Doctor of Education / Department of Educational Leadership / Sarah Jane Fishback / Educators across the religious spectrum claim that the quest for spirituality and issues related to spiritual fulfillment are important to Americans. Nevertheless, only twenty percent of evangelical churches are growing. The rest are either not growing or are declining in attendance numbers (White, 2003). Many in the field of church growth have come to the conclusion that churches that are growing and meeting the needs of people are those that create within their membership a sense of belonging to a group which is achieved primarily through their Sunday School programs. The purpose of this qualitative case study is to explore the effect, if any, that developing close personal relationships in an adult Sunday School class has on increasing a person’s desire to attend. The work of Francis (2005), Mims (2001), Taylor (2003), and others indicates this is the case and that there are three basic facets of this development. The first is purposefully organizing adult Sunday School classes as age-graded cohorts. The second is designing lessons that involve student interaction through the use of group projects and group discussion, as is the case with lessons that follow the Experiential Learning Model. The third is to provide social opportunities for class members outside of class time. Data was gathered through semistructured interviews administered to members of a young adult Sunday School class which was created expressly for this study. The interview protocol was designed to allow the participants as much freedom as possible to express their own views. Six major themes emerged from the data: 1) young adults value being a part of a stable group; 2) age-grading Sunday School classes enhances relationship building; 3) young adults appreciate the support they get from the class; 4) extracurricular activities help build relationships; 5) relationships are more important to women than to men; and 6) the Experiential Learning Model facilitates relationship building. These results could help shape the way in which evangelical churches approach their Sunday School program design and development in order to facilitate ministering to people more effectively.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Educational Leadership / Sarah Jane Fishback / This study investigated the relationship between the tolerance of ambiguity (AT) levels of the officers attending the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) and the creativity of the military plans they developed. Located aboard Fort Leavenworth, KS, SAMS is an Army school providing education to specially selected officers in preparation for duties in positions as battalion commanders and lead planners for Army divisions and corps. The officers at SAMS are grouped into seminars for their classes, and they remain with their seminars throughout the yearlong educational program. The twin purposes of this study were to (a) test for the relationship between AT and creativity suggested by various theories of creativity and (b) contribute to the Army’s efforts to increase the creativity of its officers by empirically identifying the expected positive correlation between the officers AT levels and the creativity of their plans. A sample of 66 officers participated in the study. They each independently developed a military plan in response to a common notional scenario. Subsequently they each independently completed the short version of Norton’s (1975) MAT-50 to measure their levels of AT. Their plans were assessed for creativity using Amabile’s Consensual Assessment Technique (CAT). The high inter-rater reliability among the judges (r = .82) demonstrated the effectiveness of the CAT as a method for assessing the creativity of military plans. Counter to the expectation, analysis of the data revealed a small negative correlation throughout the sample between AT scores and the creativity of the plans, producing a disconfirmation dilemma for the researcher. Analysis revealed that the sample’s collective levels of AT differed among the various subscales of the MAT-50. Additionally, post hoc analysis revealed statistically significant variance of the creativity of the officers’ plans between the different seminars to which they were assigned. In the seminar with the highest creativity scores, there was a small positive correlation between AT and creativity, while in the seminar with the lowest creativity scores, there was a medium sized negative correlation between the two variables. Implications of these findings and recommendations for future research are discussed.

This study explores which concept of citizenship is typically promoted in ESL programs available to adult immigrants in Canada: citizenship as status, citizenship as identity, citizenship as a set of civic virtues or citizenship as agency. Is there a difference between the stated purpose of ESL programs, the integration and active participation of immigrants in Canadian society through language development, and the actual citizenship learning that occurs in these programs? What influences this? The study traces the historical link between citizenship education and ESL in Canada, and draws on existing research to reveal how citizenship concepts are presented in ESL classrooms. These findings are then matched with data from my textbook analysis, classroom observations and student interviews obtained from two advanced ESL courses offered by COSTI, as an indication of the citizenship learning and the citizenship concepts most likely to be promoted in ESL programs for adult immigrants across Canada.

