Digital Commons Network^™

A Sociological Study Of The Manifestation Of Multi-Culturalism In Public Schools, Christy Lee Hammer

Doctoral Dissertations

Debates on multi-culturalism are prevalent in politics, the mass media, and the educational system. I identify the range of local and national views concerning multi-culturalism and multi-cultural education, and explore how these views are manifest in actual multi-cultural practices in the schools. My central thesis is that the implementation of multi-culturalism in the schools threatens core, traditional values functional to the power structure. Yet, effective, quality multi-cultural education does takes place. This reveals a contradiction between the needs of the Nation-State to maintain certain core values and the need for multi-culturalism by international capitalism.

I have explored multi-cultural issues in …

Dancing On Razor Wire: Caring To Write And Writing To Care In A Women's Prison, Kathe Penfield Simons

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative study investigates the writing of women in prison as a tool to care for themselves and others. The inmates participated in a student-centered, socially contextualized, process writing class whereby they could write for their own purposes, and share and publish their writing. The study presents case studies of two women who were also involved in a peer-tutoring program (one serving as the tutor for the other) and who used their literacies extensively on their own time outside of the classroom.

Many of our nation's inmates are considered illiterate by standardized, school-based measures. Some participate in correctional education programs …

Final Vows: Organizational Dilemmas And Emergent Status-Reconstruction Of The Contemporary American Nun, Mary Anne Wichroski

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the effects of societal, institutional, and structural change on the status of Roman Catholic nuns. Based on interviews with 34 members of female religious orders, archival materials, Church documents, and participant observation, two case study orders (apostolic and cloistered) are compared in terms of structural change since Vatican II and their relative viability in the 1990s. As members of declining organizations, apostolic sisters are reconstructing their roles by drawing upon sources that pre-date formal hierarchical structures, as well as aspects of gender-status. Although active sisters show some congruence with feminist beliefs on work-related issues, other aspects of …

The Creation Of The New Hampshire State Prison For Women: Some Unintended Consequences Of Legal Reform, Elaine Rizzo

Doctoral Dissertations

In 1989, New Hampshire established its first women's prison in response to a lawsuit filed by inmates charging the state with sex discrimination in its treatment of women prisoners. This litigation reflects a growing use of legal reform based on equal protection rights by female inmates to express and remediate correctional needs.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the conditions that led to the creation of the women's prison, and the unintended consequences that have resulted from legal reform on the correctional treatment and court processing of female offenders.

This research uses qualitative and quantitative methods. Qualitative analysis …