Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of Single Parent Households On Middle School Students, Erik Puga

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This research explores the influence of single-parent households on the academic achievement of middle school students in Salinas, CA, with a particular focus on East Salinas, an area marked by economic challenges. Grounded in my personal experience growing up in a single-parent household in Salinas and shaped by my journey through the Alisal district pipeline, this study seeks to uncover the specific barriers and strengths that middle school students from single-parent families encounter. By examining socioeconomic pressures, parental involvement, and emotional well-being, I aim to identify how family structure affects students’ educational trajectories within the community. This research strives to …

Eurocentrism In Curriculum And Its Detriment To Cultural Awareness, Kimberly Rose Sterzick

Masters Projects

Some school curricula may hinder students' development of cultural awareness. School is the vessel through which many students get their first glimpse of the world, and bias throughout that voyage can negatively alter students’ development of cultural awareness --- the very skill that schools hope to promote. A Eurocentric approach and overemphasis on Western civilizations and ideals dominates the cultural conversations through their prolific use in “world” courses. When educational discourses point to Western cultures as the epitome of culture in “world” courses, students fail to obtain a true cultural understanding and awareness of the world around them, and they …

Beauty In The Mundane, Madeline Caniglia

Theses

This project focuses on challenging what compositions are considered valuable as art. The primary focus is on the relationship between light and shadow and how it contributes to the revelation of finding beauty in the mundane. This project involves studying old masters like Caravaggio and Edward Hopper while employing their techniques and methods in my artworks. Through a series of oil paintings, I depicted everyday objects and scenes to demonstrate how classical techniques, paired with contemporary subjects, help bridge historical and artistic practices with modern art.

Jacqueline Marval: Référence Sans Révérence Art History Lecture And Activity Series, Michelle Erickson

Theses

The painting Les Odalisques (1902-03) anchors the investigation of French artist Jacqueline Marval’s presence and contribution to the modernist art narrative. The painting is composed of five women who share a face and features, set in a private female space. The canvas is complete with bold strokes of color, and their skin is painted in the unrealistic tones that Fauvists will embrace, yet naturally – these women are still fully and complexly human. From a distance, they are sculptural.

This project is intended as a Club de Lecture series for adult learners of French culture and language at the Alliance …

“Kematz'ib' Para Gritar” Innovative Technologies In Revitalizing The Mayan Languages: Empowering Youth Through Poetry - A Narrative Study, Héctor De Jesús Palala Martínez

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation explores innovative approaches to preserving and revitalizing the linguistic and cultural heritage of Mayan-speaking youth of Guatemalan descent in rural Nebraska. It delves into the intersection of technology, artistic expression, and cultural practices, emphasizing the revitalization of Mayan languages in Abya Yala (the Americas), particularly emphasizing the Guatemalan and the Mayan diasporas in Nebraska.

The research investigates the roles of digital humanities, culture-based education, and poetic expressions in language preservation/revitalization efforts among Mayan youth and unaccompanied minors in transnational educational settings. Central to the study is an academic initiative for transnational Mayan high school students integrating poetry and …

Behind The Screen: Exploring Parental Roles In K-12 Online Education, Barbara T. Sandberg, Charles R. Graham, Jered Borup, Richard E. West, Rocio Quiroga Velasquez

Faculty Publications

Independent engagement can be challenging for K-12 online students. Parents’ physical presence makes them an important source of engagement support. Previous research on parental support in online courses is limited and focused on asynchronous learning within a single program. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, online enrollments have grown and instructional modalities have evolved. To better understand parental support post-Covid, we interviewed 21 parents across eight online programs with asynchronous, synchronous, and bichronous course offerings. Parents identified their affective, behavioral, cognitive, and other support roles. Implications for parental roles in addressing the academic engagement gap are provided to both researchers and practitioners.

Against Empire And Toward A Politics And Praxis Of Hope: Reflections On E. San Juan, Jr.'S Racism And Cultural Studies, Jeffrey Arellano Cabusao

Kritika Kultura

E. San Juan Jr.’s Racism and Cultural Studies: Critiques of Multiculturalist Ideology and the Politics of Difference (Duke UP, 2002) offers a fresh and timely critique of the ways in which racism and the ideology of white supremacy function in the creation of the US nation-state and the current intensification of US imperialism. Racism and Cultural Studies provides an impressive inventory—and unique synthesis—of a variety of historical materialist methods to cultural studies that enable us to challenge the insidious ways in which US imperial hegemony is ideologically and materially produced and maintained. This review highlights how E. San Juan, Jr. …

The Vernacular/Local, The National, And The Global In Filipino Studies, Oscar V. Campomanes

