The purpose of this study was to investigate the discursive construction of teacher subjectivity by mapping and complicating the normative discourses that dictate the im/possibility of what counts as a “good teacher” in Taiwan. This research employed the “new” postmodern ethnography and various methods of data collection, including archival documents, interviews, classroom and school observations, and a researcher’s journal. Data was analyzed using critical discourse analysis and thematic analysis. Feminist poststructuralist theories of identity, subject formation, agency, and teachers as a discursive category were used to inform analyses about the working of regulatory discourses on teacher identity and about teachers’ negotiations. This study juxtaposed competing discourses and historicized discourses as strategies to destabilize commonsense assumptions about the good teacher. The stories about teachers’ schoolgirl days were also gathered not only because there is a dearth of such stories that cut across Taiwan’s history from martial law to democratization but also because educational biography is assumed to be reproduced in teaching. This research found that the normative discourses of the “good teacher” include (1) Good teachers promise students high scores on examinations; (2) Good teachers are moral teachers; (3) Good teachers devote themselves to students; and (4) Good teachers strengthen the nation. Two transgressive discourses that arise from my analysis of archival texts include (1) Good teachers recognize students’ homosexual identities; and (2) Good teachers question the government’s educational policies. The researcher concluded that the “good teacher” should be better understood as a “normative ideal” (Young, 1990, p. 320) that designates what a teacher ought to be, but obscures the cultural and historical specificities of the identity category good teachers and excludes the excessive discourses and knowledge that teachers employ to live the identity called teacher. Implications for teacher-education curriculum are provided. The researcher also suggests implications for (1) the future research on teacher education; (2) the methodologies used to study teachers; and (3) the education and educational research in Taiwan. / text

The purpose of this thesis is to develop understanding toward Japanese firms’ joint venture with Taiwanese firms in China, from the Japanese firms’ perspective. We explored the research questions, including why Japanese firms form joint venture with Taiwanese firms and how joint ventures are managed. The research adopted the case study approach and interviewed Japanese managers from two firms, Kirin Brewery Company, Limited and Musashi Paint Co., Ltd. Chapter 1 described research background, research objectives and questions. With the strong presence of Chinese market, Japanese firms need to explore its own investment strategies. One form of entry strategies, especially preferred by the Japanese, is to cooperate with Taiwanese firms in China. Taiwanese firms’ advantage in understanding the Chinese culture and language will assist Japanese firms to reach a better performance. Chapter 2 analyzed statistic data to understand how Japanese firms have invested in China so far, problems faced by Japanese firms in China, and current situations of Japanese firms’ strategic alliance with Taiwanese firms. Chapter 3 discussed various literatures on join ventures, including definition, motivations, partner selection, and management, and presented tentative conclusions and research framework regarding Japanese firms’ joint ventures with Taiwanese firms. Chapter 4 stated how the research was conducted, including research methodology, limitations of research, interview guidelines, interview procedures, and the description of two Japanese firms. Chapter 5 analyzed research findings, with reference to tentative conclusions and research framework presented in Chapter 3. Chapter 6 provided conclusions from research findings and suggestions for two firms (Kirin and Musashi Paint) and Japanese firms that plan to have joint ventures in China. Suggestions for future research are also discussed.

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The purpose of this study has been to discover print awareness of kindergarten children in Taiwan and the evidence that they are constructing knowledge about written Chinese. The study utilized Print Awareness Tasks including twenty environmental print items chosen from the Taiwanese society. Sixteen kindergartners age from three to six were the informants. These children were asked to read and respond to environmental print items with a different degree of decontextualization in each of the two task sessions. The results of the study showed that kindergarten children in Taiwan are highly aware of print in their environment. These young children demonstrated high semantic intent when they read environmental print. They used various information sources available to them, which include contextual clues in the print setting and their personal experience and background knowledge. They also showed that they used their developing concepts about the Chinese writing system as linguistic strategies to help them read the print items. There were differences between the responses to the two task sessions in terms of semantic and pragmatic characteristics and use of information. The contextual clues appeared to play a significant role in reading of environmental print. There were also differences between age groups. Three and six year olds differed from other age groups in terms of the semantic and pragmatic characteristic of their responses and their use of information. The children demonstrated that they were developing important concepts about the Chinese writing system. They were hypothesizing the representational relationships in language between: (a) written representation and the object it represents; (b) written representation and oral utterance--character-syllable correspondence; and (c) segmentation in written representation--language units. Most of the children had developed the concept of character as a written segment and word as a semantic segment. Very few of them had concept of the radical. They appeared read in a holistic way. The older children tended to develop concepts which were more specific and were closer to the conventions; however, no fixed linear developmental progress by age is suggested by the data.

