Digital Commons Network^™

Changing The Narrative: Building A Conceptual Framework For Advocating Representation In History Textbooks, Valerie Paul

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At a time where Americans are beginning to engage in critical dialogue about the representation of minorities in the media, conversations about representation in education have been somewhat elusive or condensed. With the popular focus for marginalized communities being on issues of stereotype threat, achievement deficits, and culturally responsive pedagogy, it seems that policy makers are often left to make decisions that lack considerable connection between the cognitive, social and emotional implications of inclusivity in educational curriculum. Furthermore, there hasn't appeared to be an extensive analysis of these issues between and among relative disciplines. For example, when we discuss representation …

Captives Of A New Alcatraz: The New York City Department Of Correction From 1954 To 1990, Jarrod Shanahan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the New York City Department of Correction (DOC) from 1954 to 1990—a period that began with an audacious program, led by progressive penologist and DOC Commissioner Anna M. Kross, to replace “custodial” prisoner warehousing with a rehabilitative model directed by civilian experts. As part of this plan the political legitimacy, executive strength, and most importantly, the institutional capacity of DOC were expanded, while the department’s plant facilities were increasingly concentrated on Rikers Island. The previously remote penal island was connected by bridge to mainland Queens amid plans for dazzling new jails and a university-affiliated research institute, to …

Everyday Violence: Catcalling And Lgbtq-Directed Aggression In The Public Sphere, Simone A. Kolysh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My dissertation aims to expose how women and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) people are barred from full participation in the public sphere and public life because of catcalling and LGBTQ-directed aggression on the streets of New York City. The harmful, cumulative, and long-lasting effects of these interactions make it difficult for marginalized people to belong and benefit from a supposedly inclusive and democratic society. Focusing on the public sphere of New York City, this dissertation is a qualitative study of catcalling and LGBTQ-directed aggression. I analyze interviews with catcallers and sixty-seven recipients of everyday violence as well …

Swedish Migration Politics: Have The Sweden Democrats Taken Over The Political Agenda?, Sofia Sedergren

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Sweden Democrats’ anti-immigration rhetoric has gained increased influence over Swedish politics in recent years as mainstream parties have adopted an increasingly restrictive attitude towards immigration. Despite this rapprochement to the Sweden Democrats, mainstream parties continue to articulate their opposition to the party. My thesis examines if and how the Sweden Democrats have impacted mainstream parties’ immigration rhetoric in their election manifestos, and if changes on immigration postures have impacted political issues related to immigration, such as foreign policy and welfare; I also assess if the Sweden Democrats have introduced new policy issues and views to the political discourse. I …

Sexual Harassment Of Professional Women: Joan Williams's The Wintering And Her Apprenticeship With William Faulkner, Naoko Ohri

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Sexual harassment in the workplace and sexual harassment in higher education have been conceptualized as separate phenomena. Most of prior research on sexual harassment have been conducted in either one of the two categories (Paludi and Paludi Jr. 2003). However, this classification oversimplifies the distinction between the sites of sexual harassment. The existing dichotomy is too organization-oriented and runs the risk of overlooking variants that might be relevant among profession. Such an ossified definition needs a modification so as to capture the subtler reality of sexual harassment. Especially for professional people, sexual harassment can occur in many places including workplaces …

Migrant Domestic Labor In The Global South: The Plight Of Filipina Domestic Workers In Morocco, Sara Asselman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In studying feminist theory, I discovered that domestic and care labor are often gendered and racialized. They are gendered because they are performed almost exclusively by women, and racialized because in western societies they are often relegated to women of color or migrant women. Feminist literature provides that migrant domestic labor often entails a migration flow between countries of the global north and countries of the global south and between countries that are economically disparate. Feminist theorists often criticize political economic and social structures reproduced by neoliberalism, globalization and neocolonialism for creating a global market for migrant domestic and care …

Italian/Americans And The American Racial System: Contadini To Settler Colonists?, Stephen J. Cerulli

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the relationship between ethnicity and race, “whiteness,” in the American racial system through the lens of Italian/Americans. Firstly, it overviews the current scholarship on Italian/Americans and whiteness. Secondly, it analyzes methodologies that are useful for understanding race in an American context. Thirdly, it presents a case study on the Columbus symbol and the battle over identity that arose out of, and continues over, this symbol. Finally, this thesis provides suggestions using the case study and methodologies to open up new ways of understanding Italian/Americans and the American racial system.

