This self-study explores the question of "What factors in my life shaped my journey in earning an American college degree and becoming a successful educator in the U.S.?" This question is explored in the context of my own lived experiences. Results contribute to the field of immigrant studies and may encourage others who wish to transition from first generation immigrant to successful professional educator in the U.S. This study employed hermeneutic phenomenology to answer the research question. It used in-depth narrative interviews to elicit my responses to lived experiences from growing up in Mexico to my current teaching position. Thematic analysis was used to summarize and interpret the data. Data analysis yielded six themes that describe my journey to becoming a teacher in the U.S.: family influence, vision of life, role models, challenges, sources of support, and inner strength. Findings reaffirm the belief that it is possible for an individual who has recently immigrated to the United States and who may have experienced aspects of structural inequality to surmount difficult circumstances and achieve important life goals.

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / Abstract This thesis examines the experiences of Korean migrant women (KMW) in the Australian labour market. A review of the extant literature leads to two propositions, both of which assert that KMW are likely to experience labour market disadvantage or barriers to entry. These propositions take into account two significant theories of the labour market: segmentation theory and human capital theory. Segmentation theory argues that unchangeable gender and racial / cultural differences have the greatest impact upon labour market value, human capital theory describes the labour market value of individuals as based upon apparently objective and attainable skills (here English language skills). Using narrative analysis and, more specifically, antenarrative analysis, the study examines the life stories of 33 Australian KMW. In so doing, it identifies hitherto unheard discourses concerning the experiences of KMW in relation to the Australian labour market — discourses that challenge established academic thinking regarding this issue. Identification and analysis of these new discourses generates a number of alternative understandings of the labour market experiences of KMW. These alternative understandings both demonstrate the limitations of, and go beyond, the existing two propositions. In particular, the research shows that the impacts of gender and culture (segmentation theory) vary over time for KMW, do not always prevent labour market participation, and are experienced in terms of identity within a gendered Australian labour market. The research also demonstrates that while many KMW are in fact sufficiently skilled in the English language (human capital theory) to enter the Australian labour market, they nevertheless experience a sense of inferiority about their English language capacity that discourages them from entering, and limits their opportunities to participate in, the labour market. This in turn contributes to their social isolation. The thesis concludes that within the Australian academic literature, KMW have either been given little space and voice or have been misrepresented, reflecting and contributing to an ongoing ignorance of the experiences of Asian women in Australian workplaces. The KMW examined in this study are subject to numerous forms of subordination in Australian workplaces and society that cannot be adequately explained in terms of their human capital or their gender and cultural differences. The covert nature of the politics of difference within the work place makes exclusionary practices more difficult to identify and discuss. The thesis argues that in order to overcome these problems new policies of multiculturalism and productive diversity need to be developed. It asserts that narrative analytic techniques are an important means by which to inform such policy development. Abstract This thesis examines the experiences of Korean migrant women (KMW) in the Australian labour market. A review of the extant literature leads to two propositions, both of which assert that KMW are likely to experience labour market disadvantage or barriers to entry. These propositions take into account two significant theories of the labour market: segmentation theory and human capital theory. Segmentation theory argues that unchangeable gender and racial / cultural differences have the greatest impact upon labour market value, human capital theory describes the labour market value of individuals as based upon apparently objective and attainable skills (here English language skills). Using narrative analysis and, more specifically, antenarrative analysis, the study examines the life stories of 33 Australian KMW. In so doing, it identifies hitherto unheard discourses concerning the experiences of KMW in relation to the Australian labour market — discourses that challenge established academic thinking regarding this issue. Identification and analysis of these new discourses generates a number of alternative understandings of the labour market experiences of KMW. These alternative understandings both demonstrate the limitations of, and go beyond, the existing two propositions. In particular, the research shows that the impacts of gender and culture (segmentation theory) vary over time for KMW, do not always prevent labour market participation, and are experienced in terms of identity within a gendered Australian labour market. The research also demonstrates that while many KMW are in fact sufficiently skilled in the English language (human capital theory) to enter the Australian labour market, they nevertheless experience a sense of inferiority about their English language capacity that discourages them from entering, and limits their opportunities to participate in, the labour market. This in turn contributes to their social isolation. The thesis concludes that within the Australian academic literature, KMW have either been given little space and voice or have been misrepresented, reflecting and contributing to an ongoing ignorance of the experiences of Asian women in Australian workplaces. The KMW examined in this study are subject to numerous forms of subordination in Australian workplaces and society that cannot be adequately explained in terms of their human capital or their gender and cultural differences. The covert nature of the politics of difference within the work place makes exclusionary practices more difficult to identify and discuss. The thesis argues that in order to overcome these problems new policies of multiculturalism and productive diversity need to be developed. It asserts that narrative analytic techniques are an important means by which to inform such policy development.

