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The Latina/o Student's Experience in Social Studies: A Phenomenological Study of Eighth Grade Students
Title
The Latina/o Student's Experience in Social Studies: A Phenomenological Study of Eighth Grade Students.
Creator
Busey, Christopher, Russell, William, Cintron Delgado, Rosa, Owens, James, Hopp, Carolyn, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
The purpose of this research investigation was to explore the experiences of eighth-grade Latina/o students in a large, urban school in the Southeastern United States. Overall, the study uncovered the essence of the Latino/a student experience in social studies and furthermore revealed that social studies is not meeting the needs of Latino students. Using phenomenology as a method of research, two interviews were conducted with twelve research participants who were selected through purposive...
Show moreThe purpose of this research investigation was to explore the experiences of eighth-grade Latina/o students in a large, urban school in the Southeastern United States. Overall, the study uncovered the essence of the Latino/a student experience in social studies and furthermore revealed that social studies is not meeting the needs of Latino students. Using phenomenology as a method of research, two interviews were conducted with twelve research participants who were selected through purposive sampling. In addition to the interviews, students wrote narratives and drew images as a form of data triangulation. The goal was to give students various methods for relaying their experiences. Data were analyzed using suggested methods of analysis by Moustakas (1994) and Creswell (2007).Using Critical Race Theory and Latino Critical Race Theory as a framework, results revealed that students experienced middle school social studies through the lens of race. Students felt oppressed by the curriculum and textbook due to the fact that culturally responsive teaching practices were primarily absent, diversity was presented only through a Black-White dichotomy, and the social studies curriculum was dominated by notions of White supremacy. Latina/o students experienced a curriculum that was boring as a result of teachers who were boring. Students validated the use of Critical Race Theory and Latino Critical Race Theory as a framework for educational research at the middle school level.In all, this research investigation fills a void in social studies research. The voices and experiences of Latino learners in social studies have been absent in social studies research. Educators can use this research study to alter the approaches to the social studies curriculum for the betterment of our culturally diverse learners.
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Date Issued
2013
Identifier
CFE0004825, ucf:49738
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004825
IN THE CRITICAL TRADITION: AN EXAMINATION OF NATIONAL BOARD CERTIFIED TEACHERS IN A CENTRAL FLORIDA SCHOOL DISTRICT
Title
IN THE CRITICAL TRADITION: AN EXAMINATION OF NATIONAL BOARD CERTIFIED TEACHERS IN A CENTRAL FLORIDA SCHOOL DISTRICT.
Creator
Flanigan, Jacquelyn, Holt, Larry, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
In 1986, the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy published A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century in which it recommended that a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) be established to ascertain and institute criteria for teacher excellence (Steiner, 1995). No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) mandated that every classroom employ a "highly qualified teacher" (No Child Left Behind, 2001a); moreover, NCLB articulated the relationship between improving...
Show moreIn 1986, the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy published A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century in which it recommended that a National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) be established to ascertain and institute criteria for teacher excellence (Steiner, 1995). No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) mandated that every classroom employ a "highly qualified teacher" (No Child Left Behind, 2001a); moreover, NCLB articulated the relationship between improving student achievement and higher standards for qualifying classroom teachers (Rotberg, Futrell & Lieberman, 1998). Research conducted in Miami-Dade County supports Florida's use of National Board Certification (NBC) as an "effective signal of teacher quality"(CNA Corporation, 2004, p.1). Critical theorist, Michael Apple, emphasized the role of education as an agent for the maintenance of hegemony (Apple, 2004). However, Apple further posited that the actual bureaucracy of school – the institution of education itself – is reflective of the same consumerist ideology of society, thus making the hegemony even more complete. Using the aforementioned theoretical construct, the researcher examined the development of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), the distribution of Nationally Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) in a central Florida school district, and their professional responsibilities as a means of examining whether this mechanism for identifying "highly qualified teachers" achieves its stated aim of providing every student with access to a "highly qualified" teacher, as is legislated and funded per NCLB.