Testimonios In Liminal Spaces: Puerto Rican Women Living In Extended-Stay And Shelter Hotels In New York City After Hurricane Maria, Jessica Crespo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As a result of Hurricane Maria, many Puerto Rican women were forced to seek refuge in New York City's extended-stay and shelter hotels. This research reviews the concept of permanent liminality and applies it to the colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. The study focuses on the testimonios of six Puerto Rican women, who voiced their experiences and struggles while living in between home/ homelessness and New York City/Puerto Rico. In their testimonios women employed the discourse of motherhood to legitimize their children's needs as U.S. citizens. The testimonios locate women within a larger community of Puerto …

Intergenerational Teenage Motherhood: Memory And Material Culture, Aspen Christian

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper explores how memories and material culture can be used to understand intergenerational teenage motherhood. Intimate, feminist ethnography is used to explore the experiences of my mother and my grandmother who were both teenage mothers. Teenage mothers are blamed for perpetuating a cycle of poverty in the United States by conservative and neoliberal adherents, yet women were young mothers throughout the history of the United States. In their minds, teenage mothers have daughters who become teenage mothers themselves, which then maintains poverty across generations. This project counters that false narrative by focusing on the experiences of intergenerational teenage mothers …

Dramaturgies Of Democracy: Performance, Cultural Policy, And Citizenship In Chile, 1979–Present, Jennifer J. Thompson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the relationship between performance, cultural policy, and citi­zenship in Chile (1979-present). Through emblematic case studies of key performance interventions (including the work of the Colectivo Acciones de Arte [CADA], Andrés Pérez, Manuela Infante, and Guillermo Calderón), intertwined with analyses of cultural policy and political discourse, I ask how Chilean performance dramaturgically enacts forms of democratic citizenship—first during Pinochet’s dictatorship as a hoped-for future and later, fol­lowing the democratic transition, as a present, if incomplete, reality. Re­sponding to the vexed transitions to democracy, scholarship on Latin American theatre and performance has emphasized its resistance to the state. I …

Adorno And The Language Of The Intellectual In Exile, Ana Baert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Adorno’s experience as an exile influenced his two works Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments (1944) and Minima Moralia: Reflections from a Damaged Life (1951). These works embody the adversity Adorno wrestled with in his personal life and voice a quasi-indignant resignation to the notion of displacement as a natural yet mutilated human condition. I will analyze Dialectic of Enlightenment through the subjective, experiential lens of Minima Moralia thereby revealing the personal allusions to Adorno himself in his analysis of Odysseus as the prototypical bourgeois.

This thesis explores a biographical approach of the man who was known for his viscero-critical voice. …

The Implementation Fidelity Of The Family Finding Intervention Through The Lens Of Permanency Specialists, Liat L. Shklarski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Family Finding intervention is a six-stage intervention that aims to improve the well-being of youth lingering in foster care by searching for and engaging adults who can provide them with permanent relational connections (Campbell, 2010). Preliminary research on fidelity to the Family Finding intervention indicated gaps in its implementation (Malm, Vandivere, Allen, Williams, & McKlindon, 2014; Vandivere & Malam, 2015). This study sought to explore how implementation fidelity occurs in real-world settings and the factors that promote implementation fidelity for the intervention.

