For students and their families that live within the regional school system of Quebec, travel to school by bus has become a "fixed" activity. Households operate within a complex system of time, distance and accessibility constraints in adapting to the impact of this fixed bus schedule. This study focuses on the impact of this daily bus ride on the perceptions and behaviours of these households. The Household Activity-Travel Simulator (HATS) technique, developed at Oxford University, was adapted to a survey of 64 households in the Eastern Townships School Board of Quebec. Households were selected according to time-distance from the two English secondary schools in the region. The interview/survey solicited student and family responses and behaviours with respect to the daily bus trip. The study tests six related hypotheses on the effects of such large time units devoted to riding a bus. The hypotheses search for relationships between travel time and the daily activity schedules of students and their families. Through a number of quantitative and qualitative measures, the study concludes that the bus trip has an effect on students and, to a lesser degree, on their families.

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This essay discusses how popular literature in general and Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight-series in particular can be useful in the classroom, despite, or rather, thanks to, its inherent problems concerning gender roles, relationships and the power systems within them. The essay takes a reader and teacher centered approach in describing both the problems of Twilight and the ways these problems can be worked with in the context of the school subject Swedish in upper secondary school. It makes an inventory of Twilight’s problematic aspects, and attempts to use them in conjunction with the governing documents of the Swedish school system

This study set out to examine the relative influence of personal and school-based characteristics and parental involvement on mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of public school performance. A national and representative sample of parents of school-aged children (N= 2008) were asked to award a grade (A, B, C, D or F) to their community school. There is a significant lack of empirical study of the factors influencing parents’ perceptions of school performance. The present study controlled for the socioeconomic status of parents and the community school being graded. Parental involvement in schools and assisting with homework are elements of parents’ relations with schools and were controlled for in the multivariate analysis. It was found that mothers and fathers are differentially influenced by personal and school-based characteristics; and, of import, there is a negative and significant association between participation in school-based activities and a father’s perception of school performance. The opposite association with participation in school-based activities was observed for mothers. Further, perceptions of “Failing” schools are influenced to a greater extent by the socioeconomic status of the parent and of the school. The results are interpreted by gendering the relations between parents and schools, and drawing from feminist standpoint theory. Particular focus is brought to the discordant association of parental involvement and the grades awarded to schools by mothers and fathers.

This study qualitatively explored how students, parents and school staff perceived the role that the school food environment played in student eating behaviour, how the Food and Nutrition Policy for Nova Scotia Public Schools impacted the food environment. This study looked at one public elementary school from Nova Scotia through a focus group with 6 grade five students, and individual interviews with 6 parents and 11 school staff members. Under the constructivist paradigm, the methodology chosen was social constructionism using constant comparative analysis. Significant themes that emerged from the data included: schools have a role in children’s eating habits; school culture is important for supporting a healthy food environment; and the food brought from home is the unhealthiest part of the school food environment. This research contributes to knowledge on the school’s impact on student eating behaviour, effectiveness of the policy, and the development of future research.

The dissertation examines the Texas Foundation School Program (FSP) empirically to determine its effectiveness in meeting state constitutional requirements and legislative policy goals. Three research questions guided this study, two of which focused on the relationship between campus-level expenditures and standardized test performance, while the third analyzed the influence of a district’s property wealth designation on its respective accountability rating. Longitudinal Texas Academic Excellence Indicator System data, consisting of selected academic performance indicators and funding components, was collected from the Texas Education Agency. Approximately 7,000 campuses and 1,050 districts per year of study comprised this data. Ordinary least squares multiple regressions and multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted to identify significant predictors of campus expenditures, campus standardized testing performance, and district academic accountability ratings. After examining the FSP and its funding components empirically, evidence suggests that while campus-level funding components positively predict the ability of a campus to spend, they do not predict campus academic performance. Key campus funding components, such as compensatory education and special education, do not appear to be funded at appropriate levels to contribute to positive performance outcomes. If vertical equity is important, then the FSP appears to have the conceptual structure, but not the funding levels, in place to contribute to positive academic outcomes at the campus level. Data also suggests that a district’s wealth designation is not a significant predictor of accountability ratings. Though property wealth plays a key role in determining district revenue and expenditures, it does not appear to influence Texas accountability ratings to the same extent.

