This study investigated relationships between the extent to which elementary classroom teachers tend to choose school library media specialists for cooperation on instructional problems and several school climate and faculty related characteristics including the general academic effectiveness of the school, the overall cohesion and cooperativeness of the teaching faculty on instructional matters, and the propensity of the group and individual faculty to seek cooperation to solve instructional problems. The instructional choice status of the school library media specialist was also studied in relation to various individual personality factors, as measured by Cattell's 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire, as well as school media specialist status variables including degreed or non-degreed status, total years of experience as a school library media specialist, years of experience on campus as a school library media specialist, and total number of years of experience in the field of education. The instructional status of the school library media specialist was also examined in relationship to the size of the school served. The study included 1,079 elementary classroom teachers and thirty-nine school library media specialists from thirty-nine Texas elementary schools similar in important wealth, size, and student demographic characteristics. Twenty of the schools ranked in the bottom 25% of all schools in the state as to how well their students performed on the 1988 Texas Educational Assessment of Minimum Skills (TEAMS) test. Nineteen schools ranked among the top 25%of all schools in the state in academic effectiveness. As compared to the low academic schools, the high academic schools were found to be significantly more instructionally cohesive, and classroom teachers in those schools were significantly more disposed to choose the school library media specialist to cooperate with them on instructional problems. No significant relationships were discovered between the instructional choice status of the school media specialist and his or her measured personality characteristics.

In this study the public-school buildings of Denton are examined for evidences of modern architectural design. Chapter I serves as an introduction. Chapter II presents a history of the Denton Public Schools. Chapter III presents standards for evaluating modern school architecture. Features of existing school buildings, built earlier than 1964, which, in character, exemplify modern architectural design are described in Chapter IV. The three school buildings built since 1946 and the one under construction are described in detail and evaluated according to the standards given. Representative photostatic reproduction and photographs illustrate the text. In Chapter V a summary of the study is given and conclusions are presented.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of instructional activities that take place before reading, during reading, and after reading in guided reading and shared reading routines in elementary school classrooms in Utah school districts. This project used extant data from classroom observations to answer questions about how the observed activities were used as part of guided and shared reading routines in second and third grades within the five school districts of the Brigham Young University-Public School Partnership. The results of this study showed that there were differences in how teachers implemented the before reading, during reading, and after reading activities for guided and shared reading. The average teacher devoted more time to instructional activities during the reading portion of guided or shared reading than to instructional activities used before reading or after reading as part of the guided reading or shared reading routines. Differences between frequencies for instructional activities done after reading in guided reading differed significantly between second and third grade classrooms in the study. This study determined that school districts in the study had significantly different frequencies for instructional activities implemented before, during, and after reading in guided reading. These significant results and the results of other comparisons were used to provide insights about the possible implications of this study.

Given the many school choices available to parents, there is a need to understand the reasons parents of a child who is gifted choose to keep their child in his/her current school. Parents* satisfaction with their child*s school and their academic growth is essential to continued enrollment of the child in that school (Abdulkadiroglu, Angrist, & Pathak, 2011; Van Tassel-Baska, 2006). The parents* decision to keep their child who is gifted enrolled in their current school may be influenced by factors within the school as well as those factors outside of the school. The purpose of this study was to research factors that may influence the parents* decision to keep their child who is gifted enrolled in their current school. The research studied parental perceptions of academic support, social and emotional support, and principal support for gifted education for their child who is gifted and the parents* willingness to keep their child who is gifted enrolled at their current school. The target group in the study was parents of children who are gifted and enrolled in a very large urban school district but did not include parents of children who are gifted and also have a disability. The research included the analysis of a survey and follow-up interview questions with parents of a child who is gifted and enrolled in the very large urban school district. There were 683 survey responses out of 4,401 total parents surveyed with a return rate of 16%. The low return rate is considered a limitation of the study and it is recommended to conduct additional research on the majority of parents who did not participate in the survey. Follow-up interviews were conducted with 10 randomly selected parents of children who are gifted and enrolled in the very large urban school district. The survey and interview data was coded and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics. There were two research questions that guided the development of the research process and the analysis of data. The first question focused on indicators of parent satisfaction that included academic needs met, social and emotional needs met, and principal support for gifted education. The survey and interview data yielded mixed results with parents split between the belief that their child*s academic needs were met, social and emotional needs were met, and that their child*s principal was supportive of gifted education. The second research question considered the relationship between the three indicators of parent satisfaction and the parents* willingness to consider enrolling their child in a school solely for students who are gifted. The results showed that there is a statistically significant relationship between the parents* belief that their child*s academic needs were met and the parents* consideration to send their child to a school solely for students who are gifted. However, there was a lack of evidence to establish a relationship between parent*s belief about their child*s social and emotional needs or the parents belief that their child*s principal was supportive of gifted education. The implications of the study are numerous. There are enough parents willing to consider sending their child to a school solely for students who are gifted to support opening the school. The majority of the survey participants had elementary school children; therefore, consideration should be focused on opening an elementary school for students who are gifted. Long range planning is needed to determine how to support the school for students who are gifted as well as the impact of transferring the students from one school zone to the school for students who are gifted. The literature reflected the diverse nature of the parents* satisfaction with academic support, social and emotional support, and principal support for gifted education and revealed that when the parents* are satisfied it does not guarantee that the parent will keep their child enrolled in their current school. The need for on-going communication between the school and the parents are critical to keeping the student enrolled in their current school. Further research is needed to determine the beliefs of parents with children who are gifted and identify themselves as Black, Hispanic, Asian, or another race since the majority of the survey participants were White. More research is also needed to determine the reasons why large numbers of parents would consider sending their child to a school solely for students who are gifted regardless of their satisfaction levels with school support. In addition, further research needs to be conducted to determine why parents would choose to keep their child enrolled in their current school when the parents believed their academic or social and emotional needs were not met or their principal was not supportive of gifted education.

