Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Education, Cleveland State University, 2017, College of Education and Human Services

The purpose of this historical case study was to explore, through the lens of knowledge transfer, answers to the following two questions: how did the Sister-educators from one community in Northeast Ohio prepare themselves for leadership, and when it became clear that the future of their urban school depended on transitioning to lay leadership, how did Sister-principals prepare their religious communities and their school communities for that change. This qualitative study focuses on six members of one active, engaged, service-based community which has supported schools Northeast Ohio for over a century. The research revealed that a successful Sister-to-laity leadership transition will have its foundation in charismatic love, encourage faith-filled mentoring of faculty and students, honor the mission of the founding community, and support an overarching leadership culture of magnanimity to all stakeholders. This model can be employed in other educational and nonprofit settings where non-hierarchical servant leadership would be an effective approach.

Committee: Marius Boboc Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Catherine Hansman Ph.D. (Committee Member); Elizabeth Lehfeldt Ph.D (Committee Member); Adam Voight Ph.D (Committee Member); Matt Jackson-McCabe Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Education History; Education Policy; Educational Leadership; Organizational Behavior; Personal Relationships; Religion; Religious Congregations; Religious Education; School Administration; Teaching

Doctor of Musical Arts, The Ohio State University, 2020, Music

The purpose of this document is to study the importance of the African American spiritual in the contemporary public-school choral classroom. This work analyzes ways in which the spiritual may be used to foster cultural and historical understanding and empathy within the choral ensemble. A brief history of slavery in the United States and the early folksongs of the slaves is given. The significance of the Fisk Jubilee Singers in the development of the concert spiritual is explored. Important musical, and structural elements common to the concert spiritual are investigated and the frequency of the use of dialect within the performance repertory is discussed. The acceptance and performance of the spiritual throughout the twentieth century is due to the contributions of its early arrangers. Several of the arrangers mentioned here include Harry T. Burleigh, John Rosamund Johnson and brother James Weldon Johnson, Hall Johnson, Eva Jessye, William Grant Still, Jester Hairston, Undine Smith Moore, and William Henry Smith. Excerpts of works by John Wesley Work, R. Nathaniel Dett and Leonard de Paur are included by way of example. A detailed examination of five concert spirituals and their usefulness and effectiveness in the modern choral ensemble is provided. The arrangers of those works include William L. Dawson, Alice Parker, Raymond Wise, Stacey V. Gibbs and Moses Hogan. Brief biographical information about each arranger is provided. Excerpts of interviews with both Alice Parker and Raymond Wise are used to support the analysis. Suggestions for the programming of these works as well as a pedagogic approach to their presentation in the classroom are given.

Committee: Robert Bode DMA (Advisor); Robert Ward DMA (Committee Member); Russell Mikkelson DMA (Committee Member) Subjects: Music; Music Education

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, EDU Teaching and Learning

This study described how the English language arts (ELA) teacher mediates the literacy learning of the 6th grade students at Bright Star Islamic school whose language and cultural background is diverse. Three specific research questions guided this study, including (1) what approach does the teacher use to develop literacy skills of the students? (2) what texts are available for the students? and (3) what is the student response to the teacher-led discussion and teacher-created assignments? Drawing upon the ecological framework to literacy (Barton, 1994), this study shed lights on the Islamic school's literacy that is intertwined with religious values in addition to knowledge construction mediated through multiple use of languages and texts. Narrative case study was carried out to unpack and understand the classroom interaction. The participants included one teacher and 20 students in her ELA class. 30 literacy lessons were observed and audio-recorded which comprised of a total of 40 hours. In addition to that, field notes, semi-structure interviews of the teacher and the student, as well as documentation were used to enrich and confirm the data. The observation and interview data were transcribed verbatim. Grounded theory was employed for data analysis which consisted of analyzing data through coding them into categories for the purpose of comparison. The categories contained labels that resembled conceptualization of key findings of the data and represented the cases being studied. The analysis stopped when a core category emerged in which I can integrate the analysis and develop a `story' encapsulating the main themes of the study. Results from the analysis showed that regarding the research question #1, the teacher situated the classroom literacy events as social practices deriving from her interpretation of the State' learning standards, the school's ELA curriculum (i.e. Wit & Wisdom), conception of reading instruction, and teacher' roles in the classroom (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Adrian Rodgers (Advisor); Christine Warner (Committee Member); Binaya Subedi (Committee Member) Subjects: Education; Literacy; Reading Instruction; Religion; Secondary Education; Teaching

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, American Culture Studies

In 2021-2022, once routine school board meetings erupted into intense showdowns because of the presence of what many believed to be Critical Race Theory within the school curriculum, Comprehensive Sex Education, disagreement over gender identity, and the nature of parents' rights. There were shouting matches and accusations that schools, board members, and parents were racists, hated America and members of the LGBTQ community, were trafficking in communism, and were harming children. Commenters made fiery pledges to remove board members, and board members received hate mail including death threats. This research project interrogates parents', guardians', and concerned community members' publicly expressed beliefs and anxieties about Critical Race Theory (CRT), gender identity, and Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE), at 10 geographically diverse K-12 public school board meetings in the U.S. available online in 2021-2022. It considers what their comments at the board meetings reveal about their understanding of the world, of America, American identity, and of their own values, hopes, and fears. The methodology used in the project is anthropological. There is close textual analysis to better ascertain the content, context, and meanings of the discourse formations and cultural codes. These are the primary sources analyzed: comments at the school board meetings, written and televised speeches, personal letters, newspapers, op-eds, slogans, protest signs, campaign commercials, websites, and social media. In addition, historical and archival research trace the genealogy of these discourse formations within American culture among the secular and white evangelical Religious Right. The anti-CRT commenters and those who hold to traditional gender ideologies want to maintain a particular culture, an ordering of the world, including ideology and theology that is rooted in hierarchy, exclusion, and particular gender norms heavily influenced by the Southern way of life. (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Timothy Messer-Kruse Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Vibha Bhalla Ph.D. (Committee Member); Andrew Schocket Ph.D. (Committee Member); Jessica E. Kiss Ph.D. (Other) Subjects: African American Studies; American History; American Studies; Bible; Black History; Curricula; Education; Education History; Ethnic Studies; Families and Family Life; Gender; Gender Studies; History; Multicultural Education; Political Science; Spirituality; Teacher Education; Theology

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Foundations, Leadership and Administration

The United States Supreme Court's decision in the case Wisconsin v. Yoder et al. (1972) created a special provision for Amish and Old Order Mennonite families by allowing their children to end formal schooling at age 14. The assumption was that these Anabaptist families were preparing children adequately to live “full lives” in their communities without a high school education. Most of these children attend small private Amish schools, but some public school districts, like those at the center of this study, have successfully attracted a significant number of Amish students to their schools. Through philosophically-oriented qualitative research, this study explores how educators in these public schools view their aims and influence in educating young people who are not destined for formal education beyond the 8th grade, or work that requires a high school diploma. The author identifies a peculiar agreement between families and educators in which Amish families extend a measure of trust and flexibility within their own values, and the educators deliver substantial accommodations in school access and curriculum to keep the schools open with a sizeable number of Amish students. The study examines the actions and agreements that maintain this settlement and the ways educators make peace with compromise in an effort to serve all students.

Committee: Natasha Levinson (Advisor); Tricia Niesz (Committee Member); Pytash Kristine (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Early Childhood Education; Education; Education Philosophy; Education Policy; Educational Sociology; Educational Theory; Middle School Education; Multicultural Education; Philosophy; Religious Congregations; Secondary Education; Social Research; Sociology; Teacher Education; Teaching; Vocational Education