<p> Low graduation rates are a significant issue for colleges. The majority of higher education institutions in the United States offer learning communities (LCs), which have been found to be effective for improving course success and persisting to the next semester. However, there is a gap in the literature regarding the effectiveness of LCs with different types of populations and different types of LCs. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to identify the most effective types of LCs. Research questions addressed the effects of different types of LCs on different student success outcomes for community colleges. The study was based on Tinto's interactionist model of student departure and Astin's model of student involvement. Studies examining the relationship between student success and participation in college LCs provided the data for the meta-analysis. A random effects model was used to generate the average effect size for 39 studies and 50 individual effect sizes. The results showed that LCs are most effective with community college students when they include additional support strategies, counseling is available to students, one of the linked courses is an academic skills course, at least one of the linked course is developmental, and the focus is on increasing course success or student engagement. The implications for positive social change suggest that LC programs implement two linked courses, include an academic skills course, focus on developmental courses, and provide access to a counselor and additional student support strategies. In addition, LC programs are most effective when the goals of the program are student engagement and course success.</p>

This study investigates the complex nature of how Tongan mothers in New Zealand contribute to their young children's ako (learning, and general education) in their homes, in the early childhood centre and primary school settings, and in church and the community. It argues that the mothers' contribution to their children's ako is based mainly on their cultural background, educational experience in Tonga, and their Christian faith, plus new knowledge they have picked up in New Zealand. Through the use of talanoa (conversation, questions and discussion) in Tongan and English languages, data were gathered from a small community in a town in the North Island, New Zealand and were coded, analysed, and presented. The participants draw on skills and knowledge of child-rearing strategies and educational practices experienced in Tonga before their migration to this country. However, when implemented in New Zealand, some aspects prove contradictory to the current practice in Aotearoa. The mothers find these emerging tensions frustrating, yet ongoing, but new learning in this country and their Christian faith help enhance their practice. The findings show that the mothers' use of Tongan language, cultural values, beliefs, and practices, with the lived experience of their Christian faith, is effective in teaching the children social and moral education, while contributing to their academic learning and still be preserving their Tongan culture, language, and identity. The mothers' shared use of Tongan language, cultural values and Christian faith enable them to create and maintain good relationships with teachers and other mothers for making worthwhile contributions to their children's ako in the selected contexts. Most of the mothers are involved in most activities, and nearly all participate where Tongan language is used and Tongan culture and Christianity are practised. It is acknowledged that some contributions create dilemmas and mismatches of expectations between the women and mainstream educational institutions. The women's efforts, accessing information in Tongan, and operating in education using faka-Tonga ways, and creating warm relationships among the mothers, teachers, and children who contribute to one another's learning reveal the complex nature of mothers' contributions to their children's education. They shuttle from one context to another, using their faka-Tonga ways, views and practices to fulfill their obligations and responsibilities, while going through transformation in their participation. Based on these findings, implications for mothers, teachers/educators, researchers, and policymakers are considered, and suggestions for future research directions are made that may benefit the growing Tongan population since it is they who have the main responsibility for young Tongan children's ako in Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Flinders University, School of Education. / Typescript bound. Includes bibliographical references: (leaves 217-224) Also available online.

abstract: The term "White flight" and its effects are well documented in large urban city centers. However, few studies consider the same effects on smaller American communities. This case study investigates Lexington, Nebraska, a rural community of approximately 10,000 citizens, that has experienced a population influx of minorities in the last 25 years. The population shift has increased the representation of Hispanic, Asian, and now Somali students in the Lexington Public School system, which, in turn, has been accompanied by a dramatic decrease in White, Anglo students. This study attempts to identify and describe the reasons for the exodus of White students from the public school setting. Possible reasons that might explain the decreases in White student enrollment may include overcrowding in schools, unsafe school environments, and/or less one-on-one attention with classroom teachers. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2011

