Digital Commons Network^™

Their Eyes Are Watching Us: Serving Racialized Youth In An Era Of Protest., Kafi D. Kumasi, Sandra Hughes-Hassell

School of Information Sciences Faculty Research Publications

This article comes at a critical juncture in US's history as racialized people continue to fight for protection of their human and civil rights, many of which were legally gained only with passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voter Rights Act. Despite decades of legislative promises to end discrimination in educational opportunities, employment, housing, and the judicial system, racialized youth are more likely to attend schools that lack quality resources, including credentialed teachers, rigorous courses, qualified guidance counselors, and extracurricular activities; to face harsher disciplinary actions; and to drop out of school. The unemployment rate for …

Culture Teaching And Learning In An Advanced Placement Chinese Course, Yu-Han Lin

Doctoral Dissertations

The significance of teaching culture in the foreign language classroom has been widely acknowledged. However, it remains a challenge for language teachers to properly incorporate culture teaching into language teaching. Chinese language teachers in the United States also encounter the challenge of teaching culture to the increased number of Chinese language learners. In particular, scant attention has been paid to how Chinese language learners approach cultural issues and develop cultural awareness in the language teaching context of American secondary education. In order to address the research gap, the present study aims to explore how the teaching and learning of culture …

Folklórico Testimonios: Identity, Community, And Agency As Social Justice Cultural Performance For Dancers Of Mexican Folklórico, Manuel Alejandro Perez

Doctoral Dissertations

Mexican students in higher education have few opportunities to learn about their heritage and history outside of Ethnic Studies courses. Some students seek alternative opportunities to learn about their identity and to build community with other Mexican students through folklórico. In Mexican folklórico, dancers learn the techniques and skills to communicate stories about their history, culture, and heritage through movement, song, and dance. This study is the story of Mexican students and folkloristas on their journey to (re)discover identity, community, and agency as they move through higher education.

This study uses testimonio to capture the voice, the struggle, and the …

The Role Of Self-Determination And Co-Construction To Support Meaningful Student Participation In An Individualized Education Program Meeting In High School, Trudy Ruth Gross

Doctoral Dissertations

By participating within the educational setting in making decisions about their lives that reach beyond choice-making, students with disabilities who acquire the skills of self-determination may express interests and goals through their own authentic voice. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to describe the experiences and participation of two high-school students labeled with intellectual disability or autism at their Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings following participation in the Self-Determined Learning Model of Instruction (SDLMI). Student participation in the IEP process provides an avenue through which self-determined qualities emerge, and verbal and nonverbal participation can occur in a meaningful …

More Than A Silhouette: African American Women’S Graduate Student Experience, Bridget Holly Love

Doctoral Dissertations

African American women have been silhouetted. They have been reduced to a one dimensional version of themselves and defined by societies White – male hegemonic background. Currently, limited research exists on the experiences of African American (AA) women graduate students from an Afrocentric perspective. Despite the increase enrollment of AA women in higher education, barriers to degree completion still persist as evidenced by the lower rates of graduation. The lack of AA women in higher education demonstrates that the literature holds a minority position not unlike that of AA women in society. Subsequently, the accomplishments, challenges and overall experiences of …

Understanding Translanguaging And Identity Among Korean Bilingual Adults, Nancy Ryoo

Doctoral Dissertations

This qualitative study, conducted at a Northern California university, explored how six Korean bilingual adults expressed their unique identities while utilizing both Korean and English in their daily and academic lives. The six study participants shared their journeys as bilingual adults who migrated to the United States from South Korea to attend graduate school. Several will return to South Korea at the conclusion of their graduate studies. Research data included narratives from in-depth personal interviews as well as focus group discussions.

This qualitative study postulated that translanguaging is commonly observed within bilingual/multilingual populations and can be utilized as a source …

Relative Importance Of Anxiety And Motivational Variables In Predicting Language Achievement For College Learners Of Chinese, Qi Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

The growing worldwide enthusiasm in learning Chinese calls for more research on learner characteristics in Chinese classrooms to better inform teaching practice. Language anxiety, which falls under the umbrella of learner’s affect, is considered an important affective aspect that negatively influences language learning and acquisition. As research on language anxiety mainly focused on the learning of Western languages, this study constitutes an initial attempt to investigate anxiety in the learning of Chinese through the testing of a structural model. The purpose of the study was to examine the relative importance of language anxiety in predicting Chinese achievement when motivation, integrativeness, …

