Digital Commons Network^™

Olas: An Ethnographic Account Of A Cuban Family In Little Havana, Maximillian Mermell

Theses & ETDs

Cuban immigrants who reside in Miami have radically transformed the city, but the intertwined relationship of the United States and Cuba complicates their identities. The goal of my thesis is to capture narratives of immigration taking place during different eras of political relations between Cuba and the United States. Using the format of documentary-style ethnographic film, one family tells their story. Oral history interviews are supplemented with footage of Little Havana, where the population is mostly Cuban immigrants, many of whom were exiles and refugees of the revolution. History, methodology, and ethnographic experiences are explored further in this writing.

“Education Isn’T The Filling Of The Bucket, Sino Encender El Fuego”: Bilingual Education As A Predictor Of Motivation To Learn, Sarah Courson

Theses & ETDs

The number of non-native English-speaking students has steadily risen since the 1990s in the United States and with this ever-rising number, trends of low academic motivation and achievement still continue to be seen. Some have theorized that through increasing bilingual education programs, non-native English-speaking students will lessen the academic achievement and motivation gaps between themselves and their monolingual, English-speaking peers. The current study therefore focused on introducing a bilingual lesson plan to a school with approximately half its students being non-native English speakers, yet without bilingual programming available for those students. The present study hoped to find that through allowing …

A Tillichian Analysis Of Hip Hop As An Instrument For Communal Courage And Religious Expression, Andrew Blackowiak

Theses & ETDs

This thesis approaches Paul Tillich’s theology of culture and its intersection with hip hop music as a contemporary art form. I explore Tillich’s conception of ultimate concern, his interpretations of expressionist art, and his admonishment of fascist regimes. Expressionist artists juxtapose symbols to disrupt the status quo, producing deeper meanings which may evoke ultimate concern in the observer. Tillich thus advocates for expressionist art that is endowed with Christian symbols, as he hopes to revitalize the Christian scriptures. Following an examination of Cornel West’s Afro-American prophetic Christianity and a brief overview of black musical tradition, I argue that hip hop …

An Existential-Phenomenological Response To Problematic Conceptions Of Abnormality, Kourtney Eskins

Theses & ETDs

This thesis takes as its primary concern the conceptualization of mental abnormality and its impacts on self-understanding. While modern views favor the medical model, this investigation questions the utility, claims to truth, and ethical implications of such a view for the understanding of human suffering in a therapeutic context. By examining the history of the concept of madness, and philosophical work that has been done in relation to that concept, the author highlights the contextualized nature of any definition of abnormality. Therapeutic practice requires engagement with questions of self and the nature of being; the author explicates the views of …

Performance As Survival: Art, Activism, And Identity At The Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Tessa Geier

Theses & ETDs

New York City is one of the most diverse cities in the United States and the Lower East Side of Manhattan is home to a community of many different backgrounds. Since the 1970s, the Nuyorican Poets Cafe has served as a space for the community to share their daily hardships in a way that is beneficial to the performer and the audience. At the Nuyorican Poets Cafe performances are those of survival, strength, and catharsis. Performers present their experiences in such a way as to incite positive change and activism in their audiences. The goal of this thesis is to …

Intuition Behind Kanji, David Duffrin

Theses & ETDs

An advanced learner of the language or native speaker can extrapolate the pronunciations for a given kanji to estimate the reading of a never before seen word. Most textbooks discourage learners of Japanese from finding patterns and instead advise memorization of a kanji in each context to gain proficiency in learning. I disagree with this approach and designed a Naive Bayes Classifier that is trained on a simple Japanese dictionary. The model is able to impute the pronunciation of Japanese kanji with 90% accuracy in limited testing. The probabilities from the Naive Bayes Classifier can be easily read and understood …

Gregory Vii And Clerical Celibacy, Tyler Freeman

Theses & ETDs

The Roman Catholic Church’s current stance that all clergy remain celibate has not always been the practice of Western Christianity. Attempts to enforce clerical celibacy have consistently been tied to the pontificate of Gregory VII (1073-1085). However, the actual evidence for this ultimately seems to be lacking. Gregory’s efforts against the heresy of “nicolaitism” were closely tied to struggles for greater papal authority and ultimately waylaid by more pressing concerns. By studying the letter of Pope Gregory VII, this thesis attempts to understand more full the nature of Gregory’s actual statements on clerical marriage and clerical chastity, and place them …

Both Home & Not: An Exploration Of Belonging A Play, And Analysis Of Theater As Research, Jacob Alexander "Quake" Cooley

