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 A MISSING PIECE: EXAMINING TEACHERS’ RESPONSES TO GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE IN SCHOOLS IN BURKINA FASO(2019) Spear, Anne; Stromquist, Nelly; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Gender inequality leading to gendered violence in schools is a concerning reality worldwide. This study examines gender-based violence (GBV) in an educational context by conducting a vertical comparative case study on gender-based violence at two secondary schools in the central area of Burkina Faso, West Africa. The study sought to understand the multiple influences that guide secondary schoolteachers’ responses to GBV and the implementation of existing national policies in combatting the violence in Burkina Faso. Using the feminist poststructuralist framework, the study conducted discourse analysis of policies and explored teachers’ discourse of the phenomenon through how teachers’ meaning-making of GBV in schools contributes to decisions around addressing the violence. This qualitative research contributes to the on-going discussion of how teachers can be change agents in schools. These findings can help inform teachers’ training programs and national policy.Item Representative Works from the Italian, French, and American Schools of Double Bass Playing(2016) Saunders, Ian S.; Stern, James O; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Each successive stage in the double bass’s history required the instrument to adapt to shifting musical aesthetics and technical demands. As a result, arrays of interesting (and sometimes disparate) approaches have emerged in the form of schools, intellectual traditions governed by playing concepts, and national aesthetics. The emergence of each of these various schools contributed to the history and development of the instrument, yet scholarship on the matter is exiguous. By studying and understanding different schools, one becomes aware that generations of pedagogues contributed to the foundation of modern-day mastery. Furthermore, an appreciation of contextual aesthetics and innovations brought forth by these intellectual traditions can inform modern renditions of pieces from these distinct schools. This dissertation focuses on three schools: the first international school created by the Italians, the lost significance of the French school, and the evolution of the American school. Music associated with each school was featured in three recital programs. The first two recitals were performed in the Smith Lecture Hall, and the third in the Ulrich Recital Hall, all at the University of Maryland. A re-recording of George Onslow’s String Quintet No.26 in c minor, Op.67 from the second recital took place on April 4, 2016. Recordings of all three recitals can be found in the Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (DRUM).Item An Analysis of Principal Attrition in a Large Urban School District(2016) Anthony, Douglas W; McLauglin, Margaret J; Norris, John; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Principal attrition is a national problem particularly in large urban school districts. Research confirms that schools that serve high proportions of children living in poverty have the most difficulty attracting and retaining competent school leaders. Principals who are at the helm of high poverty schools have a higher turnover rate than the national average of three to four years and higher rates of teacher attrition. This leadership turnover has a fiscal impact on districts and negatively affects student achievement. Research identifies a myriad of reasons why administrators leave the role of principal: some leave the position for retirement; some exit based on difficulty of the role and lack of support; and some simply leave for other opportunities within and outside of the profession altogether. As expectations for both teacher and learner performance drive the national education agenda, understanding how to keep effective principals in their jobs is critical. This study examined the factors that principals in a large urban district identified as potentially affecting their decisions to stay in the position. The study utilized a multi-dimensional, web-based questionnaire to examine principals’ perceptions regarding contributing factors that impact tenure. Results indicated that: • having a quality teaching staff and establishing a positive work-life balance were important stay factors for principals; • having an effective supervisor and collegial support from other principals, were helpful supports; and • having adequate resources, time for long-term planning, and teacher support and resources were critical working conditions. Taken together, these indicators were the most frequently cited factors that would keep principals in their positions. The results were used to create a framework that may serve as a potential guide for addressing principal retention.Item "The Schools are Killing our Kids!": The African American Fight for Self-Determination in the Boston Public Schools, 1949-1985(2014) Bundy, Lauren Tess; Freund, David M; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines a grassroots movement led by black Bostonians to achieve racial justice, quality education, and community empowerment in the Boston Public Schools during the postwar period. From the late 1940s through the early 1980s black parents, teachers, and students employed a wide-range of strategies in pursuit of these goals including staging school boycotts, creating freedom schools, establishing independent alternative schools, lobbying for legislation, forming parent and youth groups, and organizing hundreds of grassroots organizations. At the heart of this movement was a desire to improve the quality of education afforded to black youth and to expand the power of black Bostonians in educational governance. This dissertation demonstrates that desegregation and community control were not mutually exclusive goals or strategies of black educational activism. I examine the evolution of the goals, ideology, and strategy of this movement over the course of more than three decades in response to shifts in the national and local political climate. This work traces the close ties between this local movement in Boston and broader movements for racial and social justice unfolding across the nation in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and 70s. Most importantly, my dissertation puts this movement in conversation with a broader national project of various marginalized groups in the postwar period to radically transform the institutions of democracy. This dissertation challenges a well-known narrative of civil rights and school desegregation in Boston in this period. This story of the so-called Boston "busing crisis" focuses on white resistance, a narrow period of time in the mid-1970s, and court-ordered desegregation. In the rare instances in which black Bostonians are included in this narrative it is as victims or apathetic bystanders. The rhetoric of "busing," particularly the framing of opposition to desegregation as "anti-busing," obscured and continues to obscure