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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
ABSTRACT A review of studies selected from the Educational Resource Information Center (ERIC) covering the years 1985 through 2011 revealed three key evaluation components to analyze within a comprehensive teacher evaluation program: (a) designing, planning, and implementing instruction; (b) learning environments; and (c) parent and peer surveys. In this dissertation, these three components are investigated in the context of two research questions: 1. What is the relationship, if any, between comprehensive teacher evaluation scores and student standardized test scores? 2. How do teachers and administrators experience the comprehensive evaluation process and how do they use their experiences to inform instruction? The methodology for the study included a mixed-method case study at a charter school located in a middle-class neighborhood within a large metropolitan area of the southwestern United States, which included a comparison of teachers' average evaluation scores in the areas of instruction and environment, peer survey scores, parent survey scores, and students' standardized test (SST) benchmark scores over a two-year period as the quantitative data for the study. I also completed in-depth interviews with classroom teachers, mentor teachers, the master teacher, and the school principal; I used these interviews for the qualitative portion of my study. All three teachers had similar evaluation scores; however, when comparing student scores among the teachers, differences were evident. While no direct correlations between student achievement data and teacher evaluation scores are possible, the qualitative data suggest that there were variations among the teachers and administrators in how they experienced or "bought into" the comprehensive teacher evaluation, but they all used evaluation information to inform their instruction. This dissertation contributes to current research by suggesting that comprehensive teacher evaluation has the potential to change teachers' and principals' perceptions of teacher evaluation as inefficient and unproductive to a system that can enhance instruction and ultimately improve student achievement.
ContributorsBullock, Donna (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa (Thesis advisor) / Powers, Jeanne (Thesis advisor) / Stafford, Catherine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The purpose of this study was to investigate critical literacy practices in two prehistoric exhibits in a natural history museum. Bourdieu's habitus and Bakhtin's dialogism served as theoretical frames to collect and analyze data. Data were collected and triangulated using field notes, interview transcriptions, archives, and other data sources to critically scrutinize textual meaning and participant responses. Spradley's (1979) domain analysis was used to sort and categorize data in the early stage. Glaser and Strauss's (1967) constant comparative method was used to code data. My major findings were that museum texts within this context represent embedded beliefs and values that were interwoven with curators` habitus, tastes and capital, as well as institutional policies. The texts in the two Hohokam exhibits endorse a certain viewpoint of learning. Teachers and the public were not aware of the communicative role that the museum played in the society. In addition, museum literacy/ies were still practiced in a fundamental way as current practices in the classroom, which may not support the development of critical literacy. In conclusion, the very goal for critical museum literacy is to help students and teachers develop intellectual strategies to read the word and the world in informal learning environments.
ContributorsLiang, Sheau-yann (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa (Thesis advisor) / Marsh, Josephine (Committee member) / Blumenfeld-Jones, Donald (Committee member) / Welsh, Peter (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
The signing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 created a need for Title 1 principals to conceptualize and operationalize parent engagement. This study examines how three urban principals in Arizona implemented the mandates of the Act as it pertains to parent involvement. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to examine how principals operationalize and conceptualize parent involvement as they navigate barriers and laws particular to the state of Arizona. This study sought to understand issues surrounding parent involvement in Title 1 schools in Arizona. The beliefs and interview dialogue of the principals as it pertains to parent engagement provided an understanding of how urban principals in Arizona implement the aspects of No Child Left Behind Act that deal with parent involvement. The research study concluded that parents have community cultural wealth that contributes to the success of the students of engaged parents and that cultural responsive leadership assists principals with engaging parents in their schools. The research concludes that a gap exists between how parents and principals perceive and construct parent engagement versus what is prescribed in No Child Left Behind Act.
ContributorsConley, Loraine (Author) / Brayboy, Bryan (Thesis advisor) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Scott, Kimberly (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The presence of language minority students in American schools is a growing phenomenon in present-day times. In the year 2008, almost 11 million school-age children spoke a language other than English at home. Educational language policy is largely influenced by the attitudes that society holds regarding the presence of language minority speakers in the community. One of the sources of these attitudes is the written press. This research aimed at identifying and analyzing the ideologies that newspapers display in connection with language minority speakers. The underlying assumption of the study was that the English language occupies a dominant position in society, thus creating a power struggle in which speakers of other languages are disenfranchised. Using critical theory as the theoretical framework enabled the study to identify and oppose the ideologies that may reproduce and perpetuate social inequalities. The methodological approach used was critical discourse analysis (CDA) which aligns with the main tenets of critical theory, among them the need to uncover hidden ideologies. The analysis of articles from English-language (The Arizona Republic and the East Valley Tribune) and Spanish-language (La Prensa Hispana) newspapers allowed for the identification of the ideologies of the written press in connection to two main hypothetical constructs: education and immigration. The analysis of the results revealed that the three newspapers of the study held specific ideologies on issues related to the education of language minority students and immigration. Whereas the East Valley Tribune showed an overarching ideology connected to the opposition of immigrant students in schools, the hegemonic position of theEnglish language, and a belligerent stance toward the immigrant community, The Arizona Republic showed a favorable attitude to both English Language Learners and immigrants, based on reasons mainly related to the economic interest of the state of Arizona. La Prensa Hispana, on the other hand, showed ideologies favorable to the immigrant community based on humanitarianism. In summary, the results confirm that newspapers hold specific ideologies and that these ideologies are reflected in the content and the manner of their information to the public.