Theses & ETDs

In June of 2016, I traveled to Buenos Aires, Argentina in order to conduct research about what it means to be at Home, to Belong, and to be an Outsider. In total, I interviewed 18 people on the subject, all of whom were born and raised outside of Buenos Aires, and nearly all of whom were immigrants to Argentina. At large, their responses to my research questions provided compelling stories and unique opinions, unforgettable personalities and wholesome insights. I then represented these people and their stories on stage, in what became the soaringly ambitious Both Home & Not, New College's …

Incorporation, Assimilation, And Community: A Study Of Asian American Political Behavior, Paige Pellaton

Theses & ETDs

This study considers the development of Asian Americans as political actors and surveys the legal, institutional, and cultural dynamics that enhance or discourage participation in government. Much of this review is devoted to the influence of community on political incorporation, arguing the importance of studying Asians as social beings rather than isolated actors. The 2008 National Asian American Survey is used to interrogate the effects of community connectedness on non-voting and voting behaviors. The results show that the rate of Asian participation in American politics decreases as sense of commonality with co-ethnics increases. Additionally, cultural integration and social activity are …

Languages Cross Borders: The Inclusion/Intrusion Of English In French And Spanish Writing From North America, Fiona Maclean

Theses & ETDs

This thesis considers how languages cross borders and how French and Spanish works from across North America include English in their texts. I analyze works by Ringuet, France Daigle, Gloria E. Anzaldúa, and Giannina Braschi, focusing on how they include English into their French (Ringuet and Daigle) and Spanish (Anzaldúa and Braschi). Written between 1938 and 2002, these texts deal with the challenges faced by non-English-speakers living on a continent (North America) with a legacy that preferences and privileges its English speaking population. In the French texts, the constant intrusion of English used both by English-speaking Canadians and Americans, is …

A Network Approach To Bioinformatic Data Analysis, Peter Gui

Theses & ETDs

Network structures can be used to analyze both nucleotide sequence and epigenetic information. By creating network structures which can be programmed to analyze information and change their shape over a given sequence we can create a framework for mining and consolidating bioinformatic data about a given locus within the genome of a species. This framework will allow bioinformaticians to easily apply statistical models and machine learning algorithms to the genome at various levels in order to hierarchically abstract the information that we are receiving from the genome with its four basic nucleotides. My goal for this thesis was to begin …

Associations Of Executive Function And Bilingualism To Programming Skills Of Children Age 5-6, Julie Van Hart

Theses & ETDs

While previous literature has examined relations between executive function, academic ability and bilingualism, the relationship between executive function, bilingualism and programming ability has not been studied. To this end, this studied examined how bilingual and monolingual children performed on executive function measures of inhibition/cognitive flexibility and learned basic programming in ScratchJr, a developmentally appropriate programming language for children ages 5-7 developed for touchscreen tablets. Children from a local Montessori school participated in 2 sessions to complete executive function measures and learn how to use ScratchJr before completing an assessment consisting of debugging and code writing tasks. Results found that older …

“What We Are Doing Here Is Small But I Think This Is The Future”: Two Case Studies For Establishing Agricultural Intentional Communities As A New Social Movement, Mariana Bonilla

Theses & ETDs

This undergraduate thesis poses the question: in the face of global issues regarding food security, environmental degradation, and social inequality, are there any grassroots communitarian solutions to making sustainable and equitable food production systems that challenge the progressivist industrial growth model, and if so how do they manifest? My field research examines two case studies of agricultural intentional communities and I posit that these non-cohesive and sporadic communities cropping up worldwide, although not actively engaged in any legal or political struggles, are enacting real social change at the level of the lifeworld and thus, constitute a New Social Movement. I …

Bringing Arendt And Foucault Together: Freedom As An Aesthetic Practice, Zachary Conn

Theses & ETDs

Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault, both relatively recent additions to political theory’s canon, often are thought of as inhabiting separate theoretical camps: civic republicanism and postmodernism, respectively. This thesis argues that these labels obscure significant overlaps between their thought and stifle the possibility of productive engagement. I seek to show, contrary to much of the secondary literature, that nothing in Arendt and Foucault’s basic positions on methodology, ontology, and normativity necessitate that we must a priori dismiss a reconciliation between the two thinkers. This thesis makes the case for the possibility of a Foucauldian politics of the public sphere and …

Blood, Sweat, And Tears: A Cross-Cultural Study Of The Gendered Power Of Bodily Fluid In Fairy Tales, Mikayla Gleason

