▼ Research indicates that minority males, especially Black males, are often overrepresented in special education programs. While the reasons for overrepresentation vary from school to school and from district to district, the literature reveals that many special education referrals for minority males are generated as a result of non-academic issues. The purpose of this study was to determine if gender and racial bias influence teachers’ decisions when referring students, specifically Black males, for special education services and attempted to answer two questions: Are teachers biased in making referrals to special education services based upon student race and/or gender? and Are teachers biased in making referrals to special education services, specifically for Black males? An ANOVA procedure was used to analyze the relationship between teachers’ ratings of how likely they were to refer a student for special education services and how certain they were of their ratings of a student’s need for referral. While the study produced some interesting patterns, no definitive conclusions could be drawn from the study due to a limited sample size. Additional research is needed to either support or refute the hypotheses that teacher bias does influence one’s decision to refer a student to special education services. Advisors/Committee Members: Gut, Dianne.

▼ The study aims to investigate pre-service teachers’ perceptions towards Web 2.0 applications. Although the literature reveals that technology integration is a trend in higher education and researchers and educators have increasingly shared their ideas and examples of implementations of Web 2.0 applications in educational domains, few studies have focused on understanding whether pre-service teachers perceive Web 2.0 applications as effective teaching and learning tools. This study attempts to investigate to what extent computer attitude, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and using experience of Web 2.0 predict the intention to use Web 2.0 applications in future teaching among pre-service teachers. A quantitative research method was used in the study and a paper-and-pencil questionnaire was conducted. A total of 125 participants from the teacher preparation program in a large Midwestern university were analyzed through the statistical method, multiple regression. The multiple regression analysis rejected the null hypothesis and showed that computer attitude, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and using experience of Web 2.0 are significant predictors of the dependent variable, behavioral intention to use Web 2.0. Approximately 71% of the variance of the behavioral intention to use Web 2.0 can be accounted for by the linear relationship of the four independent variables. Three of the independent variables, perceived usefulness, computer attitude, and using experience of Web 2.0, are statistically significant in predicting the behavioral intention to use Web 2.0. Advisors/Committee Members: Franklin, Teresa.

▼ For nearly four decades the Ohio lottery has offered its products with the promise of providing a financial benefit to Ohio’s public schools. The purpose of this study was to examine the tax incidence of the Ohio lottery in addition to qualitative aspects of lottery play. Data were collected from Ohio lottery sales and U.S. Census data both aggregated by zip code. Analysis of tax incidence was conducted through Suits Index analysis with confidence intervals in addition to double-log regression analysis creating elasticity coefficients. Qualitative data were collected through interviews. Five qualitative interviews provided data that were analyzed from an adapted grounded theory perspective. Suits Index analysis suggested that the Ohio lottery has been a regressive form of school finance for all of the years covered in this study (1992-2010). The least regressive games were lottery products that offered larger payouts with lower odds of winning. The most regressive games offered significantly smaller jackpots with higher odds of winning. Double-log regression revealed that lottery sales were supported disproportionately by less affluent consumers. Zip codes with higher median ages were found to drive increased lottery sales for all three types of lottery games. Non-African American minorities in Ohio (zip code analysis) were also shown to drive increased Lotto game sales. Increased percentages of males in a zip code resulted in increased Instant game sales. A higher level of education in a zip code reflected increases in lottery product’s sales. Findings of regressivity were confirmed in lottery scholarship; however, demographic representation of lottery play offered mixed results. Qualitative findings of this study revealed avoidance by lottery players to outside interference in their lottery play. Respondents also suggested a strong ability to control the lottery process when they were able to select numbers or tickets based on socially constructed or situationally applicable rules and values. Finally, respondents shared that they have some sense that lottery profits are directed to schools, despite voicing a strong anti-lottery and anti-large school district sentiment. When viewed in the context of sociological theory of stratification, the findings suggested that the lottery acts as a regressive tax on Ohio’s lottery consumers while education fails to receive a financial benefit due to fungibility described in existing literature. The primary research suggestion was to extend benefit incidence research. Policy recommendations that connect lottery regressivity to Ohio’s schools included a commitment to finance Pre-K and Kindergarten initiatives, class size reduction strategies for Ohio’s poorest schools, and a higher education lottery scholarship funded through lottery profits for graduates from Ohio’s poorest high schools. Advisors/Committee Members: Doppen, Frans.

