Digital Commons Network^™

A Legal And Historical Study Of Parental Choice: Implications For Public Education, Derrel James Bryan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study provides an analysis of the historical and legal constructs of parental choice and implications for public education. While qualitative in nature, the historic record provides important detail in establishing a foundation for understanding parental authority in determining the education of children. An overview of major education legislation from the Colonial era to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is discussed as well as the legal analysis which consists of U.S. Supreme Court decisions influential in the debate over parental authority in determining the education of children. Conclusions include (a) data supporting parental choice as a growing …

Imperial Motherhood: The German Civilizing Mission In Bülow's Im Lande Der Verheißung, Cindy K. Renker

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores Frieda von Bülow's last and most popular colonial novel. Im Lande der Verheißung, which she wrote in 1899 after she had returned to Germany from her second journey to the German colony of East Africa. In her novel, Bülow manifests her nationalistic ideology and her support for female participation in the colonies in the character of Maleen Dietlas, who believes in and supports the German colonial ambitions. Bülow provides her female protagonist with a role and purpose in the colony. Maleen serves as an imperial mother who sees it as her duty to "civilize" the German men …

The Social And Legal Aspects Of Colonial Witchcraft : A Comparison Of Virginia And Bermuda, Leigh Anne Collier

Honors Theses

This is a study of the social and legal aspects of witchcraft in the British colonies of Virginia and Bermuda. It involves an analysis of the community and institutional structure of each of these settlements, as well as an investigation of the cultural understanding of the concept of witchcraft. The intensity with which witches in Bermuda were prosecuted, as compared with Virginia is due to several factors, including the higher level of community cohesiveness, the discord among religious groups and the rationale of the political leaders.

"Their Shoes Yet New" : The Immigrant Image In The Baltimore Riots Of 1812 And The Disagreement Over Nationality, John K. Dunn Jr

Honors Theses

This paper examines the ways in which immigrants were characterized in Baltimore immediately following that city's Riots in 1812. It finds that the "native" majority used the immigrant image in an attempt to determine the criteria of nationality. That image was not settled, however, and rather constituted a discussion between interested groups about the relative importance of ethnicity in the years before Jacksonian democracy. It also concludes that the peculiar conditions and social divisions of Baltimore directly contributed to the Baltimore Riots and that the riots provided an opportunity for prevalent stereotypes to surface.

Illuminating A Space For Women And Rhetoric, Lindsey M. Fox

Honors Theses

My overarching concerns are for the place and power of women in rhetoric and democracy. This concern developed during my study of classical rhetoric, when I noticed an obvious absence of women in rhetoric. For example, John Poulakos and Takis Poulakos state that any "ordinary person" could play a role on the political stage in Athens (34). This reference to "ordinary people" is proof that women were made invisible because, as George A. Kennedy explains, in classical Athens, democracy was only for "an assembly of all adult male citizens" (16). Male citizens, then, were actually rather extra-ordinary. Because democracy …

London Coffee Houses : The First Hundred Years, Heather Lynn Mcqueen

Honors Theses

This paper examines how early London coffee houses catered to the intellectual, political, religious and business communities in London, as well as put forward some information regarding what it was about coffee houses that made them "new meeting places" for Londoners. Coffee houses offered places for political debate and progressively modem forms of such debate, "penny university" lessons on all matter of science and the arts, simplicity and sobriety in which independent religious groups could meet, as well as the early development of a private office space.

The History Of The One Hundred And Thirtieth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Terrence W. Beltz

Master's Theses

In August 1862, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania quickly responded to President Lincoln's request for more troops. An overwhelming number of Pennsylvania volunteers promptly answered the call that supplied the Union Army eighteen new infantry regiments who were to serve for a period of nine months. This devoted group of central Pennsylvanians, rendezvoused at Camp Simmons, Pennsylvania, in mid-August 1862, was to become soldiers of 130th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers who, with no military experience and little training, would face hardened Confederate veterans at "Bloody Lane" at the Battle of Antietam and "Marye's Heights" at the Battle of Fredericksburg. They were to …

A Loss Of Will: "Arminianism," Nonsectarianism, And The Erosion Of American Psychology's Moral Project, 1636--1890, Russell D. Kosits

Doctoral Dissertations

The concept of "the will" dominated American moral psychology for nearly three centuries. To possess a will was, among other things, to be made in the image of God and to have moral responsibility. College textbooks, as tools of moral inculcation, conveyed this moral psychology from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. A significant shift occurred in college psychology textbooks during the 1930s: the topic of will was being removed as a chapter heading---never to return. By the end of the decade, American psychology had lost its will.

