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- Creator:
- Barajas, Daniel E.
- Description:
- Continuation high schools serve students for multiple reasons. Among them are low credit attainment, excessive absences, probation status, and discipline problems. Students in these programs often have many educational gaps. In the state of California, continuation high schools have been an educational option for this vulnerable student population since 1919. This segment of the school system seeks to offer students with diverse educational challenges and obstacles a second opportunity to complete their education. Presently, there is little research connected to the success of continuation high school graduates’ level of persistence in any type of higher education. This study examined the influence teacher-student relationships had on a particular group of continuation high school students who, in spite of challenges associated with continuation-education deficit mindset, were able to attain academic success in higher education. The study sought to explore how the practices of comprehensive high school sites intersected with those of a specific continuation high school. Social Capital and Critical Race Theory provided the conceptual lens to analyze teacher–student relationships. The researcher captured students’ and teachers’ perceptions in order to analyze how their interactions and relationships could be strengthened to ensure student academic success and provide continuation high school students with options upon high school graduation.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Taylor, Mary
- Description:
- This study focused on both the voice and experience of successful Black students in higher education as well as the factors, both internal and institutional that they perceive as contributors to their success. This research is important because while a breadth of research exists that examines Black students and their relationship to higher education, much of it is framed in a deficit-based line of inquiry. As a response, and inspired by critical race theory (CRT) and Harper’s (2012) anti-deficit achievement framework (ADAF), this study focused on successful Black college students’ stories and what might be learned from them. The literature shows that Black students bring a variety of strengths and abilities to their higher education experience that merit further attention by both researchers and educators especially since these students achieve in spite of the challenges so widely documented in the deficit-based literature. Using a narrative research approach, this study identified eight high-achieving students and explored their experiences, their success, and the factors they perceived as contributors to their achievement. Additionally, this study sought to highlight the students’ experiences as a counternarrative to the existing discourse, add to the existing body of asset-based research and inquiry, enlist study participants as partners in the research process, facilitate their storytelling and amplify their voices. Data collected from eight semi-structured interviews and photojournal entries was restoried and coded for themes that yielded rich and meaningful insight into the strengths successful Black students bring to research and practice. The findings of this study reinforced those of the other asset-based researchers highlighted within this study and strengthen the need for more studies of this type. Study findings also included stories that were the result of the collaboration between researcher and participant as well as the themes that provided insight into their perceptions of the factors contributing to their success. Lastly, participants showed themselves to be willing and capable partners in the research process and offered a wealth of information that informed assertions relevant to research and practice. Among these were the importance of early influences, the students’ strengths, the importance of their peers, and the ways that their lived experiences can inform a higher standard of research inquiry and care in the higher education setting.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Hellams, Ruth E.
- Description:
- “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr Dissatisfaction with the current state of the nation’s public schools continues to reveal itself through repeated efforts to transform the traditional, long-standing core elements known as the “grammar of schooling” (Tyack & Tobin, 1994). Generational rhetoric on the failed state of traditional public education and a drive for equitable outcomes for all students serve as guideposts for many school reform efforts. It is the need to reveal the systems and structures supporting changes to the traditional architecture of schools that has inspired me to conduct this research. This dissertation explores how a nontraditional high school, nested within a traditional district, supports and sustains its nontraditional model. Through a case study approach this research utilized interviews with administrative and teaching staff and an analysis of key documents, policies, and practices. Central to this study was an examination of the school’s core values and the practices of competency-based education (CBE) that served to shape and influence the school’s direction and nontraditional model. Emergent themes from this research were analyzed through the lens of Fullan and Quinn’s (2016) Coherence Framework and their four identified drivers for systems improvement. Findings illustrate that school structures which intentionally foster relationships and build opportunities for teacher collaboration contribute to the long-term sustainability of school reform and help influence and shape a school’s direction. Furthermore, clarity of expectations for teaching and learning, when outlined in a school’s mission and vision statement, can serve as guideposts for long-term sustainability. Guidance and support with respect the CBE model was especially important. Lastly, these findings underscore the importance of site leadership in maintaining balance between the needs of the school and the district as essential to sustaining the school’s nontraditional approach. By identifying factors and conditions serving to sustain the school’s nontraditional approach, the findings of this study can assist others who seek to change the traditional architecture of schooling currently dominates most schools.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Heinzman, Erica