Theses & ETDs

This thesis develops the idea that the bodily fluid shown in fairy tales displays extraordinary powers in direct correlation to the gender of the character from which they come as a means of presenting cultural ideas and stereotypes of masculinity and femininity. Often ignored by folklore researchers in favor of better known topics like color symbolism, this motif offers readers a deeper understanding of not only the tales themselves, but the societies from which they come. Based on the scholarly-asserted principle that fairy tales are meant to be used as teaching devices, analyses of both history and religion in specific …

Aporetic Justice And Its Impossible Possibility In Derrida, Levinas, And Critical Legal Theory, Kasia Burzynski

Theses & ETDs

This thesis explores the possibility of justice in the law and does so through a critical and contemporary understanding of American law. Chapter one begins with an examination of critical legal studies (CLS) which, it argues, makes considerable moves toward an understanding of justice but stops short of developing a robust theory. A version of CLS from Marianne Constable is offered as an exemplar and most of the chapter is devoted to a treatment of her book Our word is our bond: how legal speech acts where she asserts the linguistic and rhetorical nature of the law and of justice. …

Who Were They? Intersectionality, Identity Politics And Erasure In Local News Representations Of Pulse Shooting Victims, Eliza Fixler

Theses & ETDs

This thesis project situates representations of the Pulse shooting within critical theory of the intersection of social identities and Western queer studies’ historical neglect of these intersections. It works to contextualize the positionality of many of the victims through examining the history of pan-ethnic identity labels such as “Hispanic” and “Latino,” as well as tracing the Puerto Rican diaspora to the US. The goal of this study is to qualitatively and quantitatively examine three online Orlando news sources’ coverage of the Pulse massacre in terms of their engagement with victims’ racial/ethnic and gender/sexual identities, as well as their respective levels …

The Stock Imagery Of Crisis: Incorporation As Methodology And Analytical Tool In Contemporary Visual Culture, Francisco Andres Perez

Theses & ETDs

In 1979 Dick Hebdige used the phrase “the rhetoric of crisis” to describe the visual language of the British punk scene. According to Hebdige, punk was a desperate attempt to assert, contrary to the hegemony of Pop, the individual’s role in the shaping of their own reality. In today’s cultural landscape this effort appears to have been in vain as the punk style is seen on runways and red carpets, the ultimate mechanisms for the filtering of objects into the mainstream. Moreover, this narrative seems to be repeated several times a year as new subcultural phenomena are constantly incorporated into …

En Boca Cerrada No Entran Moscas. Flies Don't Enter Closed Mouths: A Grounded Theory Study Of Latinas' Testimonios Of Child Sexual Abuse Disclosure, Nivea Castaneda

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite countless studies demonstrating a high prevalence of child sexual abuse (CSA) and low rates of disclosure in the Latinx community, research exploring Latinx CSA disclosure is scant in family communication studies. This study explores how Latinas choose to disclose and/or conceal their experience(s) of CSA as well as explores the Latinx cultural constructs that impact disclosure. Using the Indigenous methodology of testimonio, grounded theory, and communication privacy management theory as a sensitizing theory, the study examined six Latinas' testimonios collected in one-on-one interviews. In an effort to stay true to testimonio, the overarching themes are presented through …

Multilingual Students' Perceptions Of And Experiences With Instructor Feedback Methods In A U.S. First-Year Composition Class, Hong Thi Tuyet Vo

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

While instructor feedback has generally been recognized as an essential factor in enhancing writing proficiency for multilingual writers, little known research has focused on students’ perceptions of and their experiences with different modes of instructor feedback. In addition, impacts of various feedback methods on students’ writing have remained debatable. This case study seeks to gain an in-depth understanding of the meaning and significance of three instructor feedback methods, namely written, oral, and audio-visual feedback, from students’ perspectives. Furthermore, it offers additional insights into the impacts of these three instructor feedback methods on students’ writing. To be more precise, this study …

Graduate Research Conference Program, 2017, Emu Graduate School

Graduate Research Conference

No abstract provided.

