Preservice teachers' perceptions of their learning, reading, and teaching in an experientially designed course, Children's Literature in the Classroom, is the focus of this study. Qualitative methods included data sources such as initial student surveys, written early literacy memories, audiotaped and transcribed discussions of children's and adolescent literature, mid-term and final self-evaluations, audiotaped and transcribed exit interviews, and various written artifacts created throughout the semester. Several levels of data analysis were used to discover answers to the following questions: What do preservice teachers view as the purpose of this course for themselves personally and professionally? What role do they see literature playing in learning, reading, and teaching? What class experiences were most significant to students? What are preservice teachers' perceptions of themselves and children as learners, readers, and teachers? Each question was extended by also examining the new understandings that were constructed during the many transactions within the semester. The findings of the study emphasized the positive learning experiences within the constructivist framework of this course. Concerning the purpose of the course and children's literature, class members gained a knowledge base in children's literature and an understanding through experience of the purpose and implementation of literature in the classroom. The most significant course aspect was stated as literature discussion groups. Reasons given for this included the personal experiences shared, the various understandings of literature through diverse responses, and the meaning making about text and life that transpired. As learners, preservice teachers developed a greater understanding of the complexities of learning as well as professional knowledge about literature and its use. As readers, they discovered new insights into the reading process, and for many a renewed love of reading emerged. As teachers, they constructed new attitudes and beliefs about teaching in addition to resources and professional preparation gained from the course. Three case studies showed how class members who had very different perceptions of how they best learned were all supported in their construction of knowledge within the class.

This dissertation is a qualitative case study based in teacher research that focuses on the understandings of student and parent participants about school safety in relationship to emergency crises issues. Fourteen seventh-grade Eastern Magnet Middle School students and fourteen of their parents participated in the research. The purpose of the study was to develop findings that would enhance the safety and crisis management techniques of a school in which I taught named Eastern Magnet, based on the understandings of the children and adults in the study. Additional goals of the investigation were to develop findings that could enhance crisis management at additional schools and workplaces, and to carry out a project that would expand the school safety literature base and the field of qualitative case study teacher research. Data were generated from August of 2002 to January of 2003 through interviews, interview notes, surveys, and school and district documents addressing crisis-related issues. The data were primarily analyzed through the constant comparative method. Analytic notes, participant profiles, and data tables and figures were also elements of the analytical process. The findings of this study point to the need for schools to establish procedures to effectively manage crises to maximize the safety of all children and adults within educational institutions. The research highlights aspects of Eastern Magnet's crisis management that were effective and areas that needed improvement, and it demonstrates that all individuals expect schools to promote and ensure safety. Implications are presented for students, parents/guardians, teachers, school administrators, educational policy makers, school safety theorists, and educational researchers. The investigation reveals the significance of children and adults making concerted efforts to uphold safety and to manage crises.

This study addresses the importance of committing to redesigning how world history is taught at the high school level. Presented is a model for curriculum reform that introduces an approach to teaching revolving around a thematic structure. The purpose of this redesigned thematic curriculum was to introduce an alternative approach to teaching that proceeded from a "critical perspective"--that is, one in which students did not so much learn discrete bits of knowledge but rather an orientation toward learning and thinking about history and its application to their lives. The means by which this was done was by teaching world history from an anthropological perspective. A perspective that made archaeological data more relevant in learning about the past. The study presents how such a model was created through its pilot application in a high school world history classroom. It is through the experimental application of the curriculum ideas in the high school classroom that I was able to determine the effectiveness of this curriculum by following how easily it could be used and how well students responded to it. Therefore, followed in the study was the evolution of the curriculum model's development as it was used in the pilot classroom. Thus, I was able to determine the extent of its success as a tool for teaching critically and for teaching from an anthropological perspective.

The field of sign language interpreting and interpreter education is rapidly changing to meet the needs of deaf and hearing consumers. It is not sufficient to teach merely the techniques of interpreting and to produce large numbers of interpreters who work mechanically. Interpreters must understand issues of bilingualism, biculturalism, and second language learning because they work in cross-lingual, cross-cultural settings and are responsible for ensuring successful communication among all parties involved. To accommodate these changes within the profession, it is important to understand how community members and prospective interpreters perceive the profession of interpreting. This ethnographic study focuses on students' and community members' attitudes, ideas, and beliefs about American Sign Language, American Deaf Culture, the deaf community, and the interpreting profession. A case study approach utilizing several ethnographic data collection methods is presented to assist interpreter educators and other interested persons to understand how the profession is perceived. Several themes that emerged from the data pertaining to attitudes, language fluency, bilingualism, biculturalism, and second language acquisition are analyzed and discussed in terms of their implications for interpreter preparation programs, policy, and future research.

