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ABSTRACT
This study of the policies of the U.S. public school system focuses on state and federal funding to examine how budget cuts, the teacher shortage crisis, and large classroom sizes are interrelated. A qualitative method of approaching these issues and a meta-analysis of the findings, combined with my personal experience as a high school English teacher in the public school system points to a ripple effect where one problem is the result of the one before it. Solutions suggested in this study are made with the intention to support all U.S. public school students with an emphasis on students with special needs, English language learners, and students from low-income families. My findings show that marginalized students in U.S. public schools are experiencing a form of education injustice. This study highlights the burden placed upon the states to fund education and asserts that qualified professionals are increasingly difficult to recruit while teacher attrition rates continue to grow. The changing teacher-to-student ratio means students enjoy one-on-on time with teachers less often due to overcrowded classrooms. The interrelationship of these issues requires a multifaceted approach to solving them, beginning with a demand for more federal funding which will allow previously cut programs to be reinstated, incentives to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers which will reduce classroom sizes, and implementation of new programs targeted to ensure the success of students with special needs, English language learners, and students from low-income families.
This study of the policies of the U.S. public school system focuses on state and federal funding to examine how budget cuts, the teacher shortage crisis, and large classroom sizes are interrelated. A qualitative method of approaching these issues and a meta-analysis of the findings, combined with my personal experience as a high school English teacher in the public school system points to a ripple effect where one problem is the result of the one before it. Solutions suggested in this study are made with the intention to support all U.S. public school students with an emphasis on students with special needs, English language learners, and students from low-income families. My findings show that marginalized students in U.S. public schools are experiencing a form of education injustice. This study highlights the burden placed upon the states to fund education and asserts that qualified professionals are increasingly difficult to recruit while teacher attrition rates continue to grow. The changing teacher-to-student ratio means students enjoy one-on-on time with teachers less often due to overcrowded classrooms. The interrelationship of these issues requires a multifaceted approach to solving them, beginning with a demand for more federal funding which will allow previously cut programs to be reinstated, incentives to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers which will reduce classroom sizes, and implementation of new programs targeted to ensure the success of students with special needs, English language learners, and students from low-income families.
ContributorsCowell, Amber Nicole (Author) / Anokye, Duku (Thesis advisor) / Keahey, Jennifer (Committee member) / Elenes, Alejandra (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This project seeks to explore how organizations work toward refugee and immigrant integration through forming different types of coalitions and strategic networks. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to identify when coalitions emerge between refugee organizations and immigrant rights groups in order to examine their development, from how the coalitions broadly conceive of refugee and immigrant rights, to how they organize resources and information sharing, service provision, policy advocacy, and policy implementation. The project is guided by the question: What explains the formation of coalitions that advocate for both immigrant rights and refugee rights? Through examining the formation and development of these coalitions, this thesis engages at the intersections of immigration federalism, refugee studies and human rights scholarship to reveal deeper complexities in the politics of immigrant integration. The project sharpens these three scholarly intersections by three multi-level jurisdictions – California and Arizona in the United States and Athens in Greece – and by employing comparative analysis to unpack how national governments and federalism dynamics shape coalition building around immigrant integration.
ContributorsAmoroso-Pohl, Melanie Hope (Author) / Colbern, Allan (Thesis advisor) / Keahey, Jennifer (Committee member) / Walker, Shawn (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
The thesis for this study is that structural racism within the U.S. criminal system causes Black mothers to assume the emotional work of caring for incarcerated sons. This project was designed using an interpretive approach that employed a combination of qualitative and auto-ethnographic methods, drawing on grounded theory principle. Six interviews were conducted with mothers in order to gain in-depth insight into their lived experiences. An auto-ethnographic method was used to analyze the author’s own personal experiences as a family member of the incarcerated in dialogue with the experiences of the broader research population. Studies on the key finding of the psycho-social impacts on mothers with incarcerated sons have explored the relationship between the mental depression of mothers and their son’s incarceration. They have found that financial challenges, dwindling social connections, lousy parenting evaluations, as well as the burden of care of the grandchildren of the incarcerated sons are some of the mediating factors of this relationship. A second key finding also showed that incarceration have had social-economic effects on the prisoner’s families. These families experience extreme financial hardship as a result of incarcerated loved ones. Another finding showed the unique coping strategies for mothers included assuming care taking responsibility, maintaining family relationships, and budget control. Finally, this study found that there are challenges to re-entry experienced by mothers with incarcerated sons when their released. Research findings and original contribution to scholarly knowledge uncovered that Black mothers of the incarcerated in addition to working the Second Shift, are experiencing the phenomena of what is coined to be the “Third Shift.”
