Digital Commons Network^™

An Examination Of Gandhian Economic And Political Thought And Its Relevance To The Empowerment Of Women, Purnima Mehta Bhatt

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) sought to alleviate poverty and empower women. His commitment to nonviolence and the economic ideal of “small is beautiful” continue to inspire grassroots movements around the globe. This article discusses the Chipko movement of northern India, the protection of rain forests in Kerala’s Silent Valley, the Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), and Medha Patkar’s valiant though ultimately futile attempt to save the Narmada River from a massive government damming project. The ongoing legacy of these movements can be found in AWAG, the Ahmedabad Women’s Action Group and Women’s Shanti Sena (Peace Force).

Indigenous Stitch-Arts Of India: Tradition And Revival In A Global Age, Punam Madhok

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Stitch art allows for the creative expression and economic support of countless women throughout India. This article examines four notable styles: chikankari, flora and fauna stitched in white thread on fine white cotton, rabari, the stitching of mirrors into colorful cloth, phulkari, resplendent flowery motifs sewn into shawls in Punjab, and kantha, Bengali patch work yielding quilts and seating mats. In addition to describing each technique, this article discusses how women have been economically empowered through this art by such organizations as Self-Help Enterprise (SHE) in Kolkata and Adithi, a women’s cooperative, in Bihar.

Implementation Of Corruption Mitigation Strategies By Public Sector Leadership In Sierra Leone, Samuel B. Sam

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractCorruption is an elusive phenomenon, and it directly or indirectly impacts the daily lives of people globally. In Africa, leaders are partly blamed for persistent corruption due to poor leadership. Corruption persists in developing countries despite various strategies put in place to fight it. Sierra Leone has specifically struggled to implement mitigation strategies to reduce levels of corruption, and few studies have been conducted on lived experiences of public sector leaders pertaining to implementing corruption mitigation strategies in Sierra Leone. The purpose of this qualitative transcendental phenomenological study was to identify and report on those lived experiences. The two conceptual …

The Cultural Diet Behaviors Of African Immigrants In California For Preventing Chronic Health Conditions Including Obesity, Jahswill Ukagumaoha

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractAfrican immigrants to the United States face many challenges when diagnosed with obesity and other chronic health conditions. However, research concerning the role of cultural diets in preventing or ameliorating chronic health conditions including obesity has rarely focused on African immigrants. The purpose of this study was to explore the opinions, perceptions, and experiences of African immigrants on cultural diet preferences in the prevention of chronic health conditions, including obesity. Using the theory of assimilation and acculturation theory as a framework for the inquiry, the research questions focused on exploring the experiences, opinions, and perceptions of African immigrants concerning chronic …

The Importance Of Multimodal Play And Storytelling In Medtech For Children: A Case Study Of Co-Designing A Mixed Realities Play Kit To Prepare 4 To 10-Year-Olds For An Mri Scan, D Yamada-Rice, S Love, J Thompson, S Thompson, H Mcquillian

School of Art, Design and Architecture

This article examines the research and development of a mixed realities play-kit to prepare children for an MRI scan to be undertaken without the need for a General Anaesthetic. The kit uses three different types of play; augmented, virtual reality and physical to help children become familiar with the look of an MRI scanner, the noises it makes, the role of the radiographer, what to expect when they go to hospital and to practise staying still. We reflect on the initial multimodal research methods that were used to bring children into the first stages of the design and development process. …

