Street Smarts, School Smarts, and the Failure of Educational Policy in the Inner City: A Multilectical Approach to Pedagogy and the Teaching of Language Arts
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Abstract
Beyond the scores: Mathematics identities of African American and Hispanic fifth graders in an urban elementary community school
Year of Dissertation:
2012
As mathematics identity affects students' learning and doing of mathematics, it is critical to understand the mathematics identities of African American and Hispanic students as the mathematical performance and pursuits of far too many continue to lag behind. Further, as community schools have been shown to positively impact students in urban communities, it is also critical to understand how mathematics identities are developed within community schools. This study explores the culture, structures, and processes of an urban elementary community school including its afterschool archery program relative to fifth grade students' mathematics identities. It also explores students' math positioning, enactment, and perspectives in the classroom and archery.
From Nation-States to Neoliberalism: Language Ideologies and Governmentality
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Building on Foucault's concept of governmentality this research study examines the ways that current language ideologies marginalize the language practices of language minoritized students. The first half of this study examines the emergence of nation-state/colonial governmentality and its accompanying language ideologies as part of the European modernist project. It examines the emergence of nation-state/colonial governmentality in early US society with a particular focus on the early debates on language policy in the new nation. It then analyzes the impact of nation-state/colonial governmentality on contemporary US society through an exploration of the language ideologies utilized by both sides of the current debate over bilingual education.
Basic Mathematics Education and Graduation from Community College: An Interpretative Study
Year of Dissertation:
2011
This research examines the relationship between basic mathematics courses and educational attainment at a City University of New York (CUNY) community college in the Bronx, where graduation rates hover at 25% or less even after students have attended classes for seven or eight years. Three-quarters of students leave college within the first three years after their original enrollment. This research examines the extent to which failure in mathematics basic courses is associated with the high dropout rate, low graduation rate, and length of time-to-degree.
Culturally Responsive Pedagogy for Teacher Candidates of Color in Teacher Education Programs
Year of Dissertation:
2011
This dissertation study uses culturally responsive pedagogy as a conceptual framework for exploring how teacher educators structure content, pedagogy, and classroom communities for teacher candidates of color at two model teacher education programs. Using multiple data sources including interviews, focus groups, classroom observations, faculty and teacher candidate logs, and course syllabi and assignments, this study found that the content knowledge and learning experiences of teacher candidates of color was enhanced by pedagogy that was culturally and linguistically raced, gendered and couched in a critical analysis of inequality. "Critically conscious" teacher educators were more likely to integrate "sociocultural consciousness" into their pedagogy, which resulted in the following changes in teacher candidates of color: 1) facilitated among teacher candidates of color an empowered view of their academic abilities and resources; 2) equipped them with critical epistemology to be "change agents" in public schools; and 3) provided them with a cultural and linguistic toolbox for instruction for all students. Findings suggest that "critically conscious" teacher educators may increase the likelihood of teacher candidates of color becoming highly qualified and effective teachers in the future. A theoretical framework for cultivating and identifying "critically conscious" teacher educator pedagogy for teacher candidates of color is also provided, in addition to a discussion of the implications for accountability measures in teacher education policy.
CONTESTATION AND POSSIBILITIES: EXPERIENCES IN THE `OTHER' URBAN CLASSROOMS
Year of Dissertation:
2011
The research presented in this dissertation is a response to the general lack of research conducted in independent urban schools. In my work, I present varied vignettes that aim to provide a glimpse into the lifeworlds of students within such schools and how they too struggle to learn science. There are two major goals of this study. First, I encourage readers to rethink current conceptions of urban schooling and redefine what it means to be an urban learner. Secondly, I intend to demonstrate how the cogenerated action plans of coteachers and cogenerative dialogue groups can serve to make science accessible to students whom are diagnosed and placed in mainstreamed educational settings. The idea is to show that by transforming science learning contexts into cosmopolitan learning communities, students can become successful in science. Through a three-year ethnographic study of middle science classrooms in an independent school in New York City, I present explorations of the culture and context of the independent urban classroom as a chief means to meet my stated goals. By utilizing cogenerative dialogues and coteaching, I show how students and teachers can work together as co-researchers and coteachers that engage in a dual process of creating structures that support science success.
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT IN PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS WHO ARE EXPLAINERS IN A SCIENCE CENTER: DIALECTICALLY DEVELOPING THEORY AND PRAXIS
Year of Dissertation:
2009
This dissertation investigates how teaching in a hands-on science center contributes to re/shaping one's teaching identity. Situated at the New York Hall of Science (NYHS) in Queens, New York, my research approach is to conduct a critical ethnography where the focus is on improving the teaching and learning of science for all involved. In particular, Explainers, floor staff at NYHS, who are studying to be science teachers, are invited to become co-researchers with me.
KEEPING COUNT OF ALL AND LOSING COUNT OF A FEW: THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT RATE
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Advisor:
Nicholas Michelli
The quality of the construction of the high school dropout rate is the policy issue investigated in this dissertation. This qualitative dissertation explores the constructs necessary to create a high school dropout rate and seeks to unearth complexities in the construction of the high school dropout rate. Every single year, approximately 1.2 million students do not earn a high school diploma.
To Educate Feeling: Implementing Social Integration Curriculum in Trinidad and Tobago, 1950 to 2000
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
Christa Altenstetter
In Trinidad and Tobago, a small multiethnic state in the Caribbean, education policies aimed at reducing inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions, and at integrating diverse ethnic and religious groups into a national identity were implemented as content and pedagogy in the social studies curriculum and as structural education policies meant to improve access to secondary schooling and social mobility for disadvantaged groups. Historical institutionalism theory in conjunction with frameworks and theoretical perspectives from comparative and international education, globalization and education, political science and public administration were used to analyze primary and secondary historical documents from the 1851 to 1950 period, semi-structured interviews of government bureaucrats and educators, and policy documents and policy-related documents from 1950 to 2000.
Using Cogenerative Dialogue to Transform the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics in Urban High School
Year of Dissertation:
2010
This dissertation focuses on improving the teaching and learning of mathematics in urban schools for African-American and minority students. My students played important roles as co-researchers in this two years ethnographic study conducted in a Queens, New York high school in which I employed cogenerative dialogue and coteaching as the two central research methods for connecting with students socially, culturally, and academically as I believe in a polyphonic and polysemic characterization of our classroom experiences. This is central in understanding how African-American and minority students interact, construct knowledge, and experience learning in urban schools. As such, different theories were utilized at different times to make sense of our practices and understandings as new outcomes are produced, as the study progressed. At the same time, my identity along with students' identities was constantly being transformed by our experiences in the classroom. At different stages of the research, our changing focus, ontology and epistemology dictated the theoretical method that was employed.