This is a case study of school improvement factors at a Southwestern Middle School where the researcher examined the demographics of the Southwest Unified School District and Southwest Middle School, the school's academic performance history, school leadership, teachers and the school improvement process it was mandated to follow for five years. Also, there included a discussion of the reasons Southwest Middle School moved into school improvement, the number of years it remained in school improvement, the leadership during these years, and the mandates imposed on the school from the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) federal legislation and the Arizona Department of Education state mandates. The mandates were determined by the school's level of improvement. In this case study Southwest Middle School had been at a serious level of improvement for the previous five years 2008 - 2013. Therefore, a visit from a team of Arizona Department of Education school improvement experts called the Solutions Team was initiated. This initiated visit was to be an evidenced based inquiry that generated four school improvement recommendations to be followed as a framework for continuous school improvement. Also, the researcher examined the documentation generated through the Solutions Team visit and the impact it made on the Southwest Middle School improvement process. Quantitative outcomes in the area of student achievement are presented in this case study that shown continuous decreases in the standardized test results generated from the State mandated test known as the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS Test) results until the school remained open till spring, 2013. Interviews with personnel involved in the school improvement efforts showed differing perceptions of success in efforts before the school closure. There was some evidence that test scores had begun to improve at Southwest Middle School but, it was too little, too late and the school closed in Spring, 2013. Unfortunately, in spite of increased efforts, it was too little, too late, and the improvement was minimal, forcing the Southwest Unified School District to close Southwest Middle School in spring, 2013. Following were identified factors that facilitated or hindered the implementation of plans aimed at school improvement.

In this thesis, I explore the practices of English-speaking readers of shônen manga (Japanese comics written primarily for an audience of teenage boys). I concentrate on three series in particular: Hiromu Arakawa’s Fullmetal Alchemist (2001–2010), Tite Kubo’s Bleach (2001–ongoing), and Masashi Kishimoto’s Naruto (1999–ongoing). I argue that, although it may appear to be inherently imbued with (authorial) meaning, the shônen manga text emerges from a curious ‘alchemy’ through which the practices of readers transform the ‘raw’ materials provided by manga creators to produce a text that appears to have always been inherently meaningful in itself. I argue that this is always an impossible and monstrous transformation. In the first chapter, I introduce the monstrous combinations of words and pictures, panels and gutters known as shônen manga and argue for the importance of taking the practices of ‘ordinary’ (or, at least, non-scholarly) reading seriously. In the second chapter I explore the idea that reading is an ‘alchemy’ through which the disparate elements readers encounter on the page are transformed into a meaningful text. In the third chapter, I discuss the ways in which time and narrative are braided as readers assemble the disparate elements they encounter on the shônen manga page. In Chapter 4, I explore the visceral thrills of reading shônen manga, which are often expressed through notions of the awesome and the epic. Finally, in Chapter 5, I examine the ways in which a group of shônen manga readers known as ‘shippers’ find love and romance amidst the fighting in shônen manga and demonstrate the legitimacy of these readings by locating them in the material text through the concept of ‘canon’. By attending to reading as an embodied and material practice in this way, the thesis contributes to debates about the relationships between creators, texts and audiences and ongoing attempts to imagine new ways of being critical within cultural and literary studies. Within cultural geography, these kinds of attempts have often been aligned with what might broadly be described as nonrepresentational theories. As such, this thesis attempts to draw out the geographies through which manga texts are realised as manga texts at all.

Máscara is an analysis of an existing film about sicarios, hit men who have been part of organized crime in Mexico. Máscara and it is based on the lives of three sicarios. The first and youngest sicario, in his mid twenties, wears a white ski mask and goes by the alias La Liebre. The second one wears a red ski mask and goes by the alias of El Monstruo and is in late forties. The third one, in his sixties, wears a green ski mask and goes by the alias of El Tanque.

