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Conceptualizing Describing And Contrasting School Cultures: A Comparative Case Study Of School Improvement Processes, La Tefy Schoen

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

What is school culture? How can it be measured, described and contrasted? Is school culture related to school improvement? This dissertation investigates school culture and its relationship to school improvement. The study is organized into three phases and employs a mixed methods approach to study the cultures of three pairs of matched schools over a 15 month period. Phase I consists of a multi-disciplinary literature review across the fields of psychology, sociology, business management, anthropology, and educational administration. This process resulted in the development of a new conceptualization of school culture based on merging complementary theories. As defined here school …

Long-Term Changes And Variability In Northern Hemisphere Circumpolar Vortex, Kalyn Mackenzie Wrona

LSU Master's Theses

Variability in the hemispheric-scale atmospheric circulation can be directly linked to variations in surface environmental features, such as temperature, precipitation, and pollutant transport. One indicator of the behavior of the hemispheric-scale circulation is the circumpolar vortex (CPV). This research utilizes a geographic information system (GIS) approach to determine the variability in the northern hemisphere (NH) CPV. Specifically, the area, shape, and centroid of the December, January, February, April, July, and October NHCPV are analyzed for 1959 – 2001 because these features may provide insight about relationships between hemispheric-scale circulation and global temperature change throughout the year. A “circularity ratio” is …

Dental Evidence For Division Of Labor Among The Prehistoric Ipiutak And Tigara Of Point Hope, Alaska, Felicia Madimenos

LSU Master's Theses

Among archaeological specimens, teeth can provide insight into the behaviors and cultural practices of a population. Inuit specimens are ideal for studying dentition because of the unique way teeth are used as tools. The prehistoric Ipiutak (ca.100 B.C. – A.D. 500) and Tigara (ca. A.D. 900 –1700) of Point Hope, Alaska, represent two environmentally similar, although culturally and temporally different, populations. Based on associated archaeological finds, the Ipiutak do not represent a whaling culture. Instead, they focused on hunting smaller sea mammals and caribou. Conversely, the Tigara represent a typical Inuit whaling culture. Whaling cultures depend on a distinct division …

Cultural Performance Of Roadside Shrines: A Poststructural Postmodern Ethnography, Rebecca Marie Kennerly

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Marking the site of death on the road with a shrine, an increasingly popular cultural practice in the United States, is a deeply personal, private affair, however, because shrines are placed in the public right-of-way, they attract attention and invite participation, comment, and criticism. These sites, the materials that mark them, how people come to build them, the messages that those who build them hope to convey, and the accumulative force these sites bring to bear in various contexts offer unique insights into our complex, fragmented, and often confounding relationships with death, living memory, and selective forgetting. This project takes …

Analysis Of The Talus And Calcaneus Bones From The Poole-Rose Ossuary: A Late Woodland Burial Site In Ontario, Canada, Adrienne Elizabeth Penney

LSU Master's Theses

This study reports on the demography and osteological profile of the Poole-Rose Ossuary. Excavated in 1990 under the direction of Heather McKillop and at the request of the Alderville First Nation, the Poole-Rose Ossuary is a Late Woodland burial site in southern Ontario, Canada. Lack of European artifacts in the burial suggests that this site predates European contact. The Poole-Rose Ossuary is radiocarbon dated to A.D. 1550 ± 50 years. The skeletal remains were commingled. This ossuary likely represents the mass re-burial known as the “Feast of the Dead” or the “Kettle.” For the most part, closely related individuals were …

Trends In Extreme Daily Temperature Events In The South-Central United States, Gregory S. Bohr

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Extreme daily temperatures are meteorological events that can have significant impacts on human and natural systems. As natural and anthropogenic climate changes occur, the frequency of extreme events is likely to change. Because extremes do not change linearly with mean temperatures, it is important to directly examine the record of extremes. This dissertation analyzes the temporal pattern of daily extremes over 1948-2001 in the south-central United States, and identifies significant changes in frequency and persistence, as well as relationships between extreme events and atmospheric circulation.