- Description:
- Educators and policymakers envision high school mathematics as vital in the pursuit of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) professions and a way to cultivate a deep appreciation of mathematics in society. With two such significant aspirations, there is advocacy for expanding the traditional course offerings in high school mathematics to include courses such as Discrete Mathematics Project Collaborative (DMPC) and Introduction to Data Science (IDS). Research on non-traditional high school mathematics courses has mostly focused on pathways, content, and pedagogy. This mixed methods case study expands our understandings by examining the perceptions and experiences of students enrolled in the DMPC and IDS course at two separate California high schools. Classroom observations, student focus groups, one-on-one teacher interviews, and a student survey were collected and analyzed using the analytical framework of self-determination theory, which posits competence (self-efficacy), autonomy (agency), and relatedness (a sense of belonging) are essential for positive motivation and meaningful learning. Three significant findings unite the DMPC and IDS case studies. Students in these two courses (a) perceive themselves as connected within a community of learners; (b) experience curiosity and creative freedom, unlike previous mathematics courses they may have completed; (c) use the words fun and easy in complex ways to describe their experiences. These findings have important implications as interest greatly increases to expand high school mathematics pathways and to implement the DMPC and IDS courses in more high schools statewide and nationally.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Saeb, Rania
- Description:
- Arab American youth are a complex and diverse population in America who are often misunderstood, misclassified and misrepresented. These youth face a socio-political climate in the United States that has painted the Arab culture in a negative light. This has caused psychological and emotional stressors on them, some of which are negatively affecting their ability to embrace their Arab identity. Another reaction to these stressors is a complete rejection of their American identity, putting a strain on their ability to assimilate into American society. Coupled with this are the challenges Arab American youth face in navigating their identity through their home life and their school life, which at times contradict one another. At school, students are being discriminated against and othered. Moreover, Arab American students are battling a disconnect between the social norms of their school life and home life. Using an adapted framework from Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Model of Human Development, this qualitative exploratory case study examines the factors that lead to cultural identity development in Arab American youth. Through interviews of seven Arab American youth this study serves to enlighten administrators, faculty of K-20 agencies and parents on how to best support this population in positively forming their cultural identity.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- San Marcos
- Department:
- Education
- Creator:
- Terjimanian, Ike A.
- Description:
- For decades there exist wide disparities in achievement between Black and Latino students and their White counterparts. This qualitative case study, framed within an interpretivist research paradigm borrowing principles of ethnography, explores the perceptions and experiences of ten secondary urban teachers throughout the greater Los Angeles area who incorporate Hip Hop - as a form of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy - within the curriculum in their respective classrooms. Specifically, this study examines to what extent teachers' experiences have improved teacher/student relationships, increased student motivation and engagement, and affected student academic achievement. Findings from this study suggest that when Hip Hop is incorporated within the curriculum during instruction, positive teacher/student relationships are established, student's become more engaged in their learning, and students are motivated to succeed academically. This study concludes with recommendations that include the need for further exploration on the effects of Hip Hop based instruction in relation to student academic achievement; additional research to be conducted in understanding the experiences and perceptions of parents' thought and beliefs on the effects of Hip Hop being incorporated in their child's education; and finally recommending that teachers and administrators be provided resources and opportunities to better understand how to incorporate Hip Hop as a form of culturally relevant pedagogy within their urban spaces of learning.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Department:
- Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
- Creator:
- Macchiarella, Julie
- Description:
- The purpose of this project is to provide an accurate and accessible resource for the education of parents of Deaf children about child sexual abuse prevention and awareness. While there is limited research on the Deaf community and child sexual abuse, researchers have found a higher vulnerability to child sexual abuse in the Deaf population. The best prevention for child sexual abuse is education, awareness, and communication between caregivers and children. For Deaf children communication with those around them can be difficult. It is vital that parents and caregivers are educated about the need for conversations with their children about the possibility of abuse, and how to handle it. Many parents, hearing or Deaf, struggle to understand how to have these conversations, yet the hearing population has more access, resources, and support. It is crucial that projects such as this exist to provide full and culturally sensitive information about child sexual abuse to the parents or caregivers of Deaf children.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Department:
