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- Title
- "What do I want to do today?" : state vocational interests, outcomes, and predictors of variation
- Creator
- Bradburn, Jacob
- Date
- 2020
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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Current theory and research in the organizational sciences considers vocational interests to be stable trait preferences, neglecting any short-term within-person variability that occurs. This research project posits that vocational interests display non-trivial state variability, that these state vocational interests differ theoretically from other extant interest constructs, and details a program of research in which the usefulness and nature of these state vocational interests are evaluated...
Show moreCurrent theory and research in the organizational sciences considers vocational interests to be stable trait preferences, neglecting any short-term within-person variability that occurs. This research project posits that vocational interests display non-trivial state variability, that these state vocational interests differ theoretically from other extant interest constructs, and details a program of research in which the usefulness and nature of these state vocational interests are evaluated. Results suggest that state vocational interests display variability of different forms day-to-day, and this variability cannot be attributed to measurement error alone. Individuals were found to differ in the degree to which their interests vary, with several individual difference variables predicting greater variability. State vocational interest congruence was predictive of daily positive affect, intrinsic motivation, engagement, and perseverance. However, state vocational interest congruence did not generally predict daily negative affect. Tentative support was found for situational interests predicting next day state vocational interests and for state vocational interests predicting situational interests, suggesting a positive feedback loop between these constructs. Theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed.
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- Title
- "Wellness Starts with Me" : Choir Teacher Wellness Experiences and Perceptions
- Creator
- McNickle, Colleen Bartimoccia
- Date
- 2021
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of choir teachers in a Collaborative Teacher Study Group (CTSG) as they met to discuss wellness in music education and collaborated to include principles and strategies of wellness in their teaching amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Research questions included (1) How did CTSG members describe their perceptions and experiences of wellness in music education? (2) How did CTSG experiences impact participants’ professional practice? (3) How...
Show moreThe purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of choir teachers in a Collaborative Teacher Study Group (CTSG) as they met to discuss wellness in music education and collaborated to include principles and strategies of wellness in their teaching amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Research questions included (1) How did CTSG members describe their perceptions and experiences of wellness in music education? (2) How did CTSG experiences impact participants’ professional practice? (3) How did CTSG experiences impact participants’ perceptions and expectations of wellness in music education? This instrumental case study examined the case of one CTSG comprised of five choral music educators. As the COVID-19 pandemic affected nearly every aspect of teacher and student wellness, the context of COVID-19 was of special interest. I began data collection with two preliminary interviews in July, wherein participants shared their teaching histories, philosophies, and styles, discussed the impacts of COVID-19 on their teaching and personal lives, and suggested wellness discussion topics for CTSG meetings. The CTSG then met virtually for seven meetings during the months of August and September of 2020. Participants completed weekly check-ins through November and took part in one final interview in November of 2020. Participants shared a desire for wellness resources, displayed eagerness to implement wellness plans for self and students, and perceived a toll on their mental health due to the ever-present uncertainty of teaching conditions during COVID-19. The CTSG served as a place of community, commiseration, and collaboration, as participants studied wellness topics such as self-care, boundaries, emotional endurance, social and emotional learning, mindfulness, physical wellness, and music as wellness. Teachers workshopped and collaborated on policies, classroom expectations, lesson plans, and personal wellness plans which they then implemented in their classrooms and personal lives.
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- Title
- "Tumesahaulika" : Performing Development in Post-Conflict Mtwara
- Creator
- Elbin, Rachel E.
- Date
- 2021
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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Following the discovery of sizable offshore petroleum deposits off the southeastern coast of Mtwara Region in Tanzania, state and private-sector representatives assured Mtwara residents that they would see intensive government investment in local infrastructure and industry. In light of these pledges, Mtwara residents anticipated that gas refineries, processing plants, and new infrastructure would soon bring employment opportunities to the historically underdeveloped southeast. By 2012,...
