Digital Commons Network^™

Wuwei (Non-Action) Philosophy And Actions: Rethinking ‘Actions’ In School Reform, Seungho Moon

Education: School of Education Faculty Publications and Other Works

This inquiry aims to enrich conversation regarding school reform. The author asks about what other discourses are possible when the action-oriented question of how to ‘act’ is a major approach to ‘fix’ current educational problems. Drawing from Taoist philosophy of wuwei (non-action), the author provides a frame to review current school reform movement. Political philosophy of wuwei highlights non-interference or non-intervention governance. Laozi discusses his theory of governance that a sage leader should take and explicates the paradox of non-action: By not doing, everything is done. The paradox of wuwei complicates dialogues in the field of curriculum theory by opening …

Leadership Practices Among Undergraduate Nursing Instructors, Melissa Martin Bryant

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to identify leadership practices of nursing instructors in the southern U.S.; and to determine if instructor leadership practices differ from the ‘norm’ leadership practices reported by the LPI instrument (Posner 2008), or from the practices observed by their matched students (observer version). Further, the purpose is to determine the relationship between instructors self-reported leadership practices (self-version) and student observed practices based on institution type, and instructor education level. The consisted of a group of instructors and students that were primarily Caucasian and female. The demographics for the instructors and students were similar to the …

"I Do For My Kids": Negotiating Race And Racial Inequality In Family Court, Tonya L. Brito, David J. Pate Jr., Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong

Fordham Law Review

    Socio-legal scholarship examining issues of access to justice is currently experiencing a renaissance. Renewed inquiry into this field is urgently needed. Studies confirm that only 20 percent of the legal needs of low- income communities are met and that the vast majority of unrepresented litigants are low income, creating what some call a “justice gap” that has become even more urgent in recent years. State tribunals that deal with high-stakes issues particularly relevant to low-income residents, such as family courts and housing courts, are seeing an increasing number of litigants, the majority of whom are unrepresented.

When Theory Met Practice: Distributional Analysis In Critical Criminal Law Theorizing, Aya Gruber

Fordham Law Review

    Focusing on criminal law and procedure in particular, this Article seeks to expose various tensions in critical race theorizing and progressive theorizing more broadly, offer some suggestions for a unifying methodology of critical criminal law analysis, and discuss where empirical study might fit into this new program. Progressive (critical race and feminist) theorizing on criminal law is not only subject to the competing frames of critique and formalism, it also exists within an overarching American criminal law culture that can eclipse both concerns over rights violations and structural injustice. The U.S. penal system has become a “peculiar institution” and a …

Learning Style Dimensions And Professional Characteristics Of Academic Librarians, Amanda Rinehart, Jennifer Sharkey, Chad M. Kahl

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

Do librarians with different characteristics, such as type of work responsibilities or age, have different learning styles? The authors analyzed results from over 1,500 responses to a version of the Index of Learning Styles (ILS) questionnaire based on the Felder-Silverman Learning Styles model. This model consists of eight dimensions paired on four scales: Active / Reflective; Sensing / Intuitive; Visual / Verbal; and Sequential / Global. In addition to their scores on the ILS questionnaire, respondents were also asked about demographic and professional characteristics. Statistically significant differences in learning style scores were found to exist between librarians with different types …

Presence-At-Hand, Eric Lyle Schultz

Graduate School of Art Theses

Abstract

The writing that follows is intended to provide a theoretical framework for the motives behind my practice. The primary concerns addressed are the reception, transmission, and physical shape of knowledge. I will discuss a human condition that exists as a byproduct of both the legacy of representation as well as the innate biology of the brain. I will argue that as a society we are governed by the residue of an extreme logic, and that this condition places severe margins on our potential for creative solutions. I will propose that our ability to create meaning is stifled by the …

Money, Sex And Power: Theories Of Race, Class And Gender [Poster], University Of Northern Iowa. Women's And Gender Studies Program.

Women’s and Gender Studies Program Documents

No abstract provided.

Bodies In Motion: A Bioarchaeological Analysis Of Migration And Identity In Bronze Age Cyprus, Anna Jean Osterholtz

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The analysis of human remains from the Bronze Age on Cyprus offers insights into underlying issues of social change and identity formation. Data collected from human remains from six sites throughout the southern half of Cyprus dating to the PreBA through the ProBA (2400--1100 BC) provide insight into social cohesion and group identity during this time of constant social change. Human remains were used to provide demographic data (such as number of individuals interred together, age at death and sex), health profiles (such as incidence of childhood stress, pathologies, and trauma), and robusiticty. Specifically, these data were gathered to provide …

