Teaching, Learning, Policy & Leadership Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2759
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Item CROSSING THE BORDERS THAT DEFINE DIFFERENCE: THE CULTURE, POLITICS, AND PRACTICE OF SOLIDARITY IN TWO HIGH SCHOOLS(2012) Cohen, Beth Anne Douthirt; Finkelstein, Barbara; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This multi-sited ethnography explores the experiences of high school students in the United States as they enact solidarity across various identity borders including race, gender, socioeconomic status, sexuality, and mental/physical ability. Specifically, the study focuses on relatively privileged young people in two distinctly different schools--an urban coeducational public school and a suburban all-boys private school. The students entered into solidarity across difference in order to protest the marginalization of minority groups. Using observations and in-depth interviews, this study documents the process of how, when, and why these students came to enact solidarity as a tool to alter systems of power and privilege. For these students, their journeys towards enacting solidarity began with a discovery of the borders that maintain inequality. These discoveries included a process of 1) experiencing or witnessing marginalization, 2) questioning the borders that maintain systems of power and privilege, 3) re-imagining identity categories, 4) integrating new ways of interacting across difference into their sense of self and sense of the world, and 5) seeking out opportunities to learn new ways of thinking about "others." In an attempt to alter the borders that maintain inequality, the students took on the roles of helpers, messengers, advocates, and activists. They enacted solidarity in different ways at different moments based on their skills, capacities, perceived risks, and on their own understandings of justice, inequality, power, and social change. Over time, the student's enactments of solidarity became dynamic and fluid, while navigating various pitfalls such as paternalism. They employed various forms of solidarity, including human, social, and civic solidarities, and sought to build what this study calls "cultural solidarity" in their schools and communities in order to achieve social, political, and, perhaps most prominently, cultural change. The findings suggest that the agency of relatively privileged students is an effective tool that educators and scholars can harness in interrupting inequality in schools. Dynamic and less rigid conceptions of solidarity better reflect how young people enact solidarity in their daily lives. Through curricular, philosophical, and pedagogical choices, high schools can enable or limit the manner in which students approach difference across groups.Item Sites of Belonging, Sites of Empowerment: How Asian American Girls Construct "Home" in a Borderland World(2012) Tokunaga, Tomoko; Finkelstein, Barbara; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This ethnographic study explores the ways in which nine first, 1.5, and second generation Asian American high school girls imagine, search for, and construct home-like sites. The study revealed that "home" for the girls was not only the place where the girls sleep, their families reside, or the country from where they came. Instead, "home," was multiple, literal, and imagined spaces, places, and communities where the girls felt a sense of belonging, empowerment, community, ownership, safety, and opportunity. In order to examine the behaviors, meaning, and perspectives of these girls, I conducted participant observations, interviews, and focus groups at an Asian American youth organization as well as in the girls' homes, schools, and neighborhoods. I also had online communication with the girls and collected supplementary materials and sources. The study revealed that the girls had creativity and improvisational skills to invent various "homes" as they linked the many worlds in which they lived. The girls carved out multiple "homes" --through imagining belonging globally while building belonging locally. They imagined an expansive understanding of "home" in the deterritorialized world. They idealized their countries of origin, acknowledged the United States as a possible "home," portrayed a third possible homeland where they had never lived, and fashioned a pan-Asian consciousness. The girls not only imagined "homes" outside of their immediate view but also co-constructed a home-like community in their everyday lives. They named it the Basement Group, after the place where they hang out in school. They developed a group identity which honored five characteristics: 1) expansion of who is family to include friends, 2) pride in diversity and inclusivity, 3) celebrations of cultural fusion, 4) value of "natural" girlhood beauty, and 5) shared interest in Asian popular culture. They constructed a borderland community in which they could collectively celebrate and nurture their in-between lives. This study illuminated the power and complexity of their lives in-between as well as expanded the terrains of agency that the girls possessed. The study also revealed intersectional differences among the girls. It provided lessons for youth organizations and schools to create spaces where immigrant youth can thrive.Item WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO CARE AND PROVIDE SCHOOLING FOR A CHILD ORPHANED DUE TO HIV/AIDS IN CÔTE D'IVOIRE?: A QUALITATIVE STUDY(2012) Briggs, Liza EA; Klees, Steven; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This is a qualitative study about how a family describes what it means to care for and provide schooling for a child orphaned due to HIV/AIDS. The study offers a perspective beyond the lens of a family through the inclusion of interview data from representatives of the Ivorian Ministry of Health, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) located in Côte d'Ivoire. Descriptive data reveal how care and schooling are nearly synonymous constructs in the family at the center of this study. To care for a child means to provide schooling. The form of care and schooling are ordered through practices linked to established matrilineal and ethnic family system practices. The child, orphaned due to HIV/AIDS, offers rich descriptive insights about how the loss of his parents affected his care needs, how he negotiated the matrilineal system and how he embraced school achievement and religion to manage his sense of loss and the stigma attached to his status as an orphaned child. This study also offers descriptions that explore the complexity of the political dynamics, support mechanisms, and psychosocial constructs that delineate care and schooling practices in this family and, more broadly, in Côte d'Ivoire. This study contributes to existing scholarly literature by offering a nuanced depiction of the impact of HIV/AIDS from a variety of perspectives. This contrasts with studies that converge on demographic and statistical analysis. This study also places a great deal of emphasis on the inclusion of the perspective of Ivorians. Ivorian representation allows for Ivorian-centered depictions and responses to the research questions and reflects concerns about post-development critiques on discourse and representation.