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Title: Why not academia?---The streamlined career choice process of Black African women engineers : a grounded theory study
Creator: Mlambo, Yeukai Angela
Date: 2017
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Black African women are grossly underrepresented as academic staff in engineering programs at South African universities. The problem is exacerbated at historically White institutions (HWI) where Black women are simply absent as engineering research and teaching staff. The absence of Black African women in the academy occurs despite Black African women enrolling and graduating with engineering postgraduate degrees making them eligible for academic jobs. Furthermore, despite Black African...
Show moreBlack African women are grossly underrepresented as academic staff in engineering programs at South African universities. The problem is exacerbated at historically White institutions (HWI) where Black women are simply absent as engineering research and teaching staff. The absence of Black African women in the academy occurs despite Black African women enrolling and graduating with engineering postgraduate degrees making them eligible for academic jobs. Furthermore, despite Black African women representing the largest population in South Africa at 41% of the population overall, and affirmative action policies in place, engineering academic spaces remain predominantly White and male, not representative of the country's population. In fact White women are overrepresented in engineering academe and in some cases White women are the only female presence in engineering higher education employment. If Black African women are graduating with engineering degrees why are they not equally represented in engineering academe as their White female counterparts? How can the absence of Black African women engineering academics be explained? I use Charmaz's constructivist grounded theory (CGT) to understand the career choice processes of Black African engineering alumni women in South Africa to explain why their career choices thus far have not included the academy. Approaching the research from a social constructivist paradigm, loosely guided by a conceptual framework of African feminism(s) and CGT, and borrowing from life history interview methods this study addresses the underrepresentation of Black African women in engineering academe. Findings indicate Black African women's career choices in engineering are driven by prospects of socio-economic mobility and family/community responsibilities, a product of historical circumstances during apartheid that created social inequalities with Black families relegated to lower socio-economic statuses. In this study career choices were heavily influenced by teachers in pre-tertiary schooling, student academic competencies in mathematics and science, and industry practices that included providing bursary funds to only support engineering higher education endeavors, thereby dictating to students from low income households which careers to pursue especially in cases where the absence of such funding meant one would not be able to afford university costs. The academy was not viewed as a place of work seen instead as a transitory space. The image of the academy as made up of older White males also created the perception that it was not a place for Black women. The combination of the factors influencing career choices in school and the image of the academy as an unwelcoming space for Black women explains Black women's absence in South African engineering academia. Postsecondary institutional leaders should work on changing the image of the academy and marketing it as a career option for students in pre-tertiary and postsecondary education. Institutional culture and representation needs to reflect the diverse student population while actively working to ensure all students, academic and administrative staff feels welcome and valued. More importantly financial resources need to be made available and leveraged to support Black African women's education in a bursary-style format to encourage more Black women to follow academic career pathways.
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Title: Wiener-chaos analysis on Bayesian models with applications in agriculture and climatology
Creator: Wang, Han
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Understanding the challenges to increasing maize productivity in sub-Saharan Africa has important implications for policies to reduce national and global food insecurity. There is insufficient research on the key agronomic and environmental factors that influence maize yield in a smallholder-farm environment. We implement a Bayesian analysis with longitudinal household survey data covering 1,197 plots among 320 farms in central Malawi. The results reveal a high positive association between a...
