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Contemporary Perceptions Of Immigrants As Threats: Is The Perceived "Criminal Immigrant" Image Supported?, Rosa Elena Chang
Contemporary Perceptions Of Immigrants As Threats: Is The Perceived "Criminal Immigrant" Image Supported?, Rosa Elena Chang
Open Access Dissertations
This study examined Americans' perceptions of immigrants as threats and their implications on immigration policy views as well as immigrants' actual involvement in crime. Images of immigrant groups result from the perceived threats they pose to the crime rate, economy, political power, and nativism (Blumer 1958). I argued that these perceptions result in opposition to immigrants and support for stronger measures to exclude undocumented immigrants. Of special interest for this study was the "criminal immigrant" stereotype. Previous studies demonstrate that immigrants are not highly crime-involved even when they experience additional stressors during their adaptation processes. Yet, according to Agnew's (1992) …
English Reading/Language Arts Instruction In First-Grade Classrooms Serving English Language Learners: A Cross-Analysis Of Instructional Practices And Student Engagement, Maribel G. Mora Harder
English Reading/Language Arts Instruction In First-Grade Classrooms Serving English Language Learners: A Cross-Analysis Of Instructional Practices And Student Engagement, Maribel G. Mora Harder
Open Access Dissertations
This study was designed to provide information on the reading instructional practices of 36 first grade teachers in nine schools that serve predominantly Spanish-speaking and ELL students in a southeastern U.S. school district. The purpose of this investigation was to describe teaching practices employed during English language arts instruction and to examine their use in relation to instructional grouping strategies, teacher language use, and student engagement. Participating classrooms were observed three times throughout the 2006-07 school year. Data were collected via the Timed Observations of Student Engagement/Language (TO/SEL) classroom observation instrument (Foorman & Schatchneider, 2003). Paired sample t-tests, multivariate analyses …
Digital Storytelling As A Cultural-Historical Activity: Effects On Information Text Comprehension, Maryann E. Tatum
Digital Storytelling As A Cultural-Historical Activity: Effects On Information Text Comprehension, Maryann E. Tatum
Open Access Dissertations
New literacies in reading research demand for the study of comprehension skills using multiple modalities, through a more complex, multi-platform view of reading. Taking into account the robust roll of technology in our daily lives, research suggests that educators need activities to connect students' lack of reading skills with their growing multimodal literacy. During the post-reading phase of a directed reading activity (DRA), students were engaged in digital storytelling, where they created digital videos and slideshows based on information text read during DRA. Previous studies highlighting the use of digital storytelling have been limited to narrative formats and the influence …
The Afro-Cuban Abakuá: Rhythmic Origins To Modern Applications, Donald Brooks Truly
The Afro-Cuban Abakuá: Rhythmic Origins To Modern Applications, Donald Brooks Truly
Open Access Dissertations
The objective of this doctoral essay is to help shed some light on the Afro-Cuban musical style called the Abakuá. This essay traces the development of the Abakuá secret society and its music from its ancestral beginnings in Africa (with the Èfik and Efut Leopard Societies), through its movement into Cuba and the development of the first lodge (in the eighteen hundreds), to its eventual influence in America. This essay also describes the impact the Abakuá has had on music in general, but especially the music of the Cuban Rumba and Afro-Cuban jazz. Detail is given on many different aspects …
Exploring Teachers' And Black Male Students' Perceptions Of Intelligence, Patrick Anthony Williams
Exploring Teachers' And Black Male Students' Perceptions Of Intelligence, Patrick Anthony Williams
Open Access Dissertations
This study explored teachers' perceptions of intelligence of 11th-grade Black male students and how students themselves perceived their own intelligence in light of Howard Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligence. Qualitative research methods were used to gain novel understanding of the students' and teachers' feelings, and perceptions as outlined in the research questions. Two versions of ecological systems theory provided the underpinnings for the framework of this study: 1) Brönfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory, and 2) Spencer's PVEST (Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory) model, which is an adaptation of the ecology model to Black students in the United States. In a …
Persistence, Resistance, And Change: Toward A Critical Praxis For Student Researched Writing, Bryna L. Siegel
Persistence, Resistance, And Change: Toward A Critical Praxis For Student Researched Writing, Bryna L. Siegel
Open Access Dissertations
This project re-situates and re-defines researched writing, examines the persistence of the current-traditional model in college curriculums, investigates why resistance to the current-traditional model has often failed, and offers a solution which realigns researched writing with current rhetoric and composition research, theory, and pedagogical paradigms. The dissertation investigates the following research questions: What is the traditional research paper? How does it manifest in classrooms? How do teachers think and talk about this persistent genre? I critique the theoretical, ideological, and historical assumptions that exist in terms of the purposes of researched writing, and claim that a more critical aim for …
