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What is critical?: An analysis of small group critical conversations with African American second grade males

This dissertation examines the ways in which six second grade African American males engaged in critical conversations. This qualitative study addresses three primary research questions: 1) What is the nature of small group literature discussions focused on issues of power and privilege?; 2) How are students working to collectively build critical knowledge in a small group literature discussion focused on issues of power and privilege?; and 3) In what ways do issues of racial identity emerge among a small group of African American males participating in a discussion about race, power, and privilege? In order to address these three research questions, data was collected using the following methods: interviews, audio and video recordings, and field notes.
A grounded theory approach was used to analyze the data, and results suggested that students who participated in the small group discussion sessions: 1) primarily discussed major themes the text inspired; 2) used an argumentation framework as a way of discussing critical topics and building knowledge; and 3) leveraged their own cultural histories and racial identities as tools for interpreting a major historical event.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-07142015-103303
Date21 July 2015
CreatorsWood, Summer Denise
ContributorsDeborah Rowe, Robert Jimenez, Kevin Leander, Tony Brown
PublisherVANDERBILT
Source SetsVanderbilt University Theses
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-07142015-103303/
Rightsunrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report.

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