Show moreUnderstanding the challenges to increasing maize productivity in sub-Saharan Africa has important implications for policies to reduce national and global food insecurity. There is insufficient research on the key agronomic and environmental factors that influence maize yield in a smallholder-farm environment. We implement a Bayesian analysis with longitudinal household survey data covering 1,197 plots among 320 farms in central Malawi. The results reveal a high positive association between a leaf chlorophyll indicator and yield, with significance levels exceeding 95% Bayesian credibility at all sites, and the posterior mean of the regression coefficient ranging from 28% to 42% on a relative scale. A parasitic weed, Striga asiatica, is the variable that negatively associated with yield of high intensity. The impact of rainfall varies by site and season, either directly or indirectly. We conclude that the determinants preventing striga infestation and enhancing nitrogen fertility will lead to higher maize yield in Malawi. To improve plant nitrogen status, fertilizer is effective at higher-productivity sites, whereas soil carbon and organic inputs are important at marginal sites. Uniquely, the Bayesian approach allows differentiation of response by site for a modest-sample-size study. Considering the biophysical constraints, our findings highlight area-specific recommendations as well as management strategies for crop yield.Quantifying the sensitivity of climate forcing factors such as greenhouse gas concentration and solar irradiation, is critical in comprehending the evolution of the Earth's climate. There exists a variety of statistical methods to reconstruct temperature in the past, but the same is not true for projecting future temperatures. We produce a multi-level stochastic model to systematically reconstruct and project the northern-hemisphere average temperature anomalies, for the past millennium (1000-1999) and the next century (2019-2100), by coordinating with climatic forcings and natural proxies from diverse data sources. Additive noises are applied to the model to capture the unaccounted variability. Model parameters are estimated using Bayesian-inference techniques, resulting in complete distributional information. Reconstructions with memory features (no, short, long) are evaluated through selected validation metrics, and the results constitute evidence in favor of using a moderate-memory length. For the purpose of temperature projections, we incorporate realistic climate forcing uncertainties to Year 2100. Similarly, we include an uncertainty component on top of using representative carbon pathway scenarios for global greenhouse gases. Our projections' posterior means show a great level of agreement with the 95% confidence interval provided by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, while featuring differences in most cases.The models described above are both implemented via Gibbs sampler with 10,000 iterations. In order to avoid its potential computational heft, we combine the use of maximum likelihood estimators for regression elements with properties of Wiener chaos, to approximate the predictive samples with specific chaos distributions that do not require sampling via numerics. Some of the approximations' statistics, such as error variances are also explicitly provided. The precision are relatively high (nearly 0.1% and 0.5%) depending on dimension circumstances. This allows practitioners to estimate approximation accuracy and convergence rates in practice, with no resort to heavy computational demands.
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Title: Wireless sensors for enhancing food supply chain visibility
Creator: Karuppuswami, Saranraj
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "The demand for providing safe and quality food from the farm to the plate had led to the development of sensor technologies for quality control and real-time end-to-end monitoring of food along the supply chain. These advanced sensors serve as the first line of defense against food-borne outbreaks, economically motivated adulteration, and food contamination preventing illness, deaths, huge economic losses and promotes global health and well-being. The key goal is to ensure that the food...
Show more"The demand for providing safe and quality food from the farm to the plate had led to the development of sensor technologies for quality control and real-time end-to-end monitoring of food along the supply chain. These advanced sensors serve as the first line of defense against food-borne outbreaks, economically motivated adulteration, and food contamination preventing illness, deaths, huge economic losses and promotes global health and well-being. The key goal is to ensure that the food reaching the fork meets the highest safety standards by promoting tamper-free sustainable practices along the food supply chain. Real-time food monitoring also prevents unnecessary wastage due to spoilage or good food being thrown out due to misconception of the labeled expiration date. In this dissertation, a number of RF passive wireless sensing approaches are presented that allows simultaneous tracking and quality monitoring of packaged food products as it moves along the supply chain. The end goal is to develop a low cost, long range, battery-free, and real time sensor tag which can detect multiple parameters of the packaged food simultaneously and at the same time provide the identification information. In order to realize a multi-functional sensor tag, a number of sensing approaches are developed targeting four different types of food related quality control challenges; Adulteration, Contamination, Wastage, and Spoilage. To identify and eliminate food adulteration, magnetoelastic based dielectric and viscosity sensors are developed. These hybrid sensors are shorter range sensors and a number of liquid food items such as milk and oil are characterized. A sensing approach that utilizes 3D printed RF sensors coupled to a microfludic channel for liquid profling by monitoring the dielectric constant is developed for food quality detection. Next, to prevent contamination, capacitance based short range inductor-capacitor (LC) tanks are developed. An interdisciplinary approach which is a confluence of carbohydrate coated nano particles capturing bacteria in liquid food with RF detection is developed. A common method to prevent wastage or spoilage is to detect and profile aroma emitted from food. Adsorption, absorption, and capillary condensation based short range as well as long range sensors that monitor the dielectric constant or the conductivity of the target food are developed. First, a short range capillary condensation based sensor is demonstrated for volatile profiling using a porous substrate and an LC tank. This is followed by demonstrating sensitivity and specificity of different thin-film coated short range sensors that detect vapors that are directly related to the spoilage index of the food. Finally, a long range passive sensor integrated with ID is demonstrated for detecting Ammonia in packaged food. The developed sensor is compatible with existing RFID infrastructure and is capable of digitizing the sensor information along with the identification information for transmission. Overall, the work demonstrates that a passive multi-modal sensor provides additional information about products moving across the supply chain transforming the tracebility-centric supply chain into a value-centric one with increased visibility and empowers the different stake holders with the quality information as the product moves along the supply chain."--Pages ii-iii.
