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Description
This study explores the implications of a cultural and language match/mismatch between teachers and their Hispanic students. The study is particularly relevant given the disproportionate percentage of Hispanic students enrolled in Arizona schools who speak Spanish compared to a majority of teachers who are white and speak English. The purpose of the study was to learn how the experiences of matched/mismatched teachers differed in their efforts to connect with Hispanic students and families. The framework for this study relies on culturally responsive practice which suggests that maintaining both cultural and academic excellence for our Hispanic students and families promotes positive learning outcomes in schools. The research is based on case studies of eight teachers at an elementary school with a predominately Hispanic student and parent population. The data included surveys, interviews and lesson observations to assess culturally responsive practices. The results of this study indicated that teachers who share common cultural and language characteristics exhibit significantly more behaviors associated with culturally responsive practice than their mismatched counterparts. Mismatched teachers, however, were able to draw on specific school wide and pedagogical resources associated with culturally responsive practice to help support their students' learning.
ContributorsPriniski, David P (Author) / Garcia, David (Thesis advisor) / Powers, Jeanne (Committee member) / Thomas, Jeff (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The majority of the teacher preparation programs in the US adhere to a traditional curriculum that includes foundational work, liberal arts classes, methods courses, and student teaching (Boyer & Baptiste, 1996; Kozleski, Gonzalez, Atkinson, Lacy, & Mruczek, 2013). Unfortunately, this approach rarely provides sudent teachers with opportunities to explore the role that culture plays in identity, learning, and community building--activities that are considered hallmarks of culturally responsive teaching (Artiles & Kozleski, 2007). To address this issue, Urban Teacher Education Program (UTEP) was created in 2010. UTEP was a one-year program designed to better prepare teachers currently in the classroom to work with children who have been marginalized. The present study examined the opportunities that UTEP provided for teachers to interrogate their own thinking about issues related to (1) identity, (2) culture, (3) learning, and (4) assessment, and the impact it has had on their professional practices in urban settings four years later. To understand if the teachers' experiences in UTEP were transformative and sustained this study addressed one primary question: In what ways have teachers professional practices changed as a result of being in UTEP? Using a grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) lens, the study used a constant comparative method (Strauss and Corbin, 1990) in which codes were developed, categorized, and analyzed to identify themes. The teachers were interviewed, their classroom teaching practices were observed, and their applied projects (archived documents) were examined. Thematic analysis (Riessman, 2008) was used for the applied projects to categorize themes during each semester across all participants. The study revealed that as a result of UTEP all five teachers' made a transformation in their thinking, which is still maintained today and continues to impact their professional practices.
ContributorsAtkinson, Laura Ann (Author) / Mathur, Dr. Sarup (Thesis advisor) / Zucker, Dr. Stanley (Committee member) / Puckett, Dr. Kathleen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This paper primarily focuses on the Hopi Tribe of northeastern Arizona and how historical events shaped the current perception and applications of educational systems on the Hopi reservation. This thesis emphasizes the importance of understanding historical contexts of a community in order to understand the current predicament and to devise solutions to contemporary issues in which I primarily focus on education. Education is broken down in regards to the Hopi communities by history, how this history has affected those communities, ideas of sovereignty and power within education and then future probable solutions to integrating language and culture into Hopi schools.
This research is primarily literature and educational reports on the Hopi Tribe and other American Indian communities. The research was then compiled to find commonalities with other Indian communities to depict barriers to educational success as well as effects of western education such as traditional culture and language decline. Solutions and results that other Indian communities had devised were also researched to determine if they could be incorporated into the Hopi educational system and if they supported the language and culture that the Hopi people are trying to retain.
This research is primarily literature and educational reports on the Hopi Tribe and other American Indian communities. The research was then compiled to find commonalities with other Indian communities to depict barriers to educational success as well as effects of western education such as traditional culture and language decline. Solutions and results that other Indian communities had devised were also researched to determine if they could be incorporated into the Hopi educational system and if they supported the language and culture that the Hopi people are trying to retain.
ContributorsHongeva, Justin (Author) / Killsback, Leo (Thesis advisor) / Tippeconnic, John (Committee member) / Romero-Little, Mary Eunice (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This dissertation examines people's place experiences more fully than has been done by others in the field of education, and in doing so, it opens new ways of thinking about place in place-based education. Place-based education, in its effort to connect educational processes with the local places in which students and teachers carry out their daily lives, has become an increasingly popular reform movement that challenges assumptions about the purpose and meaning of education in a rapidly globalizing world. Though the scholarship on place-based education describes, justifies, and advocates for turning the educational focus toward local places, it does not necessarily bring forth an explicit understanding of how people experience place.