This ethnographic study examines the local (Indigenous) language literacy practices and literacy events in their specific sociocultural contexts in two Indigenous language communities in Mexico. The languages of these two communities are among over 200 Indigenous languages of Mexico still spoken today, despite half a millennium of pressure against Indigenous languages by speakers of Spanish. The focus of this study is on how these languages, Mela'tajtol (Isthmus Nahuat), and Ngigua (Northern Popoloca), are being used today in their written form. Both the Mela'tajtol and SM Ngigua communities have a history of literacy practices in their own language, albeit not yet extensive. The social practices surrounding the uses of print compose what I have called landscapes of literacy. In my research I observed new contexts produced through texts and practices in the Mela'tajtol and SM Ngigua language communities. The research brings to light the significance of the geographic, historic and linguistic contexts of both communities, and the importance of recognizing the multilayered relationships of power among those involved in writing their languages. What emerges is a compelling picture of an unprecedented collaboration in each community between bilingual teachers motivated by national pressure to teach reading and writing of their language in the schools, and the principal participants of the study, who are not bilingual teachers, but who hold resources and skills they are eager to share in promoting their language in written form. The dissertation reviews frameworks of language planning and proposes a framework of power and human agency to further describe the layers of social meaning and responsibility identified and described in the research. This symbiotic relationship is also found in the national and international influences and resources for promoting the use of indigenous languages of Mexico in written form at the local levels (including the Mela'tajtol and SM Ngigua languages). UNESCO's recognition of challenges to literacy at the global level are compared to the challenges found regarding literacy in the local languages of the two communities of study. Implications are presented for further research, as well as recommendations for the two communities and other people of power involved in indigenous language cultivation.

This dissertation offered a close reading of African diaspora young adult novels, written by African American, Afro-Caribbean and black African women. The four novels selected for this analysis - Coe Booth's (2010) Kendra, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond's (2010) Powder Necklace, Lynn Joseph's (2010) Flowers in the Sky and Adwoa Badoe's (2010) Between Sisters - represented the life circumstances, concerns and issues facing black adolescent girls of this generation. Set in Ghana, the United States, the Dominican Republic and England, the novels collectively provided a compelling site to examine thematic parallels as well as points of departure in each author's representation of black female adolescent identity development. Given this focus, the study employed a methodology of critical content analysis, relying on theoretical arguments from black feminism, postcolonial studies, and a youth lens. The three theories were brought into dialogue with one another in order to examine how multiple social constructions, including age, interacted and overlapped in the lives of each of the protagonists. Findings revealed that age, and concomitantly race, class and gender significantly influenced the protagonists' sense of subjectivity and selfhood. Across the text set, the significance of age was brought into light through a dramatic shift in the protagonists' relationships with their mothers or mother figures. Specifically, it was the onset of sexual maturity that fueled a multiplying of oppressive experiences for each of the protagonists within her home. By attending to the ways in which the protagonists grappled with such experiences, the researcher uncovered new models for solidifying black female adolescent identity.

Although early childhood educators have emphasized the importance of building curriculum from the children's life experiences in order to support their processes of making connections and meaning, little research has looked at how this belief positions global explorations as developmentally in appropriate practices. The critique is that most young children do not have direct experiences with global cultures, differences between cultural practices can be confusing for them, and global knowledge will go beyond their capacities (Short & Acevedo, in press). This study, conducted in a Reggio-Emilia inspired Head Start classroom in South Tucson, analyzed young children's inquiries and intercultural understanding as they interacted and responded to an inquiry-based global curriculum. The theoretical frameworks of this study include curriculum as inquiry, creating opportunities for students to engage in in-depth explorations about issues that matter to them as they go beyond their current understandings through language and action (Lindfors, 1999); reader response theory and play provide a theoretical frame for literature and play as safe spaces for exploring self and the world (Rosenblatt, 1995; Wohlwend; 2013) and play as a experiential response strategy that supports young children in interpreting and negotiating complex texts (Rowe, 2007); intercultural understanding as developing a perspective, rather than teaching about other cultures (Short, 2009). The research questions for this study include: 1) What do young children inquire about in local and global communities? 2) How do young children inquire about local and global communities? 3) What intercultural understandings do young children explore? 4) What are the characteristics of classroom engagements from the global curriculum that seem to support children's intercultural understandings? As a teacher researcher, I implemented the global curriculum and collected field notes, videos from children’s play and read aloud engagements, artifacts that the students created as they engaged with the global curriculum, and a teacher journal. I analyzed the data using constant comparative analysis. The findings of this study provide evidence to suggest that global explorations are developmentally appropriate when they build from children's curiosity about the world, and can be encouraged and supported by stories about themes children often tell stories about, and can reference through play as experience. This study also echoes research regarding the importance of approaching intercultural understanding as knowledge, perspectives, and relationships that can generate action informed by deep understandings.