From Paper To Podium: Exploring The Gap Between University Training And Professional Experience In Orchestral Conductors, Rachel L. Waddell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In African polyrhythmic drum circles there is a proverb that exemplifies the necessity of common vision and community in group musical performance: “I am because we are.” This simple ideal is ostensibly mirrored in the western institution of the symphonic orchestra, an ensemble of many that nevertheless must arrive at one, shared interpretation of a piece of music. The structure of the orchestra is a complicated hierarchy with section players at its base, followed by principals, the concertmaster, and finally the conductor. Although conductors are the public face of leadership in orchestras, if they alienate the musicians they will have …

Watercraft, People, And Animals: Setting The Stage For The Neolithic Colonization Of The Mediterranean Islands Of Cyprus And Crete, Katelyn Dibenedetto

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

One of the most significant developments in human history was the “Neolithic Revolution,” which first began around 11,000 years ago in mainland Southwest Asia. It resulted in not only the economic reorientation from hunting and foraging to herding and farming based on domesticate resources, but also significant changes in human technology, demography, society, political organization, ideology and human relationships to the environment. In order to understand this momentous process, however, it is important to understand the events that set it in motion. This is particularly the case when dealing with oceanic Mediterranean islands, specifically Cyprus and Crete, where there is …

Eavesdropping On The Past: An Oral History Exploration Of English And Spanish In Contact In Texas' Rio Grande Valley, 1904-1945, Aaron B. Cummings

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This thesis investigates the interaction of English and Spanish L1 communities in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas from 1904 to 1945 (an era of mass English L1 migration from the Northern United States and Canada to this historically Spanish-speaking region) via analysis of oral interviews that record both language communities’ memories of the era’s social structures. Collectively, the interviews tell the story of the region’s sociocultural and sociolinguistic environment with a view to exploring how members of each community reacted to the presence of the other language during the first years of significant English/Spanish language contact in previously …

Unsortable Wares: A Petrographic Analysis Of Addis Temper From The Fatherland Site (22ad501), Adams County, Mississippi, David Benjamin Abbott Jr.

Master's Theses

In the Lower Mississippi Valley from about 1200AD until European contact, two different ceramic tempers (and presumably cultures) existed side-by-side. Areas in which grog or clay tempering occurs are considered part of the Plaquemine Culture. Areas in which shell tempering predominates are considered part of the Mississippian Culture. Ceramic pastes that contain both shell and grog cause some classificatory confusion. This research examines the history of some of the confusion surrounding Addis ware/paste through its varying descriptions in the archaeological literature and attempts, through experiment and petrographic analysis, to give some insight into this paste recipe and its variability.

The Bioarchaeology Of Social Order: Cooperation And Conflict Among The Mimbres (Ad 550-1300), Kathryn Mary Baustian

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Interpersonal conflict, social control, and culturally sanctioned violence are all potential modes of effecting change amongst most human groups. This research investigates the complex relationship between interpersonal violence, human skeletal biology, and social identity among prehistoric agricultural communities in the American Southwest. Using bioarchaeology as a research framework, the data presented in this study reveal patterns that can be used to better understand how violence is utilized or avoided in any time period. Bioarchaeology is well suited to investigate violence because it integrates the most direct evidence of conflict (traumatic skeletal injury) with detailed archaeological reconstructions of past human experiences. …

A New Perspective On Underrepresented Student Completion: Self-Efficacy Beliefs Of Successfully Completed Underrepresented Students, Diana Alexandra Lourdes

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The student populations most at risk of non-completion are those who identify as low-income, first-generation, and Black or Hispanic, also known as underrepresented students. For years, the existing literature has primarily focused on why underrepresented students are less likely to graduate than their counterparts (Choy, 2000; Engle & Tinto, 2008; Ishitani, 2006; Pike & Kuh, 2005; Soria & Stebleton, 2012). Harper (2012) emphasizes that to increase the educational attainment of certain underrepresented groups, there must be a counter balance of research focusing on insights from students who were successful rather than the popular one-sided emphasis on attrition and failure. The …

Regulating The Dead: Rights For The Corpse And The Removal Of San Francisco's Cemeteries, Lance Muckey

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A specialized facet of American common law developed throughout the nineteenth century; that being mortuary law or the law of the corpse. This jurisprudence transferred limited property rights to dead bodies, which was a radical departure from the treatment of the dead under the English common law tradition that the United States had adopted after the American Revolution.