ContributorsGonzález-Carriedo, Ricardo (Author) / Ovando, Carlos (Thesis advisor) / Wiley, Terrence (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
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.
ContributorsRoder, Dolma Choden (Author) / Eder, James (Thesis advisor) / Hjorleifur Jonsson (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Throughout the course of the Honors Thesis/Creative Project, the intent was to gain knowledge regarding national, state and community initiatives regarding Indigenous Language Revitalization and Maintenance (ILRA). For over a year, I had the opportunity to visit a total of five indigenous communities, including Pine Ridge, SD, Gila River Indian Community, AZ, White Mountain Apache, AZ, Cochiti Pueblo, NM and Santo Domingo Pueblo, NM. The goal was to learn about the status of their language, current ILRA initiatives as well as challenges and successes that face American Indian nations. During each visit, key elements to successful language revitalization initiatives were identified that could benefit those continuing their effort to reverse language loss as well as those looking to enter in the field of language revitalization.
ContributorsHutchinson, Jenna Michelle (Author) / Romero-Little, Mary Eunice (Thesis director) / Begay, Jolyana (Committee member) / Sims, Christine P. (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / American Indian Studies Program (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
Children with dis/abilities the world over are widely required to sacrifice their human rights to education, equity, community, and inclusion. Fewer than 10% of children with dis/abilities in developing countries attend school. Namibia, Africa, where this study took place, is no different. Despite Namibia's adoption of international covenants and educational policy initiatives, children with dis/abilities continue to be overwhelmingly excluded from school. The body of literature on exclusion in sub-Saharan Africa is laden with the voices of teachers, principals, government education officials, development organizations, and scholars. This study attempted to foreground the voices of rural Namibian families of children with dis/abilities as they described their lived experiences via phenomenological interviews. Their stories uncovered deeply held assumptions, or cultural models, about dis/abilities. Furthermore, the study examined how policy was appropriated by local actors as mediated by their shared cultural models. Ideas that had been so deeply internalized about dis/abilities emerged from the data that served to illustrate how othering, familial obligation, child protection, supernatural forces, and notions of dis/ability intersect to continue to deny children with dis/abilities full access to educational opportunities. Additionally, the study describes how these cultural models influenced cognition and actions of parents as they appropriated local educational policy vis-à-vis creation and implementation; thereby, leaving authorized education policy for children with dis/abilities essentially obsolete. The top down ways of researching by international organizations and local agencies plus the authorized policy implementation continued to contribute to the perpetuation of exclusion. This study uncovered a need to apply bottom up methods of understanding what parents and children with dis/abilities desire and find reasonable for education, as well as understanding the power parents wield in local policy appropriation.
ContributorsBartlett, Margaret A (Author) / Swadener, Beth Blue (Thesis advisor) / Artiles, Alfredo (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
DescriptionAs an aspiring math teacher, I have created visual representation of my philosophy of education in the form of an embroidered skirt, bringing together my love of sewing and mathematics.
ContributorsOng, Rachel (Author) / Nishimura, Joel (Thesis director) / Johnston, Carmen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Division of Teacher Preparation (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
Although there are millions of Nahuatl speakers, the language is highly threatened. The dominant language of Coatepec de los Costales, a small village in Guerrero, Mexico, was historically Nahuatl, a Uto-Aztecan language, referred to by some as “Mexicano” (Messing, 2009). In the last 50 years, there has been a pronounced shift from Mexicano to Spanish in the village, and fewer than 10% of the residents currently speak Mexicano. Without intervention, the language will be lost in the village. The ultimate cause of language shift is a disconnect in transferring the Indigenous language from the older to the younger generations. In Coatepec, older Nahuatl speakers are not teaching their children the language. This recurring theme appears in case studies of language shift around the world. Using a conceptual framework that combines (1) a critical sociocultural approach to language policy; (2) Spolsky’s (2004) definition of language policy as language practices, ideologies or beliefs, and management; (3) the ethnography of language policy, and (3) Indigenous knowledges, I collected and analyzed data from a six-month ethnographic study of language loss and reclamation in Coatepec. Specifically, I looked closely at the mechanisms by which language ideologies, management, and practices were enacted among members of different generations, using a combination of observation, archival analysis, and in-depth ethnographic interviews. Seidman’s (2013) three-part interview sequence, which includes a focused life history, details of experience, and reflections on meaning, provided the framework for the interviews. What are the language ideologies and practices within and across generations in this setting? What language management strategies – tacit and official – do community members of different generations employ? This in-depth examination of language ideologies, practices, and management strategies is designed to illuminate not only how and why language shift is occurring, but the possibilities for reversing language shift as well.
ContributorsLagunas, Rosalva Mojica (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa L. (Thesis advisor) / Romero-Little, Mary Eunice (Thesis advisor) / Brayboy, Bryan McKinley (Committee member) / Coronel-Molina, Serafín M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016