ACKNOWLEDGMENTSI would like to thank the following individuals for the role they played in helping me complete my dissertation:To my advisor, Eric Wagner, for his guidance and wisdom these past four years -from helping me narrow down my topic to developing quality scholarly work -and for everything in between. Thank you also for being my advocate.To Mark Macgowan for his support throughout the program and for giving me the opportunity to work with him on research projects.To Mario de la Rosa for his assistance in raising the quality of my methodology and for helping to shape my problem/policy qualifying paper.To Maureen Kenny for her expertise in schools and children, as well as for her help in coordinating the pre-testing of my survey.