Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of Segregation And Desegregation Policies On Academic Achievement Of Black Students In Delaware Public Schools, Kayla Woods

Honors Theses

Through a mixed-methods research study that incorporates some data analysis and interviews, I explore the impacts of segregation and desegregation policies on the educational outcomes and experiences of Black students in Delaware Public Schools. I aim to discover differences in achievement and experiences between students that went to Delaware Public Schools during federally-enforced desegregation and the more current era of resegregation of schools. My research questions revolve around the impacts desegregation policy has on educational outcomes, the impact of interracial relationships within schools and out-of-school activities, and cultural capital transfer and acquisition and its impact on educational outcomes. Data analysis …

Learning Local Languages As A Means Of Preserving Culture: An Analysis Of The Federal Education Laws’ Treatment Of Regional Languages In The Basque Country And Colombia, Olivia Jaramillo

Honors Theses

Regional languages are essential components of vibrantly diverse cultures. Across all regions of the globalizing modern world, regional languages remain one of the clearest markers of the rich heritage and history that each continent, country, state, city, town uniquely possesses. Unlike the more dominant languages of our evolving international landscape, local and regional languages explicitly capture precise cultural experiences of limited populations. These languages carry specific nuance, meaning, grammar, and vocabulary obscured by other forms of communication. This project, researching and analyzing two individual countries’ regional language education under the federal legal systems, holds the importance of safeguarding local languages …

Effects Of Parent Intervention Via Tele-Practice On Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder In Rural Mississippi, Erin Bowens

Honors Theses

Background

The present study explored the use of parent intervention via tele-practice for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and how effective that intervention was in increasing the child’s language and communication skills and the parents’ strategy use in the rural state of Mississippi.

Methods

Two dyads of participants were used. Dyad 1 included a mother and her 4-year-old son with high-functioning ASD, and Dyad 2 included a mother and her 4-year-old daughter with severe ASD. Standardized tests were administered to gather data about the children’s diagnoses. The study included four phases across four months, including pre-test, intervention, post-test, and …

Empower! A Poetry Curriculum For The 21st Century Learner, Misty Maina

Honors Theses

By providing today’s high school students with a multimodal curriculum centered around critical inquiry, worldview, personal relevance, and by providing students will many opportunities to respond to these principles with their own writings, students will be empowered to engage with their learning and the world in meaningful and intentional ways. Empower! poetry curriculum is designed to help students ask questions about themselves, their immediate surroundings and influences, and about the world around them. Students will be encouraged to take the time and energy for deeper thinking and reflection as they engage with the activities of Empower! While there will be …

Teaching Language Variation In K-12 Schools, Samantha Phillips

Honors Theses

The language used in most classrooms throughout the United States is standard American English (SAE). Although this language is difficult to define, it is often perceived as the correct or proper usage of the English language. Students grow up learning that there is one correct way to speak and write, and consequently, they learn that any variation from this standard must be incorrect or improper. Student speakers of stigmatized variations of English face academic, social, and personal consequences such as poor academic performance, isolation from peers, and assimilation. The ideology that promotes SAE as correct also ignores the connection between …

A Research Study On The Effects Of Differentiated Instruction, Tiered Instruction, And Tracking On First Grade And Second Grade Students Who Perform Lower In Academic Subjects Compared To Their Classmates, Britni Sanchez

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Providing Culturally Competent Eldercare For Asian Americans, Britney Ngo

Honors Theses

As the Asian American elderly population continues to grow, it is important to acknowledge cultural factors that may impact their behavior, attitudes, preferences, and decisions in the context of eldercare. Cultural competency acknowledges and considers these factors while providing care that includes biophysical factors of healthcare as well as non-medical dimensions of care such as language and culture.

This thesis seeks to address the applications of providing culturally competent eldercare to Asian Americans and offer future recommendations to care settings that have limited resources by utilizing a multidisciplinary review of literature accompanied by interviews with representatives from On Lok, a …

The Effects Of Musical Experience And Aptitude On Phonological Skills In A Foreign Language, Joshua Shockley

Honors Theses

Music has been shown to have an important effect on L2 language acquisition. Recently, researchers have investigated how musical ability or experience can give an advantage to L2 learners attempting to acquire specific aspects of a second language in the beginning stages of language acquisition. This study investigates this connection between musicality and early L2 ability in Spanish through a series of tests including a musical aptitude test, two language aptitude tests, a Spanish receptive test, and a Spanish imitation test. Results revealed no significant correlations between musical ability or experience and language ability as tested by the aptitude, receptive, …

