Throughout the early 20th century, eugenics discourse came to colour many facets of social policy making across Canada. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the ways by which eugenics and the mental hygiene movement impacted the practice of child protection during the early 20th century. I argue that the construction and propagation of the term and classification of ‘feeble-mindedness’ was used by child protection workers to exclude an increasing number of children from both care and society. During this period, social workers were complicit in the sorting, classifying and segregating of children deemed ‘feeble-minded’ with the expressed purpose of eradicating certain classes of people from society and moreover the gene pool. Women shouldered the burden of the social reform movement, as they were considered both the solution to, and the cause, of social ills. Controlling women’s reproduction was seen as the best way to ensure ‘race betterment’. Women at the intersection of race, class and ability were often constructed as ‘feeble-minded’ and segregated for fear that they would reproduce ‘their kind’. Initially, the child protection system blatantly excluded those deemed ‘unworthy’ or ‘unreformable’. Under the rubric of eugenics, however, child protection’s role shifted and the system became complicit in the application of eugenic principle to child and family life and women’s reproduction under the auspice of ‘race betterment’ and nation building. Through this exploratory study, it is evident that the normative structures of child protection policy remain unchanged. Extricating children from troubled environments at the least possible cost continues to trump a more insightful look at how policy and resources should engage with structural concerns, such as poverty. / Thesis / Master of Social Work (MSW)

In this thesis, I analyze responses to the 1994 Direct Ground Combat Definition and Assignment Rule (DGCDAR), the policy that until January 24, 2013 formally barred women from serving in combat. Specifically, I use feminist theories of embodiment, equality, and difference to interpret how interlocutors represent female service members in the "Letters" section of the Marine Corps Gazette and interviews I collected from members of the military community. I find that the most common arguments against women in combat locate gender difference in the physically sexed body, centering primarily on female nature, sexuality, and strength. Throughout this project, I demonstrate how these arguments are persuasive because the discourse understands equality as sameness to a male norm. This equality as sameness paradigm perpetuates gender-based barriers to parity by expecting women to function just like men. Ultimately, I argue for a more inclusive conception of equality that acknowledges difference. / Master of Arts

This thesis is an examination of the subsection of T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land that is aptly named "The Fire Sermon." The hybrid nature of this famous poem makes it open to a variety of readings, and these readings are often conflicting. Thus, the work, in spite of being a seminal text in literature, can be difficult to teach due to the complexity of the piece itself. This fact makes choosing a pedagogical approach to teaching The Waste Land a challenge. With the goal of making Eliot's poem more explorable, this thesis will undertake the task of an examination of "The Fire Sermon" using two distinctive theories. The theories in question are the theory of the lyric, exemplified by Jonathan Culler's writing, and the theory of heteroglossia established by Mikhail Bakhtin. However, that analysis will be merely a stepping stone for a more strictly pedagogical question that this project seeks to answer. That question is, namely, the query of which branch of contemporary theory, narrative or lyric, is more apt to present the issues inherent in "The Fire Sermon" in an effective and teachable manner. Both positions have a number of positive attributes and elements that make them uniquely suited to the examination of Eliot's writing. / Master of Arts / Teaching poetry can be a difficult task. The basic question of “Why should I study poetry?” is one that many a professor has had to answer. While the scholarly community has done a decent job of articulating the value of the liberal arts, the specifics of how to teach difficult poetry is more of a gray area in scholarship. Certainly, a number of articles, opinions, and theories on how to best teach poetry exist, but creating a clear blueprint with examples of how to apply complex theories to a poem is essential to guiding new instructors into the field of teaching poetic works before an audience. This thesis is a work that shows several of the methods of studying poetry via an examination of several important poetic and narrative theories and the theorists that created said methods, and then the thesis undertakes a practical examination of a poem, a section of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. The purpose of this thesis is to make critical theories and abstract ideas more applicable and valuable as usable tools in the classroom, rather than having them exist as ideas without a practical application. Knowledge is, after all, something made to be shared.