Papelitos: The Visual Testimonios Of Undocumented College Students, Olivia Munoz

Doctoral Dissertations

This study investigated the role art played in the lives of nine undocumented college students at different universities in Northern California. The purpose of this qualitative inquiry was to examine how undocumented college students use art as a mechanism of resistance and activation of the political self related to their immigration status. This scholarship comes at the heels of the first year in office of the 45th president of the United States, who ran on a platform, in part, of anti-immigrant rhetoric. Much of the activism around undocumented immigrant rights has used art as a mechanism for collective action, allyship, …

The King And The Land: A Geography Of Royal Power In The Biblical World, Stephen C. Russell

Publications and Research

The King and the Land offers an innovative history of space and power in the biblical world. Stephen C. Russell shows how the monarchies in ancient Israel and Judah asserted their power over strategically important spaces such as privately-held lands, religious buildings, collectively-governed towns, and urban water systems. Among the case studies examined are Solomon's use of foreign architecture, David's dedication of land to Yahweh, Jehu's decommissioning of Baal's temple, Absalom's navigation of the collective politics of Levantine towns, and Hezekiah's reshaping of the tunnels that supplied Jerusalem with water.

By treating the full range of archaeological and textual evidence …

How Strange The Change From Major To Minor, Peter Goodrich

Articles

No abstract provided.

Dynamic Assessment Of Early French Immersion Literacy Learning Competencies, Alexandra Bellissimo

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

French Immersion programming in Canada is not always an inclusive environment for all learners. Students with language disabilities or delays are often placed into English-only programming when difficulties arise in French immersion programming. This study aimed to establish a method of identification of reading difficulties, in either language, early in the reading process. Such an assessment would allow educators to intervene and assist these students, and all students, with reading and vocabulary development in their second language of French before these language issues can negatively affect learning.

Essential to language learning in immersion programs is the development of speech perception …

Shifting Pedagogy For Adolescent Refugees With Limited Or Interrupted Formal Education: A Case Study Of The Professional Experiences Of A Secondary English Literacy Development Teacher, Stephanie Ledger

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In recent years, there has been a large influx of refugees into settlement countries worldwide. In Canada, this displaced population includes many adolescent students of limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE). Consequently, secondary school teachers are challenged to meet the print literacy needs of SLIFE within traditional ESL instructional settings.

The literature reveals an urgent desire and need for the use of early literacy instructional practices to address the print literacy needs of SLIFE. Despite this acknowledgement, many ESL/ELD secondary school educators are reluctant to shift their pedagogy from traditional ESL to early literacy pedagogy (Dooley, 2009; Dooley & Thangaperumal, …

Negative Intergroup Contact: Self-Distancing Facilitates Wisdom For First-Generation Immigrants, Hajer Al Homedawy

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Negative intergroup interactions can be utilized for the collective good if reasoned through wisely. An effective mechanism for facilitating wise reasoning is the empirically well-established self-distancing perspective. First-generation immigrants were recruited because their position in society makes them susceptible to a different set of challenges than second- or third-generation immigrants. Negative intergroup interaction memories were conjured by either the distanced-why or immersed-why perspective. The distanced-why perspective proved ineffective at reducing explicit negative affect but marginally increased wise reasoning (p = .057) when compared to the immersed-why perspective. The effect of condition was significant for the “search for compromise and …

Cognition-Based Approaches For High-Precision Text Mining, George John Shannon

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research improves the precision of information extraction from free-form text via the use of cognitive-based approaches to natural language processing (NLP). Cognitive-based approaches are an important, and relatively new, area of research in NLP and search, as well as linguistics. Cognitive approaches enable significant improvements in both the breadth and depth of knowledge extracted from text. This research has made contributions in the areas of a cognitive approach to automated concept recognition in.

Cognitive approaches to search, also called concept-based search, have been shown to improve search precision. Given the tremendous amount of electronic text generated in our digital …

Environmental Hazard Identification, Assessment And Control For A Sustainable Maritime Transportation System, Lizzette Marie Pérez Lespier

Doctoral Dissertations

"A demand exists to contribute towards the widening awareness of the need for sustainable maritime development and for coordinated maritime policies worldwide. Maritime shipping is considered the most eco-efficient mean of transportation and yet, is responsible for negative environmental impacts.

