Thesis (Ed.D.)--Fairleigh Dickinson University, 1988. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-07, Section: A, page: 1758.

<p> Higher education institutions continue to struggle with encouraging retention for first-year students. Prior research has shown that establishing social integration during the first-year of college is a crucial component of a successful transition and has a positive influence on student persistence and academic success (Astin, 1993; Chapman &amp; Pascarella, 1983; Tinto, 1993). Social integration has historically been defined in terms of peer connections and involvement (Tinto, 1993); however, recent research has explored the importance of sense of belonging as an important psychosocial component in the transition to college (Strayhorn, 2012a). Sense of belonging focuses on feelings of fit, perceptions of social support, and feeling as though one matters to the community. The current study sought to explore the conceptual framework in which sense of belonging was included as a component of social integration. Moreover, this study explored whether institutional action could influence first-year students&rsquo; overall social integration through a focus on peer connections, involvement, and sense of belonging. </p><p> This quasi-experimental, quantitative study analyzed the influence of a campus intervention focused on social integration, called the Belonging Reinforcement Intervention (BRI). The BRI program was delivered to first-year students at a small, private institution during the first three weeks of their collegiate experience. The Belonging Reinforcement Intervention included researched components related to social belonging and normalizing students&rsquo; not feeling an immediate sense of fit (Walton &amp; Cohen, 2011a), reinforcing institutional commitment and belonging through communications (Hausmann et al., 2007), and research focused on peer mentoring as a way to encourage campus involvements (Peck, 2011). The study used a national instrument, the Mapworks Transition Survey, to determine if this intervention could influence the various components of social integration. </p><p> The findings from the study support a comprehensive view of social integration that includes sense of belonging. The findings further indicate that students who participated in the BRI program showed statistically significant increases in peer connections, involvement, and the current study&rsquo;s social integration scale which included sense of belonging. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the BRI program was particularly beneficial for Hispanic students with their intent to become involved and for female students for their overall social integration. The results of this study have implications for future institutional interventions and developing lasting programs that will help first-year students to succeed and persist in their college experience. The conclusions presented suggest that a broader definition of social integration can allow institutions and researchers to better understand and support the challenges students face during the transition to college.</p><p>

<p> The underrepresentation of racial/ethnic minorities and students from low socioeconomic backgrounds in college majors that promote social mobility is problematic. Relative risk aversion theory predicts that disadvantaged students will choose college majors that promote social mobility since they are more secure educational investments. However, the theory of effectively maintained inequality predicts that privileged students, not disadvantaged students, will obtain more secure degrees. To test these theories, I utilized the NC Roots of STEM dataset to model choice of college major. The NC Roots of STEM dataset is a multivariate, longitudinal dataset that followed NC high school seniors from 2004 through 2010. This thesis utilizes a series of multilevel logit models to examine the relationship between race, SES, educational opportunities and students&rsquo; interest, odds of declaration and odds of graduation with a STEM degree. The results give evidence for both theories at work within STEM majors. Disadvantaged students, particularly Black students, are more likely to have interest in STEM majors but are the least likely to graduate in these majors, once controlling for declaring a STEM major. While SES did not appear to have much difference on STEM interest and major declaration, low-SES students were significantly less likely to graduate in STEM majors. These findings give support for effectively maintained inequality within higher education.</p><p>

The aim of the thesis is to explore the social-class origins and destinations of CNAA graduates. The thesis begins with a discussion of social class, its meaning and conceptualization, and social-class schemas are devised for analysing the origins and destinations of graduates. Social class, however, is defined in a broad sense to include the dimensions of gender and ethnicity. Polytechnics and colleges are shown to have a higher proportion of working-class and black students than the universities. But despite their commitment to expanding educational opportunities public sector institutions remain socially exclusive in so far as they draw the bulk of their students from more middle-class backgrounds. Likewise, although public sector institutions appear to have expanded opportunities for women, female students are found to be concentrated in a limited number of courses. The career destinations of graduates are examined next. Significant differences were found relating to social-class or1g1ns with a tendency for men from manual backgrounds, women and black graduates to enter lower-status occupations. These differences appear only partly to arise from differences in career aspirations. It is suggested that black and women graduates may be subject to some discrimination. Significant differences are found in the destinations of graduates according to their courses of study, and once allowance is made for this, the existing relationship between the social-class origins and destinations of graduates becomes much less marked. An attempt is made to explain the relationship between the social-class or1g1ns and destinations of graduates and their courses of study using the models of contest and sponsored mobility devised by Turner. Using a four-fold categorization of school curriculums, it was shown that those graduates who had undertaken a 'utilitarian' school curriculum were constrained as regards their choice of course, whilst those who had undertaken an 'academic' curriculum and had been sponsored through secondary education enjoyed a greater choice of degree subject. Graduates from working-class or1g1ns were found to be more likely than their middle-class peers to have undertaken a 'utilitarian' curriculum.