Grounded in phenomenology, this qualitative study explores the place experiences of five individuals who were born and raised in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona. Experiential descriptions were gathered through three, in-depth, iterative interviews with each participant. Documents considered for this study included interview transcriptions as well as photographs, observations, and descriptions of places in the White Mountains that were deemed significant to the individuals. A phenomenological framework, specifically Edward Relph's explications of place and insideness and outsideness, structured the methodological processes, contextualized participant narratives, and facilitated and informed an understanding of participants' place experiences.
Through the coding and analyzing of interviews for common themes and subthemes, as well as through the crafting of individual profiles, participant place experiences emerged as a dialectical relationship between insideness and outsideness and consisted of Part-of-Place (play-and-exploration, cultivation-of-place, stories-of-place, dangerous-endeavors, and care-of-place), Place-Sensations (remarkable-moments, sensory-triggers, and features-marked-in-time), and Ruptures-in-the-Place-World (pivotal-moments, barriers-borders-boundaries, drastic-changes, and injuries).
While the research was exploratory and only investigated a limited number of place experiences, the findings, coupled with theoretical and conceptual understandings of place anchored in phenomenological perspectives, strengthen a discussion in place-based education of place, how place is experienced, and how these experiences matter in people's lives. Furthermore, the findings of this dissertation support a proposed pedagogical method that blends place-based education and culturally relevant practices into a place-responsive pedagogy.
Grounded in phenomenology, this qualitative study explores the place experiences of five individuals who were born and raised in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona. Experiential descriptions were gathered through three, in-depth, iterative interviews with each participant. Documents considered for this study included interview transcriptions as well as photographs, observations, and descriptions of places in the White Mountains that were deemed significant to the individuals. A phenomenological framework, specifically Edward Relph's explications of place and insideness and outsideness, structured the methodological processes, contextualized participant narratives, and facilitated and informed an understanding of participants' place experiences.
Through the coding and analyzing of interviews for common themes and subthemes, as well as through the crafting of individual profiles, participant place experiences emerged as a dialectical relationship between insideness and outsideness and consisted of Part-of-Place (play-and-exploration, cultivation-of-place, stories-of-place, dangerous-endeavors, and care-of-place), Place-Sensations (remarkable-moments, sensory-triggers, and features-marked-in-time), and Ruptures-in-the-Place-World (pivotal-moments, barriers-borders-boundaries, drastic-changes, and injuries).
While the research was exploratory and only investigated a limited number of place experiences, the findings, coupled with theoretical and conceptual understandings of place anchored in phenomenological perspectives, strengthen a discussion in place-based education of place, how place is experienced, and how these experiences matter in people's lives. Furthermore, the findings of this dissertation support a proposed pedagogical method that blends place-based education and culturally relevant practices into a place-responsive pedagogy.
ContributorsNolan, Erin Anacortez (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa (Thesis advisor) / Romero-Little, Mary Eunice (Thesis advisor) / Barnhardt, Ray (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
The Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya (KGBV) policy scheme launched in 2004 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Government of India, aims to provide secondary level education (grade 6-8) for girls residing predominantly in minority communities, the Scheduled Caste (SC), the Scheduled Tribe (ST), and the Other Backward Caste (OBC). Since its launch, the Government of India established 2,578 KGBV schools in 27 states and union territories (UTs). The present study examines the new policy and its implementation at three KGBV schools located in rural villages of Uttar Pradesh (UP), India. The purpose was to analyze the Government of India's approach to increasing education opportunity and participation for educationally disadvantaged girls using the empowerment framework developed by Deepa Narayan. Observations at three schools, interviews with teachers and staff members of the implementation agency (i.e., Mahila Samakhya (MS)), and surveys administered to 139 teachers were conducted over a four month period in 2009. Adopting creative teaching approaches and learning activities, MS creates safe learning community which is appropriate for the rural girls. MS gives special attention to nurturing the girls' potential and empowering them inside and outside the school environment through social discussion, parental involvement, rigid discipline and structure, health and hygiene education, and physical and mental training. Interviews with the state program director and coordinators identified some conflicts within government policy schemes such as the Teacher-pupil ratios guidelines as a part of the programs for the universalization of elementary education. Major challenges include a high turnover rate of teachers, a lack of female teachers, a lack of provision after Class 8, and inadequate budget for medical treatment. Recommendations include promoting active involvement of male members in the process of girls' empowerment, making MS approaches of girls' education in rural settings standardized for wider dissemination, and developing flexible and strong partnership among local agencies and government organizations for effective service delivery.
