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 Crossing the Cultural Bridge: Examining the Cross-Ethnic Interactions and Relationships Between Black Immigrant and Black American Students at a Predominantly White, Public, State Flagship Institution(2024) Ogwo, Ashley; Fries-Britt, Sharon L; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The discourse surrounding Black immigrant and Black American student relationships in higher education has often centered tensions between the two groups related to their enrollment in private elite institutions (e.g., Bennett & Lutz, 2009; Charles et al., 2008; Massey et al., 2007). However, both inside and outside of the private elite context, there is little research that intentionally examines the cross-ethnic interactions and relationships between Black immigrant and Black American students (Awokoya, 2012; De Walt, 2011; George Mwangi et al., 2016; Jackson & Cothran, 2003). Existing literature’s primary focus on circumstances surrounding Black immigrant and Black American undergraduates that are out of their control, such as their respective over- and underrepresentation at elite colleges (Bennett & Lutz, 2009; Charles et al., 2008; Jaschik, 2017; Massey et al., 2007), has left a significant gap in the knowledge base regarding the actual communicative experiences of these student populations across ethnic lines. Few studies have ventured beyond the private elite institutional context to explore these relational dynamics, resulting in limited scholarly understanding of the benefits and challenges of Black immigrant and Black American interactions and relationship-building from the perspectives of students themselves. This study aims to address these knowledge gaps by examining the cross-ethnic relationship dynamics between Black immigrant and Black American undergraduates in the institutional context they more frequently attend: a predominantly white, moderately selective, public, state flagship institution (U.S. Department of Education National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, 2016, as cited in Espinosa et al., 2019).Utilizing communication theory of identity and case study methodology, this study empirically unpacks the cross-ethnic interactions and relationships between Black immigrant and Black American undergraduates at a predominantly white, public, state flagship institution in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. This study was guided by the following two research questions: 1) What do Black immigrant and Black American students at a predominantly white, public, state flagship institution perceive to be the role of their ethnic identities in their cross-ethnic interactions with one another? And 2) What do Black immigrant and Black American students at a predominantly white, public, state flagship institution perceive to be the benefits and challenges of Black cross-ethnic interactions and relationship-building? My study uncovered six themes that were prevalent across participants’ case narratives, including three challenges and three benefits to cross-ethnic interactions and relationship-building between Black immigrant and Black American students: 1) Challenge #1: “I Don’t Really Have Time”: How Students’ Schedules Limit Their Cross-Ethnic Engagement; 2) Benefit #1: “For the Sake of Community”: Developing Strong Cross-Ethnic Bonds to Support One Another at the PWI; 3) Challenge #2: “Instilled from Childhood”: The “Cycle” of Passing Down Cross-Ethnic Stereotypes and Preconceived Notions; 4) Benefit #2: “Breaking Generational Curses”: Combatting Instilled Interethnic Stereotypes through Cross-Ethnic Communication and Relationship-Building; 5) Challenge #3: “Trying to Reach and Understand the Other Side”: How Lack of Cultural Knowledge Limits Cross-Ethnic Interactions and Relationships; and 6) Benefit #3: “There’s So Much to Learn and Love”: Building Cross-Cultural Understanding through Cross-Ethnic Interactions and Relationships. The study’s findings provide critical insight into existing relational dynamics between Black immigrant and Black American undergraduates, detailing how these students perceive, describe, and make meaning of the relationship between their ethnic identities and their cross-cultural communication experiences with one another as well as the utility of their cross-ethnic interactions.Item An Analysis of the Implementation and Perceived Effectiveness of the SchoolMAX Family Portal(2015) Watts, Jr., Warren Wesley; McLaughlin, Margaret J; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Document: AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPLEMENTATION AND PERCEIVED EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SCHOOLMAX FAMILY PORTAL Warren Wesley Watts, Doctor of Education, 2015 Directed By: Margaret J. McLaughlin, Ph.D. Department of Counseling, Higher Education and Special Education School districts have spent millions of dollars implementing student information systems that offer family portals with web-based access to parents and students. One of the main purposes of these systems is to improve school-to-home communication. Research has shown that when school-to-home communication is implemented effectively, parent involvement improves and student achievement increases (Epstein, 2001). The purpose of the study was to (a) understand why parents used or refrained from using the family portal and (b) determine