Relationship Between An Entrepreneur’S Self-Efficacy, Self-Leadership, And Startup Sustainability In Nigeria, Juliet Ehimuan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Self-efficacy and self-leadership have been identified as important indicators of business sustainability. Business owners and investors are concerned about sustainability because most businesses fail within the first five years. Grounded in self-efficacy and self-leadership theories, the purpose of this quantitative correlation study was to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy, self-leadership and startup sustainability. The participants were 156 entrepreneurs who completed the entrepreneurial self-efficacy scale and the abbreviated self-leadership questionnaire delivered via email. The multiple linear regression analysis results indicated the model was able to significantly predict startup sustainability, F(2, 129) = 432.47, p < .001, R2 = .87. Self-efficacy provided a significant contribution to the model (t = 8.424, p = < .001, β = .914). In contrast, the contribution of self-leadership was not significant (t = 0.185, p = .853, β = .20). A key recommendation is the utilization of mentoring programs and structured leadership internships that enhance self-efficacy by providing startup leaders with exposure to more seasoned corporate leaders, and successful peers who have had similar experiences to theirs. The implications for positive social change include the potential development of training and capacity-building programs that can be provided to entrepreneurs and other startup leaders to enhance their ability to sustain their startups, leading to more successful businesses, job creation, and economic growth.

Advancing A Transnational, Transdisciplinary And Translingual Professional Development Framework For Teaching Assistants In Writing And Spanish Programs: An Update, Alyssa G. Cavazos, Marcela Hebbard, José Esteban Hernández, Crystal Rodriguez, Geoffrey Schwarz

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

In 2018, we published a translingual and transdisciplinary collaborative piece that sought to respond to the call for writing and language programs to develop professional development opportunities central to multilingual writers’ needs as language learners and writers and their sophisticated and diverse language and writing abilities (Guerra, 2008; Horner et al., 2011; Kells, 2007; Tardy, 2017). We described the design, implementation, and implications of a multilingual pedagogy professional development series for teaching assistants in a transnational and multilingual context (Cavazos, et al., 2018). In this chapter, we provide an update on what has transpired since the series ended. We arrange …

Chapter 1 “A Veces Encuentro Más Palabras En Español”: Taking A Stance Towards Translanguaging As A Socially Just Pedagogy For Bilingual Teacher Preparation, Sandra I. Musanti

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

Informed by recent explorations on translanguaging practices in higher education and teacher education, this self-case study explores how a bilingual teacher educator, teaching bilingual teacher preparation courses in Spanish at a Hispanic-serving institution on the US-Mexico border embraces a translanguaging stance to leverage teacher candidates’ bilingualism while preparing them to produce and use academic and professional forms of Spanish discourse for teaching. Findings illustrate how a bilingual teacher educator purposefully embeds translanguaging moves to leverage bilingual teacher candidates’ bilingualism to develop a linguistically inclusive bilingual teacher candidates’ repertoire of practice. In addition, the study shows how candidates’ evolving understanding of …

Identity Negotiations Of A Mexican Transnational In The Rio Grande Valley: Crossing The Border Daily, Xiaodi Zhou, David Martinez-Prieto

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

This narrative case study examines the cultural affiliations of one transnational US-born Mexican American college student, and her various intersecting veins of identity. The aim was to capture the bordered existence in the many criteria of her being. Her linguistic identity, pop culture identity, spiritual identity, as well as her general cultural affiliations are examined as intersecting rays of influence. Utilizing Anzaldúa’s (2012) bordered identity as theoretical grounding for her partitioned selves, along with Bakhtin’s (1986) notion of cultural and linguistic dialogue, we analyzed the complexities in this one bicultural, bilingual young woman venturing into adulthood. This study sheds light …

Teaching Shante Curtelia Dominique Ophelia Brown Johnson : An Autoethnography Of A Black Male, Seventh-Day Adventist, Jazz Avant-Garde Artist, Michael Gayle

Dissertations

Leadership is part and parcel of societies and cultures. Leadership research can provide understanding that in turn provides knowledge, resources and growth opportunities for leaders. Leadership may be understood from a personal perspective as being bound up with identity. As I examine myself as a person and as a leader, I realize that several identities are prominent: Black male identity, Christian identity, jazz avant-garde artistic identity. Each of those identities have features that contribute to leadership.