ContributorsWhite, LaTonya C (Author) / Keahey, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Colbern, Allan (Committee member) / Murphy-Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Small-scale, peasant farmers are some of the most vulnerable people to the effects of climate change. They rely on a stable climate to support their natural ways of farming, which typically depends on consistent rainfall, temperate weather, and predictable season cycles. The perceptions of how successful coffee production is during shifting climatic disruptions is of key importance, if mitigation or adaptation efforts are to be successfully implemented. By using ethnographic methods with members of a coffee cooperative in Mexico, called Cafe Justo, I found that peasant farmers are very perceptive of the climatic changes and recognize forthcoming challenges as a result of changes in weather and precipitation levels. Rain-fed agriculture remains particularly vulnerable to coffee market demands, as coffee production for the majority of the cooperative members is the primary source of income. Through interpretive analysis of in-depth interview data collected from 19 coffee-famers in Chiapas, Mexico, I identified factors associated with perceptions of changing climate and weather conditions. Social identities, general perceptions of climate change, and impacts on livelihoods were investigated through the speaking-with model, as it was presented by Nagar and Geiger in 2007. These findings have rich implications for co-learning between the small-scale, coffee farmers and the scientific community so that mitigation and adaptation strategies are discussed. The findings also merit further investigation into future migration changes due to mass exoduses of climate refugees who are no longer able to successfully cultivate and harvest the lands to serve their needs and those of their community.
ContributorsVillarreal, Anisa (Author) / Keahey, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Murphy Erfani, Julie (Committee member) / Shrestha, Milan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The purpose of this paper is to understand how companies are finding high potential employees and if they are leaving top talent behind in their approach. Eugene Burke stated in 2014 that 55% of employees that are labeled as a High Potential Employee will turn over and move companies. Burke (2014) also states that the average high potential employee tenure is five years. The Corporate Leadership Council says that on average, 27% of a company's development budget is spent on its high potential program (CEB 2017). For a midsize company, the high potential development budget is almost a million dollars for only a handful of employees, only to see half of the investment walking out the door to another company . Furthermore, the Corporate Leadership Council said that a study done in 2005 revealed that 50% of high potential employees had significant problems within their job (Kotlyar and Karkowsky 2014). Are time and resources are being given to the wrong employees and the right employees are being overlooked? This paper exams how companies traditionally select high potential employees and where companies are potentially omitting employees who would be better suited for the program. This paper proposes that how a company discovers their top talent will correlate to the number of turnovers or struggles that a high potential employee has on their job. Future research direction and practical considerations are also presented in this paper.