This analysis of California's Public School Accountability Act (PSAA) and the federal government's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation reviews the components, implementation timelines, and impact these two accountability policies have had on secondary schools and more specifically secondary schools located in Tulare and Kings Counties of the San Joaquin Valley of California. The study identifies both Immediate Intervention for Underperforming Schools Program (II/USP) schools and similar schools that did not elect to enter the program Non-II/USP schools. Quantitative analysis of Academic Performance Index (API) and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) from 1999 to 2006 is statistically compared. Summary interviews with site administrators from all schools within the study reflect how these two populations II/USP schools and Non-II/USP schools addressed the requirements and met the challenges of the PSAA and NCLB legislation. Conclusions draw into question the state and federal legislations implementation timeline, readiness to support changes needed in the secondary schools starting in 1999, and recognition of communication issues with secondary schools concerning the expectations of the accountability legislation. Finally, issues are outlined concerning the effectiveness of the timeline and funding process associated with the state sanctions of II/USP and SAIT programs.

The past few decades have been marked by increasing awareness of issues pertaining to gender and sexuality, since both concepts have started being treated as continuums or spectrums, rather than as binaries. Therefore, the fields of gender and queer linguistics have been growing in significance, in an effort to identify underlying ideologies and biases in language, and to challenge them. Nevertheless, the reality is far from ideal, as gender inequalities and discrimination against non-normative sexualities are still prevalent in many sectors of life, one of which is education. In fact, education plays a prime role in shaping people’s views; not only do textbooks and other learning materials have a considerable effect on learners’ attitudes and sense of self, but also teachers’ beliefs and approaches can reinforce or challenge biases. In the present study, two English as a Foreign Language (EFL) textbooks used in Greek secondary public schools were examined, in order to investigate how gender and sexuality are represented on a lexical and discursive level. Additionally, three EFL teachers using said textbooks were interviewed to investigate their awareness of these topics as well as their attitudes and approaches towards them. The results from the textbook content analysis reveal that gender is overwhelmingly treated as a binary concept, and inclusivity is not always a consideration. Specifically, stereotypical gender representations were identified both on a word and a discourse level. Moreover, any topics explicitly concerning sexuality are avoided, and the only vocabulary made available for students to discuss these topics indexes heteronormativity. The teachers interviewed demonstrated some awareness of these issues, but were only able to point out very few problematic representations and examples of non-inclusive language. All teachers emphasised the need for training in order to be able to address these topics with their learners, and agreed that learners show limited awareness of discrimination and sexism in the language used in the textbooks. Furthermore, they argued that lack of progress in education is due to the fact that Greek society is not ready to embrace changes in how gender and sexuality are viewed. The conclusion drawn in the present study is that this lack of progress can potentially be attributed to how deeply rooted religious beliefs are in Greek society, reinforcing traditional gender roles and family values, while denouncing non-heterosexual expression. Overall, the present study corroborated the results found in other, similar investigations of EFL textbooks from around the world, and suggested that linguistic change cannot happen independently, but should be part of radical social reforms.