The study of utopia generally takes place in isolation from empirical social science based on its classification as either political theory or literary genre. While both approaches are well-suited to the academic study of a concept that does not exist in reality, each on its own also lacks the kind of efficacy that could be offered by an integrated situation of utopia in the "real" world. This paper seeks to incorporate utopian thinking into contemporary social and political context by utilizing both fiction and critical theory as a lens for the "real" world. It also considers both blueprint and myth as authorial choices for enacting fiction into reality. This paper begins with an introduction to and justification for the study of literature as political theory, suggesting various mechanisms for the translation of one into the other. Next, it examines contemporary political theories of utopia and their applicability to fiction-as-motivator. Furthermore, it establishes the practical nature of an impractical genre by proposing two methods for enacting social change through utopian fiction, namely, the use of myth and blueprint as vehicles for theory. These methods are further investigated through case study examples of each, with Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward as an example of utopian blueprint and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland as a model of utopian myth. / Master of Arts

This paper explores the relationality between Modernism and Postmodernism as well as between literature and theory by examining the works of two writers: master novelist William Faulkner, and high priest of Postmodernism, Jean Baudrillard. Specifically, this paper examines Faulkner's eleventh novel—the oft-neglected If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem—as a proto-postmodern text which, when examined by the light of Baudrillard's theory of simulacra and simulations, informs the transition from Modernism to Postmodernism. This paper treats each author's work as a lens through which to view the other. The result is both a re-vision of Faulkner's social philosophy and a re-examination of the epistemic break that separates Faulkner's philosophy from that of Baudrillard. / Master of Arts

Orientador: Silvio Ancizar Sanchez Gamboa / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-05T23:07:52Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Silva_GildemarksCostae_D.pdf: 887881 bytes, checksum: 397f71b9cf6526fc8cc4ec6082813878 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / Resumo: Embora a tecnologia faça parte atualmente de poderosos processos e modalidades de ação que modelam a existência humana, ela é pouco vista como objeto de análise teórico-crítica por parte da teoria da educação. No campo pedagógico, a crença na noção de neutralidade da tecnologia é cada vez mais forte. Considerando que a teoria da educação tem por finalidade o estudo de um projeto de sociedade e das maneiras pelas quais a educação pode contribuir para superar/efetivar tal projeto, a tematização da relação entre a educação e o fenômeno tecnológico é fundamental. Assim, este trabalho, de natureza teórica, tem por objetivo central questionar e compreender a crítica da tecnologia no pensamento de Andrew Feenberg, tendo como horizonte pensar a relação tecnologia e educação. Toma como referência metodológica a teoria enquanto reflexão crítica e procura analisar a trilogia de livros na qual Feenberg formula sua teoria crítica da tecnologia. Como conclusão, evidencia que a teoria crítica da tecnologia permite, por meio do conceito de ambivalência, as bases para se aprofundar o diálogo entre moderna tecnologia e educação. Além disso, conclui pelo necessário e urgente aprofundamento da condição heurística no que se refere à tematização tecnologia-educação, pois, só assim, a teoria educacional poderá ir além do conceito de neutralidade da tecnologia que lhe é peculiar / Abstract: Although technology is now being part of powerful processes and action modalities that model the human existence, it is not very well seen as an object of theoreticalcritic analysis by education theory. In the pedagogic field, the faith in the notion of technology neutrality is getting stronger. Considering that education theory has the purpose of studying a society project and the ways through which education can contribute to overcome/execute such project, the point concerning the relationship between education and the technological phenomenon is fundamental. Thus, this thesis, of theoretical nature, mainly aims to question and to understand the criticism of technology in accordance to Andrew Feenberg¿s thought, having as horizon to consider the relationship between technology and education. It takes as methodological reference the theory as critical reflection and it tries to analyze the trilogy of books in which Feenberg formulates his Critical Theory of Technology. It presents the conclusion that Critical Theory of Technology provides, through the ambivalence concept, the bases to deepen the dialogue between modern technology and education. Besides, it concludes a need for some necessary and urgent deep consideration of the heuristic condition, in relation to the field of technology-education, because, only this way, the educational theory can go beyond the its peculiar concept of tehcnology neutrality / Doutorado / Historia, Filosofia e Educação / Doutor em Educação

