Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
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Item Breaking the Cycle of Hate: A Phenomenological Study of Teachers' Lived Experiences as Both Other and Otherer(2009) Mojto, Alison Laurie Milofsky; Hultgren, Francine; 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 five k-12 teachers around prejudice and discrimination, both in their lives and in the school context. My research question asks, What is the lived experience of teachers as both other and otherer, as target and perpetrator? Embedded in this larger question are two sub-questions: 1) What are the teachers' experiences participating in and mitigating othering in the classroom? and 2) In what manner do they understand the shaping of their prior experiences as they participate in and mitigate othering in the classroom? My research is grounded in the philosophical writings of Levinas and Derrida, and I rely on van Manen to guide me through the methodology of phenomenology. I listen to the stories of teachers who share their personal experiences around othering, digging for meaning that contributes to my understanding of the process. In my preliminary conversations I explore the role of place and emotions in our relations with the other. The complexity of identity begins to unfold. The five participants in my study share vivid experiences around othering. Through their stories I come to understand that our experiences around othering have very much to do with our sense of self. My participants do not have consistent relationships with others. Their interactions seem very much influenced by their own identity development, their relationship to the other, and the strength of their memories. In the school context, my participants experience othering from parents, students, and colleagues, and they, too, other, but they remain committed to challenging acts of bias in the school. They move beyond the self, reaching out to their students-as-others, forming relationships that transform the classroom from a place of learning to a place of living, seeing, and being seen. Finally, from my participants' words, I draw implications for pre-service and in-service education programs, imagining how we can prepare teachers to reflect critically, thinking about their personal experiences around othering in ways that enable them to teach for transformation in their classrooms.Item Plagiarism, Textual Borrowing, or Something else?: An L2 Student's Writing-from-sources Tasks(2008-08-26) Suh, Soo Jung; VanSledright, Bruce; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)To date, L2 students' plagiarism has been attributed primarily to cultural differences or L2 proficiency. Bringing a novice, L2 writer's perspectives and struggles to the fore using a Bakhtinian framework, I adopt a broad approach that demonstrates that learning how to cite sources may be the result of a complex, contextualized interplay of cultural, linguistic, educational, disciplinary influences, and developing L2 writing competence. This exploratory case study reports on the textual borrowing practices of a novice, Korean student in a TESOL program at a U.S. university, including how and why she incorporated source texts into her writing by examining the products and processes of her retrospective and concurrent writing-from-sources tasks. Data analyses entailed triangulating data from (1) semi-structured interviews on her academic literacy experiences, (2) textual analysis of an authentic, course-related research paper in terms of the amount and nature of textual borrowing by source text type, (3) retrospective interviews on her research paper, (4) performance on Deckert's (1993) modified Plagiarism Identification Questionnaire, (5) textual analysis of an ensuing paraphrasing task, and (6) a post-questionnaire interview on previous instruction on plagiarism. Findings revealed that her lax criteria of textual ownership of words came from centripetal and centrifugal forces, that is, authoritative and internally persuasive discourses from her previous and current contexts, including addressivity to her professor's words to use her own words. Patchwriting occurred at the intersections of a coping, procedural display, and learning strategies to appropriate disciplinary content and academic discourse. Different patterns of textual borrowing manifested by source text type, suggesting that, despite transgressive textual borrowing, her source texts also served as sources of input and models of how to write a research paper. At times, the textual boundaries between borrowing of content and imitation became hazy when the surrounding contexts in which her patchwriting occurred was examined. I conclude by offering implications that address aspects of discursive, perspectivial, and pedagogical tensions that have been relatively overlooked at the expense of ethical tension.Item Internalized Racism and Ethnic Identity in Chicana/o and Latina/o College Students(2007-08-01) Hipolito-Delgado, Carlos Porfirio; Lee, Courtland C; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study sought to investigate if perceived racism and internalized racism are predictors of ethnic identity development in Chicana/o and Latina/o college students. This study also aimed to identify factors that serve as predictors of internalized racism. Finally, this study sought to identify if differences exist between those who self identify as Chicana/o, Latina/o, Hispanic, hyphenated American, or by nationality in terms of ethnic identity, acculturation, internalized racism, Spanish