2024 Capstones

Adviser: Talya Zemach-Bersin

Second Reader:  Maria Trumpler
Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
 

Abstract: This capstone asks the question of how to reimagine outdoor education that decenters whiteness, encourages increased Black community’s encounters with land, and honors native knowledges. Through a two-part series of autoethnographic essays, I offer a journey of how I as a Black, non-native woman can learn to ethically learn from the land while engaging with Native knowledges, engaging with the freedom-practices of my ancestors, and engaging with educators today who engage with land as a transformative, freeing practice. This capstone sits at the intersection of indigeneity and Black ancestral engagement with land, particularly how they coexist. This capstone attempts to reimagine the possibilities for Black, non-native learners to find belonging in the outdoors while still being informed, ethical relationship-builders with all beings. I provide an auto-ethnographic journey of how I learn from the land, with the land, and on the land. Methodologies include hand-written field notes rooted in place-based learning, photographs and videos, and participatory observation to learn from those—both human and non-human—around me.

Keywords: outdoor education, land-based education, place-based education, embodied learning, indigeneity, Black fugitivity

Adviser: Mira Debs

Second Reader: Jason Stanley
Department of Philosophy

Abstract:  Education has played a pivotal role in shaping a united Ukrainian identity following Ukraine’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Language education proved especially formative in elevating Ukrainian as the national language over Russian. These shifts sought to create a unified Ukraine under a shared state language given linguistic differences between western Ukrainians and ethnic Russians living in eastern and southern Ukraine. Simultaneously, history education reforms created an identity of resilience against attempts at Russification. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, education has again become a critical battleground: Russian interference with Ukrainian education, via curricular reforms, re-education camps, and misinformation campaigns, have undermined Ukraine’s efforts at establishing an independent identity. However, there is little research examining what role education has played in maintaining or strengthening Ukrainian identity since 2022. Out capstone first uses extant news sources and reports to comprehensively document how educational experiences currently differ for students in Ukrainian-controlled areas, students in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine, and students displaced from Ukraine. While students in Ukrainian-controlled territories are experiencing disruptions to education, students in Russian-controlled areas face re-education efforts that undermine students’ connection to their Ukrainian identity. Simultaneously, varied access to Ukrainian language and history education for refugees threatens to weaken their connection to Ukrainian culture. Second, through qualitative, open-ended interviews with 15 Ukrainian college students, who can reflect on Ukrainian education both before and during the war, we examine how the war has shaped students’ engagement with education and how education has shaped their sense of identity in the last decade. By considering both the past and present, our project investigates how education has been and continues to be pivotal to understanding the Ukrainian state and the Russo-Ukrainian war. 

Adviser: Mira Debs

Second Reader: Talya Zemach-Bersin
Education Studies Program

Abstract:  We explore the ways in which different narratives about mathematics drive mathematics education policy. How does conceiving of mathematics as a widely applicable science useful for a variety of industry and create a difference in mathematics education policy when contrasted with, for example, conceiving of mathematics as an abstract, pure discipline? This paper explores (1) the ways in which narratives of mathematics have been historically leveraged in American educational reform; and (2) an inspection of several strands of discourse regarding the nature of mathematics as they might be encountered by an individual today. Throughout this exploration, we discuss implications for the nature of mathematics education in the United States.  

Adviser: Mira Debs

Second Reader: Melissa Scheve
Education Studies Program

Abstract:  Brian Salazar is a fourth-year US History teacher at Achieve High School, a small mastery and project-based learning magnet school in New Haven, Connecticut. Initially interested in education policy, Brian started teaching to gain classroom experience and fell in love with the profession. This project follows Brian through his fourth year of teaching, showing how Brian balances working towards his vision of pedagogy and the day-to-day demands of teaching at a small, urban magnet high school. Through twice-a-week classroom observations and weekly check-ins, this project seeks to recount Brian’s experience, discussing Brian’s relationships with students, other teachers, and administrators, the different methods that Brian experiments with to improve his students’ learning, and the unexpected challenges that arose throughout the year. I write the project as an ongoing dialogue between me and Brian, in which my understanding of Brian and his classroom expands throughout the year. Brian’s commitment to improving his pedagogy and persistence through navigating the lived realities of implementing project-based learning in a highly differentiated classroom shine through during my observation of his classroom. 

