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Academic Rigor For All: A Review Of Literature, Gabriel Reich, Volkan Sevim, Amanda Turner

MERC Publications

In this literature review, we will attempt to address the issue of academic rigor in several ways. First, we will review federal and Virginia policy documents that discuss academic rigor, and the research reports that influenced these documents. We will then attempt to articulate a clear definition of academic rigor that applies across academic contexts. This definition draws on the work of educational psychologists, sociologists, and scholars of teaching and learning. Finally we will review the research literature on rigorous classroom practice in two disciplines, history and mathematics.

Are You In Or Out?: Qualitative Study On Factors Associated With Minorities' Decisions About Organ Donation, Jennifer Yvonne Cannon

Masters Theses

The United States Department of Health and Human Services (USDHH; 2011) has declared that the need for organ transplant in minorities is disproportionately high compared to Caucasians. Of the minority groups represented in the United States, African-Americans are the largest group in need of organ transplantation (USDHH, 2011) and, this group spends more time on the donor organ waiting list than any other minority group (Moore, 2007). The purpose of this study was to explore what factors affect organ donation decision making for college students from ethnic minority groups. In addition, the study looked at mistrust in the medical community …

Beauty And The Little Stories Of Holiness: What Alejandro García-Rivera Taught Me, Peter J. Casarella

Diálogo

No abstract provided.

Penelope Pether, Professor Of Law, Villanova University School Of Law, Law Review Editors

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

School Library Acquisitions Policy: How It Impacts The Delivery Of Library Services To Middle School English Language Learners, Aurea Lourdes Galindo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Del Sol Independent School District (DSISD) serves a student population totaling 64, 214 that includes a Hispanic population of eighty-two percent (DSISD, 2011). Of this total student population, 25.2 percent consists of English Language Learners (ELLs)--predominantly Spanish-speaking students (DSISD, 2011). Current DSISD library collection figures reveal that each campus library has an inordinate low number of Spanish materials. The district librarians are guided by an acquisitions policy that seemingly offers scant guidelines for acquiring books that address the information and literary needs of diverse student populations.

To this end, it is vital to examine and bring better understanding of …

From Plyler To Daca, Policy Guiding Undocumented Students' Rights In A Public Education System And Its Pipeline To Higher Education, L. Guzman-Duvernois

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study was designed to provide a guide and understanding of policy, and/or case law pertinent to undocumented students in our school system. The presentation, a non-traditional format, comprised a historical review of case law, statutes, and other legal authority which discuss the legal rights of undocumented students in the United States' public schools. The primary purpose of this study was to increase the reader's understanding of policy related to the undocumented immigrant student population in our American system of education. The secondary purpose was to examine the different aspects of immigration and other policy that have impacted student access …

Historical Overview Of Equity In Higher Education: A Case Study Of The South Texas Border Initiative, Denise Razo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

There is an absence of research involving the successes reaped by the implementation of the South Texas Border Initiative (STBI). Although there is tangible evidence of an increase in the number of master degrees, doctor degrees, and professional degrees in the South Texas Border Region, none indicates that the STBI's efforts have reaped prosperous results that successfully closed the educational gap found among Hispanics and Whites in Texas. In this research, the gathering of historical events served to accomplish a depiction of a vivid and precise picture of the events that led to the STBI. To prevent historical events from …

Taking Oaths And Giving Thanks: Ritual And Religion In Revolutionary America, Tara E. Strauch

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the early modern ritual traditions of oaths, thanksgivings, and fast days in Revolutionary America and argues that American politicians and citizens negotiated the meanings of these rituals for American citizenship throughout the Revolutionary era. Oaths of office and allegiance, thanksgivings and fast days were tools for creating a united nation, but they also posed significant challenges because of the religious and political associations inherent in such rituals. These rituals came out of early modern Europe's religious and political culture which was useful for establishing America as a legitimate European nation. As colonials on the edge of the …

The Rhetoric Of Gender In The Household Of God: Ephesians 5:21-33 And Its Place In Pauline Tradition, Lisa Marie Belz

Dissertations

This dissertation demonstrates that the author of Ephesians rewrote the household code of Col. 3:18-19 in order to conform it more to Paul's own ideals regarding mutuality in relationships between Christians.