ContributorsHarrison, Carrie (Author) / Mizzi, Philip (Thesis director) / Ruediger, Stefan (Committee member) / Department of Management and Entrepreneurship (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This study asks the question: does gender-based discrimination exists within Arizona State University's Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC), and if so, what are the effects of such discrimination? Within this study, discrimination is defined as: the treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs, rather than on individual merit. The researcher predicted that this study would show that gender-based discrimination operates within the masculine military culture of Army ROTC at ASU, resulting from women's hyper-visibility and evidenced by their lack of positive recognition and disbelief in having a voice in the program. These expectations were based on background research claiming that the token status of women in military roles causes them to be more heavily scrutinized, and they consequentially try to attain success by adapting to the masculine military culture by which they are constantly measured. For the purposes of this study, success is defined as: the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence . This study relies on exploratory interviews and an online survey conducted with male and female Army ROTC cadets of all grade levels at Arizona State University. The interviews and survey collected demographic information and perspectives on individual experiences to establish an understanding of privilege and marginalization within the program. These results do support the prediction that women in Army ROTC at ASU face discrimination based on their unique visibility and lack of positive recognition and voice in the program. Likewise, the survey results indicate that race also has a significant impact on one's experience in Army ROTC, which is discussed later in this study in regard to needs for future research. ASU Army ROTC includes approximately 100 cadets, and approximately 30-40 of those cadets participated in this study. Additionally, the University of Arizona and the Northern Arizona University Army ROTC programs were invited to participate in this study and declined to do so, which would have offered a greater sample population. Nonetheless, the results of this research will be useful for analysis and further discussion of gender-equality in Army ROTC at Arizona State University.
ContributorsAllemang, Lindsey Ann (Author) / Wood, Reed (Thesis director) / Switzer, Heather (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
In which industry that has ever been profit generating, does a firm profit from their failure? The United States has a mass incarceration problem. With 25% of the world prison population residing in the US, spending on detention costs the US government $80 billion annually. Over 50% of the individuals incarcerated in America are of black or Latino descent. This massive growth in the incarcerated population of America began in the 1970s and with the passive support of American citizens has created an industry whose players profit from the detention of people. Currently, the privately run detention facilities in the United States hold 7% of state prisoners, 18% of federal prisoners, and nearly 75% of ICE's undocumented detainee population. The detention of people for profit is an idea rooted in the same profit motive that allowed the institution of slavery to flourish. However even after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the U.S., the oppressive forces behind slave-era economics have been perpetuated through legislation and policies that continued the stratification of society and reinforcement of the social order. With the help of corporate lobbyists, political action committees, and organizations such as the American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate shareholders of private prisons, such as CoreCivic and The GEO Group, are able to directly align their profit-driven interests with those of federal and state legislators. By the incorporation of legislation and policy into state and federal law, the shareholders of private prisons are able to directly affect legislation as well as their own potential for profit. The justification for the usage of private prisons is thought to be seen in the price savings and flexibility that it provides for federal and state governments. However, due to the law enforcement contractor's exemption from public record laws, there is no clear evidence of where the cost savings occur, or even if there are cost savings at all. Is it ethical for a for-profit-prison corporation to be responsible for the care, security, and rehabilitation of an individual, when if they fail to rehabilitate the individual, it will add to the number of inmates under their control? The measure of a prison's failure to rehabilitate an inmate is considered the recidivism rate, and is affected when an inmate leaves a detention facility, commits another crime, then is arrested. This profit motive is causing our society to incarcerate increasing numbers of people in private prisons. For-profit prisons financially benefit from long-term incarceration and recidivism. The passive investments from public and private employees and institutions through investment corporations are the legs that allow the private prison industry to stand. Twenty-nine investment firms, such as The Vanguard Group and Fidelity Investments, own nearly two-thirds of the two largest players in the private prison industry. This includes the passive investments by public institutions such as the Arizona State University Foundation's $600 million endowment fund as well as the $500 million directly invested into CoreCivic and GEO Group from the University of Texas/ Texas A&M Investment Management Company. The goal of abolishing private prisons will require years of litigation against the giants of the industry as well as the governmental entities supporting them. However, we can start today by demanding divestiture by our school and similar institutions as well continuing to share the knowledge of the oppressive forces associated with the detention of individuals for profit.