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Date Issued
2008
Identifier
CFE0002366, ucf:47805
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0002366
A phenomenological study of Black fifth grade students' perceptions of social studies and a discussion with secondary students.
Title
A phenomenological study of Black fifth grade students' perceptions of social studies and a discussion with secondary students.
Creator
Walker, Irenea, Russell, William, Hewitt, Randall, Hopp, Carolyn, Huff-Corzine, Lin, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
The problem I address in this study is the lack of Black elementary students' knowledge and interest of the social studies content. Black students who lack a true identity of self, fail to develop into productive citizens. Although previous studies have examined Black students' experiences in secondary social studies classrooms, few have thoroughly examined Black students' experiences in the elementary classrooms. For this study, I analyze Black fifth grade students' perceptions of the social...
Show moreThe problem I address in this study is the lack of Black elementary students' knowledge and interest of the social studies content. Black students who lack a true identity of self, fail to develop into productive citizens. Although previous studies have examined Black students' experiences in secondary social studies classrooms, few have thoroughly examined Black students' experiences in the elementary classrooms. For this study, I analyze Black fifth grade students' perceptions of the social studies content. Identifying these perceptions is imperative so educators can adjust their pedagogical practices based on what they deem as important for educational growth, and the experiences of Black students. Allowing Black students to share their experiences and express their thoughts is conducive to their knowledge and awareness of the subject (Scott, 2017). To grasp an authentic analysis of student understanding educators must start in the primary grades. Previous research highlights that curriculum and instruction fails to align with what students, especially Black students need to be successful in the classroom. Identifying these areas in elementary school will create a smooth transition for students as they advance to the next level.
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Date Issued
2018
Identifier
CFE0007591, ucf:52547
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007591
PATCHWORK CULTURE: QUILT TACTICS AND DIGITEXTUALITY
Title
PATCHWORK CULTURE: QUILT TACTICS AND DIGITEXTUALITY.
Creator
Barrett Ferrier, Michelle, Saper, Craig, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
Embedded in the quilt top, the fabric patches are relays, time pathways to stories and memories of their former owners. Through the quilts, the voices of the past survive. The stories trace a path of connection between oral traditions, storytelling, the invention of meaning, and the preservation of cultural memory. The theory and method described herein use the quilt patchwork metaphor as the basis for a web interface for designing and modeling knowledge-based graphical, narrative, and...
Show moreEmbedded in the quilt top, the fabric patches are relays, time pathways to stories and memories of their former owners. Through the quilts, the voices of the past survive. The stories trace a path of connection between oral traditions, storytelling, the invention of meaning, and the preservation of cultural memory. The theory and method described herein use the quilt patchwork metaphor as the basis for a web interface for designing and modeling knowledge-based graphical, narrative, and multimedia data. More specifically, the method comprises a digital storytelling and knowledge management tool that allows one or more users to create, save, store, and visually map or model digital stories. The method creates a digital network of a community's stories for digital ethnography work. Digital patches that represent the gateway to the stories of an individual are pieced together into a larger quilt design, creating a visual space that yields the voices of its creators at the click of a mouse. Through this narrative mapping, users are able to deal with complexity, ambiguity, density, and information overload. The method takes the traditional quilt use and appropriates it into a digital apparatus so that the user is connected to multiple points of view that can be dynamically tried out and compared. The hypertextual quilting method fulfills the definition of a deconstructive hypertext and emancipatory social science research methodologies by creating a collaborative, polyvocal interface where users have access to the code, content and conduits to rewrite culture's history with subaltern voices. In this digital place of intertextuality, stories are juxtaposed with images in a montage that denies the authority of a single voice and refuses fixed meaning. In dialogue, contestation, and play, the digitextuality of the Digital Story Quilt provides a praxis for critical theory. The Digital Story Quilt method concerns itself with questions of identity, the processes through which these identities are developed, the mechanics of processes of privilege and marginalization and the possibility of political action through narrative performance against these processes.