The purpose of this study is to describe and explore leadership experiences of a Black male, from the Seventh-day Adventist Christian tradition who is …

A Theoretical Basis For Understanding And Researching The Relationship Between Music, Stress, And Biofeedback, Frederick Wang

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Music’s ability to influence emotional states and physical arousal has become an increasingly popular area of study. The wealth of literature around music and stress suggests a significant amount of interest in leveraging music to manage stress. However, as attention increases, the robustness of research becomes an increasing concern. This study investigates the current literature and proposes recommendations for the future studying of the psychological and physiological impacts of music as it relates to stress reduction. Existing literature was reviewed with a focus on the operationalization of key concepts of music and stress. The analysis showed considerable discrepancies in research …

Queer Historicism As Literary Theory: An Exploration Of Three Texts, Theodore D. Kenning

EWU Masters Thesis Collection

No abstract provided.

Could There Be A Relationship Between Feeding Characteristics And The Shape Of Condylus Occipitalis And Foramen Magnum In Mammals?, Yasi̇n Demi̇raslan, İsmai̇l Demi̇rci̇oğlu, İftar Gürbüz, Funda Aksünger Karaavci, Abdullah Ortadeveci, Özcan Özgel

Turkish Journal of Veterinary & Animal Sciences

The aim of the study was to investigate the shape of the foramen magnum and condylus occipitalis of mammalian species belonging to different feeding groups. For this, two-dimensional geometric morphometric method analyses were applied. The data from the skulls of the 12 species were used. In principal component analysis, the first three principal components accounted for 70.353%of the total shape variation. According to the first principal component, the dorsal edge of the condylus occipitalis and foramen magnum contributed the most to shape variation. Most of the individuals were correctly separated according to the feeding groups. The most accurate grouping features …

"Engines Of The Ruling Party": The Establishment Clause And The Power Politics Of "Managing Diversity", Robert A. Destro

Scholarly Articles

This Essay argues that the Supreme Court's Religion Clauses jurisprudence since Everson v. Board of Education is best understood as part of an ongoing effort by the Court to "manage" the racial, religious, and cultural politics of the nation. Since its infamous decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Court's race and sex discrimination jurisprudence offers equally compelling examples of the ways in which the Justices have sought to sought to control-or "manage"- the racial, ethnic, and cultural composition of the nation's major culture-forming institutions (i.e., to "manage diversity"). Its Religion Clauses jurisprudence, by contrast, offers the clearest examples of …

Dungeons & Dragons & Dewey: Toward A Ludic Pedagogy Of Democratic Civic Life Through The Philosophy Of John Dewey And Tabletop Role-Playing Games, Susan Haarman

Dissertations

In this dissertation, which uses philosophical inquiry, I posit that tabletop role-playing games (RPGs) can provide an educative experience for democratic civic life in the Deweyan tradition. Tabletop RPGs present an invaluable resource for ongoing civic formation by encouraging deliberation and consensus building across shared goals and circumstances. Philosopher John Dewey emphasized that democracy is defined by the civic habits and collective action, not formal governance structures. The experience of playing tabletop RPGs can cultivate habitus and space for future and current citizens to practice democratic skills and commitments. Therefore, these games are a means that align with the ends …

A Framework For Syncretic Pluriversal Narrative: Somaesthetics And Consciousness In Thai Design Education, Tommaso Maggio

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

The investigation began by examining the diverse conceptions of creativity in the Western and Eastern hemispheres, specifically focusing on ‘Ex nihilo’ and ‘In situ’ (Ames) and how it is applied to creative education. The studies delved into the early modern art and design schools in Western countries, such as the German Bauhaus Art School (1919-33) and the Russian Vkhutemas Institute (1920-30), to gain a comprehensive understanding of how these experimental educational institutions influenced and continue to influence the contemporary global design education agenda. The thesis poses questions about how these approaches have been adapted within significantly different cultural contexts. The …