ContributorsWatanabe, Miku (Author) / Fischman, Gustavo (Thesis advisor) / Wiley, Terrence (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Assessment practices in U.S. schools have become a greatly debated topic since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002. In response to these new guidelines, schools and teachers have made adjustments in the ways they implement assessment practice and utilize assessment data -- ultimately impacting the lives of students and their educational outcomes. Using elements of Bourdieu's Theory of Practice as a lens to consider both context and implications of assessment practices within this new legislative era, a case study is focused on the lives of teachers and students within a single U.S. middle school. This study synthesizes secondary data in the form of standardized test scores, teacher grades in math and reading, a student grit survey, along with student narratives and teacher observations to reveal the ways in which assessment practice structures the classroom field. Findings reveal the conflicting ways in which teachers and students navigate a system framed by bureaucratic legitimacy. For teachers, issues of assessment rules and time constraints lead to frustrations and bureaucratic slippage. Conversely, students implement strategies to resist and manage the routine assessment practices of teachers.
ContributorsBroberg, Gregory B (Author) / Jurik, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Cavender, Gray (Committee member) / Schneider, Anne L (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
The following study is about the importance of including global art and art history in a bilingual/bicultural art classroom. The study was performed with twelve Navajo art students in a predominately Navajo high school located in a small urban town off the Navajo Reservation. Navajo students selected traditional and contemporary artworks they were curious to learn more about from four global cultures, familiar (Navajo and European) and unfamiliar (Maori and Benin). They also responded to art criticism questions and identified reasons they were curious about the artworks they selected. Students were curious about familiar (Navajo and European) artworks more than unfamiliar artworks (Maori and Benin). Of all student responses, 69% focused on the artwork selected; 16% focused on meaning and expression, and 15% focused on the artist. This study concludes by suggesting that there should be a middle ground about what to teach to Navajo children. I suggest that art education should include other cultural information within the Navajo philosophy of education.
ContributorsBegody, Chrystalee (Author) / Erickson, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Stokrocki, Mary (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This dissertation focuses on traditional arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) as a form of place-based education by asking the question, what is the role of traditional arts at IAIA? Through a qualitative study students, faculty, staff, and alumni were interviewed to gain their perspectives on education, traditional arts, and the role of traditional arts at IAIA. Through analysis of these interviews, it was found that participants viewed traditional arts as a form of place-based education and that these practices should play an important role at IAIA. This study also looks at critical geography and place-based practice as a form of anti-colonial praxis and an exercise of tribal sovereignty. Colonization restructures and transforms relationships with place. Neo-colonialism actively seeks to disconnect people from their relationship with the environment in which they live. A decline in relationship with places represents a direct threat to tribal sovereignty. This study calls on Indigenous people, and especially those who are Pueblo people, to actively reestablish relationships with their places so that inherent sovereignty can be preserved for future generations. This study also looks at the academic organization of IAIA and proposes a restructuring of the Academic Dean and Chief Academic Officer (AD&CAO) position to address issues of transition, efficiency, and innovation. The extensive responsibilities of this position cause several serious concerns. The policy paper proposes that the academic programs be divided thematically into 2 schools that will allow greater flexibility and adaptive practices to emerge out of the academic division at IAIA. The combination of restructuring the academic division at IAIA, my theoretical argument promoting place-based praxis as anti-colonial practice, and my research into the application of place-based programming at IAIA all support my overall goal of supporting Pueblo communities through my own work.