- Educational Psychology and Counseling
- Creator:
- Jones, Linda
- Description:
- There are fundamental questions about the way in which varying student populations experience schooling in U.S. public K-12 schools, specifically regarding Black students who face persistent historical challenges to opportunities in schools that have come short of promises made through civil rights laws, national education reform and legal remedies by the U.S. court system. Race-conscious remedies through the courts have been cut short due to legal precedents based on interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment as colorblind, and those implemented outside the court are almost always politicized. The false assumptions that schools are neutral from societal politics and injustices and that we live in a post-racial society blind many educators to African American students' schooling experiences and social emotional needs as well as to those of the adults who advocate on their behalf. This study consisted of qualitative research of critical ethnography to explore and understand, within a single district, how a school board, as part of a collective of institutional actors over time, understands, influences and responds to the phenomena of disproportionality and access disparity among its Black student population. This study examined this issue as occurring within a socio-political and legal environment of meritocracy, accountability and colorblindness, and a contemporary phenomenon of racism. Secondly, lacking a common language to discuss the contemporary phenomenon of racism and how it affects the schooling experiences of a historically marginalized group of children, this study also used Hill-Collins' Domain of Power as a conceptual framework to understand and explore how both racism and anti-racism are contextualized within a school district. Findings exposed gaps in school board members' and central office administrators' knowledge of systems thinking, and how ideologies, district and school structures, processes and practices, intersect and reproduce the forms of oppression that cause distributive and cumulative injustices among ascriptive student groups. Implications present a need for a discursive instrument to identify and deconstruct the structures and mechanisms that cause inequity and limit access for Black students.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Department:
- Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
- Creator:
- Pena, Rebecca
- Description:
- One of the primary goals of higher education is to prepare students for the workforce. However, acquiring content-specific knowledge is not enough to be successful in the workplace. In order for college graduates to be successful, they also need to have non-academic skills, or employability skills, which could be utilized in a variety of occupational environments. Unfortunately, the majority of employers feel that recent college graduates are not well prepared for their careers due to a lack of employability skills possessed by them. This highlights a shortcoming in higher education and their lack of educational practices that prepare students for workplace success. The purpose of this grounded theory case study was to understand the influence of service-learning on the enhancement of career-readiness competencies for undergraduate students studying kinesiology at a large public university. One-one-one interviews were conducted with 15 kinesiology students who previously participated in the motor behavior service-learning program at California State University, Northridge. These interviews focused on what specific employability competencies were enhanced as a result of participation in the service-learning program, as well as what factors of the program helped to enhance those skills. Results showed that all nine employability competencies under investigation were enhanced as a result of the student's participation in service-learning. Those competencies were problem-solving, professionalism, verbal communication, written communication, teamwork, leadership, career management, adaptability, and the ability to analyze information. Additionally, 12 themes were identified as factors that facilitated the enhancement of the employability skills. Those themes were careful planning, established paradigm, community responsibility, active participation, intellectual engagement, unexpected challenges, not going according to plan, knowledge transfer, adaptability, appropriate assistance, positive outcomes for children, and employability skills. Another recurring theme that emerged during the interviews was the real-world experience from working with children, causing real-world experience to emerge as the central phenomena. All of these themes are displayed in a graphical conceptual model that represents how factors within a service-learning program enhance employability competencies in undergraduate students.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Department:
- Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
- Creator:
- Kim, Elizabeth
- Description:
- Being a successful reader is a challenge that many students face today. Although teachers utilize many strategies, the lack of sight words, also known as high frequency words (HFW), limits their reading skill. HFW words must become automatic as they appear with high frequency in grade-level texts. The problem that teachers face is that many students fail to master these high frequency words as they progress through the grade levels. To help reduce this ongoing problem, this project presents seven units of lesson plans that integrate musical tunes found on YouTube to help students fluently read a critical set of HFW. The project focuses on the first 100 of the 1,000 HFW list appropriate for K-2nd grade students reading at or below basic level.
- Resource Type:
- Dissertation
- Campus Tesim:
- Northridge
- Department:
- Elementary Education