The United States Armed Forces have sponsored off-duty voluntary higher education programs for fifty years. The investment in these programs by the Armed Services is substantial. In 1996, Department of Defense (DOD) expenditures for Tuition Assistance programs totaled $121 million. The longevity and scope of these military programs make them an ideal special case through which to study the outcomes of employer sponsored off-duty education. This study looked at the relationship between participation in military sponsored off-duty education programs and enlisted retention in the service. The data for the study was from a large (60,000 respondents) survey conducted by the DOD in 1992. Both univariate and multi-variate statistical analysis techniques were used. Additionally, over thirty semi-structured interviews were conducted with service members. The quantitative analysis supports the conclusion that long-term participation in off-duty education is significantly and positively related to intention to reenlist in simple bi-variate models. However, when several other variables thought to be related to retention are controlled the overall education participation effect is very small, accounting for little of the variation in intention to reenlist. A comparison of the education participation pattern in this data with previous studies leads to the conclusion that there has been a fundamental change in the relationship between off-duty education and retention in the last ten to fifteen years. The qualitative data suggest that the military places a high value on educational participation exhibited in formal and informal policies, the organizational reward system, promotions and attitudes. The opportunity to participate varies by location, specific job and military specialty. Servicemembers' attitudes toward education appear to evolve. Early participation seems to be extrinsically motivated with an intrinsic motivation developing as the servicemember continues to participate. The quantitative and qualitative data support the conclusion that the military has changed in its view of educational participation. The data point to the conclusion that the military has adopted educational participation as an integral part of the military culture. This value is so embedded within the environment that the effect of educational participation may be masked by other variables such as satisfaction with the military way of life.

Sociocultural influences, media, parents and peers, on adolescent females' body image, as perceived by female high school students of a military related community were investigated. A body image survey was administered to 26 adolescent females. Ultimately, the research revealed that media, parents and peer groups influenced adolescent body image and significantly contributed to female students' perceptions and attitudes.

Using cultural studies and critical discourse analysis as guiding theories, this study focuses on the literary representation of school experience by analyzing popular children's literature. The study focuses on literature appealing to the 8--12 year-old audience. Books of primary examination include L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series, Barbara Park's Junie B. Jones series, Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby books, Dav Pilkey's Captain Underpants series, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, Andrew Clemenet's Frindle, C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series, Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl books, Betty McDonald's Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books, and Walter Dean Meyer's Monster. The general trends found are: (1) Books featuring female protagonists are often concerned with relationships. The protagonists are frustrated that the roles and expectations of school do not allow space for discussing relationships or personal information. (2) Books featuring male protagonists generally focus on themes of power structures and how the students use subversive methods to assert their values in spite of the dominant administrative authority. (3) When books feature children who are working on character or ethical development, those children are often removed from the school context and placed in a more fantastical context. (4) The literature surveyed implies that students value unrealistically committed teachers with no interests outside of the children, who can make lessons clear, relevant, and interactive.

The work contained herein consists of two research papers that emerged from a single qualitative study of goals and ideologies of adult learners of Dena'ina Athabascan in attendance at the 2005 Dena'ina Language Institute. The study draws upon 19 semi-structured, in-depth interviews that were collected and analyzed in order to increase community control over the program and to assist in the development of future programming offered by the University of Alaska Fairbanks. The first research paper suggests that goals of attendees clustered into four categories: fluency, literacy, cultural knowledge, and community building. More important than these four stated goals were the ways in which these goals connected to overarching themes of visibility, healing and resistance. It is argued that these themes are interconnected forms of, and tools for, empowerment. The second research paper suggests that the presence and work of university representatives is always ideological and always educational. It outlines the importance of ideological critique on the part of both community and institution when goals of empowerment are being sought after. The work contains both-site specific recommendations and broader implications for educational institutions involved in Native language programming.

The purpose of this study was to compare the founding of Fairbanks Baptist Bible College with a procedure I later developed from various sources (Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education [ACPE], "Regulations," 2000; "Statutes," 2000; Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges [AGBUC], 2000; Cedarholm, 1988; Fadel, 1971; Fisher, 1983; Gribble, 1998; Halm and Hiatt, 1987; Ingram, 2003; Schindlbeck, 1969; Stark and Lattuca, 1997). The comparison shows that we omitted some important steps in establishing the college. Based on the previous sources, the results of the study, and Thornton's (1966) procedure, I developed a recommended process describing the responsibilities of four successive groups: the founders, the Board, the president, and the college. I concluded with some implications for future study.

