Programwide implementation uses implementation science to provide the supports needed so all practitioners can use DEC recommended practices to improve child outcome. Participants will learn the process of programwide implementation, tools, and strategies they can use and how programwide implementation occurs within classroom and home visiting programs.

The problem of a prepared workforce is perennial. Part of the challenge is one of supply and demand, as education systems attempt to produce graduates with the technical competencies required for the current jobs available. In the new service- and knowledge-based economy, however, soft skills are cited as a greater need by today’s employers. Increasingly sought across all industry sectors, these skills allow employees to work independently and interdependently, respond rapidly to customer needs, and adjust to changing market conditions. As a result, institutions of higher education are being called upon to infuse soft skills into their curricula. In this three-manuscript dissertation, first the implications for higher education, with Kentucky serving as a prime example, are assessed. Second, potential higher education predictors of success on a soft skills assessment—college admissions tests, grades, coursework, socioeconomic measures, and work-based learning—are examined through a quantitative study. Third, the importance of soft skills is considered in the context of capitalist societies and the purposes of education as a human endeavor. The case may be made that soft skills, rather than being a subset of workforce preparation or higher education, may be thought of as the fundamental intellectual tools of humanity.

Sola Fides Sufficit is a 20-minute concerto for solo violin and ensemble. The 16-member ensemble consists of flute (doubling piccolo), oboe, clarinet in Bb (doubling bass clarinet), bassoon, horn in F, trumpet in C, trombone, tuba, percussion I (bass drum, brake drum, chimes, glockenspiel, two woodblocks), percussion II (snare drum, suspended cymbal, two toms, triangle, vibraphone), piano, two violins, viola, cello, and contrabass. Sola Fides Sufficit is based on my previous solo violin composition Et si sensus deficit… written for violinist Emily Rolka in 2010. Sola Fides Sufficit is an expansion, orchestration, and ultimately a recomposition of Et si sensus deficit… The melodic, harmonic, and formal material in Sola Fides Sufficit is largely based on my detailed musical analysis of the Pange Lingua, an unaccompanied 13th century plainchant written by St. Thomas Aquinas. The six-phrase melody is well-known in the Roman Catholic tradition for its performance at the end of Holy Thursday Mass. My analysis drove my compositional choices regarding two distinct objectives: One, to reflect the chant material in overt ways (e.g., use of neighbor figures) and two, to intentionally diverge from the original chant material, at times exploiting or exaggerating elements purposefully avoided in the chant (e.g., the tritone). I utilized both ways of decision-making to create drama, contrast, tension, and resolution in the piece. My large-scale formal goal was to create a cohesive composition utilizing particular surface and structural aspects of the Pange Lingua melody, while withholding presentation of the melody in its entirety until the climax (conclusion) of the work. Fragments from the chant were selected and employed in varying contexts depending on the formal goals of each section. Some fragments were presented with few changes, while others were transformed and developed through tonality, registration, timbre, and rhythm. My structural design was shaped by four words of character the composer Witold Lutoslawski perceived as essential in the creation of his large-scale works: Introduction, Narrative, Transitional and Concluding. Influenced by Lutoslawski’s psychological approach to listener perception as a compositional and analytical tool, Sola Fides Sufficit unfolds in four unbroken parts, each portraying primarily one of these four formal characters. Within each movement, these formal characters also occur on a smaller scale and give shape to each section. Only during the Narrative portions is the content the most important aspect perceived. During the Introductory, Transitional, and Concluding music, however, the role of the given section in the form is more important than the content.

