Matching Items (13)
Description
ABSTRACT Current federal and state education mandates were developed to make schools accountable for student performance with the rationale that schools, teachers, and students will improve through the administration of high-stakes tests. Public schools are mandated to adhere to three accountability systems: national, state, and local. Additional elements include the recent implementation of the Common Core standards and newly devised state accountability systems that are granted through waivers as an alternative to the accountability mandates in the No Child Left Behind Act NCLB of 2001. Teachers' voices have been noticeably absent from the accountability debates, but as studies show, as primary recipients of accountability sanctions, many teachers withdraw, "burn out," or leave the profession altogether. The present study is based on the premise that teachers are vital to student achievement, and that their perspectives and understandings are therefore a resource for educational reform especially in light of the accountability mandates under NCLB. With that premise as a starting point, this dissertation examines practicing urban teachers' experiences of accountability in culturally and linguistically diverse schools. To fulfill these goals, this qualitative study used individual and focus group interviews and observations with veteran elementary school teachers in an urban Southwestern public school district, to ascertain practices they perceive to be effective. The study's significance lies in informing stakeholders, researchers, and policymakers of practicing teachers' input on accountability mandates in diverse urban schools.
ContributorsGishey, Rhiannon L (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa L (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Committee member) / Ikeler, Susan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This study investigates how university instructors from various disciplines at a large, comprehensive university in the United States evaluate different varieties of English from countries considered "outer circle" (OC) countries, formerly colonized countries where English has been transplanted and is now used unofficially and officially to varying degrees. The study was designed to address two gaps in the research: (1) how instructors in increasingly internationalized U.S. universities evaluate different written varieties of English, since many international students may be writing in an L1 other than American English, and (2) how instructors' first language and/or disciplinary backgrounds appear to affect their evaluations. Through a comparison of rankings and qualitative analysis of interview data, the study examines whether the participating instructors value the same features and characteristics in writing, such as text and organization features, found in American English and varieties of OC written English. In addition, it examines whether one's first or native language or one's disciplinary training affects the perception and evaluation of these particular varieties of English. This study showed that what is currently valued and expected by instructors from various disciplines in U.S. universities is what may be identified as an "American" style of writing; participants expected an organization providing a clear purpose up front, including paragraphs of a certain length, and containing sentences perceived as more direct and succinct. In addition, given the overall agreement on the element of good writing demonstrated in how composition and content area professors ranked the writing samples, my study suggests that what is being taught in composition is preparing student for the writing expected in content area classes. Last, my findings add to World Englishes (WE) research by adding a writing component to WE attitudinal research studies, which have previously focused on oral production. Almost equal numbers of Native and Non-Native English Speakers (NESs and NNESs) participated, and the NNESs appeared more tolerant of different varieties, unlike the preference for inner circle norms noted in previous studies. This study, therefore, has implications for writing research and instruction at U.S. colleges and universities, as well as informing the field of World Englishes.
ContributorsCollier, Lizabeth C (Author) / Matsuda, Aya (Thesis advisor) / Wiley, Terrence (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Friedrich, Patricia (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This study examines the experiences of parents in mixed marriages (Vietnamese married to non-Vietnamese) raising their children in the United States. Specifically, this study focused on what factors influence parents' development of family language policies and patterns of language use. While research has been done on language policy and planning at the macro-level and there are an increasing number of studies on family language policy at the microlevel, few studies have focused on couples in mixed marriages who are heritage language speakers of the language they are trying to teach their children. This study used both surveys and interviews to gather data about parents' beliefs and attitudes towards bilingualism and the heritage language (HL), strategies parents are using to teach their children the HL, and major challenges they face in doing so. There were three main findings. First, parents without full fluency in the HL nevertheless are able to pass the HL on to their children. Second, an important factor influencing parents' family language policies and patterns of language use were parents' attitudes towards the HL--specifically, if parents felt it was important for their children to learn the HL and if parents were willing to push their children to do so. Third, proximity to a large Vietnamese community and access to Vietnamese resources (e.g., Vietnamese language school, Vietnamese church/temple, etc.) did not assure families' involvement in the Vietnamese community or use of the available Vietnamese resources. The findings of this study reveal that though language shift is occurring in these families, parents are still trying to pass on the HL to their children despite the many challenges of raising them bilingually in the U.S.
