Matching Items (34)
Description
ABSTRACT There is a body of literature--albeit largely from the UK and Australia--that examines the ways in which class and gender influence life course, including educational attainment; however, much of this literature offers explanations and analyses for why individuals choose the life course they do. By assuming a cause-effect relationship between class and gender and life course, these studies perpetuate the idea that life can be predicted and controlled. Such an approach implies there is but one way of viewing--or an "official reading" of--the experience of class and gender. This silences other readings. This study goes beneath these "interpretations" and explores the phenomenon of identity and identity making in women who grew up working-class. Included is an investigation into how these women recognize and participate in their own identity making, identifying the interpretations they created and apply to their experience and the ways in which they juxtapose their educative experience. Using semi-structured interview I interviewed 21 women with working-class habitués. The strategy of inquiry that corresponded best to the goal of this project was heuristics, a variant of empathetic phenomenology. Heuristics distinguishes itself by including the life experience of the researcher while still showing how different people may participate in an event in their lives and how these individuals may give it radically different meanings. This has two effects: (1) the researcher recognizes that their own life experience affects their interpretations of these stories and (2) it elucidates the researcher's own life as it relates to identity formation and educational experience. Two, heuristics encourages different ways of presenting findings through a variety of art forms meant to enhance the immediacy and impact of an experience rather than offer any explanation of it. As a result of the research, four themes essential to locating the experience of women who grew up working class were discovered: making, paying attention, taking care, and up. These themes have pedagogic significance as women with working-class habitués navigate from this social space: the downstream effect of which is how and what these women take up as education.
ContributorsDecker, Shannon Irene (Author) / Blumenfeld-Jones, Donald (Thesis advisor) / Richards-Young, Gillian (Committee member) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields indicates the presence of gender related barriers that impacted the persistence of women in science and engineering doctoral studies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the barriers of women doctoral students in STEM fields which identified supporting factors for them as well. This study also tried to determine if there was any difference in perceiving barriers among three disciplines - engineering, life sciences and natural sciences. An online questionnaire (19 Likert-type questions and one open-ended question) was sent to women STEM doctoral students studying at the Arizona State University (ASU). Questions were based on some factors which might act as obstacles or supports during their doctoral studies. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted. Factors such as work-life balance, time-management, low self-confidence, lack of female role model, fewer numbers of women in science and engineering classes, and male dominated environment revealed as significant barriers according to both the analyses but factors such as difficulty with the curriculum, gender discrimination, and two-career problem were chosen as barriers only in the free response question. Positive treatment from advisor, family support, availability of funding, and absence of sexual harassment assisted these women continuing their PhD programs at ASU. However, no significant difference was observed with respect to perceiving barriers among the three groups mentioned above. Recommendations for change in science and engineering curricula and active recruitment of female faculty are discussed to reduce or at best to remove the barriers and how to facilitate participation and retention of more women in STEM fields especially at the doctoral level.
ContributorsChaudhuri, Dola (Author) / Baker, Dale (Thesis advisor) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Edwards, Vicki (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Michael Apple's scholarship on curriculum, educational ideology, and official knowledge continues to be influential to the study of schooling. Drawing on the sociological insights of Pierre Bourdieu and the cultural studies approaches of Raymond Williams, Apple articulates a theory of schooling that pays particular attention to how official knowledge is incorporated into the processes of schooling, including textbooks. In an effort to contribute to Apple's scholarship on textbooks, this study analyzed high school American history textbooks from the 1960s through the 2000s with specific attention to the urban riots of the late-1960s, sixties counterculture, and the women's movement utilizing Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytic concept of abjection to augment Apple's theory of knowledge incorporation. This combination reveals not only how select knowledge is incorporated as official knowledge, but also how knowledge is treated as abject, as unfit for the curricular body of official knowledge and the selective tradition of American history. To bridge the theoretical frameworks of incorporation and abjection Raymond Williams' theory of structures of feeling and Slavoj iek's theory of ideological quilting are employed to show how feelings and emotional investments maintain ideologies. The theoretical framework developed and the interpretive analyses undertaken demonstrate how textbook depictions of these historical events structure students' present educational experiences with race, class, and gender.
ContributorsKearl, Benjamin (Author) / Margolis, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Blumenfeld-Jones, Donald (Committee member) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Accounts in the media often demonize teachers and misrepresent what is happening in schools. Meanwhile, teachers' voices are largely absent from the national and international debates on school reform. This dissertation privileges the voices of nine participating Kindergarten through second grade teachers from a variety of public schools, including affluent schools and schools receiving full and partial Title I funding. Through observations and interviews teachers shared their narratives of classroom joys and challenges while also describing how policy has affected these experiences. A preliminary discourse analysis of these narratives was performed, identifying narratives related to nodes of the activity system of schooling. Further discourse analysis of these identified narratives revealed how these teachers' classroom experiences position them within an activity system strongly influenced by tensions between maternal relationships and the patriarchal project of schooling. A critical feminist theoretical perspective is utilized to respond to these tensions and to describe possibilities for future studies in education and the future of education in general.