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Title: Wishi stories : rhetorical strategies of survivance and continuance in Oklahoma Cherokee foodways
Creator: Shade-Johnson, Jaquetta
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The author employs a description of the Cherokee practices of foraging and cooking wishi (hen-of-the-woods mushrooms), a Cherokee delicacy, to argue that American Indians use foodways to survive and resist the ongoing project of settler colonialism, and to carry culture forward for future generations. Using a cultural rhetorics methodology of story, she gathered the oral histories of three tradition-bearers from her own tribal community who shared with her their experiences of foraging and...
Show moreThe author employs a description of the Cherokee practices of foraging and cooking wishi (hen-of-the-woods mushrooms), a Cherokee delicacy, to argue that American Indians use foodways to survive and resist the ongoing project of settler colonialism, and to carry culture forward for future generations. Using a cultural rhetorics methodology of story, she gathered the oral histories of three tradition-bearers from her own tribal community who shared with her their experiences of foraging and cooking wishi.
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Title: Women writing men : genre, narrative authority, and "mind writing" 1752-1817
Creator: Kane, Jessica
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "I argue that women writers of the long eighteenth century used readers' expectations about genre to reimagine their forms through expanding the socially- and narratively-limited roles of female characters. My chapters demonstrate how the female protagonists in four different texts---Charlotte Lennox's Female Quixote, Frances Burney's Evelina, Elizabeth Inchbald's Animal Magnetism, and Jane Austen's Persuasion---take on the attributes of a narrator and author by creating both their male love...
Show more"I argue that women writers of the long eighteenth century used readers' expectations about genre to reimagine their forms through expanding the socially- and narratively-limited roles of female characters. My chapters demonstrate how the female protagonists in four different texts---Charlotte Lennox's Female Quixote, Frances Burney's Evelina, Elizabeth Inchbald's Animal Magnetism, and Jane Austen's Persuasion---take on the attributes of a narrator and author by creating both their male love interests and their stories through what I call "mind writing." "Mind writing" takes the "mind reading" of cognitive literary studies back to textuality, exploring the ways that one character asserts the thoughts, feelings, actions, or intentions of another in ways analogous to a narrator. "Mind writing" another character in these texts allows the protagonist to control where the story is going and what it is doing, ultimately allowing her to parallel the work of an author. The effect is both social and narratological, as these women characters transcend the usual definitions and limitations of both "woman" and "character." Since all four of my texts work within established genre logics and patterns, breaking these expectations via "mind writing" also means that readers must re-evaluate their own positions in relation to the text. Readers of genre fiction believe they know what they are getting when they pick up a text within that field, whether in the eighteenth century or today. By flipping the script on their readers Lennox, Burney, Inchbald, and Austen rewrite their audiences just as their female characters rewrite their stories. And because generic conventions often put the reader in a position of power, either because they can pass judgement on the characters or because they know something the characters do not, refashioning the genres puts readers in a subordinate position, re-evaluating our assumptions about the stories, ourselves, and the world on which the story comments."--Pages ii-iii.
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Title: Word segmentation for Japanese and English speakers : language-independent and language-dependent cues
Creator: Uehara, Sayako
Date: 2019
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: "Phonotactic knowledge and experience-independent knowledge have both been argued to cue word segmentation in prior studies (e.g. Ettlinger, Finn, & Hudson Kam, 2011; McQueen, 1998). This dissertation attempts to compare the effect of two types of cues, language-independent and language-dependent knowledge, on word segmentation. The specific cues selected for each type were the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) as a language-independent cue and geminates (double consonants) as a language...
