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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / With several highly publicized police killings during the latter half of 2014, the issue of police violence has been re-ignited in the United States as emotionally charged a topic as ever, dividing Americans politically and socially and racially. From Eric Garner to Nicholas Robertson, the media has been greatly influential on public perception of police killings. Based on 163 digital news articles about cases of police killings from the top ten visited American news sites of 2015, this study analyzes how the American media’s language contributes to readers’ perception of police killings, focusing on patterns of race-related modifiers, passivization, and evaluation. Use of these linguistic features can influence public perception of the role of race, police accountability, and societal expectations. Considering the findings, I advocate for media literacy education as professional development for journalists.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Extant research has established that workplace discrimination negatively predicts turnover and influences targets’ job commitment and satisfaction. Historically, diversity research explored the consequences of colorblind diversity philosophies and the benefits of multicultural diversity philosophies for minorities; however, it may be that multicultural work environments are not universally beneficial for minorities. The present study examines how organizational philosophies regarding diversity influence minorities’ perceptions of trust, affective commitment, organizational attraction, and perceptions of tokenism towards an organization. Results indicate main effects of minority representation and diversity philosophy such that participants in the high representation condition reported greater trust and comfort than participants in the low representation condition, and participants in the multicultural condition reported greater trust and comfort than participants in the colorblind condition. Moreover, results reveal a significant indirect effect of minority representation on trust and comfort, affective commitment, and organizational attraction through perceived tokenism. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The thesis is titled a Sociolinguistic and Multisemiotic Analysis of Mobility and Identities in Hangberg, Hout Bay. The guiding idea of this research project is to explore the contesting social and semiotic processes of transformation in Hangberg since the transition towards post-apartheid in South Africa. One of the objectives of this study is to probe how Hangberg and its people are (re)constructed in the media and virtual spaces (Facebook, and newspaper articles) as well as in the physical linguistic/semiotic landscapes (LL) of Hangberg. The researcher uses Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) and conceptual tools such as resemiotisation and remediation to capture and understand the socio-ideological construction of the people of Hangberg through a mesh of verbal as well as visual language / signs in the virtual and physical semiotic landscapes. / 2023

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No description available.

This research was an explorative study of the race talk present in discourse when discussing HIV/AIDS and aimed to explore the discourses drawn on by participants during discussions around HIV and AIDS, to explore whether these discourses differed in one-to-one interviews with the author (private talk) compared with those in focus group discussions (public talk) and to investigate how learners navigated race during discussions around HIV/AIDS. The sample was made up of 26 grade 11 learners at a private school in Johannesburg. Data collection was conducted using three focus group discussions (FGD) and several individual one-on-one interviews. Both the interviews and focus groups were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide and recorded on Mp3 players. The data was transcribed using several conversation analysis transcription conventions and later analysed using discourse analysis. An important methodological innovation of this research was its use of HIV/AIDS discussion to capture race discourse. Seven broad themes were analysed and discussed in the research and included (a) HIV/AIDS and the ‘Other’, (b) Race and ‘common sense’, (c) Navigating the perception of racism, (d) Race Trouble and location, (e) Race, Education and Government (f) Race and Apartheid and (g) Public talk Vs. Private talk While this research was mainly exploratory and attempted to investigate as many instances of ‘race talk’ as possible, as well as offer various feasible explanations for the learners’ use of race talk, it was suggested that it may be necessary to explore the possibility of expanding on existing theories to explain the use of race talk among black learners to ‘Other’ people of the same race. Furthermore, while this research did not specifically set out to explore the implications that the intersections between race and HIV/AIDS could have for education, it was suggested that the attachment of apartheid meanings to race (and HIV/AIDS) could lead to learners’ reluctance to critically engage with historical and contemporary texts or avoid discussing issues around HIV/AIDS.

This research aimed to explore and contextualise research on the electrophysiological potentials evoked in response to human face recognition within the South African context. Previous research provides evidence that there is a measurable difference in the electrophysiological response to faces of people of other racial groups when compared to the response to one’s own race group. The difference is seen in greater peak amplitudes in response to one’s own-race (indicating greater attention being granted) in comparison to the other-race. This has been labelled the Cross-Race Effect. This research also attempted to expand on previous research in the use of a mixed-race sample and realistic colour images, in contrast to previously used greyscale images. A purposive sample of 40 students at the University of the Witwatersrand was split equally between gender and race (Black and White) with an Indian control group. The electrical potentials elicited by the facial stimuli were extracted from the ongoing electroencephalograms. The results obtained displayed inverse results to those found internationally, with Black participants eliciting no differences between racial groups, and White participants eliciting a greater peak amplitude to Black (other-race) faces. A gender effect was also seen, with White participants eliciting greater peak amplitudes towards female faces, while Black participant again showed no differences between male and female faces. Trends displayed in the results, and the significance thereof, are discussed, and the importance of the effect of society of developmental neurology is highlighted, with the rephrasing of cultural neuroscience to Socio-Cultural Neuroscience. The results ultimately suggest that the internationally seen cross-race effect is absent in a young South African population (with the principle of increased exposure leading to increased attention still in effect), indicating that South Africa is beginning to move away from racial discrimination, and moving towards a future of true integration and equality.

Achievement gaps between Black students and White students have existed since public education was desegregated, and they still persist despite efforts to close the gap. This research describes the achievement gaps between Black and White 3rd through 8th grade students in the state of Tennessee from 2017-2019. This is a non-experimental, quantitative, comparative-analysis describing the ELA and math test scores of Black students and White students in each of the three geographic regions of Tennessee. Data were arranged in 2x2 contingency matrixes to compare the expected frequencies of students in each race scoring on-track and mastered versus below and approaching. The data from the matrixes were analyzed in SPSS using Chi Squared tests to determine if the difference between Black student scores and White student scores was statistically significant. All twelve test score groupings showed an achievement gap between Black students and White students. The largest achievement gap was in West Tennessee’s elementary school ELA scores. The smallest achievement gap was in West Tennessee’s middle school math scores. Although there were gaps between Black students and White students in all twelve groupings, East Tennessee’s gaps were the smallest overall, ELA scores had smaller gaps than math scores in general, and middle school had smaller gaps than elementary school. These significant findings suggest there is much work to be done in Tennessee to close the gap between Black students and White students in order to provide a more equitable school experience.