This dissertation focuses on developing data-driven decision support tools to evaluate the sustainable performance of MTS by focusing on the elements of the MTS that place stress on the environment. The first research contribution is a System Dynamics simulation model that examines the MTS resiliency after an extreme event and determines the sequence needed to restore the ocean-going port to …

Cultural Perspectives On Social Presence: Research And Practical Guidelines For Online Design, Charlotte Nirmalani Gunawardena

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Living Joyfully After Losing Social Hope: Kierkegaard And Chrétien On Selfhood And Eschatological Expectation, J. Aaron Simmons

Religion Publications

In this essay, I offer an existential-phenomenological consideration of what it might look like to live joyfully after losing social hope. Using the example of the widespread hopelessness that many are feeling in light of the election of Donald Trump, I suggest that the danger of losing hope is that we can also lose our selfhood in the process. In order to develop a conception of “eschatological hope” that would be resistant to the loss of such social and political expectations, I draw specifically on Søren Kierkegaard’s notion that “the expectancy of faith is victory,” and Jean-Louis Chrétien’s idea of …

Application Of A Coupled Human Natural System Framework To Organize And Frame Challenges And Opportunities For Biodiversity Conservation On Private Lands, John E. Quinn, Jesse Wood

Biology Publications

Conservation science addresses the complementary goals of preventing future biodiversity loss while sustaining critical human foundations. In this paper we use two case studies focused on land management to discuss how private lands conservation can be more effective by considering how planning and decision making reflects a coupled human and natural system (CHANS). The first case study focuses on conservation easements in the temperate forests of eastern United States; the second focuses on conservation opportunities in Midwestern agroecosystems, in particular the value of agroforestry. For each case study we discuss the natural and human subsystems, how elements and interactions within …

Common Data Set, 2016-2017, Planning, Research, And Policy Analysis

Common Data Set (2001-present)

Common Data Set 2016-2017 for Illinois State University

Lexicography In-Your-Face: The Active Semantics Of Pastaza Quichua Ideophones, Janis B. Nuckolls, Tod D. Swanson, Diana Shelton, Alexander Rice, Sarah Hatton

Faculty Publications

English:

We argue that a multimodal approach to defining a depictive class of words called ‘ideophones’ by linguists is essential for grasping their meanings. Our argument for this approach is based on the formal properties of Pastaza Quichua ideophones, which set them apart from the non-ideophonic lexicon, and on the cultural assumptions brought by speakers to their use. We analyze deficiencies in past attempts to define this language’s ideophones, which have used only audio data. We offer, instead, an audiovisual corpus which we call an ‘antidictionary’, because it defines words not with other words, but with clips featuring actual contexts …

Chinese International Students In A Northwest University: Investigating Cultural Academic Learning And Teaching Preferences, Michael L. Bevis

Theses and Dissertations

As Chinese international students on American university campuses continue to rise, the importance of these institutions to accommodate the students in adapting to a different academic culture has become more critical. On a public, coeducational research university located in the Pacific Northwest, a concurrent triangulated mixed method research design was implemented to investigate cultural factors with preferred learning and teaching styles of Chinese international students along with what corroborative descriptions these students provide as effective learning experiences in American college classrooms.

The study brought attention to Chinese international students’ differing cultural values from the previous literature understanding, it supported previous …

Evaluating The Attitudes Of Preservice Teachers Toward Multicultural Competence, Angela D. Marshall

Theses and Dissertations

Changes in the ethnicity of the student population across the nation necessitated a change in teacher education curricula. This explanatory, sequential, mixed-method study examined how a group of preservice teachers viewed the importance of multicultural competence before and after student teaching. Specifically, an evaluation of preservice teachers’ attitudes about their own multicultural preparedness was made prior to and after being given full responsibility for an ethnically diverse classroom.