Show more"Phonotactic knowledge and experience-independent knowledge have both been argued to cue word segmentation in prior studies (e.g. Ettlinger, Finn, & Hudson Kam, 2011; McQueen, 1998). This dissertation attempts to compare the effect of two types of cues, language-independent and language-dependent knowledge, on word segmentation. The specific cues selected for each type were the Sonority Sequencing Principle (SSP) as a language-independent cue and geminates (double consonants) as a language-dependent cue. The effectiveness of the cues was determined by two groups of speakers with different language background, native Japanese and native American English speakers. The two languages were chosen particularly because they contrast in two aspects relevant to these specific cues: (1) Japanese has a simple syllable structure, no consonant clusters (except for consonant-glide sequences), while English has an extensive set of bi-consonantal clusters and limited tri-consonantal clusters. (2) Japanese has a phonemic consonant length contrast (singletons vs. geminates), while English lacks such a contrast. Details of (1) are relevant for testing the SSP, and those of (2) for testing geminates as a cue to word segmentation. The results from three artificial language learning experiments (Experiment 1, 2, and 3) consistently indicate, contrary to prior claims, that the (language-independent) SSP is not a reliable cue to segment speech strings for both language groups, regardless of the difference in syllable structure. On the other hand, knowledge about language-dependent geminates seems to be a good predictor as to how speakers segment words from a string with word-internal geminates (Experiment 4 and 5). Japanese speakers, whose language has a phonemic contrast between geminates and singleton consonants, consistently segmented the speech string so that geminates were retained within words, whereas English speakers without such a contrast in their native language tended to break up the string at geminates. Moreover, the results indicate that listeners are able to rely heavily on the transitional probability (TP) of the syllables to segment the string, primarily when the structure of the stimulus words in the target speech string is simple. From the results of this study, language-dependent knowledge seems to be more effective than language-independent knowledge in word segmentation."--Pages ii-iii.
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Title: Work Satisfaction Through Person-Environment Fit : Integrating Ability, Personality, and Interest
Creator: Walker, Ross Ian
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Person-environment fit research typically examines one domain at a time (e.g., values) which leaves career choosers and counselors uninformed about how to weigh different types of fit. With a national sample of high school students followed several years after graduation, this study pursues two main goals: (1) map the associations between ability, personality, and interest domains, and (2) assess the relative importance of fit across these domains in the prediction of future work satisfaction...
Show morePerson-environment fit research typically examines one domain at a time (e.g., values) which leaves career choosers and counselors uninformed about how to weigh different types of fit. With a national sample of high school students followed several years after graduation, this study pursues two main goals: (1) map the associations between ability, personality, and interest domains, and (2) assess the relative importance of fit across these domains in the prediction of future work satisfaction. Results echo previous findings on the primacy of the environment in PE fit and the utility of Prediger’s (1982) meta-dimensions in an integrative framework for individual differences. While the domains showed differential predictive validity (i.e., abilities > personality > interests), the nature of those fit relationships varied substantially, both within and between domains, with scant evidence of strict congruence effects overall. Implications for theory and practice are discussed with an emphasis on job tasks and complexity.
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Title: YOUNG COLLEGE MEN’S BELIEFS ABOUT NONPROFESSIONAL HELP-SEEKING FOR DEPRESSION
Creator: Na, Hana
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Low rates of psychological help seeking among young males with depression havereceived significant research attention. However, most prior studies have focused on why the population seeks or does not seek psychological help from formal/professional sources. The present study examined the beliefs of 193 young male college students to predict their intentions to seek psychological help from friends, the most preferred source of help for this group. The study assessed the constructs of the...
Show moreLow rates of psychological help seeking among young males with depression havereceived significant research attention. However, most prior studies have focused on why the population seeks or does not seek psychological help from formal/professional sources. The present study examined the beliefs of 193 young male college students to predict their intentions to seek psychological help from friends, the most preferred source of help for this group. The study assessed the constructs of the reasoned action approach and their underlying beliefs, taking two possible contributing factors to men’s lower help-seeking into account: masculine ideology and perception of depression as masculine or feminine. Results revealed that intention to seek help from friends for depression was associated only with injunctive and descriptive norms and their underlying beliefs surrounding three referents: friends (injunctive and descriptive), fathers (injunctive only), and other family members (descriptive only). Relevant normative beliefs surrounding those referents were not sensitive to young male college students’ masculine ideology and its interaction with depression perception. These findings, in conjunction with the results of the audience segment analyses indicating the importance of the opinions and behaviors of specific referent groups, suggest that injunctive normative beliefs with father and friend referents and descriptive normative beliefs with friend referents are key beliefs that persuasive health messages should focus more on to promote help-seeking from friends among young male college students with depressive disorders, regardless of their adherence to traditional masculine norms and perception of depression as masculine or feminine.
