UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
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Item PLACE VALUE: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF BEING A BLACK GIRL IN URBAN MATHEMATICS CLASSROOMS(2020) Fair, Camille; Clark, Lawrence M.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This qualitative study documents and examines what it is like being in a Black girl body while learning math in urban schools. The ten participants in this study self- identified as Black and female, and they graduated from three high schools in an urban school district in the Northeast between 2017 and 2019. Despite demonstrating excellence in and out of school, participants’ stories were burdened by experiences of exclusion, marginalization and oppression in their K-12 math learning. Drawing on Critical Race Feminism (CRF), a framework used to theorize interlocking oppressional forces, I designed this qualitative study after conducting a pilot program to improve Black girls’ math experiences. Preliminary findings from the pilot study suggest that Black girls’ math experiences and performance outcomes are largely shaped by the extent to which they are given or denied social place and intellectual value in math classrooms. I appropriate the math concept of place value, and I use it as a metaphor in a framework I developed called Human Place Value. This study examines three questions to understand Black girls’ lived experiences in urban math classrooms: 1) How do Black girls face exclusion, marginalization, and other forms of oppression in math classes? 2) How do Black girls identify and recognize negative attitudes and beliefs about their identity in math classes? 3) How do Black girls respond to and navigate their experiences in math classes? I collected personal data about my participants through background questionnaires and one-on-one semi-structured interviews. I analyzed the data using tenets of CRF and classroom interaction frameworks to distill three themes across social place and intellectual value: visibility, positionality and knowledge production. Key findings from the study suggest that being in a Black girl body renders students particularly vulnerable to math marginalization in the form of hostility, maltreatment and instructional neglect. The data collected from the ten participants tell a collective story that warrant consideration for the role Human Place Value plays in teaching and learning that yields disparate mathematical outcomes. This study concludes with a presentation of counternarratives from two participants and cross-case insights that detail implications for theory and practice.Item Following the Yellow Brick Road: The Lived Journey of Nurses Becoming Nurse Practitioners(2007-04-25) Ogle, Kathleen Theresa; Hultgren, Francine H.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this phenomenological study, I explore the lived experiences of registered nurses who become nurse practitioners. Text for this study comes from narrative sources such as reflective writings, one-on-one conversations, and group conversations with seven new nurse practitioners. The guiding question for this inquiry is: "What is the lived journey of nurses who become nurse practitioners?" Phenomenological philosophers such as Heidegger, Gadamer, and Casey guide this work. Other authors are drawn upon for grounding the study and to draw out the phenomenon for examination. The six research activities of van Manen (2003) provide the methodological framework for the research. The "yellow brick road" traveled by the registered nurse to nurse practitioner is the metaphor that has revealed itself as we reflect on the journey. Literature from the disciplines of nursing and education, poetry, and narrative accounts complement the stories told by nurse practitioners and open up new ways to think about the lived experience. Stories are the bricks that form the yellow road that lead us to a new way of being. Nurses who become nurse practitioners experience the journey from school to beginning practice and finally to comfort in the new place. Conversations reveal the meaning of the journey. The webs of support woven with other students are found to be very important. Before reaching the end of the road, many detours are encountered that slow, but never stop, the journey. During this journey new nurse practitioners find that the nurse part of nurse practitioner is as important as the new skills they have learned. At the end of the journey they find that the greatest source of strength is from themselves. Both teacher and students are transformed as we travel together on the path. A call is made for a revolution in nursing curriculum as narrative leads to a new way of teaching and learning. The journey reveals a new way of living curriculum and being with students as mentor and teacher.Item Fueling the Fire: A Phenomenological Exploration of Student Experiences in Democratic Civic Education(2006-11-28) Paoletti Phillips, Donna Teresa; Hultgren, Francine; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study explores the lived experience of civic education for middle school students. It is grounded in the tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology as guided by Heidegger (1962), Gadamer (1960/2003), Casey (1993), and Levinas (1961/2004), among others. I use van Manen's (2003) framework for conducting research for action sensitive pedagogy in which I follow six tenets including turning to the nature of lived experience, investigating experience as we live it, hermeneutic phenomenological reflection and writing, maintaining a strong and oriented relation and balancing the research context by considering parts to whole. By calling forth the philosophical and methodological tenets of hermeneutic phenomenology, I endeavor to uncover the lived experience of civic education as well as what it means to be a teacher as civic education. A class of twenty-nine students are taped as they engage in discussions, debates, a Simulated Congressional Hearing, and other lessons related to civic education in a social studies class. Their reflective writing about their learning is used as well. Twelve students self-select to engage in conversations about their experiences. These conversations along with the taped class sessions are transcribed and used to uncover themes essential to their experience of civic education in the social studies classroom. Two central existential themes of lived body and lived relation emerge from this inquiry. The importance of embodying one's learning, as well as connecting to one's society, are apparent. When they are face-to-face with the Other in group activities, debates, games, and simulations, students are afforded the opportunity to experience what is fundamental in a democracy, including their ethical and moral obligation to the Other. The students' learning through their corporeal and relational experience create the civil body politic of the classroom and inform their behavior outside in society. These insights from this study may inform curriculum theorists and developers, policy-makers, and social studies teachers. Recommendations are made to reconceptualize social studies in order for students to capitalize on their bodily and relational experiences within the classroom so that they may grow in their role as citizen. Students may then embody the ideals essential in civic education and democratic societies.