Show moreFollowing the discovery of sizable offshore petroleum deposits off the southeastern coast of Mtwara Region in Tanzania, state and private-sector representatives assured Mtwara residents that they would see intensive government investment in local infrastructure and industry. In light of these pledges, Mtwara residents anticipated that gas refineries, processing plants, and new infrastructure would soon bring employment opportunities to the historically underdeveloped southeast. By 2012, however, state plans to transport the gas from Mtwara to metropolitan Dar es Salaam via a pipeline threatened expectations of regional revitalization. Following official state confirmation of the pipeline in May 2013, residents mounted a series of demonstrations to oppose the government plan from which they had largely been excluded. In response to the protest, the central government deployed the national guard in an unprecedented exercise of military power. In this dissertation, I argue that the 2013 protest reflect the existence and influence of two national development imaginaries that evoke conflicting understandings of development, citizenship, and the state. On one hand, many government workers and CSO officers promoted images of the state as unbeholden to citizen demands for widespread, enduring development as entailed within the neoliberal-extractivist imaginary. In line with the social-development imaginary, however, Mtwara residents interpreted government promises of natural gas wealth as state recognition for Mtwara’s sustained underdevelopment and past nationalistic sacrifices. Through their protests, Mtwara residents challenged the central government’s vision for national development through state authorization of global capital investment in natural resource extraction. Drawing from semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and focus group sessions conducted from February 2015 to March 2016 in Mtwara and Dar es Salaam, I trace Mtwara residents’ invocations of the two development imaginaries across three critical settings: the development work of three Mtwara-based civil society organizations; the bureaucratic procedure and protocol of local government offices; and residents’ memorialization of the 2013 violence. According to literature (Ferguson 2005, 2006), concentrated areas of global capital investment in extractive projects form enclaves, dis-embedded from the historical and moral contexts of their host countries. Communities in Mtwara, however, sought to complicate the production of a dis-embedded mineral enclave by continuing to make development claims on the state.
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- Title
- "They always wished to talk to everything" : recovering the border-walking mystics of Middle-Earth
- Creator
- Fontenot, Megan N.
- Date
- 2019
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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The stories of J.R.R. Tolkien overflow with references to the spiritual and the ecological. Often, however, scholars interpret these themes as inherently traditional: spirituality is boiled down to staunch Catholicism and an intellectual interest in paganism; radical environmentalism is translated into the conservative ideal of stewardship, an anthropocentrism that negates the vibrant co-dependency that enlivens Arda. This new exploration of Middle-earth's spirituality and materiality seeks...
Show moreThe stories of J.R.R. Tolkien overflow with references to the spiritual and the ecological. Often, however, scholars interpret these themes as inherently traditional: spirituality is boiled down to staunch Catholicism and an intellectual interest in paganism; radical environmentalism is translated into the conservative ideal of stewardship, an anthropocentrism that negates the vibrant co-dependency that enlivens Arda. This new exploration of Middle-earth's spirituality and materiality seeks to overcome these reductive tendencies by practicing a hospitable mode of critique: one which is open to a variety of voices, interpretations, and ways of being-in-the-world. In it, I deconstruct the term "intercessor" and rebuild it to refer to those persons who stand in the in-between, the gaps. I look at those persons who walk the borders and constantly call us to refocus our attention, to be accountable for our ethics of living. This reversal of our usual mode of attention is facilitated by a unique cast of characters, some of whom are quite popular among critics, and others of whom have often found themselves neglected or excluded. My purpose here is to provide an honest yet hopeful diagnosis of the communion of the spiritual and material, primarily through the lens of The Lord of the Rings, but also other texts as the need arises. Eventually we'll see that both the spiritualities and the environmentalisms represented in Middle-earth are not only often radical or confrontational, but also diverse, complex, and contradictory. In all, they call characters and readers alike into account: they demand a reassessment of the ethics of our being-in-the-world and aspire to a communion of all things, envisioning a riotous celebration of our entanglement in the great becoming-with of our world.
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- Title
- "The whole furshlugginer operation" : the Jewish comic book industry, 1933-1954
- Creator
- Mercier, Sebastian T.
- Date
- 2018
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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Over the course of the twentieth century, the comic book industry evolved from an amateur operation into a major institution of American popular culture. Comic books, once considered mere cultural ephemera or quite simply “junk,” became a major commodity business.The comic book industry emerged out of the pulp magazine industry. According to industry circulation data, new comic book releases increased from 22 in 1939 to 1125 titles by the end of 1945. Comic book scholars have yet to...