ContributorsSwentzell, Porter (Author) / Sumida-Huaman, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Lomawaima, K. Tsianina (Committee member) / Chhetri, Netra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Indigenous students have not been achieving their educational goals similar to other racial and ethnic groups. In 2008 Native American students completed a bachelor's degree at a rate of 38.3% the lowest rate of all racial and ethnic groups and lower than the national average of 57.2%. The high attrition rate of Native students in post-secondary education, nationally, suggests that on-going colonization may be to blame. Much of the research exploring retention strategies found culturally sensitive institutions, family and peer support, supportive relationships with faculty and staff, skill development, and financial aid knowledge were consistent factors for student retention. No studies have examined the effects of cultural workshops as decolonizing practices, however. This action research examined the influence of a series of cultural workshops to address Native student and college community needs. Employing a mixed-methods design, this project framed the cultural workshops within decolonization and historical trauma. Five student participants attended five cultural workshops and completed questionnaires to offer insight into their college behaviors while journals were used to learn about their experiences within the workshops. The results of this study are consistent with the literature. There was no change in relationships as a result of the intervention, but relationships with faculty and staff that mimicked family were reported as important for student success. Participating students were at early stages in the decolonization process but were further along when they had experiences in college with American Indian Studies or faculty. Students felt that colonizing practices at the college must be challenged and Indigenous traditional practices must be integrated to create a culturally competent institution. Additional sessions are recommended to increase data collection and allow participants to develop and share their rich feedback with the college.
ContributorsScott, Mona (Mona C.) (Author) / Rotheram-Fuller, Erin (Thesis advisor) / Vicenti Carpio, Myla (Committee member) / Harper-Marinick, Maria (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
ABSTRACT
The history of Indian education within public schools is deeply problematic. Power imbalances have led western education to enter Indigenous communities with their own agendas and without prior consultation with the people and communities. As a consequence, Indigenous scholars are moving to take control and reclaim ownership of the education of our children that occurs in our communities and public schools. This dissertation focuses on attitudes toward culturally relevant instruction/curriculum by asking the question, what is the landscape and current climate of culturally responsive schooling for Pueblo and American Indian students within Bernalillo High School and Bernalillo Public Schools in Bernalillo, New Mexico? Through a qualitative study, teachers, administrators, consultants and faculty were interviewed to gain their perspectives on culturally relevant instruction/curriculum. Through analysis of these interviews and focus group, it was found that participants were aware of culturally relevant instruction/curriculum and utilize it in some sense with their students. This study also looks at the current landscape of American Indian and Pueblo education in the state of New Mexico. Indigenous education has always been a part of the learning process for Pueblo people. With the coming of western education Pueblo people were forced to attend boarding schools as well as public schools causing assimilation. This study calls on culturally relevant instruction/curriculum as a way to provide a successful education for Pueblo students. This study looks at the need for culturally responsive schooling paradigms and practices for Indigenous students. It also looks at culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) as a way to help explore, shape and provide valuable theoretical tools for developing culturally relevant instruction/curriculum. The policy paper proposes that Bernalillo Public Schools (BPS) work with Pueblos to promote the delivery of the most appropriate education and services for Pueblo children.
The history of Indian education within public schools is deeply problematic. Power imbalances have led western education to enter Indigenous communities with their own agendas and without prior consultation with the people and communities. As a consequence, Indigenous scholars are moving to take control and reclaim ownership of the education of our children that occurs in our communities and public schools. This dissertation focuses on attitudes toward culturally relevant instruction/curriculum by asking the question, what is the landscape and current climate of culturally responsive schooling for Pueblo and American Indian students within Bernalillo High School and Bernalillo Public Schools in Bernalillo, New Mexico? Through a qualitative study, teachers, administrators, consultants and faculty were interviewed to gain their perspectives on culturally relevant instruction/curriculum. Through analysis of these interviews and focus group, it was found that participants were aware of culturally relevant instruction/curriculum and utilize it in some sense with their students. This study also looks at the current landscape of American Indian and Pueblo education in the state of New Mexico. Indigenous education has always been a part of the learning process for Pueblo people. With the coming of western education Pueblo people were forced to attend boarding schools as well as public schools causing assimilation. This study calls on culturally relevant instruction/curriculum as a way to provide a successful education for Pueblo students. This study looks at the need for culturally responsive schooling paradigms and practices for Indigenous students. It also looks at culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) as a way to help explore, shape and provide valuable theoretical tools for developing culturally relevant instruction/curriculum. The policy paper proposes that Bernalillo Public Schools (BPS) work with Pueblos to promote the delivery of the most appropriate education and services for Pueblo children.
ContributorsChavez, Curtis (Author) / Brayboy, Bryan (Thesis advisor) / Sumida-Huaman, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Tsinnajinnie, Leola (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018