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 An Archipelago of Thinkers: The Free School Movement as a Social Movement(2015) Biancolli, Dani Ellen; Hutt, Ethan; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The Free School Movement of the 1960s was a short educational reform effort that grew out of the anti-establishment and anti-authoritarian ideas of the counterculture. This group of radical thinkers included individuals like Jonathan Kozol, George Dennison, and John Holt and built upon the rich history of education reform in the United States. This study investigates whether the framework created by sociologist Charles Tilly to study social movements can be applied to education reform efforts like the Free School Movement. The goal of the study is twofold. First, it is to determine whether the Free School Movement can be termed a social movement using Tilly's framework and thus, if the framework can be used to create a common language for the study of educational reform efforts. Second, the study situates the Free School Movement within the larger stream of American educational history. Ultimately, the study concludes that the Free School Movement can be termed a social movement according to Tilly's definition. In determining this, the study also shows that Tilly's framework can, with a few modifications, be used to study education reform efforts and to provide a basis for comparison and analysis. In addition, the study is able to demonstrate that the Free School Movement wrestled with the same tensions common to many educational reform efforts in American history. While those who participated in the Free School Movement believed that they were attempting something new and different, this study shows that the Movement was part of a long struggle to determine if education should be viewed as a public or private good.Item THE NDEA, LOYALTY, AND COMMUNITY: RESISTANCE AT TWO LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGES(2014) Botti, John McDonough; MacDonald, Victoria-Maria; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)As part of the effort to supply "brainpower" for the American cold war effort, the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) of 1958 provided a loan program to aid under-resourced postsecondary students. Elements of the NDEA story--the increased federal financial support for higher education; the rhetorical and practical affiliation of schooling, national security, and patriotism; and the easy relationship between an irresistible military-industrial complex and a compliant academic culture--seem to support conventional narratives of post-World War II society and higher education. These narratives hold that the combined forces of research funding and a cold war discourse which demanded conformity often co-opted and reshaped the institutional purposes of American universities. Rejecting the shorthand that "higher education" in the twentieth century was synonymous with the experience of elite research universities, and that significant American institutions generally complied with and even promoted cold war security and defense policies, allows stories unaccounted for in traditional historical narratives to emerge. In the case of the NDEA, two small liberal arts colleges--Swarthmore and Haverford--took a leading role in refusing federal monies offered by the legislation, in protest of an attached disclaimer affidavit. This affidavit was part of a loyalty provision in the legislation which required aid recipients to disclaim membership in or support of "subversive" organizations. From the first, this provision was a point of controversy among collegiate faculties and administrators, who saw in the affidavit a political test that imperiled nascent concepts of academic freedom, and also established dangerous precedent that could influence the direction of future education bills. While resistance eventually galvanized among many schools nationwide--and though higher profile institutions such as Harvard and Yale would ultimately emerge as its public faces--much of the initial example of dissent was promulgated by the non-participation of Swarthmore and Haverford. The example of the purpose and community identity articulated by these two schools during the NDEA controversy suggests the possibility of reclaiming narrative space for the residential liberal arts college in the history of cold war higher education, and perhaps in the present day as well.Item James E. Alatis: A Life in Language An Oral History(2012) Coomber, Nicole M.; Finkelstein, Barbara; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This oral history tells the story of James E. Alatis, who served as dean of the Georgetown School of Languages and Linguistics (SLL) and as the first executive director of the professional organization Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Born to Greek immigrants in Weirton, West Virginia in 1926, his preparation for leadership in language education included an upbringing as a child of immigrants and Greek community school. In this environment, Alatis learned to be an interpreter for his parents and for his community. In his later leadership of transformational organizations in the language education field, he institutionalized a style of leadership characterized by the ability to promote a vision and interpret the needs of various groups. His interpretive leadership style fostered collaboration towards a common vision. His story underscores the essential role of linguistics in language education, advocates for a close relationship between government and academia, and promotes applied linguistics as key for language learning and scholarship. He leads by facilitating collaboration and