College of Education
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The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations..
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Item EMERGING FROM THE SHADOWS: A CASE STUDY ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES IN MONROVIA, LIBERIA(2014) Podzimek, Kimberly; Lin, Jing; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)People with disabilities are often the last group to be included in development agendas. For children with disabilities, this translates into exclusion in the educational setting with piecemeal agendas created by various governments. In Liberia, children with disabilities are not only excluded from the classroom, but the government's most recent education law singles children with disabilities out as individuals that may be excluded from the classroom. It is difficult to find research on people with disabilities in low-income countries that have experienced recent conflict. In an attempt to better understand the lives of children with disabilities in Liberia, I developed and implemented a case study the examines the lives of families with children with disabilities at an educational center in Monrovia, Liberia called The Alliance Center for Children with Disabilities , hereafter referred to as the Center. I used Schalock and Keith's (2000) Quality of Life (QOL) Framework to gauge the influence the Center has over the lives of the families and Critical Disability Theory as a base for a discussion on societal norms and people with disabilities. Through intense analysis of interview transcripts, documents and observations, this study concludes that the families associated with the Center currently have a better quality of life based on the domains in Schalock and Keith's (2000) Quality of Life framework than those with children with disabilities not attending the Center.Item Social Cognitive and Self-Construal Predictors of Academic Satisfaction among African Students Attending U.S. Universities(2013) Ezeofor, Ijeoma; Lent, Robert W; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to examine select sociocognitive, environmental, and cultural factors that may relate to African students' academic satisfaction. The Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) satisfaction model (Lent, 2004) was used as a framework to test the predictive utility of these factors with students of African descent. The study also examined self-construal as a predictor of academic satisfaction. Self-construal is the way one's thoughts, behaviors, and feelings are guided by one's relationship to self and others (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). The present study revealed that the factors of the satisfaction model accounted for 59% of the variance in academic satisfaction in the African sample. The findings also suggested that self-construal does not influence academic satisfaction directly but rather operates through mediated pathways. Research and practical implications of the findings are discussed.Item The acculturation of adult African refugee language learners in Israel: an ethnographic study(2012) Blake III, Charles Carlos; Lin, Jing; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The number of refugees from Africa seeking asylum in Israel has recently skyrocketed, raising issues as to how to integrate them into Israeli society. Education is one of the mediums being used to encourage the cultural integration and inclusion of the refugees into Israeli society; very little is known, however, about how Africans are acculturating or whether language education is helping with this process. In particular, I use Berry's model of acculturation and Ogbu's cultural model as lenses through which the acculturation of refugees can be understood. In order to provide an answer to these questions, I conducted an ethnographic study examining the acculturation of adult African refugees participating in a language program in Tel Aviv. I utilized criterion-based sampling to select 8 student participants for this study. Data collection consisted of interviews with student-participants, interviews with teacher participants and document review. Data analysis entailed the coding and categorization of data elicited from data collection. Results suggest that participants exhibited the characteristics of immigrants employing a separation/segregation acculturation strategy according to Berry's model. Most participants also have the characteristics of what Ogbu calls involuntary migrants. Instead of facilitating host country cultural understanding or participation, higher language proficiency was associated with more negative perceptions of Israelis and Israeli society.