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Description
Does school participatory budgeting (SPB) increase students’ political efficacy? SPB, which is implemented in thousands of schools around the world, is a democratic process of deliberation and decision-making in which students determine how to spend a portion of the school’s budget. We examined the impact of SPB on political efficacy in one middle school in Arizona. Our participants’ (n = 28) responses on survey items designed to measure self-perceived growth in political efficacy indicated a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.46), suggesting that SPB is an effective approach to civic pedagogy, with promising prospects for developing students’ political efficacy.
ContributorsGibbs, Norman P. (Author) / Bartlett, Tara Lynn (Author) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Author)
Created2021-05-01
Description
Since the introduction of the common school in the United States (US), education has constantly been in a state of reform. Given the importance of student learning to the future state of our nation, it is important to understand how positive educational reform can be achieved. This ethnographic case study aims to try to understand how a reform effort works as an educational and a sociocultural process, and what the important contributing factors to actualizing school reform are, as well as the challenges of effective implementation. Specifically, this study focuses on a school-wide reform effort based upon Stephen Covey's Seven Habits (1989). Qualitative research methods were used to address the research questions in this study. The researcher drew upon interviews, observations, and artifact and field note collection to tell the story of an elementary school engaged in year three of a school-wide reform initiative from the viewpoint of 10 teachers involved. Three recurring themes emerged from the data. First, data indicate that school reform is most effective when a school culture is created that supports the activation of teacher voice, efficacy, and coparticipation. Second, time and support are factors impacting implementation. Third, teachers reported that the common language from the reform has impacted the culture of the school. The evolution of a school culture is not simple and is demonstrated in the different ways the teachers experience the reform. Questions of authenticity arise when the reform effort changes from a grassroots, bottom-up initiative to a more top-down, bureaucratized business model.
ContributorsLamp, Michelle (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa (Thesis advisor) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Powers, Jeanne (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This dissertation explores the unique role schools play in contributing toward a sustainable future for their communities. This was undertaken by first conducting a thorough review and analysis of the literature on the current utilization of schools as agents of sustainable development, along with an evaluation of schools engaging in this model around the United States. Following this, a framework was developed to aid in the assessment of school-community engagements from the perspective of social change. Sustainability problem solving tools were synthesized for use by schools and community stakeholders, and were tested in the case study of this dissertation. This case study combined methods from the fields of sustainable development, transition management, and social change to guide two schools in their attempts to increase community sustainability through addressing a shared sustainability problem: childhood obesity. The case study facilitated the creation of a sustainable vision for the Phoenix Metropolitan Area without childhood obesity, as well as strategic actions plans for each school to utilize as they move forward on addressing this challenge.
ContributorsLawless, Tamara Hope (Author) / Golub, Aaron (Thesis advisor) / Redman, Charles (Committee member) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Sustainability challenges with severe local to global impacts require fundamental shifts in what industrial societies aspire to, generate, consume, and represent, as well as how they function. Transition governance is a promising framework to support these transformational efforts. A key component of transition governance is the construction of transition strategies, i.e., action schemes for how to transition from the current state to a sustainable one. Despite accomplishments in building theory and methodology for transition governance, the concepts of what transition strategies entail and how they relate to specific interventions are still underdeveloped. This dissertation further develops the concept of transition strategies, and explores how different stakeholder groups and allies can develop and test transition strategies across different scales, in the specific context of urban sustainability challenges. The overarching research question is: How can cities build and implement comprehensive transition strategies across different urban scales, from the city to the organizational level? The dissertation comprises four studies that explore the dynamic between transition strategies and experiments at the city, neighborhood, and organizational levels with empirical examples from Phoenix, Arizona. The first study reviews and compares paradigms of intentional change, namely transition governance, backcasting, intervention research, change management, integrated planning, and adaptive management in order to offer a rich set of converging ideas on what strategies for intentional change towards sustainability entail. The second study proposes a comprehensive concept of transition strategies and illustrates the concept with the example of sustainability strategies created through a research partnership with the City of Phoenix. The third study explores the role of experiments in transition processes through the lens of the neighborhood-level initiative of The Valley of the Sunflowers. The fourth study examines the role organizations can play in initiating urban sustainability transitions using exemplary strategies and experiments implemented at a local high school. The studies combined contribute to the further development of transition theory and sustainable urban development concepts. While this research field is at a nascent stage, the thesis provides a framework and empirical examples for how to build evidence-based transition strategies in support of urban sustainability.
ContributorsKay, Braden Ryan (Author) / Wiek, Arnim (Thesis advisor) / Loorbach, Derk (Committee member) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Tiger, Fern (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Participatory Budgeting (PB) can create changes within individuals and between them and their community. PB processes allow people to determine how to spend a portion of a particular budget (in the case of School PB, a portion of the school budget). These processes help address the underrepresentation of youth in the realm of civics.