An explanatory sequential mixed methods inquiry was employed to examine permanency specialists’ perceptions of the implementation of …

The Crusader And The Dictator: An Exploration Of Ideology And Neurodivergence In Contemporary Technology Practice, David J. Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A common theme in public discourse is the recognition that technology in general, and digital technology specifically, has an enormous impact on the everyday lives of people from all walks of modern life, in almost every corner of the globe. This thesis interrogates the connection between neurodivergence—the presence of neurological variations considered outside the cognitive norm— and individualistic ideology within the information technology industries. Through the biographies, substantial record of activities, public statements, and writings surrounding two influential figures in the contemporary practice of computer science, Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds, it conducts an investigation into this convergence and its …

Cosmopolitan Democracy: Re-Evaluation Of Globalization And World Economic System, Muhammad Dalhatu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines cosmopolitan democracy theory as a method of addressing the problems of globalization. I begin by introducing the concept of “cosmopolitan democracy.” I then proceed to discuss contemporary political climate and its relation to critiques of globalization. Finally, I conclude by examining the elaborations of cosmopolitan democracy by various theorists as a way of addressing these problems. Chapter 1 introduces the work of David Held who introduced the concept in his book, Cosmopolitan Democracy and the Global Order: Reflections on the 20^th Anniversary of Kant’s “Perpetual Peace.” Cosmopolitan democracy refers to global governance through democratic theory. Held …

Racial Becoming: How Agentic (Self-Initiated) Encounter Events Inform Racial Identity Refinement, Devin A. Heyward

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Racial identity literature has typically focused on identity formation through a series of stages. It also has centered how the experience of negative encounter events informs racial identity formation. With the advent of new genealogical and genomic technology, it is imperative to expand the focus of identity literatures to include encounter events, which participants elect to experience (i.e. self-initiated or agentic encounter events). By using this frame, identity processes become fluid and informed by individual life experiences. In the context of this study, direct to consumer genetic ancestry tests (DTC-GAT) are operationalized as a self-initiated encounter event. Participants were …

Losing Louisiana: Race, Techno-Science, And The Disappearing Geographies Of The Lower Mississippi River Delta, Monica Patrice Barra

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Based on eighteen months of ethnographic and historical research in southeast coastal Louisiana (USA), this dissertation explores the racial histories, engineering and scientific practices, and geophysical processes that have shaped land loss and coastal restoration in the lower Mississippi River Delta. Rather than treating land loss simply as a natural process or matter of environmental restoration, this ethnography examines its cultural, material, and political dimensions, especially for communities of color that have already experienced long histories of loss — of property, livelihood, and political rights. A focus on the geophysical transformations of the river - dictating land growth, sinking, and …

İbne, Gey, Lubunya: A Queer Critique Of Lgbti+ Discourses In The New Cinema Of Turkey, Azmi Mert Erdem

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In my thesis, I examine the intersections between liberalism, neoliberal globalism, and LGBTI+ visibility and identity politics, through films that present “openly” non-normative sexualities through cis/transgender male, female, or non-binary characters in the new cinema of Turkey. First, I survey existing scholarship on how liberal capitalism impacts the formation of LGBTI+ subjectivities and identity politics. Furthermore, I trace how non-normative sexualities, practices, and discourses evolved along with socioeconomic and political shifts in the Turkish Republic following the Ottoman Empire. Accordingly, I review Turkey’s adoption of neoliberal ideologies in the 1980s and how these ideologies engage with its local, heterogenous gender …

Independent Women? Social Class And Social Policy After The Gender Revolution In The West, Berglind H. Ragnarsdóttir

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The gender revolution of the mid-20^th century resulted in extensive changes in social, economic, and policy realms. With their unprecedented entrance into the paid labor market, women moved toward greater economic independence. However, it remains unclear whether these changes in women’s economic well-being resulted in positive change for women across the class spectrum. The large-scale entrance of women into paid labor was not accompanied by men’s equal take up in unpaid domestic work. Thus, women found themselves struggling to balance work and family life and as a result, gender inequality in employment outcomes persists. In this dissertation I explore …