abstract: Michael Apple's scholarship on curriculum, educational ideology, and official knowledge continues to be influential to the study of schooling. Drawing on the sociological insights of Pierre Bourdieu and the cultural studies approaches of Raymond Williams, Apple articulates a theory of schooling that pays particular attention to how official knowledge is incorporated into the processes of schooling, including textbooks. In an effort to contribute to Apple's scholarship on textbooks, this study analyzed high school American history textbooks from the 1960s through the 2000s with specific attention to the urban riots of the late-1960s, sixties counterculture, and the women's movement utilizing Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytic concept of abjection to augment Apple's theory of knowledge incorporation. This combination reveals not only how select knowledge is incorporated as official knowledge, but also how knowledge is treated as abject, as unfit for the curricular body of official knowledge and the selective tradition of American history. To bridge the theoretical frameworks of incorporation and abjection Raymond Williams' theory of structures of feeling and Slavoj iek's theory of ideological quilting are employed to show how feelings and emotional investments maintain ideologies. The theoretical framework developed and the interpretive analyses undertaken demonstrate how textbook depictions of these historical events structure students' present educational experiences with race, class, and gender. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Educational Leadership and Policy Studies 2011

abstract: This study explores experiences of women as they pursue post-secondary computing education in various contexts. Using in-depth interviews, the current study employs qualitative methods and draws from an intersectional approach to focus on how the various barriers emerge for women in different types of computing cultures. In-depth interviews with ten participants were conducted over the course of eight months. Analytical frameworks drawn from the digital divide and explorations of the role of hidden curricula in higher education contexts were used to analyze computing experiences in earlier k-12, informal, workplace, and post-secondary educational contexts to understand how barriers to computing emerge for women. Findings suggest several key themes. First, early experiences in formal education contexts are alienating women who develop an interest in computing. Opportunities for self-guided exploration, play, and tinkering help sustain interest in computing for women of color to engage in computing at the post-secondary level. Second, post-secondary computing climates remain hostile places for women, and in particular, for women of color. Thirdly, women employ a combination of different strategies to navigate these post-secondary computing cultures. Some women internalized existing dominant cultures of computing programs. Others chose exclusively online programs in computing to avoid negative interactions based on assumptions about their identity categories. Some women chose to forge their own pathways through computing to help diversify the culture via teaching, creating their own businesses, and through social programs. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Justice Studies 2012

abstract: The dissertation is based on 15 months of ethnographically-informed qualitative research at a liberal arts college in the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. It seeks to provide a sense of daily life and experience of schooling in general and for female students in particular. Access to literacy and the opportunities that formal education can provide are comparatively recent for most Bhutanese women. This dissertation will look at how state-sponsored schooling has shaped gender relations and experiences in Bhutan where non-monastic, co-educational institutions were unknown before the 1960s. While Bhutanese women continue to be under-represented in politics, upper level government positions and public life in general, it is frequently claimed at a variety of different levels (for instance in local media and government reports), that Bhutan, unlike it South Asian neighbors, has a high degree of gender equity. It is argued that any under-representation does not reflect access or opportunity but is instead the result of women's decision not to "come up" and participate. However this dissertation will dispute the claim that female students could choose to be more visible, vocal and mobile in classrooms and on campus without being challenged or discouraged. I will show that school is a gendered context, in which female students are consistently reminded of their "limitations" and their "appropriate place" through the use of familiar social practices such as teasing, gossip, and harassment. Schooling, particularly in developing nations like Bhutan, is usually implicitly and uncritically understood to be a neutral resource, often evaluated in relation to development aims such as creating a more educated and skilled workforce. While Bhutanese schools do seem to promote new kind of opportunity and new understandings of success, they also continue to recognize, maintain and reproduce conventional values around hierarchy, knowledge transmission, cooperation (or group identity) and gender norms. This dissertation will also show how emergent disparities in wealth and opportunity in the nation at large are beginning to be reflected and reproduced in both the experience of schooling and the job market in ways that Bhutanese development policy is not yet able to adequately address. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Anthropology 2012

