Public school segregation between white and black students in Southern states increased slightly in the 1990s, reversing several decades of stable integration patterns in much of the South. This increase in school segregation carte during a decade during which residential segregation in the South declined rather substantially. Seen in the context of these decreases in residential segregation, the increase in school segregation represents a substantial change in the effectiveness of public school desegregation efforts. In 1990, the public schools in metropolitan area counties were, on average, 40% less segregated than the housing patterns in their corresponding county—school systems were able to ameliorate two-fifths of the segregative effects of housing patterns. By 2000, however, public schools were only 27% less segregated than their local housing markets, a one-third reduction in the effectiveness of desegregation efforts.

Moreover, despite the trends toward decreasing residential segregation and increasing school segregation, patterns of 'white flight' to private schools do not appear to have lessened since the 1970s. In 1980, 1990, and 1998, county-level white private school enrollment rates were strongly and tightly linked to the proportion of the county school-age population who were black white private school enrollment rates are extremely high in predominantly black counties, despite decades of stable integration in the public school.

This dissertation has two main purposes: 1) the introduction and application of a framework of online education that includes both the student and instructional perspectives during course implementation 2) to find validation for the framework using three separate studies: a detailed study of variables in online education and higher education literature; a course case study; and 15 student cases. In addition to addressing the experiences of four main actors (institution, instructor, media, and student) in the course, the theory proposed here makes a connection between many areas of online education literature that had previously been somewhat disparate. This connection is important because it allows for a broader perspective for a more holistic understanding of the issues in online courses. This broader perspective should help researchers and educators communicate not only what they are focusing their research and instruction on but also what is periphery. The studies analyzed whether the proposed f ramework accurately reflects the literature, a course case study, and 15 student cases. When it does not, this dissertation modified the framework to better reflect the results of these studies.

The current study seeks to validate a second-order, multifaceted model of engagement that contains a behavioral, an emotional, and a cognitive subtype as proposed by Fredericks, Blumenfeld, and Paris’ (2004), while also incorporating literature on student interactions. The second-order, 12-factor model proposed and tested for its validity partitioned engagement into the second-order constructs of academic and social engagement and examined each of the three engagement subtypes in relation to the interactions that students experience with their course material, with their classmates, and with their instructors/teaching assistants. Since the proposed model did not meet accepted standards of fit, the dataset was randomly split into two approximately equal halves and a follow-up exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted on the first half of the dataset, which yielded a second-order, five-factor solution. The second-order academic engagement constructs that emerged from the EFA consisted of students’ behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement with their course material. In addition, two first-order factors emerged from the EFA, consisting of students’ emotional and cognitive engagement with their fellow students or classmates.

These constructs and relationships were consistent with the theory that drove the original proposed model, but differed slightly in their composition and relationship with one another. After establishing this empirical model through EFA procedures, the model was cross-validated on the second-half of the randomly split dataset and examined for invariance across students enrolled in online courses and students enrolled in traditional, in-person college courses, as well students from ethnically and economically diverse backgrounds. Latent mean comparisons revealed differences in levels of academic and social engagement between these three groups of students, suggesting that students enrolled in online courses and students from African-American and Latino/a ethnicities were slightly more academically engaged than their counterparts. However, students enrolled in online courses scored much lower than students enrolled in face-to-face courses on the social engagement measures, while students from African-American and Latino/a ethnic groups scored higher on the social engagement measures than did students from Asian and Caucasian ethnicities. Interestingly, no differences emerged between groups of students from lower and higher economic backgrounds.