What explains this "loss of will" in American psychology? From a …

Arthur Raper: Modern Realist In The New Deal South, Louis Mazzari

Doctoral Dissertations

Arthur Raper was a progressive sociologist and controversial voice for racial and social equality in the South during the 1920s and 1930s. Son of a white, North Carolina farm family, Raper became allied with modernist voices at Chapel Hill and the University of Chicago. Raper's research was widely discussed through the region and greatly influenced Southern race relations in the years leading to the civil rights movement.

Raper was the first white southerner to look critically and scientifically at the causes of racial violence. The Tragedy of Lynching (1933) was reviewed in hundreds of Southern newspapers and discussed throughout the …

Intercultural Contact And The Creation Of Albany's New Diplomatic Landscape, 1647--1680, Holly Anne Rine

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the process of Albany's rise to the center of American Indian-European relations on the northeast coast of North America between the years 1647--1680. By the year 1677 the Albany courthouse served as the meeting place for the negotiations that formed the Covenant Chain between the Five Nations of the Iroquois and the English colonies of North America. To reach this important development, however, took years of political, military, economic and cultural struggle. Moreover, these struggles were not merely between the Iroquois and the English who would eventually negotiate the Covenant Chain, but within them as well.

Moreover, …

Playing The Man: Masculinity, Performance, And United States Foreign Policy, 1901--1920, Kim Brinck-Johnsen

Doctoral Dissertations

"Playing the Man": Masculinity Performance, and US Foreign Policy, 1901--1920 argues that early twentieth century conceptions of masculinity played a significant role in constructing US foreign policy and in creating a new sense of national identity. It focuses on five public figures (Jane Addams, W. E. B. Du Bois, John Reed, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson). Although their conceptions of masculinity varied, each of these central historical figures based his or her US foreign policy position on the idea that in the conduct of US foreign relations, the United States needed to "play the man." Similarly, even when their policy …

The Reconstitutive Power Of Wovoka's Prophetic Discourse: A Rhetorical History Of The 1890 Ghost Dance Prophet, Alexander David May

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The tremendous influence of Wovoka, or Jack Wilson as he was commonly known, was manifested through his message of peace and renewal. The Ghost Dance Prophet of 1890 outlined a new way of life for "his people" which included every native nation, not just the Paiute. Delegations that came to hear Wovoka speak and letters he sent to the faithful spread the tenets of the religion among the indigenous people. Wovoka's rhetorical history illustrates the interplay of first persona, substantive message, and second persona as a means of transforming an audience. In addition, the parallels between the Paiute Prophet's discourse …

A Quantitative Investigation Of American History Software On Middle School Student Achievement Scores, Karla V Kingsley

UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this quasi-experimental study was to examine whether student use of the Ignite! Early American History software significantly affected student outcome achievement scores on a standards-based assessment. Students in three urban middle schools were divided into experimental and control groups with both groups being taught by the same teacher. Experimental group students used the Ignite! history software as a supplement to their regular American history curriculum, and students in the control group did not use the program. The study also examined how students with limited English proficiency (LEP) and students with special needs scored on the standardized test …

Utah's Plight: A Passage Through The Great Depression, Joseph F. Darowski

Theses and Dissertations

The Great Depression marked a fateful passage in the annals of the American people. President Roosevelt's New Deal, the nation's signature response, proved to be a determined but erratic reaction. Against the backdrop of a nation deeply mired in an unrelenting international depression, dramatic events played themselves out in the lives of the men and women of Utah. Throughout, fidelity to principles of independence, self-reliance, and self-sufficiency were sorely challenged.

