Digital Commons Network^™

Geisha On Fire, Beimeng Fu

Capstones

Masae Satouchi is not an average Japanese woman. When she lived in Shiga Prefecture, a country town an hour away from Kyoto, her ex-boyfriends were uncomfortable with her eccentricity. She liked to wear colorful clothes, they didn’t. “I was too colorful to live in Japan,” she says. Japan is, of course, a modern, industrialized nation. The society, however, is famously conservative and does not allow for much unique self-expression. The situation is particularly difficult for Japanese women. Japan ranks 105 out of 136 in global gender gap index. Most women their quit jobs after having their first child.

“How Do You Define Yourself?” Mobilizing Leadership In The Graduate Employee Union Movement, Kathleen Ragon

Master's Theses

Social movement scholars agree that leadership plays a crucial role in the emergence, structure, and outcomes of social movement organizations (SMOs) and is thus an indispensable area of research. The vast majority of theories of leadership to date have been developed in contexts where participants’ movement identities are relatively stable (e.g., gender, sexual, or occupational) and engagement in the site of contestation will be long-term (e.g., workplace or nation state). However, the recent proliferation of graduate student employee unions poses a challenge to this literature because graduate students’ employment is by its very nature temporary and variable; graduate assistantship appointments …

A Deeper Semiotic Richness: Empowering English Language Students Through Digital Storytelling, Karah Parks

Master's Projects and Capstones

The current philosophies underpinning TESOL higher education curricula and classroom practices still reinforce the essentialized narrative of the native speaker and teach English as an objective, disinterested, linguistic system of static signs (Blommaert, 2010; Kramsch, 2009; Larsen-Freeman, 2015; Pennycook, 1997). This has significantly limited the development students’ identities, and agency within English language speaking communities. To address this issue, this project contains a supplemental, online digital storytelling curriculum for intermediate to advanced adult learners at the university level in U.S. colleges as a means of scaffolding intentional identity development through multimodal, symbolic competence in the English language. Entitled Creative ESOL: …

Two Million "Butterflies" Searching For Home: Identity And Images Of Korean Chinese In Ho Yon-Sun's Yanbian Narratives, Xiang Jin

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the representation of Korean Chinese searching for home in relation to Korean diasporic identity. Home as a sense of identity is both personal and collective. It is also a reflection of one’s psyche and emotion. For Korean Chinese, searching for a place to call home in between their host-homeland China and original homeland Korea involves many aspects of meaning, the home of an individual, of a family, and of a community. Therefore, the third cultural region Yanbian, the Korean Chinese Autonomous Prefecture of China, and Yanbian narratives become the central issue of this thesis. I first offer …

Marketing Alaskan Seafood: Strategies With Brand Identification, Differentiation, And Promotions, Anna Jacobson

Journalism

Everyday the globe experiences changes with food. New methods in growing and harvesting are becoming approved, while others are frowned upon. People care more about where their food comes from than ever before. This research is to explore how Alaska seafood can successfully market their products in an ever-changing world. As challenges present themselves in the industry, opportunities are there as well.

This study sets out to explore marketing strategies for promoting a seafood brand. Through exploring current literature and interviewing experts to obtain data, conclusions will be drawn and analyzed. These findings will help to understand the best practices …

Student Service Members/Veterans Programs In Erie County Colleges And Universities: Analyzing Programs For Removing Barriers And Facilitating Identity Transitioning, William E. Langer

Public Administration Master’s Projects

Student Service Members/Veterans (SSM/Vs) served their nation in times of peace and in war and in doing so, are eligible for various educational benefits. To assist the SSM/V in adapting to their new role as a student and civilian, most postsecondary educational institutions offer services specifically tailored to the SSM/V population in order to support and assist them in completing their academic program. These services could include navigating benefit programs, financial aid, orientation programs and disability services as needed. In this transformative mixed methods study, a content analysis of the public websites of the schools was first conducted to determine …

Investigating The Impact Of Reflexive Practices On College Students In A Science Laboratory Course, Chandrani Mishra

Dissertations

Emphasis on professional practices to develop students’ professionalism is currently a major focus of higher education. Studies have shown the benefits of reflexive practices in classroom to facilitate the development of students’ professional attitude or identity in some fields. Reflexive practices involve students in self-reflection where he/she reflects on his/her own actions. Little investigation about the benefits of reflexive practices in the development of students’ scientific identity in a science class led to my investigation. Development of a scientific identity of students and their overall interest and motivation in science is deemed essential for retaining students in STEM fields.

