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 HUMAN FLOURISHING: VALUES AND VIRTUES(2023) Chung, Eun Ae; Lin, Jing; Klees, Steven; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the quest to understand what human flourishing is, while ancient philosophers have all pointed to virtues as a vital component, today, they have been notably left out of the conversation. The purpose of this study is to explore the possible ways the virtues of Justice, Humanity and Transcendence could be potentially understood through the analysis of individuals’ values. The variations of these understandings are examined by country and world regions. Furthermore, to provide more context, the study seeks to determine the relationships between these virtues and individual sociodemographic factors, such as sex, education level and socioeconomic status, as well as country level factors, such as GDP per capita, the average years of schooling at the country level, and gender inequality. Finally, the study also examines the relationship between the virtues and subjective well-being (happiness and life satisfaction), which is claimed to be an important component of human flourishing. In doing so, the overarching goal of this research is to contribute to the growing dialogue on human flourishing and make a case for how human flourishing could be understood in various ways, depending on individual values and context. This exploratory quantitative research study highlights patterns and trends of values in relation to the three virtues as well as exceptions. Furthermore, the findings of the study show the importance of acknowledging differing definitions of human flourishing as well as including context and environment of individuals when discussing an important topic as human flourishing.Item Rules of Engagement: The Role of Graduate Teaching Assistants as Agents of Mathematics Socialization for Undergraduate Students of Color(2023) Lue, Kristyn; Clark, Lawrence M; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The field of higher education has been concerned with the retention of underrepresented students of Color in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields over the last few decades. STEM identity development has emerged as a useful analytic framework in this research, as students with stronger STEM identities—students who recognize themselves and are recognized by others as “STEM people”—are more likely to persist in the STEM fields. STEM identity develops through the process of socialization, in which agents of socialization set and maintain the norms, culture, and values that newcomers in the STEM fields should emulate. At institutions of higher education, instructors act as primary agents of socialization, signaling who “belongs”—and who doesn’t—in the STEM fields. Although prior research has identified the ways in which mathematics courses gatekeep underrepresented undergraduate students of Color out of the STEM fields, little research has focused specifically on undergraduate mathematics socialization. Furthermore, the role of graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) as agents of mathematics socialization remains unexamined, despite the large role they play in teaching lower-level undergraduate mathematics courses. This qualitative dissertation, which is grounded in Critical Race Theory and Critical Whiteness studies, utilizes critical ethnographic methods in order to examine the ways in which GTAs at a historically white [college and] university (HWCU) serve as agents of mathematics socialization for underrepresented undergraduate students of Color. Through fieldwork, individual interviews, and a series of focus groups with ten GTAs at a large, public, research-1 institution in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States (MAU), this dissertation study explored: (1) GTAs’ perceptions of the dominant culture (e.g. values and practices) of the mathematics department at their institution, and whether they sought to align with or diverge from this culture, (2) the opportunities and constraints GTAs faced in breaking from these normative values and practices, and (3) whether the ways in which GTAs described trying to break from these practices reinforced the systematic exclusion of underrepresented undergraduate students of Color in their mathematics department. Key findings include four major themes: a culture of individualism and the hidden necessity of social ties in the mathematics department at MAU, the valuation of teaching as a means of doing research, attempts by GTAs to shift normative narratives of mathematical success, and identity tensions in supporting underrepresented undergraduate students of Color. These findings highlight the importance for agents of mathematics socialization to explicitly center race, racism, and power when trying to be inclusive of underrepresented undergraduate students of Color in university mathematics settings. Without doing so, racism and whiteness are reproduced and perpetuated in the mathematics socialization of underrepresented undergraduate students of Color, despite good intentions.Item DOES SOCIAL CLASS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT?: EXPLORING THE COLLEGE DESTINATION PROCESS OF NIGERIAN IMMIGRANT-ORIGIN STUDENTS ATTENDING PRIVATE ELITE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES(2021) Onuma, Felicia James; Fries-Britt, Sharon L; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to investigate the college destination process of Nigerian immigrant-origin students attending private elite colleges and universities and the role, if any, that social class played in the process. To date, several empirical and non-empirical publications have called attention to the overrepresentation of Black immigrant students, particularly those of Nigerian ancestry, at the nation’s most elite institutions of higher education. However, very little is known about the decisions and actions that lead to their matriculation at these schools and the extent to which their college destination processes are informed by social class. The current study sought to address this gap in the literature. The frameworks that guided this study were Radford’s (2013) college destination process framework and Lee and Zhou’s (2015) cultural frames analytical model. This study employed a collective instrumental embedded case study design and included five cases. Each case or unit of analysis comprised a Nigerian