Kritika Kultura

Originally a concept paper for the Institute of Filipino Studies project in Oakland, California, this essay tracks a paradigmatic shift in area studies on the Philippines and ethnic studies of Filipinos/Filipino Americans toward what the writer calls “Filipino Studies.” Exceeding the national culture area assumptions of Philippine Studies and eschewing the assimilationist tendencies of long-standing notions of Filipino ethnicity, Campomanes bases this claim and project for a paradigmatic turn upon three critical planks: the diasporic dispersal of Filipinos in the age of globalization and late-modernity and how it problematizes unitary or organic concepts of Philippine nation, culture, and identity; the …

The Filipino Christ And The Historical Jesus, Michael Demetrius H. Asis

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

The Filipino Christ and the Historical Jesus is a book based on current historical Jesus studies in the Philippines and abroad. It asks the question, “How does the historical Jesus interact with Filipino Christianity—its popular Christ figures and images, doctrinal pronouncements, cultic practices, and ethical choices?” The book ultimately proposes Jesus as “Bayani”—one who gives himself up for others and the nation and inspires “bayanihan”—so that Filipinos may become life giving agents and catalysts of meaningful social change in the nation.

“Before, We Didn’T Eat Manioc Flour”: Historical And Social Transformations In Food Techniques Among Indigenous Peoples Of The Rio Negro Basin In The Brazilian Amazon, Lorena França

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

Manioc flour is currently considered one of the main foods consumed by Indigenous peoples in the Northwest Amazon. It is fundamental both to the traditional diet and to adding an "Indigenous flavor" to urban dishes. This article presents an analysis of historical sources that position manioc flour as an important trading commodity since the 19th century and shows how its internal consumption seems to have grown in recent decades. This significance contrasts with the role of manioc flour in mythic narratives about the origin of foods, where it is either not mentioned among the Tukano peoples or referred to as …

The Contributors, Contributors Contributors

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

The Contributors

Ecolabel Persuasion Effect Across Cultures: A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis, Franklin Velasco, Omar S. Itani, Paul Cajina

Marketing Faculty Publications

Purpose: Companies around the world have included ecolabels as a marketing strategy to convince consumers to choose products with lower environmental impact. However, the literature lacks a consensus on the effectiveness of ecolabels in persuading consumers to choose green products. The present meta-analysis addresses this gap by, first, evaluating the net persuasion effect of using ecolabels and, second, investigating the role of cultural orientations, operationalized at the country level, in this effect.

Methodology: This cross-cultural meta-analysis analyzed data from 26,116 consumers across 18 countries, encompassing 75 papers published between 1995 and 2023. Univariate and meta-regression analyses were utilized.

Findings: …

Dungeons & Dragons In Times Of Transmedia, Nazario Robles Bastida, Ricardo Victoria Uribe

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

This paper explores the current state of transmedia storytelling, that is, the art of developing a cohesive narrative through a variety of media. Using Dungeons & Dragons as a case study, this study explores the complex nature of current forms of transmedia storytelling, as well as the complex relationships between media producers and consumers that have arisen due to this narrative technique. Focusing in three specific examples within the franchise: Drizzt Do'Urden, the Dungeons & Dragons Saturday morning cartoon series and the 2023 film Honor among Thieves, our analysis illustrate the fact that current media franchises are constituted by a …

The Contributors, Contributors Contributors

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

The Contributors

A Crisis Of The Humanities? Reflections On The Role Of The Humanities In The Global University, Scott Doidge, John Doyle, Rhonda Siu

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

Since John Harold Plumb’s declaration of “a crisis of the humanities” in 1964, the role of the humanities in the modern university has been the subject of heated debate. Due to ongoing neoliberal educational reform, the modern university has departed from the values of self-cultivation, critical thinking, and democratic citizenship that characterized the traditional university. Discourse surrounding the fate of the humanities in this changed academic environment has highlighted two key challenges: a crisis of confidence and a crisis of relevance. By drawing on Max Weber’s concept of “disenchantment,” this article first examines the origins and progression of this crisis …

Ang Maganda Sa Teolohiya, José De Mesa, Estela P. Padilla, Levy L. Lanaria, Rebecca G. Cacho, Yuri D. Cipriano, George N. Capaque, Timoteo D. Gener, V. Fullente Suarez

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

Ang Maganda sa Teolohiya, José de Mesa, Estela P. Padilla, Levy L. Lanaria, Rebecca G. Cacho, Yuri D. Cipriano, George N. Capaque, Timoteo D. Gener

Who Counts As Filipino? Philosophical Issues Of Identity And The Chinese Filipino, Noelle Leslie Dela Cruz