The study employed quantitative and qualitative measures to assess preservice teachers’ levels of multicultural competence as well as their awareness of self-perceptions of multicultural competence that contribute to attitudes toward teaching an …

Effects Of A Peer-Tutoring System Utilizing Students With Emotional Behavioral Disorders As Tutors And Students With Intellectual Disabilities As Tutees, Vicki Koslin Howell

Theses and Dissertations

High school students with intellectual disabilities often find appropriate ways and times to socialize with their peers. In self-contained settings, students are often limited to interacting with only those within the classroom. In addition, students with emotional behavioral disorders often have deficits in social domains and in self-esteem. Improving socializations of students with disabilities has always been a concern of both parents and teachers. Peer-mediated learning has been a proven effective way to instruct students with disabilities. Placing a student with an emotional behavioral disorder in the position of a peer tutor allows them to feel more secure in their …

Research Strategies For Biomedical And Health Informatics: Some Thought-Provoking And Critical Proposals To Encourage Scientific Debate On The Nature Of Good Research In Medical Informatics, Reinhold Haux, Et Al.

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Medical informatics, or biomedical and health informatics (BMHI), has become an established scientific discipline. In all such disciplines there is a certain inertia to persist in focusing on well-established research areas and to hold on to well-known research methodologies rather than adopting new ones, which may be more appropriate. To search for answers to the following questions: What are research fields in informatics, which are not being currently adequately addressed, and which methodological approaches might be insufficiently used? Do we know about reasons? What could be consequences of change for research and for education? Outstanding informatics scientists were invited to …

A Little About My Father, Peter D. Thomsen, Kathy Thomsen

The Bridge

Peter D. Thomsen (1922 - 2015) was one of eighty-two students at Grand View College (GVC) in 1940. The students came from Danish immigrant communities all over the United States, including Chicago, Illinois; Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles, California; Kimballton, Iowa; Tyler, and Askov, Minnesota; Racine, Wisconsin; and in my father’s case, Marinette, Michigan and Menominee, Wisconsin. He was a first generation American; his parents had immigrated to the United States from Langeland, Denmark shortly before he was born. His experiences in Danish Lutheran church communities around the country reflect many of the changes that came about as Danish Americans integrated …

Bunch, Mads. Isak Dinesen Reading Søren Kierkegaard: On Christianity, Seduction, Gender, And Repetition., Troy Wellington Smith

The Bridge

In the inter-and post-war periods, the Danish baroness Karen Blixen published, in English, several story collections and the autobiographical novel Out of Africa in the United States under the nom de plume Isak Dinesen. These same works appeared soon aft er under her legal name in her own Danish translations in Denmark. During the same period, works by Dinesen’s deceased countryman Søren Kierkegaard were being translated into English and published in the United States by Princeton University Press. No longer merely “world-famous in Denmark” (as the saying goes), Kierkegaard became a shibboleth for anxious intellectuals on both sides of the …

Do English-Only Rules Have A Place In The Workplace?, Amy R. Stein

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sentence Boundary Detection In Adjudicatory Decisions In The United States, Jaromir Savelka, Vern R. Walker, Matthias Grabmair, Kevin D. Ashley

Hofstra Law Faculty Scholarship

We report results of an effort to enable computers to segment US adjudicatory decisions into sentences. We created a data set of 80 court decisions from four different domains. We show that legal decisions are more challenging for existing sentence boundary detection systems than for non-legal texts. Existing sentence boundary detection systems are based on a number of assumptions that do not hold for legal texts, hence their performance is impaired. We show that a general statistical sequence labeling model is capable of learning the definition more efficiently. We have trained a number of conditional random fields models that outperform …

Culture As A Tool Of Exclusion: An Analysis Of Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine, Abigail Maccumber

Scripps Senior Theses

Using the film La Haine (1995), directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, as an object of analysis, this paper explores culture as a tool of exclusion in France through sociological, architectural, and political contexts. It investigates La Haine as one of the first representations of the banlieue to mainstream French audiences, as well as the ways in which the film reveals how immigrants and children of immigrants struggle to find personal, cultural, and national identity in France.

Understanding The Effects Of Disgust And Political Ideology On Moral Judgment Through Photography, Xijia Yuan

Scripps Senior Theses

Feelings of disgust may have effects on one’s moral judgment; specifically that experience of disgust has linked to increased severity of moral judgments. Additionally, one’s political beliefs may also affect one’s moral judgment, such as conservatives tend to make harsher judgment toward moral situations and behaviors. A 2 x 2 x 2 factorial quasi-experiment has been proposed to study 420 participants, legal adults from both conservative and liberal neighborhoods, randomly assigned to one of two conditions, disgust-eliciting versus neutral. Participants will view either four disgust-eliciting photographs or four neutral photographs, and then complete survey questions on disgust rating, moral judgment, …