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[pt] A presente dissertação toma como campo uma escola estadual localizada em um bairro no estado do Rio de Janeiro que vem sofrendo mudanças relacionadas aos conflitos urbanos nos últimos anos. Sendo essa escola frequentada por alunos e professores locais, a pesquisa buscou investigar e compreender por meio de construções narrativas e de posicionamentos (Bamberg, 1997; 2002) de seus professores/moradores, como estes constroem suas identidades como professores de escola pública em uma periferia, lidam com os desafios da violência e se posicionam em relação a Discursos circulantes sobre educação e violência. O estudo é, portanto, de base qualitativa e interpretativista (Denzin e Lincoln, 2006), e propõe uma análise de viés autoetnográfico, dado que sua autora é também parte do corpo docente da escola. Os dados apresentados nesta pesquisa foram gerados nas interações em entrevistas qualitativas semi-estruturadas e gravadas em áudio (Mishler, 1986; De Fina, 2009). Além disso, todas as entrevistas deste estudo são analisadas tendo como apoio a perspectiva teórica na Análise de Narrativa (Labov e Waletzky, 1967; Labov, 1972; Riessman, 2008; Bastos e Biar, 2015), mais precisamente na concepção de narrativas não-canônicas, micronarrativas (Bamberg e Georgakopoulou, 2008) e histórias de vida (Linde, 1993), focando nas experiências de vida e em posicionamentos de ordem micro que dialogam com macrodiscursos. A pesquisa também apresenta como suporte analítico as reflexões e noções de Bamberg (2015), Bamberg e Georgakopoulou (2008) e Freeman (2010) sobre construção de identidade, de Goffman (1963) sobre estigma social e de Ewick e Silbey (2003) sobre resistência. As análises apontam que: i) na interação, os narradores se apresentam como professores resistentes às dificuldades atuais impostas pela violência no entorno da escola por já terem passado por desafios antes e durante o ingresso acadêmico, sendo estes profissionais marcados por histórias de vida de resistência e superação; ii) os narradores apresentam posicionamentos de identificação que estão relacionados aos seus alunos e aos professores com quem estudaram e que são retomados como inspiração; iii) os professores encaram a sua profissão como um papel social e a violência no bairro como um descaso das políticas públicas; iv) os professores posicionam se de forma reflexiva sobre suas opções profissionais e de vida, sendo agentes muito atuantes na comunidade escolar e no combate, de modo pedagógico, à violência e ao tráfico que tenta corromper os alunos diariamente. / [en] The present dissertation takes as field a state school located in a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, that has undergone changes related to the urban conflicts in recent years. As the school is attended by local students and teachers, the research aimed at investigation and understanding through narrative and positioning constructions (Bamberg, 1997; 2002) of teachers / residents, how they construct their identities as public school teachers in a periphery and how they deal with the challenges of violence and position themselves in relation to circulating discourses on education and violence. The study is therefore qualitative and interpretative (Denzin e Lincoln, 2006), and proposes an analysis of autoethnographic bias, since its author is also part of the school faculty. The data presented in this research were generated in the interactions in semi-structured qualitative interviews and audio recorded (Mishler, 1986; De Fina, 2009). In addition, all interviews in this study are analyzed with theoretical perspective support in Narrative Analysis (Labov e Waletzky, 1967; Labov, 1972; Riessman, 2008; Bastos e Biar, 2015), more specifically in the conception of non-canonical, micronarratives (Bamberg e Georgakopoulou, 2008) and life stories (Linde, 1993), focusing on life experiences and micropositioning interface with macrodiscourses. The research also presents as an analytical support the reflections and notions of Bamberg (2015), Bamberg and Georgakopoulou (2008) and Freeman (2010) on identity construction, Goffman (1963) on social stigma and Ewick and Silbey (2003) on resistance. The analysis show that: i) in the interaction, the narrators present themselves as teachers who are resistant to the current difficulties imposed by the violence in the school environment, because they have already undergone challenges before and during the academic admission, as these professionals are marked by life stories of resistance and overcoming; ii) the narrators present identificational positionings that are related to their students and the teachers, with whom they have studied and who are taken back as inspiration; iii) teachers face their profession as a social role and violence in the neighborhood as a neglect of public policies; iv) teachers are reflective about their professional and life choices, as very active agents in the school community, while they oppose pedagogically violence and drug trafficking, that attempts to corrupt students on a daily basis.