The Effects Of A Peer-Mediated Intervention On Language And Reciprocity In Young Children With Social Communication Disorders, Sharon Bissonnette
The Effects Of A Peer-Mediated Intervention On Language And Reciprocity In Young Children With Social Communication Disorders, Sharon Bissonnette
Open Access Dissertations
Children with social communication disorders educated in inclusive settings often remain socially isolated from typically-developing peers. This study used a single subject ABC design to determine if a peer-buddy social skills intervention based on buddy skills would increase the frequency and quality of interaction between three preschool-aged children with social communication disorders and three typically-developing peers, in a public school setting. Children were placed in rotating pairs during three play activities. Generalization to a different classroom activity was also probed. Videotaped observations were analyzed for frequency of communicative acts, modes of communication, diversity of vocabulary, structural complexity of sentences, initiation, …
A Study Of Selected Errors In Arab Students' English Compositions And An Investigation Of Arabic Rhetoric, Samaa Gamie
A Study Of Selected Errors In Arab Students' English Compositions And An Investigation Of Arabic Rhetoric, Samaa Gamie
Open Access Dissertations
The first half of this dissertation study proposes a revision and rethinking of the traditional methodology used in error studies in composition and presents a new approach to the research on error. The dissertation presents an analysis of the frequency of errors in a sample of 756 Arab student essays of Egyptian, Kuwaiti, Lebanese, and Syrian nationalities. The error study of Arab student writing also analyzes the ways in which these Arab students use the English language to present and affirm their individual, national, cultural, and religious discourses and the manifestations of cultural and ideological resistance in these students' written …
East Meets West: Chinese Reception And Translation Of Virginia Woolf, Guanglan Jin
East Meets West: Chinese Reception And Translation Of Virginia Woolf, Guanglan Jin
Open Access Dissertations
This dissertation traces the evolution of the Chinese reception of Virginia Woolf through historical contextualization and explores the cultural conflicts in the Chinese interpretation and translation of Woolf with special emphasis on her feminism from a cross-cultural perspective. It also examines Woolf s and Ling Shuhua's critique of the tyrannies in the private world in their autobiographical works. The two stages of the Chinese reception of Woolf parallel those of the western one. The first stage from the early 1930s to the late 1940s may be characterized by so-called "interaction" between the Bloomsbury and Crescent Moon groups. It includes the …
"All The World's A Stage": (Re)Familiarizing Shakespeare: A Study Of Romeo And Juliet In The East And The West, Beau La Rhee
"All The World's A Stage": (Re)Familiarizing Shakespeare: A Study Of Romeo And Juliet In The East And The West, Beau La Rhee
Open Access Dissertations
This study analyzes William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1596) and his Globe Theater as well as John Gielgud's (1935), Peter Brook's (1947), and Tae-Suk Oh's (2005 and 2006) adaptation of it to explore how the play is retold, reinterpreted, and brought alive for new audiences through different cultures and through the theater of today. As the acclaimed western directors, the Korean director Tae-Suk Oh accurately interprets Shakespearean devices in the source text and employs methodologies drawn from his own culture as well as Elizabethan culture. He effectively relates the world of the play to the world of the audience through …
Children Of Possibility: Children's Musicking In Communities Of Practice, Kimberly Cotter-Lemus
Children Of Possibility: Children's Musicking In Communities Of Practice, Kimberly Cotter-Lemus
Open Access Dissertations
Inner-city youth are often labeled in social science research with the "at risk" construct, signifying the risk of anticipated failure based on children's (or families') deficiencies. In the context of an arts project, the inner-city students in this study demonstrated ability to overcome the deficient "at risk" label imposed by society. The year-long, teacher-practitioner research took place in an underprivileged K-5 elementary school in the Northeast. Using a sociocultural framework, I examined what happens when children in this school setting are given an arts project in which they are allowed to be self-directive. The arts project consisted of weekly participation …
A Groundwork For The Theory Of Notation, Len O. Olsen
A Groundwork For The Theory Of Notation, Len O. Olsen
Open Access Dissertations
This work is a philosophical investigation of signs. It offers a definition of the term ?sign? and develops three different systems for talking precisely about signs and their properties. The system of object display lines is developed in the first chapter; the ostension notation and the box notation are developed in the second chapter; and the contemporary associationist definition of a sign is developed in the third chapter. These systems, in conjunction with the definition, are proffered as a philosophical foundation for the theory of notation. The first chapter of this work develops the distinction between i) mere objects (non-signs), …
A Groundwork For The Theory Of Notation, Len O. Olsen
A Groundwork For The Theory Of Notation, Len O. Olsen
Open Access Dissertations