The Syntax Of Passives And Related Constructions In Mandarin Chinese, Shangyan Pan

Honors Theses

This thesis discusses the Mandarin Chinese passive, a construction that differs in significant ways from its better known, European counterparts. While the passive is one of the most well-studied constructions in syntax, the passive in Chinese remains understudied and not as well understood. The thesis offers an analysis of multiple passive markers in Chinese, focusing on bei and gei. Superficially, the two markers both participate in passive and passive-like constructions. However, upon closer scrutiny, it is demonstrated that only bei qualifies as a true passive marker, while gei is shown to belong to a more general category of Non-Active …

Cultivating Family Empowerment In Schools: The Experiences Of Marginalized Families In Special Education, Rachel-Marie F. Sinco

Honors Theses

The provision of special education services to special needs students is largely upheld by federal and state policies and regulations, such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) which ensures that children with disabilities have the opportunity to access a free appropriate public education (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2004). However, marginalized families of low-income and linguistically diverse backgrounds continue to face barriers and challenges to effectively participate in their child’s education and secure the necessary and appropriate services for their child. Family Empowerment Centers on Disability (FECs) in California provide a policy solution to assist families navigate …

Is France Having A Populist Moment?, Emma Gilmore

Honors Theses

The word populism is often thrown around in news media and academic scholarship, but there is a lack of understanding of what it actually means as a political theory. In France, the two presidential candidates that made it to the second round in 2017, Emmanuel Macron and Marine le Pen, were both called populist, despite having vastly different campaign strategies and messages. This study used a computer-based method to analyze Campaign books from 24 candidates beginning in 1981 that determined that Populist language is on the rise, but not as aggressively as news media suggests.

Whose Nation Is This? Conceptualizing Burmese National Identity Through Case Studies Of Inter-Ethnic Conflict, Jason Leong

Honors Theses

The ongoing Rohingya Genocide is the most extreme expression of Burmese identity and has catapulted the nation of Myanmar onto the world stage. This thesis examines the development of a Burmese national identity during British colonial rule through the lens of inter-ethnic conflict between the Bamar ethnolinguistic majority and ethnic minorities living in colonial Myanmar. Through analyzing three different case studies, each representing a watershed expression of Burmese identity, this thesis illustrates how inter-ethnic conflict shaped what it means to be Burmese. Using archival material from the British Library such as political cartoons, government reports, and vernacular newspaper clippings, this …

The Bittersweet Tooth: Understanding French Identity Through The Colonial Empire, Commodity Fetishism, And Pâtisserie, Clarisse D. Allehaut

Honors Theses

This thesis argues that patisserie and the French relationship with dessert are a part of national identity. The historical context of patisserie runs parallel to the growth and power of the French colonial empire. Patisserie feels removed from the empire, and yet the two show how gastronomy, luxury, and exploitative power in the form of empire are components of French history and identity. Marx’s theory on commodity fetishism serves as the backbone for this argument. This theoretical idea supposes that value is an objective concept and society attributes importance and perceived meaning. Patisserie exemplifies commodity fetishism as a good with …

Understanding The Role Of Race In American Medicine, Fariel C. A. Lamountain

Honors Theses

Long running inequity in health care and outcomes in the United States stem from failure to acknowledge the underlying role of the Transatlantic slave trade as it manifests in all facets of American society and commerce. This paper focuses specifically on the American medical system and its foundations to understand the precursors to generational trends in lack of access to healthcare and poor health for Black communities. This paper uses a three-pronged approach to understand the racist cycle of inequity, highlighting the history and origins of racism in American medicine, personal accounts and statistical evidence of inequity, and community and …

A Prosaic People? Literature, Propaganda, And National Identity In Second World War Britain, William L. Maines

Honors Theses

During the early years of the Second World War, a typically unofficial and loose coalition of British newspapers, publishers, propagandists, and booksellers mobilized Britain’s imagined literary past and present as a part of the war effort. They defined the nation through its imagined literary proclivities— its penchant for literary production and consumption, and its “unique” attitude toward literary freedom— and in opposition to the literary tyranny of Nazi Germany. Marshaling the nation’s mythological literary heritage, they enlisted Shakespeare and Milton in the war effort, portraying them as temperate and civilian English heroes. While the rhetoric of “British bookishness” hardly went …

St. George’S Food Access Initiatives: Navigating Food Inequalities, Forging A Way To Food Choice Freedom, And Transgressing Culinary Borderlands In Lake County, Colorado, Mannon R. Frykholm