the more complex racial politics driving the opposition to the integration of the Boston Public Schools. My scholarship brings light to a much broader and more nuanced history of racial politics in Boston and demonstrates that we cannot understand the period of court-ordered desegregation without examining the decades of grassroots activism which preceded it.Item CHILDREN'S SCHOOLING AND MATERNAL WELL-BEING: EVALUATING THE ROLE OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AS SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS IN MOTHERS' LIVES(2011) Warner, Catharine H.; Milkie, Melissa A.; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Motherhood is accompanied by costs to well-being, and the mechanisms that negatively affect mothers' health are not clearly defined. Using a stress process perspective, this dissertation examines the role of strains associated with children's education to explain racial/ethnic and class variation in maternal well-being. Using mixed methods, I argue that much of the literature on family-school "partnerships" ignores the ways in which schools affect family life. Additionally, stress process literature fails to analyze stressors within schools, which house a myriad of potential difficulties for mothers. In short, while much research considers children's success in school, we know little about how this social institution affects mothers' lives and relationships. Multi-level modeling with the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K, N=6,995), illustrates which strains affect mothers' self-rated health and depressive symptoms. Key strains associated with children's health and school problems include children's disabilities, poor health, and poor behavior. Strains associated with mothers' own time pressures include looking for work, employment transitions during elementary school, and missed events/activities at the school. Strains in the school context include the proportion of students in poverty and the school neighborhood conditions. Longitudinal analyses show that school context is a central mediator of the relationship between mothers' racial/ethnic status and self-rated health and depressive symptoms, explaining health differences between African-American and white mothers and accounting for nearly one-third of the differences between Latina and white mothers. Finally, I explore whether social integration through school involvement benefits mothers. Though associated with improved well-being, school involvement does little to mitigate the effects of schooling strains. In-depth interviews with a racially/ethnically diverse group of 27 middle class mothers show that school involvement often comes at a cost to mothers in terms of time with family, difficult interactions with fellow parents, and concerns for an equitable distribution of labor at the school. Moreover, mothers' motivations for involvement vary with some mothers, more commonly mothers of color, focused solely on involvement as a component of good mothering, while other mothers, mainly the white mothers in the sample, also refer to their involvement as an opportunity to expand their own friendship networks.Item Predictors of In-School Weapon-Carrying(2009) Stickle, Wendy Povitsky; Gottfredson, Denise; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Delinquent and violent behaviors have become a major concern of parents, teachers, and school administrations across the country as media images of school violence permeate perceptions of school safety. Although national surveys show a slight decline in school delinquency, schools continue to search for ways to improve safety. This investigation seeks to understand the predictors of weapon-use in schools. Literature related to school shootings, disorder, and weapon-carrying as well as various theories, including control, social disorganization, and subculture, guide hypotheses that explore the school characteristics related to in-school weapon-carrying as well as the interaction effects between school and student characteristics. Using a large, national sample, this unprecedented investigation explores whether school characteristics predict weapon-carrying net of individuals' propensity to carry weapons. The study also investigates whether school characteristics condition the relationships between student characteristics and weapon-carrying. Findings indicate that school characteristics, specifically those related to school location and violent environments, are important in explaining recent in-school weapon-carrying even when controlling for past weapon-carrying. Further, results suggest that school-level predictors are more important in explaining student weapon-carrying in urban schools than in non-urban schools. Implications and directions for future research will be discussed.Item UNIVERSITY GOING IN CONTEXT: A CASE STUDY OF GUSII STUDENTS OF SOUTHWESTERN KENYA(2009) Choti, Truphena Moraa; Lin, Jing; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Dissertation Title: UNIVERSITY GOING IN CONTEXT: A CASE STUDY OF GUSII STUDENTS OF SOUTHWESTERN KENYA Truphena Moraa Choti, Doctor of Philosophy, 2009 Directed By: Prof. Jing Lin, Department of Education Leadership, Higher Education, and International Education University of Maryland, College Park The main objective of this qualitative ethnographic case study is to ascertain the level of awareness and preparedness among high school students in Gusiiland, Southwestern Kenya, for university education opportunities and possibilities. Through an in-depth interviewing process, a purposive sample of twelve students and four focus groups were conducted in four Gusii high schools to capture students' perceptions and conceptions of the university going process. In addition, twelve parents and eight teachers participated in the study. The data were analyzed to identify a set of ideas, issues and themes from all the participants. Also, data from each target student were analyzed as case study, and later a cross-case analysis was undertaken to refine data across participants and schools. Utilizing the theories of social capital, cultural capital and human capital, this study explores the role of the family, school and community in the preparation of students' university going within their socio-cultural environment. Structural inequality in the distribution of educational resources, rigidness of the curriculum and overemphasis on examinations, extreme poverty and local politics emerged as some the barriers to university pathway for Gusii high school students. To overcome these impediments, students adopted unique strategies characterized by strict study schedule, group networks and holiday tuition to gain entry into university. This research contributes original material on the university going process in Kenya and hopes to shed light for future research in this hitherto unexplored academic area. Finding out what students know about higher education including their plans on how to pay for their university costs is worthwhile in helping Kenyan policy makers and scholars in understanding the needs of prospective undergraduate students entering Kenyan universities.