Service learning is a widely accepted method for preservice teachers to gain knowledge about the communities they may someday serve. Critical multicultural service learning is commonly used to help preservice teachers explore issues of inequality, power, and manifestations of social reproduction in school systems, and is intended to foster…

The city of Las Vegas, Nevada has experienced a slowdown in tourism, a drop in property taxes and consolidated tax revenue used to support the city's operating budget, and a lack of economic diversification. Because of these changes, the ability of displaced workers to learn marketable employment skills continues to be an important issue for…

Since the mid-1990s, the link between recasts and L2 development has been extensively tested, and the results from those studies have largely demonstrated that recasts have a positive effect on L2 learning. With this firm support from previous empirical evidence, studies have begun to focus on how recasts assist learning and under what conditions…

One important outcome of the restructuring of the New Orleans school system post-Hurricane Katrina, and the subsequent performance of students, was an awareness that some fundamental premises in No Child Left Behind (NCLB) should be revisited. An examination of student performance in the restructured school system, for example, raised questions…

When major news breaks in our hyper-connected society, we increasingly turn to an encyclopedia for the latest information. Wikipedia's coverage of breaking news events attracts unique levels of attention; the articles with the most page views, edits, and contributors in any given month since 2003 are related to current events. Extant…

This dissertation analyzes the motivations, perspectives, and barriers of adult learners returning to school to receive a high school diploma after previously dropping out of a traditional high school setting. Specifically, this study explored the backgrounds, discrimination factors, income variables, perspectives, and environmental and emotional…

The idea that individual behavior is the result of society's influence on individual self-concept beliefs reflects more than a century of theory and research. Therefore, this study focuses on self-concept as a construct of primordial human characteristics such as emotion, aspiration, love, conflict, anger, jealousy, contradiction, guilt, and…

This qualitative study examined instructional assistants' (IAs) and teachers' perceptions of culturally responsive and quality instructional practices for young children, especially those from various cultural and linguistic backgrounds and those who might have disabilities from low socioeconomic families, in Head Start classrooms. In…

Guided reading, as developed by Fountas and Pinnell (2001), has been a staple of elementary reading programs for the past decade. Teachers in the elementary school setting utilize this small group, tailored instruction in order to differentiate and meet the instructional needs of the students. The literature shows academic benefit for students who…

The signing of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001 created a need for Title 1 principals to conceptualize and operationalize parent engagement. This study examines how three urban principals in Arizona implemented the mandates of the Act as it pertains to parent involvement. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to examine how principals…

This dissertation was designed to examine the effects of a site-based teacher mentoring program on teacher confidence and effectiveness in an elementary school in Florida. Based on preliminary data, there was a need for system organizational change to improve teacher confidence and performance with the district's Document Based Question (DBQ)…

The complicated world of disaster management requires urban search and rescue (US&R) members to be well trained to respond to complex, unpredictable, and difficult to manage disasters anywhere in the world on short notice. Disasters are becoming more complex and difficult to manage as was witnessed by the multi-faceted disaster in Japan in…

Researchers have spent a relatively small amount of time focusing on homeschooling. The few studies which have been completed regarding homeschooling have skirted the question of the decision-making process taken by parents as they choose to begin or discontinue homeschooling. The void in the academic knowledge regarding this growing trend in…

This qualitative study used a triangulation of survey, conversational interviews, and observations in an authentic setting to explore the phenomenon of reading motivation from the perspectives of a specific group of individuals. Five participants, all African American fifth grade boys qualifying for meal subsidies, gathered in a local youth…

The purposes of the study were to identify the employment of biology adjunct faculty, and to determine what support and professional development is provided for them across three sizes of rural community colleges. This study used a mixed-method research design. Nine rural community colleges participated in the study. Quantitative data were…