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

This article examines some recent philosophical attempts to make sense of “identity” in light of the intersecting categories of race, ethnicity, and culture. It addresses a perennial issue brought up recently with regard to Filipino Chinese: Who counts as “Filipino?” Behind this question are assumptions that I scrutinize philosophically: that there is a “Filipino” and it is possible to identify who counts as such and who does not. I begin with a survey of existing paradigms of identity which I then apply to a critical analysis of recent public discourse spawned by anti-Chinese statements made by a prominent Filipino novelist. …

Imperial Abjection The Philippines In The American Popular Imagination. Balce, Nerissa. Body Parts Of Empire: Visual Abjection, Filipino Images, And The American Archive, Jonathan Victor Baldoza

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

Imperial Abjection The Philippines in the American Popular Imagination. Balce, Nerissa. Body Parts of Empire: Visual Abjection, Filipino Images, and the American Archive

Negotiating Tolerance: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing And Researching Religion In China, Naomi Thurston

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

Just as G. E. Lessing criticized what he saw as the narrow mindedness of his contemporaries by creating characters that exemplified a morally enlightened rationalism, religious studies scholars in contemporary China have helped instruct and reshape uninformed or generalizing attitudes towards religion in Chinese society. Reflecting on Lessing’s literary case for religious tolerance, the present article discusses different understandings of the nature and significance of religion in the field of so-called “Sino-Christian studies” (汉语基督教研究 Hanyu Jidujiao yanjiu). It demonstrates how religious and “theological tolerance” are variously understood depending on the stances, approaches, and constructions of meaning of individual scholars, influenced, …

Developing Linguistic Patterns To Mitigate Inherent Human Bias In Offensive Language Detection, Toygar Tanyel, Besher Alkurdi, Serkan Ayvaz

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

With the proliferation of social media, there has been a sharp increase in offensive content, particularly targeting vulnerable groups, exacerbating social problems such as hatred, racism, and sexism. Detecting offensive language use is crucial to prevent offensive language from being widely shared on social media. However, the accurate detection of irony, implication, and various forms of hate speech on social media remains a challenge. Natural language-based deep learning models require extensive training with large, comprehensive, and labeled datasets. Unfortunately, manually creating such datasets is both costly and error-prone. Additionally, the presence of human-bias in offensive language datasets is a major …

Impact Study On The Implementation Of Cal-Defll’S Research Writing, Editing, Proofreading, And Orientation On Layout Tools For Publication Purposes Training 2023-2024, Sherrilyn Quintos

Social Sciences and Development Review

This study investigates the positive impact of extensive training in research writing, editing, proofreading, and publication layout tools on educators’ skills and career advancement. The findings reveal significant improvements in participants’ research writing abilities and confidence in the editing and proofreading processes, with respondents expressing high satisfaction with the support received from editors. Recommendations emphasize the importance of ongoing learning and the pursuit of additional resources to further refine these skills. Participants are encouraged to advocate for continued training programs within their institutions, with an appeal for administrative support to enhance professional development opportunities. The training not only equips educators …

Between Autonomy And Automation: Mapping Practices Among Syrian Delivery Drivers In Beirut, Blake Atwood

Human-Machine Communication

This article studies the tension between autonomy and automation as it is experienced by Syrian refugee food-delivery drivers who work on the Toters app in Beirut, Lebanon. Central to this study are the freedom narratives these drivers construct, which reflect their ambivalent relationship with digital labor platforms. These narratives highlight how the algorithmic nature of the Toters app provides opportunities for self-employment and flexible work, crucial for refugees facing employment barriers and limited physical and social mobility in Lebanon. However, in these narratives, the drivers’ sense of autonomy is also often compromised by the app’s increasing automation, which imposes surveillance …

Autonomy And Agency In Farming: Exploring Human, Machine, And Animal Dynamics, Ricarda Drüeke, Corinna Peil

Human-Machine Communication

Human-Machine Communication is reshaping the agricultural sector as digital technologies and automated systems transform farms into complex communicative environments. Farms, which serve as both workplaces and living spaces, uniquely integrate these technologies, yet their impact on farmers’ daily practices, labor, and decision-making remains underexplored. Through an ethnographic approach involving qualitative interviews and farm visits in Austria and southern Germany, the study investigates the interactions among farmers, automated technologies, smart devices, and animals. Using Actor-Network Theory, the redistribution of labor and agency in smart farming is explored. This analysis examines two forms of human-machine relations: the dynamics of automation and autonomy …

Rethinking Autonomy In The Digital Age: Between Human Exceptionalism, Hybridity And Conviviality, Anne Hoss

Human-Machine Communication

In the humanities and social sciences, there is a long tradition of discourses on the relationship between automats and human autonomy. Socio-technological transformation processes of the past decades have revitalized related discussions. At the same time, based on ideas of either human exceptionalism or hybridity, current debates tend to focus on ontological questions and comparisons between humans and machines. This paper aims to widen recent discursive foci by introducing Ivan Illich’s work which highlights institutions, power structures, and the social shaping of technology as key factors of humanartifact relations and autonomous action. It will be argued that Illich’s approach contributes …

From Birmingham To Angkor Wat: Demarcations Of Contemporary Cultural Studies, E. San Juan Jr.