This study investigated digital storytelling as a meaningful and effective assessment instrument and practice for faculty-led study-abroad programs. The research was prompted by critiques from faculty and staff members citing study abroad programs in higher education lack the academic rigor of traditional course work and that study abroad sites are not "all it should or could be" (Bok, 2006; Engle, 1986; Hoffa, 2007; Van Berg, 2003, 2009). Through a qualitative research approach, a digital storytelling project was administered as an assessment tool over four summers in one study abroad program, and then expanded to three additional study abroad programs differing in locations and disciplines. The research questions explored ways in which digital storytelling not only influence the learning outcomes and experiences of students, but also touch on the building of students' personal identity. The study revealed digital storytelling to be a method conducive to demonstrating and assessing personal and academic learning outcomes through a dynamic, introspective, reflective and organic process that concluded with a digital artifact. Digital storytelling as a tool and process allowed students to become more engaged and to take ownership in their own learning while participating in a study abroad program. This study contributes much needed research related to digital storytelling as an assessment practice for measuring not only identity building, but particularly, as a method for assessing academic learning outcomes in summer faculty-led study-abroad programs.

This research examines the bilingual and biliterate trajectories of graduates of a K-5 dual language immersion program who are now young adults. Their experiences as emergent bilinguals within the setting of their elementary school was foundational for their long-term academic outcomes and their deep metapragmatic awareness of simultaneous linguistic experiences. This study explores where these students are now, what happened since they left this particular dual language program, and how their language practices and ideologies have shifted over time and shaped their current practices and ideologies surrounding language and literacy across time and space. Using qualitative methodology, this study draws on frameworks of New Literacy Studies, communities of practice, language ideologies, capital, and language-as-resource to highlight how bilingualism and biliteracy are complex phenomena, and how the multiple, complex, and competing forces at play ultimately shape language and literacy. This study examines the fluidity of how resources for learning are transformed across multiple landscapes and how important insights arise concerning how retrospective analysis of previous learning environments have shaped students' current lived experiences. Findings illustrate the dynamic nature of bilingualism not through discreet domains of language use in bounded contexts, but fluidly moving across fields in remarkable ways. Additional findings underscore the mobilities of language and literacy and how ideologies are neither static nor fixed, but continuously evolving in fluid and dynamic processes.

This dissertation focuses on minoritized youth digital literacy practice and participation, drawing on an 8-month video ethnography in a 6th grade language arts classroom with primarily bilingual Mexican-American students in a Southwestern public middle school. The case study utilized ethnographic and video analysis methods to examine interactions through, with, and around laptops in a one-to-one laptop classroom. Multiple simultaneous videos of student onscreen activity and webcams paired with a tripod-mounted camera captured whole class and small group interactions. Students, sometimes in different classrooms, were captured communicating online while interacting with their peers around them. Interview data with individuals and small groups focus on out of school digital media use and involvement in participatory cultures. From the large corpus of data, a few literacy events were picked out to represent broader trends among students. I argue that informal digital literacy practices of one group of girls playing a fashion themed massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) were more complex than formal, assigned practice. Like many of their more affluent peers at other schools, the girls harnessed the affordances of digital media to connect with interest-driven online/offline communities, whereas their classmates generally did not connect deeply with participatory online cultures. In doing so, the focus peer group co-constructed a classroom underlife (Goffman, 1961) that simultaneously created space for their sub rosa (Gilmore, 1986) digital literacy practices while resisting without disrupting the official curriculum or their performance as successful students. I conclude that designers of learning environments, teachers included, can foster literacy development by utilizing technology to draw flexibly on student digital funds of knowledge (González et al., 2006) while providing a basis for broader social participation.

With the implementation of Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in over forty states, teachers are putting into practice the CCSS text exemplars of text complexity. Of particular concern for the purpose of this research are the kindergarten and first grade (K-1) read aloud and independent text exemplar lists. While not intended as core reading lists, many schools are using these lists as mandated texts. A fundamental goal of primary school education is to help facilitate readers and one way is through the use of interesting and engaging books to motivate students as readers. At the initial stage of the reading process, selecting quality books for a specific group of students or an individual student constitutes an important aspect in engaging young readers. When a story provides a young reader with a material that encourages connections, their motivation to read increases. Research shows that motivation to read increases if a student identifies with elements of the story such as the characters or the setting. This research takes a close look at the kindergarten and first grade read aloud and independent texts through both a descriptive and a critical analysis to evaluate power dynamics and representations in the texts. The research questions used for this research were: (1) What are the characteristics of the CCSS K-1 text exemplars? and (2) What representations of people of color and women are present in the CCSS K-1 exemplars? The first research question was answered with information gathered from the descriptive analysis. The second question was primarily answered with information gathered from the critical analysis though the descriptive analysis also provided insight. Findings from the analyses provided data when viewed collectively that have implications for teacher educators, classroom teachers, and policy makers.