Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-83). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-83). Also available on the Internet.

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In an attempt to alleviate subjectivity in special education placement decisions, Congress mandated that such decisions be made by a multidisciplinary team (P.L. 94-142). Minority students are consistently overrepresented in special education classes (Mercer, 1973; Tucker, 1980; Keyes, 1981). The research problem that was the concern of this study was: do race of the child, socioeconomic status of the child, and racial composition of the school district affect special education placement decisions? It was hypothesized that: there would be no difference in-the special education placement decisions made for white pupils and those made for black pupils; decisions made for low SES children and those made for high SES children; decisions made by special educators from school districts with a high percentage of black pupil enrollment and those made by special educators from school districts with a low percentage of black enrollment; there would be no relationship between the identification of a handicapping classification and the recommendation of time to be spent in a special class; and, that there would be no significant first or second order interactions. Crosstabulation, 2x2x2 analysis of variance, point biserial correlation coefficient, and multiple regression analysis were used to test the hypotheses. Data were obtained from 81 school district directors of special education programs in Maryland and Virginia. These respondents made special education recommendations for a hypothetical child. Findings observed included: no correlation between amount of time recommended and the identification of a handicapping classification; SES, race and district proportion explained a significant amount of variance in EMR classification; SES alone accounted for significant variance in EMR and LD classifications; and SES and race combined significantly affected the recommendation of EMR classification, SES and district racial proportion combined significantly affected the recommendation of the other than EMR or LD category. / Ed. D.

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo estudar práticas de professores de língua portuguesa para o ensino de leitura literária em turmas de 5ª série/6º ano do Ensino Fundamental. Para tanto, optou-se por investigar tais práticas em duas escolas da zona oeste da cidade de São Paulo, ambas de grande porte e que atendem aos níveis de Ensino Fundamental e Médio. A primeira parte da pesquisa consistiu em abordar os Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais do Terceiro e Quarto Ciclos do Ensino Fundamental de Língua Portuguesa (BRASIL, 1998b) e a Proposta Curricular do Estado de São Paulo: Língua Portuguesa (SÃO PAULO, 2008a) para investigar os discursos oficiais quanto ao ensino e à formação de leitores de literatura. A segunda parte da pesquisa correspondeu ao estudo de tipo etnográfico: ao longo de dois semestres letivos 2º semestre de 2010 e 1º semestre de 2011 , foi feita observação participativa nas duas escolas a fim de acompanhar as práticas dos professores e o modo como ensinam os alunos a ler textos literários na escola. Para melhor entender as situações de ensino, foram feitas entrevistas com as professoras na terceira parte da pesquisa, e a análise final se deu com a aproximação entre os dados da observação da pesquisadora e o discurso das docentes. Como resultado, depreende-se que, apesar das diferentes estratégias empregadas pelas professoras, elas encontram dificuldade em mensurar o ensino de leitura literária tendo em vista a relação texto-leitor, dada a subjetividade intrínseca do próprio objeto. Do ponto de vista teórico, foram levados em consideração os estudos de Jauss (1970), Iser (1999), Jouve (2002), Zilberman (1982; 1989), Perrone-Moisés (2000b; 2011) e Rouxel (no prelo). / This dissertation entails a study on practices of literature lectures among sixth school grade students. To accomplish this, two important Basic Education Schools from the west of the city of Sao Paulo have been investigated. The first section of this research focused on Third and Fourth Cycles of National Curricular Parameters in Portuguese Basic School (BRAZIL, 1998b), and Sao Paulo State Curricular Proposal: Portuguese (SÃO PAULO, 2008a) to investigate official approaches in teaching Literature and development of literary lectures. The second part comprised an etnographic study as it follows: in two semesters from last 2010 to 2011 teachers practices have been observed to depict how they instructed students to read literature lectures. For a better understanding of learning situations in class, I interviewed three teachers and compared their speech on literature practices with my personal observations. As results of this investigation, it was possible to infer that teachers employed different strategies in Literature Lectures, but they had difficulties in objectively measuring reader-text interactions, which are intrinsically subjective. This dissertation was substantiated by studies from Jauss (1970), Iser (1999), Jouve (2002), Zilberman (1982; 1989), Perrone-Moisés (2000b; 2011), and Rouxel (in press).

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo estudar práticas de professores de língua portuguesa para o ensino de leitura literária em turmas de 5ª série/6º ano do Ensino Fundamental. Para tanto, optou-se por investigar tais práticas em duas escolas da zona oeste da cidade de São Paulo, ambas de grande porte e que atendem aos níveis de Ensino Fundamental e Médio. A primeira parte da pesquisa consistiu em abordar os Parâmetros Curriculares Nacionais do Terceiro e Quarto Ciclos do Ensino Fundamental de Língua Portuguesa (BRASIL, 1998b) e a Proposta Curricular do Estado de São Paulo: Língua Portuguesa (SÃO PAULO, 2008a) para investigar os discursos oficiais quanto ao ensino e à formação de leitores de literatura. A segunda parte da pesquisa correspondeu ao estudo de tipo etnográfico: ao longo de dois semestres letivos 2º semestre de 2010 e 1º semestre de 2011 , foi feita observação participativa nas duas escolas a fim de acompanhar as práticas dos professores e o modo como ensinam os alunos a ler textos literários na escola. Para melhor entender as situações de ensino, foram feitas entrevistas com as professoras na terceira parte da pesquisa, e a análise final se deu com a aproximação entre os dados da observação da pesquisadora e o discurso das docentes. Como resultado, depreende-se que, apesar das diferentes estratégias empregadas pelas professoras, elas encontram dificuldade em mensurar o ensino de leitura literária tendo em vista a relação texto-leitor, dada a subjetividade intrínseca do próprio objeto. Do ponto de vista teórico, foram levados em consideração os estudos de Jauss (1970), Iser (1999), Jouve (2002), Zilberman (1982; 1989), Perrone-Moisés (2000b; 2011) e Rouxel (no prelo). / This dissertation entails a study on practices of literature lectures among sixth school grade students. To accomplish this, two important Basic Education Schools from the west of the city of Sao Paulo have been investigated. The first section of this research focused on Third and Fourth Cycles of National Curricular Parameters in Portuguese Basic School (BRAZIL, 1998b), and Sao Paulo State Curricular Proposal: Portuguese (SÃO PAULO, 2008a) to investigate official approaches in teaching Literature and development of literary lectures. The second part comprised an etnographic study as it follows: in two semesters from last 2010 to 2011 teachers practices have been observed to depict how they instructed students to read literature lectures. For a better understanding of learning situations in class, I interviewed three teachers and compared their speech on literature practices with my personal observations. As results of this investigation, it was possible to infer that teachers employed different strategies in Literature Lectures, but they had difficulties in objectively measuring reader-text interactions, which are intrinsically subjective. This dissertation was substantiated by studies from Jauss (1970), Iser (1999), Jouve (2002), Zilberman (1982; 1989), Perrone-Moisés (2000b; 2011), and Rouxel (in press).

