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In this three-paper dissertation project, I explore how 'English' becomes a recognizable object within the context of adult ESOL education. Building on scholarship on named languages (Garcia, 2019; Makoni & Pennycook, 2006), the historical construction of languages (Bonfiglio, 2010; Irvine & Gal, 2000), and raciolinguistic ideologies (Flores & Rosa, 2015; Rosa & Flores, 2017), I analyze how language, both as an abstract concept and as a collection of linguistic features, is treated within adult ESOL, looking at specific contemporary classrooms, as well as historical texts. This work culminated in the three studies I present here -- focused, in turn, on classroom discourse and pedagogical practices, curriculum, and language scholarship -- as something of a "self portrait" of English (del Valle, Lauria, Orono, & Rojas, 2021). I start with "'The good English': The ideological construction of the target language in adult ESOL", a study which employs classroom-based ethnography and classroom discourse analysis (Rampton, 2006; Reyes, 2011; Rosa, 2019) to look at the construction of 'English' in a nonprofit, community-based adult ESOL program in New York. I argue that the structural conditions of the program promote reliance on a conception of 'English' shaped by linguistic racism, despite the program's progressive ideals. Drawing on ethnographic observation and interviews, I outline the discursive and pedagogical practices that uphold this conception of 'English', and how students destabilize it, with an eye toward possibilities for alternate conceptions and pedagogies. In the next paper, "English by the book: Linguistic (and social) normativity in adult English curriculum over time", I explore how the ideologies I observed in contemporary classrooms developed over time by looking at 12 adult English textbooks from the 20th and early 21st centuries. Drawing on raciolinguistic genealogy (Anais, 2013; Flores, 2021), metapragmatics (Cutler, 2020; Urban, 2006), and the discourse analysis of textbooks, I argue that while normativity remains a core focus of mainstream adult immigrant education from its early institutions into the contemporary moment, linguistic normativity has become increasingly more central to mainstream conceptions of adult English learning (and, therefore, immigrant socialization) than broader social normativity. I end with a discussion of the potential reasons for this shift, and the ways it perpetuates the marginalization of adult immigrants. In the last paper, "Whiteness as the standard: Shifting ideologies, race, and social context", I explore how these ideologies developed more broadly, analyzing historical language scholarship, again employing elements of raciolinguistic genealogy and metapragmatics. I find that while the linguistic features of 'nonstandard' English have remained remarkably consistent in the popular imagination, they became increasingly linked with Blackness, especially during and after white backlash to the Great Migration (and other cultural and political changes) in the mid-20th century. I argue that this represents a larger pattern in the relationship between language and race in the United States, and conclude with a discussion of the implications this has for adult immigrants and the ESOL classroom. With this dissertation, I aim to fill in gaps in my own syllabi, and to create helpful tools for the educational linguistics classroom. Together, I hope these studies help current and future educators better understand the connection between language norms and racism, and to be aware of the history they are inheriting and also their role in it now, so they can, with their students, imagine and co-create alternatives. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Forty states, including the District of Columbia, have established state longitudinal data systems (SLDS). The data included, intended functions, and methods for establishing SLDS vary from state to state. Further, forty-nine states and the District of Columbia have received one or more federal grant to support SLDS development. The adoption of SLDS constitutes a policy innovation in a state. The rise of SLDS provided a test case for studying the relationship between policy alternatives, complex bureaucratic structures, and federal incentives and a state's ability to innovate. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were used to examine the legislative origins, intergovernmental networks, and bureaucratic infrastructure associated with establishing SLDS. Policy streams theory and network governance theory provided a conceptual framework to extract and interpret text from legislation, journals, state laws, federal grants, and other documents. Internal determinants and vertical influence theories guided the selection of predictors of interest and control variables to fit a panel data set with proportional hazard and subdistribution hazard estimation models. The results support the assertion that policy adoption requires both the political community and the policy community to coalesce around a policy alternative for a problem to reach the decision agenda. It also confirms the role of the policy feedback loop in escalating a problem to the decision agenda. The findings highlight the importance of policy tools and the need to engineer mechanisms into those tools to elicit cooperation when multiple state agencies are required to participate in a policy innovation. Important findings include 1) the positive relationship of bureaucratic infrastructure to a state's ability to innovate and 2) that federal incentives may be effective in advancing federal policy preferences when policy authority is a power that is otherwise reserved to the states. The findings from this study have direct implications for federal grant policy as well as for state lawmakers when multiple state agencies are required for policy innovation. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted teaching and learning, causing schools to close and to move students to remote learning. Many principals sidestepped the guiding principle for schools, the mission statement, and were instead on a mission to salvage teaching and learning. Environmental entities became crucial to school survival. The open system theory, which framed this qualitatively driven mixed methods study, asserts organizations like schools are strongly influenced by the environment, especially during emergencies. This study explored the extent to which select pre-COVID mission statements showed language similarity, facilitated tenets of the open system theory, and aligned with job responsibilities of principals during the pandemic. The 10 South Carolina alternative school principals in this study showed via survey data the pre-COVID mission statements supported their decision-making and allowed flexibility to connect with internal and external entities. Data collected from the focus group of the 10 principals revealed mission statements were similar in language with regard to ensuring the needs of students were met through quality learning environments. An inconsistency emerged from focus group data, defying the earlier survey data findings. Finally, the focus group revealed categories of language essential for supporting open system operations post-pandemic: language that supports student success, school community, and environmental collaboration or interchange and invites parental involvement. The study implies that mission statements can be critical to confirming purpose but must be flexible and the result of robust collaboration. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

A growing body of academic writing literature has been devoted to studying the rhetorical patterns and language use in diverse academic texts. One of the central goals of these studies is to demystify these texts to acquaint writers, particularly less experienced ones, with the genre conventions. However, Teaching Philosophy Statements (TPS) as a critical academic genre have received insubstantial attention in the literature. TPSs are major gatekeeping practices in academia that play a significant role in controlling access to academic positions and opportunities, where an insufficient grasp of their conventions might affect an individual's academic future. This study is pedagogically motivated, aiming to provide a rich description of the rhetoric of the TPS genre. The investigation was conducted using a self-compiled corpus of TPSs containing 55 samples of naturally occurring TPSs written by academics affiliated with linguistics departments in 30 different US-based academic institutions (totaling 46,543 words). The investigation began with textual analysis aimed at understanding the typical rhetorical components of the genre. This was followed by exploring the metadiscursive features utilized to interact and engage with the audience and how these features were distributed across the different rhetorical components of the genre. The textual analysis was enriched by incorporating insights from gatekeepers, obtained through interviews with four experienced TPS readers to draw out their views on the genre's rhetorical patterns. The study utilized Swales's (1990) notion of moves and steps along with Hyland and Tse's (2004) model of metadiscourse. The findings revealed that writers of the TPSs tended to use a combination of three moves to rhetorically construct and present their teaching philosophies, namely: 1) beliefs stating, 2) teaching practices description, and 3) competence claim. The metadiscourse analysis revealed features such as self-mention, boosters, attitude markers, and transitions were found to be standard features of the genre as they appear in all of the texts analyzed. The findings also showed that the metadiscourse features' usage in each move reflects the varying rhetorical purposes for each move, such as the shared views of teaching and learning in Move 1, the need to present a narrative that is both adaptable and personally resonant in Move 2, and the self-assured competence in Move 3. The interviews with the experienced TPS readers revealed a great preference for concrete examples in the TPSs rather than abstract ideas about educational beliefs and goals. They also show that views of the genre range from being a relatively useless document, a supplementary document, or a pitfall indicator. This study aims to provide valuable insights for practitioners of English for Academic Purposes, as well as academics involved in writing, teaching, or reviewing teaching philosophy statements, in the hope that its findings will significantly enhance their professional practices. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Because of the priority placed on learning intercultural skills in the 21st century workplace, many higher educational institutions around the world have emphasized internationalization in recent years. In late 2022, two years after the Covid-19 pandemic significantly impacted their internationalization efforts, resulting in quarantine requirements and border closures, Internationalization at Home activities have increased dramatically in universities in Hong Kong. In this study, document analysis was used to examine the extent to which internationalization, culture, diversity, equality, and inclusion are reflected in the vision and mission statements, strategic plans, and annual reports of six selected public and private universities in Hong Kong, and the impacts Covid-19 had on their Internationalization at Home initiatives. The study found that the word "international" appears more in documents reviewed from the two large public universities while the word "regional" appears more often in those of the two small public universities and the two private universities, and that the terms "diversity, equality and inclusion" appear more frequently in these six universities' latest annual reports. The Internationalization at Home initiatives identified were programs with international themes, foreign language courses, virtual exchange/internships, and diversity-related extracurricular activities. The findings may be helpful to students, staff and other stakeholders who are interested in the efforts made by these six universities in terms of Internationalization at Home initiatives, culture, diversity, equality, and inclusion. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Undocumented youth have been powerful leaders in the undocumented immigrant rights movement to advance a more just society for immigrant communities (Nicholls, 2013; Perez, 2016). Community colleges are important spaces in the higher education sector because most undocumented college students attend community colleges (Teranishi et al., 2011). This dissertation study seeks to better understand the priorities and experiences of undocumented community college students who organize for institutional support for undocumented students. This study is guided by theories on counter-spaces in Critical Race Theory (Solorzano et al., 2000), spaces where Students of Color create a sense of safety and community with each other. The methods for this study are a case study of one community college in California, Western College (pseudonym), that has robust programs for undocumented students such as an Undocumented Student Resource Center and a designated staff position that works with undocumented students. Research questions asked how undocumented students organized for programs at Western College from 2006 to 2021, how they navigated power dynamics on campus, and how they reflected on their experiences. Data collection comprised 26 interviews with 11 undocumented student alumni, five current students attending Western College in 2021, and eight staff and faculty. I also analyzed over 50 documents such as webpages and institutional statements. Findings show how undocumented students envisioned building a counter-space for undocumented students where they could feel safe and comfortable away from the dominant campus culture of exclusion and hostility. They wanted support and guidance from staff, faculty, and administrators, but they made it clear they aspired to maintain the essence of a counter-space by keeping their programs student-led. As they reflected on their experiences, they were impressed by the number of resources available at their 4-year universities once they transferred, but they ultimately missed the intimate sense of community at Western College. They also sought to reproduce the counter-space they created at Western College in their areas of work. This study has implications for research, policy, and practice about the development of institutionalized counter-spaces. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