A global warming of approximately 0.6 Centigrade has occurred over the past century, and further …

A Radiographic Study Of The Impact Of Race And Sex On 1st And 2nd Molar Development, Suzanne Price

LSU Master's Theses

The assessment of child development requires standards in order to compare an apparent physiologic age to an actual chronological age. In assessing chronological age of an individual, the use of multiple indicators is ideal and important in determining age at death. For individuals under the age of about 21 years, dental development is the most reliable indicator of age. Research aimed at understanding the variation in tooth formation due to race and sex will help to more accurately determine the age at death of remains of subadult individuals. This project examined the impact of race, sex, and time period on …

An Investigation Of Time Since Injury: A Radiographic Study Of Fracture Healing, Kevin Benjamin Hufnagl

LSU Master's Theses

Working at the junction of medicine and physical anthropology, this research investigates the rate of fracture healing. The ability to assign ages to fractures based on the degree of remodeling could be a valuable tool for identifying skeletal remains. This ability could differentiate between individuals with similar fractures and could also narrow the search of medical records for matches. Multiple radiographic images from 62 individuals were collected from the Baton Rouge Orthopaedic Clinic, including information on sex, ancestry, age of the individual, and age of the fracture. Breaks in the x-rays are categorized into one of six stages, defined on …

Problems Of Modernization In Late Imperial Russia: Maksim M. Kovalevskii On Social And Economic Reform, Evgeny Badredinov

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The problems of social and economic reform were at the center of academic and political activities of Maksim M. Kovalevskii (1851-1916), a prominent Russian historian and sociologist. The comparative study of rural communal institutions led him to conclude that the village commune remained a viable social and economic institution in late imperial Russia. Although he believed firmly in private agriculture, he criticized the Stolypin land reform for attempting to pressure peasants to separate from communes. Kovalevskii argued that in a country dominated by communal traditions the state must not destroy the collective economy by legislative fiat. He urged Russian policy-makers …

Development And Validation Of Child Routines Questionnaire: Preschool, Molly Murphy Wittig

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Experts emphasize routines as a paramount practice in successful child rearing (Fiese, 2002). Only recently, however, has empirical evidence begun to corroborate this theory. While many researchers and clinicians have documented the use of daily child routines in their parenting packages and treatment studies, none has measured the effects of child routines directly. The emergence of The Child Routines Questionnaire offered ample evidence of the importance of child routines in school-age children. Significant findings link a lack of routines to child behavior problems, poor parenting practices, and parental psychopathology (Sytsma et al., 2001; Sytsma-Jordan, Kelley, & Henderson, 2002; Jordan, 2003). …

The King George Island Mounds Site (16lv22): A Late Archaic Mound Complex Along The Lower Amite River, Fiona Helena Vasbinder

LSU Master's Theses

The King George Island Mounds site (16LV22) is one of four conical mound sites located along the lower Amite River in Livingston Parish, Louisiana. Gagliano originally reported the site in 1957 as containing two conical mounds. Initially, it was postulated that the Lower Amite River mounds might date to the Marksville period based on the similarities of shape. Recent research conducted at the site indicates that the site may contain up to five conical mounds that date to the Late Archaic period. Geomorphological, pedological, and archaeological data indicate an initial Archaic occupation. Archaic period artifacts were recovered from excavations above, …

Riding Out The Risks: An Ethnographic Study Of Risk Perceptions In A South Louisiana Bayou Community, Susan Camille Manning

LSU Master's Theses

This ethnographic study explores the risk perceptions of a small unincorporated coastal community in southeastern Louisiana. This community has experienced social and environmental change due to events including tropical storms and hurricanes, erosion, subsidence, oil and gas activities, development, and the impact of global seafood markets. Many global risk perception studies have focused on the perception of risk to human health and property connected with natural and technological disasters, but few have explored the issue of minorities and small at-risk communities. To explore this theoretical and methodological gap, this study uses a variety of qualitative ethnographic methods to examine a …

Local Narratives: An Approach To Participatory Planning In Community Revitalization Projects, Herpreet Kaur Singh

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis explores what can happen when planners and designers allow local narratives to inspire and inform all stages of community planning and design processes. Specifically, this paper suggests how local narratives can contribute to the ongoing revitalization efforts underway in Old South Baton Rouge, a historically significant, low-income, African-American community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A personal narrative introduces the subject matter at hand. Thereafter, each chapter is preceded with a narrative interlude to add texture to the ideas presented herein. Chapter two underscores the theoretical and practical relationship between place, memory and development, particularly as this relationship applies to …

Racial Variations And Social Support And Its Impact On Stress And Depression, Claire Sam

LSU Master's Theses

Evidence suggests that social support can mitigate some of the harmful effects of stress on health. Social support theorists argue that certain social groups have differential access to social support; therefore, certain social groups are at a higher risk of experiencing psychiatric symptoms. Although social networks are beyond the scope of these analyses, it is an important component to consider when examining the uneven distributions of social support between social groups. If racial differences exist in the networks in which individuals are embedded, then part of the differential access to social support could be explained by examining the various compositions …