This qualitative action research study examines how critical theory defined and guided my practice as an art teacher educator while I provided inclusion training for seven preservice art teachers during their student teaching. Sources of data included a personal journal, the inclusion curriculum I created for the preservice teachers and questionnaires and interviews. Primary findings indicated that critical theory had a substantive impact on the evolving development of my teaching philosophy, in particular my attention to issues of power redistribution in the classroom and my developing notion of teaching as form of artistry. The findings of this study also indicate that the primary impact of critical theory upon the preservice teachers was the articulation of their personal narratives and its relation to the development of their teaching identities. Further, mentoring these preservice art teachers in critical theory increased their competence in solving educational dilemmas. A primary finding of this study was how significant of a role the supervising or mentor teacher plays in developing preservice teachers' identity. As this is acknowledged, valued and utilized, more collaborative relationships among these stakeholders in the education of the preservice art teacher can be forged. The study provides implications for art teacher educators as they provide inclusion training to preservice teachers. These include honoring narratives, articulating a broader notion of inclusion, and using context-specific instructional tools while preservice teachers are completing fieldwork with students with disabilities. One suggestion for future research is to conduct longitudinal studies which explore and validate the impact of critical theory upon art teacher educators and preservice art teachers during the student teaching semester and several years beyond.

Jurgen Habermas argues for a paradigm change in critical theory from Theodor W. Adorno's philosophy of consciousness to his own linguistically-turned theory. Habermas claims that Adorno's conception of reason sets up an antagonistic relationship between subject and object that can only be overcome by a non-rational mimesis with nature. This thesis defends Adorno against Habermas, and argues that the linguistic turn is a mistake. Chapter 1 outlines Habermas's critique, and corrects some of his specific misunderstandings of Adorno. Chapter 2 offers a positive defense of Adorno. By means of an expanded notion of nature, Adorno shows how the relation between subject and object need not be the antagonistic one characteristic of so much of modern philosophy. Chapter 3 argues that it is not Adorno's dialectical thought, but Habermas's linguistically-turned critical theory that suffers from an inability properly to articulate the relation between subject and object.

The central argument of this thesis is that, contrary to what is generally believed, Critical Theory (CT) – as understood by the Frankfurt School (FS) – does exist and is developed in Spain influenced by and parallel to the Frankfurt School’s own research during the second half of the twentieth century. Hence, the aim of this research is to provide evidence of the existence in Spain of thought developed in line with Frankfurtian CT. To this end, we shall explore the thought developed by three leading Spanish thinkers: José Luis López Aranguren, María Zambrano Alarcón, and Jesús Aguirre y Ortiz de Zárate. This will be done from the perspective of two pivotal currents of thought arising from Germany: neo- Marxism and Heideggerian thought. By doing so, not only will this research draw attention to the much overlooked issue of CT in Spain, but it will also help to re-contextualize Spanish thought of the second half of the twentieth century in the broader sociological and philosophical discussions which were taking place in post-war Europe and the United States. To this end, the thesis has been structured in two parts. The aim of the first part is to provide an introduction as well as a methodological and historical contextualization which will establish the framework for the rest of the thesis. In the second part, I will carry out an interdisciplinary comparative study analysing which aspects of the thought of these Spanish thinkers converge with the thought of the FS, and which differ from them. Attention will also be paid to the socio-political atmosphere they are immersed in, so as to find out how it contributes to shape their thought.

Complex Indigenous and racialized poverty exists in Canada. Child poverty obviously has a negative impact on our youth who are served by school systems. As Silver (2014, 2016) and others have demonstrated, poverty can lead to poor educational outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examination the understandings and actions of four superintendents in Winnipeg, Manitoba related to complex Indigenous and racialized poverty. The superintendency is incredibly complex and extremely political, and there cannot be a recipe book from which superintendents can help advance the cause of greater equity for all our students. That said, we can learn from the stories of those who have made a difference, no matter how small or contextualized. We can advance our knowledge to inform how superintendents can contribute to the creation of educational environments in which people challenge, develop, and, in the words of Foster (1986), “liberate human souls” (p. 18). Using a qualitative approach informed by critical theory, this study explores how the superintendents understood issues related to complex, racialized poverty in particular; and how these understandings influenced their work in highly complex, political, and contextual work environments. In this study, each of the superintendents participated in a series of individual interviews and a group dialogue. The study attempts to ascertain (a) what the participants believed about complex poverty and how they have come to these understandings, (b) how they described the socio-political and organizational environments that informed and influenced their work as superintendents and; what they were able and unable do to mitigate the effects of poverty upon students and their communities, and (c) what actions have they undertaken to attempt to address issues of racialized poverty and what else they think should be done in schools, in school systems, and in the greater communities. / February 2017