The liberation war was a watershed event in the history of Zimbabwe. According to the ZANU PF (Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front) ruling elites, an understanding of the common experiences of the people during the liberation war provides the best opportunity to mold a common national identity and consciousness. However, the representation of important historical events in a nation's history is problematic. At best events are manipulated for political purposes by the ruling elites, and at the worst they are distorted or exaggerated. In Zimbabwe, the representation of the ZAPU/ZIPRA and the ZANU/ZANLA as liberation movements in high school history textbooks during the armed struggle is a hot potato. This study critically examined and explored the contested "representational practices" of the ZAPU/ZIPRA and the ZANU/ZANLA as liberation movements during the Zimbabwean armed revolution. By means of qualitative content analysis, seven high school history textbooks from Zimbabwe were analyzed. Drawing from postcolonial perspectives and insights, particularly Fanon's concept of the pitfall of national consciousness, the study unveiled the way in which Zimbabwean high school textbooks portrayed the ZAPU/ZIPRA and the ZANU/ZANLA as very different liberation movements whose roles and contributions were unequal. High school textbooks depicted the ZANU/ZANLA as a …

This study was designed to investigate the correlational relationship between four school elements listed on the Texas Academic Progress Report (TAPR) and the academic achievement of 8th grade African American male students. Data for this study was provided from the Texas Education Agency's (TEA) Office for Public Information Requests. The study included four independent variables: percent of socioeconomically disadvantaged students, average years of teachers' experience, attendance rate and average class size in mathematics. The dependent variable was the 8th grade African American males' performance on the mathematics STAAR exam. The study examined scores from the mathematics STAAR exam for the years 2012-2014. The sample population included 1,540 schools and 47,169 individual test results. The results of the correlational analysis indicate that none of the independent variables were correlated to each other, but each of the independent variables had a statistically significant correlation with the dependent variable at the p < .05 level. The study also sought to explore the variance in academic achievement that could be explained by the four independent variables when used as a model. The results of the simple multiple regression suggest that not only were the results statistically significant at the p < .01 level, but …

Although studies have addressed high school English language arts (ELA) instruction, little is known about the decision-making process of ELA teachers. How do teachers decide between the resources and instructional strategies at their disposal? This study focused on two monolingual teachers who were in different schools and grades. They were teaching mainstream students or English Language Learners. Both employed an approach to writing instruction that emphasized cultural mediation. Two questions guided this study: How does the enactment of culturally mediated writing instruction (CMWI) in a mainstream classroom compare to the enactment in an ESL classroom? What is the nature of teacher decision-making in these high school classrooms during English language arts instruction? Data were collected and analyzed using qualitative methodologies. The findings suggest that one teacher, who was familiar with CMWI’s principles and practices and saw students as partners, focused her decisions on engagement and participation. The other teacher deliberately embedded CMWI as an instructional stance. Her decisions focused on empathy, caring and meaningful connections. These teachers enacted CMWI in different ways to meet their students’ needs. They embraced the students’ cultural resources, used and built on their linguistic knowledge, expanded thinking strategies to make difficult information comprehensible, provided authentic …

Corporal punishment is banned by state statute in 31 of the 50 U.S states. The 19 states that still allow the practice are largely located in the South and the Rocky Mountain West. However, data indicate that the practice of corporal punishment is still largely a Southern phenomenon. In the 19 states that allow the practice to continue in schools, many have seen the use of the disciplinary technique decline. Existing research documents the negative effects and very little research supports any positive benefits of corporal punishment. This study analyzes school board policies from the 67 public school districts in the state of Florida to determine if trends in policies and incidents of corporal punishment are similar Texas and North Carolina. Research on Texas and North Carolina indicate corporal punishment is used more frequently in districts with smaller enrollments, and in more rural areas. Data from this study suggests that the decrease in the number of incidents of corporal punishment as well as the concentration of the practice among school districts in Florida school follows the same trends of declining use that exist in Texas and North Carolina public schools. Findings illustrate a need for continued research of corporal punishment …