Models For Ancient Maya Coastal Site Development And Economy: Examination Of Pork And Doughboy Point, Port Honduras, Belize, Kevin Michael Pemberton

LSU Master's Theses

In the summer of 2003 I conducted an archaeological study at Pork and Doughboy Point, Belize, under the direction of Dr. Heather McKillop. The site, situated amidst other ancient Maya coastal settlements of the Port Honduras in southern Belize, has only been tested for offshore deposits in the three decades since it was reported. The current research involved the first reported terrestrial excavations at the site. The goals of this investigation were to recover pottery that could be used to date the ancient Maya occupation and obtain artifacts that would suggest the nature of the site. From artifact analyses I …

Sinker Cypress: Treasures Of A Lost Landscape, Christopher Aubrey Hurst

LSU Master's Theses

Sinker cypress (Taxodium spp.) logs are timbers that were lost during transit from harvest locations in the swamps and mill sites during the industrial cypress harvest from 1880-1930. A small industry has developed, concentrated on the recovery of sinker logs. Most of the persons involved in the recovery of sinker cypress, mill the logs into lumber, and sell the timber directly to consumers or to distributors. A smaller number of pullers retain the logs for personal use. Recovery operations are a costly endeavor and require a significant investment on the part of the harvesters. Most pullers are owner/operators who do …

Kingship, Structures And Access Patterns On The Royal Plaza At The Ancient Maya City Of Altun Ha, Belize: The Construction Of A Maya Gis, Olga A. Yermakhanova

LSU Master's Theses

The GIS of Plaza B represents the application of GIS in the analysis of buildings. The GIS contains information on six structures and recreates the development of the royal residential plaza at the ancient Maya site of Altun Ha, in northern Belize. Altun Ha is a small site with a long history of occupation, rich in architectural and artifactual forms. The major site expansion and development started in the end of the Early Classic (A. D. 400) with the emergence of the institution of kingship at the site. Two adjunct plazas, A and B, formed the largest ceremonial –residential complex …

Liquid Architectures: Marcos Novak's Territory Of Information, Camile A. Silva

LSU Master's Theses

The idea of interactivity between humans and their environment no longer represents the only way of exploring new experiences. Equally passé is the idea that information constitutes the means for this interaction. However, this paper presents that the contemporary idea for interaction has embraced new understandings of the content of experience and the structure of space. New electronic technologies and advanced digital media have separated realities from the realm of the body and transformed experiences into a ubiquitous event. The architectural discourse, that once has been largely a discourse of form and style, has finally overcome those limitations and has …

Mapping The Other Truth In The Shintech Case: Emancipatory Mapping For Environmental Justice In South Louisiana, Charles Allen Flanagan

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents an alternative mapping approach which challenges the hegemony of abstract space and instrumental reason propagated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in its 1998 study of the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality's (DEQ) permitting process. The "other truth" is presented through application of concepts from critical theory, critical geography, and the works of Henri Lefebvre to a specific environmental justice struggle in St. James Parish, Louisiana. In 1996 Shintech, Inc. proposed building a polyvinyl chloride facility in St. James Parish, Louisiana. The community, concerned about the considerable toxic burden already present in the area, formed a …

Temporal Trends In Tchula Period Pottery In Louisiana, Steven Ray Fullen

LSU Master's Theses

Tchula period pottery (Tchefuncte culture) in Louisiana is characterized by highly contorted and laminated pastes. These diagnostic traits have led investigators to suggest hypotheses concerning manufacturing techniques, but there has been relatively little focus on temporal trends associated with these characteristics. The first step in redressing this problem was to identify a site likely to contain archaeological assemblages that would span the Tchula period. Excavations began at the Sarah Peralta site (16EBR67) in the fall of 2001 and were concluded in the spring of 2002. Artifacts from this site were characterized according to standard identification procedures. A secondary site, the …

Urban Yellow Fever Diffusion Patterns And The Role Of Micro-Environmental Factors In Disease Dissemination: A Temporal-Spatial Analysis Of The Memphis Epidemic Of 1878, William Brennan Arden

LSU Master's Theses

Most investigations that examine diffusion of disease through urban areas give relatively scant attention to the 'micro-environment.' Employing the many methods of macro-environmental analysis, most studies do not attempt to identify street-level or even residence-level temporal-spatial patterns of disease diffusion. As a result, the mechanisms that lead to diffusion on such small scales are left relatively undefined. There is no doubt that cumulatively these small-scale mechanisms contribute to the diffusion of disease over the urban environment. However, the level of contribution and the specific details of their dynamics remain unclear. This thesis investigated some of these unexplored areas by presenting …

