This dissertation explores four of my kindergartners' understandings of gender across one academic year with an in-depth study of responses to a series of picture book read alouds including Cinderella variants. Critical literacy offered opportunities for these young students to critique inequities within social practices (Au & Raphael, 2000;…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the meaning of a class of second graders' fairy tale learning experiences. This study is unique four key reasons. First, it focuses on a group of students whose school has been lagging in state English Language Arts (ELA) proficiency tests; second, it provides perspectives on how fairy tales affect the…

This dissertation explores the relationship between the teaching of literary genre and the facilitation of empathy. It analyzes whether poetry, fairy tales, readers-theater, biography and/or novel can contribute to a fourth-grade student's understanding and development of empathy. After leading my students in guided readings, I concentrated on…

One in 4 children in the United States lives in a family impacted by the chronic, heritable disease of substance use disorder (SUD), also known as alcoholism or addiction. Recent research has demonstrated that resilience is a key protective factor against developing the disease in adolescence and adulthood and that the neurological roots of…

Power relationships are a central premise in children's literature, especially traditional fairy tales and modern feminist fairy tales. This is seen in many fairy tales where the main female character is in some distress, her Prince Charming rescues her, and they live happily ever after. Modern feminist fairy tales are understood to be a forum…

John Dewey believed that the foundation of education is built on social responsibility and democracy, and specifically proposed social change and thought of teachers essentially as social workers as a conduit to that change. In this qualitative case study, different cultures were introduced via literature to a group of fourth grade students in an…

Recalling and reframing a personal life story in the form of a fairy tale, then engaging in a practice on meditation and reflecting on it, is one way older adults can relieve their positive experience and thereby impact their mental and emotional health and well-being. Although prior research has established the benefits of narrative therapy (NT)…

Children nowadays perceive fairy tales from a number of sources; however, the strongest prior impressions toward this genre held by most youngsters are still built on the popular mass media-based adaptations such as the animated films or books of fairytale retellings by the Walt Disney Company. In order to make a change to such an undesirable…