This dissertation analyzed court decisions in injuries on school grounds cases under the Louisiana Governmental Claims Act. The question addressed was: How have the Louisiana courts interpreted the Louisiana Governmental Claims Act in litigation against Louisiana school districts and their employees? The intent of this study was to show how Louisiana's legal system has evolved, and how that evolution affected tort cases involving school boards and school board employees. Doctrinal legal research was the methodology used to answer the research question. To limit the number of cases analyzed, this study only focused on tort claims involving injury on school property. In order to gain a broad perspective, tort claims cases filed prior to the 1974 Louisiana Constitution, cases filed after the 1974 Louisiana Constitution, and cases filed after the 1995 Louisiana Liability Limits Amendment, and the Louisiana Governmental Claims Act of 1996 were analyzed. By analyzing the tort claims brought against Louisiana school districts and employees during the various time-periods, it was clear to see how the case rulings reflected the frequent changes of the Louisiana Constitution and its' laws. In the end, the state continued to control who could sue them and how much they would pay in damages.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a 1:1 iPad initiative on student engagement in the classroom, as perceived by students. The design of this case study consisted of a purposeful sample of six, 5th grade students from a suburban elementary school in North Central Texas who participated in surveys, individual interviews, and focus group discussions. Two research questions guided this study: (1) How do elementary school students perceive they are authentically engaged when using iPads in the classroom? (2) What types of instructional strategies do elementary school students perceive to be most relevant and meaningful? Data collected to answer the research questions was analyzed using thematic analysis, which entailed identifying recurring themes within the data, comparing, coding, combining, and then reporting them. The findings from the research suggested that 1:1 initiatives can foster engaging learning experiences that are meaningful to students and that the iPad provided students a more personalized learning experience which had a positive effect on their engagement. Additional findings disclosed that the type of assignments and schoolwork that students were able to do with the iPad also positively impacted their engagement and interest in the content and their learning. The conclusions reached …

Relational trust exists between and among individuals within complex human organizations; however, within a school, the relationship between teachers and the principal is at the heart of the organization. The purpose of this mixed method study was to gain an understanding of the relationship between teachers' trust in their principal and teacher efficacy and determine which leadership behaviors and facets of trust have the greatest influence on the trust relationship between teachers and the principal. The overarching goal of this dissertation study was to inform district-level administrators and principals so they are afforded the opportunity to reflect on their behavior, make changes if necessary to cultivate trusting relationships within their organization, and positively influence teacher efficacy. A convergent parallel mixed methods research study was conducted in two rural school districts in North Texas to identify teacher perceptions related to the leadership behaviors that influence organizational trust, and reveal the correlation between trust in the principal and teacher efficacy. The teachers who participated in the on-line survey named communication as the leadership behavior most closely related to their feelings of trust toward the principal. The facet of trust considered most significant by all teachers was reliability; however, a subset of high …

The purpose of this study was to see how students used podcasts in an eighth-grade American history unit and the value they placed on them as an educational tool. The 6-week study was conducted in a suburban middle school in a district that is part of a large metropolitan area in Texas. Participants included 29 students and 2 eighth-grade teachers. The research questions were the following: (1) How do students use podcasts in an eighth-grade American history class? (2) How do students perceive the impact of the podcasts on their overall learning of the subject material? and (3) Do the podcasts motivate the students to study? Quantitative data were collected through a Likert-scaled student survey and logs kept by students. Qualitative data were collected through an open-ended portion of the student survey, student focus group discussion, and a faculty interview. The treatment tools were audio podcasts in the form of vocabulary-quiz reviews, historical vignettes, lectures, and a unit test review—all on the topic of the American Revolution. The data indicated that the students primarily used their computers at home to listen to the podcasts as they prepared for quizzes and/or the unit test. The students believed that the podcasts had …

The world of literacy has expanded alongside technology, and new literacies are being used as an alternative or an addition to traditional text. By including video gaming as literacy, the connection can be made between students' multimodal world outside of school with the world of literacy they encounter in school. This study took two approaches of a content study and a case study. A collective case study was used to examine the gaming experience of participants with three commercial video games falling into three separate genres: Sims FreePlay (simulation); Halo 1 (first person shooter); and World of Warcraft (role playing game). The 15 gamers were placed into three sets of five participants for each video game, and interviews were conducted to explore the gaming experience in relation to stance and transaction, which are major components of Louise Rosenblatt's reader response theory. Limited research has been conducted regarding reader response theory and the new literacies; by using the reader response lens, the gaming experience was compared to the reading experience to add the new literacies to the existing literature on reader response. As a way to look at both the text and the experience, a content study examined three mainstream video …

This study used a critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for government. These are the learning standards that public schools are required to use as the curriculum in Texas. Additionally, the study critically examined the Texas State Board of Education meeting minutes from the spring of 2010, when the board revised all social studies TEKS. James Gee’s framework for conducting CDA was used to analyze the government TEKS and meeting minutes to uncover the ways in which the language in the documents defines democratic and citizenship education in Texas, determine if the language creates an imbalance of power among participants in education, and do these documents agree with educational philosophers’ construct of citizenship and democratic education? The results of the CDA concluded that the Texas learning standards, and the words of many SBOE members reveal a preference toward right-wing, conservative beliefs. The construct of citizenship and democratic education created by the Texas government TEKS and SBOE meeting minutes contradicts these notions, as defined by educational theorists, and excludes those participants who do not embrace these beliefs.