Education and Human Sciences, College of (CEHS)
Date of this Version
4-24-2009
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Project PRIME (Promoting Reflective Inquiry in Mathematics Education), was funded by the National Science Foundation in October 2002. Implementation subsequently began in 2003 and focused upon K-12 mathematics education within Rapid City, South Dakota Area Schools (RCAS). One goal of the project has been to reduce the achievement gap between Native American and non-native students enrolled in RCAS. At the elementary level, this gap reduction was to be achieved through promoting broader use of inquiry-based mathematics, strategies that have been shown elsewhere to help struggling math students in general (Baxter, Woodward, & Olsen, 2001; Franke, Carpenter, Levi, & Fennema, 2001; Kazemi & Franke, 2004) and Native American students in particular (Demmert, 2001; Hankes, 1998; Nelson-Barber & Estrin, 1995). This ethnography of education policy implementation (Hamann, 2003; Levinson & Sutton, 2001; Muncey & McQuillin, 1996) focused on whether through Project PRIME, inquiry-based mathematics strategies were consistently implemented in the three K-5 elementary schools with a significant Native American student population in RCAS and only then considers whether Project PRIME and RCAS can be used to extend or challenge the existing understanding that inquiry-based mathematics might be particularly advantageous to Native American students.
This study examined 5th grade classrooms during the 2008-2009 year as these students have been the target of Project PRIME the longest; the vast majority of 5th grade RCAS students should have been involved with inquiry-based mathematics for most of their elementary years (if intended implementation was enacted). Implementation at the three high-Native American enrollment schools was then compared with a fourth elementary school that had a lower Native American student population but was considered an exemplar of inquiry-based mathematics by RCAS and Project PRIME leadership.
Advisor: Edmund T. Hamann
Comments
A DISSERTATION Presented to the Faculty of The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Education, Major: Educational Studies. Under the Supervision of Professor Edmund T. Hamann.
Lincoln, NE: May, 2009
Copyright (c) 2009 Jamalee Bussinger-Stone.