Adviser: Carla Horwitz

Second Reader: Talya Zemach-Bersin
Education Studies Program

Abstract:  In the realm of mistreatment of young children, neglect is more overlooked than its counterparts such as physical or sexual abuse, yet–as of 2013–neglect was the most recorded type of child maltreatment among child protection agencies. By looking back into my childhood, I realized how important story time and books were in my relationship with my parents, so I wanted to combine the two almost competing aspects: the medium in which I connected with my parents and the phenomenon that pulled us apart. The first part of this project explores the research and literature surrounding neglect and its effect on children, existing practices to help neglected children, the power of children’s books, and how neglect is represented in children’s literature. The literature review also includes knowledge from child clinician, Nancy Close, about the current practices utilized to help abused and neglected children alongside some guidance on what characteristics make children’s books effective and one of Calvin Hill Day Care Center’s kindergarten teacher, Fiona Riebeling, about the way schools are a place of intervention and support for young children. In my methodology, I explain my thought process behind the type of books I have read and outline my guiding “checklist” of literary components I discerned were necessary for me to include in my own children’s book with reasoning for each one. This results in a narrative-driven children’s book for three- to five-year-olds titled Jaime and the Not-So-Golden String that touches on neglect through the lens of the affected child to allow for neglected children to not only feel seen but also learn a few self-soothing skills they can use. 

Adviser: Talya Zemach-Bersin

Second Reader: Diana Cordova Cobo
Education Studies Program

Abstract:  This 2-part capstone is an investigation into the intersection of dance, education, and critical Latine studies. The capstone utilizes existing formal literature, dance archives, and the work of communities who are doing related work to make the argument that watching and analyzing dance is an invaluable tool in building out Latine Studies curriculum. This project begins with a review of literature about facets of a successful Latinx studies curriculum, which I then put in conversation with literature about the power of primary source work. The conclusions are described below in a literature review. I then review two case study examples of successful music curriculums that utilized primary source frameworks to add nuance to a Latinx studies program.  The project concludes with a multi-day unit and a teacher’s guide. The curriculum is themed around age appropriate (9th grade) understandings of dance as a source of storytelling and resistance, stewarded by, guided by Danza Organica and their piece âs nupumukômun (we still dance), and more. When taught it will center students, with modules utilizing a variety of ways for student inquiry to drive the lesson, thus making it adaptable to a variety of classrooms with a variety of demographics, and countries of origin.  

Adviser: Talya Zemach-Bersin

Second Reader: Jennifer Berkshire
Department of Political Science, Education Studies Program

Abstract:  This paper examines the evolving debate over school choice policies in Vermont, exploring the dichotomy between proponents’ advocacy for expansion and opponents’ concerns regarding the implications for public education. Situated within Vermont’s unique educational landscape—characterized by its small, community-driven school districts—this analysis looks at the historical and cultural roots of the school choice system and how they influence current legislative and public sentiments. Through a critical review of legislative testimonies, educational data, and court cases, this study highlights how recent challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, debates over curricular content like Critical Race Theory, and pivotal U.S. Supreme Court decisions have intensified discussions around the use and expansion of school vouchers. This paper argues that while proponents of school choice present it as a solution to perceived inefficiencies and inequalities in the education system, opponents caution against its potential to exacerbate existing disparities and undermine the public school system. The main contention lies not only in the differing views of school choice’s impacts on educational equity and quality but also in the proactive versus reactive nature of the arguments presented. The analysis concludes that the future of Vermont’s educational policy must consider both the deeply rooted community values and the pressing need for equitable and effective educational solutions. 

Adviser: Carla Horwitz

Second Reader: Jessica Sager
Education Studies Program

Abstract: For over a century, teen pageants have offered opportunities to young women. Yet today, teen pageants are often dismissed as disempowering. This dismissal ignores the reality: the opportunities that enable teen girls to attain upward mobility, which is otherwise often inaccessible due to ageism and sexism. While pageant success remains a pipe dream for most, the mere possibility of such mobility, combined with the seemingly meritocratic nature of pageants, holds substantial appeal. By analyzing the benefits and harms of teen pageantry, this project seeks to understand how pageants function as a microcosm of the broader culture of upward mobility for teen girls in America. This project achieves this aim by analyzing and synthesizing a plethora of primary sources, including interviews, social media posts, competition footage, blog discussions, pageant organizations’ promotional materials, and prize packages. These sources are complemented by secondary sources, including literature on the benefits and harms of teen pageantry. Through this research, I also explore how teen pageants could potentially compromise their participants’ identity development and withhold upward mobility. 