Honors Theses

As guided by ethnographic fieldwork and the interdisciplinary discipline of Global Studies, this thesis works to trace food access inequalities in Lake County, Colorado and how they are felt and confronted both at the individual and communal level. Amidst the failures of global food systems and the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, rural communities, such as the field site of Lake County, Colorado, face additional challenges in accessing food that is culturally relevant, craved, and truly wanted. This thesis traces the dominant food inequalities in Lake County. In the face of these inequalities, I centralize the community food initiatives …

"She Had A Bok To Print, And It Was Her Own Case": Elizabeth Cellier's Malice Defeated As A Critical Contribution To 17th-Century Political Discourse And Postwar Pamphlet Culture, Serena Desai

Honors Theses

Born in London, England during the 1640s-- the peak of the English Civil War-- Elizabeth Cellier was no stranger to political and religious conflict. Rumors flooded the seventeenth-century newsstands: not only was King Charles II a Catholic-apologist who favored the tiny "Jesuitical" faction over the Protestant majority, but he refused to allow Parliament to check his monarchical power. By 1680, the legislature was actively attempting to disrupt his line of succession by preventing the heir presumptive, the Duke of York, from ascending the throne. Ignited by this Exclusion Crisis, several known Protestant "tricksters"--Thomas Dangerfield, William Bedloe, and Israel Tonge, and …

The Multifront Battle Waged Against Female Autonomy: A Comparative Study Of Ancient Medical And Literary Texts, Leah K. Montello

Honors Theses

Male authors have long waged a multifront campaign against female independence. In this thesis, I focus on two specific fronts: literary and medical texts of the Classical Greek period. This thesis intends to explore the varying strategies in a selection of works, employed to reinforce prescribed gender norms. I approach this with a feminist lens to critique attempts made by elite educated Greek men to define what a woman ought to be like. I do not, however, explore every single tactic a medical and literary writer has applied to uphold patriarchal norms. My two body chapters revolve respectively around two …

Finding Identity In The Intersections: Transnational Feminism And The Non-Human Primate, Kailyn Carr

Honors Theses

This project examines how the conversations among feminism and primatology offers a unique critical lens into how “man” dominates other identities, whether that be woman or non-human primate, specifically within the rigid colonial structures of Western society. Donna Haraway’s landmark post-humanist work joins these conversations, especially with her earlier work Primate Visions and Simians, Cyborgs, and Women. While Haraway has changed the narrative surrounding feminist theory within the biological sciences – what has now become recognized as feminist science and technology studies –, this shift in perspective continues to emphasize Western ideological practices and their attention to primatology. My …

Integration For Integration?: The Implications Of Varying Refugee Integration Strategies On Future European Union Integration, Giuliana Ferrara

Honors Theses

This study explores whether the best practices of refugee integration policies, as supported by scholars, are present in the European Union (EU) and some of its Member States between 2014 and 2021, accounting for the responses of these governments to the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe. In addition, it seeks to reveal the likelihood of future collective governance of refugee integration at the EU level. It claims that there are four central benchmarks to examine the strength of a country’s refugee integration plans as well as two integration theories to consider the possibility of deeper EU decision-making on a policy …

Yo Soy Rumano (I Am Romanian): An Autobiography Exploring The Effects Of Memory And Trauma On The Formation Of The Self, Andrei Bucaloiu

Honors Theses

I came to the United States from Romania with my parents when I was two years old. This moment of cultural, linguistic, and geographic separation occurred before I was able to consciously recall it, yet it constitutes a traumatic experience, in the Freudian and Lacanian sense, that defines my positionality and serves as a primary space in which I seek to develop who I am. However, regardless of how much I have developed my ability to communicate in English, it is not the language of my emotional affect. At the same time, profound expression in Romanian is not possible for …

The Fifth Vital Sign: An Anthropological Analysis Of Productive And Unproductive Pain, Kathleen Meerscheidt

Honors Theses

Throughout my time as a Division I rower, I have struggled to understand the ways that I understand my own normalization of pain within a broader cultural environment that portrays pain as a mostly negative aspect of life. This moral quandary inspired me to start researching the role of pain in different socio-cultural contexts. For my thesis, I conducted original research, in the form of participant observation and semi-structured interviews, to build on what I found through an extensive literature review. First, I looked at the ways in which pain is understood within Western biomedicine and, subsequently, “Western” culture. Within …