This study used a case study design to investigate the planning year for Barnette Magnet School, which opened in the fall of 2005. The conversion to a K-8 school is met with some difficulty by school districts across the nation because, while there are many benefits to keeping these 7th and 8th grade adolescents in their neighborhood elementary school where supportive relationships have already been developed, the fact remains that they have different social, emotional and academic needs than either elementary or high school students. This case study seeks to examine the current research into best educational practice for this age group and to what extent the planning of the magnet school aligned with this research. The data revealed that the Magnet School, by implementing an innovative school-wide structure based on exploratory curriculum and dynamic interactions between school and community, generally did align its plans to what is considered best practice for adolescents. Several areas of weakness are identified and described.

The purpose of this case study was to describe how Arkansas was able to mandate and implement their elementary art education program, as well as the possibility of using Arkansas' program as a model for implementing art education at the elementary level in schools in other states. Based on what I discovered through interviews and publicly available documents, Arkansas' program was mandated and designed in such a manner that other states could modify the process used to create an elementary art program to fit their own individual needs. The findings from this study of the elementary art program in Arkansas could have an impact on art education nationwide. The possibility that other states could follow this lead would be a positive step towards improving art education for all students.

This study used a concurrent nested mixed-methods approach to analyze the implementation of the Quality Schools Model of education reform through the lens of the seven Malcolm Baldrige Education criteria. Specifically, this study was an inquiry to determine the difference in beliefs and implementation related to knowledge constructs between and within groups of school staff based on professional role, years of education experience and years of experience working in the Quality Schools Model district. This research also used structural equation modeling to examine the fit between the Baldrige in Education theoretical model and actual practice of the Baldrige concepts in the context of rural Alaska school districts implementing the Quality Schools Model of comprehensive education reform. A 72-item questionnaire was used to measure beliefs about importance of concepts and perceptions of the concepts in practice. The questionnaire was administered to a convenience sample of 212 administrators, teachers, and classified staff in three rural Alaska school districts. Qualitative data was gathered through 14 semi-structured interviews with community members, elders, school board members, parents, and school staff. Results from the questionnaire data showed that job classification was the greatest predictor of mean responses. Administrators perceived knowledge activities were in practice to a greater degree than teachers. There were no significant differences in beliefs about importance or practice among participants based on years of education work experience or on experience in the current school district. The results showed ambivalence and sticky transfer in the street-level implementation of the QSM with significant large differences between belief and practice scores for all groups. A structural model of Baldrige in Education factors with leadership as the exogenous factor was created for the QSM. Results showed that leadership had a direct effect on knowledge management, and knowledge management had a direct effect on strategic planning, and an indirect effect on process management and the outcome variables of student, stakeholder and market focus, and results. There was no direct or indirect path between the knowledge factor and staff focus factor, leading to a recommendation to increase knowledge creation and sharing opportunities for that group.

This study, conducted as part of a cohort of four, included three districts that follow the Quality Schools Model of educational reform. It used a mixed methods research paradigm to describe how one particular reform evaluation criterion, process management, is believed to be important and to be in practice as a part of the Quality Schools Model (QSM). Process management is the pertinent techniques and tools applied to a process to implement and improve process effectiveness. In this study, I sought to answer four research questions that are fully described in Chapter 3. Three of these questions explored stakeholders' perceptions about the importance of process management in contrast to their perceptions about the extent to which process management was actually in practice in the studied districts. The results of the analysis of the responses showed that there were few significant differences among the respondents. However, stakeholders' perception about the extent to which process management was actually in practice varied significantly with their job classification, but did not vary significantly with either their level of educational work experience or their years of experience with the QSM. Question four of this research was common to the cohort and explored the interrelationship of the seven Malcom Baldrige in Education Criteria in the three districts. The Malcom Baldrige in Education Criteria are a method to evaluate the quality of a school district. The cohort used structural equation modeling (SEM) to answer this question. The data supported a model that shows general agreement with the hypothesized model that is included with the Baldrige literature. While this research was specific to the QSM, others who are pursuing systemic educational reform should consider the implications. They are: holistic educational reform is dependent on well established processes; leadership does not have a direct influence on results; a school district's shared vision must be comprehensive to allow optimum learning conditions through the effective establishment of coproduction; and Total Quality Management practices should be included as a way to ensure staff does its best.

This study utilized bivariate correlations, partial correlations, multivariate analysis including Hotelling-T, and observed power to investigate the possible correlations and connections of teacher turnover in Alaska's public school system to performance on the standards-based assessment of the Alaska High School Qualifying Exam (HSQE). The study focused on the results in the content area of mathematics involving the 10th grade standards-based assessment (SBA). Results from the study indicate two primary correlations exist as applied to the proficiency levels on the mathematics portion of the 10th grade mathematics SBA, teacher turnover and percent Alaska Native of school population. The results indicate that teacher turnover is statistically significant with an inverse relationship in relation to standards-based test scores, and the students most likely being impacted by teacher turnover are located in Alaska school districts that have large Alaska Native student populations.