Adviser: Carla Horwitz

Second Reader: Benjamin Barasch
Humanities Program

Abstract:  This capstone project is a study of the Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). I argue that Vygotsky is an important philosopher of childhood whose contributions to the field are often neglected or misunderstood. I situate Vygotsky in his revolutionary time and place, and elaborate the implications of his theoretical principles today in light of their particular historical context. Vygotsky’s idea that development and consciousness are innately social in nature stands in contrast to dominant Western notions of childhood as a lost paradise of individual freedom. In Chapter 1, I describe Vygotsky’s studies of tools and signs as instruments in the historical development of labor and language. Chapter 2 recounts his disagreement with the Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget about the character and function of egocentric speech. In the final chapter, I revisit Vygotsky’s theory of the zone of proximal development, or zo-ped, in contrast to other theories of growth. 

Adviser: Mira Debs

Second Reader: Brad Rosen
Department of Computer Science

Abstract: In the digital era, parents’ posts about their children have given rise to “helicopter sharenting,” a term introduced in this capstone to describe the merging of helicopter parenting with sharenting. This practice blends the overzealous involvement and controlling characteristics of helicopter parenting with the public digitalization of children’s lives inherent in sharenting. It involves intense scrutiny and control by parents over their children’s digital personas, profoundly affecting their privacy and autonomy. This paper explores varying forms of child exploitation and endangerment through family vlog (video blog) social media accounts, which purport to offer educational content and encouraging communities for parents. While these platforms can offer multiple forms of support to parents, they also frequently serve interests of fame and monetization, thus commodifying children’s experiences. This paper highlights the risks associated with helicopter sharenting—including privacy invasion, vulnerability to cyberbullying, overworking, predation, and the creation of a permanent digital footprint. It culminates in a set of recommended approaches for parents considering posting their children, advocating for social media sharing that protects children while upholding the educational and supportive benefits of these online communities.

Adviser: Talya Zemach-Bersin

Second Reader: Sarah Mahurin
Department of African American Studies, Department of English

Abstract:  In a selected portion of a creative memoir accompanied by an analytical essay, this project explores the Appalachian experience as it intersects with other forms of social identity, raising questions about privilege and power in an economically distressed geography, and later, an elite academic institution. The longform memoir follows the author’s youth in rural Southeastern Kentucky and her transition to an Ivy League setting at Yale University; the text published here focuses primarily on the early life as a nod to the education that occurs outside of the formal classroom space. The narrative illuminates internal and familial tensions and introduces key themes including: kinship, queer Appalachia, womanhood, class mobility, first-generation low-income studenthood, and identity formation. The work invites readers to consider these experiences as they overlap alongside the complex web of relationships between Appalachia and its geography, poverty, degree attainment and educational persistence contextualized in the essay component. Reading the memoir through a scholarly lens and with the author’s essay in mind centers the appearance of interrelated forms of hierarchy and experiences of marginalization in various spaces. 

Adviser: Talya Zemach-Bersin

Second Reader: Daniel HoSang
American Studies Program

Abstract:  This Capstone project is a two-part creative project that consists of 1) an academic essay arguing for a community archive to publicly document the history of El Puente, a community organization serving the Latine communities of Williamsburg and Bushwick and 2) a catalog I made for El Puente of archival materials from the organization’s history that could contribute to the future archive. This project asks: 1) Why is it important to document the history of El Puente right now? In other words, what is at stake for El Puente’s community when documenting this history in today’s political climate? and 2) What are the best practices for building community archives? How would they inform the building of an El Puente community archive? This capstone project aims to simultaneously serve as a case study about and a mutually beneficial collaborative project with El Puente. 

Adviser: Carla Horwitz

Second Reader: Cara Fallon
Global Health Studies Program

Abstract:  Education, both verbal and written, is a critical component of health care. Despite a global increase in chronic disease incidence, limited engaging and empowering health materials exist to educate patients on health and disease. The absence of appropriate health education has serious consequences for the well-being of millions worldwide. Children, in particular, represent a unique challenge to healthcare providers and the delivery of health information. Without appropriate health education, children and families are unequipped to engage in meaningful discussions or make thoughtful decisions regarding their care. This capstone seeks to explore the value of empowering and interactive patient education, namely for pediatric patients with 

chronic disease. A literature review and a thematic analysis of interviews with diabetes care stakeholders serve as the primary base of evidence. Stakeholders of interest include parents of children with type 1 diabetes, diabetes healthcare providers, adults with type 1 diabetes, and school nurses. Utilizing a semi-structured interview design, I investigated how these individuals described, interacted, and responded to an interactive type 1 diabetes education model. Positive feedback gathered from my interviews strongly supported the educational value of my type 1 diabetes education model and, more broadly, the value of interactive and empowering pediatric patient learning tools inside and outside of the clinical setting. 