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Date Issued
2007
Identifier
CFE0001659, ucf:47239
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0001659
Using Hashtags to Disambiguate Aboutness in Social Media Discourse: A Case Study of #OrlandoStrong
Title
Using Hashtags to Disambiguate Aboutness in Social Media Discourse: A Case Study of #OrlandoStrong.
Creator
DeArmas, Nicholas, Vie, Stephanie, Salter, Anastasia, Beever, Jonathan, Dodd, Melissa, Wheeler, Stephanie, University of Central Florida
Abstract / Description
While the field of writing studies has studied digital writing as a response to multiple calls for more research on digital forms of writing, research on hashtags has yet to build bridges between different disciplines' approaches to studying the uses and effects of hashtags. This dissertation builds that bridge in its interdisciplinary approach to the study of hashtags by focusing on how hashtags can be fully appreciated at the intersection of the fields of information research, linguistics,...
Show moreWhile the field of writing studies has studied digital writing as a response to multiple calls for more research on digital forms of writing, research on hashtags has yet to build bridges between different disciplines' approaches to studying the uses and effects of hashtags. This dissertation builds that bridge in its interdisciplinary approach to the study of hashtags by focusing on how hashtags can be fully appreciated at the intersection of the fields of information research, linguistics, rhetoric, ethics, writing studies, new media studies, and discourse studies. Hashtags are writing innovations that perform unique digital functions rhetorically while still hearkening back to functions of both print and oral rhetorical traditions. Hashtags function linguistically as indicators of semantic meaning; additionally, hashtags also perform the role of search queries on social media, retrieving texts that include the same hashtag. Information researchers refer to the relationship between a search query and its results using the term (")aboutness(") (Kehoe and Gee, 2011). By considering how hashtags have an aboutness, the humanities can call upon information research to better understand the digital aspects of the hashtag's search function. Especially when hashtags are used to organize discourse, aboutness has an effect on how a discourse community's agendas and goals are expressed, as well as framing what is relevant and irrelevant to the discourse. As digital activists increasingly use hashtags to organize and circulate the goals of their discourse communities, knowledge of ethical strategies for hashtag use will help to better preserve a relevant aboutness for their discourse while enabling them to better leverage their hashtag for circulation. In this dissertation, through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the Twitter discourse that used #OrlandoStrong over the five-month period before the first anniversary of the Pulse shooting, I trace how the #OrlandoStrong discourse community used innovative rhetorical strategies to combat irrelevant content from ambiguating their discourse space. In Chapter One, I acknowledge the call from scholars to study digital tools and briefly describe the history of the Pulse shooting, reflecting on non-digital texts that employed #OrlandoStrong as memorials in the Orlando area. In Chapter Two, I focus on the literature surrounding hashtags, discourse, aboutness, intertextuality, hashtag activism, and informational compositions. In Chapter Three, I provide an overview of the stages of grounded theory methodology and the implications of critical discourse analysis before I detail how I approached the collection, coding, and analysis of the #OrlandoStrong Tweets I studied. The results of my study are reported in Chapter Four, offering examples of Tweets that were important to understanding how the discourse space became ambiguous through the use of hashtags. In Chapter Five, I reflect on ethical approaches to understanding the consequences of hashtag use, and then I offer an ethical recommendation for hashtag use by hashtag activists. I conclude Chapter Five with an example of a classroom activity that allows students to use hashtags to better understand the relationship between aboutness, (dis)ambiguation, discourse communities, and ethics. This classroom activity is provided with the hope that instructors from different disciplines will be able to provide ethical recommendations to future activists who may benefit from these rhetorical strategies.
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Date Issued
2018
Identifier
CFE0007322, ucf:52136
Format
Document (PDF)
PURL
http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007322