Debating Myself

Today I turned in the fruits of over a year of my labor–my senior thesis in Politics and Government at Pacific University. It is a good feeling and I am actually very proud of the finished product. It is not quite a publishable paper, largely due to a lack of data, but it is a good paper calling for further avenues of research in rural education policy. You can read the abstract below to find out what the paper is all about, but I thought it would be fun to take a statistical look at my thesis:

Vital Stats:

• Pages: 41
• Words: 11,857
• Footnotes: 42
• Words (with footnotes): 13, 337
• Sources Cited: 38
• Sources Consulted: 74
• Appendixes: 1

For those of you interested, here is a summary of the thesis and what it entails:

Rural education policy research has traditionally focused on the sociological aspects of rural areas and often failed to take into account analyses of politics and power. Utilizing a more formal political analysis, this study describes the political universe within which educational policy in rural areas is formed. Using two case studies of the implementation of a national grant program, the Reading First grant, this study seeks to explore the different intergovernmental relationships that rural and urban school districts experience, and the institutional features of No Child Left Behind that place rural areas at a disadvantage when implementing national educational policy. The study concludes by suggesting ways that policy makers and school districts alike can craft future policies to accommodate the unique advantages and disadvantages of both urban and rural school districts.

If that sounds interesting I invite you to download the PDF and take a glance. It is a bit dry, so if you want to be spared the details you can skip to the conclusion and find the most salient points summarized nicely there.

The Myth of the Oak Tree (PDF)

The important thing is that it is done, and that I am proud of the finished product.