language fluency, and English language fluency. Chicana/o and Latina/o undergraduates who were members of ethnic student organizations were asked to complete an online survey that asked about their ethnic identity, U.S. acculturation, English language competence, Spanish language competence, internalized racism, and perceived racism. A sample of 500 undergraduate students was obtained. Using multiple linear regression this study found: that internalized racism was negatively related to ethnic identity; that Spanish language competence, perceived racism, and English language competence were all positively related to ethnic identity; that U.S. cultural identity and perceived racism were both positively related to internalized racism; and that perceived racism in the media was negatively related to internalized racism. Using Multivariate Analysis of Variance a statistically significant difference in ethnic identity, acculturation, internalized racism, Spanish language fluency, and English language fluency was found between those who identify as Chicana/o, Latina/o, Hispanic, hyphenated American, and those who identify by nationality. The findings of this study point to the negative effects of perceived racism and internalized racism. Moreover, these results indicate the importance of culturally affirmative therapy and educational practices when working with Chicanas/os and Latinas/os. This study also highlights the heterogeneity of the Chicana/o and Latina/o community. Additional research is needed to further understand the heterogeneity of the Chicana/o and Latina/o community.Item Strategy Awareness-Raising for Success: Reading Strategy Instruction in the EFL Context(2007-04-26) Lee, Kyoung Rang; Oxford, Rebecca L; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Researchers and educators have made great efforts to be conscious of students' wide and varied learning processes and to meet individual learners' different needs in one classroom with well-conceptualized and balanced strategy assessment and instruction. Reading is considered very important in academic worlds, including Korea, where English is learned as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL). Ongoing debates about reading strategy instruction, as well as a lack of methodological consistency in previous language studies, make it particularly difficult for EFL teachers to know how to implement strategy instruction in their classrooms. Therefore, this study was designed to examine the effect of reading strategy instruction (a) on strategy use while reading in a target language (L2) and (b) on L2 reading comprehension. The secondary purposes of this study were to examine (c) the effectiveness of color-coding as a new strategy assessment tool and (d) the influence of L2 reading strategy instruction on reading in a native language (L1). The results were very interesting, both theoretically and in practice. First, reading strategy instruction helped learners develop reading strategy knowledge and raise the reading strategy awareness. Second, reading strategy instruction also promoted text-specific strategy use, but not general strategy use, probably because of the short period of the intervention. In a wash-back process, reading strategy instruction, though focused entirely on L2 reading strategies, also improved Korean (L1) reading strategy use. Third, reading strategy instruction helped learners improve their L2 reading comprehension. Fourth, participants' prior knowledge of English grammar served as a confidence-building comfort zone for learning how to use (a) new reading strategies and (b) a new reading strategy assessment tool, color-coding. Fifth, the innovative color-coding technique proved to be effective for measuring text-specific reading strategy use. In sum, the Korean EFL participants benefited in numerous ways from reading strategy instruction.Item Unsilencing the Silenced: The Journeys of Five East Asian Women with Implications for TESOL Teacher Education Programs(2006-08-31) Park, Gloria G.; Van Sledright, Bruce A.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The study focused on five East Asian women matriculated in U.S. TESOL teacher education programs. Han Nah Jung, Liu Li, Xia Wang, Yu Ri Koh, and Shu-Ming Fung recounted journeying through their educational experiences in their native countries as well as in the United States. The purposes of this study were to (1) deepen and enrich our understanding of the women?s diverse educational journeys, (2) uncover the ideological nature of the lives of these women who may have become marginalized due to the issues of race, gender, and language, (3) look at their experiences as juxtaposed to my own as a person with both insider and outsider perspectives, and (4) use the women?s narratives to make recommendations for improving TESOL teacher education programs. This study explored the lived experiences of five East Asian women, utilizing a past-present-future timeline (e.g., Looking Back, Reflecting On, and Thinking Forward), grounded in critical and feminist perspectives, to examine how those experiences shaped their identities in different learning and teaching communities. This was accomplished through the utilization of electronic reflective autobiographical questions, electronic educational journal entries, in-depth interviews, and informal/formal conversations. The analysis of their narratives, as grounded in critical and feminist perspectives, revealed the interconnectedness between language, race, gender, and social class which were all deeply embedded in their