▼ Student resistance, an issue for teachers in both rural and urban areas, occurs for various reasons, from resisting the norms and customs of the dominant, oppressive group, to internalizing a feeling of freedom and preservation of ones’ integrity. In rural areas, resistance may be a reaction to the socially reproductive nature of schools. This study examined the reasons that students attending a rural school give for resistant behaviors. Classroom observations and seven interviews with resistant students were conducted in a rural Appalachian high school in an attempt to examine reasons for disengagement in classroom activities. Major finding included the following: Students do not seem to value the education they are receiving, believing that they are disadvantaged by the rural location of the school; students felt that their classes are filled with busywork and are not challenging enough; and many students felt that school subjects did not relate to their lives or their futures. Other factors included family influence, teacher characteristics, and future plans. Recommendations for schools relating to the findings are included. Advisors/Committee Members: Hutchinson, Jaylynne.

▼ This historiography study investigates the Somali Literacy Campaign of 1975, which was implemented to improve the socioeconomic development of the country through literacy. The Somali language did not have orthography until 1972 and the media of administration and education instruction was English, Italian, and Arabic. Moreover, the illiteracy rate was 90% and the use of foreign languages in the country denied the majority of the population access to education, health, employment, and many other vital services. In 1969, the government took the initiative of devising a Somali language orthography. Subsequently, the government organized a mass literacy campaign to disseminate the reading and writing of the Somali language throughout the country, and this was followed by the Somalization of administration and education. This process was completed between 1973 and 1975. The study uses oral historiography and/or narratology approaches to examine the objectives and the outcomes of the campaign. Because the history of the rural literacy campaign was lost in the first part of the 1990-1993 Somali civil war, it was important to recover through oral history that which was lost. The implementers of the campaign were constituted largely of secondary school students, which I have termed “student-teachers,” and their teachers who were together in the field to teach the rural people how to read and write in the new Somali orthography. It is through the experiences of these participants, and especially of student-teachers, that the study attempts to understand the campaign program and its impact on the communities involved. For this reason, through purposive and snowball sampling the study selected thirteen participants for interviews, including student-teachers, teachers, literacy-students, and civil servants. All these participants are members of the Somali community Diaspora in Canada and the United States. The study selected Columbus, Ohio, and Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Windsor, and Kitchener, in Canada as research sites. Three research questions are designed to guide the study to examine: (1) What were the main anticipated objectives of the Somali Literacy Campaign? (2) Did the campaign successfully realize its set objectives and contribute to the main objective? (3) What were the unexpected political, social, and economic outcomes of the campaign? Data analysis and interpretation of the study are based on the interview transcripts and photographs which are coded into categories to generate themes. Some of these data were recovered during the interview process, others were collected from colleagues who participated in the campaign, and the rest were retrieved from the Internet. During the interview process, participants revealed to me the loss and destruction of the campaign documents in the civil war and the existing grim hope of ever recovering it. The analysis and examination of these data produced findings, including: the literacy acquisition generated migration by the rural population to the city centers and this in turn generated a sudden increase in school enrollment. After the rural youth became literate, they decided to move to the cities and towns in search of further education and employment opportunities. The new migrants also spurred economic activities which contributed to economic growth. The study further reveals the economic importance of the rural population, which had motivated the campaign. The rural economy of agriculture and livestock supports more than 70% of the Somali population. Additionally, the study discusses the contribution of the rural population who hosted the campaign and provided food and shelter for the student-teachers and their supervisors for the duration of the campaign. Furthermore, the study reveals the role of the student-teachers and their impact on their students, and how this contributed to the migration to the city centers. Finally, the study discusses the unexpected outcomes of the campaign. This included political awareness of the rural population, which produced grassroots-level rural community organizations. These organizations facilitated local peacemaking and government/community communication, which lobbied for better services for the communities they represented. The study, supported by literature, shows that the campaign contributed to the rural infrastructure and increased literacy, agricultural and economic productivity. Advisors/Committee Members: Godwyll, Francis.