A Historical Analysis Of South Holland School District 151 Desegregation Order: An Examination Of Superintendent Decisions Based On Board Actions Grounded In The Context Of Prevailing Social, Political, Legal And Educational Conditions For The Period 1967-2010, Cecilia Villanueva Heiberger

Dissertations

This study provided a historical analysis of the 1968 court ordered desegregation of South Holland School District 151. The purpose of this case study was to examine, according to primary source evidence, how the superintendents grounded their decisions within the prevailing social, political, legal and educational conditions of the time. The researcher applied the leadership framework of Sergiovanni's Five Sources of Authority by identifying words and actions of superintendents that support a source of authority. This case study sought to identify how the decisions made, actions taken, and resulting changes created a new context for each succeeding superintendent to operate …

Feeling Like A Holy Warrior: Western Authors' Attributions Of Emotion As Proof Of Motives For Violence Among Christian Actors In Military Conflicts, Tenth Through Early Twelfth Centuries, Jilana Ordman

Dissertations

This dissertation explores two areas of human experience that have been criticized as potentially dangerous and uncontrollable almost consistently since Late Antiquity: violence and those who engage in it, and emotions. However, it will be seen that in the Western Mediterranean and Southern and Central Western Europe, from Late Antiquity through the early-Twelfth Century, these areas were carefully controlled and directed by complex philosophical and religious systems.

Polytheist Roman, and later patristic Christian, authors who wrote within classical and late antique philosophical and religious systems created the accepted norms for the undertaking of organized violence - that which was fought …

Why Is There Lack Of Recognition For British Children Who Are Victim To Internal Trafficking For Sexual Exploitation?, Anne Westcott

The Plymouth Law and Criminal Justice Review

Child trafficking has been conceptualised as 'modern day slavery'. Slavery has been held up as the worst possible exploitation in human history (Lee, 2007). For more than 20 years UK governments have ratified United Nation Conventions and Protocols and rescheduled laws in its effort to eradicate this crime. However, despite such political commitment, in reality thousands of British children are still victims to internal trafficking for sexual exploitation in the UK today. Over the last 10 years the UK government has employed agencies, in the shape of the UK Human Trafficking Centre (UKHTC), the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) and the …

Networks, News And Communication: Political Elites And Community Relations In Elizabethan Devon, 1588-1603, Ian David Cooper

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Focusing on the ‘second reign’ of Queen Elizabeth I (1588-1603), this thesis constitutes the first significant socio-political examination of Elizabethan Devon – a geographically peripheral county, yet strategically central in matters pertaining to national defence and security. A complex web of personal associations and informal alliances underpinned politics and governance in Tudor England; but whereas a great deal is now understood about relations between both the political elite and the organs of government at the centre of affairs, many questions still remain unanswered about how networks of political actors functioned at a provincial and neighbourhood level, and how these networks …

Toward A Female Clown Practice: Transgression, Archetype And Myth, Margaret J Irving

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Women who learn to clown within Western contemporary theatre and performance training lack recognizably female exemplars of this popular art form. This practice-as-research thesis analyses my past and present clowning experiences in order to create an understanding of a woman-centered clown practice which allows for the expression of material bodies and lived experiences. It offers a feminist perspective on Jacques Lecoq’s pedagogy, which revolves around a notion of an ‘inner clown’ and is prevalent in contemporary UK clown training and practice. The thesis draws on both the avant-garde and numerous clown types and archetypes, in order to understand clowning as …

Borders And Objects: Representing The Geopolitical In New World Art Histories, 1990-2010, Fang-Lin Hou

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Several contemporary art historians have been interested in exploring how their discipline could respond to the increasing globalisation of knowledge and information by encompassing global perspectives into the methodologies that underpin their approaches to art historiography. This dissertation aims to explore how, in developing their new approaches to world art history, they have drawn on a range of natural and social sciences, thus enabling their work to be placed in a wider social, political and indeed global context. While their individual approaches are many and varied it is important to identify commonalities between them so as to highlight unifying approaches …

Historical-Theological Models Of Pilgrimage As A Resource For Faith Tourism, Jonathan M. Wooding

