Browsing by Subject "Education Policy"
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Item Closing the Divide: Exploring Meaningful Technology Use in the Technology Integration Matrix(2024) Seylar, JohnThe purpose of this mixed-methods study is to investigate the suitability of Technology Integration Matrix Observations (TIM-O) extensity scores to serve as a quantitative proxy for meaningful technology use in K-12 public school settings across the United States. To do so, correlations between TIM-O extensity scores and various school-level socioeconomic indicators were explored using a Cumulative Link Mixed Model. Questions and observations gathered during the model-building process were then used to inform the development of an interview protocol, which was used to gather the experiences and perspectives of three middle school instructional coaches. My analysis uncovered evidence that TIM-O extensity scores could serve as a useful proxy for meaningful technology use, though improvements and further study will be necessary.Item Remnants of Hope: (Re) member, (Re) claim, (Re) new(2023) Kpetay, ShakitaSchool closure is one of the most controversial issues in education. Cities such as Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, New York City, and New Orleans have closed a large number of schools at one time while opening the doors of many charter schools (Buras, 2013; Lipman, 2012; Stovall, 2016; Watkins, 2012). Remnants of Hope: (Re) member, (Re) claim, and (Re) new is a critical ethnohistorical study that centers the experiences of students and educators who attended a public school that experienced school restructuring and later closure. Drawing from the Black heretical tradition, neoliberalism, and school closures, this dissertation examines how students and educators make sense of the school restructuring, closure, and highlights the ways that the political economy continues to shape education opportunities for Black/African American communities. Through archival analysis and interviews with students and educators who attended or worked at a school that was impacted by school closure, I explore the processes and problems associated with teaching and learning in these communities. I found that school closures are not just a one-time occurrence. It is a process that is impacted by race, gender, class, and geography. These closures can also lead to a disruption of community bonds and increased violence. I argue that scholars, educators, and policymakers need to ignite their critical historical collective consciousness and use intersectionality in the form of memory work to understand modern-day school closures and their impact on students and educators, more specifically Black/African American communities.Item Social class and the written and unwritten rules of competitive college admissions: A comparative study of International Baccalaureate schools in Ecuador(2020-07) Bittencourt, TiagoIn 2006, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education signed an agreement which sought to gradually introduce the International Baccalaureate’s (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) into as many of the country’s 1400 publicly funded secondary schools as possible. The initiative was premised on the belief that the quality of public education could be significantly improved if public school students had access to the education experiences and credentials which in Ecuador were historically restricted to private schools catering to affluent students. While subject to critique by several civil societies, the initiative generated a significant amount of enthusiasm and was widely perceived as an early indication that the public-private divide which marred the country’s educational system and cemented pervasive forms of inequality was finally being rectified. Undergirding the DP initiative is a crucial assumption; that increasing access to prestigious educational programs is an important and effective way of addressing inequality. However, as numerous scholars have shown, access alone is not enough to ensure equality and generate social mobility (see Apple, 1996; Aronowitz, 2003, 2008; Jack, 2018). Rather, an overt focus on access may ignore and even conceal the forms of advantage that are unevenly distributed within different segments of society (Tan, 2008). Issues ranging from the materiality of teaching and pedagogy (Vavrus & Salema, 2013) to the practices and “informed agency” of affluent parents and students (Brantlinger, 2003) are equally important and, if left unconsidered, can greatly diminish or even negate the promise a policy such as the DP initiative upholds. This dissertation interrogates this standing assumption by examining the social and cultural processes that produce and maintain inequality, and therefore interfere with the DP initiative’s stated intent. Through process-tracing and a multi-sited ethnography of a low-income public school and an affluent private school, I found that although sponsored by Ecuador’s Ministry of Education, the DP was not recognized as a valid credential for admission to local universities. Due to this existing policy disconnect, students from both schools strictly viewed the DP as a means of gaining access to universities abroad. As a result of this shared aspirational goal, it was possible to discern important differences in how students thought through and engaged with the application process for universities abroad. These differences highlighted the formative role of students’ familial backgrounds and institutional membership, suggesting that while access to DP allowed students to share similar desired goals, circumstances outside the confines of the classroom were more likely to determine whether these goals would indeed be accomplished. In sum, while public school students were encouraged to aspire to study abroad, they were not afforded the support or have the means to effectively engage with the required application and admission processes. The gradual realization that their dreams were likely to remain unfulfilled led students to experience to a mash of affects (Berlant, 2011) which included frustration, disengagement and acquiescence. These affective responses not only conflicted with the DP initiative’s intent of equalizing opportunity, but in many ways served to reinforce existing patterns and systems of inequality. The findings of this study are not intended to discredit the DP initiative – admonishing a seemingly well-intentioned policy is a common but often unfruitful endeavor. Moreover, given the study’s design, any assertion of representation would be misleading, and therefore the impulse for generalization should be significantly tempered. Rather it is to showcase the grounded productions and the ensuing shortcomings which limit and even counteract the policy’s intended goal of addressing social inequality and equalizing opportunity. While the study was envisioned as a direct response to a specific initiative, the emerging insights speak to issues of class culture and the “internationalization” (Knight, 2004; 2015) of public education. Specifically, it will address the relationship between social class and conceptions of “responsibility”, and instances of what Bourdieu (2007) terms as “capital conversion”.Item Storying Multilingual Family School Involvement and Resistance To White-Centering and Monolingual Policies(2023-05) Perez, GabriellaThis study uses storying and fiction-based research to uplift the voices and experiences of multilingual students and families marginalized and silenced in public schools. How do the experiences of multilingual parents and students in public schools affect their school involvement, and how do parental engagement challenge White-centering and monolingual policies and dominant discourses? To address these questions, I analyze data from the Youth Participatory Evaluation Program at Minneapolis Public Schools and the parent survey led by the Latino Youth Development Collaborative Minneapolis Public Schools parents. Next, I expand on school policies' implications on the experiences of multilingual families by creating a story using the data gathered from the surveys. Finally, I advocate for policy changes grounded in cultural equity and social justice.Item Teaching Consent to Elementary School Students(2022-04-30) Lee, Lauren, IThis report studied how school districts in Minnesota can implement learning objectives surrounding consent, body autonomy, and anatomy into their elementary schools upon the potential implementation of legislation that aims to improve the quality of sexual health education. It sought to understand how the implementation of comprehensive sexual health education will be conducted across the state, especially amidst the inconsistencies that surround the curriculum. The study focused on how parental involvement, school culture, teacher experience, and other factors affect the application of the learning objectives.