My …

Identities And Motives Of Naturalist Development Program Attendees And Their Relation To Professional Careers, Jennifer A. Mraz

Dissertations

In recent years, there has been much concern over the decline of biologists who actually identify themselves to be naturalists, which negatively impacts the field of conservation and the study of biology as a whole. This could result in a decrease in individuals who participate in naturalist-like activities, such as informal environmental education and environmental volunteerism. The purpose of my study was to determine what discourse identities were held by naturalist development program participants, how these discourse identities related to their volunteer motives in environmental settings, and how discourse identity related to professional careers. I defined identity through the lens …

The Painted Motifs Of Cypriot Ceramic Art: A Study Of Iconography & Identity, Paige Bockman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The aim of this master’s thesis is to explore the iconography of Chalcolithic (c. 3900-2300 cal. BC) Cyprus using ceramic motifs and identify their potential use in revealing differences between the cultural identity present at archaeological sites, as well as the possible causes of such variation. By exploring the existence and origins of subtle differences between the iconographic repertoires of related sites, the study seeks a better understanding of the movement of both ideas and symbols, and how the meaning of symbols developed within the context of a site.

Currently, Cypriot Chalcolithic sites are believed to be largely homogeneous in …

Mediations Of Multiple Identities In A Private University: International Students’ Experiences In The United States, Beata Z. Dolina

Doctoral Dissertations

ABSTRACT MEDIATIONS OF MULTIPLE IDENTITIES IN A PRIVATE UNIVERSITY: INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES IN THE UNITED STATES SEPTEMBER 2015 BEATA DOLINA, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW M.A., HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY Ed. D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Theresa Austin Admitting ever-increasing numbers of international undergraduates, universities are beginning to grapple with the difficulties students experience in adapting to this new, for them, educational context. According to Glass (2012), “Given the growth of international student enrollment, there are compelling reasons to more closely examine the extent to which specific educational experiences may be associated with their learning, development, and …

Translanguaging And Identity In A Kindergarten Classroom: Validating Student's Home Culture And Language In An English-Only Era, Maria Eugenia Lozano Lenis

Doctoral Dissertations

This ethnographic multi-year study examines the effects of federal and state education policies in language-minority school children’s in Western Massachusetts. Specifically, it explores, how, in an increasingly English Only era, a Latina kindergarten teacher resists Massachusetts' restrictive bilingual education law at the same time that she builds on her students’ multi-ethnic identity. Methodologically, this study combines ethnographic and discourse analysis methods and techniques analyzing the curricular effects that the NCLB and the state of Massachusetts language policy have on an underperforming school serving a predominantly Latino/a population. The focus of the study is the literacy practices enacted by a Dominican …

Addressing The Past, Embracing The Future: An Analysis Of How Historic Inequality Has Created Current Obstacles To Learning English In Brazil And A Proposal For A New Community-Based Approach, Aja C. Bryant

MA TESOL Collection

This paper contextualizes current challenges to English learning in Brazil within the educational history of the country. It explores the ways in which language, both native literacy and foreign, has been used to set apart and advantage the elite class, while educational policy and approaches have served to pacify and control the majority. This history has left psychological, cultural, and economic legacies which inhibit learning today. Nevertheless, modern globalization is placing increasing pressure on Brazilians to achieve fluency in English and other languages. This paper briefly outlines the new and complex intellectual and social skills needed to participate in a …

Teaching While Lesbian And Other Identities: Sexual Diversity, Race, And Institutionalized Practices Through An Autoethnographic Lens, Sondra S. Briggs

Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership Dissertations

The implicit acceptance among educators and in institutions of learning that discussions around LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) issues are off limits perpetuates the marginalization of these identities and those who inhabit them. In K-12 schools and college classrooms the prevailing silence sends disturbing messages about the treatment of adults and children when their sexual orientation fails to fit neatly into prescribed binary classifications. As one who has been silent as well as silenced, I understand this dichotomy from a unique perspective. Moreover, my lived membership within diverse cultural and racial groups that have been routinely marginalized through institutionalized practices …

Selfie, Laryssa Lillian Brooks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A complex field with many intersections such as race, class, and sexuality, feminism has many dialogues and tensions. Selfie is a creative text that examines the tensions surrounding white, middle-class North American women. Surrounded by patriarchal mass media such as television shows, movies, and books, these young women are inundated with a dominant encouraged identity situated within a heterosexual gender binary; it invalidates the actual lived experiences of women. Consequently, feminists and non-feminists alike disagree on a clear definition of “woman.” This conflict has escalated to the gender policing of women by women, and a significant decrease in the number …

The Phenomenology Of Second Language Acquisition: Poiesis And The Emergence Of The Multilingual Subject, Courtney E. Scarborough

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study explores relationships between second language acquisition (SLA), poetic language, and embodied cognition and its connection to second language speakers’ linguistic self-formation, or their distinct ways of speaking and thinking. In particular, this study examines processes by which second language (L2) learners’ subjective realities are constructed and demonstrates that these processes are inherently poetic, emerging from a combination of the constraining structures of the language system and second language speakers’ phenomenological experiences. The context of the study is a poetry-making activity the researcher designed and took place in the English Department Writing Center at California State University, San Bernardino. …