what barriers to use might exist. To this end, this descriptive study identified the information parent users accessed in the SchoolMAX family portal, determined how frequently parents accessed the portal, and ascertained whether parents perceived an increase in communication with their children about academic matters after they began accessing the portal. Finally, the study sought to identify whether barriers existed that prevented parents from using the family portal. The inquiry employed three data sources to answer the aforementioned queries. These sources included (a) a survey sent electronically to 19,108 parents who registered online for the SchoolMAX family portal; (b) SchoolMAX portal usage data from the student information system for system usage between January 1, 2015 and June 30, 2015; and (c) a paper survey sent to 691 parents of students that had never used the SchoolMAX family portal in one elementary school, one middle school and one high school that were representative of other schools in the district. Survey results indicated that parents at all grade levels used the family portal. Usage data also confirmed that approximately 19% of the students had parents who monitored their progress through the family portal. Usage data also showed that parents were monitoring approximately 25% of students in secondary schools (6th – 12th grade) and 16% of students in elementary schools. Of the wide menu of resources available through the SchoolMAX family portal, parents used three areas most frequently: attendance, daily grades, and report cards. Approximately 70% of parents responded that their communication had improved with their children about academic matters since they started using the SchoolMAX family portal, and 90% of parents responded that the SchoolMAX family portal was an effective or somewhat effective tool. Parents also expressed interest in the addition of additional information to the SchoolMAX family portal. Specifically, the top three additions parents wanted to see included homework assignments, high stakes test scores, and graduation requirements. Parents also reported that 92% of them spoke to their children at least 2 to 3 times per week about academics. Due to the low response rate of the parent non-user survey, potential barriers to using the SchoolMAX family portal could not be addressed in this study. However, this issue may be a useful research topic in a future study. Keywords: school to home communication, student information systems, family portal, parent portalItem INVESTIGATING HOW INDIVIDUAL SCHOOL INTERNAL SOCIAL NETWORKS CONTRIBUTE TO THE COMMUNICATION OF SYSTEMIC INITIATIVES IN A LARGE URBAN SCHOOL DISTRICT(2015) Kochanowski, Melissa Lynn; McLaughlin, Margaret J.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Implementation of initiatives and mandates in schools and districts has increased over the last decade and districts are constantly tasked with disseminating new information to staff in the schools. Recently studies have been conducted in the field of education using Social Network Analysis (SNA) to explore how information and knowledge flow between people in schools and districts in order to identify key disseminators, brokers, and hinders of information, as well as the overall patterns of communication. The purpose of this study was to examine the informal communication networks and key actors used to disseminate information about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in four elementary schools in a large urban school district. The study was based on the premise that obtaining a better understanding of the informal communication pathways in these schools would allow school and district leaders to better understand how information flows throughout schools and to determine whether the positions intended to communicate new information in a school were actually being used. This exploratory study used an online survey and SNA to identify the flow of and key actors for communication around two initiatives, CCSS and Data Wise. The findings suggest that each of the four schools had highly centralized networks where only a few key staff members were integral for sharing information about initiatives. The key people in each school tended to be administrators and individuals who held two positions. One of the key positions in each school was the Professional Development Lead Teacher (PDLT), which is the position the District had created to ensure information about key initiatives was disseminated.Item Neural Bases of Emotional Language Processing in Individuals with and without Autism(2015) Sand, Lesley Ann; Bolger, Donald J.; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A fundamental aspect of successful social interactions is the ability to accurately infer others’ verbal communication, often including information related to the speaker’s feelings. Autism spectrum disorder is characterized by language and social-affective impairments, and also aberrant functional neural responses to socially-relevant stimuli. The main objective of the current research was to examine the behavioral and neural effects of making affective inferences from language lacking overt prosody or explicit emotional words in individuals with and without autism. In neurotypical individuals, the current data are consistent with previous studies showing that verbal emotional stimuli enhances activation of brain