immigrant-origin student attending a private elite college and their parent. Consistent with case study methodology, data were collected for the study through multiple methods including demographic questionnaires and semi-structured individual interviews. Findings from this study affirm the influence of social class—or structural circumstances produced by hyper-selective immigration—on the educational outcomes of Nigerian immigrant-origin students. Raised by college-educated parents, some of whom also received post-graduate training, students internalized college education as essential. Beyond serving as role models, parents also intentionally wielded their human and financial capital to provide their children with the quality of education and experiences needed to be competitive for admission to highly-ranked colleges and universities. Outside of their immediate families, students were exposed to youth and adults in their local Nigerian immigrant communities who also helped to set the academic standard to which they were held. Ultimately, students’ predispositions toward college attendance and elite colleges and universities influenced their exploration, application, and matriculation decisions. Equally importantly, the quality of their high school preparation played a key role in their ability to gain admission to their elite colleges of interest and final postsecondary destinations which for three students was Harvard and two students, Yale.Item A Sociological Analysis of the Impact of Online Education on Community College Completion: A Case Study of Montgomery College in Maryland(2021) Hernandez, Shinta Herwantoro; Lucas, Jeffrey; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Community college completion is a top priority throughout the U.S. and particularly in the State of Maryland where the College and Career Readiness and College Completion Act (CCRCCA) was passed in 2013. To increase college completion rates, many community colleges throughout the state have prioritized online education by incorporating it into their institutional strategic plans. In doing so, higher education institutions in the state strive to lower social problems associated with college dropout rates, such as limited job or career opportunities, lower earning potential, increased unemployment, greater food and housing insecurity, and decreased community bonds. With more students enrolled in online courses, especially in community colleges, it becomes urgent to understand who is benefitting from online learning and who continues to experience challenges. In an examination of online education at Montgomery College in Maryland, results from this dissertation show that the delivery of high quality online education can help increase college completion rates. While not statistically significant, the time to completion for online students is 1.154 years less than fully face-to-face (F2F) students. Yet, middle income students graduate faster than their high income counterparts, Computer Science and Technologies students graduate faster than General Studies students, and online Computer Science and Technologies students graduate faster than their fully F2F counterparts. On average, there was no significant difference in the average time to completion across five academic years for online and fully F2F students – 4.5 years. Also across this five academic year span, specific online groups – males, Blacks or African Americans, high income and low income students, and General Studies, Business, and Early Childhood Education Technology majors – experienced an average time to completion that was lower than that of their fully F2F counterparts. The average time to completion at Montgomery College for online students exceeds that of fully F2F students after six online courses. However, for some online student groups – males, Blacks or African Americans, low income students, and Business majors – their time to completion is negatively impacted after 13 and 14 online courses, respectively. The research also suggests that the global COVID-19 pandemic has already positively influenced the way online education is delivered, the way instructors are trained, and the way students are engaged and learning at Montgomery College.Item The place of race in past and present: Student and state narratives of race in U.S. History(2021) Lee, Justine Hwei Chi; Brown, Tara M; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This three-study dissertation addresses the broader question of identifying a collective memory of race in the Northern United States. The studies are conceptually linked by a critical race perspective and are distinct in research focus, methods, and findings. In the first study, I examined how 128 students from two New England states represented their understandings of the history of enslavement in the United States. I used inductive and deductive approaches to investigate how they connected this history to race and notions of national progress. In the second study, I used document analysis to investigate the representation of people of color in New York’s state standards for 11th grade U.S. history. I found that less than one-third of standards cited people of color, and the majority of such standards cited them alongside White people. This practice of exclusionary grouping reinforced Whiteness as normative by implying a essentialist view of race and ethnicity. In the third study, I employed discourse analysis to examine the representation of race in the New York U.S. history curricular framework and in the policy context of its intended use. I found that policy defining the purpose of social studies promoted nationalist and race-evasive discourses. Through strategic periodization, the curriculum segregated explicit references to race into an “alternate timeline,” whose narrative arc strongly implied racial progress. Moreover, I found that the selectively ahistorical use of the word “American” was used to mark groups as non-White. Ultimately, the state’s manipulation of time and language functioned to preserve discourses of national progress and U.S. moral exceptionalism and to suppress the study of race in history.Item CHOICE IN TURBULENT TIMES: A CASE STUDY OF REFUGEE STUDENT EXPERIENCES IN QUASI-MARKETIZED EDUCATION SYSTEMS(2021) Reedy, Timothy D; Lin, Jing; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Across the face of the globe, there have been unprecedented levels of migration from displaced