I spent time with the steering committee and teacher coordinator of school PB in Carson Junior High to explore the impact of school PB on students’ knowledge, skills, attitudes and practices in relation to civic engagement. In the study I used quantitative and qualitative components. The participants were unique in that they all had prior experience in civic engagement programs in Carson Junior High that were organized by the teacher coordinator of school PB.
The main findings suggest that the participants reported a significant amount of learning in civic knowledge. In comparison, their overall perceived growth in attitudes, practices and skills were much lower. School PB helped the participants in the steering committee to grow in different ways than their other civic engagement programs by providing them with knowledge about budgets, their school’s mechanisms and other students within their school. They also became more familiar with the democratic process of voting and more comfortable with public speaking and presenting.
Recommendations for future research on this process include compiling quantitative and qualitative data from a larger sample consisting of students who had prior civic engagement experience and students who didn’t, and students with different ethnicities from different grades. Another recommendation for future research is to conduct a longitudinal study following school PB participants to high school and beyond to explore long-term impacts.
ContributorsKinzle, Lauren (Author) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Thesis director) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
This Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) Project was conducted by a graduate student and teaching resident, alongside five middle school students at a public, Title-I charter school in a Southern California city. Together, the research team navigates the space of “yes and-” by examining what a school is doing well to affirm its students and what remains to be done better. The project’s guiding question is: how is positive change effectively created for marginalized communities at school? In pursuit of an answer, the YPAR group conducted a survey of about 220 middle school students, and interviews with five eighth graders. Data suggests that most students feel safe at school and that their identities are respected, but there is still significant room for growth. Implications suggest that the school should support more inclusion of student voice, intervention and practices that would eliminate the burden marginalized students carry.
ContributorsD'Antuono, Grace (Author) / Swadener, Elizabeth Blue (Thesis advisor) / Theisen-Homer, Victoria (Committee member) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
DescriptionIntroduction chapter to the book, Educating for Democracy: The Case for Participatory Budgeting in Schools
ContributorsBartlett, Tara Lynn (Author) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Author)
Created2024-01-28
Description
One of the ideals underpinning public education in the United has been that of educating young people to become engaged democratic citizens. Civics courses have been the main, and sometimes only, sign of public schools attending to their civic mission. An opportunity to offer citizenship education through the experience of democratic governance manifests itself through the implementation of school participatory budgeting. Though promising, the use of school participatory budgeting in the United States is relatively new. The literature is sparse and issues of process design as well as research methodology remain unexplored.
School participatory budgeting has the potential, at least, to offer students an opportunity to experience deliberative democratic decision-making and thus enhance those capabilities critical for effective citizenship. More ambitiously, school participatory budgeting presents an opportunity to delicately and steadily transform school governance to give real decision-making power to students.
The four stand-alone articles that make up this dissertation are four facets of a single case study on the first large-scale instance of school participatory budgeting in the United States. They began with the question: What were the accomplishments and challenges of school participatory budgeting in a large secondary school district in the Southwestern United States in its initial implementation?
This question was interpreted and answered differently in each article. The first article examines aspects of process design and how participatory budgeting might contribute not only to citizenship learning but also the expansion of student voice. The experiences of students, in the second article, and those of teachers and administrators, in the third article, are explored through analysis of interview data. The final article addresses this question by drawing on my own experience of implementing school participatory budgeting using analytic autoethnography. This dissertation presents school participatory budgeting from multiple perspectives and recommends more empirical research on the structure of the process before, during, and after implementation.
This dissertation examines this approach to citizenship learning dynamically by using various methodologies and bringing together the literature on student voice, citizenship learning, participatory budgeting, and curriculum studies in order to enrich the discussions and provide actionable knowledge for advocates and practitioners.
School participatory budgeting has the potential, at least, to offer students an opportunity to experience deliberative democratic decision-making and thus enhance those capabilities critical for effective citizenship. More ambitiously, school participatory budgeting presents an opportunity to delicately and steadily transform school governance to give real decision-making power to students.
The four stand-alone articles that make up this dissertation are four facets of a single case study on the first large-scale instance of school participatory budgeting in the United States. They began with the question: What were the accomplishments and challenges of school participatory budgeting in a large secondary school district in the Southwestern United States in its initial implementation?
This question was interpreted and answered differently in each article. The first article examines aspects of process design and how participatory budgeting might contribute not only to citizenship learning but also the expansion of student voice. The experiences of students, in the second article, and those of teachers and administrators, in the third article, are explored through analysis of interview data. The final article addresses this question by drawing on my own experience of implementing school participatory budgeting using analytic autoethnography. This dissertation presents school participatory budgeting from multiple perspectives and recommends more empirical research on the structure of the process before, during, and after implementation.