Show moreOver the course of the twentieth century, the comic book industry evolved from an amateur operation into a major institution of American popular culture. Comic books, once considered mere cultural ephemera or quite simply “junk,” became a major commodity business.The comic book industry emerged out of the pulp magazine industry. According to industry circulation data, new comic book releases increased from 22 in 1939 to 1125 titles by the end of 1945. Comic book scholars have yet to adequately explain the roots of this historical phenomenon, particularly its distinctly Jewish composition. Between the years of 1933 and 1954, the comic book industry operated as a successful distinct Jewish industry. The comic book industry emerged from the pulp magazine trade. Economic necessity, more than any other factor, attracted Jewish writers and artists to the nascent industry. Jewish publishers adopted many of the same business practices they inherited from the pulps. As second-generation Jews, these young men shared similar experiences growing up in New York City. Other creative industries actively practiced anti-Semitic hiring procedures. Many Jewish artists came to comic book work with very little professional experience in cartooning and scripting. The comic book industry allowed one to learn on the job. The cultural world comic books emerged out of was crucially important to the industry’s development. Comic strips, pulps, movies, and science fiction all inspired Jewish writers and artists. An exploration of the comic book industry’s working environment reveals how Jewish comic book writers, artists, editors, and publishers simultaneously created a space for themselves as Jews while developing successful comic book titles and characters. While many of them created an environment suitable to workplace camaraderie and collaboration, there were several areas of conflict. An investigation of these areas of conflict show how Jews responded to workplace disagreements, management exploitation, and battles over artistic credit. In particular, the practice of ghosting art remains a particularly contentious issue. Jewish writers and artists in the comic book industry did not form or join a labor union in order to protect their rights and interests. A consideration of this development shows that they stood in stark contrast to other industries with a large Jewish workforce. Finally, the examination of World War II through the comic book industry’s internal development provides a variety of different ways to unearth how the Jewish writers, artists, editors, and publishers shed their amateur roots and became a professionalized industry. This professional turn brought increased sales and increasingly mature content for an older readership. Many Jewish writers and artists feared being drafted into the military. However, those that were drafted came away from their experiences with a sense of pride and accomplishment. They could not foresee that their industry was coming under attack. Many comic book historians place the roots for the comic book industry’s cultural downfall in the 1950s. However, primary sources from the 1940s reveal that social critics and parents were already concerned about mature comic book content in the 1940s. Comic book publishers were slow to respond or outright ignored complaints from social critics and concerned parents.
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- Title
- "The music of [our] thoughts" : the Elizabeth Gaskell journal: digital edition
- Creator
- Klamer, Melissa J.
- Date
- 2020
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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The Gaskell Journal Digital Edition is an online, openly accessible edition of a single Gaskell text, Elizabeth Gaskell's manuscript journal, offering an annotated and newly transcribed text side-by-side with high-quality digital images of the manuscript pages. This new edition provides a digitally encoded version of the text. The digital markup embeds metadata and editorial notes and transcription directly into a single Edition file. Additionally, the Elizabeth Gaskell Journal - Digital...
Show moreThe Gaskell Journal Digital Edition is an online, openly accessible edition of a single Gaskell text, Elizabeth Gaskell's manuscript journal, offering an annotated and newly transcribed text side-by-side with high-quality digital images of the manuscript pages. This new edition provides a digitally encoded version of the text. The digital markup embeds metadata and editorial notes and transcription directly into a single Edition file. Additionally, the Elizabeth Gaskell Journal - Digital Edition offers editorial headnotes contextualizing the journal as a text predominantly focused on motherhood, and a prosopography identifying important individuals, texts, and geographic locations that created the context within which Gaskell wrote. The journal simultaneously works as an intervention in dissertation practice, through modeling a digital dissertation deliverable which mobilizes current practices in textual encoding to create an online edition of the manuscript which capitalizes on available technologies.Gaskell's journal was written to record her motherhood. Gaskell gave birth to seven children, of whom four daughters survived childhood: Marianne (b. 1834), Margaret, called "Meta" (b. 1837), Florence (b. 1842) and Julia (b. 1846). The Gaskells also had a stillborn daughter (1833), and two sons who died in infancy (an unnamed son, born between 1838-1841, and William, born in 1845). Gaskell began her journal in 1834 to record the life of Marianne, then aged 6 months, and continued it until 1838, when Marianne was four and Meta was eighteen months old. Gaskell's daughters were her central focus and close companions for over half her life, and the beginnings of this relationship are chronicled in the journal, as are her own reflections on her role as a mother.Gaskell began her journal with the explicit intention of recording her memories of Marianne's childhood in the face of an uncertain future, but it later became a "paper mother" - a productive tool through which she mothered herself as well as her progeny. Beyond writing the journal to record and reflect on her daughters' development, Gaskell wrote in her journal in order to weigh Victorian norms and expectations for maternal practice, and mobilized it as a tool for emotional self-regulation as she sought to shape her own identity as a Victorian mother. In effect, Gaskell's journal exists as a text that demonstrates maternal life writing as a productive tool employed for shaping a socially acceptable selfhood for Victorian mothers and daughters alike.
