depth student interviews, triangulated with informal educational staff interviews and the limited literature incorporating youth identity in modern Ontario Roman Catholic schools. Through the approach of an anti-colonial discursive framework, incorporating a theology of liberation that emphasizes freedom from oppression, the voice of Roman Catholic secondary school youth are brought forth as revealing their struggle for identity in a system that intentionally hides identity outside of being Roman Catholic. Broader questions discussed include: (a) What is the link between identity, schooling and knowledge production?; (b) How do the different voices of students of multi-faiths, educators, administrators, and so forth, contradict, converge and diverge from each other?; (c) How are we to understand the role and importance of spirituality in schooling, knowledge production, and claims of Indigenity and resistance to colonizing education?; (d) What does it mean to claim spirituality as a valid way of knowing?; (e) In what way does this study help understand claims that spirituality avoids splitting of the self?; (f) How do we address the fact that our cultures today are threatened by the absence of community?; and (g) What are the pedagogic and instructional relevancies of this work for the classroom teacher?

Thesis (MEd)--University of South Australia, 1995