Thesis (D. Ed. Min.)--Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2003. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-128).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 282-291).

Thesis (M.A.P.S.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [66]-67).

Thesis (D. Min.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 248-256).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 223-244). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

ABSTRACT The numerous images of violence perpetrated by radicalized followers of Islam, has highlighted the complexities surrounding assimilation and integration of Muslims in Western society. Since the guest worker recruitment from French African colonies initiated after World War II, France has been witness to the unanticipated development of permanent communities of African laborers, many of whom are Muslim. Despite consistent promotion of French monoculture and specifically the use of the assimilation model for integration, segregation of African Muslims has occurred. Through the construction of a single country case study, I explore integration issues surrounding the French Muslim minority communities. I seek to assess the occurrences of segregation among African Muslims, and theorize that process established by the French government for the assimilation and integration of African Muslims into French society has culminated in the formation of segregated African Muslim diaspora communities. This topic was chosen because I possess a general interest in the integration of Muslims into Western society. Due to the broadness of the Muslim population, and given their high visibility I narrowed my focus on African Muslims. Furthermore, this topic was chosen to determine the viability of the French case as an alternative to the failed policies of multiculturalism. Therefore, I examine the assimilation strategy of French Republicanism established in France by the French Revolution of 1789. This thesis is relevant given the rising visibility of Muslims throughout Western society. Furthermore, the increased visibility highlights the position of African Muslim communities in France. The evidence presented in my thesis demonstrates that the presence of segregated African Muslim communities is an unintended consequence of the historical development of French monoculture and colonialism. French assimilation of African Muslims is not a complete failure due to marginal successes of African Muslims in political and economic arenas. Furthermore, the segregation of African Muslims in France does not diminish the viability of assimilation strategy in the overall integration of Muslims into Western society, especially as politicians across the European continent denounce the failed policies of multiculturalism.

This study seeks to expand the scope of assimilation theory by integrating it with elements of routine activities theory to better understand what influence assimilation has in regard to violent victimization. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to determine whether or not differences in victimization rates between foreign-born and native-born Hispanic youth are related to variations in emotional guardianship. Emotional guardianship refers to the aspect of relationships (i.e., affection and communication) between Hispanic youth and their parents that serve to protect the youth from being victimized. I hypothesize that foreign-born Hispanics have greater emotional guardianship than native-born Hispanics, and as a result foreign-born Hispanics have lower probabilities of victimization. To test this hypothesis and others, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) is utilized, as it provides data about the various aspects of assimilation (e.g., country of birth, language spoken at home), routine activities (e.g., sports, clubs, and family outings), and emotional guardianship (e.g., communication of problems, expectations, and satisfaction of parental bond), which are each believed to contribute to the likelihood of being victimized.

In this thesis, I explore the perceived character of Islamophobia in American society, and how Islamophobia is embedded in the everyday lived experiences and identity negotiations of a sample of Middle Eastern immigrants, ten years post-9/11. Data consist of 13 qualitative interviews with first-generation Middle Eastern immigrants, including Muslims, Christians, and those who claim no religion. Findings suggest that perceived discrimination and cultural hostility vary across both gender and religion. Women who cover with the hijab perceive far more discrimination and humiliating experiences than men or women who do not cover in the sample. Iranians also receive extremely poor treatment, especially from border patrol agents in airports, regardless of religion. Overarching themes of identity negotiation include: (1) a Muslim First identity; (2) the individualizing of the Muslim faith through modified religious practices and diverse social networks; and (3) negotiating the Iranian vs. Persian identity. I conclude that while overall trends of discrimination are perceived to be receding from their peaks in the 9/11 backlash; there is a real possibility for sustained hostility towards those who are visibly Muslim, particularly for women, which has implications for trends in identity negotiation.