Most of the research on students’ school engagement is based on Western society (Maslak, Kim, & Mcloughlin, 2010) and most was conducted on students in tertiary institutions (Kuh et al., 2005). This study pertains to the students’ school engagement factors in a non-Western one. Students’ school engagement continues to be an issue that attracts special attention. In this study, I review the existing literature relating to students’ school engagement while examining whether the success of a school as a learning environment is based on students’ interest in schooling or the fact that the school environment is crucial to students’ success (Bempechat, Beth, Piergross, & Wenk, 2008; Bong & Mimi, 2005; Deci & Ryan, 1992; Harris, 2008; Leithwood, Seashore-Louis, Anderson, & Wahlstrom, 2004; Newell, 2003; Satchwell, 2004; Spillane, Halverson, & Diamond, 2001). In this study, I carry out a qualitative investigation through observations and interviews, of the factors present in school that influence students’ school engagement. The themes emerging from the data from the school observations and the interviews of the participants were colored by the unique school context, which inordinately did affect students' interest and school participation. Their analysis reveals the interplay of factors like the approach adopted in leadership, the teachers’ approach to pedagogy, and peer socialization towards students’ engagement. In my discussion, I provide suggestions derived from this study on how school administrators, educators and policy makers alike may indeed create, enhance, influence and sustain students’ school engagement in the context such as the one in my study. / Thesis (Master, Education) -- Queen's University, 2012-07-30 13:43:39.521

The study of promotion or executive succession has been of interest to educators since the beginning of schools. Who should be a school's principal? The purpose of this study was twofold. First to investigate executive succession within large, urban Canadian schools boards, and second, to use a dramatic work---a play---to represent the major findings. Theatre is used to present society and its workings, it is a method of data representation that permits human emotion, care, conflict and tension to become palpable, to provoke an audience. The two purposes of this study merged to provide insight unto the "reality" of school principals' promotions from the perspective of practitioners. / Data on promotion was collected from thirteen seasoned school administrators through extended interviews. Respondents were encouraged to relate stories of individual promotions, as they understood them. The data was transcribed and analyzed using the constant comparison approach. This method yielded multiple levels of analysis including areas of reference, spheres of infra-influcnce (highly related concepts), and rules of inclusion (subsuming large amounts of data). / It was clear that promotion was a "political act" where several stakeholders fought for their interests. Then followed transcendence---the movement from the naturalistically collected and analyzed data to the play---the movement from science to art form. The rules of inclusion inspired the foundations of the novella, the novella led to the play; characters, scenes and actions were developed. A group of actors rehearsed and prepared a staged reading. Tim play was presented to a group of educators who were asked to respond to it at two levels---the work as a provocation device for preparing educational administrators and the work as the "reality" of promotion. / Clearly, the theatrical work stimulated the audience and indicated there is a valid place in administrator preparation programs for dramatic works. As well, the notion of promotion as "seeking the best possible candidate" was challenged as stakeholders' Interests dictated both promotion procedures and candidate succession. The title, Transitional Wars, seemed to capture the essence of the work.

The purpose of this study was to describe and evaluate the process of implementing an elementary school-based action team dedicated to increasing physical activity and healthy living opportunities for students. To facilitate this intervention, Epstein and colleagues' (2002) partnership framework, coupled with action research principles, was used to create partnerships between the school, home, and community. The results suggest that an action team based on Epstein and colleagues' guidelines may be suitable for creating opportunities for healthy and active living in an elementary school setting. In particular, families, students, teachers, and administration believed that the action team initiatives added to the school environment, school spirit, and value of the family as an essential component in the school. Likewise, the action team members felt that the health and wellness committee they represented was a valued component in the school culture that could be further developed and improved on in future years.

After democracy was achieved in South Africa, the South African Schools Act no 84 of 1996 required all public secondary schools to have two learners elected to the school governing body. The question of learner involvement and participation is still a thorny issue in some schools. The study investigated the experiences and perceptions of educators, parents and learners, regarding learner participation in school governance .The study was conducted in four schools in Mpumalanga ward of Hammarsdale circuit. A total of sixteen participants, four from each school comprising of four of each of principals, educators, parents and learners were interviewed. The study adopted the qualitative research design. Qualitative research design was most suitable to this study because it looked at views of different stakeholders entailed talking to people with the purpose of getting in depth information. Semi structured interviews were conducted with all participants. The main finding was that learner participation in school governance is still a problematic issue .The findings reveled that there are huge stumbling blocks that make learners fail to participate effectively in school governance. Democracy has not been achieved as expected, as it is evidenced by silent voices of learners. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2007.