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- Title
- "Take action in the world!" : advocacy and reciprocity as research practices in technical communication
- Creator
- Turner, Heather Noel
- Date
- 2018
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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This dissertation examines how scholars in technical and professional communication conduct research related to social justice. I define social justice research, then identify and visualize disciplinary activity related to social justice over a 10 year (2006-2016) time span. Using data visualizations and critical computations as a methodological heuristic, I present the practices of four scholars conducting social justice research to offer thematic data narratives. I found that scholars can...
Show moreThis dissertation examines how scholars in technical and professional communication conduct research related to social justice. I define social justice research, then identify and visualize disciplinary activity related to social justice over a 10 year (2006-2016) time span. Using data visualizations and critical computations as a methodological heuristic, I present the practices of four scholars conducting social justice research to offer thematic data narratives. I found that scholars can enact social justice when they intentionally integrate principles of advocacy and reciprocity across the arcs of their research processes. Advocacy occurs when researchers negotiate, accommodate and facilitate justice across research settings, throughout research processes, and with research partners. Reciprocity occurs when researchers structure opportunities to exchange knowledge, labor, and resources with participants and related peoples, communities, organizations, and nonprofits. The data from 960 conference presentations and four semi-structured interviews with technical communication researchers reveals that technical communication as a field has commitments to inclusion, public action, and increasing individual agency. Social justice researchers enact these commitments through their research processes, across research contexts, and with various research partners.
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- Title
- "Paperless citizens" : perceptions and practices of citizenship among Salvadoran retornados
- Creator
- Maginot, Kelly Birch
- Date
- 2019
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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In this dissertation, I explore deported Salvadorans' experiences of detention, deportation, reception, and reintegration, with an emphasis on the structural barriers that they face and their strategies for surviving these barriers. I also examine returned Salvadorans' sense of belonging, perceptions of citizenship, and civic engagement practices in the United States and El Salvador in order to understand when and how deportees are able to express and enact agency. I argue that deportees'...
Show moreIn this dissertation, I explore deported Salvadorans' experiences of detention, deportation, reception, and reintegration, with an emphasis on the structural barriers that they face and their strategies for surviving these barriers. I also examine returned Salvadorans' sense of belonging, perceptions of citizenship, and civic engagement practices in the United States and El Salvador in order to understand when and how deportees are able to express and enact agency. I argue that deportees' extreme precarity and exclusion makes them "outsiders within" their sending and receiving states, which gives them valuable perspectives on citizenship and national belonging. Using in-depth, semi-structured interviews and observations with deported Salvadorans, I find that the Salvadoran deported population is segmented by migration history, gender, and age, producing distinct deported masculinities that foster-and more often constrain-deported Salvadoran men's ability to act as change agents. My fieldwork further reveals that Salvadoran men and women develop diverse, innovative strategies for coping with deportation-related challenges such as violence, un- and underemployment, and social exclusion. These strategies include both individual and collective actions, in addition to claims of belonging and deservingness in El Salvador and the U.S. Together, these findings exemplify the central role that neoliberal globalization plays in creating productive citizens and a disposable global workforce, as well as ways in which deportees use neoliberal ideologies to advance rights claims. This project thus extends theorizing around immigrant re/incorporation, citizenship, masculinities, and agency, in addition to highlighting important implications for migration scholars and practitioners in deportee-sending and receiving states.
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- Title
- "One leg in one, and one leg in the other" : reflections of vernacular musicians as music educators
- Creator
- Adams, Mark C.