The Development Of Identity In Preschoolers, Jin Xiaoshen

Psychology ETDs

The primary goal of this study was to investigating the extent to which young preschoolers (e.g., 3-year-olds) understand identity in terms of what an object does rather than in terms of either what the object looks like or what its inside properties are. My primary guiding research questions are on what basis do preschoolers construct identity judgments. Unlike previous research, which has focused primarily on one pair of qualities (insides/outsides), this study includes diverse pairs in order to investigate different levels/qualities of organization that characterize preschoolers judgments of identity constancy. I predicted that a transition may occur between the ages …

Living In A Transnational World: Identity Negotiation And Formation Among Second-Generation Lebanese Young Adults Living In London Ontario, Wajeha Chams

MA Research Paper

According to the 2011 Canadian Census, immigrants make up 20.6% of the total Canadian population (Statistics Canada, 2014), and a growing body of research is raising questions about immigrants’ experiences, their identities and how transnational lives have shaped and influenced Canadian society and citizenship. Recent research on transnationalism enhances understanding of immigrants’ relationships within both their source and host countries. This research demonstrates that first-generation immigrants tend to maintain their ethnic identities, language and cultural traditions through the active maintenance of transnational ties and activities. However, the lives of their children are less directly tied to the parents’ homeland. As …

The Role Of Gender Identityand Stereotype Awareness On Sexual Negotiations Strategies For Women, Or'shaundra Tre'nay Benson

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

The consequences of unsafe heterosexual sexual behaviors including unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections continue to create significant public health problems in the United States. Although research has demonstrated that young adults in general have higher rates of sexually transmitted infections compared to other age groups, young women are especially vulnerable to the ill-effects of unsafe sexual practices, as they must contend with the physicality of an unplanned pregnancy and larger incidences of asymptotic infection transmissions. However, missing from the research and discourse regarding what specific factors may be contributing to high rates of risky behaviors in heterosexual women is …

The (Dis)Ability Of Color; Or, That Middle World: Toward A New Understanding Of 19th And 20th Century Passing Narratives, Julia S. Charles

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation mines the intersection of racial performance and the history of the so-called “tragic mulatto” figure in American fiction. I propose that while many white writers depicted the “mulatto” character as inherently flawed because of some tainted “black blood,” many black writers’ depictions of mixed-race characters imagine solutions to the race problem. Many black writers critiqued some of America’s most egregious sins by demonstrating linkages between major shifts in American history and the mixed-race figure. Landmark legislation such as, Fugitive Slave Act 1850 and Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) are often plotlines in African American passing literature, thus demonstrating the …

In The Thick Of National Consciousness: Difference And The Critique Of Identity In Elias Khoury’S Little Mountain And Salman Rushdie’S Midnight’S Children, Karim Abuawad

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

How should the relationship between literary texts and nationalism be explained? What is the difference between texts that resist nationalism’s logic aesthetically and those that do so discursively? The answers to these questions form the core of this study whose central inquiry focuses on how the internal operations of fictional narrative handle the persistent depositories of national culture represented by a visceral bond between individual and nation. Most crucially, the potential of unraveling this resilient bond is located in the narrative’s aesthetic operations, not in its discursive pronouncements, irrespective of how critical such pronouncements may be.

Rather than promoting …

Tangled Hair: Uncertain Fluid Identity, Niloufar Salimi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dossier consists of three chapters. Chapter one is an extended artist statement within which I discuss a very particular notion of identity that acknowledges its fluidity and ever-shifting qualities. Further in this chapter, I address my studio practice processes and its overall development, as well as making a detailed comparison with Roni Horn’s drawings and also Mona Hatoum’s artwork. Chapter two is a documentation of selected works that I have made in the studio during my two-year candidacy at Western University. Each work is accompanied by a brief description. Chapter three is a case study on Shirin Neshat’s photography …

Writing Oneself As A Writer: Intellectual Identity And Moral Agency In Contemporary Chinese Novels, Fang-Yu Li

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The discussion of “identity” in current scholarship on modern Chinese literature is mostly centered on the political dynamics between national, cultural, and gender identity. Contemporary Chinese language novels from late 1990s to the present, however, seem to show a sense of confusion and disorientation towards one’s existence in the rapidly changing society. Among the works that address individual’s existential crisis, self-reflexive novels are particularly intriguing as they reveal a strong sense of self-doubt on part of the author, and in particular, towards one’s role as a writer in contemporary society. This dissertation investigates this sense of self-doubt by examining closely …

Branding A Professional American Football Franchise, John J. Ragone Jr.

Theses

The original intent of my thesis was to create a professional-level team identity that a community can embrace and emotionally bond with by utilizing contemporary design trends. As I researched the visual aspects of the brand strategy, it became apparent that current trends toward multiplicity of uniform designs could become a threat to an organization’s brand equity.