men, women, and children due to political, economic, or religious persecution. Nearly half of the 70.8 million people that are forcibly displaced globally are school-aged children under the age of 18. In the context of the United States, a portion of the refugees granted status are resettled to urban areas whose school districts implement varying degrees of school-choice, market-based educational reform. Especially for those refugee families which are newcomers to the district/marketplace, the process of selecting a specific school is likely wrought with gaps in information and/or misunderstandings regarding educational pathways. Coupling actor-network theory with critical theory, this dissertation focuses on refugee students’ experiences navigating, accessing, and attaining desired curricular opportunities within Saint Louis Public Schools (SLPS)—a large, quasi-marketized, school-choice district in St. Louis, MO. Using narrative inquiry, rich data were gathered from refugee participants regarding their pre-and post-resettlement educational experiences through in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Analysis of participant narratives revealed a parallel process of school-choice for many refugees and several crucial findings emerged that highlight the extent to which refugee students’ understandings regarding school options and educational pathways are rendered (in)visible for some, are racialized for others, and further demonstrates how underlying inequalities already present in under-resourced, urban school districts are often exacerbated by the introduction of neoliberal notions of choice and competition.Item Not your terrorist: Case studies examining the intersectional identities and aspirations of Arab American Muslim middle school boys(2017) Shafey, Dina; Turner, Jennifer D.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Arab Muslim boys living in the United States have experienced varying levels of public scrutiny since 9/11 and prior to. Public perceptions of these experiences are centered on media-driven representations; often inaccurate depictions of the nuanced lives of these boys. While Arab Muslims have lived in the United States more than a century, their lived experiences, particularly experiences while in school are missing. This research study examined how Arab American Muslim Middle School boys perceived their intersecting identities while navigating instances of bias. To address this, one overarching research questions guided this study: “How do key intersecting social classifications race, gender, culture, and religion, impact Arab American middle school boys’ ethnic identity perceptions?” To further explicate on these nuances four sub-questions were addressed, including: “How do these boys define success and achievement in relation to schooling?”; “How have middle school Arab American boys experienced cultural bias/or how have they perceived cultural bias?”; To what extent do Arab American boys seek out resources (community family, religion), through their social networks?” and “How have they navigated schooling as framed by these experiences of cultural bias?” Using an Intersectional Identities Theoretical Framework (Crenshaw, 1989; Phelan, 1991; Collins, 2009), this study explored the multifaceted nature of identity perception, namely the boys’ experiences with power relationships resulting from these identifiers. Four themes surfaced including how they operationalized power and oppression across identity categories namely, Religion, Culture, Gender and Race. To delve into these questions and to represent the experiences of each boy with detail, a qualitative case study design (Bodgen & Biklen 2003; Erickson & Shultz, 1992; Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2006) was used to analyze and produce rice and detailed narratives. This study will promote discussion about the very nature of the lived experiences of Arab Muslim boys growing up in the United States. It will also serve as a platform for administrators and policy makers in the daily decisions, for example curriculum decisions, impacting this scrutinized population.Item NAVIGATING RACISM IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A GROUNDED THEORY STUDY OF BLACK MALE ADMINISTRATORS(2017) Rollins, Domonic A.; Fries-Britt, Sharon; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the United States, racism is alive and well, and the lives of Black men are a complete paradox (Jenkins, 2006). At the same time that the person holding the highest political office in the United States of America is a Black man, Black men are slain in the streets every day. Curiously, in a historic moment more than eight years ago, the United States, a nation founded on prejudice and racial discrimination, elected its first Black man to the presidency. And, in a historic moment less than six months ago, the United States elected the most racist and ethnocentric politician to the presidency in the last half-century. For many people, the election, and subsequent reelection of President Barack Obama signified the end of racism in the United States. Simultaneously, the election of the new president indicates that racism is thriving in the United States. In this Black men are suspended in “dueling realities of history — steady progress and devastating setbacks” (Merida, 2007, p.4). Resultantly, it is commonplace for Black men, regardless of age, socioeconomic class, or location, to wonder whether their life is at risk because they are Black. Simply stated, in an Obama era there was a widely held belief that the United States was post-racial society (Bonilla-Silva & Dietrich, 2011); the subsequent 2016 election indicated this is not that case, and the lives of Black men are in danger (Sanneh, 2015). What’s more is that higher education, an institution founded on inequity, has long harbored institutional racism making it difficult for Black male administrators to achieve equitable outcomes with their White peers. In higher education, there is an extant body of research identifying the barriers that impact the success and progression of underrepresented racial minority students and faculty, including Black people (Baez, 2000; Chesler, Lewis, & Crowfoot, 2005; Christian, 2012; Patitu & Hinton, 2003; Stanley, 2006). Yet, very little is known about the experiences of underrepresented racial minority administrators (Chun & Evans, 2012; McCurtis, Jackson, & O’Callaghan, 2008; Stanley, 