regions generally responsive to discourse, and also “social-affective” brain regions, specifically medial/orbital frontal regions, bilateral middle temporal areas, temporal parietal junction/superior temporal gyri and pCC/PC. Moreover, these regions respond differentially to positive and negative valence, most clearly in the medial frontal area. Further, results suggest that mentalizing alone does not account for the differences between emotional and neutral stories, as all of our stories required similar inferencing of the feelings of the protagonist. In autism, there is general agreement that the neurodevelopmental disorder is marked by impairments in pragmatic language understandings, emotional processes, and the ability to “mentalize,” others’ thoughts, intentions and beliefs. However, findings are mixed regarding the precise nature of emotional language understandings. Results of the present study suggest that autistic individuals are able to make language-based emotional inferences, and that like neurotypical controls, social-affective brain regions show task-related facilitation effects for emotional compared to neutral valence. However, the neural activations in the autism group were generally greater than controls, especially in response to emotion. Additionally, results showed greater difficulty with incongruent judgments in participants with autism. Together, these findings represent a first step toward revealing social-affective abilities in the language context in autism, despite irregular brain response. Such understandings are critical to generating effective intervention strategies and therapeutic practices for autistic individuals and their families. For remediation to be most beneficial, one must understand and utilize areas of skill, and leverage those to positively impact deficits.Item Going to the Source: A Case Study of Four Faculty and Their Approaches to Writing Instruction(2015) Callow, Megan; O'Flahavan, John; Malen, Betty; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines four college professors’ approaches to writing instruction in the disciplines of history and engineering. An investigation of writing instruction in two disparate disciplinary contexts contributes to our understanding of how instructors approach writing instruction in the disciplines, and which factors encourage and inhibit writing instruction. This study proposes and assesses the validity of a guiding conceptual framework, which posits that the primary factors influencing faculty’s approaches to writing instruction are academic biography, disciplinary identity, and educational ideology. The study employs a qualitative case study methodology, and data sources include in-depth interviews, field observations, and analysis of documents such as syllabi and writing prompts. This dissertation is founded on a premise that the instructor is an under-studied but essential player in the Writing in the Disciplines movement. The study reveals more about the nature of discipline-based writing instruction, and proposes a conceptual framework for future research on instructional approaches to disciplinary writing.Item A Portrait of School District Crisis Management: Leadership Choices in Montgomery County during the Sniper Shootings of October 2002(2010) Porter, Brian Joseph; Mawhinney, Hanne B.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The actions of two assailants who shot and killed 10 people and wounded three others, including a student, in the region around Washington, D.C., in October 2002, provides the backdrop for a qualitative study of the emergency response by school district leaders in Montgomery County, Maryland. The study explores and describes the experiences of the district's superintendent and a group of leadership staff, including the author as a participant researcher, and two elected officials and a union president who contributed to the decisions and actions. A non-evaluative study, based on portraiture in the form of case study, the narrative report provides often minute-to-minute detail of the events of the case and a unique perspective of crisis management and decision making at the school district level. The study revealed aspects of the case regarding implementation of an emergency response plan, involvement of principals, management style, political extremes, and phases of the crisis. The study also illuminated targeted objectives for decision and actions, including a central focus on mental health and communications. The study reflects a subject area that is largely overlooked in the research of education leadership. Implications from the study are that school district leaders need specific training and experience necessary to manage a crisis, make decisions under crisis circumstances, and improve their performance through practice. The study identifies licensure for school district leaders as a way to attain a standardized level of competency in crisis management and decision making skills. The study also provides an entry point for further research in educational crisis management and decision making. In particular, the study explores a unique blend of research encompassing critical tasks in public leadership during a crisis, complex transformational processes among the components of a school district's social system, and expectations of high reliability in organizational environments that support mindfulness and expertise.