This work is a philosophical investigation of signs. It offers a definition of the term “sign” and develops three different systems for talking precisely about signs and their properties. The system of object display lines is developed in the first chapter; the ostension notation and the box notation are developed in the second chapter; and the contemporary associationist definition of a sign is developed in the third chapter. These systems, in conjunction with the definition, are proffered as a philosophical foundation for the theory of notation. The first chapter of this work develops the distinction between i) mere objects (non-signs), …
Investigation Of The Inter-Correlations Among Standardized Written And Performance-Based Assessments Of Measurement Content Knowledge Among Third Grade English Language Learners, Marcella D. Elliott
Investigation Of The Inter-Correlations Among Standardized Written And Performance-Based Assessments Of Measurement Content Knowledge Among Third Grade English Language Learners, Marcella D. Elliott
Open Access Dissertations
The purpose of this study was to provide an empirical test of the widely held belief that performance-based assessment provides a fairer picture of English-language learners' mathematical skills and knowledge than does a standardized assessment. Specifically, I compared the performance of 94 third-graders on the measurement subscale of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT) mathematics test to their performance on a set of measurement reasoning and applications that was drawn from their third-grade hands-on science curriculum. Then, I present examples within the non-standardized testing setting where students were provided with real-time language-based accommodations as recommended by the research literature. Finally, …
Elementary Teachers' Knowledge And Practices In Teaching Science To English Language Learners, Alexandra O. Santau
Elementary Teachers' Knowledge And Practices In Teaching Science To English Language Learners, Alexandra O. Santau
Open Access Dissertations
Efforts to improve education - more concretely science education - by creating fundamental shifts in standards for students and teachers have been launched by educators and policy makers in recent years. The new standards for science instruction address improvements in student learning, program development, assessment, and professional development for teachers, with the goal to prepare US students for the academic demands of the 21st century. The study examined teachers' knowledge and practices in science instruction with English language learning (ELL) students. It also examined relationships among key domains of science instruction with ELL students, as well as profiles of teaching …
Symbolic Exchanges: Haiti, Brazil And The Ethnopoetics Of Cultural Identity, Myriam Mompoint
Symbolic Exchanges: Haiti, Brazil And The Ethnopoetics Of Cultural Identity, Myriam Mompoint
Open Access Dissertations
This work is a comparative study of the influence of the pan-Africanist discourse of ethnographers Dr. Jean Price-Mars of Haiti and Dr. Arthur Ramos of Brazil, and its impact on the respective literatures and cinemas of the two nations. Beginning in the first quarter of the 20th Century, and stemming from a developing auto-ethnography undertaken by the two scholars, a growing concern over defining cultural identity inspired a generation of writers to appropriate ethnographic methodology and apply it to their fictional works. The discourse of representation, which looked to popular sources for inspiration (Haitian Indigénisme and Brazilian Regionalismo, or which …
The Effects Of Family Race/Ethnicity And Socioeconomic Status On Quality Of Services And Family Outcomes For Families Participating In Part C Early Intervention Programs, Paula S. Lalinde
Open Access Dissertations
This study investigated the association between family socioeconomic status, family race/ethnicity, quality of services and the impact of those services on the family for families who had participated in a northeastern state's IDEA, Part C Early Intervention Program. Data for this study came from 1,108 families who responded to a survey distributed by the state's Early Intervention Program. The survey contained two Rasch-based measurement scales designed to yield measures of family perceptions of the quality of early intervention services they had received and the impact of those services on their family. Results of the study indicated that measures of quality …
Belly Laughs: Body Humor In Contemporary American Literature And Film, David Gillota
Belly Laughs: Body Humor In Contemporary American Literature And Film, David Gillota
Open Access Dissertations
Belly Laughs: Body Humor in Contemporary American Literature and Film Scholars are more than happy to laugh at but seem somewhat reluctant to discuss body humor, which is perhaps the most neglected form of comedy in recent criticism. In this dissertation, I examine the ways in which contemporary American writers and filmmakers use body humor in their works, not only in moments of so-called "comic relief" but also as a valid way of exploring many of the same issues that postmodern artists typically interrogate in their more somber moments. The writers discussed in this project-Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon, Charles Johnson, …
Standard English Language Acquisition Among African American Vernacular English Speaking Adolescents: A Modified Guided Reading Study, Benjamin T. Lester
Standard English Language Acquisition Among African American Vernacular English Speaking Adolescents: A Modified Guided Reading Study, Benjamin T. Lester
Open Access Dissertations
This dissertation is an effort to contribute to the knowledge base concerning reading instruction for adolescent students who speak African American Vernacular English (AAVE), as well as their acquisition of Standard English (SE), by focusing on language structure during a modified approach to guided reading (MGR). Emphasis was placed on teaching the eight inflectional morphemes in SE, as well as other literacy strategies to AAVE speaking students. This intervention hypothesized that the teaching and learning of inflectional morphemes, in particular, would increase SE literacy acquisition. The intervention utilized formative experiment methodology and a quasi-experimental time series design. Data sources and …
