This study explores and illustrates the construction and representation of Chinese national identity in Chinese language textbooks. It identifies the traditional and modern resources for conceptualizing the modern nation-state. It takes an approach to the study of national identity that integrates the discourse-historical method and the multimodal approach into critical discourse analysis (CDA). It describes and interprets the cultural and ideological dimensions of Chinese nationalism embedded in textbooks through verbal and visual representations. The perspectives presented in selected materials are examined with respect to how the national identity is discursively constructed in the textbooks after its economic transformation within the context of globalization. Key questions developed for this study are: (1) How is the nation imagined, represented, and projected to the world? (2) What cultural, historical, and symbolic resources do the textbooks use in the discourse construction of tradition and modernity? (3) How have textbooks drawn on evolving discourses of modern Chinese identity? Data is collected from two series of Chinese textbooks, including their corresponding student workbooks, teacher's manuals, and multimedia materials. Discourse-historical analysis is employed to understand how cultural meanings are encoded into the language of texts and serve to influence students' perception about China. Using multimodal analysis, it examines devices such as characterization, symbolism, and visual composition to extract ideological messages inherent within the text. It concludes that textbooks articulate an elite version of Chinese national identity. They present the Chinese nation as a historical and cultural entity by combining the assumptions of continuous Chinese civilization and of China as a modern nation-state. Through textbooks' cultural representations, the textbook authors address their audience, American students in our case, and embody Chinese national identity, modern progress, and historical continuity.

The purpose of the study is to develop a framework for feminist participatory research, an alternative, emancipatory approach to social science research. Feminist participatory research, which challenges male oppression of women, is important in light of participatory research's intention to uncover and change systems of oppression. The study builds a rationale and framework for feminist participatory research through a critical literature review and a field-based feminist participatory research project with a multicultural former battered women's group in Gallup, New Mexico. Thus, the framework is a result of praxis, i.e., interaction between theory and practice through a reflection-action cycle. To establish a rationale for feminist participatory research, the study examines dominant and alternative paradigm social science research. Examination of participatory research exposes androcentric, i.e., male-centered, aspects similar to the male biases of dominant, positivist-informed research. A comparison of feminist and participatory research provides the basis for a feminist participatory research framework. The second part of the study describes the Former Battered Women's Support Group Project. Anglo and Navajo women name, investigate, and explore solutions to problems they face after leaving a local shelter. Extensive interview material is included. The project is analyzed and evaluated using both participatory research characteristics and the framework. Participants have a voice in project evaluation. The study concludes with recommendations for further developing feminist participatory research. The study is of interest to participatory and feminist researchers and those exploring emancipatory research approaches. It may interest practitioners and researchers working with former battered women.

PROBLEM: The problem of this study is to determine the extent to which eighth grade students understand quantitative concepts expressed in United States History textbooks. PURPOSE: This investigation was conducted to explore the types of quantitative concepts found in eighth grade United States History textbooks, the students' understanding of these concepts, and the relationship between their understanding of these concepts and the variables of math achievement, reading achievement, and grade point average. PROCEDURES: Two hundred sixty-three students from twelve eighth grade classes in three neighboring school districts were given a Test on Quantitative Concepts designed by the investigator. The students were divided into three groups: t hose using a United States History textbook heavily laden with quantitative terms; those using a United States History textbook with considerably fewer quantitative terms; and those using both of these textbooks . Their Quantitative Concepts Test scores were analyzed to determine whether their understanding of quantitative concepts was affected by the type of textbook used, or by sex, and whether there was a positive correlation between the understanding of quantitative concepts and reading and between quantitative concepts and math. FINDINGS: By use of the analysis of covariance to adjust for differences in grade point averages, reading, vocabulary, and math scores , no significant differences were found in the understanding of the quantitative terms among the students using either or both of the United States History textbooks. However, boys were found to understand quantitative terms significantly better than did girls. The results also indicated that there were marked relationships between both math and reading ability and the understanding of quantitative concepts. Another finding was that there is no relationship between what students may think their teachers are teaching about quantitative concepts, and the students own understanding of these concepts. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this investigation suggest that as children mature their understanding of quantitative concepts increases. Yet even by the eighth grade, students understand only about two-thirds cf those types of concepts encountered in their texts . Once this fact is accepted, teachers must make conscious efforts to devise strategies to teach these concepts. One such strategy would be to give students. the opportunity to engage in activities that will provide them actual experiences with numbers in the social setting. The major implication of this study is that students, girls perhaps more so than boys, have not had sufficient opportunities to apply logical thought to concrete problems involving quantitative terms. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH: These further investigations are recommended:- (1) An experimental study involving the teaching of quantitative concepts through manipulative mate rials versus the lecture-discussion approach. (2) Teaching quantitative concepts in a math class, integrating them into a social studies course,and measuring gain through pre- and post-tests. (3) A longitudinal study following a specific group of students for two or three yea.rs to study their growth of understanding of these concepts. (4) A study where teachers are told that pre- and post-tests on quantitative terms would be given in the fall and the spring and the teachers dichotomized in terms of heavy emphasis versus little emphasis on quantitative concepts teaching.

PROBLEM: Because of the potential detrimental effect of social isolation to the academic achievement and social and personal. adjustment of elementary school pupils, there is a need for data describing communication skills of an isolate sample.

