This multimedia dissertation, situated in Rhetoric and Composition, Digital Media Studies, and Civic Engagement, articulates a sustainable, agile approach to “wicked problems.” These complex, definition-resistant, interlocking problems (such as racism or climate change) aren’t ultimately solvable; rather than wicked problems being “acted upon,” they can only be creatively and rigorously “responded to” by networks of committed individuals and institutions. This dissertation posits that a wicked problem necessitates a “wicked response”: a sustained, emergent, and fluid strategy that focuses on changing relationships – to people, to space, and to knowledge. In order, to make this argument, I present the case of Mart, a small, formerly prosperous town in East Texas that has been in decline over the last half of a century. Throughout this dissertation, I analyze the ongoing efforts of the Mart Community Project (MCP), a cohort of Mart residents, international artists, and students and instructors from a variety of departments at the University of Texas at Austin. Over the past two years, the MCP has engaged in over twenty-five discrete projects, all with the aim of helping the Mart Community reimagine itself in the face of its primary wicked problem: a lack of civic cohesion. In the first chapter I explore how language fails to define or describe a wicked problem, yet is still necessary in order to transform it. I illustrate this contradiction in part through the Chambless Field mural, a successful MCP community arts project that by “writing community” became a productive response. My second chapter examines service learning and demonstrates how university/community partnerships and “participatory engagement” can be part of a nuanced approach to a wicked problem. Using the work of UT students in design-oriented and civic engagement classes, I demonstrate in the third chapter how “mapping” can be both a savvy pedagogical tool and a key element in reinventing the relationships of people to space and to one another. This dissertation offers up these diverse strategies with the sincere hope that the particulars of the MCP’s wicked response might be productively generalized to aid others participating in similarly challenging civic engagement work on wicked problems.

As the Italian thirst for excellence and knowledge burgeoned throughout the Quattrocento, the genre of instructional literature responded accordingly to social demands. Offering advice on a wide range of experience from the quotidian to the extraordinary, from superstition to scientific, conduct manuals appealed to readers of all Italian social classes. Investigating the relationship between this body of literature and the lives of contemporary women, this paper will focus specifically on those manuals which prescribe behaviors for women, and will investigate the reception of these precepts and the extent in which these notions informed and transformed women's lives. In order to better understand this complex relationship, I will focus on one particular piece of advice which recurs throughout instructional literature during this time: the prescribed notion that women should remain far removed from their household windows for the sake of their honor, reputation and chastity. The adherence to such an idea would prohibit women's use of their household windows, confining them to the deep recesses of the home, far from public view and public life. Widely read manuals, such as Alberti's Della Famiglia and Barbaro's Trattati delle donne, promulgated windows as literal "windows of opportunity" to further vice, such as lust, adultery, vanity and profligacy. Furthermore, these concerns are addressed in texts beyond the realm of the prudent, instructional literature; the theme recurs as metaphor for deviancy in both popular fiction and contemporary women's portraiture. Boccaccio's Decameron, a book which conduct manual authors continually deemed inappropriate for women, features several tales in which women carry out affairs by way of their bedroom windows. Within the genre of portrait painting, both Fra Filippo Lippi and Botticelli painted interior scenes which featured women positioned at windows. The synthesis of these seemingly disparate sources, hitherto unexplored within the same context, reveals a complicated moral climate that undoubtedly had decisive consequences for Italian women during the fifteenth century.

Several factors influence the social participation of rural migrants in urban structures according to previous studies: (1) origins, (2) education, (3) occupation, (4) auspices of migration, (5) age at migration, (6) length of residence, (7) previous migrations, (8) social mobility, (9) income, (10) geographic mobility, (11) community activities. These variables will be included in the research design of this present study. Review of previous studies indicates that there have not been any studies conducted on the factors associated with urban church participation of former members of rural churches.

Convivencia, or conviviality/coexistence, represents a pivotal node in Spanish ideologies of multiculturalism. Long touted as the legacy of interreligious harmony in Al- Andalus (A.D. 711-1492), contemporary pedagogical convivencia involves a complex of innovative policies, curricula, and activities which idealize distinct ways of communicating and enacting egalitarianism across myriad differences. This dissertation establishes this idealization as an artifact of Spain’s historic struggles with democracy and newfound struggles with cultural pluralism from immigration. I approach education as a focal sphere in which to examine the daily construction and maintenance of this ideal. Specifically, I draw on twelve months’ fieldwork at three secondary schools in the municipality of El Ejido (Almería) to argue that the universalist bent of contemporary convivencia pedagogies tends to obscure and invalidate minority student perspectives. My primary concern lies with the experiences of Moroccan youth, who during my research belonged to the largest, most stigmatized immigrant group in the area and whose stereotyped association with patriarchy, piety, and cultural isolationism placed them at odds with the values most fervently promoted in convivencia lessons, especially gender equality. I show how one unintended consequence of these interventions was that intolerance persisted not despite, but through, lessons on tolerance—a troubling finding for a place like El Ejido, which has seen some of the worst interracial violence in Europe. Using audio recordings collected at one school during democratic education classes and related activities, I identify patterns in teacher-student and student-student interactions that reveal how convivencia was constructed (and undermined) as a discursive performance of progressivism. Stance prompting, stance assessment, and stance attribution comprised tools that allowed teachers to defend their situational and moral authority while compelling students toward self-reflection and empathy. I reveal these repertoires as exclusionary to Moroccan youth, who were positioned as “others” unqualified to speak as progressive subjects, while their native-born peers launched critiques, and even insults, with impunity. Convivencia lessons, taught through classes mandated at the national and regional levels, politicized interactions and sparked various forms of resistance or pushback from students. Using analytic frameworks from linguistic anthropology and building on studies of diversity and civic education, Spanish social history, and liberalism and modernity, I argue that the dialogues analyzed in this dissertation represent tensions ever-present in projects of democratic equality. I ultimately describe convivencia pedagogies as ritualized instantiations of dominant social norms that inadvertently ostracize rather than unite youth across differences. While the shape of these efforts have much to do with Spain’s mottled history with democracy, these findings hold significance for educators everywhere insofar as heartfelt support for seemingly unassailable ideals—including human rights, gender equality, and racial equality—can smuggle in ethnocentrist biases.