The people of Utah found succor in two almost diametrically opposed responses. The New Deal offered an amalgam of programs and panaceas through which the federal government attempted to deliver …

Rethinking The Revival And Evolution Of The Glengarry Scottish Highland Games: Antimodernism, Commercialization, And Cultural (Re)Production In Rural Eastern Ontario., Courtney W. Mason

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 1784, after a prolonged and weary struggle to settle in North America, almost fifty families established a homogenous Scottish community in what is currently Glengarry County, Ontario. In 1840, the residents of Glengarry County established a Scottish Highland Games, but a lack of commitment and funding led to their discontinuation after only a few years. In 1948, following an absence of almost a century, the Glengarry Scottish Highland Games tradition was revived. This thesis examines the revival and evolution of the Glengarry Highland Games, including commercial, ideological, and cultural impacts. When rethinking the revival of the games in Glengarry, …

Melting Resources: A Historical Analysis Of The 1932 Olympic Winter And Summer Games (New York, California)., Jonathan Robert. Paul

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current editions of the Olympic Games have been criticized as being too grandiose and expensive to stage. While the IOC's Programme Commission attempts to address these concerns, one need only look to the 1932 Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York, and Summer Games in Los Angeles, California, to find possible solutions for the efficient delivery of the Games. The 1932 Olympic Games were unique because they occurred in the same country, used the same currency, in the same year, and occurred during the Great Depression. In using data collected from a variety of different archives, this study …

Fauxtopia, Raymond William Kampf

Theses and Dissertations

To all who come to this fictitious place:Welcome.Fauxtopia is your land. Here, age relives distorted memories of the past, and here, youth may savor the challenge of trying to understand the present. Fauxtopia is made up of the ideals, the dreams and the fuzzy facts which have re-created reality... with the hope that it will be a source of edutainment for all the world.Ray KampfFauxtopia DedicationApril 1st, 2004

Reading The Humor In Korean Traditional Space - Dreaming The Restoration Of Old Sentiment -, Sungmi Han

LSU Master's Theses

This study is about humor and its application in Korean traditional space, which merges culture, design, and preservation. The purpose of the research is to seek humor as a significant design concept in Korean traditional space, and establish it through the examples. The examples focused on are found in temples and palaces since those are relatively well preserved Korean traditional spaces. Each humor in the examples is interpreted based on culture and the mentality of the age, such as religion, ideology, and customs. Also, forms and functions of humor are examined. Through the design analyses of case studies, unique characteristics …

History Of Costume : The Consumption, Governance, Potency And Patronage Of Attire In Colonial Western Australia, Damayanthie Eluwawalage

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This dissertation represents a new' departure in the study of dress in colonial Western Australia, focusing on the rationale behind individual and collective clothing practices in the new society. As a study of significant social and cultural practices, rather than an account of fashion, this research contributes to the understanding of previously disregarded elements in colonial Western Australian ethno-economic and social histories. The study investigates the internal and external influences which impacted upon colonial inhabitants' ways of dressing, their societal attitudes and social demeanour. The research compares the influences on attire and finery in colonial Western Australian society with the …

Decorator Or Narrator: A Contextualisation Of Slavic And Australian Pattern Making And Its Relationship To My Painting Practice, Iliana H. Jordanov

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

In this thesis, I will examine pattern making in art practice from two cultural perceptions, Slavic and Australian. Existing differences between the two cultural backgrounds will be used to debate how pattern is understood by the viewer or practiced by an artist in a particular chosen environment. The central argument focuses on pattern as a decorator and/or a narrator. I will examine the outcomes and changes in narrative pattern according to cultural context and exchange. By introducing Slavic pattern into contemporary (Australian) art practice, I examine how traditional cultural values and functions change. In discussing the processes of changes that …

The Meaning Of The Meaningless In The Plays Of Suzan-Lori Parks, Andrea J. Goto

Legacy ETDs

No abstract provided.