Kritika Kultura

The radical inspiration of Cultural Studies has been betrayed, declares E. San Juan, Jr. In this timely essay, he argues that this betrayal springs from the postmodernist temperament, the “metaphysical turn,” of contemporary Cultural Studies. By exaggerating “the possibility of liberation over the established fact of domination,” Cultural Studies has abandoned fundamental categories such as class and nation in favor of race and gender, among others. The frivolous has overcome the political: commercial icons and rituals are now fantasized to topple the very system that makes their condition possible. “In what sense can this still inchoate and contested terrain called …

The Affective Labor Of Cross-Disciplinary Communication Education: Enacting A Feminist Praxis, Kailin Regutti, Zane Austin Willard

Feminist Pedagogy

This critical commentary addresses the pedagogical experiences of being instructional assistants of communication in an engineering classroom at a Florida public university. In weaving together our experiences, we reflexively explore the affective labor and challenges of teaching interpersonal and intercultural communication concepts in a STEM environment while navigating restrictive state legislation and varying disciplinary perspectives and metatheoretical assumptions. We manage these dynamic tensions by adopting a feminist pedagogical praxis that works toward reimagining futures for STEM education—a future that helps students foster a critical consciousness and apply communication as a means of developing more equitable and just solutions across industries. …

Pedagogies Of Discomfort: Critical Lessons From Florida Feminist Professors, Aisha Durham Dr., Mahuya Pal Dr., Sonia Ivancic Dr.

Feminist Pedagogy

In a collaborative letter, Florida feminist faculty instructors describe pedagogies of discomfort devised by the state to empower an assumed alienated student decentered by difference and to disquiet a culturally responsive teacher who treats education as transformation and liberation rather than career-relevant job training. They recall classroom resistance strategies and tactics not only to speak to the policies of erasure in this moment, but also to speak to the precarious student who needs to feel cared for, honored, and acknowledged in their pursuit to learn and unlearn to be in community today. The political intent of discomfort is to divide …

How To Leave Modernity Behind: The Relationship Between Colonialism And Enlightenment, And The Possibility Of Altermodern Decoloniality, Britta Saal

Budhi: A Journal of Ideas and Culture

Starting from the fact that we all share modern history while at the same time having very different and sometimes contrasting experiences of what modernity is, I’d first like to look at the connection between colonialism and Enlightenment, because the modern norms and values developed then are still discussed very actively on the global scale. One of the major problems that constrain the transcendence of the colonial impact of these norms and values is the colonized mind. It is very clear that it is necessary to decolonize both the colonized and the colonizer’s minds. Here the project of conceptual decolonization, …

Secondary Teacher Perceptions And Practices Of Intercultural Communicative Competence Development In Online Intercultural Exchanges, Paige L. Roland

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Secondary level world language programs in the United States lack efficient infusion and assessment of intercultural communicative competence in the curricula. When a learner acquires a new language, they also shape their personal identity and expand their ability to successfully interact cross-culturally, thus the need for culture and language to be understood as interdependent components of the bigger whole is evident (Liontas & Siegel, 2019). While there are extensive research theories and studies regarding models of assessment for various competences underlying intercultural communicative competence (e.g., communicative competence, idiomatic competence, sociolinguistic competence) throughout the decades, little research is available which utilizes …

Insights Into Human Norovirus Cultivation In Human Intestinal Enteroids, Khalil Ettayebi, Gurpreet Kaur, Ketki Patil, Janam Dave, B Vijayalakshmi Ayyar, Victoria R Tenge, Frederick H Neill, Xi-Lei Zeng, Allison L Speer, Sara C Di Rienzi, Robert A Britton, Sarah E Blutt, Sue E Crawford, Sasirekha Ramani, Robert L Atmar, Mary K Estes

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Human noroviruses (HuNoVs) are a significant cause of epidemic and sporadic acute gastroenteritis worldwide. The lack of a reproducible culture system hindered the study of HuNoV replication and pathogenesis for almost a half-century. This barrier was overcome with our successful cultivation of multiple HuNoV strains in human intestinal enteroids (HIEs), which has significantly advanced HuNoV research. We optimized culture media conditions and generated genetically modified HIE cultures to enhance HuNoV replication in HIEs. Building upon these achievements, we now present new insights into this culture system, which involve testing different media, unique HIE lines, and additional virus strains. HuNoV infectivity …