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Title: Youth as Teacher Educators : Supporting Preservice Teachers in Developing Youth-Centered, Equity-Oriented Science Teaching Practices
Creator: Nazar, Christina Restrepo
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: In this study, I conducted three separate, but interrelated studies that examine the ways preservice teachers (PSTs) generatively developed youth-centered, equity-oriented pedagogical imaginaries in their methods courses and how they enacted these practice(s) in their field experiences. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand how and in what ways a science methods course can support PSTs in the critical uptake of youth (and community) knowledge(s) and practice(s) and how classroom...
Show moreIn this study, I conducted three separate, but interrelated studies that examine the ways preservice teachers (PSTs) generatively developed youth-centered, equity-oriented pedagogical imaginaries in their methods courses and how they enacted these practice(s) in their field experiences. The purpose of this dissertation is to understand how and in what ways a science methods course can support PSTs in the critical uptake of youth (and community) knowledge(s) and practice(s) and how classroom communities in the field can shift/shape these enactments. In this work, I foreground youth counternarratives of the culture of power in science as a critical part of learning to teach of science for PSTs –this study has never been done before. The first study explores how there is a culture of power in science education, particularly in the ways of knowing, doing and being that are legitimized differently from youth’s in-school and out-of-school experiences. This legitimization affects the ways youth feel recognized/positioned and ultimately supported to take-action in their science education. Using counternarratives of the culture of power in science as a framework, in this study, I worked with youth from an after-school green energy program to co-develop digital multimodal cases of science learning. In the second study, I examined the ways seventeen PSTs, in their elementary science methods course, were supported in developing youth-centered, equity-oriented imaginaries for teaching science to diverse learners. Using the framework imaginaries as practice, I wanted to know 1) in what ways do PSTs take up youth knowledge(s) and practice(s) in science/engineering learning and 2) how this up-take inform the development of youth-centered, equity-oriented teaching practice(s) in ways PSTs imagine enacting their future teaching experiences. In the third study, I followed three preservice elementary science teachers in a six-week engineering teaching experience at Liberty Spanish Immersion School in Great Lakes City, Michigan. Using the framework enactments as practice, I aimed to understand 1) in what ways do preservice elementary science teachers enact youth-centered, equity-oriented teaching practice(s) in an engineering unit focused on teaching engineering design for sustainable communities and 2) how are these enactments shaped by local contentious practice. Implications for this dissertation study include designing a methods course alongside field experiences in support of critically engaging PSTs with cultural/historical/social community underpinnings of youth in equitably consequential ways.
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Title: [Delta]2079-tetrahydrocannabinol-mediated suppression of the Interferon-alpha (IFNalpha) response by plasmacytoid dendritic cells and IFNalpha-mediated activation of T cells in healthy and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infected human subjects
Creator: Henriquez, Joseph Edgar
Date: 2018
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the primary psychoactive cannabinoid congener in Cannabis sativa and is a well characterized modulator of immune activation. In murine models, treatment with THC can exacerbate viral and bacterial infection, in part, by suppression of the inflammatory cytokine response. One of the key classes of cytokines suppressed by THC is type I interferons (IFN), a group of cytokines consisting of IFNα and IFNβ. The primary source of IFNα during acute antiviral immune...