The purpose of this study was to describe the functions and structures within gay/straight alliances (GSAs) in the public schools of Massachusetts. Six questions guided this study: (a) What are the roots of GSAs? (b) What are the purposes of GSAs? (c) How are GSAs structured? (d) What are the outcomes of GSAs? (e) What are the strengths of GSAs? (f) What are the challenges faced by GSAs? Participants in this study were selected from two groups: current and former Safe Schools for Gay and Lesbian Students Program (SSGLSP) staff members at the Massachusetts Department of Education, Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, and Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth were interviewed and advisors of GSAs active in Massachusetts at the start of the 1998/99 school year were asked to complete surveys. The purposes of the SSGLSP are to provide support and safety for lesbian and gay students. GSAs fulfill the purposes of the SSGLSP by providing opportunities for support, social interaction, and education. Study participants perceived the outcomes of GSAs to be replacing silence with visibility, replacing isolation with connection, making known the presence of lesbian and gay students in schools, providing opportunities for positive risk taking, challenging norms of silence, and contributing to a new vision for schools. Perceived strengths of the GSA model are conceptualizing GSAs as support groups, including lesbian and gay and straight students in the support group, providing institutional support, encouraging students to speak out about issues facing lesbian and gay students, and taking action at the right time. Advisors perceived the strengths of GSAs to be the personal qualities of student members, consistency of meeting times, and the ability to persevere in spite of opposition. Governor's Commission and Department of Education personnel perceived the challenges faced by GSAs to be dealing with fear, meeting the needs of lesbian and gay students along with heterosexual students, balancing competing priorities, and meeting the needs of underserved groups. Advisors named three logistical challenges facing GSAs: maintaining or increasing GSA membership, finding a convenient meeting time, and inconsistent meeting attendance.

This research project emerged from the researcher's work as an adult basic education instructor in a community learning center. With an inordinately high attrition rate (over seventy percent), the researcher's attention was easily focused on the small number of students who remained in the Learning Center and attended classes consistently. This group of five learners became the self-selected participants in the study. The purpose of the study was to examine the life experience of the five learners to gain insight into the nature of their motivation and commitment to learn. A series of up to six, one hour interviews were conducted with each of the participants. During the interviews, participants reflected on both past and present experience. Although it varied from person to person, discussions included childhood and family experience, prior school and educational experiences. Conclusions drawn from the research are not easily categorized. Motivating factors were different for each learner; one was motivated by a life-altering illness and another by the realities of finding employment without a high school diploma. The most salient insight gained from the research, however, was the similarity of experience across participants with issues related to dysfunctional families, personal violence, and substance abuse.

<p> The hospital setting provides an environment for patients to receive medical care, for medical professionals to provide treatment, and for medical students and residents to learn the practice of medicine through supervised patient encounters. Education provided at the point of care allows students and residents to apply knowledge and develop clinical skills needed for medical practice. The hospital environment is also a confluence of learning and work, where applied learning takes place in an integrated and simultaneous manner with work duties. This setting, referred to as the clinical learning environment (CLE), is a focus for educators, scholars, administrators, regulators and accrediting agencies to understand, measure and improve it. While several instruments have been developed to measure the CLE, they suffer from great variation in subscales and content. The purpose of this study is to deconstruct the CLE, apply theories from related fields, and frame those theories in the context of the hospital setting to develop a conceptual framework for the CLE. A systematic review of the literature and thematic synthesis of existing research about the CLE provided evidence to inform and test a learning environment framework in the clinical setting. Data from qualitative CLE assessments, the ACGME Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) <i>Pathways to Excellence</i>, and existing CLE measurement instruments informed these results. Findings showed that a CLE framework consists of three mediating factors: <i>learning</i>, <i>people</i>, and <i> change.</i> As the clinical setting is a unique environment for learning, the <i>people</i> dimension (as a community of practice) was found to be the most influential on learning outcomes for students. The dimension of <i>change</i> was found to be most influential from the perspective of improving organizational or work outcomes, including patient care, clinical quality and patient safety. Findings from this study provide researchers and scholars with a framework to for developing measures of clinical learning environment effectiveness, and informing practitioners of CLE components and relationships that impact both learning and organizational outcomes.</p>

<p> Race, as Delgado and Stefancic (2001) stress, is a structuring agent that greatly affects the experiences and even the well-being of individuals in US society. While American education has been considered a driver for equality, racism and race-based inequities are significant components of this institution, creating qualitatively different daily and cumulative experiences and outcomes for students based on race. Not only is it important to uncover how race and racism are manifested in educational institutions, but it is also necessary to better understand the intersecting oppressions that work alongside race to create particular experiences for brown and black students.</p><p> Using Critical Race Theory Methodology and relying on the counter-narratives of 31 students of color collected during 9 focus group meetings in the spring of 2014 at a predominately white university in the US Southeast, this study finds that these students are emotionally, academically, and socially affected by microaggressions, namely subtle and overlooked forms of racism and other intersecting oppressions in various campus settings. Sue et al (2007) defines microaggressions as &ldquo;<i>brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to people of color because they belong to a racial minority group </i>.&rdquo; Through such verbal and behavioral cues, brown and black students continually encounter white normativity and &ldquo;otherness&rdquo; throughout campus. Respondents also experience stereotype threat and reveal a social and cognitive burden of reconciling and juggling a complicated identity as <i>students</i> and <i>persons of color</i>, while also internalizing the oppressions they encounter daily. Findings indicate a need for effective training of professors in recognizing their cultural biases and stereotypes they are reinforced through their interactions and curriculum. Sincere and effective awareness efforts need to be implemented on campus for students and faculty, and should replace superficial attempts at diversity awareness that often reinforce racial and other inequities and differences.</p>