Coastal ocean models are used for a vast array of applications. These applications include modeling tidal and coastal flows, waves, and extreme events, such as tsunamis and hurricane storm surges. Tidal and coastal flows are the primary application of this work as they play a critical role in many practical research areas such as contaminant transport, navigation through intracoastal waterways, development of coastal structures (e.g. bridges, docks, and breakwaters), commercial fishing, and planning and execution of military operations in marine environments, in addition to recreational aquatic activities. Coastal ocean models are used to determine tidal amplitudes, time intervals between low and high tide, and the extent of the ebb and flow of tidal waters, often at specific locations of interest. However, modeling tidal flows can be quite complex, as factors such as the configuration of the coastline, water depth, ocean floor topography, and hydrographic and meteorological impacts can have significant effects and must all be considered. Water levels and currents in the coastal ocean can be modeled by solv- ing the shallow water equations. The shallow water equations contain many parameters, and the accurate estimation of both tides and storm surge is dependent on the accuracy of their specification. Of particular importance are the parameters used to define the bottom stress in the domain of interest [50]. These parameters are often heterogeneous across the seabed of the domain. Their values cannot be measured directly and relevant data can be expensive and difficult to obtain. The parameter values must often be inferred and the estimates are often inaccurate, or contain a high degree of uncertainty [28]. In addition, as is the case with many numerical models, coastal ocean models have various other sources of uncertainty, including the approximate physics, numerical discretization, and uncertain boundary and initial conditions. Quantifying and reducing these uncertainties is critical to providing more reliable and robust storm surge predictions. It is also important to reduce the resulting error in the forecast of the model state as much as possible. The accuracy of coastal ocean models can be improved using data assimilation methods. In general, statistical data assimilation methods are used to estimate the state of a model given both the original model output and observed data. A major advantage of statistical data assimilation methods is that they can often be implemented non-intrusively, making them relatively straightforward to implement. They also provide estimates of the uncertainty in the predicted model state. Unfortunately, with the exception of the estimation of initial conditions, they do not contribute to the information contained in the model. The model error that results from uncertain parameters is reduced, but information about the parameters in particular remains unknown. Thus, the other commonly used approach to reducing model error is parameter estimation. Historically, model parameters such as the bottom stress terms have been estimated using variational methods. Variational methods formulate a cost functional that penalizes the difference between the modeled and observed state, and then minimize this functional over the unknown parameters. Though variational methods are an effective approach to solving inverse problems, they can be computationally intensive and difficult to code as they generally require the development of an adjoint model. They also are not formulated to estimate parameters in real time, e.g. as a hurricane approaches landfall. The goal of this research is to estimate parameters defining the bottom stress terms using statistical data assimilation methods. In this work, we use a novel approach to estimate the bottom stress terms in the shallow water equations, which we solve numerically using the Advanced Circulation (ADCIRC) model. In this model, a modified form of the 2-D shallow water equations is discretized in space by a continuous Galerkin finite element method, and in time by finite differencing. We use the Manning’s n formulation to represent the bottom stress terms in the model, and estimate various fields of Manning’s n coefficients by assimilating synthetic water elevation data using a square root Kalman filter. We estimate three types of fields defined on both an idealized inlet and a more realistic spatial domain. For the first field, a Manning’s n coefficient is given a constant value over the entire domain. For the second, we let the Manning’s n coefficient take two distinct values, letting one define the bottom stress in the deeper water of the domain and the other define the bottom stress in the shallower region. And finally, because bottom stress terms are generally spatially varying parameters, we consider the third field as a realization of a stochastic process. We represent a realization of the process using a Karhunen-Lo`ve expansion, and then seek to estimate the coefficients of the expansion. We perform several observation system simulation experiments, and find that we are able to accurately estimate the bottom stress terms in most of our test cases. Additionally, we are able to improve forecasts of the model state in every instance. The results of this study show that statistical data assimilation is a promising approach to parameter estimation. / text

After the Mexican-American war, the educational experience of Mexican and Mexican -American students was one of segregation, discrimination, and inequalities. Latina/o histories and funds of knowledge have not been historically part of the classroom curriculum. Although scholars, educators, and social movements have challenged such inequalities, they still persist. Students became objects of the educational process. New theories and educational practices, such as critical pedagogy, have helped empowered students to become aware of their situation and encouraged students to become social agents of change. Literature circles, an educational practice of critical pedagogy, enable educators to provide students with an educational experience where they become the Subjects of their own learning; thus, transforming their educational experiences. / text