ContributorsLam, Ha (Author) / Wiley, Terrence (Thesis advisor) / Appleton, Nicholas (Thesis advisor) / Tobin, Joseph (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
ABSTRACT A hallmark of Arizona schools is the choice of parents in program and school for their child under the Open Enrollment laws. Among the choices for parents at some schools is Dual Language education, a form of enrichment wherein students learn the content of the Arizona State Standards through the medium of their primary language and a second language. The schools of this study use English and Spanish as the two languages. After 13 years of existence, changes in enrollment patterns have been noticed. Some parents whose older children attended Dual Language classes have chosen to dis-enroll their families from the program, so that their younger children are in English Only classes. At the same time that these trends in enrollment began, so too did strict enactment, enforcement, and monitoring of Arizona's Structured English Immersion program, the Department of Education's response to the voter approved Proposition 203--English for the Children--in November 2000. This study asks the following research question of de-selecting parents involved with Dual Language programs in Phoenix, Arizona: What are the rationale that influence parents to de-select Dual Language instruction in Arizona public schools in 2010 after having selected Dual Language for their older child(ren)? The study uses a Latino Critical Race Theory (LatCrit) Conceptual Framework to analyze interviews of 10 parents and 2 administrators from Dual Language programs in Phoenix, Arizona. There are three general findings of the study: 1) Parents sought asymmetrical measures of program design if their children were struggling in one language more than another, and chose to de-select when these asymmetrical measures were not enacted, 2) the de-selection process was generally not the result of family decision making, but rather reactionary to a situation, and 3) legislative mandates resulted in de-selection of the program. The LatCrit perspective showed most strongly in the third of these, wherein the de-selection was not necessarily a result of parent de-selection of the program, but rather the state's de-selection of willing participants in a language learning option. The hopes of the study are to hear the voices of parents who have to negotiate language policies and make programmatic choice decisions for their children. I also hope to provide information that Dual Language schools can use to understand the motivations and perspectives of the parents that will enable them to strengthen their programs and advocate for equality in opportunity for enrichment language programs for all children at their schools.
ContributorsRobert, Michael Anthony (Author) / Ovando, Carlos J (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo E (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa L (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
In this study, I investigate the digital literacy practices of adult immigrants, and their relationship with transnational processes and practices. Specifically, I focus on their conditions of access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) in their life trajectories, their conditions of learning in a community center, and their appropriation of digital literacy practices for transnational purposes. By studying the culturally situated nature of digital literacies of adult learners with transnational affiliations, I build on recent empirical work in the fields of New Literacy Studies, sociocultural approaches to learning, and transnational studies. In this qualitative study, I utilized ethnographic techniques for data collection, including participant observation, interviewing, and collection of material and electronic artifacts. I drew from case study approaches to analyze and present the experiences of five adult first-generation immigrant participants. I also negotiated multiple positionalities during the two phases of the study: as a participant observer and instructor's aide during the Basic Computer Skills course participants attended, and as a researcher-practitioner in the Web Design course that followed. From these multiple vantage points, my analysis demonstrates that participants' access to ICTs is shaped by structural factors, family dynamics, and individuals' constructions of the value of digital literacies. These factors influence participants' conditions of access to material resources, such as computer equipment, and access to mentoring opportunities with members of their social networks. In addition, my analysis of the instructional practices in the classroom shows that instructors used multiple modalities, multiple languages and specialized discourses to scaffold participants' understandings of digital spaces and interfaces. Lastly, in my analysis of participants' repertoires of digital literacy practices, I found that their engagement in technology use for purposes of communication, learning, political participation and online publishing supported their maintenance of transnational affiliations. Conversely, participants' transnational ties and resources supported their appropriation of digital literacies in everyday practice. This study concludes with a discussion on the relationship among learning, digital literacies and transnationalism, and the contributions of critical and ethnographic perspectives to the study of programs that can bridge digital inequality for minority groups.
