College of Education
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Item FINDING LOVE IN A HOPELESS PLACE: BLACK GIRLS’ TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY SELF-LOVE LITERACIES(2020) Griffin, Autumn Adia; Turner, Jennifer D; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation analyzes how nine adolescent Black girls enact their twenty-first century literacies (i.e. critical media, multimodal, and digital literacies) to develop and depict self-love. Building on bell hooks’s (2000) definition, I define self-love here as the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing, celebrating, preserving, or protecting one’s own or another’s physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual growth. Through the adoption of Black Feminist, Black Girlhood, and Black Girls’ Literacies I employed qualitative case study methods and integrated Participatory Action Research methods to answer the following questions: (1) How do adolescent Black girls articulate the ways they engage their twenty-first century literacies to develop self-love? and (2) How do adolescent Black girls use their twenty-first century literacies to depict self-love multimodally through a range of artifacts? I designed and executed weekly sessions that facilitated space for the girls to talk through and write about ideas pertaining to identity and digital media with regards to self-love for adolescent Black girls. Data from these sessions include introductory survey results, interview transcripts, partner artifacts and weekly reflections. Analysis of the data indicates that with regards to question one adolescent Black girls explained that they (1) manipulate algorithms; (2) spam the internet; and (3) use digital tools to support their future goals. Further, the girls employed their twenty-first century literacies to depict self-love multimodally by engaging such design elements as color, shape, and spatial location to design a digital homeplace where they could (1) name themselves and (2) claim space in the digital. This dissertation serves two purposes: (1) it provides pedagogical tools for educators of Black girls seeking to facilitate spaces where they can develop their identities and literacies simultaneously and (2) it details the ways contemporary Black girls engage their twenty-first century literacies to extend the literacy practices of their foremothers who used literacy to negotiate and challenge public perceptions about Black women. The findings from this study contribute not only to the field of education, but also gender studies and sociology, as they offer insight on adolescent identity development and formation.Item "Making Our Lives": The Contributions of Urban High School Cultures to the Future Selves of Black and Latino Adolescent Boys(2015) Carey, Roderick LaMar; MacDonald, Victoria-María; Brown, Tara M; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation sought to answer the following research question: How, if at all, are Black and Latino adolescent boys' conceptions of their future selves shaped by school culture within an urban high school context? To answer this question, this study drew from various theoretical concepts of individuals' futures (see Kao & Tienda, 1998; Markus & Nurius, 1986; Nurmi, 1991; 2005), to utilize the term "future selves" to consider participants' goals for post secondary education, employment, and life conditions - summed up in college, career, and condition or the "Three C's." Findings centered on cultural power as operationalized within the school culture, utilizing an intersectional framework (Collins, 2009). This ethnographic case study, which foregrounded the voices of 3 Black and 2 Latino (Salvadoran) teenaged boy participants, was conducted in one urban charter school in the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. over the course of eight months. Qualitative methodological approaches were used to understand the relationship between participants' future selves and salient facets of the school's college-going culture. Themes from the school culture included how the participants' experiences with self-segregation, differential treatment along racial lines by teachers, and the lack of teacher diversity, proved a diversity dilemma at the school. Getting good grades, showing effort, and avoiding trouble were hallmarks of success, and potential for leadership and college. Lastly, college going was valued more than any other life outcome. Within the college domain of future selves, participants reported varied experiences with the school's college-going culture. Selective support from teachers and administrators, college major interests, their own self-doubts, and race were key factors in participants' college choice processes. Given the career and life condition domains, participants were judicious, held realistic conceptions of their future life conditions, and wanted careers that afforded them the ability to take care of themselves and their family. Theoretical, research, and practice implications for this study include, among others, the importance of greater equity in school cultures, and the need for broadening college-going cultures to consider not only the college or post secondary goals but also future career and presumable life conditions for Black and Latino boys.Item The Contributions of Expectancy-Value Theory and Special Education Status to Reading Achievement of African American Adolescents(2011) Andrusik, Katryna Natalya; Speece, Deborah L; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In light of concerns about decreased academic motivation among adolescents and the subsequent lack of achievement, particularly among African American students and those with learning disabilities, this study examined adolescent motivation for academic achievement and future course enrollment intentions. Expectancy-value motivation has been extensively explored with European American adolescents without learning disabilities; the associated constructs of this theory are positively correlated with GPA, classroom-based assessments, and future course enrollment and employment. Limitations of the extant literature included homogeneous samples, limited reliability and validity of academic achievement measures, and a lack of control of extraneous variables. Using exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling, I found that the expectancies for success/perceived ability, importance value, and intrinsic value latent factor models of expectancy-value motivation for a sample of urban African American adolescents do not differ from those for their European American peers; however, the constructs themselves have different relationships with the two dependent variables, reading achievement on a standardized assessment and future enrollment intentions. Motivation latent factors did not predict reading achievement when SES, prior achievement, and gender were in the analysis. However, all motivation constructs were significant predictors when enrollment intentions constituted the dependent variable. Additionally, the IEP reading goal variable (learner status) was not a significant predictor of either dependent variable. These results are discussed in light of the limitations of the study. Finally, areas for further research are suggested.