The dead fit into a unique category in law. Legally they do not exist and therefore have no voice. It thus falls to the state to speak for them in the form of statutes and judicial decisions, which represents a continuation of …

Beelzebub : Satan's Consort In John Milton's Paradise Lost, Beth Tippenreiter

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis contends that Beelzebub is the erotic and political consort of Satan in John Milton’s 1667 poem, Paradise Lost. Chapter one first examines Milton’s relative contemporary, Christopher Marlowe, and his play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. Within Doctor Faustus, we find not only an earlier representation of the erotic and political consort relationship between Beelzebub and Satan, here named Belzebub and Lucifer, but that the primary purpose of Marlowe’s Belzebub is to be Lucifer’s consort. Chapter two’s section one focuses on the erotic consort relationship between Milton’s Beelzebub and Satan. Questions and concerns of intimate language and sexual …

Mobile Value-Added Services And The Economic Empowerment Of Women: The Case Of Usaha Wanita In Indonesia, Tian Cai, Han Ei Chew, Mark Levy

Research Collection Office of Impact

Mobile value-added services (MVAS) represent a growing collaboration between the private sector and the development community. In this paper, we examine one such MVAS, the Nokia Usaha Wanita service running on the Nokia Life+ platform in Indonesia, and we assess its impact as an innovative means for the economic empowerment of businesswomen. Data were gathered through 282 telephone interviews with a nationwide random sample of women who subscribed to Usaha Wanita. Our research found evidence that subscribers derived economic benefit from using the service. Subscribers reported that their business profits were greater, because of what they had learned from reading …

Attitudes Toward Refugees Entering The United States Of America, Sarah M. Bullard

Honors Theses

According the estimates by the United Nations, there are nearly fifty-million refugees in the world. Because attitudes toward refugees could influence government refugee policies, it is important to study the attitudes people have toward refugees entering the United States. To learn more about attitudes toward refugees in the United States, a survey was conducted of over two college students, asking how they defined refugees and who should be allowed into the United States as refugees. Survey respondents from all demographic groups were surprisingly accepting of all types of refugees. However, some refugee variables, such as gender and situation, and respondent …

Physical Records Of Impacts In The Early And Modern Solar System, Robert Ellis Beauford

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The study of terrestrial meteorite impact craters and of impacted meteorites expands our understanding of cratered rocky surfaces throughout the solar system. Terrestrial craters uniquely expand upon data from remote imaging and planetary surface exploration by providing analogs for understanding the buried sub-surface portions of impact structures, while impacted meteorites provide examples of a much wider range of surface and subsurface impactite materials than we can directly sample thus far through solar system exploration.

This report examines three facets of the impact record preserved in terrestrial impact craters and in meteorites. First, it looks at the macroscopic structure of the …

Engineer As Writer And Woman: Gender, Identity, And Professional Discourse, Jennfer C. Mallette

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As students, academics, and professionals, women entering engineering disciplines still encounter barriers that may impede their success. In this environment, what is the role of writing in the development of a professional identity, and how does it function as an avenue or a barrier to professional success? Using an ethnographically-informed case study approach, this dissertation focuses on the experiences of three women--a biological engineering student, an industrial engineering academic researcher, and a civil engineering professional--to examine how these women use writing to construct an engineering identity, take action within their discourse communities, and to demonstrate their technical expertise and ability. …

The Power Behind The Controversy: Understanding Local Policy Elites' Perceptions On The Benefits And Risks Associated With High Voltage Power Line Installation In The State Of Arkansas, Rachael Marie Moyer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Following a proposal for the installation of high voltage power lines in northwest Arkansas, a controversial policy debate emerged. Proponents of the transmission line argue that such an installation is inevitable and necessary to efficiently and reliably support the identified electric load in the region. Opponents claim that the lines will degrade the natural environment and hamper the tourism-based local economy in affected regions, notably in Ozark Mountain areas. This study seeks to understand how local policy elites perceive the benefits and risks associated with proposed transmission lines, which is a critical step in comprehending the formation and changes of …

Political Harvests: Transnational Farmers' Movements In North Dakota And Saskatchewan, 1905-1950, Jason Mccollom

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research uses as a case study farmers' movements in North Dakota and Saskatchewan, two identical locales in terms of wheat monoculture, demographics, and agrarian ideology, and traces the differing Social, economic, and political outcomes between 1905 and 1950. The research, however, moves beyond this and also investigates the transnational integration, connections, and engagements among agrarian groups across the broader North American northern plains and across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, to Europe, the Soviet Union, and Australia. Methodologically, this study applies Social movement theory, pioneered by sociologists Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilley, which seeks to replace a …

Immigrant Labor In Contemporary Southern Literature, 1980-2010, Huseyin Altindis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation project emerges from an interest in immigrant labor, the globalization of southern literature, and the ways in which laboring bodies, specifically those of food processing workers, casino workers and motel workers, are represented in contemporary literary and cultural productions. Literary and cultural productions about immigrants and immigrant labor aim to problematize and challenge the dominant perception of immigration and narratives of immigration that continue to perpetuate ideas of exploitation and alterity. In doing so, these texts contribute to the reconstruction of the U.S. South as a global region and to the liberation of southern literature from traditional conceptual …