This dissertation examines this approach to citizenship learning dynamically by using various methodologies and bringing together the literature on student voice, citizenship learning, participatory budgeting, and curriculum studies in order to enrich the discussions and provide actionable knowledge for advocates and practitioners.
ContributorsBrown, Andrew Boyd Keefer (Author) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Thesis advisor) / Barone, Thomas E (Committee member) / Sandlin, Jennifer A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
An increase of attention towards our nation’s civic participation downturn has brought the concept of civic engagement to the forefront of young people’s lives. Traditional teaching of long-standing democratic processes via education institutes have begun to evolve in how youth can participate civically, impacting social change within their communities. Civics instruction and learning implemented through a progressive pedagogical approach encompasses a greater focus on student-centered instruction, brings relevance to national history, as well as the historical ideals of democracy, and transposes this knowledge unto communities of today. Thus, youth may no longer be considered passive agents within the realm of social change, as they can experience empowerment when working with educators and the greater community. Current civic participation among young people across the United States, however, seems to be paving the way for civic disengagement. Drawing on the progressive education literature and statistical data on civic engagement and youth (particularly in the U. S. and Arizona), this study addresses the need for a civics-based progressive educational shift within the Arizona school system and other educational institutions. In addition to further outlining the need to cultivate civic engagement pedagogies amongst youth today, this thesis explores the construct of Arizona’s Excellence in Civic Engagement Program, which the Arizona Department of Education, in partnership with various community organizations, has established and implemented as a research-based, free standing (separate from state standards) youth civic engagement program. Three participating schools’ program applications are analyzed in regard to the inclusion of democratic ideals and themes, including how these schools enable students to become civically engaged, both within the school setting and greater community. I argue that for the future of this state, nation, and world, young people must be exposed to and engaged with participative opportunities and the civic education interconnectivity in their communities. This study examines the civics-based, progressive education themes needed in schools and educational institutions in order to empower Arizona’s youth and increase efforts to impact social change through civic education.
ContributorsSwanholm, Tara (Author) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Thesis advisor) / Swadener, Beth (Committee member) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
In the years following Lance Freeman’s seminal study, There Goes the ‘Hood: Views of Gentrification from the Ground Up (2006), the literature about how Black residents experience gentrification and its impacts on education, agency, and life has grown only slightly, and tends to explore gentrification as a class-based phenomenon. Yet, in America, race is inextricably linked to economics and geographical space. Therefore any discussion of urban blight and economic redevelopment must necessarily locate race as its nucleus to connect the vestiges of systemic racism to contemporary issues of social transformation. Using Critical Race Theory as a construct, this dissertation attempts to demonstrate the interconnectedness of racism and capitalism to extend the academic and practical discussions of gentrification.
This ethnographically inspired study begins with a historical analysis of Olde Towne East (OTE), a gentrifying community in Columbus, Ohio and then moves to a contemporary analysis of relevant data to demonstrate the vast disparities across myriad measures between the neighborhood’s Black and White residents. The crux of the dissertation features interviews with Black residents (N=17) who shared their stories about life in OTE and reflected upon the dynamics they perceive and ascribe to be associated with the transformation of their community.
Using grounded theory to analyze the values, attitudes, and beliefs contained in participant reflections, findings indicate that Black folks in this study are keenly aware of the systemic forces, including institutionalized racism, that have resulted in the gentrifying of their community. In addition to the systemic factors these participants ascribe to be associated with the transformation of OTE, they also contend that a lack of Black critical consciousness exacerbated the racially inequitable outcomes associated with gentrification.
This ethnographically inspired study begins with a historical analysis of Olde Towne East (OTE), a gentrifying community in Columbus, Ohio and then moves to a contemporary analysis of relevant data to demonstrate the vast disparities across myriad measures between the neighborhood’s Black and White residents. The crux of the dissertation features interviews with Black residents (N=17) who shared their stories about life in OTE and reflected upon the dynamics they perceive and ascribe to be associated with the transformation of their community.
Using grounded theory to analyze the values, attitudes, and beliefs contained in participant reflections, findings indicate that Black folks in this study are keenly aware of the systemic forces, including institutionalized racism, that have resulted in the gentrifying of their community. In addition to the systemic factors these participants ascribe to be associated with the transformation of OTE, they also contend that a lack of Black critical consciousness exacerbated the racially inequitable outcomes associated with gentrification.
ContributorsStigler, Monica L (Author) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Thesis advisor) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Scott, Kimberly A. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016