Five study guides prepared for two productions of I, Claudia by Kristen Thomson will serve as a case study to determine the nature and orientations of the tools provided by theatre companies to pedagogues, who in turn teach students how to understand and read theatrical performance. More specifically, this case study will seek to explain how processes typical of “cultural mediation” help students accumulate what Pierre Bourdieu names “cultural” or “social capitals”, both necessary when training future citizens. This thesis will thus serve as a first critique of the workings, strengths and failings of a sociological mechanism typical of English Canadian theatre designed to help teachers mediate theatre and create more informed audience members.

The Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is taken each year by two fifths of the high school graduates (Cameron, 1989). The perception that high SAT scores will either open the door of selective colleges and generate scholarships or that low SAT scores will close off opportunities for the rest of one’ life, makes virtually every student who invests the three hours of time required to take the test extremely anxious about doing as well as possible (Whitla, 1988). Significant relationships between identified preparation techniques and the perceived effectiveness of those techniques by students and staff can be very useful information for educators when counseling and/or assisting students who want to improve their performance on the SAT. This study describes perceptual opinions from students, teachers, counselors, and administrators from 10 Portland, Oregon metropolitan area schools about the effectiveness of three SAT preparation techniques. The following research questions were examined: 1. What is the perceived effectiveness of three SAT preparation techniques: SAT computer programs, SAT preparation classes, and specific SAT information taught in general classes? 2. Are students who regard the SAT as important more likely to know about, use, and perceive effective the three preparation techniques than students who do not? 3. Are students who regard the SAT as important more likely to perceive their teachers or administrators as valuing the SAT than students who do not? 4. Are students who perceive that their teachers or administrators regard the SAT as important more likely to perceive the preparation techniques effective than students who do not? The results of this study indicated some specific groups of students and teachers did perceive one preparation technique to be effective. Their perceptions validated belief in specific SAT information taught in general classes as an effective preparation technique. It also revealed that there was lack of awareness, use, and perceived effectiveness of both SAT computer programs and SAT preparation classes. Lastly, the study showed that both students and teachers who perceived the SAT to be important, agreed that their administrators valued the SAT.

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Periodic gratings in waveguides act as frequency selective mirrors making them very useful as spectral filters for wavelength division multiplexing applications and as end mirrors for narrow linewidth lasers. A study of the spectral characteristics of both single and double gratings in planar dielectric waveguides is presented. The analysis of light propagation in a planar dielectric waveguide with sinusoidal boundary perturbations is carried out using coupled-mode theory. Power reflection and transmission coefficients are calculated for single gratings as well as two gratings of the same period and depth but arbitrary lengths and separated by a specified distance. The spectral response is examined for several cases. The influence of grating period, depth, and length in the single-grating case as well as separation of the gratings in the case of a double grating is investigated. Numerical results for example cases are presented. The results of this study are valuable for designing grating devices which are becoming increasingly attractive to broadband fiber-optic communication systems. / Master of Science