No description available.

This study focuses on nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe. Anchored in theories that this region historically has been characterized by a nationalism that is based on the ethnic group rather than on liberal or civic concepts, it is the purpose of this study to explore whether these theories still apply in recent times when the region has been liberalized, for example manifested in the entry to the European Union. The research question has been tested through analysis of the constitutions of a number of Central and Eastern European countries in order to investigate what type of nationalism that the states have codified in their basic political documents. The results show that some of the states give expression to the historical ethnic nationalism in their constitutions, which indicates that the theories still are relevant.

This work analyses national and international educational acts which define civic education. In this way the emphasis on aspects of civic education is aimed. First of all, the theoretical conception of civic education is discused. Also, the situation of civic education in neighbouring countries and countries of the EU is surveyed. Analyses of documents defining civic education of various international organizations - a member of which Lithuania is - are included. Besides, the process of the creation of Lithuanian system of civic education is analysed in the context of education reform. During all the period of education reform a conciderable attention was paid to civic education. The system was constantly being improved, new programs were being created and the content and form of upbringing changed. Finally, suggestions about the perfection of implementation of the civic education policy are presented at the end of the work.

People nowadays are often forced to accept the challenges of the modern society. That is the reason why a great attention has been paid to civic education in many countries of the world including Lithuania. As education system is considered to be one of the key instruments constructing civic society, schools nowadays aim to develop students’ responsibility, social activity and independence; form their value system, emphasize the importance of democratic relationships between teachers and students. The problem of democratic citizenship education is relevant in Lithuanian school and society for understanding democracy itself, determining practical activity of young people. Since 1988 democratic citizenship has been declared to be one of the most important aims of the reformed Lithuanian school. at the beginning of the reform civic education integration program into curriculum was created, however it was agreed that the aspects of democracy education have to embrace the whole school life. Having spent long years in Soviet occupation and having long experience of Soviet education Lithuanian school has inevitably faced certain difficulties creating its own democracy-based education. USA, the country in possession of long civic education experience has been chosen as a model country. During 15 years of independence in cooperation with American civic education experts Lithuanian teachers have made visible changes in Lithuanian education system. This work aims to analyze and... [to full text]

The study presents informal civic education problems and research results of educational travel as effective civic education method. Schools bear great responsibility for the development of civic competency and civic responsibility. Schools fulfill this responsibility through both formal and informal education beginning in the earliest years and continuing through the entire educational process. The main aim of the study is to analyze the effectiveness of educational travel (tour) as civic education method. Major goals of the study are as follows: 1) review and analysis of literature placing emphasis on specifics of educational travel as civic education method; 2) design educational tour model for civic education; 3) present research results of model effectiveness. The research methods used in the study are observation, testing and practical task. The first part of study presents analysis of educational travel as method of active education. Civic dispositions and skills, both intellectual and participatory, are inseparable from civic knowledge and active participation. In order to think critically, act effectively and responsibly, learners must understand the terms of the issue, its origins, the alternative responses to it, and the likely consequences of these responses. Educational travel as active learning method allows teachers to show their students the motherland and the world. During tours text books come to life, real touch with history, culture and nature... [to full text]

The idea of the development of civic culture in Lithuania is being established as a priority in the system of education. However, this goal can be achieved by common efforts of both the educated and the teaching staff in the process of civic school community formation. Therefore the problems of civic country should be included into the educational programmes. Moreover, daily existence of schools should be accustomed to the development of civic values and virtues, as well as skills and abilities. The subject of this investigation is to educe the opportunities of school society in education of schoolchildren public spirit. The author analyses theoretical aspects of civil education, reviews the historical evolution of civil education in Lithuania. In this magistrate’s work there are presented analyses and conception of civil education' goals in the conceptual documents of education reform, discussed the peculiarities and opportunities of school society's activity. The author in his paper analyses the results of his research, conducted with a view to determining teachers' and pupils attitude towards the formation of a civic community at school. As it is noted in the work, developing of a personality greatly depends on school's help for everybody to better understand themselves, to realize their identity and uniqueness, as well as determine their goals in life. These goals can be achieved only in successfully functioning school community whose members work in accord with each... [to full text]