College of Education

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    High Hopes and High Hurdles: The Early Development of the Washington D.C. Public School System, 1804-1862
    (2010) Hoffman, Benjamin Polk; MacDonald, Victoria M; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    In this history, I investigate the early development of Washington D.C.'s public schools. Between 1804 and 1862, the school system overcame a long period of failed hopes and underfunding to build a legitimate infrastructure for common schooling before the Civil War. The unique context of Washington D.C. affected the public schools, but themes central to 19th century urban education across the country also surface in the District. The progression of the system from charity schooling to universal education mirrored the development of other public school systems in the Northeast. The evolution of the language of educational advocacy in D.C., from calls for republican virtue to arguments for social reform, similarly correlated with national developments in public education. Outside of these similarities, however, the Southern nature of the District, the presence of national politicians, and the symbolic importance of the national capital, distinguished the experience of Washington's pre-1862 public schools.
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    The Children Who Ran For Congress and the School Up On The Hill: An Oral-Institutional History of Capitol Page School, 1926-1983
    (2008-05-01) Gonzalez, Darryl James; Finkelstein, Barbara J.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Although the corpus of work on Congressional history is impressive, there is one aspect of life inside the Capitol that has been neglected for over 200 years. Young messenger boys, or Pages, have worked for Congress since its early sessions but have never received much attention. This dissertation traces the evolution of Capitol Page School and by doing so, also follows the evolution of the larger Page system. The purpose of the study is to find out what the historical record can reveal about the history of Capitol Page School. Once that story is told, conclusions can be drawn about things like institutional inertia in Congress, preserving tradition, unusual childhood occupations and informal civic education, among others. Using both a documents review and an oral history approach allowed for a rich description of the evolution of Capitol Page School. Chapter Two reports on Page culture before 1926, concentrating on the relationships between Members of Congress and the boys, and how Pages formed their own culture and community as adjuncts of the Congress. Chapter Three examines the social conditions that were present in the 1920s which forced the formation of a school specifically for Pages inside the Capitol, run as a private enterprise by an individual teacher, and the subsequent attempts to continue the school. Chapter Four describes how Senator Harold Burton intervened to improve conditions at Capitol Page School, and also includes a previously unknown cache of information and behind-the-scenes maneuvering. Chapter Five explains the physical move of the school and then traces the substantial legislation that Congress failed to pass in order to give Pages an official residence to live in, and describes the precarious nature of the school. Chapter Six gives special attention to three noteworthy subcultures within the Page system: girls, African-Americans and Supreme Court Pages, and describes how each group began and received special consideration. Chapter Seven reports on how Capitol Page School was forced to dissolve in the early 1980s and how two new schools were formed to replace it. Chapter Eight discusses what can be learned from the historical record.
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    The Politics of Securing Campus Budget Resources: A Case Study of Three Reputedly Exemplary Chairpersons at a Public University
    (2007-04-26) Southerland III, Ph.D., Wallace; Malen, Betty; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This exploratory, qualitative case study examines the budget strategies, or influence efforts, of three reputedly exemplary Chairpersons who sought campus budget resources to support their departments and academic priorities. A political perspective of academic organizations anchors the analytic framework for this study. The Chairpersons in this study are from the Departments of Sociology-Anthropology, Biology, and Communications in a College of Arts & Sciences in a public, comprehensive university. A cross-case analysis answers five central research questions that guided this inquiry. The evidence in this research reveals that the Chairpersons' reputation for being successful at securing campus resources is supported by evidence of favorable budget decision outcomes, by attributional data indicating that knowledgeable individuals view the Chairs as a major reason for the departments getting resources, and by behavioral data suggesting that the Chairs use power bases and political skill and will to influence resource allocation decisions. The key findings reveal that the Chairs: (1) broadened their targets of influence in an effort to shape allocation decisions for their departments; (2) sought reasonable budget resources which may have reduced difficulties in securing resources; (3) were successful, in part, because their requests were aligned with university priorities and the priorities of the Dean and campus leaders; (4) possessed relevant power resources that were viewed by some to be a factor in their success; and (5) employed a common set of strategies. This study extends current literature on general budgeting practices in higher education settings, budget strategies chosen by department Chairs, and the power and influence of academic department Chairs. Where some studies focus only on listing strategies or limiting analysis to strategies on preparing the budget itself, this study analyzes contextual issues and the dynamics that affect the choice of strategies for securing budget resources. Three conclusions and three recommendations for future research are included in the study.