ContributorsGaches, Sonya (Author) / Swadener, Elizabeth B (Thesis advisor) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Gee, James (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The purpose of this study is to explore the local life stories of five youths in Belize City, Belize as they experience satellite mediated programming from Black Entertainment Television (BET). It illuminates the manner in which social imagination plays a role in the liberatory practices of the Kriol youth in Belize City, Belize by documenting their life histories in relation to their interactions with BET. The study addresses the following: a) the ways that Kriol youth in Belize make sense of international cable programming; b) the degrees to which these negotiations result in liberatory moments. The study investigates the stories the youth in an through narrative inquiry research methods that can expose how, and to what degree local experiences in the Caribbean can help individuals employ their social imagination for personal growth. Readers of this text may become empowered to adopt the identities of others as their own, and may as a result witness the world from a fresh perspective, perhaps even experiencing moments in which their own life stories are altered. The contextualized categories involving popular BET programming emerged based on how power was distributed and organized in the every day lives of the informants. Empirical examples of hegemonic levels of interaction arose from within the stories. An analysis based on the works of Caribbean scholar Rex Nettleford (1978) was used to study relationships between these levels. There emerged from within the narratives four kinds of hegemonic power negotiations based on degrees of social: Dependence, Impulsive Resistance, Conscious Subordination, Leverage, and Creolization.
ContributorsRichards, Calvin Centae (Author) / Barone, Thomas (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Hinds, David (Committee member) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, colleges and universities transformed their thinking of the body as they institutionalized physical education, recreational activities, and especially physical exercise. In this study, I examine the historical discourse on physical exercise and training during this period. I employ the theoretical and methodological practices of Michel Foucault's archeological and genealogical work to write a "history of the present." I challenge the essential narrative of physical fitness on college and university campuses. I also discuss nineteenth century notions of ethics and masculinity as a way of understanding twenty-first century ethics and masculinity. Ultimately, I use the historical discourse to argue that institutionalization of recreation and fitness centers and activities have less to do with health and well-being and more to do with disciplining bodies and controlling individuals.
ContributorsWells, Timothy (Author) / Carlson, David L. (Thesis advisor) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
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
ABSTRACT Stress and burnout in the educational field primarily in teaching is not a new phenomenon. A great deal of research and analysis to the contributing factors of causation to teacher burnout has been executed and analyzed. The struggle of the artist/teacher, hybrid professionals that maintain two concurrent roles, offers a perspective to burn out that has gone unnoticed. The conflict of roles for the artist/teacher does not infer that the teacher role is incapable of reconciling with the artist role but because of this unique scenario the stories of art teachers and burnout often go unheard. Today's public educator is contending with established stress factors as well as emerging and evolving stress factors. How does this phenomenon impact the artist/teacher's ability or inability to be creative? What are the implications of burnout and its impact on artist/teachers personal and professional work? This qualitative study was conducted using Narrative/Autoethnograpy, Narrative/Ethnography and A/r/tography. The stories of four artist/teachers provides in-depth accounts of their experiences as teachers and how that profession has affected their art making process and well being.
ContributorsMack, Paul (Author) / Margolis, Eric (Thesis advisor) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Saldana, Johnny (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This dissertation is guided by the following questions: How do People of Color define and experience White people as "authentic" allies? What does a White ally look like to People of Color? How do White allies view themselves as "authentic" White allies? What experiences lead White people to anti-racism and anti-racist praxis? How do White people translate what they know about racism into an active and courageous anti-racist praxis in their own lives? What kinds of educational experiences in the social work classroom might foster or hinder students from learning how to translate anti-racist knowledge into anti-racist praxis? Using narrative methods, I explore some of the answers to these questions. Findings from this study offer ways to design deeper and more meaningful social work/social justice pedagogy that will better prepare social workers to be active, anti-racist practitioners and allies in all aspects of their work.
ContributorsHornung, Rebecca (Author) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Thesis advisor) / Lietz, Cynthia (Committee member) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
The purpose of this writing is to explore the relationship students have with popular media as well as the call to implement a Critical Media Skills course at the high school level. The research was interested in finding what images from popular media students were taking into their personal lives and how implementing a Critical Media Skills course could make positive benefits into their lives. From casual observations, informal student interviews, and the creation of an online survey in which 72 high school students participated I was able to collect data about the extent students were consuming popular media and how they believed that skills teaching them to analyze media would be beneficial. From these findings I was able to build upon Patricia Hill Collins (2009) to develop techniques for a classroom in which critical dialogue would be a focus. This exploratory study takes into account student voices, as well research from others in the field of Education and Media Literacy.
ContributorsGonzales, David (Author) / Ovando, Carlos (Thesis advisor) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Surbeck, Elaine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012