title:
Narrating Hope: Identity and Engagement in Students at a Second Chance School
creator:
Lawton-Sticklor, Nastasia
subject:
Dissertations, Academic.
description:
The purpose of this study was to examine qualitative narrative aligning with three domains of the Domain-Specific Hope Scale (Sympson, 1999) to explore how hope is displayed in a sample of students who are re-engaging in an alternative environment after having disengaged or dropped out of school. Drawing from current theories of hope, school engagement and learner identity in academic settings (e.g. Snyder, 1994; Sympson, 1999; Fine, 1991; Brown & Rodriguez, 2009; Dweck, 2010), students participated in two interviews and hope scale administrations over a six-month period. Results showed initial low Academic hope and moderate to low hope in Family and Social domains, paired with descriptions of negative school experiences and traumatic personal experiences that students attributed to disengaging from school. Over the course of a six-month period in an alternative school, positive gains were made in Academic hope scores, while the Family and Social domains showed mixed results, with some student scores increasing, and others decreasing. After six months, students described school more positively, with improved relationships and increased academic confidence, while most cited no change or deteriorating relationships in Family and Social domains. Qualitative data were analyzed next to hope scores to make inferences about what the re-engagement process is like for students and to what factors students attribute their engagement, or disengagement with school.
publisher:
Simmons College (Boston, Mass.)
contributor:
date:
2013
type:
Text
format:
1 PDF (186 Pages)
identifier:
td_el_2013_nls
source:
language:
English
relation:
coverage:
rights:
Material from the Simmons University Archives collections are made available for study purposes only. For more information, or to request rights to reproduce or reuse any material, contact the University Archives at archives@simmons.edu.