Decipherment is the tool used to uncover several types of hand signs that played vital roles in the creation of hidden messages in classic artwork. A 3,100 B.C. bas-relief of The 'Kaph' Telescope, formerly named The Narmer Palette, and Michaelangelo Buonarrotte's Battle of Cascina of 1506 were two key works of art that show certain similarities even though separated by 4,500 years. It is evident that Renaissance humanists provided artists with certain knowledge of the ancients. Results of incorporating a number of minor works of art showed that the competence of ancient Egyptians, Cretans and Australian Aboriginals, to name a few, as astronomers, was underestimated. Some deciphered Indus seals attested to a global understanding of the universe, with Gemini and the star of Thuban at the center of their attention. Certain forms of secrecy had to be undertaken for various reasons throughout the millennia. Three examples are: (1) In Italy, to keep controversial and truthful teachings discreet and hidden, artists embedded them in artwork long before the plight of Galileo Galilei and his discoveries. (2) Among Jewish Kabbalists, a well-known design was obscured in The Arnolfini Wedding painting for fear it would be lost due to persecution. (3) Michaelangelo Buonarrotte indicated several meanings through the hands of The Statue of Moses. They were overlooked by several societies, including the gesticulating culture of Italy, because they oppressed the value of signed languages. Spatial decipherment may testify to a need for the restoration of a spatial writing system for expanded linguistic accessibility. A 21st century model community for sign language residents and employees will benefit visual learners, particularly visual artists and non-phonetic decipherers, to better uncover, understand and perhaps use ancient hand forms to restore ancient knowledge. Moreover, the National Association of Teaching English (NATE) has recently endorsed the addition of two skills, viewing and visual representing, to the traditional list of reading, writing, speaking and listening. Students will master these two new skills far more effectively when they are exposed to such a signing community.

This dissertation documents historical patterns of language planning activities in American deaf education during the 19th century from a sociolinguistic perspective. This comprehensive study begins in the early 1800s, prior to the opening of the first public school for the deaf in Connecticut, tracing and categorizing available literature related to the language of signs and English as the languages of instruction for the deaf through 1900. Borg and Gall's (1989) historical research methodology was employed to ensure that a consistent historical approach was maintained based upon adequate and/or primary references whenever possible. Utilizing Cooper's (1989) language planning framework, each article in this extensive historical collection was categorized according to one of three major types of language planning activities: status planning (SP), acquisition planning (AP), or corpus planning (CP). Until this time, a comprehensive study of this nature has never been pursued in the field of deaf education. As a result, language planning patterns were discovered and a number of myths based upon inaccurate historical evidence that have long misguided educators of the deaf as well as the Deaf community were revealed. More specifically, these myths are related to the belief that 19th century linguistic analysis and scientific descriptions of the language of signs were nonexistent, and that 19th century literature related to the role, use and structure of the language of signs in education was extremely limited. Additionally this study discovered myths related to the status and use of sign language in this country, the history of deaf education programs, the growth and development of oralism and its impact upon existing programs for the deaf and the employment of deaf teachers. It was also revealed that several terms used in the 19th century have been misinterpreted by educational practitioners today who mistakenly believe they are using strategies that were developed long ago. Therefore, this study attempts to 'correct the record' by using primary sources to bring to light a new understanding of the history of deaf education from a language planning perspective.

This dissertation is an historical look at the politics of language of the Pulaar in Mauritania, West Africa. An overview of the linguistic characteristics of Pulaar and the cultural geography of the Pulaar is provided. Historically, the Pulaar have had to face racist attacks of violence upon themselves, their property and their language, in the context of French colonialism and the subsequent Moor-led regimes, including French-only and then Arabic-only language policies, and the alienating linguistic ideologies that accompany them. The Pulaar language only recently is in the written form, and grass-roots language development efforts began with underground rural literacy campaigns, led by the clandestine political group, the MND. Over time, these and other Pulaar language development efforts have faced fierce opposition from the regime. There was also the sabotage strategy of the regime attempting to coopt the grass-roots movement, under-fund it, and then dismantle it, declaring it a failure. Nevertheless, Pulaar continues to have primary functional value in the domestic realm of Halpulaar'en and in the Pulaar community. This can be seen as an everyday form of resistance, given the difficult circumstances. The strategies the Pulaar use to survive and thrive in this context may provide insight for other ethnolinguistic minority groups in post-colonial contexts. The dissertation offers a detailed explanation of the methodological process for the micro-level research in the Pulaar town of Boghe, Mauritania. This process includes household interviews, informal key informant interviews, participant observation and data analysis. Key concepts are defined, variables are explained, and a basic description of Koranic schooling and the French system of education is provided. Information about the demographics and the language, literacy and education levels of the 238 people from the ten households interviewed is presented in the form of a descriptive analysis. Their reported levels of oral proficiency in Pulaar, Arabic and French provide insight into their language attitudes. An analysis of the highest level they achieved in school, compared by school-age groups and gender, offers insight into their access to schooling over time. A multilingual glossary, a list of acronyms and the household questionnaires are included for the readers' convenience.

