Matching Items (6)
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- All Subjects: School budgets
- All Subjects: Teacher Education
- Creators: Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958-
- Status: Published
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
The passing of anti-immigrant legislation in the state of Arizona over the last decade has exacerbated an already oppressive system perpetuated by globalization and its byproducts, neoliberalism and neoconservativism. The social justice activist educators who live and work with the children and families most affected by these laws and policies must learn to navigate these controls if they hope to sustain their work. I have drawn from Freire's work surrounding the theories of praxis and conscientization to explain the motivation of these teachers, and the sociological theory of Communities of Practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998; & Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002), to explain how the group, Arizona Teachers for Justice serves as a space of learning and support for these educators. This dissertation is a multiple case study and has employed semi-structured interviews with four social justice activist educators to understand how social justice activist educators in Arizona cope and sustain their teaching and activism, particularly through their membership in groups such as Arizona Teachers for Justice. The teachers in this study are each at different stages in their careers and each teaches in a different setting and/or grade level. This cross section provides multiple perspectives and varied lenses through which to view the struggles and triumphs of social justice activist educators in the state of Arizona. The teachers in this study share their experiences of being singled out for their activism and explain the ways they cope with such attacks. They explain how they manage to fulfill their dedication to equity by integrating critical materials while adhering to common core standards. They express the anger that keeps them fighting in the streets and the fears that keep them from openly rejecting unjust policies. The findings of this study contribute to the discussion of how to not only prepare social justice activist educators, but ways of supporting and sustaining their very crucial work. Neoliberal and neoconservative attacks on education are pervasive and it is critical that we prepare teachers to face these structural pressures if we hope to ever change the dehumanizing agenda of these global powers.
ContributorsEversman, Kimberly A (Author) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
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
Within the past 10 years, there has been an increased interest in providing teachers with mindfulness training. This is due largely in part to the amount of stress that K-12 teachers report as a result of the profession and the research proposing that practicing mindfulness helps one cope with stress and offers the potential to promote one's well-being.
This qualitative study explores the intersection of mindfulness and K-12 teaching. Four K-12 teachers who self-identified as mindfulness practitioners were interviewed, and their lived experiences as mindfulness practitioners and teachers are explored throughout this study. Through in-depth, phenomenologically-based interviews, the participants' life histories in relation to becoming mindfulness practitioners and teachers are uncovered, as well as their experiences as mindfulness practitioners in the classroom, and their reflections upon what is means to be a mindfulness practitioner and a teacher.
For the participants in this study, they believed their mindfulness practices helped them cope with the demands of teaching. The participants also viewed mindfulness practices as a pedagogical tool for promoting their students' social and emotional well-being. As one of the first studies to explore teachers who have personal mindfulness practices and how those practices transfer or do not transfer into their professional experiences, it adds teachers' voices to the mindfulness in education phenomena.
This qualitative study explores the intersection of mindfulness and K-12 teaching. Four K-12 teachers who self-identified as mindfulness practitioners were interviewed, and their lived experiences as mindfulness practitioners and teachers are explored throughout this study. Through in-depth, phenomenologically-based interviews, the participants' life histories in relation to becoming mindfulness practitioners and teachers are uncovered, as well as their experiences as mindfulness practitioners in the classroom, and their reflections upon what is means to be a mindfulness practitioner and a teacher.
For the participants in this study, they believed their mindfulness practices helped them cope with the demands of teaching. The participants also viewed mindfulness practices as a pedagogical tool for promoting their students' social and emotional well-being. As one of the first studies to explore teachers who have personal mindfulness practices and how those practices transfer or do not transfer into their professional experiences, it adds teachers' voices to the mindfulness in education phenomena.
ContributorsFrias, Elizabeth Leigh (Author) / Fischman, Gustavo (Thesis advisor) / Schugurensky, Daniel, 1958- (Committee member) / Hyde, Andrea (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015