School Psychologists' Readiness To Implement Response To Intervention Practices, Christina Kilgallen
School Psychologists' Readiness To Implement Response To Intervention Practices, Christina Kilgallen
Open Access Dissertations
This study uses a theoretical framework, the Transtheoretical Model (TTM), to explore school psychologists' readiness to implement Response to Intervention. Measures related to school psychologists' decision making process about implementing RTI were developed based on the TTM. The measures included Stage of Change (readiness to implement RTI), Decisional Balance (pros and cons of implementing RTI), and Situational Self-Efficacy (Confidence to implement RTI). A previously developed Reading Research Knowledge scale was also included. Information was gathered about training and practice as well. Two hundred fifty-six school psychologists completed the survey. Results indicated that school psychologists implementing RTI were more confident about …
Queen Elizabeth I And Shakespeare: Image Of Gender, Power, And Sexuality, Frederick Schweizer
Queen Elizabeth I And Shakespeare: Image Of Gender, Power, And Sexuality, Frederick Schweizer
Open Access Dissertations
Queen Elizabeth I's writing is contextually significant; it represents not only Elizabeth's thoughts, wishes and commands, but also Elizabeth herself. During a reign in which she struggles with issues of sexuality and power as a female ruler, her manipulation of language to create an identity and assert power becomes the way in which Elizabeth constructs and re-defines herself. She challenges Renaissance gender expectations through the power of language and expands definitions and/or identities of women in terms of sexuality, marriage, religion, and politics. She adapts male discourse as her own and manipulates language to fit specific audiences, but she must …
Alzheimer's Disease (Ad) Like Pathology Following Developmental Lead Exposure In Primates And The Role Of Aging In Ad-Related Genes Regulation In Rodents And Primates, Jinfang Wu
Open Access Dissertations
Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, irreversible neurodegenerative disease results in memory loss and dementia. The search for the etiology of sporadic AD focuses on environmental links and the role of aging. In manuscript 1, we validated our previous rodent model in primates by the following findings. (1) Developmental Pb exposure caused elevated AD-related APP, BACE1 and Sp1 mRNA expression as well as APP protein and amyloidogenic Aβ40 and Aβ42. (2) The molecular changes were accompanied by AD-like pathological changes in exposed monkey brains. (3) Pb exposure increased 8-oxo-2'-deoxyguanine in the monkey brain. (4) DNA methyltransferase activity was suppressed in exposed …
An Investigation Of Communication Patterns And Strategies Between International Teaching Assistants And Undergraduate Students In University-Level Science Labs, Barbara Elas Gourlay
An Investigation Of Communication Patterns And Strategies Between International Teaching Assistants And Undergraduate Students In University-Level Science Labs, Barbara Elas Gourlay
Open Access Dissertations
This research project investigates communication between international teaching assistants and their undergraduate students in university-level chemistry labs. During the fall semester, introductory-level chemistry lab sections of three experienced non-native speaking teaching assistants and their undergraduate students were observed. Digital audio and video recordings documented fifteen hours of lab communication, focusing on the activities and interactions in the first hour of the chemistry laboratory sessions. In follow-up one-on-one semi-structured interviews, the participants (undergraduates, teaching assistants, and faculty member) reviewed interactions and responded to a 10-item, 7-point Likert-scaled interview. Interactions were classified into success categories based on participants' opinions. Quantitative and qualitative …
A Concurrent Validation Of The Violence Sensitivity Scale, Jonathan Corey
A Concurrent Validation Of The Violence Sensitivity Scale, Jonathan Corey
Open Access Dissertations
A correlational concurrent validity study of the Violence Sensitivity Scale (VSS) was conducted in which respondents (N=169) also completed the Nonviolence Test (NVT), the Attitudes Toward Violence Scale (ATVS) and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSD). The VSS was significantly positively correlated with the NVT and MCSD, and significantly negatively correlated with a transformed ATVS distribution. Principal Factors Analysis limited to four, factors assigned 23 of 38 VSS behaviors to the same factors as in a previous study. Multiple regression tests found the NVT and MCSD to be significant predictors of VSS and VSS subscale scores. Demographic variables were examined …
Monetizing Mobile Factors Involved In Development Of Mobile Commerce: Korea, China, Japan, Mark Michael Lennon
Monetizing Mobile Factors Involved In Development Of Mobile Commerce: Korea, China, Japan, Mark Michael Lennon
Open Access Dissertations
The problem of business model development and adaptation is endemic to new technologies. This problem is particularly acute when implemented in cross-cultural settings. This dissertation examines the development of business models in the emerging field of mobile commerce in Korea, China, and Japan. Factors that have been involved in this development are examined. A series of propositions are developed. Directions for future research are given.