Show moreΔ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the primary psychoactive cannabinoid congener in Cannabis sativa and is a well characterized modulator of immune activation. In murine models, treatment with THC can exacerbate viral and bacterial infection, in part, by suppression of the inflammatory cytokine response. One of the key classes of cytokines suppressed by THC is type I interferons (IFN), a group of cytokines consisting of IFNα and IFNβ. The primary source of IFNα during acute antiviral immune responses is the Plasmacytoid Dendritic Cell (pDC), which can secrete 1000-fold more IFNα than other circulating peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). Paradoxically, patients infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a chronic viral infection that causes immunodeficiency via infection and depletion of CD4+ T cells, have fewer circulating pDC with a reduced capacity to secrete IFNα. Furthermore, circulating pDC number has been correlated with CD4+ T cell number and treatment with IFNα can reduce HIV-mediated CD4+ T cell depletion. Conversely, hyperactivation of pDC is associated with T cell exhaustion and is implicated in HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). Interestingly, many HIV patients utilize medicinal cannabinoids to combat the effects of chronic HIV infection. The focus of this project was to determine if IFNα-mediated stimulation of T-cells can be suppressed by THC by testing the following hypothesis: THC will suppress TLR-9-dependent activation of pDC, subsequent efficacy of pDC-mediated T cell activation, and CD8+ T cell-mediated activation of astrocytes. These studies revealed that CpG-ODN-induced IFNα secretion and expression of CD83, a costimulatory molecule, by pDC is suppressed by THC in a concentration dependent manner. Furthermore, key intracellular signaling events required for inflammatory cytokine secretion by pDC were suppressed by treatment with THC and CBR2-specific agonists in pDC from healthy donors. Additionally, pDC from HIV+ donors were more sensitive to THC-mediated suppression than pDC from healthy donors. Treatment with THC also inhibited IFNα-mediated activation of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells from healthy and HIV+ donors. Specifically, treatment with THC diminished IFNα-induced IL-7R expression, cognate signaling, and subsequent proliferation. Interestingly, and in contrast to the results in pDC, T cells from HIV+ donors were less sensitive to the suppressive effects of THC. Finally, stimulation by CD3/CD28/IFNα induced the secretion of IFNγ and TNFα by CD8+ T cells from healthy donors. Further, IFNγ and TNFα induced secretion of inflammatory cytokines by U251 astrocytes. Coculture of CD8+ T cells with U251 astrocytes and direct stimulation of U251 astrocytes with recombinant TNFα and IFNγ revealed that treatment with THC reduced both the activation and secretion of cytokines from CD8+ T cells and the subsequent cytokine-mediated stimulation of the U251 astrocytes. Collectively, these studies have provided evidence for the use of cannabinoids in ablating the type of neuroimmune interactions which can lead to HAND by demonstrating that THC can suppress the activation of pDC, and subsequent activation of T cells and astrocytes.
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Title: “BLACK, SET, SPIKE : ” AN ANALYSIS OF THE RACIAL EXPERIENCES OF BLACK FEMALE VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS IN EUROPE
Creator: Fry, Jen
Date: 2022
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Sports and geography each profoundly impact the lived and professional experiences of Black female athletes. These experiences also significantly shape their personal and professional identities, as both deal with the occupation of space and the way people move and interact in geographic spaces. Little attention has been paid by the academic and athletic communities to the lived experiences of professional athletes who play abroad. Currently, minimal research has been conducted on the...
Show moreSports and geography each profoundly impact the lived and professional experiences of Black female athletes. These experiences also significantly shape their personal and professional identities, as both deal with the occupation of space and the way people move and interact in geographic spaces. Little attention has been paid by the academic and athletic communities to the lived experiences of professional athletes who play abroad. Currently, minimal research has been conducted on the experiences of Black female volleyball players (BFVPs) who have played in Europe and how race, gender identity, space, and sports affected their lived experiences abroad based on their identities. This dissertation utilized qualitative methods to analyze the racial experiences of Black women who have played professional volleyball in Europe and whose experiences have not been documented within studies of geography—or, more specifically, within perspectives of Black feminist thought, Black geographies, and theory of racial space. The goal of this dissertation was twofold: (a) explore how intersecting racial and gendered identities, place, and space influenced the racism encountered by U.S. BFVPs in Europe; and (b) provide a source of information for future Black female college athletes who want to play professionally but do not know what they do not know. By developing a body of literature within sports geography on the overlooked and unresearched experiences of professional Black female athletes (BFAs), I contributed to the ever-increasing body of literature on BFAs across various disciplines. Some of the discoveries from my research were that BFVPs experienced racism in ways similar to what they experienced within the United States, such as being oversexualized, expected to play up racially stereotypical views of Black women, and having their hair touched without their consent. They also experienced racism in wildly different ways, such as being spit on, teammates withholding English skills, and accusations of prostitution. When conducting my research, a qualitative approach of a brief demographic survey of 15 questions was sent to over 100 current and former BFVPs; I used these data to narrow down participants. There was a response rate of more than 50%, which resulted in 60 women filling out the survey; of that population, 51 checked yes to interest in being interviewed, and nine checked no to denote no interest in being interviewed. Based on criteria of the number of years played, countries played in, and teams played for, I narrowed the sample to 18 participants willing to participate in qualitative interviews. The theoretical frameworks of Black feminist thought, Black geographies, and theory of racial space were used to understand the experiences of the participants and helped me create a new conceptual framework called critical Black feminist sports geographies.