A gap in research exists that demonstrates how principals use their authority to make decisions and how that intersects with change management models. The purpose of the study is to examine how one elementary school principal has led change and how teachers perceive the effectiveness of the change. The study seeks to explore principal's and teachers' perceptions of the impact of the change on the school. Through a bounded, qualitative case study design, the researcher used several techniques to gather data: teacher survey, principal interview, teacher interview, and document analysis. Multiple sources of data were used to adequately shed light on the phenomenon. Using multiple methods will help enable deeper understanding. The data were analyzed to determine how one principal utilized bureaucratic, psychological, technical-rational, professional, and moral sources of authority for leadership. The researcher then looked at how these sources of authority intersected with common themes in change management models. The researcher examined the data by coding the sources of authority with numbers and the common themes in change management models in color. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Colleges and universities are being increasingly recognized as key contributors to the well-being of the places in which they are located. However, in spite of the promise and potential of place-based engagement, there is little agreement about what place and place-building means or how these concepts can be operationalized in within the context of institutional community engagement (Siemers, Harrison, Clayton, & Stanley, 2015). The central purpose of this study was to explore these topics inside the institution with the aim of better understanding how place is being considered and built through institutional community engagement activities and partnerships. To accomplish this purpose, the study employed a unique explanatory mixed methods descriptive case study design that examined place and place-building at a single, highly-engaged, institution of higher learning located in northwestern Pennsylvania. The design used Organizational Place-Building Theory (OPBT) which is designed to explain the degree to which institutions value and invest in their social and geographic locations (Kimball & Thomas, 2012). In other words, how they create place from space (Tuan, 1977). Using OPBT as a theoretical lens, the following three research questions guided the study: 1) how has the institution conceptualized place and place-building within the context of community engagement? 2) according to OPBT, what are the institution's place-building profiles? and 3) how, and to what degree, are the institution's place-building profiles reflected in its community engagement activities and partnerships? To answer these questions the study focused on the collection and analysis of three types of qualitative and quantitative data: institutional documents, survey results, and focus group interview transcripts. The purposeful sample for this research consisted of institutional administrators and faculty members who were directly involved in community engagement programing at the college. Findings from the study indicated that the institution is a highly-engaged place builder. The College conceptualizes place as being local and sees itself as mutually responsible for the well-being of the place in which it exists. The concentration of the institution's community engagement programming is in the local community and focused on the social, natural, and man-made aspects of place. The institution has adopted a relationship building role in the larger community that is focused on creating relationships that reflect reciprocity, structure, sustained commitment, and inclusion. The review of institutional documents, survey results, and focus group interview transcripts were analyzed The College was found to exhibit a highly contributive place-building profile through which the institution cultivates and promotes its role as a key player and contributor in the well-being of place. These findings provided a better understanding of how place and place-building are being considered and operationalized by one institution. This limitation presents opportunities for further study that employs the OPBT framework and the methods used here at other institutions interested in better understanding the place-based orientation of their community engagement activities and partnerships. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore the cultural manifestation of grit in two freshman academy environments and describe factors of grit that support student success. This study used purposeful sampling to select sites and participants. Data were collected through: administration of Douglas' (1982) grid and group 24-question survey to determine cultural typology of each school; the administration of Duckworth's (2007) 8 item, Grit-S scale to determine the "grittiness" of each faculty; structured interviews with four teachers and one assistant principal from each site; observations, documents, photographs, electronic communication, flyers, demographic reports, and school websites. Douglas' (1982) grid and group matrix was used as the theoretical framework to explore the cultures of each school and to understand how Duckworth and Quinn's "two-factor" construct of grit, which is consistency of interest and perseverance of effort, is culturally manifested in each school. This study provides analysis of these cases with regard to the four psychological assets of grit, as it relates to the organizational environment of each school: interest (teacher/student school passion); practice (routine school activities); purpose (school vision, mission, and goals); and hope (optimism, opportunities) (Duckworth, 2016). Findings revealed that by examining grid dimensions of each school, the similarities and differences of grit were manifested with regard to teacher and administrator roles, organization and structure of the school, and school programs could be explained. Additionally, by examining group dimensions of each school, similarities and differences of how grit was manifested in teacher goals, stakeholder expectations, collaboration, and stakeholder relationships could be explained. Programs that contributed to the development of grit were those that allowed opportunities for students to engage with technology, their peers, and their teachers, as well as programs that provided time for academic supports. Findings confirmed grit development is possible within a freshman transition program and is manifested in programs and supports for teachers and students in a culture of high expectations, collaboration, supports for students and teachers, and an environment of relationship building. Implications for practice include, the promotion of grit in learning environments, teacher education programs, and improved four-year cohort graduation rates. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This paper presents the research design, rationale, and the results of a historical document-based research project to answer the following two-part question: How do popular and dominant political, social, and economic forces affect the creation and delivery of American history curriculum in public schools between 1890 and 1920 and how is this history significant in today's public schools? This document-based research study employed historical research methods to analyze the discourse between scholars in history and practitioners in education around the formation and delivery of curriculum in American history. A theory of historical understanding was utilized as a framework for guiding analysis of the documents and forming conclusions about the nature and delivery of American history curriculum. The archives of the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Historical Association (AHA) were particularly scrutinized, as these were the premier professional associations of their day. In addition to these archives, three documentary sources from the time period were analyzed to compromise four distinct conversations between educators and historians. Through an analysis of the documentary record, the following three themes which became the principal findings emerged: 1. American history has been taught to inculcate patriotism is a celebration of American democratic institutions. 2. American history has been viewed as an essential course of study for entrance to college and has been a way to imbue students with other higher-order thinking skills (i.e. the ability to read complex texts, analyze historical literature, evaluate source materials, create an original argument/thesis from historical records). 3. American history has been used to teach lessons in morality and character-building. The chief findings were also the following: despite a powerful central decision making authority (tantamount to today's Federal Department of Education), there was widespread cohesion and similarities between programs of study and curriculum in American history throughout the United States. Informed discussions between and within the NEA and the AHA suggest that historians and educators at the administrative level worked to maintain that cohesion and to guard it against outside political influences, although they were rarely successful. Owing to its proximity to research universities, the Boston Public Schools was the site of many of these curricular innovations and fell victim to tendencies to teach American history in order to nationalize immigrants and inculcate a sense of American-style democratic traditions. The discussions between the NEA and the AHA have been under-researched, yet an analysis of their work informs both scholars in history and education practitioners today. In the modern day, under the pressures of federal educational initiatives such as No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and other funding initiatives, not to mention the testing and accountability movements, it is more important than ever to maintain informed communication between professionals in history and educators in order to perpetuate the teaching of American history. Many of today's public schools include a goal or mission statement that involves a civic or social mandate. In that light, American history gains increasing importance in an already crowded curriculum and thus an understanding of how this curriculum is shaped and delivered becomes an imperative. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study examines the first time publishing experience of non-native English speaking doctoral students at three public universities in Hong Kong. The purpose was to gain an understanding of the perceptions of Hong Kong non-native English speaking doctoral students as writers of journal articles, their difficulties in getting papers published in refereed journals, the strategies they use to cope with difficulties ranging from writing to publishing, and their perceptions of their training on research publications in Hong Kong. Data were collected through in-depth interviews with six non-native English speaking applied linguistics doctoral students in Hong Kong, interviewees' various drafts and the final version of the first refereed journal paper, journal reviewers' comments on the interviewees' papers, my correspondence with journal editors, mission statements of journals, and content/theme in that particular issue of the final published paper. Results show that a majority of the interviewees exhibited mixed feelings towards writing in English for publication. Lacking motivation and lacking confidence were typical problems encountered by Hong Kong doctoral students in publishing in refereed journals. This study suggests strategies to cope with the difficulties in academic publishing and discusses its contributions to research, theory, and practice. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Teacher quality is a central concern of the profession. College-based teacher education, the core of teacher preparation in the United States, has increasingly included some form of practitioner inquiry in the pre-service program to encourage teacher candidates to be reflective, adaptive teachers who systematically and intentionally examine practice to improve pupil outcomes and continue their own professional development. While it is assumed that pre-service practitioner inquiry has a positive influence on pupils' learning, there is still little empirical evidence to support this assertion. Most empirical data on pre-service practitioner inquiry is confined to a short time period and does not examine what happens to pre-service candidates when they enter their own classrooms. Additionally, this research is generally conducted using interpretive qualitative methods. Thus, this dissertation uses a longitudinal mixed methods approach to examine what happens when teacher candidates engage in practitioner research in a pre-service program focused on inquiry with the goal of improving pupil learning. A modified sequential explanatory mixed methods design was employed as the best means of addressing this complex question. The study included data from three sources in a teacher preparation program focused on practitioner inquiry. The first analysis took a broad view of the quality and range of teacher candidates' research papers through the analysis of rubric scores for 92 teacher candidate inquiry papers in two cohorts (spring, 2006 and spring, 2007). Looking at the quality and nature of these projects, content analysis on a sample of twelve papers taken from the range of these scores was conducted. Finally, in-depth case studies of two participants were developed using data accumulated during the one-year pre-service program and through the first two years in the classroom. Findings in the quantitative analysis indicated that the rubric was reliable in differentiating among papers, but that there were fewer outstanding inquiries than expected, which were not explained by analysis of the scores. Content analysis of a sample of these papers indicated that differences were in how questions were formed; candidates' ability to interpret and use data recursively; whether and how candidates connected their learning to pupil learning; and if candidates connected their inquiry to issues of social justice in meaningful ways. The case studies showed that several factors influenced whether and how candidates moved toward the development of inquiry as stance. These factors included candidates' view of inquiry; teacher capacity; demands of curriculum planning and development; understandings of learning to teach for social justice; as well as school support and context. Overall, the three analyses in this dissertation indicated that requiring teacher candidates to engage in pre-service practitioner inquiry did not guarantee that they would understand inquiry as intended, develop an inquiry stance, or continue to inquire into practice in their own classrooms. These findings suggest implications for research, practice, and policy, which are discussed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Public education in the United States struggles to prepare all students for success in post-secondary education and careers. One reason attributed to dropouts, student-disconnect, and low levels of achievement is that too many students attend large, impersonal schools where they are not engaged in learning. Many policy makers view the reconstruction of high schools through the creation of Smaller Learning Communities (SLCs) as a step toward personalizing education and establishing the right conditions for enhanced student achievement. The purpose of this case study was to investigate which aspects of the high school SLC program educators deemed critical and how SLC practices can be improved. This qualitative descriptive single-case study was designed to analyze teacher, counselor and administrator perceptions around SLC practices in a large suburban southeastern New England school district. Data was obtained through historical quantitative analysis, document analysis and a semi-structured focus group interview. The research was guided by Coleman's (1988) theoretical concept of social capital with three primary questions: In what ways did high school attendance, suspension, retention, graduation, drop-out, post high school plan rates and state testing data change from 2004 to 2012 for the school district under study? How have changes to existing practices been implemented since the inception of the SLC program? How did educators perceive the effectiveness of the SLC program? [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this study is to answer the question: How do pilot users of the Danielson Evaluation System perceive this model in two mid-south high schools? The study describes the perceptions of teachers and administrators who implemented the Danielson Teacher Evaluation Model. The primary focus was on teachers and administrators experience with the pilot of the new Arkansas Teacher Excellence Support System. In an effort to meet requirements under the ESEA flexibility waiver Arkansas developed a comprehensive evaluation model to meet state and federal accountability standards. Arkansas Department of Education developed a pilot school program in which they were afforded the opportunity to explore the teacher evaluation tool in a lived experience in four pilots across the state. The researcher conducted structured open-ended interviews with teachers and building principals. Observations were conducted with research participants. Documents were collected throughout the study to meet triangulation of this phenomenological study. The significant themes (axial codes) that emerged from the data collected were (a) role of the students, (b) teacher evaluation system, (c) emotions of teachers, and (d) reflection of the process. This qualitative study adds new research to the field on the perceptions, experiences, and essence of piloting the Danielson Framework for Teaching Evaluation Model. This research will be instrumental in facilitating more long term research on the perceptions of the framework as a teacher evaluation model. Through this study, readers can gain new insight on the struggle of teachers and administrators as they shift their thinking from the Danielson Framework which guides teacher practices to an evaluation tool. This study provides new research of the everyday challenges of teachers and their effort to improve student achievement. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Technology has been at the center of heated debates in educational settings driving schools to compete for the best technological equipments. However, in Lebanon there is a lag in technology integration matching twenty first century advances. Several barriers related to teacher attitudes, lack of technical skills and organizational constraints to promote and support the integration of the new technologies could be resolved if leadership skills are exercised in the concerned areas. Therefore, it is essential to probe deeper into the reasons prohibiting effective technology integration in Lebanese schools. The purpose of this project was to investigate the reasons behind lack of effective technology integration in a private Lebanese school. The investigation's primary aim was to identify whether schools support technology through adoption of school-wide initiatives as course management systems, student information systems, curriculum mapping software, and other teaching software, and allocate time and resources to technology integration. Its secondary aim was to explore teachers' use of the above mentioned technologies and identify barriers for implementing them. In order to achieve its aims, the project used the LoTi Digital-Age Survey developed by Moersch to address technology integration from two perspectives: level of organizational support provided by the schools for technology integration, and use of technology by teachers. The results were used by individual teachers to develop their professional growth plans and by instructional leaders to assess their school-wide technology initiatives. The investigator triangulated the results generated by the LoTi survey with classroom observations and document analysis to confirm the results indicating the school instructional leaders' lowest priority for professional development is in infusion of contemporary technologies and allocation of resources, whereas teachers' highest priority is in enhancing student learning and creativity based on their LoTi level = 2, CIP = 4, and PCU = 3. The lack of a strategic plan to guide the teachers, outmoded hardware, lack of technical support, and inadequate training are among the reasons teachers do not use technology for enhancing student creativity and learning. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Sustainability is the promotion of high performance, healthful, energy-efficient, and environmentally stable buildings. Buildings intended for sustainable certification must meet guidelines developed by the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) of the U.S. Green Building Council. The problem is that LEED certification often fails to be sustained because of the difficulties involved in balancing competing demands of funding resources for university operations and maintenance. This research was conducted as a qualitative, holistic single case study using as a unit of analysis how operations and maintenance (O&M) supports or does not support the achievement and continued sustainment of LEED certification of existing buildings, known as LEED-EBOM. Fifteen purposefully selected participants were interviewed and included managers and administrators of supported departments, and administrators involved in approving funding for operations and maintenance. Information was collected utilizing a conversational face-to-face interview process. Patterns were assessed, grouped into categories and then themes, analyzed for similarities and differences, and interpreted for meaning. Member checking with peer professionals was used to confirm accuracy and credibility of findings. Two predominant themes resulted during the analysis: organizational demands and financial demands. These themes were supported by participant interviews, the university documents reviewed, and the literature review. The study concluded there is a gap in the literature concerning the need to add additional O&M funding and staffing to achieve, operate, maintain, and sustain existing buildings as LEED certified buildings. Future research should include an expansion of this study to include more universities. All institutions struggle with the sustainability question. Public institutions have tight financial constraints and are more restricted in their revenue sources, and how they spend it. Private institutions have more flexibility to spend and obtain funds. LEED-EBOM certification at Georgetown has not focused on the additional cost and the need for staff to keep existing buildings certified. The recommendations portray a roadmap for LEED-EBOM to succeed at Georgetown; however, upfront funding is required. As the University facilities and infrastructure age, deferred maintenance grows exponentially, to the point that it will be cost prohibitive to correct, and it may take decades to do so. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This embedded multiple-case study addressed the lack of qualitative research on the contributions of principal leadership behaviors and organizational routines in Montana's distinguished Title I schools. This study was guided by the research question, "How do principal leadership behaviors and organizational routines contribute to the high achievement of Montana's distinguished Title I Schools?" A supporting subquestion for principal leadership behaviors was, "How does relational trust contribute to the high achievement of Montana's distinguished Title I schools?" A supporting subquestion for organizational routines was, "How does collective teacher efficacy contribute to the high achievement of Montana's distinguished Title I schools?" The purpose of this embedded multiple-case study was to describe the role played by principal leadership behaviors and organizational routines in Montana's award-winning Title I schools. Three Montana Title I schools, each of which had been recognized by the Office of Public Instruction as Distinguished Title I Schools for exceptional student achievement, 2006 to 2010, were included in the study. Following Yin's (2009) recommendation, the following data collection methods were utilized: principal and teacher interviews, focus group discussions, observation of building principals, document collection, and administration of quantitative questionnaires on transformational leadership and collective teacher efficacy. Data on principal leadership behaviors was pattern-matched to the theoretical propositions of transformational leadership and relational trust. Data on organizational routines was pattern-matched to the theoretical propositions of professional learning communities and collective teacher efficacy. This study found that principal leadership behaviors of transformational leadership and relational trust had contributed to high student achievement in the schools studied, as had professional learning communities and collective teacher efficacy. The study's cross-case analysis also revealed conclusions, which had not been reported in previous research, in regard to transformational leadership practices, relational trust, and collective teacher efficacy. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Attrition is a problem among special education teachers in an urban high school in a southern part of the United States. A high school special education department served as the local setting. The department was unique due to a high teacher attrition rate and high percentage of teachers with less than five years of teaching experience. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore the factors that influenced early career special education teachers' decisions to stay and to leave the department. Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory served as the conceptual framework for the qualitative case study. Three research questions focused on the reasons some special education teachers left their position, the factors influencing special education teachers to remain in their position, and the initiatives used to retain early career special education teachers. Qualitative case study research methods included interviewing two school leaders, two current special education teachers, and four former special education teachers and reviewing the school's documentary data related to retention initiatives. Analytic strategies included thematic and case narrative development of the factors affecting attrition and retention. Multiple factors influenced the decision to stay or leave the special education department, including excessive paperwork (which may be incentive to transfer out of the department to general education) and the presence of a mentoring program (a retention strategy). A major conclusion is that Herzberg's theory is valid for examining factors influencing special education teachers' career retention decision. Continuing with the retention initiative is recommended. Implications for positive social change include creating effective strategies that retain talented teachers. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Secondary school department chairs are content area specialists in their schools and are responsible for providing students with the most appropriate curricula. However, most secondary school department chairs have limited authority to institute change unilaterally (Gmelch, 1993; Hannay & Erb, 1999). To explore how these educational leaders navigate the change process within their departments, this study examined the change stories of six secondary school science department chairs who had led change attempts. In total, these department chairs shared six stories of successful change attempts and four unsuccessful change attempts. The topics of leadership and change were accessed through department chair interviews, document analysis, and a leadership inventory. Department chair leadership was analyzed with Blake and McCanse's (1991) Leadership Grid, and further explored using Yukl, Gordon, and Taber's (2002) detailed characterization of this grid. The change processes described in these department chair stories were analyzed using the frameworks provided by Ely's (1990) conditions of change, and Havelock and Zlotolow (1995) CREATER change stages model. In general, the findings of this study support Havelock and Zlotolow's CREATER model, as well as Ely's conditions of change, with dissatisfaction with the status quo emerging as the essential condition for successful change. This study connects these change process frameworks to specific leadership strategies and behaviors, and uses these connections to illuminate differences between successful and unsuccessful instances of change. These findings, along with other unanticipated findings emerging from department chair stories of change, such as the adverse influence of contentious resistors and the importance of team construction, add both to the literature on change and leadership and to the crucial point where these concepts intersect. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The study was designed to collect and document both quantitative and qualitative data based on instructional services provided to students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The study examined the types of professional development and training provided to teachers of students with ASD and gathered the perspectives of local education agency administrators making instructional decisions regarding children with ASD in urban, suburban, and rural public school districts in central and south Texas. Understanding influences on instruction and the teachers' professional development experiences was critical and provided insight into how the teacher negotiates the challenges of differentiation in a general education classroom. The districts selected for the study offered a continuum of services for children with ASD. The study focused on analysis of programs and educators' perspectives and experiences related to the types of professional development provided to teachers prior to offering instructional services. Urban, suburban, and rural school districts participated in the study using purposeful sampling. A series of interviews were conducted using an interview protocol. Informative documents were provided by the participants and were collected and reviewed. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected and presented to better understand the influences, practices, and experiences of educators offering instruction to students diagnosed with ASD. Results of the study revealed additional professional development in the area of autism was necessary for teachers and administrators providing services to children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

How do a school and a community interact? This question guided this dissertation examining one rural school and community. The purpose of this case study was to investigate the relationship between the rural Marceline R-V School District (a K-12 school system) and its community, Marceline, Missouri. The framework for this study included the time-honored theories of Ferdinand Tonnies, with the contemporary work of Joyce Epstein and Mavis Sanders. With structure provided by Bolman and Deal, this document examined both the school and community. This study included artifacts and documents of both the community and school. Documents and artifacts included yearbooks, newspaper articles (school and community), photographs, school board and city council minutes, and other city and state records. In addition, twenty-three residents were interviewed. The interviewees fell into two distinct tiers. In tier-one, interviewees were identified because of a leadership role or job they held in either the community or school district: school administrators, school board members, businesses owners, church officials, the city manager, and city council members. Upon conclusion of the first-tier interview, participants were asked to identify additional school and/or community leaders who may or may not hold titles. These interviewees were identified as second-tier interviewees. Those second-tier participants were asked virtually the same questions asked of tier-one participants. Additionally, in order to more fully analyze the school and community using the theories of the aforementioned sociologists and researchers, I created a parent-category, sub-category system for coding all elements of the research. The categories were community-centered, family-centered, school-centered, student-centered, gesellschaft (society), and gemeinschaft (community). Analysis of the data revealed four themes: consolidation, desegregation, minorities, and parochial education. Beyond the basic premise that one would not exist without the other, the influence of the town's heritage and mutual history was undeniable. Marceline, the school, decided how it would react to state-driven educational mandates because of the community. The school shaped the community by offering a means of achieving gesellschaft (society) through gemeinschaft (community). [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to uncover the ways that women elementary school teachers negotiate their identities within the context of writer's workshop by exploring issues of gender, literacy, and identity. The two central participants were women elementary school teachers who were involved at their Professional Development School with university partnership and were learning how to implement a writer's workshop instructional model. This study considers how the participants' involvement in professional development with a university faculty member shaped their identities as women and professionals. The theoretical framework is based in critical theory and identity theory, in which literacy and identity are deeply connected (Moje & Luke, 2009). Furthermore, this study is situated in the literature exploring teachers' roles and identities historically in order to position them today (Carter, 2002; Hoffman, 2003; Biklen, 1995). The questions this study will explore include: (a) How have the participants' identities been affected by their involvement in the Corey Richardson Writing Collaborative? (b) How does gender mediate their professional identities? This feminist case study used in depth interviews, document analysis, and observations to generate detailed data. Themes that were prominent in the data were gender and teaching, dealing with mandates, issues of expertise, caring, and writing as resistance. The conclusions of this study reveal that the within the context of caring professional development, teachers were able to take up writer's workshop as a means of resisting a system that was often frustrating and oppressive. They negotiated their gendered roles as teachers in complex ways and used literacy as a way to reclaim their own power. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Software has an important role in supporting scientific work. This dissertation studies teams that build scientific software, focusing on the way that they determine what the software should do. These requirements engineering processes are investigated through three case studies of climate science software projects. The Earth System Modeling Framework assists modeling applications, the Earth System Grid distributes data via a web portal, and the NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) Command Language is used to convert, analyze and visualize data. Document analysis, observation, and interviews were used to investigate the requirements-related work. The first research question is about how and why stakeholders engage in a project, and what they do for the project. Two key findings arise. First, user counts are a vital measure of project success, which makes adoption important and makes counting tricky and political. Second, despite the importance of quantities of users, a few particular "power users" develop a relationship with the software developers and play a special role in providing feedback to the software team and integrating the system into user practice. The second research question focuses on how project objectives are articulated and how they are put into practice. The team seeks to both build a software system according to product requirements but also to conduct their work according to process requirements such as user support. Support provides essential communication between users and developers that assists with refining and identifying requirements for the software. It also helps users to learn and apply the software to their real needs. User support is a vital activity for scientific software teams aspiring to create infrastructure. The third research question is about how change in scientific practice and knowledge leads to changes in the software, and vice versa. The "thickness" of a layer of software infrastructure impacts whether the software team or users have control and responsibility for making changes in response to new scientific ideas. Thick infrastructure provides more functionality for users, but gives them less control of it. The stability of infrastructure trades off against the responsiveness that the infrastructure can have to user needs. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of the study was to examine students' expected and observable civic engagement in a Montessori Erdkinder-based middle school classroom. Research questions included: (a) In what ways is civic engagement addressed in the Montessori Erdkinder-based middle school explicit curriculum? (b) How does the expected civic engagement in the Montessori Erdkinder-based middle school explicit curriculum align with "The Civic Mission of Schools" six educational approaches? (c) In what ways do students experience civic engagement at the end-of-the-school year in Grades 7, 8 and 9 in a Montessori Erdkinder-based middle school classroom? The study used a case design with three embedded units of analysis. The purposefully selected participants included the teacher and 19 students. The curriculum was analyzed using document analysis and context was provided through teacher interviews. The curriculum was aligned with "The Civic Mission of Schools'" six approaches. Students' civic engagement was examined through observations, students' interviews and documents. Cross-case analysis examined civic engagement experiences between each grade level. These analyses were compared findings to civic education literature and "The Civic Mission of Schools'" six approaches. The study found the curriculum provided opportunities for civic engagement including civic and political skills, civic dispositions and community participation. When compared with "The Civic Mission of Schools," the curriculum provided mixed results. Only the students' voices in school governance and service-learning were evident. Students had similar opportunities for civic engagement because of the mixed-age nature of Montessori learning. Evidence of student civic engagement included a student created and maintained democratic classroom environment, community service and service-learning, informal discussion of current events and participation in the Montessori Model United Nations. Although the curriculum did not directly align with "The Civic Mission of Schools," it provided an example of (a) an apolitical curriculum for creating world citizens and (b) a model for civility for classroom governance and student behavior. A community of practice was developed based on occupation-based learning in which students learned their roles and experienced stress in a democratic workplace. Recommendations for future research include political socialization and alternative learning environments. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of the 1990 apostolic constitution on Catholic higher education entitled "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" (From the Heart of the Church) is to emphasize the dual relationship Catholic institutions have to the academic community as well as the Church. The concepts of Catholicism and university are not to be experienced as polarizing entities but as a unified enterprise fully engaged in faith and reason. Through the Church's pastoral and governing structures, "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" prescribes a relationship or partnership between diocesan bishops and the presidents of the Catholic colleges or universities in their dioceses to ensure and promote Catholic identity and doctrine in these institutions. The partnership is to ensure that the bishop is not "external" to the Catholic university through a relationship characterized by "mutual trust, close and consistent cooperation, and continuing dialogue" ("Ex Corde Ecclesiae," No. 28). This dissertation is a qualitative case study of five partnerships between bishops and presidents that have experienced conflicts and controversies pertaining to issues of Catholic identity at their institutions of Catholic higher education, such as the choosing of guest speakers and/or honorees; student groups and activities; the offering of courses and majors; and reemphasizing the word "Catholic" in a mission statement. Using interviews, institutional documents, and a review of the literature on Catholic higher education, including literature on the mission and partnership, this study explores the nature of the partnership between bishops and presidents, the impact of "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" and its Application (2000) on the five partnerships, and reveals implications of this unique partnership for the Catholic higher education enterprise and its leaders. Research reveals that the partnership between the bishop and the president is most effective when these leaders move beyond a relationship of accountability to a relationship built on mutual respect and trust and open dialogue. This kind of partnership is important for ensuring a relevant and vibrant future for Catholic higher education by finding effective resolutions to the complex challenges confronting Catholic higher education today. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Litigation against colleges and universities has prompted the need to re-examine the legalities of the means by which they strive for a diverse student population. Court decisions have resulted in mixed signals about the use of various types of affirmative action policies. This study' method presented an analysis of archival data to provide a clear summary of requirements that should influence admissions and compared this summary with five universities' admission policies. The research questions and the literature review are organized around the S.P.E.L. model. The social, political, economic, and legal implications of 2002-2007 affirmative action admission litigation are explored in this multiple case study. Three major conclusions were drawn: (a) the five universities use narrowly defined affirmative action criteria and include consideration of race/ethnicity or culture in their process for admitting students to their schools, (b) the universities provide some forms of economic support exclusively for students of certain ethnic or racial groups and/or socioeconomic backgrounds, and (c) the universities are in violation of the 14th Amendment in regards to their admission policies, and in addition all five universities are in conflict with state or voter approved legislation that limited or removed the use of race, gender, and ethnicity in admission programs and policies. The results section includes guidelines for improvement in admission policies and affirmative action programs in order to guide colleges and universities to a legally acceptable means of establishing diversity. This study also points the way for schools to effectively implement their diversity policies within the parameters set by law and legal precedent. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this study was to investigate teacher selection practices in public high schools on Long Island, New York. More specifically, this study sought to identify criteria used to guide teacher selection, how the criteria are developed and used within the process, and the role of the principal in teacher selection. This research was conducted using semi-structured interviews with high school principals, a survey of the principals, and an analysis of documents received from principals on the teacher selection process within his/her district. Participant high schools were chosen for diversity in size, socio-economic status, ethnic composition, and the principal's willingness to be involved in the research. Principals were also selected based on sex, ethnicity, highest degree earned, and years as principal, with the aim of getting diversity among participants. The main analysis of this research focused on the semi-structured interviews. The survey was developed using information from the Superintendent Survey of Hiring Practices created by Robert P. Strauss (Strauss, 1998) and Stronge and Hindman's (2006) Teacher Quality Index of effective teaching qualities. The analysis of the survey results was compared with the interview findings to explore the consistency of criteria implementation within the teacher selection process. School documents related to the teacher selection process for participant schools, including school and district policies and procedures governing the selection process, written criteria used in evaluating teacher candidates, and evaluative rubrics were also collected. Findings indicated that principals utilized a number of different criteria to evaluate teacher candidates. Most of these criteria are those associated with effective teaching and teachers, but these criteria were developed informally, and there appears to be no evidence that criteria are written, shared or consistently used. Procedural guidelines were scarce, and there was no formal systematic method of evaluation. The study further determined that principals have a relatively limited role in teacher selection. Even though the selection process is largely decentralized with the majority of the search being conducted within the school, the role of the principal in teacher selection was limited to three primary roles; oversight, determining fit, and making recommendations. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This research examined the funding request process whereby higher education institutions seek financial support from state government. The study tested whether a model based on state goals and priorities for higher education could distinguish a funded request from an unfunded request. The research was qualitative and followed a comparative case design examining two instances where Michigan State University submitted a funding request for a project through the state of Michigan's capital outlay process. One of the requests received funding while the other funding request did not. Information on each case was collected through interviews with people involved in the design and implementation of each funding request, and through an analysis of relevant documentation on each request. A conceptual framework based on perceived state goals and priorities for higher education and lobbying methods was used to analyze the cases. The research findings revealed that the case that received funding aligned more closely with the components of the study's conceptual framework than did the case that did not receive funding. However, the interview process revealed that closely aligning with the conceptual framework was not the primary reason for the final outcome of each case. Factors outside the control of the institutions, specifically the economic conditions in Michigan, contributed to whether funding for both cases was granted. Although the model tested was beneficial in distinguishing the unfunded from the funded case, the findings indicated that the model itself needed to be modified to account for variables outside the control of the institution in all stages of development of the funding requests. The environment that influences state higher education funding is very dynamic, and institutions need to adjust each funding request accordingly throughout the design and implementation process. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Broadband holds a critical position in the progress of economic and social indicators by connecting consumers, businesses and governments. South Korea has consistently been the global leader in broadband deployment since 1999. In the last ten years the Korean government has pursued several strategies for its broadband policy. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore South Korea's implementation of its Broadband Convergence Network (BcN) project with special emphasis on its objectives of achieving media convergence, ubiquitous connectivity; and coordination among network stakeholders. The study uses the theoretical framework of institutionalism to identify factors that help explain how the policy agenda for the BcN was implemented. The BcN is Korea's most recent high speed Internet infrastructure project and is envisioned as a conduit through which broadband services, applications and content will flow to reflect a robust high speed Internet infrastructure. This broadband infrastructure project began in 2004 as a consortium that includes the government and private sector firms. This infrastructure was launched as a three-phase project. The first phase of the BcN extended from 2004 through 2005, the second phase extended from 2006 through 2007 and the third phase extended from 2008 through 2010. The study asks four specific research questions: (1) which institutional level factors best explain media convergence, ubiquitous connectivity and network stakeholder coordination?; (2) at the BcN level how do different factors explain media convergence?; (3) at the BcN level how do different factors explain ubiquitous connectivity? (4) at the BcN level how do different factors explain network stakeholder coordination? To answer the questions the study adapts two central methodological approaches. The first entails a documentary research procedure of official policy documents published between 2004 and 2007. The texts are purposively selected on the basis of their relevance to the evolution of South Korea's policy agenda for the BcN. The second procedure involves fieldwork in South Korea comprising face-to-face interviews with key informants who have professional experience with the country's broadband policy. The informants were selected by a snowball sampling technique and they were drawn from universities, non-profit research institutes, private sector firms dealing with broadband and government bodies and agencies. The study finds that of the ten key factors identified by policy planners of the BcN model, six of them were successfully implemented between 2004 and 2007. The factors where the objectives were met are: (1) the deployment of networks that integrate distinct media; (2) the integration of wireless and wired infrastructure; (3) upgrading IP platforms; (4) the role of stakeholders in providing resources or funding for R&D projects; (5) the role of stakeholders in identifying which platforms best fit with launching the BcN; (6) and the role of stakeholders in devising strategies for the pilot projects. The four areas where they failed to achieve success are: (1) the integration of telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology infrastructure; (2) promoting R&D projects to expand connectivity; (3) deploying wireless broadband access; (4) deploying Fiber-To-The Home (FTTH)/HFC (Hybrid Fiber and Cable) networks. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study reports the evolving teacher identities of 12 South/East Asian teachers during their study in the United States. Grounded in poststructuralist views of identities, the study employed narrative analysis to capture the complexities of teacher identity construction. Narrative data were collected through in-depth individual interviews, focus groups, and analysis of relevant documents. Lieblich, Tuval-Mashiach, and Zilber's (1998) categorical content analysis served as an analytical framework for analyzing the situated meanings of the 12 teachers' identity construction. The result indicated that teacher identities of the 12 participants were situated and multiple. While the main aim of pursuing degrees (MAs or PhDs) in the United States was to enhance their professional identities, participants negotiated their teacher identities alongside other multiple identities as learners, mothers, and multicompetence English user (MEU) teachers, among others. After participated in the US academic communities, the narrative data illustrate that the participants' teacher identities shifted. The shifting process was in particular as a result of the readings and discussion on critical pedagogies in the graduate programs. The results also showed that although most participants experienced shifts in their identities, they seemed to negotiate their identities on the basis of core or dominant identities. This is evident in the narratives of Mika, Nesiani, and Sakura when discussing their classroom participation patterns. All of them indicated that their cultural gender identities, which expect women to be silent, as the reason for the difficulty of being active learners. For these 3 participants, identities seemed to be a "sense of self-hood attached to a physical body" (Young, 2008, p. 9). Thus, the attempts to be more active and critical, like US learners, might come across as denying their true senses of self. As a result of this study, I come to believe that teacher education programs need to be a site for identity reconstruction and reflection. As pointed out by Salvatori (1996), pedagogy is most effective when teachers engage in reflexive activities that involve theorizing, applying ideas to practice, and evaluating results in light of specific institutional contexts and student populations. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Thomas Jefferson founded the University of Virginia in 1819 to become a training ground for the leaders of a new republic. The institution has changed a great deal since its founding, but principles connected to "Mr. Jefferson's" legacy abound. One such ideal is student self-governance. Described in institutional literature as a core value of the student experience at the University of Virginia, this concept and how it is established and maintained by generations of university students was left unstudied. Through in-depth consideration of this institutional ideal, this case study of a year-in-the-life of Student Council adds to the relative dearth of existing research regarding student government and its contributions to the overall governance structure of colleges and universities. At the same time, it enhances understanding of the impact of an institution's culture and structure upon the actions of students and administrators and helps to understand how these actions re-inform and, in some cases, re-create institutional culture. Employing an embedded single case study design and using grounded theory methodology for data review and analysis, this research focuses on the following central questions: (1) How is student self-governance co-constructed by those involved in the primary student governing body, Student Council, and the peers and university officials with whom they interact at the University of Virginia? (2) How does the culture and organizational structure of the institution influence this process of co-construction? (3) In what ways, if any, does self-governance contribute to the institutional ideal of shared governance between students and university officials? Qualitative data collected to study these questions included document analysis, observations of meetings and orientation events, interviews with students and university officials, and review of the student newspaper and other media coverage about the Student Council. Several themes emerged from the data. Through weaving together these themes, a theory is developed suggesting that culture strongly influences structure and practice within an institution of higher education. These findings suggest that student affairs administrators must foster an understanding of the culture of their institution, both in themselves and in their staffs. Whether or not they recognize the influence of culture on their institutional environment could both have an impact on the success of their career at the institution, and their success in creating coordinated and congruent learning experiences for their students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Over the past three decades, researchers have studied doctoral research training programs using large scale surveys making visible trends in numbers of and kinds of research courses required, or using focused qualitative methods to gain rich, textured accounts of graduate school experiences. Both kinds of studies fail to capture the local, situated practices and processes, actions and interactions that this dissertation will show embody what counts as doctoral research training. This dissertation is comprised of theoretically driven, empirically grounded examinations of what counts as Doctoral Research Training from multiple angles of analyses, across multiple levels of program and within individual student take-up within a community. Analyses are grounded in university program documents, course catalogues, course syllabi, interviews with faculty and doctoral students, and student work. Implications are drawn for doctoral training program development, as well as for further research on research extensive doctoral training programs. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

In an effort to safeguard the learning environment, school administrators generally rely on district or local school guidelines and professional judgment. With new technology, the proliferation of drug use, and increased school violence, schools have become a complex environment to manage for both system and local leadership. Administrators are often called on to deal with situations that require them to search students and their belongings. School system officials and/or local school administrators are breaching students' constitutional rights and, in many cases, facing litigation when attempting to safeguard the learning environment through improper search and seizure practices and/or policies. The purpose of this research is to inform and provide guidance to school officials on researched-based search and seizure practices that will allow them to search students and their belongings properly and in a manner that safeguards the rights of the students they are searching. This study reviews the historical context of students' rights as it relates to search and seizure through an overview of existing case law, including relevant Supreme Court cases, lower federal courts cases, case briefs and information from law and education journals. This study also provides an in-depth analysis of the recent U.S. Supreme Court case Safford v. Redding and its impact on search and seizure law. This analysis revealed that school officials must have reasonable information that leads to the necessary suspicion to initiate the search. The scope of the search cannot be overly intrusive given the circumstances, which include the age and sex of the student. Additionally, under the "quantum leap" doctrine of the U.S. Supreme Court articulated in Safford v. Redding, highly intrusive strip searches should only be conducted given the threat of danger or given specific information that indicates contraband is hidden under clothing. Further research is suggested to identify the communication and training practices of school systems regarding search and seizure policies and the effectiveness of those practices in developing an awareness of ever evolving school law. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This research study was implemented within the subject headquarters of a regional center, an organization responsible for security cooperation in Europe and Eurasia. The focus of the study was the center's program of security education. This program was designed to support evolving security objectives of foreign countries in order to increase the level of desired participation. The purpose of the project was for the researcher to identify concerns or issues that might have caused a decrease in participation in the security-education program, to determine whether revisions in the objectives and curriculum for security education were needed, and to develop recommendations, as needed, for program changes. The aim of the revisions was to sustain or increase the participation of desired students contributing to security cooperation among countries in the European and Eurasian region. Five areas were identified as warranting review and analysis: participation factors, program administration, curriculum, program guidance, and service delivery. In the qualitative phase of data collection and analysis, the researcher included document review, focus groups, and individual interviews to identify concepts and themes for the development of a quantitative survey. The results of the qualitative phase enabled development of a questionnaire to measure respondents' opinions on topics within the five areas of study. The questionnaire was reviewed by subject-matter experts and piloted with a sample population comparable to the target population from several countries. The survey was disseminated to defense attaches, security-assistance officers, and political-military officers. The chief finding was that the regional center continues to be an essential venue for professional security education in international security development, including regional and international security issues. The key organizational leaders were provided with recommendations to sustain, improve, or suspend activities within the five focus areas. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation explores organizational narratives of engagement initiatives involving two comprehensive universities and the larger regional communities they serve. The purpose of this study is to develop a holistic description of engagement initiatives, reflecting data collected through interviews, documents and other artifacts from representatives of community and university, including residents, civic leaders, university faculty and administrators, elected officials, community and non-profit organizations and businesses. Using case studies of the University of Central Oklahoma and Lewis-Clark State College, this research explores the interaction of each institution with the regional community it serves. Utilizing narrative analysis techniques and portraiture methodology to explore the complexities of these relationships, I identified four layers in the data. Portraits of the two regional institutions explore each layer individually. Layer 1 is an overview of the community, the university, and the engagement initiatives, followed by the narrative of engagement which frames the initiatives in Layer 2. The third layer "places" engagement as product and reflection of cultural, historical and social events in a particular place. Layer 4 juxtaposes these narratives with the theoretical framework. In uncovering these layers, the dissertation breaks new ground in the scholarship related to community-university engagement, demonstrating the importance of place in producing the terms of this interaction. The findings can be read in two ways: for what they tell us about economic development as engagement in comprehensive colleges and universities; and as an example of a methodological approach which emphasizes the simultaneous existence of multiple layers in narrative data. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of community-university interaction shaped by place and by power as evidenced in the two portrait/case studies, and offers recommendations to advance community involvement in engagement initiatives, as well as the practice, scholarship related to, and theorizing of community-university engagement. The final chapter of the dissertation serves two purposes: first, it contributes to an understanding of community-university interaction as shaped by place and by power; and then, offers new perspectives on engagement based on a spatialized, or place-based, reading of Bourdieu's treatment of power functioning in social fields that can advance theory, practice and scholarship in this area. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The purpose of this content analysis study was to describe the way international student populations were conceptualized on the websites of 2-year public colleges in Texas. This inquiry replicated the Ford and Cate (2020) study, "The Discursive Construction of International Students in the USA: Prestige, Diversity, and Economic Gain." The websites of 47 community colleges listed on the Comptroller.Texas.Gov website were examined for explicit forms or representations of international students using specific web scraping steps. The three themes of globalization, racial diversity, and monetary gain from the Ford and Cate (2020) investigation informed the study. The study explored student support services provided to international students. It was determined the community college websites studied were not discursively framing their international students as diversity assets and non-domestic learners were provided the same services as their domestic peers. The paper includes a discussion of the implications for practice and concludes with a section on future research needs. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The current racial homogeny in the United States K-12 public school teacher workforce can be traced to the dismissal of Black teachers and administrators in the name of desegregation following the 1950s supreme court Brown vs. Board of Education ruling. The resulting raciodemographic mismatch persists today, and determinations about the performance of a largely minoritized student population are filtered through texts, policies and instruction centered on the white middle-class monolingual women who predominate both K-12 and teacher preparation spaces. In recognition of the challenges this presents, the teacher preparation program at Franklin University, like many across the U.S., has recently shifted its mission and vision to center racial equity and social justice. Through two qualitative studies and a critical essay, this dissertation addresses the research question, how does an urban social justice teacher preparation program shape racial ideologies? The first study, via raciolinguistic genealogy, traces racialized discourses of cultural and linguistic capital across policy and academic texts published approximately 30 years apart. Results suggest these texts, which undergird the teacher licensure exam both at Franklin and more broadly, brand Black cultures and languages as a subhuman deviant threat to U.S. society. In the second paper, I conduct a critical analysis of a canonical teacher preparation text, and through counterstorytelling as method, reveal flattened class-centric representations of Black communities as devoid of culture rather than as drawing from community-knowledge both to affirm their humanity and to navigate white institutions. The final paper is a critical case study investigating the understandings of and practical approaches towards teaching about culture and identity on behalf of three language educators at Franklin. Results suggest implicitly racialized understandings of culture and a largely theoretical understanding of race and power which fails to translate to the preparation of language educators in a practical sense. As explored through the conceptual framework of culturelessness, the findings from these studies suggest that antiBlackness is maintained rather than disrupted at Franklin largely through the euphemization of race principally as capital, class or culture. Implications for race-visibility and critical race-reflexivity are offered. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Studies have shown that language assessment literacy (LAL) is important for language teachers since they make important classroom decisions to improve student learning based on their assessment. However, some studies have shown that teachers need more knowledge and skills in assessment. Teachers also seem unconfident in assessing their students and need proper training. In order to help them to be more assessment literate, an instrument is needed to identify their LAL levels and needs. However, AL/LAL instruments available to date were based on dated 1990 Standards that did not address the latest development in assessment. Those instruments were not developed based on a specific domain of interest or teachers' needs in their local assessment context. A new LAL instrument is needed, which should be developed based on sound principles of test development framework, on teachers' assessment needs or profiles, and on a specific domain interest. In addition, since language assessment is a complex construct, the instrument should be developed following the principles of scenario-based assessment, which some studies suggest might have the potential to measure complex constructs. This dissertation study is aimed at developing such an instrument. In order to achieve the aim of this dissertation study, a scenario-based LAL test (SBLALT) was developed following the principles of Evidence-Centered Design. The activities in the first step of Evidence-Centered Design, Domain Analysis, were distributing a LAL questionnaire to Indonesian EFL teachers, interviewing eight Indonesian EFL teachers, and reviewing related literature. The results of the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of the 324 questionnaire responses were the six factors of LAL deemed important by Indonesian EFL teachers. In the next stage of ECD, Domain Modeling, the results of EFA and those of the literature review were organized into assessment arguments. This organized assessment argument was the input for the next step of ECD, the Conceptual Assessment Framework, where technical specifications for developing the test were elaborated. After getting feedback from five content experts of ELESP, five Ph.D. students of Applied Linguistics and Technology at Iowa State University, and five ELESP students who took the pencil and paper version of SBLALT, SBLALT was revised, and its final draft consists of four tasks of a test development process. Content analysis of SBLALT was conducted by distributing a short Likert-scale survey (0 = very poor to 5 = very good) asking five content experts of ELESP to judge the content of SBLALT, whether the test items match the proficiency level of ELESP students, align with the objectives and the course materials of a language assessment-related course offered in ELESP. The content experts of ELESP agree that the SBLALT test items are very good, and the test items align with the course's objectives and materials. Classical Test Theory was used to analyze the psychometric properties of SBLALT. One hundred ELESP students took the final (online) version of SBLALT. Three indices were computed to analyze the effectiveness of SBLALT at the test level: score dependability, confidence interval, and classification dependability. Three indices were computed to analyze the effectiveness of SBLALT at the item level: B-index*, item phi index*, and item facility*. To set the cut score to determine the master and non-master students, five ELESP lecturers were invited to determine the cut score through the standard-setting process following the Angoff method. The cut score for SBLALT was 75%. The score dependability of SBLALT was not satisfactory (0.64) but only marginally below the acceptable level of 0.70 for low-stakes, classroom-based assessments. The confidence interval of SBLALT was 0.07, which shows that the individual scores were not measured reliably by SBLALT. However, the classification dependability, the most important dependability measure for criterion-referenced measurements, was quite high (0.84). SBLAT was quite consistent in classifying students into masters or non-masters. From the item analysis of SBLALT, eight out of fifteen items have a recommended B-index* of [greater than or equal to] 0.20. This shows that those items did their job well in discriminating between the test takers who passed and failed the test. The rest of the test items (7 items) have a low positive B-index* ([less than or equal to] 0.20), which means that these items did not effectively discriminate between the test takers who passed and failed the test. SBLALT differs from other measures of AL/LAL because SBLALT was developed based on the latest developments in language assessment and on the specific needs of EFL teachers. SBLALT was also based on specific curriculum objectives, which means that SBLALT supports curriculum and instruction. It is developed based on a scenario that resembles the context the test-taker participants will likely encounter as future teachers in their teaching careers. The scenario also facilitated the scaffolded test development tasks, which enables teachers who use this test in their teaching to focus on specific knowledge, skills, and abilities their students still need to improve. This study contributes to the field of LAL by developing a formative, classroom-based language assessment literacy test. The psychometric properties of SBLALT suggest that SBLALT has the potential to be applied as a measure of LAL in the Indonesian EFL context, specifically in the Indonesian English teacher education context. Using scenario-based assessment design enables SBLALT to document what students have achieved, improve students' learning, and provide a useful learning experience for students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

At least one element of second language teacher education (L2TE) permeates contextual differences: reflection. Farrell (2012) suggests that the terms "reflection" and "reflective practice" are now mandatory terms used within in L2TE program curricula. Teacher learners (TLs) commonly engage in reflective assignments such as teacher journals and group discussions. However, there has been a lack of sufficiently data-led investigations into the content and nature of TL reflections (Mann & Walsh, 2017), with most taking the form of self-reports or short extracts from teacher reflection journals. While such studies provide important insights from the perspectives of language teacher reflection researchers within unique contexts, more structured, qualitative content analysis (Schreier, 2012) provides the valuable ability to systematically compare reflection across contexts and individual cases. This is crucial for building a richer understanding of language teacher reflection generally. The current study investigates the reflection of 17 TLs across two distinct practicums. Variation in the amount of reflection in different topics and the amount of reflection that included the act of referencing sources of information was analyzed across individual TLs and across four different reflection assignments (reflective journals, final papers, group discussions, and observation debriefs). Findings revealed a generally high concentration of reflection on teaching actions related to the content and structure of lesson activities; however, reflection in final papers featured a greater variety of topics than in other reflection assignment data. With respect to referencing, TLs with professional teaching experience had low frequencies of references to their experiences as language learners. In addition, the general amount of referencing sources of information in reflection was found to be different across individual TLs. The overall findings illustrate that referencing is an important aspect of TL reflection, and I argue for an explicit focus on this concept within L2TE, encouraging the diversification of the kinds of sources TLs reference in their reflection. Similarly, I also argue for efforts toward the diversification of TL reflection among various topics related to language teaching. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

An information literate population is a fundamental component of modern society, but the definition of what it means to be information literate has changed over time, resulting in debates within the information literacy community. Through the lens of Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions and Shneider's four stages of a discipline framework, this dissertation examines the progress of the information literacy research domain using both scientometric and content analysis methods. Three research questions are addressed in this study. First, the structural and temporal features of the information literacy knowledge domain are identified using document co-citation analysis to identify major research areas, landmark and hub documents, and active research topics. Second, pivotal papers connecting major research areas are explored using pathfinder network scaling algorithms to identify critical paths of transition in the domain. Finally, full-text pivotal documents are examined using qualitative content analysis to trace the progression of information literacy construct definitions in seminal research documents. Findings support a paradigm shift occurred in the domain when the skills-based information literacy definition was rejected in favor of a metaliteracy model. Technological advancement emerged as an influencing factor on paradigms, playing a major role in the domain's evolution over the past half-century. Information literacy research and instruction is built upon the framework used to define what it means to be information literate. Therefore, this study has practical implications for information literacy researchers, librarians, and students. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This paper presents a content analysis of 45 high fantasy novels randomly selected from the outstanding contemporary fantasy list in "Fantasy Literature for Children and Young Adults" (Ruth Nadelman Lynn), which divides high fantasy into three subgenres--travel to other worlds, alternate world/history, and myth. A comparison is made between male and female characters in each subgenre. Characteristics examined include personal traits and occupations and the roles played by female characters. Male characters were most often noted as having occupations. When occupations were specified for women, they were almost always positions that had inherently less political and/or magical power than men, regardless of subgenre. Women acting independently were found most often in alternate world/history fantasy, while the majority of females in both of the other two subgenres are defined by their relationship to male characters. A copy of the evaluation form and an annotated bibliography of the books analyzed are appended. (Contains 10 references.) (Author/MES)

This paper examines the portrayal of librarians in poetry written from 1958 to 1993 in order to find out whether technological and social changes which occurred during this period had any effect on the image of librarians. Content analysis was used in examining the 32 poems and the 36 librarians present in those poems. Adjectives and descriptions of the librarians were analyzed and evaluated to see whether the images were positive or negative and whether any change in the portrayal of librarians has come about through the years. Some of the major findings of the research are: the librarians in the poems are equally likely to be male or female; they are hard-working and enthusiastic about their work; and physical description is not a part of these poems. As a result, the typical old-maid librarian with mousy hair done in a bun stereotype is not present in the poems used in this content analysis. The coding sheet used in the analysis is appended. (Contains 68 references.) (Author/JLB)

This three-paper format dissertation explored the impact of service-learning on three key constituents: the university, university students conducting the service, and the community receiving the service. Paper one quantitatively explored the impact of service-learning on university students' perspective through the use of end of year service-learning course evaluations. Students self-reported their outcomes due to participation as it related to professional skills, communication skills, academic learning, values clarification, citizenship skills, and quality indicators of their service-learning program. Paper one also explored if there was a difference between two types of service, direct (e.g., participate directly with the community) and indirect (e.g., project or tasks for the community), on the six domains above. The second paper took a qualitative approach to understand the perceived impact of a direct service-learning program on the university students that implemented the experience. Final written reflections from recreation students were used to explore their experiences in the service-learning after-school program as part of their course requirement. The last paper used mixed methods approach to measure the impact of the service-learning program from paper two on the middle school population served. Pre and post-test scores were used to measure 6th grade students' resiliency and character development. End of year program satisfaction surveys were analyzed using a content analysis to determine the youths overall impressions of the program. Findings from all three papers suggest that service-learning was not only beneficial to the individuals receiving the service, but also to the students implementing the service, and the university that supported the service efforts. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This paper, written for a National Archives staff training course discusses the use of computers in the classroom as reflective of the larger social trend toward an increasing dependency on automated systems to assist business and government in their efforts to more effectively manage and retrieve information. The paper also demonstrates the advantages of including elements of archival description in education units, particularly for the multimedia records of contemporary history, and explains the benefits of utilizing the expertise of both education specialists and archivists in developing education units--all of which would ultimately enhance the outreach mission of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA): to encourage learning in history, promote the use of NARA's records, and expand investigative skills in research in primary source documents. It is noted that education units, which are currently produced for secondary level students, only include the record group identification and content description of the individual documents presented on a given topic, and that the inclusion of archival information would enhance the unit by providing additional information about the function and organization of the agencies or offices that created the records. (14 references) (MAB)

