Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
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
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Learning to teach for social justice in early childhood classrooms of privilege(2018) Blackmon, Laurel Catherine; Imig, David; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purposes of this study were to examine how Social Justice Education (SJE) was envisioned and enacted at an elite school and to examine what the experiences of the school’s early childhood teachers were as they participated in professional development (PD) programming around SJE. Through embedded case study methodology, the researcher analyzed the school as one unit, with the five teacher participants as bound cases within this context. Conducted in 2017, data included interviews with school leaders, curriculum documents, school documents, PD materials, teacher interviews, and classroom observations. These data were analyzed in the context of a theoretical framework of SJE developed from the literature. Findings indicated that SJE was largely defined by the teacher participants and the School Head as a way to create a welcoming school community and that observed classroom practices aligned with this definition. Administrators and the School Mission & Statement of Community Values, however, included taking action against inequity in the definition, a conceptualization of SJE that would be challenging to fully realize in the context of the school and professional cultures at the time of the study. The school and professional cultures were also found to be key factors in how teacher learning was experienced by the teachers. Each teacher participant positioned herself as an outsider to these cultures in some way, and each described this position as having an impact on her implementation of SJE. Participants described their learning experiences as both personal and professional, and they expressed that PD that supported development of their critical lenses and their classroom practices was impactful. Implications for professional developers and school leaders include the importance of understanding the school and larger socio-political context in which teachers are learning about SJE. Three areas of focus for PD were also identified: teacher self-knowledge, critical lens development, and training programs for specific curriculum and pedagogy that supports SJE. Implications for research include inquiry into the role of school and professional culture in shifting schoolwide practices to SJE and into the impact of PD that emphasizes teacher self-knowledge, critical lens development, and training in SJE curriculum programs.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.