How Black Lives Matter Has Influenced And Interacted With Global Social Movements, Arelle A. Binning

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a chapter-based and member-led organization created out of grief by three queer black women. This thesis examines the international impact of BLM. I conducted telephone interviews with activists and advocacy organizations who have organized activist networks and/or won struggles against institutional racism outside of the United States. These activists are located in Kenya, South Africa, Brazil, Australia, India, Spain, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Paris. I conclude that BLM has inspired the creation and supported the continued development of organizations advocating for national and transnational social and racial justice on a global scale. BLM in spite …

Sweeping Exposures: Lead Poisonings And Black Working Poor Populations In The United States, Shirley Reid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The focus of my thesis is to explore some of the realities that the impoverished urban black poor populations face in America today. The goal of my thesis is to illustrate how poverty is reproduced within impoverished neighborhoods through the idea and mechanism of lead exposure, by recognizing how specific exposure to the element lead and its by-products is both a symbol and a material cause of black urban poor illness and disability. There is no mistake that people living in the U.S. are aware of the social injustices against black populations in the form of racial injustice. However, …

Youth Voice And The Promise And Peril Of Affirmative Governmentality: An Analysis Of New York City’S Borough Student Advisory Councils, Hillary R. Donnell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study addresses civil society and the state’s shifting approach towards the incorporation of youth in governmental decision-making since the 1990s, and the recent ascendance of youth voice councils as a method of civic engagement. It uses the New York City Youth Leadership Council Initiative and the Borough Student Advisory Councils as case studies. Relying on the author’s ethnographic participant observation and youth-voice frameworks, the paper provides an analysis of the individual, organizational and systems level effects of the New York Department of Education’s BSAC program. Further, the paper discusses affirmative governmentality as a lens through which to critically examine …

The Measure Of A Man: A Critical Methodology For Investigating Essentialist Beliefs About Sexual Orientation Categories In Japan And The United States, Brian R. Davis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Methods for studying laypeople’s beliefs about sexual orientation categories have evolved in step with larger theoretical and epistemological shifts in the interdisciplinary study of sexuality. The dominant approach to measuring laypeople’s sexual orientation beliefs over the past decade was made possible through an epistemological shift from a nature vs. nurture paradigm to a social constructionist theoretical model of psychological essentialism (Medin, 1989; Medin & Ortony, 1989; Rothbart & Taylor, 1992). Despite this shift, I argue that the forced-response scale-based survey methodologies typically used to operationally define essentialist beliefs about sexual orientation at best only partially realize the social constructionist potential …

Navigating Colorism And Racial Identity In Dominican Women, Christine Hernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Colorism has been perpetuated in Dominican culture across generations. That along with a colonial mentality has shaped the racial identity and ideologies of their people. I explore what historical and societal factors play into identity in Dominican women. Additionally, I delve into the history of blackness on the island of Hispañola and how it has led to the perpetuation of colorism. I show how this perpetuation influences the racial self-identity of Dominican women through different forms of media and culture.

Imagined Futures: Feminist Science Studies In An Era Of Climate Change Denial, Emily K. Crandall

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What space is there for critical approaches to science in a context where the authority of science to say anything meaningful, or to prescribe, appears to be somewhat tenuous—in other words, in a moment of rampant climate change denial? To answer this question against the backdrop of the common refrain that the problem is one of capitalism vs. the climate (e.g. Naomi Klein 2014), I examine cases where debates about science, economistic organizational arrangements, and political clashes between neoliberals and environmentalists come together, while insisting on the view, following critical engagements with the sciences, that the sciences and their societies …

