Library: Education

In November 1998, the author arrived in Mascarilla, a small village in Ecuador's predominantly-black Chota Valley, to begin a six-month teaching assignment at the Escuela "Hernando Tquez" (the local primary school). Based both on his own observations and on the assessments offered by various former students, parents, community leaders, and Ecuadorean scholars, the author judges the educational performance of the Escuela "Hernando Tquez" to be grossly inadequate. Indeed, the various shortcomings attributed to the school (and documented as a case study in chapters three and four of this bo...

The purpose of this study was to describe, using the tools of ethnography and qualitative research, selected events in the history of a public special education school and its school culture. The year of the study, 1994-1995, the school served 125 students with cerebral palsy and other disabilities affecting some or all of their physical, sensory, and cognitive abilities. Study participants included faculty and staff, former students, parents, school administrators, and others identified with the school and in the Nashville community during the 1994-1995 school year. In-depth interviews...

Principals of middle-grade schools in port of entry communities along the Texas-Mexico border were surveyed to learn about the education and preparational experiences these principals believed novice teachers should have before coming to teach in their schools. Demographic data about themselves, teachers, students and middle-grade schools, along with suggestions for improving Texas teacher education programs were also obtained. Mexican Americans were the dominant ethnic group and culture in these schools for principals, teachers and students. Principals were mostly male, well educated, and ...

This study examined the institutional advancement programs of successful American private/Catholic universities, two private universities in the United Sates, and two institutions in the Congo. Funding strategies constitute the backbone of advancement programs for successful American private universities/colleges. This study also investigated the funding mechanisms that successful private universities in the United States utilized to obtain philanthropic dollars. Further, the research assessed the roles of the successful private university presidents and trustees, and determined how public r...

The problem this project attempts to solve is to develop a workable moral education in light of the clash between religious forms of moral education and U.S. Supreme Court decisions concerning them. The concept of story and storytelling has been suggested as a unifying focus for disparate prescriptions for moral education. Several recent approaches to moral storytelling have been proposed. The approaches of William Bennett, Nel Noddings, and Herbert Kohl are among those which have attempted to combine moral education and storytelling within the last decade. Bennett is identified with other...

This study was designed to determine if sixth-grade students' problem solving skills were improved by means of their experience with a computer-based logical puzzle game designed to increase reasoning skills, and, in turn, problem solving ability. Students worked on this game either in cooperative learning pairs or alone. Baseline and post-experimental problem-solving ability was measured through the administration of a Problem Solving Test; Form A was utilized as a pretest for this purpose, Form B was used as a post-test. Comparisons of problem-solving ability based upon post-test s...

Public Community Learning Centers (CLCs), at least in the context of the United States, are social structures that have been established to address particular community needs. In the beginning, they were instituted as extensions of state departments' human services in order to assist communities with programs such as adult literacy and high school graduation certification. Today, they have taken on a broader role as a result of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (Title X, Part I) that gives rural and inner-city public schools nearly $2 billion over five years (1999-2004) to develop C...

Adrienne von Speyr in her book "Confession" and throughout her writings speaks of the "confession" of Jesus Christ. This is a startling use of the term because Christ never sinned. The author examines all the writings of von Speyr in the light of Roman Catholic soteriology and sacramental theology and in view of the influences that existed between her and Hans Urs von Balthasar. The author then shows how the theme of confession is central to von Speyr's writing, aids in illuminating her theology of Holy Saturday and the Paschal Mystery, and serves as the basis for the renewal of th...

America is a mobile nation and frequent relocation is a way of life for many corporate families. This qualitative review of literature relating to the sociological impact of relocation on the corporate family appears to show that relocation has short-term and long-term implications for the family system. Relocation is not an isolated event but a process of adjustment over time involving emotional stages similar to the stages of grief and loss. Each family member may experience the relocation differently and progress through the stages at a different rate. This creates a period of disorganiz...

Society's evolving perception of the role of and value of higher education relates to education's role in employment. Employment is the most cited reason for school completion. The creation of peer tutoring programs was to improve the academic performance of underprepared students. This study evaluated tutors registered in the Tutorial Training Course T-15 at Chabot College, Hayward, California. The Tutor Evaluation and Self-Assessment Tool (TESAT) was utilized to measure the tutors' performance. Thirty tutors performed the pre- and post-assessments. The instructor also evaluated the tuto...