- Date
- 2017
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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With a purpose of improving the experiences of vernacular musicians who want to become music educators so that more vernacular music-making can occur in K-12 music settings, this study explored the lived musical experiences of two vernacular musicians who successfully became music educators. The two grand tour problems of this study were:1. To describe how two vernacular musicians navigated their undergraduate music education programs.2. To describe if/how their vernacular musicianship...
Show moreWith a purpose of improving the experiences of vernacular musicians who want to become music educators so that more vernacular music-making can occur in K-12 music settings, this study explored the lived musical experiences of two vernacular musicians who successfully became music educators. The two grand tour problems of this study were:1. To describe how two vernacular musicians navigated their undergraduate music education programs.2. To describe if/how their vernacular musicianship contributed to their practice as music teachers. Ethnographic techniques were used within the framework of a multiple narrative case study to present the viewpoints of two participants, Carrie and Harrison (pseudonyms). Both were vernacular musicians prior to pursuing degrees in music education. The two participants’ stories revealed that they felt like they were living in two musical worlds. In their undergraduate experiences, participants felt their Western classical abilities were more highly valued than their vernacular musicianship skills, and they did not feel fully supported by faculty musically. In their teaching lives, their vernacular music-making backgrounds manifested through aural learning and rote teaching, creating, and their classroom environment. Participants experienced feelings of being an impostor during their undergraduate experiences, which, particularly for one participant, created fear and anxiety. These feelings of being an impostor continued into their teaching lives, typically brought about by preconceived program expectations (e.g., performance schedules, high-level student musical performance abilities) from community members and colleagues. These outside influences, at times, determined what vernacular music-making experiences they implemented into their classrooms and when it was “safe” to do so.Based on these data, I suggest institutions of higher education more equally value musics found outside Western classical cultures. This includes an evaluation of their audition processes, the support provided to “non-traditional” students, as well as a re-envisioning of required coursework, field experiences, and performance ensembles. Additionally, I suggest ways that teachers of K–12 musics can create a more diverse music education experience for students by including more vernacular music making. These suggestions include opportunities for informal learning, creative music making, and considerations for the classroom environment.
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- Title
- "Lost space" and "artialised space" : analyzing photographic representations in Paris
- Creator
- Hou, Xiao
- Date
- 2017
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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"Photographs are ubiquitous, and we seem to understand the world through photographs a lot more. But how does the ubiquitous photographic representation affect our understanding of the urban environment? The main aim of this study was to examine and explore how and why a city is represented in people's photographs differently." -- Abstract.
- Title
- "Like a double, triple hate" : music education at the intersections of race, religion, and sexuality in the Bible belt
- Creator
- Thomas-Durrell, Latasha
- Date
- 2019
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
-
With the purpose of better understanding how a population of multiply marginalized teachers navigate their professional and personal lives, this narrative study focused on the following research question: How do K-12 African American LGBQ music educators who teach in the Bible Belt describe their negotiation of various identity markers (race, sexual identity, religion, and other social norms that stem from religious beliefs)? In order to honor the voices and experiences of the three...
Show moreWith the purpose of better understanding how a population of multiply marginalized teachers navigate their professional and personal lives, this narrative study focused on the following research question: How do K-12 African American LGBQ music educators who teach in the Bible Belt describe their negotiation of various identity markers (race, sexual identity, religion, and other social norms that stem from religious beliefs)? In order to honor the voices and experiences of the three participants Andrew, Zion, and Alex (pseudonyms), this study embraced the emergent design of narrative inquiry and ethnographic techniques. The experiences of these three music educators revealed the importance of intersectionality in understanding complex and interlocking layers of identity. Four main categories of themes emerged related to participants' layers of identity considerations: family, race, music education, and resilience. The topics of each participant's interviews all centered around similar themes-the importance of faith in their lives or at least in their childhoods, battling with their families' conservative religious beliefs in general and in relation to sexual identity, the (assumed) closeness of family, racial microaggressions and stereotypes, music education advocacy and representation, and resilience through every tough experience. The theoretical lenses labeling theory and queer theory illuminated connections between how and why participants navigated their personal and professional lives in their respective ways. Labeling theory guided analysis of how people in dominant roles used labels to demean the character of participants who reflect identities incongruous with dominant identities. Queer theory aided in examining participants' experiences and choices in how they deconstruct labels attached to their interlocking identities. Based on participants' experiences and perceptions, implications emerge for how families and education personnel might provide support and mentorship for minoritized populations, and how music educators can help drive needed changes in music education. Education professionals can make policy changes that better support minoritized teachers and students alike. Better and more professional development that focuses on identity considerations is needed for all music educators.