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Title: “I JUST NEED THE PLAYERS” : HOW URBAN SCHOOL LEADERS NAVIGATE RESOURCE CONSTRAINT THROUGH EXTERNAL PARTNERSHIPS.
Creator: Gilzene, Alounso A.
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This study examines urban school leaders and their decision-making around external partnership relations in resource-constrained contexts. I employed a case study design guided by sense-making and cultural responsiveness to highlight behaviors that contribute to successful partnership work (Ganon-Shilon & Schecter, 2017; Khalifa, Gooden & Davis, 2016). To do this work, I conducted this research in three predominantly Black schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Using in...
Show moreThis study examines urban school leaders and their decision-making around external partnership relations in resource-constrained contexts. I employed a case study design guided by sense-making and cultural responsiveness to highlight behaviors that contribute to successful partnership work (Ganon-Shilon & Schecter, 2017; Khalifa, Gooden & Davis, 2016). To do this work, I conducted this research in three predominantly Black schools in the Detroit Public Schools Community District. Using in-depth phenomenological interviewing (Seidman, 2007), I worked with three Black school leaders, and four members of the Volunteer Corps volunteer organization to understand the inner workings of the partnership relationship and how different factors influenced implementation school-wide. Volunteer Corps is an organization that works with urban school districts to provide 10-15 full-time volunteers to work in district-identified schools. The school leaders talked at length about their process of incorporating other external organizations into their schools’ operational framework. The findings from this study suggest that school leaders lean heavily on sensemaking processes when working with external partnership organizations. School leaders have to piece together an understanding based on information they gather from both formal and informal sources. Also, school leaders in the study discussed how their preparation to become principals had some gaps regarding external partnership work. Some findings suggest that when school leaders maintain partnerships with organizations that provide volunteers, the racial makeup of volunteers has a variety of effects on predominantly Black school contexts. For example, the school leaders in the study had to devote additional time to conduct cultural responsiveness training to prepare white volunteers to work with Black students. Last, school leaders named several benefits and costs associated with partnership work. While some benefits seemed obvious (i.e. additional money, additional human capital), there was some complexity and nuance in the benefits and costs. I analyzed these findings through a lens of sensemaking, to understand the process, and Critical Race Theory, to speak to the context of the communities and schools. Principals can learn from this study because it provides examples of the ways school leaders in urban school contexts have navigated the work of external partnership work. Leadership preparation programs could also benefit from understanding the mechanics of external partnership work to better prepare prospective principal candidates for the work of engaging with and maintaining resources from organizations. This study could also inform policymakers, as the findings have implications for the notion of equity, and the conditions that cause the creation of partnerships with external partnership organizations.
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Title: “IMFUNDO” THE STUDENT; THE EVOLUTION ADAPTATION, AND PRACTICE OF African CENTERED EDUCATION AT THE KARA HERITAGE INSTITUTE IN PRETORIA SOUTH AFRICA
Creator: George III, Clarence
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: ABSTRACT“IMFUNDO” THE STUDENT; THE EVOLUTION ADAPTATION, AND PRACTICE OF AFRICAN CENTERED EDUCATION AT THE KARA HERITAGE INSTITUTE IN PRETORIA SOUTH AFRICAByClarence George III This dissertation study (Imfundo) seeks to explore, the practice and evolution of African centered education at the Kara Heritage Institute from 2016 to 2019. This project seeks to study African centered education at Kara focusing on how the Heritage Institute instills notions of African consciousness, notions of Pan...