Appropriate education for academically talented students incorporates the use of complex thinking skills, and encourages the development of interpersonal and leadership skills. One potential tool to achieve these goals is the use of instructional technology. Siegle (2004a, 2005) suggests that it is particularly appropriate to utilize technology with the highly-able because they often possess skills that are effective when using today's technology, specifically abstract thinking and rapid processing. This mixed methods multiple case study explored middle school social studies teachers' instructional use of digital technology to teach highly-able students. The participant teachers were from three high-performing schools, as identified by each school's performance on the state standardized test, and in the school's achievement of AYP. The participants at each school were asked to complete the Internet Use Survey, modified from VanFossen's survey (1999, 2005) and participate in a group interview to gather related information not addressed in the survey. From this larger group of teachers, ten teachers were asked to participate in further study. These ten teachers participated in an interview, submitted instructional-related documents for one month, and were observed in a self-identified, typical technology integration lesson. Findings from this study indicate that the participant teachers viewed technology integration as being beneficial to the education of the academically talented student. However, their practice did not reflect this importance. The participant teachers largely used available classroom technology for teacher-centered activities, including information gathering and presentation. Students were rarely engaged in higher-order thinking tasks using the available technology. The participant teachers identified a number of barriers to their technology integration, primarily equipment functionality and availability. Despite the widespread equipment concerns, one teacher utilized the school's available technology to engage academically talented students in student-centered instructional activities. The Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) conceptual framework can be used to examine why this one teacher used technology differently than the other participant teachers. Additionally, using this teacher's example and the TPACK framework, suggestions for teacher professional development are provided.

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This thesis culminates in an exhibition resulting from the artist’s investigation of the relationship between space and time, and on perception and experience of space with connections to ‘everyday’ ideas of space. A recurring link in this paper is the process of ‘being present’ in relation to spatial viewing. The artist’s studio practice focuses on the visual changes she sees within a particular space or spaces, and how these visual changes are perceived and experienced when presented to the viewer in a photographic image. The intention is to present a photographic image to the viewer that not only changes the space from which it originally came, but also highlights the beauty of the space that may be missed or overlooked. The research questions the way people see, the visual representation of the ‘void’ or ‘empty space’, and spatial representation. The paper also discusses how the artist visually perceives and experiences space. The work of other artists and writers who research space, time and perceptual consciousness are also considered. / Master of Arts (Hons)

This thesis is an investigation into the cross-cultural appropriation of manga and anime by fans in Australia. I investigate the way in which fans embark on ‘identity’ projects through manga and anime to construct a space where issues of gender politics, identity and culture are explored. I argue that a key reason why many Western fans and scholars perceive manga and anime as ‘different’ is its ‘Japaneseness’. The two key problems addressed throughout the thesis are : how can we analyse the significance of the Japanese origins and context of manga and anime, and would the ‘identity projects’ that fans construct be possible without an appreciation of manga and anime’s 'Japaneseness?.' These questions are explored in terms of a number of key forms within manga and anime including cyberpunk, bishonen(beautiful boys), otaku(fans) and anime forms that have had their ‘Japaneseness’ softened. I discuss the way in which these manga and anime forms offer different spaces for fans, scholars and cultural industries to contest, rework and reiterate the cultural value of manga and anime. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

For many Australians, Fiji is a place of holidays, coups and rugby. The extent to which we think about this near-neighbour of ours is governed, for most, by what we learn about Fiji through the media. In normal circumstances, there is not a lot to learn as Fiji rarely appears in our media. At times of crisis, such as during the 1987 and 2000 coups in Fiji, there is saturation coverage. At these times, the potential for generating understanding is great. The reporting of a crisis can encapsulate all the social, political and economic issues which are a cause or outcome of an event like a coup, elucidating for media consumers the culture, the history and the social forces involved. In particular, the kinds of sources used and the kinds of organisations these sources represent, the kinds of themes presented in the reporting, and the way the journalists go about their work, can have a significant bearing on how an event like a coup is represented. The reporting of the Fiji coups presented the opportunity to examine these factors. As such, the aim of this thesis is to understand the role of the media in building relationships between developed and developing post-colonial nations like Australia and Fiji. A content analysis of 419 articles published in three leading broadsheet newspapers, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and The Canberra Times, examined the basic characteristics of the articles, with a particular focus on the sources used in these articles. This analysis revealed that the reports were dominated by elite sources, particularly representatives of governments, with a high proportion of Australian sources who provided information from Australia. While alternative sources did appear, they were limited in number. Women, Indian Fijians and representatives of non-government organisations were rarely used as sources. There were some variations between the articles from 1987 and those from 2000, primarily an increase in Indian Fijian sources, but overall the profile of the sources were similar. A thematic analysis of the same articles identified and examined the three most prevalent themes in the coverage. These indicated important aspects of the way the coups were represented: the way Fiji was represented, the way Australia's responses were represented, and the way the coup leaders were represented. This analysis found that the way in which the coups were represented reflected the nature of the relationship between Australia and Fiji. In 1987, the unexpected nature of the coup meant there was a struggle to re-define how Fiji should be understood. In 2000, Australia's increased focus on Fiji and the Pacific region was demonstrated by reports which represented the situation as more complex and uncertain, demanding more varied responses. A series of interviews with journalists who travelled to Fiji to cover the coups revealed that the working conditions for Australian media varied greatly between 1987 and 2000. The situational factors, particularly those which limited their work, had an impact on the journalists' ability to access specific kinds of sources and, ultimately, the kinds of themes which appeared in the stories. The variation between 1987 and 2000 demonstrated that under different conditions, journalists were able to access a more diverse range of sources and present more sophisticated perspectives of the coup. In a cross-cultural situation such as this, the impact of reporting dominated by elite sources is felt not just in the country being covered, but also in the country where the reporting appears. It presents a limited representation, which marginalises and downplays the often complex social, cultural and historical factors which contribute to an event like a coup. Debate and alternative ways of understanding are limited and the chance to engage more deeply with a place like Fiji is, by and large, lost.