Journal of Tourism Consumption and Practice

Pilgrimage is often seen as a physical journey to a sacred destination fixed by custom, destination-centred and broadly penitential in tone. The work of anthropologists in the last century broadened definitions to consider pilgrimage, across a range of faiths, in terms of a journey of transition and formation of identity. More recent historical scholarship has critiqued the longer development of our idea of pilgrimage, as well as its theological structures and markers. This diachronic approach to pilgrimage has also considered its origins with respect to early Christian conceptions of the life of the Christian in society and found resonances for …

Those Unfortunates': Victorian Prostitution, Local Communities And The Law 1850-1890, Leah Bleakley

SOLON Law, Crime and History (previously SOLON Crimes and Misdemeanours: Deviance and the Law in Historical Perspective)

No abstract provided.

Werewolves As Translation: Bisclovret, Melion And Alphonse, Jessica L. Auz

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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Elizabeth I And The Policy Of Marriage: The Anjou Match, 1572-1582, Aryn Elizabeth Bell

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will explore how Queen Elizabeth I of England's use of interdynastic marriage negotiations as an essential component to the successful implementation of her foreign policy objectives. Many historians continue to debate whether a distinct foreign policy actually existed from the onset of Elizabeth's reign. While some contend that the queen had no policy in place, I suggest, that while it was not an active, aggressive policy, it did, in fact, exist. So the question becomes not whether she had a policy but how it was implemented. Using her unique role as an unwed female monarch, Elizabeth understood the …

A Sense Of Home: A Cultural Geography Of The Leschenault Estuary District: Report, Sandra Wooltorton

Research outputs 2013

Executive Summary

In 2012, a project was implemented to determine the place-based social values of the people of the Leschenault Estuary district. The project included a historical study, a literature review, a survey with quantitative and qualitative questions, targeted community engagement (five focus groups, six individual interviews) and a photo-elicitation study with a group of high school children.

Research Question

What is history of the relationship between people and place in the Leschenault Estuary District, and what is the relationship in 2012? What were, and what are the place-based social values of the population?

Characterizing Hypoxia And Its Behavioral Effects In 3-Dimensional Cell Aggregates, Matthew Lorincz Skiles

Theses and Dissertations

Cell transplantation can be considered a regenerative therapy, an intervention which attempts to replace or restore the function of compromised tissue by harnessing innate properties of cells that cannot be replicated artificially. For such therapies to succeed, it will be necessary to understand and closely match the physiological conditions that govern cell behaviors in vivo. One important factor is low oxygen tension, termed hypoxia, which is often overlooked in vitro. Because oxygen insufficiency can lead to cell death, hypoxia has traditionally been viewed as a negative condition. However, hypoxia can also serve as a potent regulator of crucial cell behaviors …

Spatiotemporal Variability In The Diet Of Nonbreeding Brandt's Cormorant (Phalacrocorax Penicillatus) In The Monterey Bay Region, Lisa Webb

Master's Theses

Brandt's Cormorant (Phalacrocorax penicillatus) diet composition was investigated using pellets (n = 285) collected on 19 sampling days at 3 locations during the 2006-07 and 2007-08 nonbreeding seasons in the Monterey Bay region. The conventional diet method was used, and the efficacy of the all-structure technique was evaluated. Although 29 species were consumed, Northern Anchovy (Engraulis mordax) dominated the diet and Speckled Sanddab (Citharichthys stigmaeus) also was important. Few rockfishes (Sebastes spp.) and Market Squid (Doryteuthis opalescens) were consumed compared with the number consumed in previous studies in the region during …

The History Of Lds Seminaries And Institutes In Taiwan, John Hilton Iii, Po N. Chou

Faculty Publications

Taiwan is a vibrant nation of approximately twenty-three million people, living in an area about one-sixth the size of the state of Utah. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints remains relatively small in Taiwan. Its 55,805 members compose just 0.2% of the population. Yet the LDS Church is growing, and an important part of that growth is found in the Seminary and Institute (S&I) program.