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- Title
- "I got new feelings coming in" : drawn emotions and refusing secondly across anti-racist English language arts pedagogies
- Creator
- Neville, Mary Lefere
- Date
- 2020
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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Given the current and historical context of power and oppression in the United States, English language arts (ELA) scholars have called for pedagogies that directly respond to the racialized violence present across texts, schooling, and society (Baker-Bell, Butler, & Johnson, 2017; Baker-Bell, 2020; Butler, 2018; Johnson, 2018). Scholars have long critiqued the ELA curriculum for its dearth of perspectives across race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability, and especially have called upon ELA...
Show moreGiven the current and historical context of power and oppression in the United States, English language arts (ELA) scholars have called for pedagogies that directly respond to the racialized violence present across texts, schooling, and society (Baker-Bell, Butler, & Johnson, 2017; Baker-Bell, 2020; Butler, 2018; Johnson, 2018). Scholars have long critiqued the ELA curriculum for its dearth of perspectives across race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability, and especially have called upon ELA teachers and researchers to center literature written by Black and Brown authors (Thomas, 2016, 2019). In this call for anti-racist ELA curriculum, scholars have also encouraged an attention to emotion, highlighting the necessity of not only including texts by authors of Color in classrooms but also the importance of the emotional and affective resonances through which students and teachers respond to literary texts for racial and social justice (Dutro, 2019; Grinage, 2019). This qualitative research project, then, explores the emotional responses of secondary ELA students and pre-service literacy teachers to literature that addresses race and racism. This dissertation builds upon critical (post)qualitative and visual arts-based methodologies centering the emotional and affective resonances present across our socially constructed identities as students and teachers work to deconstruct whiteness and anti-Blackness using anti-racist pedagogies (Sousanis, 2015; Love, 2019; Muhammad, 2019). In particular, this project explores how objects of feeling are drawn across space and time (Ahmed, 2010, 2014) and how readers refuse "secondly" (Adichie, 2009) within two research contexts: (1) a 12th critical media literacy course and (2) a critical young adult literature course for pre-service teachers. Findings from this study demonstrate how secondary ELA students and pre-service teachers might center the already present emotion traced across objects of feeling in literature classrooms committed to anti-racist and anti-oppressive pedagogies.
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- Title
- "I Filled a Lot of Gaps" : How and Why Early Career Teachers Expand Induction Support Systems with Social Media
- Creator
- Staudt Willet, Kenneth Bret
- Date
- 2021
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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Early career teachers face numerous challenges during their transition from teacher preparation programs into professional employment contexts. With many more opportunities for professional learning available today, early career teachers must navigate an increased number of potentially conflicting messages about what and how to teach. This study explores the support systems that early career teachers construct during induction and how they use social media for this purpose. These systems can...
Show moreEarly career teachers face numerous challenges during their transition from teacher preparation programs into professional employment contexts. With many more opportunities for professional learning available today, early career teachers must navigate an increased number of potentially conflicting messages about what and how to teach. This study explores the support systems that early career teachers construct during induction and how they use social media for this purpose. These systems can be understood as professional learning networks (PLNs) consisting of tools, people, and spaces and useful for improving teaching and learning. Interviews with early career teachers provide evidence of reasons why they develop PLNs as well as what tools, people, and spaces they include in these support systems. Findings demonstrate that early career teachers construct induction support systems to navigate change, scarcity of resources, and conflicting teaching beliefs. Early career teachers look for tools for planning, enacting practice in the classroom, and connecting socially. People in early career teachers’ support systems included both in-school and out-of-school connections. Interviewees described how they use various social media platforms in their induction support systems as well as boundaries they maintain around social media use. Finally, early career teachers described their engagement on social media in terms of browsing, asking, and exchanging. Implications of these findings are discussed for early career teachers, teacher educators, and education leaders—especially regarding how stakeholders can help alleviate induction pressures on early career teachers. This study contributes insight into the convergence of tensions experienced by early career teachers as they consider whether and how to construct support systems during induction, including if and how to look for help on social media.