Music is one of the most important aspects of cultural identity in Corsica. Rooted in ancient history and revitalized in the revolutionary political climate of the 1960s and 70s, its popular choral form--the paghjella--has come to define modern music upon the island. Music, like language, has the ability to communicate certain feelings and values beyond its structural form and can also serve as a marker for individual as well as collective identity. In a minority regional context such as that of Corsica, many view cultural expressions such as language and music as 'guardians' of a local tradition that is weakened in a globalizing world. Thus, according to them, these expressions should remain pure and 'faithful' to their heritage. Yet, and likely in part because of globalization, music in Corsica has largely changed in recent decades. Musicians there today are combining ancient and modern forms, adopting instruments and styles not native to the island, and, in some cases, rejecting altogether 'traditional' Corsican music. Yet many of these, in as much as they represent a growing norm, often come under close scrutiny by those who regard their music as either inauthentic or betraying of tradition. Although some balance or hybridity of both 'new' and 'old' appears to be the preferred form of modem musical expression, the very notions of traditional and non-traditional are still debated and are at present widely discussed in Corsica, in a larger, more general sense of identity. The island's music provides a valuable perspective of the ongoing processes of cultural awareness and change. / Graduation date: 2004

21st-century Neo-anticolonial Literature and the Struggle for a New Global Order explores the twenty-first-century fiction of five writers and investigates the ways in which their works engage the legacy and evolution of empire, and, in particular, the expansion of global capitalism to the detriment of already-subjugated communities. Taking up a recent call by Postcolonial scholars seeking to address the contemporary challenges of the postcolonial condition, this project traces out three distinct forms of engagement that function as a resistance in the texts. The dissertation introduces these concepts via a mode of analysis I have called Neo-anticolonialism, a counter-hegemonic approach which, I argue, is unique to the twenty-first century but rooted in the anticolonial work of Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon. Building on a foundation laid by those activist scholars, this project argues that Neo-anticolonialism necessitates the bridging of discourse and activism; thus, the dissertation delineates the utility of Neo-anticolonialism in both literary scholarship and practical application. Through a close analysis of the fiction of the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jamaican Michelle Cliff, Amitav Ghosh, a South Asian writer, African American writer Edward P. Jones, and Black British writer Caryl Phillips, the project offers a Neo-anticolonial reading of several twenty-first-century texts. In doing so, I explain the depiction of these instances of resistance as Neo-anticolonial Refractions, literary devices which function as prisms that cast images thus exposing the perpetuation of inequality in the twenty-first century and its direct link to the past epoch. Moreover, each chapter, through an explication of the refractions, reveals how resistance occurs in the face of the brutal reality of oppression and how this cadre of writers engages with the history of empire as well as with its contemporary permutations.