educational journeys. Specifically, the women, despite being from primarily privileged backgrounds, experienced varying degrees of marginalization within their TESOL programs as a result of issues pertaining to language, gender, and race. However, their pre-service and/or volunteer teaching experiences served to heighten their identities as burgeoning English (Korean) language teachers. Findings from the studies such as this should serve to begin dialogues around renewing and reconceptualizing better TESOL curricula and teacher education programs and provide some momentum for instituting improvements in these TESOL programs over the coming years.Item Curriculum Reform as a Reflection of Tradition and Change: Japanese Teachers Approaches to Dimensions of Difference via the Integrated Curriculum(2006-04-26) MacDonald, Laurence Jon; Finkelstein, Barbara; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the midst of significant social and global change, Japan has embarked upon its most significant education reform since the immediate post-WWll period. In 2002, MEXT enacted the integrated curriculum (sogoteki na gakushu), a decentralization effort intended to empower teachers and schools with the autonomy to create and implement curriculum of their own choosing. The purpose of multi-site case study is to discover if and how Japanese teachers are utilizing the autonomy provided by the integrated curriculum to provide students opportunities to interact with dimensions of difference based on Japan's changing cultural landscape and global role. This multi-site case study is based on seventeen months of field work in Japan, at which time I analyzed government and school documents; interviewed teachers, administrators, scholars, and leaders of NPO/NGOs; and observed integrated curriculum activities in 60 public schools. Based on this data, I uncovered three approaches to the integrated curriculum that confront students with dimensions of difference: 1) the human rights education approach; 2) the cultural co-existence approach; and 3) the international understanding education approach. In the context of the human rights approach, teachers implemented curriculum to help students: 1) develop self-esteem; 2) contend with issues of bullying and social exclusion; 3) and learn about the rights of minorities, the disabled, and the homeless. Schools in ethnically diverse communities implement a cultural co-existence approach to the integrated curriculum, engaging students in the exploration of human migration and the growing ethnic diversity of their communities. In the international understanding approach, teachers help students explore foreign cultural influences on Japanese culture; the nation's relationship with its Asian neighbors; and the role of the Japanese Government and NPO/NGOs in overseas development and volunteerism. While these approaches to the integrated curriculum were by no means universal, the findings of this study confirmed that many schools in diverse urban areas did implement at least one of these three approaches.Item THE RELATIONSHIPS OF RACIAL IDENTITY AND GENDER-ROLE CONFLICT TO SELF-ESTEEM OF ASIAN AMERICAN UNDERGRADUATE MEN(2005-05-27) Shek, Yen Ling; McEwen, Marylu K; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this quantitative, correlational, online study was to examine the relationships of racial identity and gender-role conflict to self-esteem of Asian American undergraduate men (N = 173). Instruments included the People of Color Racial Identity Attitude Scale, Gender-Role Conflict Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and a demographic questionnaire. Random samples were drawn from two large public research institutions on the East and West coasts. The two samples were combined because there were no significant differences in self-esteem by location of institution. Through blocked, hierarchical multiple regression analysis, 36.8% of the variance in self-esteem (p < .001) was explained by gender-role conflict subscales and racial identity statuses. Three subscales were found to be significant (p<.05) predictors of self-esteem: Restrictive Emotionality, Dissonance, and Internalization. Implications were that mature racial identity development and critical analysis of traditional gender-roles were important for the development of self-esteem of Asian American undergraduate men.Item State Policies and Classroom Practice: Adapting Instruction for English Language Learners(2004-11-24) Bentley-Memon, Millicent Lynn; Herschbach, Dennis R; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A qualitative case study was employed to address if and how fifth grade teachers adapted instruction for English language learners in response to the Maryland School Performance Program (MSPP), and the role of the Program as one of the many factors that shaped instruction for these students. This case study was conducted at two elementary schools in Maryland from March 1999 through May 2000, using observation, participant observation, interviews, and document analysis. Findings indicated that teachers used common instructional strategies to teach English language learners, that teachers' beliefs about language and cognition shaped teaching craft, and that the Program shaped instruction, but was only one of many factors shaping education for these students. Findings illustrated the relationship between state policy and classroom practice, that state policies influence, are nested in, and co-exist with classroom practice.Item The Light Cast by Someone Else's Lamp: Beginning ESOL Teachers(2004-08-13) Motha, Mary Natasha Suhanthie; Price, Jeremy N.