Masters Thesis

An in-depth examination of one teacher's classroom management techniques in a diverse classroom setting

The purpose of this study was to explore one European-American teacher's classroom management and organization in a diverse classroom setting. Specifically, the study seeks to discover how the teacher met the diverse cultural needs of a classroom comprised of primarily Latino students. The single participant of this fine-grained, multimethod case study was a 40-year-old, European-American female. At the time of the � study, the second-grade teacher was in her 16th year of employment with an urban district located in the outskirts of Los Angeles County. The teacher was examined with regard to her classroom management in a second grade class comprised of 9 female and 10 male students. Of the 19 students, two were African American, two were European-American, and 15 were Latino. The methods consisted of a three data bases: 1) written responses on the Teacher Intake Questionnaire; 2) three full-day observations; and 3) a concluding interview with the teacher. The results revealed that the teacher was very adept at meeting the diverse needs of her students, despite the fact that she had no known training with regard to managing a classroom of predominately Latino students. The study discusses the methods and strategies that were observed in the teacher's classroom, and their effectiveness.in bridging the cultural gap that existed as a result of the classroom demographics.

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