Each year the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU), operating under the auspices of UNESCO, hosts a peace education training-of-trainer’s program for teacher-educators from across the Asia-Pacific. In this thesis, I examine through a qualitative case study approach the programmatic design and evaluation of the APCEIU training program, seeking to monitor its medium-term impact on educators. The research is framed within a larger study of peace education programs around the world. Frameworks of peace education conceptualized by Betty Reardon and Swee-hin Toh, and critical approaches to peace and development as animated by Paulo Freire and Johan Galtung, provide the theoretical foundations for the study. Research findings are based on consultation records, documentary analysis, observations, and questionnaire responses from evaluations of the 2009 program. In the medium-term impact assessment report, 14 educators offered data pertaining to their post-program implementation of peace education concepts and practices in their work.

This study explores which concept of citizenship is typically promoted in ESL programs available to adult immigrants in Canada: citizenship as status, citizenship as identity, citizenship as a set of civic virtues or citizenship as agency. Is there a difference between the stated purpose of ESL programs, the integration and active participation of immigrants in Canadian society through language development, and the actual citizenship learning that occurs in these programs? What influences this? The study traces the historical link between citizenship education and ESL in Canada, and draws on existing research to reveal how citizenship concepts are presented in ESL classrooms. These findings are then matched with data from my textbook analysis, classroom observations and student interviews obtained from two advanced ESL courses offered by COSTI, as an indication of the citizenship learning and the citizenship concepts most likely to be promoted in ESL programs for adult immigrants across Canada.

Each year the Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding (APCEIU), operating under the auspices of UNESCO, hosts a peace education training-of-trainer’s program for teacher-educators from across the Asia-Pacific. In this thesis, I examine through a qualitative case study approach the programmatic design and evaluation of the APCEIU training program, seeking to monitor its medium-term impact on educators. The research is framed within a larger study of peace education programs around the world. Frameworks of peace education conceptualized by Betty Reardon and Swee-hin Toh, and critical approaches to peace and development as animated by Paulo Freire and Johan Galtung, provide the theoretical foundations for the study. Research findings are based on consultation records, documentary analysis, observations, and questionnaire responses from evaluations of the 2009 program. In the medium-term impact assessment report, 14 educators offered data pertaining to their post-program implementation of peace education concepts and practices in their work.

This study uses a grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006) in a small case study to examine if drama as praxis influences long-term care residents when presented as a recreational activity. When used as “praxis” (Taylor, 2000), drama focuses solely on the learning and personal growth of the participants. The growth of long-term care underscores the value of recreational programming for quality of life in these institutions; drama as praxis has not been widely used in this context. Elements of the literature review were used to identify areas where dramatic activities have demonstrated influence in educational contexts: • Engagement / Participation • Self-Confidence / Sense of Efficacy • Social Skills / Empathy • Creativity / Imagination • Cognitive Skill Development / Understanding These became sensitizing concepts for the creation of “drama as praxis” activities, presented in six sessions to a small group of residents at a long-term care residence in the Toronto area. Data collection was based on the researcher’s observations and participant interviews. Drama was found to have a recreational benefit impacting quality of life, with Engagement, Social Skills,, and Self-Confidence, the predominant benefits observed. Creativity and Cognitive Skill Development were less frequent. A Theory of the Recreational Benefit of Drama as Praxis was then developed to help the researcher understand why these benefits might be caused by drama. Based on theoretical sampling from recent research in gerontology and brain science, the theory highlights four beneficial components of drama as praxis: 1. Kinesthetics – Fosters engagement and memory retrieval 2. Play and Endorphinal Release – Triggers cognitive work without fear or fatigue 3. Imagination and Perspective-taking – Helps individuals retrieve emotional memories, develop different perspectives, and joyfully create 4. Narrative - Helps participants access and process events in their lives, past and present The study ends with a discussion of possible implications for the use of drama in long-term care but emphasizes that, due to the size of the sample, the results of the research cannot necessarily be assumed to apply in other contexts. Suggestions for further research are made that might address this and help to clarify the findings of the study.