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    LEARNING TO DIVIDE IN THE WORLD: YOUTH EXPERIENCES IN A MID-ATLANTIC COMPREHENSIVE HIGH SCHOOL 1950-2000
    (2005-07-22) Eick, Caroline Marie; Finkelstein, Barbara; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: LEARNING TO DIVIDE IN THE WORLD: YOUTH EXPERIENCES IN A MID-ATLANTIC COMPREHENSIVE HIGH SCHOOL (1950-2000) Caroline Marie Eick, Doctor of Philosophy, 2005 Dissertation directed by:Professor Barbara Finkelstein Department of Education Policy and Leadership This history interprets and critically examines the cross-gender, cross-racial, and cross-class relationships of serial generations of students, who attended a Mid-Atlantic comprehensive high school between 1950 and 2000, as revealed in the oral histories of thirty-seven alumni, African-American, white and Eastern European, richer and poorer. Miller High was chosen for its early integration in 1956, and for its location in a community that transformed, over the last half of the twentieth century, from rural, to suburban, to urban-suburban; and from a predominantly white middle-class town along which lived a small African-American community established since the nineteenth century, to a multicultural population that by the 1990s included Russian immigrants and African-American youth newly arrived from city schools. Alumni's recollections revealed three generations of students who, bound in time by different demographic configurations, different levels of school disciplinary measures, and different shades of hierarchy in student-teacher relations, constructed their associations with peers and school authorities markedly differently: "The Divided Generation" (1950-1969), "The Border-Crossing Generation" (1970-1985), and "The Re-divided Generation" (1986-2000). Of the three generations, "The Border-Crossing Generation" most freely crossed class, gender, and race divides. They attended Miller High at a time when school policies were relatively lax, graduating classes were still relatively small, and mostly neighborhood students from integrated feeder schools attended against the national backdrop of the civil rights movements. This analysis identifies how Miller High students across generations and across diverse backgrounds who felt exposed or alienated within school-imposed associations with peers, either when herded in large spaces such as the cafeteria or divided into tracks, or who could not find a place within youth-generated peer-groups that privileged shared interests and affinities over racial, and class identities, sought refuge within communities of shared ethnic, class, or racial backgrounds. It further identifies, within generational time periods, the role played by demographics and school authorities' disciplinary measures in loosening or reinforcing students' segregating tendencies.
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    The Transition of a Historically Black College to a Predominantly White Institution
    (2004-01-03) Brown, Ruth Payne; Dudley, James; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This study investigates the evolution of Bluefield State College from Black to White. The college is located in Bluefield, West Virginia and was founded in 1895 as an all-Black institution. By 1980 it lost that identity. This study attempted to determine why that transition occurred. The research examined the forces that played an essential role in the transition. They included the demographics of the college community, the socio-economic-politico forces, curricular and programmatic changes, and the role of the Alumni Association. These forces were examined from the pre-Brown vs. Board of Education 1954 Supreme Court decision throughout the transition to determine how each force impacted, influenced, or provided direction for the transition. Both a qualitative and quantitative approach was used to study these forces. The literature review included the history of Bluefield State College and other historically Black colleges regarding desegregation. The study also relied on media accounts, journals, magazines and other documents. Brown's Tipping Point Theory (2002) and Parker's Critical Race Theory (2003) provided a frame of reference to examine the social, economic and political forces affecting the transition. Descriptive data were gathered through the administration of 100 survey questionnaires and ten in-depth interviews. The findings indicated that all the forces except the role of the Alumni Association combined and interacted to bring about the transition of Bluefield State College from an all-Black to a predominantly White institution. While the 1954 Brown decision played a critical role it did not act alone to bring about the transition. Further, the findings of this study are consistent with Brown's (2002) earlier study of Bluefield State College and are also supported by Parker's (2004) Critical Race Theory and his research on desegregation. Finally, evidence that emerged from the study suggested that the Alumni Association remains the last vestige of Black tradition at Bluefield State College.