The emphasis of this research is on the social, economic, and cultural factors generating the New Taiwan Cinema between 1982 to 1986. The study consists of four chapters. Chapter I introduces the background and parameters of the topic. Chapter II discusses the factors which nurtured the rise of New Taiwan Cinema. It also provides historical background information on Taiwanese films. Chapter III discusses the definition and characteristics of New Taiwan Cinema and its major filmmakers and films. Chapter IV focuses on the issue of the end of New Taiwan Cinema. This chapter also covers the general situation of the Taiwanese film industry after 1986.

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Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This study aimed to investigate, in narrative conversations, how Taiwanese mothers of different educational attainments and family income co-constructed past events with their children of two or three years of age. Previous studies suggest that mothers' discourse styles are significantly related to children's narrative development. Furthermore, mothers' discourse styles vary with their cultural-economic backgrounds. There is, however, no research studying the interwoven relationship between mothers' discourse styles and specific socioeconomic status - mothers' education levels, family income levels, and children's ages. Sixty-six mother-child dyads recruited in Taiwan participated in this study. Among independent factors, there were three levels for mothers' education, two for family income and two for children's age. The researcher visited individual dyad three times to audiotape mother-child conversations about past events. All narratives were transcribed verbatim in Chinese. Mothers' utterances were coded for conversational functions, narrative elements, types of evaluation and types of subjective evaluation. Both quantitative (MANOVA & ANOVA) and qualitative analyses were conducted. The results showed that mothers' education was the most significant factor to differentiate mothers' discourse styles. Regardless types of colleges attending and family income, college-educated mothers adopted elaborative style, verbally echoed and confirmed children's responses, and temporally organized stories. Their narrative organizations were similar to that of essay writing. These mothers' prompts were more tuned to children's age differences. Among less-educated mothers, family income was critical to differentiate mothers' discourse styles. For less-educated mothers of average income families, they adopted repetitive style and verbally echo children's responses. Due to their concepts that children were fully responsible to recall events, these mothers' prompts provided little cues and thus ambiguous. The narrative organizations were quiz-like. For less-educated mothers in poverty, they adopted more non-verbal gestures for confirmation, repeated same prompts, and emphasized factual aspects of events. They conducted the conversations in a chitchatting fashion allowing more than two interlocutors. The results suggested that children of diverse backgrounds were socialized to distinctive discourse styles, which implied different narrative and child development. Some children may be confronted with more challenges at school. It is, thus, important to address specific needs of different groups when considering educational interventions. / 2031-01-01

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This thesis examines how inter-firm relationships and routines influence the process and outcomes of new service development (NSD). The research questions addressed are: 1) How do inter-firm relationships and routines influence the speed of NSD? and 2) In what ways do the different types of service development affect inter-firm relationships and organisational routines associated with the speed of NSD? Prior research has emphasized the importance of cooperating with other organizations to exploit external sources of knowledge and capabilities, but relatively little is known about the specific mechanisms to achieve this and how these affect the outcomes of new service development. This research contributes to the literature on new service development and innovation networks. The research design consists of comparative case studies and draws on empirical evidence from the development of two contrasting e-commerce services in the four dominant Taiwanese convenience store chains. In total 52 interviews were conducted with members of staff of convenience store chains and suppliers. The interviews were analyzed using the thematic framework approach, which represents the patterns and relationships in the interview data. Cross-case synthesis was chosen as the analytical technique to summarize the findings from the individual cases. The present study found that trust and interdependence have positive influence on the speed of NSD. Intensity of inter-firm collaboration has a negative effect on the speed of NSD under some circumstances (e.g. task complexity and project newness). Moreover, the relationship between organizational routines for knowledge transfer and the speed of NSD may vary under different degrees of project newness. The thesis demonstrates the interaction of organizational and project level characteristics in new service development, and the multi-dimensional nature of service development compared to that of conventional product development.