translating among different groups. His vision of language education proved prescient after over forty years in the field of language education and despite challenges presented to it by a change in leadership at TESOL and the closing of the SLL. Alatis's story both opens a window to this period of history in language education and stands as an example of academic leadership in the field.Item Countering the Master Narrative: The Development of the Alternative Black Curriculum in Social Studies, 1890-1940(2012) Murray, Alana D.; MacDonald, Victoria M; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Document: COUNTERING THE MASTER NARRATIVE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ALTERNATIVE BLACK CURRICULUM IN SOCIAL STUDIES, 1890-1940 Alana D. Murray, Ph.D., Curriculum And Instruction, specialization in Minority and Urban Education Directed By: Professor, Victoria-Marĩa MacDonald, and Department of Teaching and Learning, Policy and Leadership The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the development of the alternative black curriculum in social studies from 1890-1940. W.E.B. Du Bois and Carter G. Woodson worked in collaboration with women educators Nannie H. Burroughs and Anna Julia Cooper to create an alternative black curriculum that would support the intellectual growth of black children. There is a growing body of work, initially articulated by male scholars, that demonstrates the basic principles of the alternative black curriculum, a curriculum that reinterprets dominant narratives in US and world history about the African and African-American experience. My study illustrates how this curriculum was in many ways supplemented and even furthered by an ongoing dialogue with the pedagogical work of African-American women school founders, administrators, librarians, and teachers. Embracing both a critical race theory and integrated gender framework, an analysis of the alternative black curriculum will deepen and strengthen our understanding of the diverse contributors to social studies. Utilizing archival materials from the collection of Nannie Helen Burroughs in the Library of Congress, I document the ways in which women co-created an alternative black curriculum that challenged traditional narratives. I conducted a textual reading of the pageant, When Truth Gets A Hearing, authored by Nannie H. Burroughs, in order to establish how black women contributed to the development of the alternative black curriculum. I also compared When Truth Gets A Hearing to W.E.B. Du Bois's pageant, The Star of Ethiopia. In addition, I developed a case study of the social studies curriculum for National Training School for Women and Girls (NTS), a school Nannie H. Burroughs established with the explicit purpose of developing and nurturing African-American girls. The intent of my case study is to document how the alternative black curriculum in social studies was implemented in a school setting, with the hope that it might serve as a blueprint that teachers of social studies can use to restructure the current social studies curriculum to include a more comprehensive understanding of black history.Item Constructing Home Economics in Imperial Japan(2011) Tatsumi, Yukako; Finkelstein, Barbara; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores the life and work of two Japanese women, Miyakawa Sumi (1875-1948) and Inoue Hide (1875-1963), who became pioneers of domestic education in Japan in the first half of the twentieth century. They discovered home economics as a field of study, went to the Western nations in an attempt to explore its contours and possibilities, and returned to Japan where they introduced and institutionalized a distinctly Japanese variant of domestic education. Their life stories reveal two distinctive constructions of home economics specifically due to the distinct purposes of domestic education. Miyakawa, who borrowed the British model of practice-oriented domestic training, aspired to modernize women's technical competence in an attempt to advance women's self-sufficiency in household management. She believed that the individual household was a fundamental unit of state and essential to national economic development. Accordingly, she sought to mobilize women for serving the state through self-sufficient household management. By contrast, Inoue adopted scientific and sociological paradigms for home management that she had discovered at elite educational institutions in the United States. She sought to elevate the scholarly position of home economics in an attempt to legitimatize a gender-specific university education for women. Additionally, she promoted social activism in the hope of demonstrating women's civic leadership. Their life stories illuminate the key roles of home economics in expanding and advancing higher education for women. The emergence of advanced educational opportunities for women with marriage aspirations suggests a shift in public demand for programs that could credential and train ideal bridal candidates and expand their education to include post-secondary educational opportunities. Additionally, the emergence of an interdisciplinary framework for home management, the alternative to scientifically-based curricula, suggests a shift in a focus of domestic education from environmental solutions to social problems to the comprehensive pursuit of familial and social wellbeing. Using biography as a methodology, this study illuminates women's agency in refining the meaning of ideal womanhood, Ryôsai Kenbo (Good Wife, Wise Mother), uncovers the models with a high potential of acceptance specifically by urban middle-class women and suggests an expanded view of the mainstream discourse of ideal Japanese womanhood.