Mapping Ancient Women: An Analysis Of The Catalogue Of Heroines Through The Digital Humanities, Rachel Milio

Honors Theses

The Catalogue of Heroines (Odyssey 11.225-330) presents a thorough corpus of prominent mythological women as Odysseus recounts the stories of each woman he encounters in the Underworld. In this thesis I apply digital humanities tools and methods to the Catalogue of Heroines in order to center ancient women in a discussion of the Odyssey and to determine how the relationships between the heroines contribute to the Catalogue’s overall purpose. First, I examine the history of the digital humanities with particular attention to contributions to the field made by classicists; I identify the need for further digital humanities projects centered …

The School-To-Prison Pipeline: A Method Of Social Reproduction, Tyler E. Rifkin

Honors Theses

The American public-school system pushes many low incomes and minoritized learners out of school and into the juvenile justice system through its disciplinary practices. The school-to-prion pipeline (STPP) puts a name on this cycle, explaining how zero-tolerance policies are directly or indirectly causing students to drop out of school and leading them into prison. This thesis utilizes existing literature too deeply asses zero-tolerance policies, as well as other apparati of the STPP within schools today. It examines how the STPP discriminates against students based on social class, race, gender, and disability. This project is directed by a theoretical framework of …

Supporting Teacher Retention Through A Trauma-Informed Lens, Nicole C. Reddig

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between trauma-informed practices and teacher burnout and turnover. For the past decade, schools across the United States have seen high levels of burnout and turnover amongst their educators. At the same time, young children are experiencing high levels of exposure to traumatic events in childhood, affecting their behavior, social and emotional health, and ability to learn. While teachers play an important role in the support system for these students, they are also at risk for experiencing secondary trauma and burnout. To mitigate the effects of trauma, trauma-informed practices have been introduced in schools to respond …

Unpacking Political Identity In First-Time Voting Christian Women: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Mary Grace Golden

Honors Theses

As political science tends to focus on polling and statistical analysis to examine individuals’ voting behaviors, the reasoning behind constituents’ decision-making process is often left in the dark. This is particularly true in first-time voting women who come from religious backgrounds that uphold complementarian gender values. This study focuses on the following research questions: How do women experience their political identity in relation to their gender identity? How do women experience their political identity in relation to their religious or faith identity? How do women experience their political identity in relation to voting for the first time? I answer these …

World Changers: Social Justice At The Heart Of Middle School Language Arts Curriculum, Mackenzie Mcclain

Honors Theses

English classrooms, at their best, are safe places for adolescents to critically engage with difficult issues presented in novels and the real world. One such issue is human trafficking, which is expected to soon become the world’s most profitable criminal industry (Knudsen, 2015). Incorporating values and instructional approaches from social justice pedagogy, I have designed a sixth-grade language arts unit plan about human trafficking based upon Francesco D’Adamo’s novel, Iqbal (2003). My purpose was to create resources, such as standards-based learning objectives, text sets, lesson plans, and student projects to use in my own classroom, as well as for teachers …

Healthcare Access Barriers And Proposed Solutions For Limited English-Proficient (Lep) Latinx Patients In Southwest Michigan, Carmen Vinkemulder

Honors Theses

This research study explores the circumstances and experiences of LatinX patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) when seeking treatment in the healthcare system of Southwest Michigan, in addition to proposing solutions to better facilitate this population’s access. The terminology used in this research, LatinX, is an American English neologism used as a genderinclusive term used interchangeably with Latino/a and/or Hispanic. This research provides an overview of the current socio-political legislature and climate of the American healthcare system as it pertains to the LatinX population to spread awareness and identify the barriers existing in our current healthcare model. This study will …

Pragmatic Deficits In Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis, Paige Kessler

Honors Theses

Background: Most studies have found pragmatic language skills to be poorer in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) populations, but there is no conclusive evidence.

Aim: Our aim was to conduct a meta-analysis of pragmatic language abilities in ADHD populations to more definitively demonstrate the extent of pragmatic language deficits in these populations as compared to typically developing (TD) populations.

Methods and procedures: Journal articles were identified using the search terms ((attention deficit) OR (adhd)) AND (pragmatics). Identified studies were screened and reviewed for inclusion criteria, descriptive information, and outcome variables. A meta-analysis was conducted, and individual effect sizes and overall effect size …

How Critical Legal Studies Risks Rights: Roberto Unger Criticized Through A Dworkinian Lens, Nicholas Michael Vanhee

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.