Today's Internet-based crime reporting systems make timely and anonymous crime reporting possible. However, these reports also result in a rapidly growing set of unstructured text files. Complicating the problem is that the information has not been filtered or guided in a detective-led interview resulting in much irrelevant information. To facilitate the crime analysis process, a decision support system was developed. The system has been iteratively developed and tested. Its main contributions are 1) the entity extraction algorithm that extracts crime-related entities, e.g., weapon, vehicle, and clothing, 2) similarity scoring algorithm that measures similarities between entities and documents, and 3) information visualization that displays crime reports and their relationships. The "information extraction algorithm" was evaluated with police and witness crime reports. Overall, high precision and recall were achieved in extracted entities for police and witness crime reports. The "similarity scoring algorithm" has two main components: the entity and "document similarity algorithm" and each was evaluated separately. The entity similarity algorithm was evaluated by comparing it to two WordNet-based algorithms with fifteen human raters. Overall, the highest correlation coefficient was obtained with human raters for the proposed algorithm. Two studies were conducted to evaluate document similarity algorithm by classifying documents as discussing the same or a different crime and compare with a crime analyst's performance. The first study used small datasets of crime reports discussing a few types of crimes, while the second used big datasets, discussing more different crimes. Overall, the crime analyst's grouping accuracy decreased slightly, while the system's classification accuracy increased significantly when the number of crime reports and of different crimes increased. To measure usefulness of the visualization, a case study was conducted with a crime analyst. The crime analyst discovered the same number of crime reports correctly among the given reports using either the paper-based or system-based approach. However, less time was spent on the tasks using the proposed system compared to the traditional paper-based approach. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This dissertation is comprised of two manuscripts resulting from a single study, which examines a) the types of graphics that appear, and in what frequencies, in children's informational texts, and b) the defining features of different graphics. Graphics are ubiquitous in children's informational texts and a lot is known about the impact of graphics on comprehension and learning. In spite of this, very little is known about what types of graphics appear in these texts. Through a content analysis, this study involved analyzing and codifying the graphics in 8 textbooks, 142 leveled readers, and 126 trade books that were in science or social studies domains and appropriate for use in 2nd and 3rd grade. Each graphic (12,238) was coded for specific type and function in the text (decorational, representational, organizational, interpretational, transformational, or extensional). Major findings included identification of 59 graphic types, which collapsed into 8 meta-type categories: diagrams, flow diagrams, graphs, timelines, maps, tables, and images, and simple photographs. Images and simple photographs accounted for nearly 90% of graphics, 30% of graphics represent written text, and 60% of graphics contain information not found in written text. Some statistically significant differences occurred across book types and between domains. These findings have implications for instruction and further research on visual literacy, and the details of graphic types contribute to a working typology of graphics found in informational texts. The first manuscript focuses on the research questions regarding what graphics, and in what numbers, appear in children's informational texts and the differences between types of text and domain. This manuscript, which is intended for publication in a research journal, includes a detailed argument regarding the importance of the study with regard to extant literature and the methods used. The paper contains descriptions of the graphic types and functions, as well as quantitative results, but the focus is on statistical findings. The second manuscript is intended for publication in a practitioner journal. It summarizes the methods of the study and provides a brief survey of the quantitative data. In this paper, the focus is on the qualitative descriptions of the graphic types, categories, and functions, including visual examples. These descriptions can potentially contribute to a working graphic typology. This paper also addresses the implications of the data with regard to instruction, which includes a look at some of the challenges graphics may pose to students. The findings from this study have implications for instruction as well as future research on instruction. These findings may also be of interest to authors, illustrators, and publishers, who choose the graphics that appear in texts. This data is confined to graphics and texts; many questions remain about learning from, and teaching with, graphics. There is also a need for research on graphics in informational texts at different grade levels. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

As a way of examining how writing helps college students balance an understanding of subject matter with self and social understanding as well as develop their abilities to participate in the public realm, this qualitative study focused on the writing experiences of five college students, with particular attention paid to the assignments that allowed them to assert their ideas in response to the ideas of others. Women were selected for this study because members of traditionally marginalized or silenced populations stand to gain a great deal if their writing gives them the opportunity to experiment with dialogic argument. The five participants were interviewed over the course of two years about their college writing. The study also involved analyzing the participants' papers, interviewing their professors, and examining the assignments that prompted the papers. The study revealed that all five participants engaged in dialectical argumentation to some degree, but they were rarely required by the assignment to marshal evidence to support their views. The amount of page space devoted to their own convictions and ideas indicated that the vast majority of their writing was devoted to the subject matter and/or others' ideas. If the assignments did not demand that the participants put forth their ideas assertively and construct personally meaningful positions, they avoided doing so. It is important for educators to consider that students who are reticent to speak in class and/or socialized to avoid conflict can gain through their writing invaluable experience and confidence in articulating their views and putting forth their ideas assertively. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

The surface-level experience of hypertextuality as formless and unbounded, blurring boundaries among texts and between readers and writers, is created by a deep structure which is not normally presented to readers and which, like the ultrastructure of living cells, defines and controls texts' nature and functions. Most readers, restricted to surface-level interaction with texts, have little access to the deep structure of any hypertext. In this dissertation, I argue that digital hypertexts differ essentially from paper texts in that hypertexts are constructed in multiple layers, with surface-level appearance and behavior controlled by sub-surface ultrastructure, and that these multiple layers of structure enable and necessitate new methods of textual study designed for digital texts. Using participant-observation from within my own practice as a webmaster, I closely examine the sub-surface structural layers that create several kinds of Web-based digital hypertexts: blogs, forums, static Web pages, and dynamic Web pages. With these hypertexts as the primary models, along with their enabling software and additional digital texts--wikis, news aggregators, word processing documents, digital photographs, electronic mail, electronic forms--available to me as a reader/author rather than a webmaster, I demonstrate methods of investigating and describing the development of digital texts. These methods, like methods already established within textual studies to trace the development of printed texts, can answer questions about accidental and intentional textual change, the roles of collaborators, and the ways texts are shaped by production processes and mediating technologies. As a step toward a formalist criticism of hypertext, I propose concrete ways of categorizing, describing, and comparing hypertexts and their components. I also demonstrate techniques for visualizing the structures, histories, and interrelationships of hypertexts and explore methods of using self-descriptive surface elements in paper-like texts as partial substitutes for the sub-surface self-description available in software-like texts. By identifying digitization as a gateway to cooperation between human and artificial intelligences rather than an end in itself, I suggest natural areas of expansion for the humanities computing collaboration as well as new methodologies by which originally-printed texts can be studied in their digital forms alongside originally-digital texts. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

Social work practice requires that graduates be prepared to deal with complex, multifaceted problems which cannot be defined completely, do not have absolute, correct answers and can be approached from multiple perspectives. This study evaluated the influence of case-based instruction on MSW students' reflective judgment, an aspect of critical thinking associated with the ability to reason through ill-structured problems. (King, Wood, & Mines, 1990). The Reflective Judgment Model, which describes a developmental continuum based upon epistemic assumptions regarding the source and justification of knowledge claims, served as the theoretical framework for the assessment of reflective thinking in this mixed methods study. A quasi-experimental pre-post nonequivalent control group design was utilized to explore whether students who participated in a case method course demonstrated greater increases in reflective judgment than those who did not. MSW students enrolled in a case-based capstone course at a major metropolitan university in the southeast served as the intervention group, while foundation year students enrolled in a research methodology course served as the comparison group. Both groups completed the Reasoning about Current Issues Test (RCI), which is an online, standardized measure that has been widely used to assess reflective judgment (Wood, Kitchener, & Jensen, 2002) at pre and posttest. Content analysis procedures were used to facilitate assessment of students' initial and final case analysis papers for evidence of changes in the reflective thinking skills and problem-solving approaches utilized on initial and final case analysis papers. The case method participants' mean RCI scores remained unchanged between pre and posttest, while RCI posttest scores of participants in the control group decreased significantly. Pre and posttest comparison of students' case analysis papers using a customized rubric based on Wolcott's Steps for Better Thinking (2006) similarly indicated no mean changes in problem-solving approaches between pre and posttest. However, students who began the course using strategies associated with pre-reflective judgment increased their scores on the rubric significantly while those who exhibited higher levels of quasi-reflective judgment at pretest decreased at posttest. Strategies for designing a developmental curriculum to target the reflective judgment levels of MSW students are proposed. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]

This study examined power and authority in the student-instructor relationship in a restorative practices-based graduate program. This qualitative investigation utilized a narrative approach. Ten alumni of the International Institute for Restorative Practices master's degree programs were engaged in a one-time face-to-face interview and document review of their final master's degree capstone papers. A listening guide voice-centered method was used as the primary data analysis method. This study found that participants used highly consistent language when describing the teachers and professors who were most meaningful to them, regardless of life stage. The second finding was that participants had meaningful personal experiences in this program, which they described using therapeutic language. The participants' narratives often centered on reconciling past conflict, hardship, or trauma. The third finding was that relationships with the classroom group as a whole were more important to participants than relationships with professors alone. Finally, this study discovered that many of these participants were drawn to this program out of a desire to make change in the world and that this desire was driven by conflicts and other elements of their personal life stories. This study has implications for adult learning institutions implementing participatory and collaborative models of instruction. Five appendices are included: (1) Informed Consent; (2) Semistructured Interview Guide; (3) Confidentiality Agreement; (4) E-mail Invitation to Participate; and (5) Cumulative Analysis Examples.