The People & Projects > Doctoral Dissertations

COMPLETED DISSERTATIONS

The following is a sample of doctoral dissertation titles completed by students who have graduated from the ICE concentration (and its predecessor SIDEC program) between 1990 and 2003. This list should give some indication of the overall diversity and individual creativity of the work undertaken by ICE Ph.D. students at Stanford.

Acedo, Clementina
Justice in Development: A Philosophical Analysis with Implications for Social and Educational Policy.

Avila, Salvador
Collaboration, Innovation and the Building Blocks of Social Capital in the Technology Sector

Bayardo, Barbara Dod
Contradictions in the Pursuit of Professionalism and Unionism: A Study of Public School Teachers in Mexico.

Beebe, Maria Africa
The Language of Credit in a Rural Philippines Setting.

Benveniste, Luis
The Politics of Student Testing: A Comparative Analysis of National Assessment Systems in Southern Cone Countries.

Bickmore, Katherine
Practicing Conflict: Citizenship Education in High School Social Studies.

Blitz, Brad Kagan
International Cooperation and the Limits of Educational Integration in the European Union

Burris, Mary Ann
To Serve China: Medical Schooling and Modernization in the People's Republic.

Chabbott, Colette
Constructing Educational Development: International Development Organizations and the World Conference of Education for All.

Chan-Tiberghien, Jennifer
The Rise of a Woman's Human Rights Epistemic Network: Global Norms and Local Education: Redefining Gender Politics in Japan.

Coffman, James Micha
Arabization and Islamization in the Algerian University.

Gibney, Laura Margar
Contraceptive Practices in Zimbabwe: The Influence of Educational Attainment and Personal Relationships.

Hogeboom, Richard
Informing and Confounding Educational Governance: Information Systems and Organizational Processes for Decentralization in Columbia, 1980-1994.

Honig, Benson Lewis
Education and the Microentrepreneur: A Study of the Jamaican Informal Sector.

Imaz-Gispert, Carlos
Inertia and Change in the Pedagogy and Politics of Teachers: A Case Study of Public Primary School Teachers in Mexico City.

Inoue, Keiko
Vive la Patiente! Discourse Analysis of the Global Expansion of Health as a Human Right

Jansen, Jonathan Dav
The State and Curriculum in Transition Societies: Zimbabwe, 1980-1990.

Kelly, Deirdre Marie
High School Is Like a Soap Opera: Gender and Disengagement in Two Continuation High Schools.

Kilo, Margaret Hilda
Family Support for Education: Explaining Gender Differences in Academic Performance in Cameroon.

Luster, Laura Inez
Schooling, Survival & Struggle: Black Women and the GED.

Mathema, Madhuri
Improving Poor Rural Women's Lives: A Case Study in Nepal.

McEwan, Patrick Jose
The Impact of Vouchers on School Efficiency: Empirical Evidence from Chile.

Melguizo, Tatiana
What Types of Colleges Were Doing a Better Job Graduating Minorities in the 1980s and 1990s?

Midling, Michael J.
Environmental Education in China: The Case of Secondary Schools in Sichuan Province.

Miyake, Eriko
Conflict and Interest Intermediation in Educational Policy Making in Japan: A Comparative Case Study of Teacher Management Policies, 1975-1988.

Nam, Young-Sook
Women, Schooling, and the Labor Market: Changes in the Structure of Earnings Inequality by Gender in Korea, 1976-1991.

Naranjo, Bernardo
Implementation Processes in Mexican Upper Secondary Institutions: Whose Influence Matters?

Ordorika, Imanol
Power, Politics and Change in Higher Education: The Case of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Paulin, Agustin
Decentralization and the Financing of Education in Mexico

Pollack, Seth Seader
Three Decades of Service-Learning in Higher Education (1966-1996): The Contested Emergence of An Organizational Field.

Rauner, Mary Helen
The Worldwide Globalization of Civics Education Topics From 1955 to 1995.

Razquin, Paula
Teacher relative salaries and their determinants: A study of Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay

Rensburg, Ihron Lest
Collective Identity and Public Policy: From Resistance to Reconstruction in South Africa, 1986-1995.

Rhoten, Diana Russel
Global-Local Conditions of Possibility: The Case of Education Decentralization in Argentina.

Rios, Joseph Gerard
The Play of Ethnicity in an Ethnically Diverse Middle School.

Sanders, Mavis Grove
Breaking the Cycle of Reproduction: The Effect of Communities, Families and Schools on the Academic Achievement of Urban African American Youth.

Santibañez, Lucrecia
Teacher Markets in Mexico: Sorting, Teacher Competence and Student Achievement

Shapiro, Ruth Amy
Decision-Making in Development Assistance Donor Agencies: The Case of U.S. Aid and JICA.

Sutton, Margaret Rut
Social Sciences and Ordinary Understanding: Coming to Terms With Tourism in Bali.

Thomas, Christopher
Does Community Participation Make a Difference? Girls' Schooling Outcomes and Community Participation in Balochistan.

Toledo-C, Alejandro
Human Capital and Market Segmentation: Changes in Schooling, Employment and Earnings Distribution in Peru, 1961-1972.

Tueros Arias, Mario
Education, Heterogeneity, and Productive Efficiency in Peru's Informal Sector.

Welmond, Michel Jack
Teacher Identity in Africa: The Case of the Republic of Benin.

Wong, Pia Ilyen Lind
Moving from Pinochet to Piaget: Implementation of the Interdisciplinary Project in the Sao Paulo Public Schools.

Wotipka, Christine Min
Beyond Access to Transformations: A Cross-National Analysis of Women in Science and Engineering Education, 1970-2000.

Yang, Hua
The Teacher's Job: A Comparison of US and Japanese Middle School Teachers.

Zeng, Kangmin
The Dragon Gates: The Origin and Development of the University Entrance Examinations in Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

DISSERTATIONS IN PROGRESS

The following is a sample of doctoral dissertation projects currently underway by some of the ICE Ph.D. students. This list provides working titles of each student’s dissertation projects as well as short but descriptive abstracts.

Gove, Amber K.
Taking Sides: The Effects of Supply and Demand Driven Policies on Parent Decision Making and Education Investment in Brazil

This dissertation examines the responsiveness of Brazilian households to policy interventions that target schools (supply side) and families (demand side). Principal research questions include: How do Brazilian households make decisions about schooling investments for young people? Do households truly evaluate the school environment (supply side) or are these decisions primarily motivated by their ability to "afford" schooling (demand side)? How do households "measure" school quality, and what factors, programs, or policies raise their perceptions of school quality? What effect do these perceptions have on schooling decisions and attendance? The theoretical approach to these questions is derived from both micro-economic models of household decision-making outcomes and sociological interpretations of the distributions of education opportunities. Questionnaire results collected during 2003 from 2,000 parents and their 4th and 8th grade students in the urban periphery of Salvador, Bahia will complement data on student attendance, grades, and test scores as well as teacher and school characteristics.

Staklis, Sandra
Public and Private Higher Education, Ethnicity, and Student Choice in Estonia and Latvia

Both Estonia and Latvia are struggling to reform the highly centralized, rigid institutions inherited from the Soviet Union into national universities suited to democratic societies with market economies. At the same time, the demand for higher education has more than doubled during the past ten years, straining the limited resources of the public sector and encouraging the rapid growth of private institutions. This dissertation will examine how students understand and make choices in the new market for academic credentials, paying particular attention to the strategy of different ethnic and linguistic groups. Theories of nation-building, ethnic identity, and educational transitions will be used to analyse how students from different economic and ethnic backgrounds make educational choices, and how the educational systems in both countries shape their options.