2006). Specifically, most research on Black males in the academy focuses on students and faculty, with little research on the experiences of Black male administrators (Jackson, 2003; Patitu & Hinton, 2003; Perna, Gerald, Baum, & Milem, 2006). Using a constructivist grounded theory approach; this dissertation shares and analyzes findings from interview data to unearth the process by which Black male administrators navigate racism. Through this grounded theory investigation, a model for navigating racism for Black male administrators emerged, which illustrates the iterative and contextual nature of navigating racism. The result is that the way one navigates racism in higher education is dependent on major contextual and shaping forces in their life. Further, one learns how to navigate racism early in life, well before one enters higher education. Specific decisions about how to navigate racism also involve an internal and external assessment of the racist incident, current context in which one is steeped, and desired or anticipated outcomes of navigating or managing the incident. Finally, this research, through the creation of a model, moved from the descriptive analysis of what racism is, towards the practical implications of having to navigate racism in higher education. By integrating the identified racist incidents, shaping contexts, and the navigation model together, applications were created for individuals, institutions, and future research. The resulting implications focused primarily on critical self-reflection for individuals, an increase in reflection and audits for institutions, and a new direction for race and racism research to explore the primary learning sites of how to manage racism in one’s life.Item Beyond Diversity As Usual: Expanding Critical Cultural Approaches to Marginalization in Engineering Education(2017) Secules, Stephen; Elby, Andrew; Gupta, Ayush; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In general, what we think of as "diversity work" in undergraduate engineering education focuses in the following ways: more on the overlooked assets of minority groups than on the acts of overlooking, more on the experiences of marginalized groups than on the mechanisms of marginalization by dominant groups, more on supporting and increasing minority student retention than on critiquing and remediating the systems which lead minority students to leave engineering. This dissertation presents a series of arguments which push beyond a status quo understanding of diversity in engineering education. The first approach the dissertation takes up is to problematize educational facts around failure by interrogating their roots in interactions and cultural norms in an engineering classroom. In another argument, the dissertation places the engineering classroom cultural norms of competition, whiteness, and masculinity in a critical historical context of the discipline at large. Finally, I demonstrate how engaging students in a critique of marginalizing educational culture can be an important source of agency. In addition to applying and demonstrating the value of specific novel approaches in engineering education, the dissertation contributes to the research community by discussing the respective affordances between these and other possible scholarly approaches to culture and marginalization in education. I also suggest how a consideration of the taken-for-granted culture of engineering education can be an important tool for instructors seeking to gain insight into persistent educational problems. In addition, this dissertation makes implications for diversity support practice, envisioning new forms of support programming rooted in intersectionality and critical praxis.Item Tying it Together: Education-Focused Community Change Initiatives(2015) Jacobson, Reuben; Croninger, Robert G.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Policymakers make many demands of our schools to produce academic success. At the same time, community organizations, government agencies, faith-based institutions, and other groups often are providing support to students and their families, especially those from high-poverty backgrounds, that are meant to impact education but are often insufficient, uncoordinated, or redundant. In many cases, these institutions lack access to schools and school leaders. What’s missing from the dominant education reform discourse is a coordinated education-focused approach that mobilizes community assets to effectively improve academic and developmental outcomes for students. This study explores how education-focused comprehensive community change initiatives (CCIs) that utilize a partnership approach are organized and sustained. In this study, I examine three research questions: 1. Why and how do school system-level community change initiative (CCI) partnerships form? 2. What are the organizational, financial, and political structures that support sustainable CCIs? What, in particular, are their connections to the school systems they seek to impact? 3. What are the leadership functions and structures found within CCIs? How are leadership functions distributed across schools and agencies within communities? To answer these questions, I used a cross-case study approach that employed a secondary data analysis of data that were collected as part of a larger research study sponsored by a national organization. The original study design included site visits and extended interviews with educators, community leaders and practitioners about community school initiatives, one type of CCI. This study demonstrates that characteristics of sustained education-focused CCIs include leaders that are critical to starting the CCIs and are willing to collaborate across institutions, a focus on community problems, building on previous efforts, strategies to improve service delivery, a focus on education and schools in particular, organizational arrangements that create shared leadership and ownership for the CCI, an intermediary to support the initial vision and collaborative leadership groups, diversified funding approaches, and political support. These findings add to the literature about the growing number of education-focused CCIs. The study’s primary recommendation—that institutions need to work across boundaries in order to sustain CCIs organizationally, financially, and politically—can help policymakers as they develop new collaborative approaches to achieving educational goals.