Adviser: Talya Zemach-Bersin

Second Reader: Mira Debs
Education Studies Program

Abstract:  This two-part capstone addresses the limitations in currently available resources on student government. Existing scholarly research on high school student government is lacking, and existing student government handbooks are written from a perspective that privileges administrators and teachers over students in school decision-making processes. The first part of this capstone investigates the literature on and publicly available resources for high school student governments. The second part is a handbook written to fill in the gaps in existing resources by creating a student-centered, peer-perspective student government handbook that helps students think about and engage with their own student governments. 

Adviser: Talya Zemach-Bersin

Second Reader: Claudia Valeggia
Department of Anthropology

Abstract:  This two-part capstone represents my response to a public discourse around fatphobia and fat stigma that only goes as far as denouncing stigma. The academic essay that follows identifies and analyzes different dimensions of the form of the cookbook: its role as a political text, the fat politics of weight loss cookbooks, and the sub-genre of the children’s cookbook. I read dozens of children’s cookbooks through the lens of body neutrality and food justice. Through this literature search, I found that children’s cookbooks emphasize play and the accessibility of ingredients and cooking and offer nutritional information, seemingly out of a perspective that children’s cookbooks have the obligation to educate children about nutrition while encouraging them to cook. With these findings, I created my own children’s cookbook to explore the radical, educational project possible after denouncing fat stigma. I divided the cookbook into early childhood, middle school, and high school sections, envisioning that readers would be fully equipped to understand fundamental nutritional concepts, resist misconceptions around nutrition, and have the vocabulary to engage with food politics.  

Adviser: Mira Debs

Second Reader: Juno Richards
Department of English

Abstract:  Boarding school experiences have been a point of interest for both creative and academic writers. For novelists, boarding schools provide the perfect excuse for their teenage characters to have adventures that might not be possible with their parents around all the time. For researchers, these historically white upper-class boys’ institutions serve as prime examples of elite social reproduction in America, but their recent commitments to diversity complicate their relationship with that history. While boarding school novels have grown more diverse in recent years, seemingly responding to the changing demographics of their real-life inspiration, the number of books with queer protagonists of color is small. Through this two-part creative capstone, I address this gap in the literature. The first part takes the form of a literature review investigating the academic literature about racial and sexual identity formation at boarding schools and the boarding school novel as a genre. It also engages with young adult literature featuring characters who are queer, of color, and/or at boarding school. For the second part, I use insights drawn from the literature review and my personal experience to write an original young adult novel, tentatively titled Singers and Strikers, guided by the following question: How can my experiences as a gay Filipino American boarding school student, in conversation with academic findings and existing young adult literature centering queerness, Filipinoness, and/or the boarding school experience, be translated into a young adult boarding school novel that contributes to the diversification of this genre? 

Adviser: Mira Debs

Second Reader: Jack Harris
Department of Physics

Abstract:  The United States faces a doctor shortage crisis. At the same time, key stakeholders have  emphasized that addressing this shortage must include increasing the diversity of doctor identities  and backgrounds. Many studies have shown that diverse doctors improve all patient outcomes.  However, systemic educational inequities at all stages cause a demographically disproportionate  number of students to leave the medical training pipeline (which, chronologically, includes K-12  STEM education, the undergraduate college pre-medicine track, medical school, and residency  programs). In particular, undergraduate colleges see large attrition of pre-medicine students, with  underrepresented minority students more commonly leaving the pre-medicine track than their white,  male, and/or higher-income-background counterparts. Research has been done at other universities  to identify specific pre-medicine attrition points, with classroom experiences in early “gateway” or  “weeder” classes such as general chemistry and organic chemistry commonly reported as key  deciding factors in a student’s decision to leave pre-medicine. However, the research on the  pedagogy of undergraduate pre-medicine courses is limited to specific examples. Additionally, at  Yale University, little work has been done to examine the specific classroom experience of pre medicine students. This Yale education studies capstone aims to combine Yale pre-medicine student  interview data with the existing body of research on effective teaching practices to create a proposal  to improve the pre-med classroom experience for Yale students. I argue that good pedagogy at the  undergraduate level can help address burnout and systemic educational inequities and support more  diverse students’ persistence through the medical training pipeline.