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study was an in-depth exploration of the year-long journey of four first-year ESOL teachers who were women. The researcher asked about meanings of knowledge, pedagogy, and identity in the context of becoming a language teacher and sought to understand how beginning teachers' ideologies interact with their contexts. The teachers' naming and shaping of their own transformative pedagogies were complicated by the ways in which power and privilege manifested themselves in their schools and the ways in which ESOL students, language learning, and pedagogy came to be institutionally constructed. The teachers chose to neither adhere rigidly to their liberatory ideologies nor to submit to socializing influences. Rather, an ethic of caring towards students compelled them to find ways to integrate their commitments to social justice with sustainable pedagogies that supported students' long-term needs. This study was a critical feminist ethnography. Data sources included transcriptions of afternoon tea gatherings held every two or three weeks over the school year, classroom observations, interviews, and school and student artifacts. Part I explores the development of the teachers' meanings of English language teaching in a world in which English dominates politically. The ways in which Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been interpreted are problematized, and the connections between grammar and social power are examined. Part II considers the teachers' negotiation of their roles in the shaping of their students' identities and positionalities, seeking to enrich understandings of how various dimensions of difference, particularly race, gender, and ethnicity, interact with a category that permeates all others in the realm of English language teaching, that is linguistic minority status. Part III examines the role the four teachers played in the discursive constructions of their professional identities and the ways in which they supported each others' critical consideration of socializing institutional forces. Two central constructs, becoming and belonging, underpinned the teachers' pedagogical processes and identity construction. These two constructs posed a challenge to traditionally accepted understandings of three intertwined themes: pedagogy, identity, and transformation. The theoretical implications of this dissertation include a need for a redefinition of the ways in which power, identity, and transformation are conceptualized.Item TEACHING EXPERTISE AS A CULTURALLY-EMBEDDED PHENOMENON: A CASE STUDY OF ONE ESOL DEPARTMENT(2004-08-06) Bramblett, Shannon Rene; Cossentino, Jacqueline; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: TEACHING EXPERTISE AS A CULTURALLY-EMBEDDED PHENOMENON: A CASE STUDY OF ONE ESOL DEPARTMENT Shannon Bramblett, Ph.D., 2004 Dissertation directed By: Assistant Professor Jacqueline Cossentino,Department of Education Policy and Leadership The United States has an unprecedented number of ELLs (English Language Learners) attending public schools. Research on programs for ELLs has not kept pace with the mushrooming growth of the programs themselves. The relative newness of programs for ELLs, the rapid growth of the ELL population in public schools, and the variety of programming available means that researchers know comparatively little about the culture of available programs or the types of teaching expertise teachers develop and use in them. In this dissertation I examine the phenomenon of culturally embedded expertise in one type of program for ELLs, an ESOL program, in a large, public comprehensive high school. The aim is twofold: 1) to identify and analyze less-frequently understood aspects of teaching expertise with culturally and linguistically diverse learners, and 2) to use this knowledge to improve the way researchers approach understanding teaching expertise. In this ethnographic case study I explore culture and expertise in one ESOL department in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Unlike most studies of teaching expertise, I broadened the scope of the study to include not only teacher interactions with students, but also teacher interactions with other teachers. In the dissertation I describe and analyze the teaching expertise of three ESOL teachers. I collected data primarily through interviews and observations. ESOL teacher expertise and culture were assessed through the lens of ritual (Bell 1992, 1997). Teaching expertise was not limited to effectively helping ELLs learn to speak English. Rather, ESOL culture members "coconstructed" a cultural value that was more broadly focused on the overall flourishing of ELLs. ESOL teachers strengthened their commitment to ELLs through ritualized interactions that included keeping the value of students in the foreground of their interactions. Teachers also cultivated personal relationships with other ESOL teachers; this fostered stronger professional relationships that led to sharing expert practices and collaboration. Expertise in the ESOL culture revolved around two cultural goals. The first entailed helping ELLs make a cultural transition to the ESOL classroom. The second involved helping ELLs prepare for life beyond the ESOL classroom. This study suggests that some aspects of teaching expertise are closely linked to the shared cultural values of ESOL teachers. Thus, it is important to consider the complexity of time, place, and culture when attempting to understand teaching expertise as it applies to ELLs.