Department of Curriculum, Culture and Educational Inquiry

This study utilized an action research design with qualitative methods to explore the transformative potential of a multicultural literature curriculum within a general education setting. Providing young students with opportunities to develop perspective taking and empathetic responses to others who are different, offers the critical potential for reducing prejudice. Based on Allport’s (1979) contact theory, originally written in 1954, multicultural literature served as indirect contact, providing access to characters who were different from the students. The design included the researcher’s classroom and a teacher cohort of five third grade teachers interacting with a total of 103 students in a public charter elementary school in South Florida. The selection of third graders was purposeful by the developmental window of social perspective taking identified by Selman (1980). Each teacher utilized the multicultural book set to conduct interactive read-alouds along with critical questions to support the students in understanding the settings and problems and therefore the perspective of the diverse characters. We gathered data from student work samples, audio tapes, cohort meetings, teacher journals, researcher journals, and critical friend meetings. Computer-assisted qualitative data analysis aided in the organization and handling of the quantity of data as Glasser’s (2008) constant comparative method was applied to coding through the action research recursive cycles. Emergent themes and patterns from the data demonstrated positive development in the depth of discussion through improved emotional vocabulary and new understanding of mixed emotions. The variety of storylines offered new knowledge of social justice issues such as immigration, refugees, religious tolerance, slavery, and poverty while developing vocabulary to engage in reading and discussion. The indirect contact experiences with diverse characters and the lessons provided practice in perspective taking and emotional empathy skills. This study contributes to the body of literature using multicultural literature for empathy and perspective taking development and adds to indirect contact studies for prejudice reduction by focusing on younger students and being conducted within an authentic school context.

The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of skydiving instructors who have shaped the instructional practices of experienced and active accelerated freefall instructors (AFFIs) in Central and Southern Florida. By contributing to the training curriculum, this research attempted to close the experiential gap between novice and senior instructors in a more efficient manner. Due to the complex nature of teaching skydiving and an absence of an opportunity for a skydiving instructor in training to work in freefall with non-certified skydivers, understanding the lived experiences of active AFFIs is of critical importance. This study aimed to answer the following research questions: (a) How do active accelerated freefall training instructors personalize the lessons learned in the AFFI instructor training course, forming their own best practices and instructional style? and (b) What roles do lived skydiving experiences, both significant and critical, play in the development of an active AFFI’s current instructional style and best practices? Sites selected included five dropzones located in Central and Southern Florida, with three of those sites yielding a total of 10 participants. Data were collected regarding basic demographic information as well as about the lived experiences of the active AFFIs through both structured and semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Interviews were conducted either in-person or over the phone based on the preference of the participants. Data analysis took place in three phases: separation of qualitative and quantitative data, open coding, and axial coding following Merriam’s (2009) process of coding. Findings revealed an understanding that accelerated freefall (AFF) instruction has become rooted within the culture and experiences of the skydiving community through the stance “license to learn.” This stance has led to the emergence of an educational model outlining the roles culture and experience play not only in the development of the active AFFIs, but also how those lessons are passed on to the next generation of AFFIs. Findings in this research will play a significant role in the development of future curricular adjustments, highlighting the importance of this stance while also providing a solid foundation for future inquiry.