Performance Writing, Objects And Millennial Precarity: A Co-Authored Par Exploration Between Friends, Chris Green

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This practice-as-research project uses performance writing to understand, illustrate and work through aspects of millennial experience, with a specific interest in precarious housing and labour. For us, experiencing precarity means that fundamental aspects of what is required to experience what Lauren Berlant calls ‘a good life’ (including secure working contracts, renters’ rights, access to leisure time) are not being met. This leads to a feeling of ‘living on the edge’ (Ahmed, 2017: 238), which in turn prevents us from being able to imagine alternatives. This performance writing takes the form of scores, instructions, maps, walking, knitting, zines, and audio recordings. …

Octopus Optics: A Cross-Disciplinary Investigation Of Human Visual Bias In Narrative With Corresponding Writing Experiments Using Animal Focalisation, Stephanie Jane Cussans Moran

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

What is it like to be a human? If an octopus wrote an anthropology based on human depictions of octopuses then how might that reconfigure this existential question? This thesis addresses the posthuman problem of visual bias in animal storytelling practices by experimentally adopting the perspective of another highly visual animal - the octopus - through fiction. It seeks to question, find the edges, and feel the limitations of human representations of other animals and asks what doing so might say about our own naturalcultural perceptions and interpretations. In attending particularly to opticality in Anglophone storytelling, the thesis investigates ways …

Building Immersive Environments Towards Non-Human Models Of Organizing Against Global Crisis, Luis Andre Varela Reis

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

The wolfanddotcom series of artworks seeks to establish new knowledge embedded in its practice within a nascent field combining the areas of aesthetic computation, interactive electronic arts, videogames, mythology, biology, human/non-human computer interfaces. Wolfanddotcom's research leads investigations on bio-electronic and imaginary arts alloyed with a mythological and non-human turn, mainly through the creation of dynamic art-sci constructs, in the form of mythological videogames and bio-electronic aggregates, by establishing multiple lines of flight onto a creative framework, seeking novel, procedural, immersive, cathartic and bio-electronic methods. With a final purpose of exploring new electronic-based arts’ aesthetic regions, unexampled connections between generative (Eno) …

The Postnatural Animal In Contemporary Art, Paul Finnegan

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

The thesis uses art practice as a research method to propose novel characterisations of animal life. These characterisations aim to challenge an organicist image of non-human animals. The thesis considers animal bodies and behaviours as subject to aesthetic judgments that are underpinned by deeper ontological and epistemological commitments as to relations between nature and society, in which to be categorised as the former entails a series of privations in relation to the latter – the absence of freedom, subjectivity and creativity. Scholarly research on the history of the perception and conception of animal life within modernity, and subsequent challenges made …

Casting A Line To The Land: Narratologies Of Embodied Rituals And Connectivity To Place, Zoe Latham

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This research argues for a re-conceptualisation and extension of place within architectural praxis that is reflective of broader discussions of meaning and environmental experience. This study examines the alignment between place and ritual theory as a way to better understand phenomenon that inform a greater connectivity between embodied and meaningful experiences with the environment. This will be explored through the act of fly fishing. Fly-fishing is relevant as the focus of the study owing in part to the author’s own experience as a fly angler. The relationship between the act of fly fishing, being part of nature and being in …

Performance Writing, Objects And Millennial Precarity: A Co-Authored Par Exploration Between Friends, Katheryn Owens

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This practice-as-research project uses performance writing to understand, illustrate and work through aspects of millennial experience, with a specific interest in precarious housing and labour. For us, experiencing precarity means that fundamental aspects of what is required to experience what Lauren Berlant calls ‘a good life’ (including secure working contracts, renters’ rights, access to leisure time) are not being met. This leads to a feeling of ‘living on the edge’ (Ahmed, 2017: 238), which in turn prevents us from being able to imagine alternatives. This performance writing takes the form of scores, instructions, maps, walking, knitting, zines, and audio recordings. …

