The purpose of this study was to explore the essence of diversity experiences of some undergraduates on a private, religiously-affiliated university. Sixteen undergraduates from a Midwestern private, religiously affiliated university were interviewed and described their diversity experiences. The key components of their experiences revealed five emergent themes: Types of diversity experiences, Forms of diversity experiences, Influence of previous context, Benefits of diversity experiences, and Faith issues regarding diversity experiences. These overarching themes were viewed through van Manen’s (1990) notion that phenomenological themes may be defined as the structures of experience. This examination of a progression or flow of the themes explained how the following progression or flow worked within a system of contextually related experiences to help bring about benefits of student and faith development within the participants’ educational lives. The progression began when forms of diversity experiences enabled different types of diversity experiences to take place in the undergraduates’ lives. In turn, the dynamics created within those types of diversity experiences instigated critical reflection of the participants’ previous context and previous held beliefs and values. This process of reflection/critical thinking enabled personal reassessment/transformation to take place as the benefits of diversity experiences produced life change within the undergraduates’ lives. In sum, the progression or theme flow enabled significant individual student and faith development to take place as a result of diversity experiences within the undergraduates’ educational lives. Embracing van Manen’s (1990) concept of themes defining the structure of experiences may allow the progression or flow of themes to provide the possibility for colleges/universities to chart an intentional course along that progression directed towards achieving the positive benefits that diversity experiences can bring to undergraduates’ within their educational lives. / Department of Educational Studies

This dissertation examines the theoretical aspects of communication and coexistence among different and sometimes competing national cultures in contemporary liberal-democratic states. As its primary example, the study focuses on the quest for self-determination of Canada's indigenous peoples, but the theoretical significance of the project extends well beyond the bounds of this particular case. With this end in mind, the dissertation advances and defends a set of normative political principles which could, with certain necessary modifications, serve to guide just, equitable, and stable relations among different national cultures in a broad range of cases and contexts. The discussion opens with the development of a model of cross-cultural understanding and accommodation, which in turn is used to demonstrate the manner in which the theory and practice of liberal democracy often serves to legitimate the assertion of the authority of particular national cultures over their relatively smaller and weaker rivals. / In opposition to this more conventional liberal approach, the dissertation proposes a reformulation of the theoretical and institutional bases of liberal conceptions of national sovereignty and self-determination. This alternative approach bypasses any attempt to identify authentic or foundational liberal values which must frame and govern the principle of national self-determination, and which assert their categorical primacy over competing normative ideals and traditions. This approach to self-determination balances, on the one hand, the importance of more localized national ends, ideals, and institutions with a concern, on the other, for universal standards of democratic conduct, responsibility, and governance. What results is not a grand theory of national self-determination, but rather a set of flexible principles which can be attuned to different cultural contexts and circumstances, and which are subject to the democratic consent of the nations or peoples concerned.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2009. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-170). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ed. Spec.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.(Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics))--University of Pretoria, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 274-286).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2009. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 303-318).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2008. / "Graduate Program in History." Includes bibliographical references (p. 338-346).

This document is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree: Master of Architecture Professional at the School of Architecture and Planning, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2017. / This research report explores the spatial needs required to culturally experience public spaces through a brief study of the Mauritian context: historical, social, physical and cultural. The latter leads to theoretical research on how cultural behaviour in the Mauritian society informs an appropriate architectural design. A photographic analysis was implemented to identify the different aspects of ‘urban street culture’ as a tool to implement the ‘cultural street fair’, when creating cultural spaces in an urban environment. This has led to a better understanding of human scale and its economic and spatial limitations in a Mauritian urban context. More in-depth research on urban conditions and street functions, to fulfill required characteristics of street life was investigated to understand how to manipulate threshold features such as physical barriers, access, shelter, and opportunity for interaction. As a contextual point of view, the site, as a physical fragment of the present urban decay, was analysed through the urban theory: Finding lost spaces. This theory comprises of Figure-ground theory, Linkage theory and Place theory and multiple urban design principles / XL2018

This study is a comparison of theory and specific life experiences in heteroculturality. It synthesizes four conceptual frameworks describing individuals who have engaged in multiple culture-learning situations, and compares the themes derived from this synthesis with the attitudes and behaviors communicated by these multiculturally-socialized individuals.

No description available.