Worldview Construction: International Relations Concepts Embedded In Elementary Social Studies Textbooks, Louise Massey Strauss
Worldview Construction: International Relations Concepts Embedded In Elementary Social Studies Textbooks, Louise Massey Strauss
Open Access Dissertations
Early civic education is crucial for worldview formation compatible with living in an increasingly interdependent world. In U.S. public schools, social studies is the locus of civic education. Social studies textbooks are the container of civic subject matter and teachers are its transmitters. Traditionally, civic education has been linked with national identity creation. In this study, educators are challenged to stimulate a complementary cosmopolitan identity because of social, political, and economic globalization trends and transition to an Information (and instant communication) Age. Using the social constructivist perspective, a content analysis model was developed for multi-state study of elementary social studies …
The Effect Of "Developmental Speech-Language Training Through Music" On Speech Production In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Hayoung Audrey Lim
The Effect Of "Developmental Speech-Language Training Through Music" On Speech Production In Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders, Hayoung Audrey Lim
Open Access Dissertations
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders demonstrate deficits in speech and language, with the most outstanding speech impairments being in comprehension, semantics, prosody, and pragmatics. Perception and production of music and speech in children with ASD appear to follow the same principles of Gestalt pattern perceptual organization. In addition, common neuroanatomical structures and similar patterns of cortical activation mediate the perception and production of speech and music. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore how the perception of musical stimuli would impact the perception and production of speech and language in children with ASD. The study examined the effect …
Communication And Culture: Implications For Hispanic Mothers With Deaf Children, Alliete Rodriguez Alfano
Communication And Culture: Implications For Hispanic Mothers With Deaf Children, Alliete Rodriguez Alfano
Open Access Dissertations
The majority of deaf children are born to hearing parents. The fact that many of these children use sign language as their primary form of communication poses a unique language barrier between them and their hearing families. In addition, for children who are born into Hispanic families, these children have limited access to Hispanic and Deaf cultures unless their families actively pursue involvement with those communities. Data were collected through ethnographic interviews and limited participant observation and analyzed by means of grounded theory methodology. The study investigated how Hispanic mothers communicate with their deaf children who use ASL as their …
Community-Based And Collaborative Management Of Coral Reefs And Coastal Resources In Palau, Elizabeth Matthews
Community-Based And Collaborative Management Of Coral Reefs And Coastal Resources In Palau, Elizabeth Matthews
Open Access Dissertations
This study examines community-based and collaborative management of coral reefs in Palau through three manuscripts, each examining particular coastal resource management activities at a different scale of partnership and interaction: local protected area management at the state level, ecosystem management at the inter-state level, and migratory species (marine turtles) management at the state/national government level. In each instance, the social context of resource management was described using factors drawn from Richard Pollnac's Rapid Assessment of Management Parameters (RAMP) for coral reefs, among others. Ethnographic methods, especially key informant interviews and targeted questionnaires, were used in this study. A comparative analysis …
Speech And Power Negotiations In Industrial Novels From 1849 To 1866, John Condon Murray
Speech And Power Negotiations In Industrial Novels From 1849 To 1866, John Condon Murray
Open Access Dissertations
This study employs Charlotte Brontë's Shirley (1849), Charles Dickens's Hard Times (1854), and George Eliot's Felix Holt (1866) to evidence how the growth of capitalist production and the development of new technologies of industry within the early- to mid-Victorian periods inspired the prioritization of the printed word over oratory and speech as a means for fulfilling the linguistic power exchanges found common in spoken discourse. Inventions such as Friedrich Gottlob Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer's high-speed printing press enabled mass production and low-cost readership among the working class, who experienced literacy on multiple levels: to educate themselves, to experience leisure …