A Living Experience Of Feeling Listened To: A Parsesciencing Inquiry, Teodora Duarte-Quilao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Listening is the phenomenon of interest and feeling listened to is considered the universal humanuniverse living experience. The aim of this investigation is to contribute new knowings and understanding to the universal humanuniverse living experience of feeling listened to. The purposes of the investigation are: (a) to discover the discerning extant moment of the universal humanuniverse living experience of feeling listened to, (b) to expand the human becoming paradigm, and (c) enhance the disciplinary knowledge of Parsesciencing (Parse, 2016) and disciplinary knowledge in general. People in all areas of life experience being disregarded and not listened to. The significance is …

Living As A Dying Child: A Gadamerian Analysis Of The Poetry Of Mattie J. T. Stepanek, Corinne Ann Settecase-Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Yearly, approximately 500,000 children live with life-limiting conditions in the United States; 50,000 die. Yet, details regarding children’s days of living as dying are unknown. The aim of this qualitative hermeneutic study is to gain understanding of the phenomenon of living as a dying child. A Gadamerian-inspired approach was implemented to underpin the study, and to analyze poetic text to address the research question: What is it to be living as a dying child? The text sample included 499 poems written by Mattie J. T. Stepanek, a dying child. The Settecase-Wu Conceptual Guide was developed and implemented to ensure accuracy …

The Role Of The Intelligentsia In The Collapse Of The Ussr: Soviet Intellectuals And The Idea Of The West, Alma Boltirik

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A lot of scholars wrote about the causes of the collapse of the Soviet Union, paying close attention to economic, social, political, institutional, and external forces, which are undoubtedly important. Yet, almost none of them sufficiently addresses the essential cultural and ideological aspects, which gave rise to the new thinking embraced by Gorbachev and ultimately influenced his policies of glasnost and perestroika. This thesis argues that the revival of a particular social stratum known as the Soviet intelligentsia developed new critical ways of thinking about the country’s present, future, and its domestic problems. The main claim is that the process …

Resisting Industrial Food Systems On The Web: How Non-Profit Organizations Use Digital Technology For Sustainability Education, Aleksandr Segal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the link between how community-based organizations use digital tools with the fundamentally resistance-based philosophy that these organizations have at the core of their mission. It aims to uncover how non-profit organizations (NPOs) that work in community development through food and agriculture use digital tools, and how their digital communication strategies relate to issues of resistance to neoliberalism and industrialization in the food and agriculture sectors.

Using a foundation of existing literature on food and agriculture, climate change and waste management, critical theory, and technology in pedagogy, this thesis will contextualize how non-profits resist neoliberal regimes of de-traditionalization …

Conceptions Of Modern Egyptian Childhood During The Period Of The “Liberal Experiment” In Egypt, 1922–1952: A Comparative Study Of Taha Hussein’S, “An Egyptian Childhood,” And Sayyid Qutb’S, “A Child From The Village”, Nora Elgabalawy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Counter to French social historian Philippe Aries’ argument, the concept of an Egyptian childhood has its own traceable history, separate from the modern Western European concept of childhood. As shown, with the presence of language on childhood, in a number of pre-modern Arabic/Islamic literature, notions of childhood had a rich history outside of modern Western Europe. But, depictions of an Egyptian childhood in modern Egyptian literature, specifically two childhood autobiographies/memoirs, Taha Hussein’s An Egyptian Childhood and Sayyid Qutb’s A Child from the Village, do not emerge seamlessly from these early pre-modern depictions of childhood. Both Hussein and Qutb wrote …

Caring Choices? Supporting And Dreaming With Students In New York City’S Stratifying High School Admissions System, Megan R. Moskop

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In New York City, all eighth graders attending public school must apply for high school. They have 400 schools from which to choose, and they must create a ranked list of twelve choices. They are then matched to one school. The results of this process play a large role in creating one of the most segregated and unequal school systems in the country. In “Caring choices? Supporting and dreaming with students in New York City’s stratifying high school admissions system,” I share an autoethnographic account that spans ten years of work as an activist educator striving both to support students …