Show moreABSTRACT“IMFUNDO” THE STUDENT; THE EVOLUTION ADAPTATION, AND PRACTICE OF AFRICAN CENTERED EDUCATION AT THE KARA HERITAGE INSTITUTE IN PRETORIA SOUTH AFRICAByClarence George III This dissertation study (Imfundo) seeks to explore, the practice and evolution of African centered education at the Kara Heritage Institute from 2016 to 2019. This project seeks to study African centered education at Kara focusing on how the Heritage Institute instills notions of African consciousness, notions of Pan-Africanism, structural pedagogy, and culturally relevant pedagogy. This research project evaluated and observed African-centered education in South Africa at the Kara Heritage institute in Pretoria South Africa. Over 4 years of data collected has yielded a great deal of information about South Africa's unique approach to education, culture, and heritage restoration.
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Title: “PALABRA EMPEÑADA” : LA CONFIGURACIÓN INTELECTUAL DE GABRIELA MISTRAL A TRAVÉS DE SUS CARTAS, 1914-1957
Creator: Romero, Lau
Date: 2022
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Gabriela Mistral (1889 – 1957) fue la primera mujer latinoamericana en obtener el Premio Nobel de Literatura, en 1945. Su reconocimiento como una fue tardío en su país natal, Chile, donde recibió el Premio Nacional de Literatura en 1951. Esta tesis investiga la correspondencia privada de Gabriela Mistral durante el período 1914 a 1957 para buscar otra explicación al fenómeno mistraliano fuera de su innegable talento. En otras palabras, esta investigación se centra en aquellas estrategias que...
Show moreGabriela Mistral (1889 – 1957) fue la primera mujer latinoamericana en obtener el Premio Nobel de Literatura, en 1945. Su reconocimiento como una fue tardío en su país natal, Chile, donde recibió el Premio Nacional de Literatura en 1951. Esta tesis investiga la correspondencia privada de Gabriela Mistral durante el período 1914 a 1957 para buscar otra explicación al fenómeno mistraliano fuera de su innegable talento. En otras palabras, esta investigación se centra en aquellas estrategias que la escritora despliega dentro del campo cultural tanto chileno como internacional (Pierre Bourdieu 1990; Toril Moi 1999; Gonzalo Catalán 1985) para asegurar su sitio dentro del mismo, expandir sus redes intelectuales y afectivas, y proteger su continuidad a través de la obtención de capital simbólico. La organización de la tesis, compuesta en cuatro capítulos, gira en torno a “nudos” en los cuales la trayectoria profesional de Mistral –y su capital acumulado– se pone en riesgo y/o se refuerzan a través del establecimiento de alianzas, amistades y favores. De allí también que la hipótesis principal se organice en torno a la “palabra empeñada”, como moneda de intercambio que posibilita no sólo diversas performances por parte de la autora, sino también por parte de sus interlocutores.
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Title: “THE UNIVERSITY OF THE VILLAGE” : THE UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA AND THE MAKING OF POST-INDEPENDENCE NIGERIA
Creator: Stevenson , Russell Wade
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN, the first indigenous university in Nigeria and the first land grant university in Africa. This dissertation argues that UNN represented an innovative experiment in African higher education by expanding higher education to the general populace rather than the colonially privileged elite. However, its construction drew upon patronage politics and taxation regimes that expropriated funding at the same time other regions...
Show moreABSTRACT This dissertation examines the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN, the first indigenous university in Nigeria and the first land grant university in Africa. This dissertation argues that UNN represented an innovative experiment in African higher education by expanding higher education to the general populace rather than the colonially privileged elite. However, its construction drew upon patronage politics and taxation regimes that expropriated funding at the same time other regions faced education taxes. Resistance to the University’s construction reflected local sentiments of inequitable distribution of tax resources throughout Nigeria’s Eastern Region. The University also served as a mechanism in post-independence Nigerian geopolitics: as a mechanism for removing the influence of the British-established University College, Ibadan and British educational models more generally. The University of Nigeria, Nsukka would be, as Taiye Selasi and Achille Mbembe have phrased it, an “Afro-politan” institution—porous and all-encompassing of knowledge systems throughout the globe. During the Nigeria-Biafra war, UNN faced sustained wartime damage—damage from it could not easily recover. The Nigeria-Biafra war laid the groundwork for a period of sustained infrastructural decay and internal resistance, even as the Nigerian federal government enjoyed larger access to oil revenue. This dissertation examines what makes African institutions “indigenous” and how UNN represented the halting transformation from coloniality to indigeneity in the post-independence Nigerian nation-state.
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