A study of computers and the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Japanese universities was designed to look at interrelations of technology and teachers' theories in these contexts. A review of the literature on technology and education concludes that technology is often given a purposive role in formulating change. However, instead of focusing on the effects of technology, it is argued that technology is better seen as indicative of other purposes. Connections to changing employment opportunities, skills, relations of professionals within the university, as well as problems and issues in teaching and learning with computers, lead to a conceptualization of risk in the teaching approaches in this study. In recent years, Japanese universities face increasing competition for a declining population of students. The financial pressures are concomitant with changes impinging on Japanese universities. These include the first attempts at on-line education in Japan, the need to reduce costs, initiatives from the central government to reform higher education, and demands for new skills. The primary source of data in this study were 14 in-depth interviews with experienced university English teachers who used computers frequently in teaching. A second source was a reflective journal of the author's teaching in a computer classroom for two years. Themes in the data were analyzed and linked to sociological theories of risk. Two strands of risk-oriented theories reviewed, Beck's risk society and Foucault's governmentality, were used to hypothesize simplified approaches to risk, one that is ethical and another that is strategic. Both approaches help explain ambivalences in the pattern of responses in the interview data. How these teachers value the skills of computing in English as necessary but at the same time express reservations for the isolating tendencies of using computers in teaching is an example. The results show that risk is useful in explaining ambivalences while pointing to the need for further research to understand how computing is becoming part of the educational equipment of more and more teaching contexts in Japanese universities and how risk as strategy and ethics opens up possibilities for increased understanding of computers and education.

The main objective of this ethnographic study is to examine the processes by which minority students, Koreans Born in Japan (KBJs), are able to find their own voices within Japanese educational settings. I also explore how minority, KBJ students, and majority, Japanese students, learn to understand each other and their identities in two educational settings: university and high school, and how educators' knowledge and theories contribute to the process. One setting is a sociology class taught by a Japanese professor. The other setting is a Japanese public high school. For this ethnographic study, my data consist of transcriptions of interview sessions, reflection essays and reaction papers written by students. The data also include daily field notes on my classroom observations, my interactions with the participants and email messages from the participants. I analyze and interpret the data by looking at the data sources inclusively in order to answer my research questions. The results show that the KBJ students explore their identities reflectively and describe and revalue themselves as active participants of society within humanistic and liberatory educational settings. Originally, my research questions focused on only KBJ learners. However, in the process of collecting data, I realized that I had obtained important data from my Japanese participants. This helped to refine my research questions to incorporate the process of how majority students, describe, demystify, and redefine their perceptions of their KBJ peers as well as their own identities. This study highlights the ways in which educators, knowledge and theories influence the processes by which both minority and majority students describe, demystify and redefine their own identities self reflectively. My findings indicate that humanistic and liberatory education offer opportunities for minority students to describe and revalue themselves as learners and active participants in society. In addition, humanistic and liberatory education also offers opportunities for majority students to describe, demystify and redefine their KBJ peers as well as their own identities.

This study examines language and education policy in colonial as well as independent Mozambique. Mozambican people struggled for 500 years to free themselves from the grip of Portuguese colonialism. Independence came in 1975. A decade of intense and determined Struggle for Liberation stopped the Portuguese from further destroying the country. The review of the literature provides key concepts and principles in language planning and policy. Then the study examines language and education in selected Sub-Saharan African countries. The ideas and opinions of African writers are brought into the discussion. The main study starts by looking at language and education in colonial Mozambique starting in 1940. This period is important in the educational history of Mozambique. It was during this time that the Missionary Statute, an agreement between the Government of Portugal and the Catholic church, came into being. This agreement entrusted Portuguese Catholic missionaries with education in the colonies. Missionary education viewed Mozambican languages, culture and all things African as deficits. Missionary schools were places of unlearning all things that instilled pride in the Mozambican people. When the War of Liberation broke out in 1964, Mozambicans established their own schools in the areas liberated from the Portuguese. These schools instilled in the students the much needed Mozambican character, and personality. They became the model for independent Mozambique's New System of Education. Mozambique is a nation of many languages. During the colonial period the Portuguese proscribed the use of these languages in education. Consequently, many languages in Mozambique today have not been studied academically. This study uses historical research methods to gather and analyze data, and records the struggles of the Mozambican people as they work toward reconstructing their beautiful country. The study concludes that communities and government be involved in promoting all Mozambican languages. While this study is critical of Portuguese colonialism, it is not an attack on the Portuguese language. The paradox is that while Portuguese is the colonial language, it is also the language of liberation for Mozambicans. It is in this sense that the Portuguese language was declared the language of unity, instruction, and government.