ContributorsNoguerón, Silvia Cecilia (Author) / Warriner, Doris S (Thesis advisor) / Faltis, Christian J (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa (Committee member) / Wiley, Terrence (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Universities have been increasingly engaged in international collaborations with peer institutions overseas. In recent years, Confucius Institutes have emerged as a new model of collaboration between American universities and Chinese universities. In an attempt to identify factors contributing to successful international university collaborations, this study used the case study method and focused on one Confucius Institute between MMU, an American University, and ZZU, a Chinese university, and intended to identify factors leading to the success of the MMU-ZZU Confucius Institute collaboration. The study investigated the MMU-ZZU Confucius Institute collaboration within the framework of the MMU-ZZU institutional partnership. Based on data collected from the institutional documents, interviews, site visits and news reports, this study examined the experiences and perceptions of the university's stakeholders involved in creating and sustaining this particular Confucius Institute, including stakeholders at the program level, at the college level, and at the institutional level both at MMU and ZZU. Using the glonacal agency heuristics framework, the MMU-ZZU Confucius Institute collaboration was a result of joint forces of stakeholders at the program level, at the college level, and at the institutional level from ZZU and MMU. Stakeholders, no matter what level they are and which institution they are affiliated with, had to navigate through the significant differences between them to develop synergy to be successful. Synergy, including vertical synergy developed among stakeholders within each institution and horizontal synergy developed among stakeholders between institutions, turned out to be critical to the success of the MMU-ZZU CI. The study concluded that synergy in leadership, organizational contexts, stakeholders' resources, and the synergy in the MMU-ZZU Confucius Institute collaboration and the MMU-ZZU institutional partnership, led to the success of the MMU-ZZU Confucius Institute collaboration.
ContributorsLi, Mengying (Author) / De Los Santos Jr., Alfredo G (Thesis advisor) / Wiley, Terrence (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
Parents die during the lives of their children. If the child is an adolescent, that death will impact the student's education immediately or in subsequent years. Findings show the death of a mother does impact the daughter's education. It is imperative educators are willing to work with the student at the time the death occurs as well as in the ensuing months. Seidman's (2006) three-interview format was used as a template for the interviews of 11 women, ranging in age from 19 to 78 and whose mothers died when the women were adolescents. The interviews were primarily conducted in one sitting, transcribed, and then analyzed for common themes that connected to the research on the topic. Those themes include grieving, the role of caring in education, the role of teacher as the second mother, mother-daughter relationships, and the impact of parent death on schooling. These themes from the data cross cut with thematic strands within the study's theoretical framework: the nurturing and empathetic role of the mother, a desire of the daughter not to be different, and the ethics of caring. Findings in this study reveal that the negative impacts of mother loss are felt in diffuse ways, such as a lack of academic or emotional encouragement. Many women discussed the need and availability of support groups including groups at colleges. One practical implication of these findings is schools need to become caring communities in which caring is the norm for all students and teachers, thereby providing all students with needed support in times of crisis. The implications for further research include the impact of the mother death on the education of daughters, how volunteering with an organization related to the cause of the mother's death assists the daughter and types of programs most important to a student's success in post-secondary education. Adolescents are in a time of great change in their lives, and for a daughter, the loss of a mother has an everlasting, life-changing impact.
ContributorsRatti, Theresa Helen McLuskey (Author) / Mccarty, Teresa L (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo E. (Committee member) / Powers, Jeanne M. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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
This empirical study aims to identify and analyze the accumulated literacies and multilingual repertoires of three Karenni refugee families originally from the highlands of Burma but who had lived in refugee camps in Thailand before arriving in Phoenix, Arizona. Through participant observation in the families' households and neighborhood, artifact collection, and individual and group interviews, I observe, document, and examine the everyday literacy practices of these three families in order to understand how these literacies are used to foster new understandings and social networks while maintaining transnational connections. The data analysis demonstrates that there are similarities and differences between the literacy practices and language choices of the sixteen individuals who participated and that there are significant differences across generations as well as across the three families. The findings shed light on the complicated relationship between migration and language learning, ideologies of language, literacy practices, and various modes of communication (face-to-face and digital). Building on a long tradition of ethnographic work that examines language learning and literacy in relation to educational access and opportunity, this research is relevant to educational researchers, policy makers, and teachers who are committed to rethinking what counts as literacy, for whom, in what contexts, and with what kinds of consequences. In a time of increased movement of people across borders, and increased use of information and communication technologies, this investigation has important implications for teacher preparation, theories of language learning and literacy development, and educational research.
ContributorsDuran, Chatwara Suwannamai (Author) / Warriner, Doris S (Thesis advisor) / Matsuda, Aya (Committee member) / Mccarty, Teresa L (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