Assessing And Mapping Vulnerability And Risk Perceptions To Groundwater Arsenic Contamination : Towards Developing Sustainable Arsenic Mitigation Models, Sushant Kumar Singh

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This study focuses on the arsenic-affected rural communities in Bihar located within the mid-Gangetic Plain in India. A random stratified sampling method is applied to survey 340 households in three villages (Suarmarwa, Rampur Diara, and Bhawani Tola), through a structured questionnaire. A reliable arsenic field testing kit is used to analyze the drinking water sources in the field, followed by a confirmatory test of a subset of water samples through Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry. The study has two major goals: 1) Develop sustainable arsenic-mitigation models; and 2) Create a “composite vulnerability index,” and present the information as a map for use …

The Role Of Attachment Style On Preference For Arranged Marriage, Sanjay Hiroo Advani

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This study investigated the role attachment style plays in preference for arranged marriage among single, non-married Indians. It was conducted online using a survey company (Survata) with the requirement that participants be interested in an arranged marriage, be between 18-40 years of age and not be married. The survey was accessed through an online - link which could be located via any internet browser. Respondents included two hundred and seven respondents, who completed three questionnaires concerning their preference for an arranged marriage, attachment style, and acculturation and religious commitment. Data were analyzed using ANOVA and ANCOVA. The results indicate that …

The Relationship Between Parks, Health, Income, And Education In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Jessica Sebring Small

Architecture and Planning ETDs

As resources are becoming scarcer, Southwestern cities are looking for ways to expend less water and money, leading to removal of green spaces. This is happening alongside the current health crisis occurring throughout the United States, which is unfortunate since urban green spaces have been found to improve human health. The purpose of this study, focusing on Albuquerque, New Mexico, is to determine: (1) if those benefits appear to exist in a desert city, and (2) how additional variables, such as income and education, compare with parks regarding impact on community health. A GIS analysis was conducted using park, health, …

A Novel Family Of Major Histocompatibility Complex Class I Genes In Marsupials And Monotremes, Katina Krasnec

Biology ETDs

The Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) class I family of genes encode for molecules that have well-conserved structures, but have evolved to perform a diverse functions. The availability of an opossum genome from the grey, short-tailed opossum, Monodelphis domestica, has allowed for analysis of MHC class I genes in a marsupial. Traditional methods for gene discovery uncovered 13 MHC class I genes in the opossum. Utilization of a novel method to search for MHC domain structures discovered a family of 17 novel MHC class I genes. These genes, named ModoUT1-17, were located in a cluster on chromosome 1, unlinked to the …

From Rural Street Theater To Big City Extravaganza: The Meaning Of The Manaus Boi-Bumbá In An Urbanizing Brazil, Margaret Kathleen Watson

Anthropology ETDs

This is an ethnographic study of the boi-bumbá festival of Manaus, capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas. I examine this traditional Brazilian folkloric performance as it is being reworked to express a modern, global identity for urban Amazonians. Long seen as a key site to understand racial relations in Brazil, the boi-bumbá festival tells the story of the death and resurrection of a ranchers beloved bull. The earliest recorded versions of the Brazilian bull festival portray the economic and social relations on an 18th century colonial cattle ranch in the country's northeast. When the festival came to be performed …

Migrant Remittances, Population Ageing And Intergenerational Family Obligations In Sri Lanka, Michele Ruth Gamburd

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

As Sri Lanka’s population ages, its migrant women face a difficult choice: should they work abroad to remit money to provision their families, or should they stay at home to look after elderly kin? Although numerous studies have explored migration’s effects on children, fewer works focus on issues of elder care. This essay presents contextualizing information on transnational migration from Sri Lanka and the rapid ageing that is transforming the country’s population structure from a pyramid with many youth and few elders into a column. Using qualitative ethnographic data gathered from a labour-sending village in southern Sri Lanka, this anthropological …

The Nazi Genocide: Eugenics, Ideology, And Implementation 1933-1945, Michael A. Letsinger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to seek knowledge of how eugenics justified extreme racial policy, territorial expansion, committing unprecedented crimes against humanity; and to understand why and how eighty million human beings yielded to totalitarianism and racial murder. Further, by examining Nazi science and policies, through the lens of concentration/extermination camps at Dachau and Auschwitz, we sought to understand the linkage between scientific racism, Nazi ideology and genocide. Critiquing Germany’s failure to exercise sound science and morality in its occupation, subjugation, and depopulation during WW II, this paper will argue Nazi Germany’s evolution to systematized, industrial mass murder of …