Multicultural And Social Justice Counseling Within The Scope Of Rehabilitation Counseling, Jeong Han Kim, Kayi Ntinda, Christopher Townsend, Kenneth Thomas, Dong Hun Lee, Cameron Ortega, Hee Jung Yu

School of Rehabilitation Services & Counseling Faculty Publications

Historically, people with disabilities are a marginalized cultural group in that their lived world is less well represented in mainstream services. The rehabilitation counseling profession has the goal to prioritize and empower people with disabilities for thriving in their personal and community lives. However, cultures exist within social systems often characterized by inequities, obliging a need to go beyond multicultural counseling to address social injustices that would occur to populations with historical disadvantages such as people with disabilities. The present study discusses the multicultural counseling movement and its impact in the field of rehabilitation counseling. The study first introduces the …

A Study Of Verbal Rumination, Relationships, Stress And Identity On Health Communication In Collegiate Athletics, Landon Mary Ellen Kemp

Dissertations and Theses

College athletes are a unique group of individuals as they face many positive and negative challenges when competing in a collegiate sport. Verbal rumination is repetitive talk about a particular issue, accompanied by adverse effects for an individual. Verbal rumination is a common strategy athletes use to cope with difficulties along with managing challenging situations in their athletic program. To explore factors that might inspire or impede verbal rumination in collegiate athletics, the present study examines the quality of coach and teammate relationships, perceived stress and athlete identity. Results revealed the impact of relationships between coaches and athletes in respect …

Leading In Liminality: Implications On Individual And Collective Identity, And Knowledge Creation For School Leaders, David Sorkin, Melodie Wyttenbach, John Reyes, Michael Warner

Journal of Catholic Education

In the spring of 2020, schools of all sectors across all nations were forced to close their doors as COVID-19 rippled through communities. Drawing upon the concept of liminality, which refers to a stage, state, or period of transition (Soderlund & Borg, 2017), this study investigated the intersections of the experience of liminality during the pandemic and functioning for Catholic school leaders. Interviews with urban school leaders were analyzed to understand key characteristics of liminality as experienced by school leaders within organizations. Findings indicate that school leaders responded to the liminal experience by sharpening the focus of work, which simultaneously …

Exploring The Status Of Transgender Students In Catholic High Schools, Dirk De Jong

Journal of Catholic Education

This paper reports on a recent survey of principals of Catholic high schools across the country regarding the existence of formal gender identity policies or informal practices with respect to the behavior and treatment of transgender students in their schools. The survey’s findings are discussed in the context of recent developments with respect to the science, clinical interventions, and legal accommodations surrounding gender variance. The paper also describes the political developments with respect to this issue and some of the pushback in communities of faith. It concludes by suggesting the need for receptivity to scientific findings as part of a …

A Portrait Of The Leadership Of Women In Early Christianity: An Archaeological Study In Light Of The Historical And Socio-Cultural Contexts, Carina Prestes

Dissertations

Problem

The participation of women in the Early Christian communities is widely accepted. Nevertheless, there is no consensus on what was their role in these communities. Until now the study of women in the Early Christian communities has focused mostly in the writings of some ancient authors and a few biblical texts. These studies have been done mostly by theologians and historians. Such studies rarely take a deep look at the Greco-Roman background and at the historical, socio-cultural contexts. This contextualization can be quite fruitful and should be informed by recent archaeological discoveries of the first centuries of Christianity. Thus, …

Ant 211: Cultural Anthropology Summer -Asynchronous Online Syllabus, Antonia M. Santangelo

Open Educational Resources

Syllabus for ANT 211: Cultural Anthropology using Open Educational Resources. This is designed for a summer session, asynchronous online course.

Historical Records: Reissuing As Curatorial Practice In Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music, Dan Blim

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Realms Unseen: Albinism And Epistemic Decoloniality In Tanzania, Jane L. Saffitz

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.