Browsing by Author "Scribner, Samantha"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    An Exploratory Study Comparing a Low Income Black Dominant Urban School to a Low Income White Dominant Urban School in Terms of School Quality
    (2020-02) Shipp, Cassandra M.; Scheurich, Jim; Scribner, Samantha; Thompson, Chalmer; Medina, Monica
    Urban Schools are often judge on the perceived shortcomings of students’ academic skills and family social economic status. This image is judged more negatively when students are mainly Black students from low-income homes. One of the main sources of that judgement is the overall letter grade each school receives as part of state accountability systems. When urban schools have a preponderance of low income white students (LIW) with higher letter grades than urban schools with a preponderance of Black students from low income homes (LIB), the typical conclusion is that the LIW schools are “better” than the LIB schools. To see if this is validated in other areas of schooling, I selected four areas that it would be possible to use to “compare” in an exploratory fashion these two types of urban schools. Those four are: 1) teacher quality, 2) AP enrollment and completion data, 3) technology usage, and 4) graduation rates, for all of which data is available and/or can be collected. Thus, I will be exploring whether the school’s letter grade does distort the understanding or perception of quality for these two types of schools. The findings of the study indicated that the LIB urban high school was not equal or better than LIW urban high school. Even though there was growth in the four focus areas and in the state accountability grade for LIB urban high school, the LIW urban high school outperformed the LIB urban high school in all areas. This study also confirmed that the LIB urban high schools continue to have the less effective teachers in the classrooms, which leads to little to no change in educational quality.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Reframing parental involvement of black parents: black parental protectionism
    (2016-05-11) Moultrie, Jada; Scheurich, James Joseph; Lopez, Gerardo; Mutegi, Jomo; Scribner, Samantha; Waterhouse, Carlton
    In 1787, Prince Hall, a Revolutionary War veteran, community leader, and Black parent, petitioned the Massachusetts legislature on behalf of Black children demanding a separate “African” school. Hall claimed that Black children were met with continuous hostility and suffered maltreatment when attending White controlled schools. Many have documented similar claims and actions by Black parents throughout history. These experiences present a consistent insidious counter-narrative of parental involvement challenging the notion of race neutral schools but congruently demonstrate a racial phenomenon in the purview of parental involvement that is undertheorized. Considering these experiences, my central research question was, how is one involved as a Black parent in their child’s education? Among 16 sets of Black parents, this study explored the relationship between race, racism, parental involvement using critical race theory (CRT), and critical qualitative research methods. Findings indicate that Black parental involvement included the consideration of how race and racism in schools may impact, at the very least, their children’s academic achievement, which led to two means of protection of their children from anticipated or experienced school related racism; racial socialization, which was chiefly exercised as involvement at the home level, and racial vigilance, which seemed to be a pervasive form of involvement at the school and home level. I consider the totality of these parental involvement means, Black parental protectionism drawing from Mazama and Lundy conception of racial protectionism. This finding should reframe our understanding of parental involvement but the implications of Black parent protectionism suggest that Black children need protection from racist institutions. When considering the treatment of Black children in White dominated schools over the last four centuries, perhaps Black parents have been their children’s only saving grace to escape the continuous racial maltreatment in schools through time. Instead of falling into traditional research paradigms, which typically relate involvement to achievement, this study concludes with questioning if Black children can receive an optimal education in a pervasive system of racism in schools regardless of Black parental protectionism.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Spaces Between Us: An Affective Examination of Individual and Collective Memory in Parental Decision Making
    (2023-02) Silverman, Elena Hatton; Nguyễn, Thu Sương Thị; Maxcy, Brendan; Scribner, Samantha; Schall, Carly
    No pseudonyms are used in this dissertation. I found it very difficult to write about my participants using names that aren’t theirs. These are people who I know, who I have relationships with, who have been with me in one way or another for much of my life and choosing random and unrelated names for them felt wrong. However, to protect their privacy, they will be referred to throughout by single initials. All city and school district names have been omitted from this work. In sentences that discuss the participant’s current location I insert (name of city). In sentences that reference where we grew up, I include (the city we grew up in). When removing names needed for contextualization, I include an italicized parenthetical note. Writing by hand and handwriting play a significant role in this dissertation. Central to method as well as theory and discussion, much of the early work done in the process was all handwritten as were the letters that were sent back and forth for data collection. While you will not see handwriting throughout this dissertation you will read about it and will be able to see images of original handwritten text in the appendices.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    What Makes a Leader: Examining How Search Committees Conceptualize, Measure, and Evaluate Leadership
    (2020-12) Wilson, Shawn M.; Palmer, Megan; Hundley, Stephen; Flowers, Natasha; Scribner, Samantha
    The purpose of this research was to investigate the social and cultural constructions of leadership and how search committee members evaluate candidates for leadership positions. Moreover, how they conceptualize, measure, and evaluate leadership potential of candidates. To explore this issue, the following research questioned were answered: How do members of an executive search committee construct their views of leadership?; In what ways do the individual, social, and cultural constructions of leadership held by search committee members influence behaviors and outcomes of a search committee? In this study, I investigated how members of a search committee constructed their views of leadership and in turn how this influenced the search process for an executive leader. In order to explore this issue, this study is approached through the constructivism paradigm and informed by critical inquiry, using case study methodology. I followed one executive search process from the charge meeting until the committee made its recommendation to the hiring authority. The unit analyzed in this search employed a leadership competency model and tools which mapped to this model, in an effort to mitigate the influence of bias. I used semi-structured interviews with committee members to understand their views on leadership. I supplemented interviews with observations and document analysis as means of collecting data for the study. Three findings emerged through data analysis: the role of background and identity on views of leadership, the influence of personal and societal constructions of leadership on individual behaviors and search outcomes, and the application or utility of using a leadership competency model. Through my findings, I demonstrated how individual’s background and identity shaped their perceptions of what it meant to be a leader. Additionally, how they rated and talked about candidates matched their individual views about leadership rather than the leadership competency model they were asked to use. More specifically, analysis illuminated that minoritized search committee members had drastically different beliefs about leadership and experiences serving on the search committee. I concluded the study by outlining implications for policy, future practice, and future research, including offering a conceptual framework and tools for an equity-minded search process.