Sacred Trust: The Voluntary Removal And Reburial Of Human Remains From A Historic Cemetery In Louisiana, Christian Williamson

LSU Master's Theses

Members of the Randolph family, a prominent plantation family that has lived in Louisiana since the late eighteenth century, contacted a team of anthropologists from Louisiana State University to help recover thirteen individuals from St. Mary’s Cemetery in Bayou Goula, Louisiana. The cemetery had been abandoned since 1970, its graves overgrown with weeds and desecrated by vandals. Of the thirteen individuals recovered, three sets of remains did not have associated grave markers. These three were taken back to the lab and analyzed using standard forensic procedures. Documentary research on the history of the cemetery, the once associated church, and the …

Yellow Fever In The Felicianas: The Epidemic Of 1878 And Its Effects Upon The Residents Of These Rural Parishes, Mary Jane Duke Russell

LSU Master's Theses

This research documents the spread of yellow fever across the rural Louisiana parishes of East Feliciana and West Feliciana in 1878 and examines the reactions and responses of the residents to medical, social and economic stresses produced by that epidemic. Descriptive details highlight the variability of individual ideas and mindsets at play against the backdrop of accepted paradigms, belief systems and current technology. In 1878 the Aëdes aegypti mosquito had not yet been identified as the vector of the arbovirus (arthropod borne virus) that causes yellow fever. A short history of yellow fever in the United States and a discussion …

The Effect Of Environmental Forcing On The Suspended Sediment Within The Naomi Wetlands As Reflected In Turbidity Data, Molly J. Mcgraw

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In recent years, several freshwater diversion structures have been constructed along the lower Mississippi River south of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. These structures divert freshwater and sediment into Louisiana’s coastal wetlands in an effort to combat Louisiana’s estimated annual wetland loss of 65 km2. The successful operation of these diversions depends upon the stage of the Mississippi River. An increase in river stage generally results in an increase in the suspended sediment load and in the discharge of water through a diversion. The subsequent transport of suspended sediment within an estuary is also influenced by local rainfall, tide, and wind speed …

"Is There A Translator In Teh [Sic] House?": Cultural And Discourse Analysis Of A Virtual Speech Community On An Internet Message Board, Tracy Rene Leblanc

LSU Master's Theses

In the newly emergent field of online ethnography, netspeak and online behavior are quickly becoming the next frontier of linguistic anthropology. The discourse analysis and cultural investigation of the virtual speech community of Penismightier.com reveal several salient aspects of culture through the lens of the internet and online human behavior. This thesis focuses on aspects of language use in the discourse on message board threads on the Penismightier website. The Pen speech community has innovated a lexicon of original and modified techie language, such as unique emoticons and alpha-numeric orthography. The orthographic innovations of this virtual speech community blur the …

East African Hydroclimatic Variability: 1950-1999, Varada Vasant Vaidya

LSU Master's Theses

The interannual variability in precipitation over East Africa is well-understood. Many studies have identified the factors influencing the interannual variability of precipitation such as El Niño – Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the Indian Ocean Dipole Mode (IODM), and Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperature and pressure variations. The relatively arid conditions in much of the East African region are not understood fully. The objective of present study is to determine the meteorological association of aridity over East Africa with regional hydroclimatic variables as well as to find global teleconnections affecting spatial distribution of aridity over East Africa. The East Africa Aridity index …

Palimpsest Encounters: A Baseline Study Of Federal, Antebellum, And Postbellum New Orleans Gardens Using The Notarial Archives Drawings, Cecilia L. Mcnab

LSU Master's Theses

The focus of this thesis is to establish a basis for a typology of New Orleans gardens from 19th Century Notarial drawings. Previous inquires of the New Orleans Notarial Archives drawings emphasized elite gardens of the Vieux Carré and Garden District. This baseline study investigates both vernacular and elite gardens of 159 drawings in the three oldest of the city Municipal Districts during the period 1810-1880, and identifies 19 garden templates. It sets the drawings in their social, political, and historical context to inform a critical understanding of the garden types. The inquiry examines 47 spatial and design variables, using …

Historiography And Civil War, Christopher S. Freeman

Civil War Book Review

The father of history, Herodotus, in The Histories, wrote so that human achievement may not become forgotten in time. While his intellectual successor, Thucydides, in The History of the Peloponnesian War, wrote for those who want to look into the truth of what was done in the past. T....

Li'l Dan, The Drummer Boy A Civil War Story, Romare Bearden

Civil War Book Review

Li'l Dan, The Drummer Boy: Interviews with Dr. Maya Angelou and Dr. Robin D. G. Kelley by Leah Wood Jewett