A corporate identity is the strategically engineered “personality” of an organization created to facilitate business objectives. How that identity is perceived and accepted supports relationship building between an organization and its audience or customers. Brand equity is developed through ease of recognition and …

Embattled Communities: Voluntary Action And Identity In Australia, Canada, And New Zealand, 1914-1918, Steve Marti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines voluntary mobilization during the First World War to understand why communities on the social and geographical periphery of the British Empire mobilized themselves so enthusiastically to support a distant war, fought for adistant empire. Lacking a strong state apparatus or a military-industrial complex, the governments of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand relied on voluntary contributions to sustain their war efforts. Community-based voluntary societies knitted socks, raised funds to purchase military equipment, and formed contingents of soldiers. By examining the selective mobilization of voluntary participation, this study will understand how different communities negotiated social and spatial boundaries as …

Food And Nationalism In An Independent Ghana, Brandi Miller

History Theses

In 1957 Ghana became the first nation in Sub-Saharan Africa to achieve independence from a European colonial power. During this time Kwame Nkrumah’s government concerned itself with the creation of a national identity that would speak to the new African Personality and Nkrumah’s Pan-African goals. In Nkrumah’s national project, regional cultural and economic contributions were at times subsumed. The absence of an identifiable national cuisine is a lens into ethnic conflict generated in part by the crafting of the national identity. I argue that in general the absence of a national cuisine represents the strength of the desire to maintain …

A Discourse Analysis Of Beginning English Teachers' Identity Development, Joshua Peter Johnston

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation was a discourse analysis of how beginning English teachers’ talk contributes to the development of their teacher identities. The study drew on the epistemological and ontological assumptions of discursive psychology, and as such it used methods consistent with discursive psychology and conversation analysis. The data for the study were comprised of twenty-one audio-recorded meetings of eight student teachers in a year-long internship and their field supervisor, who was also the researcher. Orienting to the construct of identity as socially negotiated, unstable, and multiple, the study sought to identify specific discursive strategies that beginning English teacher’s employ to negotiate …

“I Guess Someone Forgot To Ask Us If We Wanted To Be America’S Diversity Mascots”: The Identity Journey Of Transracial, Transnational, Korean Adoptees, Molly Jin Ah Rigell

Masters Theses

Korean, transracial, international adoptees (TRIAs) have been given an opportunity to tell their stories in the anthologies Seeds of a Silent Tree, Voices from Another Place, and More Voices. Through an examination of twelve stories from these three anthologies, I pinpoint issues that are faced by TRIAs who were raised in white families, and the significance these issues hold. I also discuss the unique perspectives displayed in each anthology, and the overall view of racial identity that can be observed through the study of a unique community. Through their status as in-between races and cultures, Korean, transracial, international adoptees can …

Impact Of Athletic Identity And Emotional Competence On Athletes’ Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help, Garett V. Weatherhead

Dissertations

Athletes have been found to have more negative attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help than non-athletes (Watson, 2005) despite experiencing comparable amounts of mental illness (Markser, 2011). The purpose of the present study was to examine factors that are associated with athletes’ help-seeking attitudes, including athletic identity and emotional competence. A sample of 144 college student-athletes from a small, private Midwestern college in the United States participated in the study. The athletes competed at the NCAA Division III level. Participants were asked to complete the following measures: Athletic Identity Measurement Scale (Brewer, Van Raalte, & Linder, 1993), Attitudes Toward Seeking …

Contested Notions Of Irishness: Social Integration And The Multiple Intersections Of Ethno-Racial, Religious, And National Identities In Dublin, Ireland, Neil Conner

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation evaluates the contested notions of identity (e.g. ethno-racial, religious, and national) and the growing tensions between native-born Irish citizens and recently arrived immigrants living in the Republic of Ireland. Examining these political and cultural intersections broadens our geographic understandings by contributing to larger geographic literatures consisting of: the geographies of inclusion and exclusion; collective identity construction; sense of belonging; community – both real and imagined; small-scale human territoriality; (social) integration; religiosity; and, of course, notions of Irishness. Despite the significance of these geographic issues in contemporary society, there exists a considerable lacuna within the discipline of Geography as …

Presentation Of Bicultural Identity In Hispanic Children’S Literature, Elena B. Lofton

Honors Theses

Children of all backgrounds can use literature as a means to understand the world in which they live. Therefore, it is important that children’s books represent diverse cultures and experiences. This study analyzed Hispanic children’s literature published in the U.S. that contained child characters with bicultural Hispanic-American identities. The aim of this study was to determine how the linguistic and literary elements in five books, which contained bilingual Spanish-English interwoven text, combined to present a bicultural identity and lifestyle in the United States today. The literary elements analyzed included themes, character portrayal, the roles of family and the elderly, and …