The performance of the California Teachers Agsociation (CTA) as a legislative lobby during the 1958 -1974 period was examined in relation to seven operant questions and Laurence Iannaccone's typology of legislature-education lobby linkage structures. It was found that in 1972-74 CTA had a reduced level of legislative influence and a 44 percent success ratio on CIA-sponsored measures compared to 68 percent in 1955-57 and greater legislative acceptance. California' s legislative and political systems moved from a phase II (united) to a III (disunited) legislature education lobby linkage structure in 1961-65. The 1961-70 years were a period of decline for the association as a legislative interest group. However, by 1972-74, the organization had reestablished a good deal of its lost effectiveness. In 1972-74 Association for Better Citizenship (ABC) money for state legislative campaign contributions plus increased lobbying effort replaced resources lost earlier a monopoly of educational data needed for legislative decision-making and the unity of the CTA-led education lobby. In 1972-74 CTA's weaknesses a& a legislative lobby included (1) inadequate involvement in local legislative district elections along with a failure to groom candidates for legislative office and (2) a lack of effective coalition-building in support of legislation. The association's strengths were (1) maintenance of effective communication and credibility before the legislature (2) a successful adjustment to the legislative and political systems of a phase IIl (disunited) legislature education lobby linkage structure and (3) performance as an initiator essentially, rather than a blocker, of legislation.

This dissertation is about refugees in Somalia, how they got there, where they came from, and why they stay. It discusses the community development program, the notion of self-reliance and the manipulation of these concepts to create a circumstance of regional dependency. The research puts refugee circumstances in Somalia into a global context of economic and military oppression. Dispelling the myths of poor farm management, drought, overpopulation, and backwardness, war is named as the primary cause of refugee origins worldwide. A major theme of the research is that we live in a corporate warfare/welfare world in which development aid pursues hearts and minds, as well as markets. Within this system, development workers must understand local political/social structures and put them into the context of global political/economic realities.

This dissertation addresses the questions: How do activists sustain hope while increasingly aware of social complexity? How is agentive hope related to experiences of systemic power relations, including class, race, and gender? In a political climate increasingly circumscribed by neoliberal and neoconservative policies and rhetoric, the question of how scholars and teachers, both formal and informal, can support hopeful, agentive, social democratic citizens becomes critical. Employing a mixed genre format, based in an ethnographic position informed by Virginia Dominguez's "politics of love and rescue" and Hirokazu Miyazaki's "method of hope," I examine hope and its relationship to diversity and citizenship through analysis of in-depth field research conducted in undergraduate citizenship education courses. Through both traditional anthropological analysis and a full-length, ethnographically inspired novel, I explore activists' motivation, life stories, and political values, asking how their ability to sustain hope for the short term and the long term articulates with their lived experiences of systemic power relations and their visions of citizenship. Key factors in sustaining a long-term orientation toward hope include perspective-taking ("the wide angle lens"), loving relationships, and doing and reflecting on direct action, especially across social boundaries. I conclude that reflective, relational, action-focused pedagogies can effectively support diverse groups of hopeful, agentive citizens committed to progressive visions of social justice.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University.

In order to make school camping programs educationally more effective, teachers, school administrators and educational policy-makers should be provided with data on the important issues of conducting school camping programs. Some of these issues include goals for school camping programs and constraints in conducting such programs and knowledge and value perception of teachers and school administrators concerning school camping programs. However, little research has been obtained to get empirical data on these issues. The purposes of this study were to: (1) diagnose teacher and school administrator attitudes toward the value of outdoor education and school camping and skill level necessary for conducting outdoor education and school camping programs, (2) identify broad goals and program objectives for school camping as well as constraining factors based on the teacher and school administrator opinions, (3) ascertain variables that influence teacher and school administrator attitudes toward the outdoor education and school camping. Among one thousand fifty questionnaires sent, seven hundred thirty-three were returned and seven hundred twenty three responses were analyzed by ANOVA, MANOVA, and Factor Analysis. The results and conclusions of this study can be summarized as follows: (1) In general, teachers and school administrators are quite positive toward the value of outdoor education and school camping. (2) Teachers and school administrators are not equipped with knowledge and skills related to outdoor education and school camping. (3) Five sets of broad goals were extracted through Factor Analysis and all of them were considered desirable as the goals for school camping. However, teachers and school administrators prefer the goal "To improve human relationships" to other goals. (4) Seven constraining factors were identified through Factor Analysis. Among the seven constraining factors, "Administrative difficulties and teacher inconvenience" was considered the most constraining factors. (5) Several variables were found to influence teacher and school administrator attitudes toward outdoor education and school camping.

Environmental education is on its way to being integrated into the school system. While environmental groups are trying to help teachers address various environmental issues, teachers are often regarded as passive learners in the helping relationship. Put differently, resources are often made available without consultation with teachers--the end users of these materials. A gap, thus, exists between resources available from environmental groups and those most desired and valued by teachers. To bridge such a gap, this study employed a questionnaire entitled "assessing elementary school teacher self-perceived needs in environmental education." It was developed and validated through four stages to insure its validity. Participants were demographically representative of Massachusetts elementary school teachers. For example, a majority of the participants were teaching in an urbanized area. Results indicated that teachers generally perceived most environmental issues as important for their students to learn about, but felt that they were not prepared to address these issues, even though they felt they were competent in addressing environmental issues in general. They wanted their students to be able to achieve educational objectives related to environmental sensitivity more than those related to factual knowledge. Regarding possible types of suggested resources, teachers in this study appeared to favor ready-made instructional materials more than other kinds of resources. When they addressed environmental issues, teachers appeared to do it either in science or social studies curricula, followed in frequency by health and language arts. Regarding the supplemental instructional materials listed, Naturescope was first in both familiarity and uses, and was trailed by Project WILD and Project Learning Tree. Statistical analysis indicated that three factors seemed to be most influential in determining teachers' responses. They were: grade level taught, frequency of addressing environmental issues, and perception of competency in addressing environmental issues.