On the shoulders of the bear

This thesis is a collection of poems written over the past two years

Perceived nonfinancial barriers to maternity services in Guilford County by African American pregnant women

The purpose of this study was to identify perceived barriers which prevented African American pregnant women from accessing and utilizing maternity services in Guilford County. Fifteen African American postpartum women who received four or less prenatal visits and WIC services were recruited to participate in a two part study. Part one of the study included a face-to-face interview to complete a standardized questionnaire and was conducted within 24 to 72 hours after delivery. A food frequency was completed to determine the nutritional habits of the subjects. Focused ethnographic interviewing was used to conduct the second part of the project. Part two included in-depth interviews using a standardized questionnaire guide. The in-depth interviews were conducted with ten of the subjects in their homes. Several nonfinancial barriers were found to prevent these women from accessing and utilizing services including lack of services in their communities; poor or absent transportation and/or childcare; and experiences, attitudes, and beliefs about health and nutrition. Two additional underlying themes that emerged from the qualitative data were not found with the standardized questionnaire. They were high levels of stress and lack of social support. Racist treatment was also cited as a nonfinancial barrier to maternity services. The diets of the subjects were marginally inadequate in all food groups except for protein, and each could have benefited from WIC Services. Future research should focus on improved strategies to recruit hard-to-reach women into care

Reframing the plantation house: preservation critique in Southern literature

This dissertation contextualizes southern narrative critiques of plantation house preservation through the historic preservation movement, from its precursory development in the 1930s through today. Examining literary representations of plantation houses as historic relics in the contemporary moment, I demonstrate how a range of twentieth- and twenty-first century southern writers critique or challenge its architectural preservation. The southern plantation house has been coded in American popular culture as an exemplar of architectural heritage and a symbol of southern history, both of which beckon its preservation. Various modes of preservation, from nineteenth-century plantation fiction’s reminiscence of family homes and heroes to twenty-first century’s thriving tourism industry, figure the plantation owner’s house in romanticized ways that celebrate its architectural aesthetics, present its history through a narrow register of racial relations, and promote its nostalgic embrace. I argue that against prevailing tendencies toward various uncritical ethos of preservation, William Faulkner, Walker Percy, Alice Randall, Attica Locke, Allan Gurganus, and Godfrey Cheshire reframe the plantation house within complex historical and cultural contexts that counter the developing historic preservation movement’s popular following by illuminating the mythologies undergirding the iconic white-columned architecture and their perpetuation through its preservation. Through an interdisciplinary approach, Reframing the Plantation House combines architectural history, historic preservation, and a significant level of textual literary analysis to reveal counter-narratives that unsettle an assumed historical integrity and cultural significance associated with extant plantation houses. Beginning in the 1930s with the first federal initiatives to preserve architectural heritage as a precursor to the preservation movement, I argue that Faulkner’s narratives reframe ruined plantation mansions within historical and cultural contexts that substantiate their ruination and abandonment. The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 heralded piquing restoration sentiments and popular historicism. Against this cultural drive, I argue that Walker Percy aligned plantation house restoration and the desire for historical authenticity with parodic fantasy. Slave histories have been predominantly silenced in plantation mythology and tourism. Contemporary writers Alice Randall and Attica Locke each address this selective history as I argue that they reinscribe symbols of slave history within plantation architectures and narratives. An enduring desire to preserve the plantation house without also preserving the traumas of slavery remains today, which Allan Gurganus and Godfrey Cheshire illustrate and attempt to remedy through narrative

Home economics teachers' knowledge and attitudes toward the integration of special needs students in the classroom

The purpose of this study was to determine the knowledge and attitudes of secondary home economics teachers in North Carolina toward the integration of special needs students in home economics programs. Teachers selected for the study were home economics teachers who attended the 1984 Vocational Summer Workshop. Subjects included home economics teachers from each of the eight educational regions of the public schools in North Carolina. Questionnaires were distributed to and collected from home economics teachers at the conference site. Data for the study were obtained from 279 teachers. There was a significant difference in teachers knowledge when compared by race. Caucasian teachers appeared to be the most knowledgeable concerning special needs students. There was a significant difference in teachers attitudes when compared by race. Black teachers had a more positive attitude toward special needs students than did teachers of other races

Skid resistance of waxed and unwaxed smooth floor surfaces

For many years it has been recognized that slippery floors are a safety hazard. Researchers have been attempting to measure the antislip properties of smooth surface floors since 1926. In no instance has evidence been presented which rates the available flooring material according to safety values. There is very little information, which is readily available to the consumer, that may be used as a criterion in selecting a safe smooth floor covering. It would be desirable to have available for the consumer a ranking of the flooring materials according to safety values

A study of wall color and its effects on the classroom social behavior of nursery school children

The purpose of this study was to investigate the stimulus characteristics of wall colors in a nursery school setting utilizing a structured group period. Behavioral indexes were calculated on orienting behavior, noise level, relevant behavior, and disruptive acts within the group in order to find out if these were influenced by changes in wall color. The possibility of an interrelationship between the behavior of the child and the color of the walls was determined with the use of a direct observation schedule and time card, sound-level meter, tape recorder, and teacher's comments. Basic information about the subjects was secured by means of a color blindness and color preference test. Behavior Profile, and a questionnaire to parents for general identification of the background colors in the child's home. Within the experimental setting the wall structure was constructed by taping polyurethane panels 2' x 8' x 2' into 6' high panels. These panels were taped and braced in four corners in a rectangular shape, leaving a 5' passageway in one side and a 3' x 7' window opening along the top of another side. The floor of this enclosure of 168 square feet was covered with two strips of white paper 6' x 14'. Natural and artificial lighting varied from 30 to 50 foot-candled according to the daylight conditions and specific wall color being tested. The subjects were seated in a semi-circle facing the teacher and the investigator, who recorded their behavior on the direct observation schedule and time cards. An observer with the sound level meter sat behind the children