ContributorsBayham, Michael (Author) / Gomez, Alan (Thesis director) / Dacey, John (Committee member) / W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The number of undergraduate students participating in short-term experiences in global health (STEGHs) abroad has increased dramatically in recent years (Eyler 2002, Drain et al. 2007). These experiences, in tandem with classroom learning, are designed to help students master skills related to global health competencies, including cultural humility and sensitivity, collaborating with community partners, and sociocultural and political awareness. Although STEGHs offer potential benefits to both students and to sending institutions, these experiences can sometimes be problematic and raise ethical challenges. As the number of students engaged in STEGHs continues to increase, it is important to better understand the impact of these programs on student learning. Current ethical and best practice guidelines for STEGHs state that programs should establish evaluation methods to solicit feedback from students both during and on completion of the program (Crump et al. 2010). However, there is currently no established method for gathering this feedback because of the many different global health competency frameworks, types and duration of programs, and different models of student engagement in such programs. Assessing the quality of a STEGH is a profoundly important and difficult question that cannot be answered as succinctly and quantitatively as classroom performance, which has more standard and established assessment metrics. The goal of this project is to identify the most appropriate and useful assessment metric(s) for determining educational quality and impact for STEGHs at ASU by comparing a typical quantitative evaluation tool (pre-post survey with brief open-ended questions) to a more in-depth qualitative method (key informant interviews). In performing my analysis I seek to examine if the latter can produce a richer narrative of student experiences to inform ongoing program evaluations. My research questions are: 1. What are the current qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods available to assess student learning during short-term experiences in global health? 2. How can current methodology for assessing student experiences with short-term experiences in global health be adapted to collect the most information from students? 3. How do student knowledge and attitudes change before and after their short-term experience in global health? Why is understanding those changes important for adapting programs? My end goal would be to use these new, optimal assessment methods for gathering student perspectives and experiences to adapt pre-departure trainings and post-experience debriefings for study abroad programs, both of which I believe will lead to more sustainable partnerships and a healthier understanding of global health work for students.
ContributorsHale, Brittany Ann (Author) / Jehn, Megan (Thesis director) / Wutich, Amber (Committee member) / School of Human Evolution and Social Change (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Genocide studies have traditionally focused on the perpetrator’s intent to eradicate a particular identity-based group, using the Holocaust as their model and point of comparison. Although some aspects of the Holocaust were undoubtedly unique, recent scholars have sought to challenge the notion that it was a singular phenomenon. Instead, they draw attention to a recurring pattern of genocidal events throughout history by shifting the focus from intent to structure. One particular branch of scholars seeks to connect the ideology and tactics of imperialism with certain genocidal events. These anti-imperialist genocide scholars concede that their model cannot account for all genocides, but still claim that it creates meaningful connections between genocides committed by Western colonialist powers and those that have occurred in a neoimperialist world order shaped according to Western interests. The latter includes genocides in postcolonial states, which these scholars believe were shaped by the scars of their colonial past, as well as genocides in which imperial hegemons assisted local perpetrators. Imperialist and former colonial powers have contributed meaningfully to all of these kinds of genocides, yet their contributions have largely been ignored due to their own influence on the creation of the current international order. Incorporating the anti-imperialist perspective into the core doctrine of genocide studies may lead to breakthroughs in areas of related policy and practice, such as prevention and accountability.
ContributorsParker, Ashleigh Mae (Author) / Thies, Cameron (Thesis director) / Sivak, Henry (Committee member) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
The purpose of this thesis is to explore how Blockchain technology can help solve problems large corporations commonly face. For example, it is a common problem for large businesses and organizations to manage sales contracts with thousands of items on them. Likewise, it can be difficult to accurately monitor complex payment histories with thousands of items on them. Another issue is the difficulty that is introduced when making periodic reconciliations based on separate recording systems. At a broader level, some organizations may hesitate to do business with new strange companies or oversea companies for the first time because they do not trust that the other organization can deliver what they promise. Such problems cost organizations a lot of money, effort, and time to solve. However, Blockchain technology, first developed in 2009, could revolutionize how the business community deals with these common problems. The shared and immutable ledger on Blockchain can help organizations to keep track on transactions, manage the contracts in a smarter way, ensure correct purchase history records, eliminate the periodically reconciliation processes, and provide visibility for real-time transactions.
ContributorsHuynh, Phu Thanh (Author) / Popova, Laura (Thesis director) / Pankaj, Sneha (Committee member) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05