Corresponding Voices Volume 10 (Complete)

Corresponding Voices

The full issue of Corresponding Voices volume 10, featuring Josefina Báez, Michael Burkard, Celia Caturelli, Jessica Cuello, Pedro Cuperman, Ana María Fuster Lavín, Jaime García Maffla, Jules Gibbs, Sarah Harwell, Michael Jennings, Tamara Kamenszain, Colleen Kattau, Christopher Kennedy, María Negroni, Edgar Paiewonsky-Conde, Gloria Posada, Suzanne Shane, Bruce Smith, Madeleine Stratford and Lila Zemborain and edited by Jules Gibbs and Tere Paniagua

Structure, Gender, Tribalism, And Workplace Power In Libya, Rajia Rashed

Wayne State University Dissertations

The study examines the nature of workplace power in a Libyan oil company and how is power distributed, managed, and maintained within the structure of this workplace. I also examine how gender and tribal identities affect who has power in the workplace setting. I also look at the types of decisions workers have control over, depending on their rank and status within the organization, time with company, gender and tribal identity. In this proposal, I argue that workplace power is not only about decision making within the company, but it also mirrors larger social and political inequalities in the society …

The Changing Roles Of Community Health Workers, Mary-Beth Malcarney, Patricia Pittman, Leo Quigley, Naomi Seiler, Katie B. Horton

Health Workforce Research Center Publications

Community Health Workers (CHWs) have been gaining attention from policymakers because of their unique role in addressing health disparities and socioeconomic drivers of disease, and because of their potential integration into the health care delivery system. To date, there has been limited research specifically describing the variation in CHWs’ roles and relationships, and how that variation relates to management, to financing, to health system integration, and to the competencies CHWs should have in different contexts.

This report provides a snapshot of the varied landscape of CHW programs to better understand how CHWs are integrating with the health system both in …

Teacher Perceptions Of A Culturally Responsive Classroom, Laura Sundberg

Theses and Graduate Projects

Through the use of qualitative research methods, and a literature review of multiple scholars, this paper explored teacher perceptions of culturally responsive classrooms. The intent of qualitative research methods is to describe and clarify human experiences as it appears in people's lives (Polkinghorne,2005). Geneva Gay (as cited in Bazron, et. al. 2005, p. 1) defines culturally responsive teachings in the following way: "using the cultural knowledge, prior experience, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning more relevant and effective for them." For the purpose of this study, teachers were interviewed to gain insight about …

Hmong Perspectives On Teaching, Lorrie Xiong

Theses and Graduate Projects

This paper explores Hmong perspectives on teaching in Minnesota. It includes published articles that report results from research conducted about the need for teachers of color, the successful teacher retention strategies, the needs and challenges of the Hmong community, and the barriers Hmong individuals face in pursuing education. This paper will shed light on the unique experiences of 11 Hmong teachers who continue to stay in the teaching field or who have left the teaching field and will add on to existing research of Hmong educators in the educational profession.

“Der Faden Soll Nicht Reißen, Während Ich Meine Dichtung Webe…”: Zum Metaphorischen Gebrauch Von Textilterminologie Im Rigveda, Stefan Niederreiter,

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

Wenn man sich als historisch-vergleichender Sprachwissenschaftler mit einem speziellen realienkundlichen Thema einer ausgewählten Epoche einer altindogermanischen Sprache beschäftigt, so ist man aus Erfahrung darauf gefasst, dass Informationen zumeist lückenhaft vorhanden sind und die Erschließung der Texte mit den unterschiedlichsten philologischen und linguistischen Schwierigkeiten verbunden sein kann. Trägt man das Erkenntnisinteresse textilterminologischer Fragestellungen an den ältesten indischen Text, den Rigveda (RV), heran, liegt es schon an der Textsorte der für rituelle Zwecke bestimmten sacerdotalen Dichtung, dass Informationen zur handwerklichen Praxis des Webens allenfalls verstreut, beiläufig und dann vor allem in poetischen Metaphern den vedischen Hymnen zu entnehmen sind. Aber gerade der …

Purple And Its Various Kinds In Documentary Papyri, Ines Bogensperger

Textile Terminologies from the Orient to the Mediterranean and Europe, 1000 BC to 1000 AD

The colour purple evokes an inestimable, priceless luxury in our understanding. It almost belongs in a legendary world along with other exquisite goods. Purple is seen as example par excellence for a symbol of social status, a token of prestige. A significant study on the importance of purple has brought to light the persistent desire for this colour throughout the Greek and Roman world.2 Literary sources from Roman times provide us quite comprehensive information on the colour and its sources. The most often quoted author is doubtlessly Caius Plinius Secundus, known as Pliny the Elder, who compiled specialist knowledge in …

Disability Accessibility Guidebook For Mediators, Martha Simmons, David Lepofsky

Books

ADRIC launched this important new guidebook during the ADRIC 2017 Conference when co-author Martha Simmons presented a session on the topic. It was a resounding success.

This guidebook discusses the importance of accessibility in mediation and provides concrete suggestions to increase access to the mediation process.

Milestone@Um, Volume 8, Number 4, 2017, Institute Of Research Management & Monitoring University Of Malaya

Archival Material (2010s)

No abstract provided.