From Sidebets To Sideshow: The Influence Of Gambling On The Development Of Professional Wrestling In America, 1870-1911, Lee Casebolt

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

While boxing and baseball have been common subjects of historical study, other sports of the nineteenth century have been comparatively neglected by historians. Professional wrestling, in particular, has received very little attention as a sport, as opposed to its twentieth century “sports entertainment” incarnation. What attention it has received has most commonly been through the lens of social history, focusing on wrestling as theater or its psychosexual overtones. Missing from its history is any consideration of the economic factors which influence the evolution of any professional endeavor. This paper explores the relationship between a wrestler’s payment and performance. Specifically, it …

An Environmental History Of Malawi's 'Island In The Sky': The Mulanje Cedar And Imperial Forestry In British Nyasaland, 1890-1964., Kathleen J. Fichtel

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The Mulanje cedar is a unique and endangered tree that is found only within the confines of the Mt. Mulanje Forest Reserve in southeastern Malawi. This dissertation examines the relationship between scientific forestry as introduced by British experts and the role and status of the endangered cedar. The British, like forest experts and other natural scientists today, believed the tree to be in danger of imminent demise. Economic expediency made it so that the tree was harvested by colonial officials from the beginning though they attempted to replace what they had taken. This did not work. Throughout the past century, …

Effects Of Stereotype Threat On Adolescents' Math And Visual-Spatial Performance., Lisa M. Didonato

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Recent research suggests that the gender gap in math performance is closing (Else-Quest, Hyde, & Linn, 2010; Hyde, Lindberg, Linn, Ellis, & Williams, 2008). However, negative stereotypes about girls’ math abilities are still widely held (Bhanot & Jovanovic, 2005; Bleeker & Jacobs, 2004). The gender gap in visual-spatial skills, or the ability to reason about and manipulate mental pictures, still exists in that boys outperform girls on visual-spatial tasks. The current study drew from literature on stereotype threat (i.e., the risk of confirming negative stereotypes about a specific group; Steele, 1997) to investigate the impact of negative math stereotypes on …

The Re-Imagining Of Rapa Nui Traditional Healing Arts: Explorations Of Narrative Identity, Mimesis, And The Public Sphere, James Joves

Doctoral Dissertations

Research Topic

In Rapa Nui is undergoing a cultural development crisis. This transition mixed with the ever-increasing popularity of tourism and global media has raised awareness of identity and culture within the Rapa Nui society. The present inquiry explores one aspect of their societal healing arts that is in the midst of re-exploration and re-imagination: their traditional medicinal practices or hervias tradicionales and the potential for the findings to help shape the lives of the Rapa Nui in their society.

Theory and Protocol

This research is grounded in critical hermeneutics and follows an interpretive approach to field research and data …

Lived Experiences Of Women With Hidden Disabilities: A Phenomenologically Based Study, Michelle Jean Yee

Doctoral Dissertations

Documentation of the experiences of women with disabilities has remained sparse--benignly neglected, overlooked, and understudied in the academic fields of women's studies (gender studies) and disability studies (Depauw, 1996Article 25.1; Garland-Thomson, 2004). This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of inclusion, marginalization, and exclusion in the lives of women who have a permanent, non-visible (hidden) disability. It also explored the corporeal dimensions, such as issues of embodiment, of the lived experiences for women with hidden disabilities. Finally, this phenomenologically based study examined how women with non-visible, hidden disabilities articulated the meaning of living with an invisible disability.

The study utilized …

Young Again, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

This essay revisits an old problem in the law of federal courts: the source of the right of action in Ex parte Young. The core of the story underlying Young is familiar. Shareholders in railroad corporations filed suit in a federal circuit court, claiming that state established rail rates in Minnesota violated the Fourteenth Amendment and the (dormant) Commerce Clause. The circuit court issued a preliminary injunction barring adoption of the rates and prohibiting the defendants from attempting to enforce them. One of the defendants, Minnesota Attorney General Edward T. Young, nonetheless brought a state court mandamus action against the …

Betwixt And Between: Creative Writing And Scholarly Expectations, Sue Norton

Articles

I teach English in a College of Arts and Tourism in an Institute of Technology in Dublin. The institute is one of the largest providers of higher education in Ireland, and it distinguishes itself with small-class sizes, community outreach and engagement, and excellence in teaching. It is, as its name indicates, an institute of technology, but it has aspirations to become a University.

My institute has, no differently than many other organisations of higher learning, sought to boost its reputation for research. It favours research with a capital R, meaning research that conforms to the usual higher education rhetoric surrounding …