A performance edition of the choral portions of Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler

This project was the creation of a performance edition of the choral portions of the fifth movement of Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, scored for brass, percussion, harp, organ, soloists, and chorus. This edition makes a musical masterwork more accessible to a wider body of performers, and relies upon the first edition of the score, published in 1897 for full orchestra, using the original vocal parts, edited and re-arranged brass, harp, and percussion parts, and a newly created organ part that combines the original woodwind, string, and organ parts

Conceptualizing and investigating mathematics teacher learning of practice

Researchers and teacher educators have made advances in describing mathematics instruction that can support all students in developing conceptual understanding, procedural fluency, strategic competence, adaptive reasoning, and productive dispositions toward mathematics. Some scholars have described teaching toward these goals as ambitious teaching – teaching that attends and responds to all students as they engage in intellectually rigorous mathematical activity. To further specify this broad vision, core practices of ambitious teaching are being unpacked and identified so that teachers can learn to enact these practice to support student learning. To support teacher learning, teacher educators have increasingly engaged prospective teachers in rehearsing core practices in less complex settings to learn the skills and purpose for enacting these practices. Emerging research on rehearsals has demonstrated its value in aiding prospective teachers in beginning to enact ambitious teaching practices prior to entering the profession. While interest in a core practice approach to teaching and teacher learning has grown, scholars have noted that a shared conceptual model of practice might further the field in making progress in accumulating knowledge and building theory of teacher learning of practice. Additionally, others posit that a core practice approach may also support teachers in professional development, yet to this point there has been little conceptual and empirical efforts attending to teacher learning of core practices. This study addresses these gaps in the literature by investigating a conceptual model of teaching and a teacher educator pedagogy, rehearsal, to advance efforts promoting mathematics teacher learning of ambitious teaching. Three manuscripts collectively illustrate progress on these ideas, drawing upon data and analyses from two years of research in a practice-based professional development for secondary mathematics teachers. The first manuscript develops and investigates a conceptual model of teaching to improve design and research efforts for teacher learning of ambitious teaching. This conceptual paper addresses a set of design considerations and learning tensions inherent in a core practice approach and examines hierarchical modularity as a way to conceptualize teaching to reconcile these challenges. The second manuscript brings together this conceptual model with a social theory of learning and reports on a retrospective analysis of four teachers’ attempts to enact core practices in their classrooms to explore the ways teachers recompose practices over time toward more ambitious forms of teaching. Findings from an analysis of 5,300 instructional moves teachers used over 20 lessons, highlight that small changes in teachers’ use of instructional moves that press students to justify their reasoning and orient students to one another’s mathematical ideas, supported corresponding changes in teachers’ enactments of larger practices of teaching. The third manuscript describes a design for rehearsals for teacher learning of core practices in professional development. It details our design process, describes the ways teachers engaged in rehearsals, and offers evidence of how two teachers engagement in rehearsals corresponded to changes in their classroom practices. The conceptual arguments in the first manuscript furthers the fields efforts to conceptualize practice to explore teacher learning using a core practice approach. The empirical analysis in the second manuscript provides new ways to explore how learning can be evidenced and investigated across teachers enactments of core practices in their teaching. The design of rehearsals discussed in the third manuscript provides the field with ways to envision and repurpose pedagogies of practice from teacher development to support teacher learning of ambitious teaching. Together, the three manuscripts identify areas for continued inquiry and effort for the design and implementation of practice-based professional development and research on teacher learning of practice

"Supporting" beginning secondary science teachers through induction: a multi-case study of their meaning making and identities

The purpose of this study was to explore the induction experiences of beginning secondary science teachers, including their afforded and enacted identities-in-practice and their meaning making. I applied a model of identities and meaning making that considered the iterative nature of the (a) normative science teacher identities afforded by induction experiences and classroom science teaching (Cobb, Gresalfi, & Hodge, 2006; Carlone, Haun-Frank, & Webb, 2011), (b) identities enacted by the beginning secondary science teachers during their participation in induction experiences and classroom science teaching, and (c) meanings they constructed of their induction experiences and classroom science teaching. Data were collected during four beginning secondary science teachers' first year of teaching and included interviews, induction activity observations, professional learning community observations, mentor/mentee meeting observations, and teaching observations. The experiences of four beginning secondary science teachers were used to make the following arguments: First, these cases demonstrated that the beginning science teacher identities-in-practice afforded by induction supports centered mostly on policies and procedures, rather than quality instruction. Second, the beginning secondary science teachers tended to enact identities-in-practice focused on the transmission of information from their support providers to themselves. Participants' afforded and enacted identities-in-practice impacted, and were impacted by, the meanings each participant made of her induction experiences. Finally, the identities-in-practice afforded to and enacted by these beginning secondary science teachers as well as the meanings they made of their induction experiences can be used to understand the beginning science teacher identities-in-practice they enacted during their classroom science teaching. This study adds to previous science teacher induction literature by looking beyond whether the beginning secondary science teachers were retained to how they experienced their induction, who they were asked to be during their supports and teaching, and who, ultimately, they were in these contexts