<p>This dissertation advances scholarship on how financialization ? the increasing power of financial ideologies and markets ? has transformed diverse organizations, including non-profits, state institutions, and households. In three papers, I explain how financialization has contributed to rising organizational inequality in U.S. undergraduate education education since the 1990s: 1) ?The Financialization of U.S. Higher Education? develops new quantitative measures to find large but skewed relative increases in the financial costs and returns from endowments, colleges? institutional borrowing, equity offerings by for-profit colleges, and student loan borrowing, 2) ?The Transformation of U.S. For-Profit Colleges,? uses a unique college-level and multi-wave longitudinal dataset to show how the spread of shareholder value ideology led to a new industrial-scale business model with negative consequences for student outcomes, and 3) ?The Ivory Tower Tax Haven? explains how long-standing tax exemptions have supported new endowment investment strategies that have fueled rising expenditures to maximize the prestige of the wealthiest universities. Altogether, I highlight the importance of finance ideologies in the shifting balance of resources between and within the many heterogeneous types of U.S. colleges.

<p> This dissertation seeks to explain why large segments of the Jewish community, after working with blacks for decades, often quite radically towards expanding the boundaries of citizenship at City College, rejected the legitimacy of the 1970 Open Admissions policy? While succeeding in radically transforming the structure of City College and CUNY more broadly, the Black and Puerto Rican Student Community's late 1960&rsquo;s political mobilization failed as an act of citizenship because its claims went broadly unrecognized. Rather than being remembered as political action that expanded the structure and content of citizenship, the Open Admissions crisis and policy are remembered as having destroyed a once great college. The black and Puerto Rican students who claimed an equal right to higher education were seen as unworthy of the forms of inclusion they demanded, and the radical democracy of Open Admissions was short lived, being decisively reformed in the mid 70&rsquo;s in spite of what subsequent research has shown to be remarkable success in educating thousands who previously had no hope of pursuing a college degree. This dissertation places this question in historical context in three ways. </p><p> First, it historicizes the political culture at City College showing it to be an important incubator and index of the changing political imaginaries of the long civil rights movement by analyzing the shifting and evolving publics on the college&rsquo;s campus, tracing the rise and fall of different political imaginaries. Significantly, the shifting political imaginaries across time at City College sustained different kinds of ethical claims. For instance, in the period from the 1930 to 1950, Jewish and black City College students tended to recognize each other as suffering from parallel forms of systemic racism within U.S. society. Understanding each other to be similarly excluded from a social system that benefitted a largely white-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant elite, enabled Jewish and black City College students to position themselves and each other as the normative subjects of American democracy. However, in the 1960&rsquo;s, political imaginaries at City College had come to be anchored in more individualistic idioms, and ethical claims tended to be made within individualistic terms. Within such a context, when the BPRSC revived radically democratic idioms of political claims making, they tended to be understood by many whites as pathologically illiberal. </p><p> Second, it historicizes the ways in which City College constructed &ldquo;the meritorious student&rdquo; by analyzing the social, political and institutional forces that drove the college to continuously reformulate its admissions practices across its entire history. It shows that while many actors during the Open Admissions crisis invested City College&rsquo;s definitions of merit with sacred academic legitimacy, they were in fact rarely crafted for academic reasons or according to a purely academic logic. Regardless, many ignored the fact the admissions standards were arbitrarily based, instead believing such standards were the legitimate marker of academic ability and worthiness. By examining the institutional construction of the &ldquo;meritorious&rdquo; student the dissertation shows the production of educational citizenship from above while also revealing how different actors and their standpoints were simultaneously constructed by how they were positioned by this institutional process. </p><p> Finally, the dissertation examines two significant historical events of student protest, the Knickerbocker-Davis Affair of the late 1940's and the Open Admissions Crisis of the late 1960's. In these events, City College students challenged the content of &ldquo;educational citizenship.&rdquo; These events were embedded in the shifting political culture at City College and were affected by the historically changing ways different groups, especially Jews and blacks, were positioned by the structure of educational citizenship. </p><p> While Jews had passed into whiteness by the late 1960&rsquo;s in the U.S, there was no objective reason for many to claim the privileges of whiteness by rejecting a universal policy such as Open Admissions. Yet, many Jews interpreted Open Admissions as against their personal and group interests, and rejected the ethical claim to equality made by the BPRSC. By placing the Open Admissions crisis in deep historical and institutional context, and comparing the 1969 student mobilization to earlier student actions, the dissertation shows how actors sorted different political, institutional and symbolic currents to interpret their interests and construct their identities and lines of action. </p>