[pt] Este trabalho examina a expansão recente do ensino superior no Brasil com foco num eventual processo de democratização, vale dizer: onde se possa perceber um recrutamento de alunos mais independente de sua origem social e com qualidade acadêmica. Problematiza especialmente o caráter desigual da sociedade brasileira, traduzida neste caso por uma forte correlação entre a carreira escolhida pelos estudantes e sua origem social, no quadro de uma quase impermeável hierarquia de carreiras e de prestígio das instituições. O estudo é realizado através dos Microdados do Exame Nacional de Cursos (Provão) para os anos de 2000, 2001, 2002 e 2003, sobre seis cursos superiores no Estado do Rio de Janeiro: Biologia, Direito, Letras, Engenharia, Matemática e Medicina. Identifica o perfil socioeconômico dos alunos destes cursos e averigua os resultados obtidos no Exame Nacional de Cursos, verificando se houve inclusão de novos perfis e o desempenho acadêmico dos mesmos no período. Analisa os resultados de forma geral e segundo a categoria administrativa, a organização acadêmica e a localização dos cursos. Estabelece também, a partir desta análise, um diálogo com pesquisas empíricas realizadas sobre a temática. Finalmente, propõe uma hipótese de construção de um indicador de democratização do ensino superior com vistas a contribuir para o balizamento da política educacional na continuidade da expansão que, segundo os achados, deve ser acompanhada de perto para que não se esgote no aumento do contingente de estudantes no ensino superior, frustrando a meta democrática. / [en] This work examines the recent expansion of higher education in Brazil with a focus in a potential process of democratization, that is, where one can note the recruitment of students regardless of their socioeconomic background and high academic standards. In particular, it brings to light the inequalities of Brazilian society, demonstrated in this case by a strong correlation between the careers chosen by students and their socioeconomic background, in the framework of a nearly impermeable hierarchy of careers and institutional prestige. The study was conducted based on the Microdata from the Provão (assessment tests) for the years 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003, for six higher education courses in the State of Rio de Janeiro: Biology, Law, Languages & Literature, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine. The socioeconomic profiles of the students in each course are identified and the results obtained in the Courses` National Examinations are studied to see whether new profiles were included and to assess the academic performance in the period. The results are examined on a general level and according to the administrative category, academic organization and location of each course. After this analysis has been made, a dialogue is established with empirical research conducted on the topic. Finally, the author proposes the hypothesis of creating a democratization indicator for higher education with the goal of contributing towards the gauging of educational policies as the expansion continues. According to the findings, this expansion should be closely monitored in order to keep up the increase in the contingency of students in higher education and thereby attain the democratic goal.

Cyberbullying has become increasingly problematic over the past decade with extreme instances of young people committing suicide due to their victimisation. While the prevalence of cyberbullying along with its effects have been researched and identified, the theoretical underpinnings for determining why young people engage in these behaviours has been under researched. A clear understanding behind the motivations into cyberbullying as exclusion is necessary in order to help decrease the behaviours as well as addressing deficiencies in defining what cyberbullying is. This study used a mixed methods design, first using quantitative data via a survey designed to target pupils (n=450) in three Catholic Secondary schools in Glasgow, Scotland. Second, qualitative data was collected through interviews with educational professionals (n=13; nine teachers, four non-teacher educators). The discussion of findings focuses on the perceptions of cyberbullying through the eyes of educators and how they understand and recognise the exclusionary process. To facilitate understanding cyberbullying as exclusion, the results of this study were explored through the lens of the Established and Outsiders framework. The research finds that while teachers are undereducated and uninformed on social media and cyberbullying, young people continue to increase their knowledge and access to these sites for both socialisation and exclusion, which is having a significant effect on their physical and mental well being. While most young people surveyed claim not to have been victims of cyberbullying, the evidence from both the survey and interviews agree that girls were more likely to engage in cyberbullying as both victim and bully. Teachers from the three participating schools experienced challenges in understanding and recognising cyberbullying and the usage of social media by young people. Their abilities to recognise these behaviours were often underpinned by their lack of training in areas of technology in conjunction with their negative attitudes toward social media. This study enriches the wider literature by examining cyberbullying as exclusion through the lens of Elias’s Established and Outsider framework, providing a novel approach to understanding the exclusionary process. The study also provides evidence asserting the need for providing in-service teachers education, training and support in understanding and recognising cyberbullying behaviours.

Esssa dissertação trata da percepção da comunidade escolar de uma escola pública na região metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro - Nova Iguaçu sobre a política de provação automática. A política de ciclos, para funcionamento da estrutura de ensino nas escolas, ficou mais conhecida pelo efeito da aprovação automática dos alunos das séries iniciais. A pesquisa procurou acompanhar a forma como professores e pais percebem o efeito de tal sistema sobre aprendizado dos alunos. O trabalho de campo com observação da rotina da escola e as entrevistas realizadas com professores e pais foram os caminhos utilizados para o desenho de tais percepções. / This dissertation deals with the perception of the scholar community from a public school in Nova Iguaçu, at the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, concerning the automatic approval politics. The cycle politics, for the education structure at the schools to operate, became better known bythe effect of the automatic approval of students of the primary grades. The research intent to follow the way as teachers and parents discern the effect of such system over the student`s learning. The working field with observation of the school`s routine and interviews perfomed with teachers and parents, were the paths used to draw such perceptions.