This study uses a grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2006) in a small case study to examine if drama as praxis influences long-term care residents when presented as a recreational activity. When used as “praxis” (Taylor, 2000), drama focuses solely on the learning and personal growth of the participants. The growth of long-term care underscores the value of recreational programming for quality of life in these institutions; drama as praxis has not been widely used in this context. Elements of the literature review were used to identify areas where dramatic activities have demonstrated influence in educational contexts: • Engagement / Participation • Self-Confidence / Sense of Efficacy • Social Skills / Empathy • Creativity / Imagination • Cognitive Skill Development / Understanding These became sensitizing concepts for the creation of “drama as praxis” activities, presented in six sessions to a small group of residents at a long-term care residence in the Toronto area. Data collection was based on the researcher’s observations and participant interviews. Drama was found to have a recreational benefit impacting quality of life, with Engagement, Social Skills,, and Self-Confidence, the predominant benefits observed. Creativity and Cognitive Skill Development were less frequent. A Theory of the Recreational Benefit of Drama as Praxis was then developed to help the researcher understand why these benefits might be caused by drama. Based on theoretical sampling from recent research in gerontology and brain science, the theory highlights four beneficial components of drama as praxis: 1. Kinesthetics – Fosters engagement and memory retrieval 2. Play and Endorphinal Release – Triggers cognitive work without fear or fatigue 3. Imagination and Perspective-taking – Helps individuals retrieve emotional memories, develop different perspectives, and joyfully create 4. Narrative - Helps participants access and process events in their lives, past and present The study ends with a discussion of possible implications for the use of drama in long-term care but emphasizes that, due to the size of the sample, the results of the research cannot necessarily be assumed to apply in other contexts. Suggestions for further research are made that might address this and help to clarify the findings of the study.

Situated in the postcolonial modernizing discourse of development, many empowerment narratives tend to pre-identify, pre-construct and categorize community development workers/ mobilizers as empowered bodies, catalysts, and change agents. These bodies are expected to and are assumed will facilitate a transformation in oppressed peoples’ self image and belief’s about their rights and capabilities. Although feminist academics/activists have been critical of imperialist, neo-liberal and politico-religious co-optations of understandings of empowerment, limited attention seems to have been paid to the material effects of empowerment narratives on the lives of these community development workers. Nor does there appear to be sufficient analysis into how local community development workers/mobilizers who find themselves in precarious positions of employment, engage with these narratives. Provided with guidelines based on project objectives and lists of targets, many development workers/mobilizers in Pakistan tend to live with expectations of how best to ‘translate/transform’ empowerment from the abstract into the concrete while restricted in their space to critically reflect on theoretical notions that drive their practice. This thesis provides insight into the economy of empowerment narratives and the potential they have to mediate ‘encounters’ shaping ‘subject’ and ‘other’ by critically exploring how bodies of community development workers are put to work and are made to work. Drawing on feminists poststructuralist and postcolonial theory my work explores how these community workers/mobilizers located in the urban metropolis of Karachi, embedded in a web of multiple intersecting structures of oppression and power relations ‘encounter’, theorize, strategize and act upon understanding of empowerment and community development through an arts informed cooperative inquiry. Through the use of prose, creative writing, short stories, photo narratives, artwork and interactive discussions my participants and I begin to complicate these narratives. As a result empowerment narratives begin to appear as colliding discourses, multi-layered complex constructs, which may form unpredictable, messy and contradictory assemblages; as opposed to linear, universal, inevitable and easily understood outcomes and processes. I conclude that the insistence to complicate and situate such messy understandings in specific contexts is important for women’s movements if empowerment is to retain its strategic meaning and value in feminist theorizing.

Abstract not available.