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- Title
- "Because we are important!" : music educators and special education paraprofessionals in a community of practice
- Creator
- Grimsby, Rachel Leigh-Mallory
- Date
- 2020
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
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With the intent of developing an effective community of practice (CoP) that addresses the professional development, instructional, and collaborative needs of music educators and special education paraprofessionals (SEPs), the purpose of this study was to examine the instructional processes, perceptions, and practices of music educators and SEPs in regard to teaching music to students with disabilities. The "grand tour" question of this study was: How does a community of practice offer...
Show moreWith the intent of developing an effective community of practice (CoP) that addresses the professional development, instructional, and collaborative needs of music educators and special education paraprofessionals (SEPs), the purpose of this study was to examine the instructional processes, perceptions, and practices of music educators and SEPs in regard to teaching music to students with disabilities. The "grand tour" question of this study was: How does a community of practice offer collaboration and instructional support for music educators and SEPs? Research questions were as follows: 1) How do music educators and SEPs interact within a community of practice? 2) Does a community of practice impact the instructional and collaborative practices of music teachers and SEPs, and if so, how does it manifest in the classroom? 3) How does a community of practice shift participants' pedagogical and philosophical beliefs concerning teaching students with disabilities? 4) How does a community of practice facilitate growth and collaborative planning in ways that the school structures cannot? What does this tell us about music educator and SEP needs? 5) What aspects of the community of practice were most difficult for the participants, the easiest, and what did they find most useful?This was an instrumental case study (Stake, 1995, 2005; Merriam, 1988, 1998) of a group of music educators and special education paraprofessionals in a social learning community. As participants met, and relationships began to form, a community of practice emerged. Six participants, three music educators and three SEPs participated in this study which consisted of eight collaborative meetings that took place over the course of four months. I collected throughout the study, beginning with initial interviews and ending with exit interviews. Participants engaged in five meetings in-person at a local library, and three online via Discord®, an online voice and text chat platform. I observed in their classrooms twice over the duration of the study. Participants found the collaborative nature of the group to be the most beneficial. While instructional practices were only impacted moderately through participation in this community of practice, participant perceptions of their colleagues were changed. Participants stated they felt they understood more fully the perspective of their colleagues as well as how to more effectively collaborate with them.
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- Title
- "A dog has four legs but walks in one direction" : multiple religious belonging and organic Africa-inspired religious traditions in Oriente Cuba
- Creator
- Zaid, Shanti Ali
- Date
- 2019
- Collection
- Electronic Theses & Dissertations
- Description
-
"If religion is about social cohesion and the coordination of meaning, values, and motivations of a community or society, how do communities meaningfully navigate the religious domain in an environment of multiple religious possibilities? Within the range of socio-cultural responses to such conditions, this dissertation empirically explores 'multiple religious belonging,' a concept referring to individuals or groups whose religious identity, commitments, or activities may extend beyond a...
Show more"If religion is about social cohesion and the coordination of meaning, values, and motivations of a community or society, how do communities meaningfully navigate the religious domain in an environment of multiple religious possibilities? Within the range of socio-cultural responses to such conditions, this dissertation empirically explores 'multiple religious belonging,' a concept referring to individuals or groups whose religious identity, commitments, or activities may extend beyond a single coherent religious tradition. The project evaluates expressions of this phenomenon in the eastern Cuban city of Santiago de Cuba with focused attention on practitioners of Regla Ocha/Ifa, Palo Monte, Espiritismo Cruzado, and Muerteria, four organic religious traditions historically evolved from the efforts of African descendants on the island. With concern for identifying patterns, limits, and variety of expression of multiple religious belonging, I employed qualitative research methods to explore how distinctions and relationships between religious traditions are articulated, navigated, and practiced. These methods included directed formal and informal personal interviews and participant observations of ritual spaces, events, and community gatherings in the four traditions. I demonstrate that religious practitioners in Santiago manage diverse religious options through multiple religious belonging and that practitioners have strategies for expressing their multiple religious belonging. The diverse expressions involve characteristics of centered and un-centered models of multiple religious belonging, as well as attributes of shared reality and complementarity between religious traditions. The research contributes to a more critical understanding of the complexities of eastern Cuban religious expressions and religious traditions of the African Diaspora. Moreover, the project aims to enhance the conceptual literature around multiple religious belonging with data from the Caribbean island of Cuba."--Pages ii-iii.
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