The purpose of this study was to delve into the emerging awareness of the social factors that contribute to the teaching and learning of mathematics by documenting the experiences of Math Literacy Workers in the Young People’s Project, as it formed its Los Angeles Chapter. Twelve high school students, three college students and one program coordinator participated in this research study. This research study focused on a series of math literacy workshops conducted as part of an after-school program at Roosevelt Elementary School. Built upon the legacy of the Mississippi Freedom Riders, the Young People’s Project has developed an engaging program that allows participants to take direct action in transforming their communities. The design of a pedagogy rooted in the tenants of civil rights, youth leadership, civic engagement, criticalmathliteracy, situated learning theory, cultural relevance, peer-to-peer education, social empowerment, grassroots leadership, and community organizing, enabled participants to develop their identity as agents of social change. This research examined the capacity of critical literacy and the methodologies used to promote math literacy and youth leadership as aspects of the Math Literacy Workers training program. The Math Literacy Workers training program positively impacted youth participants’ math literacy, problem solving, academic achievement, communication, organizing skills, leadership capacity, self-confidence, civic engagement, critical literacy, and self-identity. Participants described how the program allowed them to achieve praxis, through continuously reflecting on their identities and the social significance of their experiences as they took direct action as facilitators of the math literacy workshops at Roosevelt Elementary School.

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Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, School of Social Sciences, 2012 / This thesis explores the relationship between social capital/civil society and good governance/economic development both conceptually and empirically through case studies in the urban, rural, and peri-urban South Africa. As a starting point, this thesis attempts to answer the following six questions: How is social capital identifiable? Is its production exclusively confined to horizontally structured forms of associational life? Can peasant societies generate social capital? Do social capital networks accentuate divisions within communities between those who have access to authority and those without? Can political institutions play a role in producing social capital or does the enlargement of state authority take place at the expense of the associational networks which do produce social capital? And what kind of organisations in rural settings can best bridge sectional concerns and promote wider communities of trust? Can traditional existing political institutions be adapted to modern democratic requirements? I believe that in answering these questions I have gone some way in resolving some of the conceptual dilemmas identified by critics of the concept of social capital. I was then in a position to test and explore two hypotheses. Firstly, I argue that there is a relationship between social capital (a product of civil society) and good governance as well as economic and democratic development. Secondly, I argue that positive social capital will be under-produced in societies in which there is a weak market economy, that is, where members of civil society do not have independent sources of income. I demonstrate that civil society, the state, and markets have a symbiotic relationship and that they all have a role to play in the production of positive social capital. This thesis employed various data collection methods in order to navigate around the case studies chosen for the purposes of this study, viz. individual and group interviews, focus groups, direct observations, research surveys, secondary literature, and local newspapers. Evidence emanating from this thesis suggests that there is a vibrant civil society and, by implication, social capital in poorly resourced areas found in urban, peri-urban, and rural areas of South Africa, which has to some extent contributed to good governance as well as economic and democratic development. However, I conclude by arguing that the informalisation of the economy as well as high levels of unemployment in these areas certainly inhibit civil society from playing its important democratising and governance role since the production of positive social capital is constrained by this new reality.

Civic and political engagement is woven into the fabric of higher education and many higher education institutions have intentionally incorporated this in their mission statements. Civic engagement often refers to passive activities like community service, partnership, and reciprocity with others in society while political engagement refers to activities that influences inherent interaction with the government, most common is voting (Verba et al., 1995). Verba and Nie’s (1972) defined political engagement using four elements: voting, campaign activities like membership or working for political organizations or donating, contacting public officials, and engagement in local communities that tackles local issues. The problem is that no model or robust framework exists that explains the student experiences of civic and political engagement in higher education. Furthermore, there is an absence of greater empirical studies on civic and political engagement regarding ethnic/racial students like Southeast Asian Americans (SEAA).There is little known about the pathways of civic and political engagement among Asian American college students. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) trace their roots from East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Despite attempts on the heterogenization of Asian Americans’ civic and political engagement trends in research, there is still limited understanding on civic and political behaviors and attitudes based on ethnicity. Southeast Asian Americans often experience challenges that remain invisible in higher education. A phenomenological approach is utilized to analyze the interviews of seven Southeast Asian American college students. Five themes emerged from the data collected: Civic engagement as more accessible, political engagement driven by key issues, intersectionality of Generation Z and political engagement, limited college influence, and ethnic identity as motivation for engagement. Overall, participants viewed civic activities as more accessible than political engagement. There was a lack of comprehensive knowledge to what political engagement entailed other than voting. The participants were driven by specific issues to political engagement. These activities other than voting used channels like Instagram to engage. They perceived institutional messaging or outreach regarding engagement as absent. The participants had a positive experience in student organizations they were a part of, and these networks increased their civic and political awareness. The study was guided by the Asian Critical Race Theory. The tenets of Asian Critical Race Theory were particularly present when discussing their experiences and motivations for engagement. Issues related to Asian hate crimes that led participants to speak out, attend rallies, promotion of Asian related stories via Instagram, voting out political leaders that they perceived propagated anti-immigrant and Asian discrimination were motivations for participation. These were reminiscent of Asian Critical Race Theory. Through disaggregation of data, the implication of this study hoped to refocus the attention of higher education on Southeast Asian Americans and address their unique needs to promote civic development among students. The implications from the findings included increase opportunity for higher education to refine definitions of engagement, removing barriers to college access for Asian Americans and Southeast Asian Americans, advancing the AAPI agenda in institutions and colleges, and connecting college students to Asian American leaders. / Policy, Organizational and Leadership Studies

TikTok differs from how the media audience is used to seeing other social media platforms. When opening the app, the user does not see the friends you have decided to follow. Instead, you are faced with an algorithmically decided and never-ending feed of content personified individually for the specific user. In recent years, TikTok has become a prominent and rapidly growing platform, especially among younger media users. The emergence of TikTok usage among the youth implies an increased need for examining cultural phenomena that are performed on this platform. This study will be exploring the emergence of the online phenomenon known as mediated public shaming on TikTok by critically reviewing how young Swedish TikTok users are engaging in and experiencing the mediated public shaming that is occurring on TikTok as well as its effects by taking a theoretical departure from media literacy theories. The study is a qualitative reception study where the empirical material is conducted by one-to-one interviews with nine mundane Swedish TikTok users between the ages of 16–27. It was discovered that young TikTok users have a complex relationship with the mediated public shaming they face on TikTok and engage in the concept in a rather objective and reflective manner. They do, however, express concern that the design of the media, in conjunction with mediated public shaming, may allow for subconscious effects of their opinions. Looking forward, there is an indicated compelling need for continued research within the field, proposedly further research of online cultures’ roles in the determination of platform design and construction of algorithms.

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