This study sought to uncover how the annual Florida School Report Card influences secondary English Language Arts (ELA) teachers’ self-efficacy and perceptions of student writing. The study’s findings suggested that ELA teachers’ self-efficacy may be indirectly influenced by the School Report Card. The participants in this study suggested that they do not feel totally capable of applying the information learned from the School Report Card to their own classrooms. The teachers who participated in the study also reported that they have low outcome expectations when interacting with the School Report Card. They do not believe that their actions can influence the School Report Card, and suggested that they see the school grade as a moving target with changing rules they may not be able to keep up with. The School Report Card was not suggested to directly impact the participants’ perceptions of student writing. Instead, the data suggested that a variety of internal and external factors influence the way teachers perceive their students’ writing quality. Finally, most of the participants suggested that they view the school grade as an unfair measure of achievement, and a tool that does not take into account the quality of the learning in the school and represents the school poorly. Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) was used to situate these findings and gain a better understanding of how the School Report Card functions as a tool for teachers and administrators.

This thesis is aimed at tabacism problems encountered by 9th grade elementary school pupils in the area of Most (Czech Republic). Comparison of gender aspect is accented. The primary target was to figure out the age of first experience with tobacco smoking and to investigate the subjective reasons leading to this act. The other domain of investigation was the attitude of adolescents to tobacco attractiveness and their tolerance to smoking of their future life partners. The thesis also compares my investigation results to studies related to the influence of smoking parents on their children's early experience with tobacco, and related to the manner in which are the elementary school children informed about tabacism issues. Some results of investigation are compared with existing research in the comments. The following facts were discovered - Adolescent girls smoke more than boys, and smoking parents have substantial influence on their children. The majority of children with smoking parents has more experience with tabacism than the children of non-smokers. The primary prevention in schools is performed as part of health education lessons, or similar subjects' lessons. The most usual way in which the children receive information about tabacism is speech and lecture. It was figured out, tabacism...

This dissertation constitutes an illustration of how writing instruction in elementary school, year three, is conducted. At this stage of schooling, most pupils are assumed to have acquired basic reading and writing skills, and from now on, and increasingly over the years that follow, they are expected to read and write longer texts within different genres and subjects. The aim of this thesis is to study writing lessons that were conducted under the framework of four writing projects in a classroom, and the student-written texts that that resulted thereof. The writing pro-jects are characterised by focus on similar text types, which in my mate-rial includes "the fairy tale", "a letter to the editor", "instructions" and a "factual text". The focus of the study is on the relationship between the learning support offered to the pupils in the classroom and the na-ture of texts that the pupils then write. The research is inspired by ethnographic methodology, and is based on material consisting of field notes, video recordings and student texts. The theoretical framework assumes a socio-cultural view of learning and a dialogical view of text and writing. The teaching practices are studied on the basis of how they are built up by different chains of activities (reading, conversation and writing). Particular attention is paid to which text dimensions are addressed in classroom conversations: content, form or function. The pupils’ texts are analysed on the basis of their macro structure, and the analysis builds on the concept of "text activity". On an overall level, the results point to writing being a social activity, which is also closely interconnected to reading, and above all dialogue and conversation. The writing instruction offered to the students is also characterized by a broad view of what literacy is about. The study points out the value of versatile learning support, where the function, form and content of texts, in relation to the learning goals, are made explicit in the teaching. An important result is that the functional dimension of writing, in particular, favours writing development. On a more general level, the study raises the question of which literacy skills can and should be pro-moted by writing education in the early primary school years.

The research undertaken involves a quasi-experimental approach in determining the impact of the Competency and Placement (CAP) test in the Further Education and Training (FET) colleges. The evaluation became necessary because poor learner performance within the National Certification Vocational (NCV) programme has persisted amid the implementation of a country-wide roll-out of the CAP test; and a recapitalisation injection of R1.9m. Learner performance data relating to the NCV programme and CAP was obtained in order to undertake an accurate analysis of the poor performance within the FET college sector. In addition to the above, qualitative data was obtained through semi-structured interviews with CAP participating colleges in the country. Recommendations included the restructuring of the NCV programme; the introduction of an alternative learner placement methodology that was in line with international best practices; and improving quality assurance aspects pertaining to the capacity at colleges to deliver the NCV programme effectively. / Human Resources Development / M. Tech. (Human Resource Development)