<p>This research aimed for an extended knowledge and understanding of young people in stigmatized areas and their construction of group identity. With a focus on Roma youths in Konik, Montenegro, and their involvement in hip-hop we wanted to explore what this culture meant to them in relation to their context. An ethnographic approach was used in collecting the empirical data through observations, interpreting music lyrics and conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews. Five young Roma boys from Konik, all involved in hip-hop, were interviewed. Theoretical perspectives on identity, youth culture and stigmatization were central. In addition, Bourdieu’s theory regarding cultural capital was emphasized and connected to youths and hip-hop. The empirical material showed that involvement in hip-hop provided the Roma youths with a group identity that they referred to in positive terms. Contextual factors of stigmatization excluded the Roma group from the majority population and the engagement in hip-hop created a possibility for the youths to be someone. The cultural capital gained through hip-hop was not used to verify and legitimate an authentic Roma identity. It was rather a way for them to create boundaries towards the negative elements in their community.</p>

This research aimed for an extended knowledge and understanding of young people in stigmatized areas and their construction of group identity. With a focus on Roma youths in Konik, Montenegro, and their involvement in hip-hop we wanted to explore what this culture meant to them in relation to their context. An ethnographic approach was used in collecting the empirical data through observations, interpreting music lyrics and conducting qualitative semi-structured interviews. Five young Roma boys from Konik, all involved in hip-hop, were interviewed. Theoretical perspectives on identity, youth culture and stigmatization were central. In addition, Bourdieu’s theory regarding cultural capital was emphasized and connected to youths and hip-hop. The empirical material showed that involvement in hip-hop provided the Roma youths with a group identity that they referred to in positive terms. Contextual factors of stigmatization excluded the Roma group from the majority population and the engagement in hip-hop created a possibility for the youths to be someone. The cultural capital gained through hip-hop was not used to verify and legitimate an authentic Roma identity. It was rather a way for them to create boundaries towards the negative elements in their community.

<p>In my dissertation I propose that Álvaro Bisama's <italic>Caja negra</italic> is a book that both continues and defies the interventions in the field of culture articulated in Alberto Fuguet's <italic>Por favor, rebobinar</italic> and other texts associated with the McOndo approach to culture in Latin America; an approach that includes urban metropolitan spaces as well as mass-produced cultural products in the range of possible representations of daily life experiences in Latin America. I argue that, in order to do so, Bisama performs an oppositional, counterfactual and cultist appropriation of the history of the Chilean written, audiovisual and musical media productions of the 20th century, considering Chilean both the media productions that were made in Chile and the media productions that were consumed in the Chilean context even if they were made somewhere else. In <italic>Caja negra</italic>, the appropriation of such a wide catalogue of productions is achieved by inoculating the text with a significant amount of apocryphal films, books, authors, filmmakers, musicians, records and other data related to these productions and their producers. I show that the saturation of apocryphal data in <italic>Caja negra</italic> aims to create an alternate history of Chile through the construction of an alternate cultural field. However, the historical fact of Augusto Pinochet's <italic>coup d'état</italic> in 1973 remains unchanged. I argue that Bisama's display of apocrypha in <italic>Caja negra</italic> is a way of responding to the lack of reliability of the accounts of history, especially, the history of media productions in Chile, as a consequence of the actions taken by the military. Therefore, I propose that Bisama's approach to the genre of alternate history is political and consists of proposing the conjectural as a strategy to overcome the gaps and untrustworthiness of the accounts of history in a way that provides an alternative to the search for truth. Finally, I propose that <italic>Caja negra</italic> engages with popular and alternative cultures in a double edged way: On the one hand, it builds on the changes in the field of culture that were either observed, proposed or performed by the productions associated to McOndo, in a time that coincided with the dawn of both the democratic transition and the popularization of new technologies that promised to democratize the access to culture. On the other hand, it shows that active consumption and fanatic appropriation are deliberate and personal acts that, as such, depend more on those who perform them than on the products that are being appropriated. Popular culture is treated as a plurality of cultures, and the text is not a place to display it or fictionalize it, as it happens in <italic>Por favor, rebobinar</italic>. In <italic>Caja negra</italic> the codes of these pop cultures are shown yet remain veiled. Their apocryphal nature and the complex processes of fictionalization serve to protect them from overexposure and loss of their subcultural capital. In my dissertation, I observe that <italic>Por favor, rebobinar</italic> articulates a principle that rules the relationships between characters and between the characters and the reader, and I call it aesthetic empathy. I recognize this principle as fundamental in Fuguet's writing in the nineties. Also; I read in <italic>Por favor, rebobinar</italic> an apology of active and public critical consumption of cultural products. In my comparative reading of <italic>Por favor, rebobinar</italic> and <italic>Caja negra</italic>, I find that in the latter there is a shift in the perception of culture and its representation that functions as a response to the principle of aesthetic empathy and to the apology of critical consumption articulated in <italic>Por favor, rebobinar</italic>. I argue that this contestation to <italic>Por favor, rebobinar</italic> and McOndo is achieved by a process of adoption and experimentation with the limits of the more provocative traits of <italic>Por favor, rebobinar</italic>'s content and composition, such as the presentation of a cultural field, the saturation of data related to popular cultures, the fragmentary structure, the inclusion of metatextual interventions, and the emphasis in the specific nature of each fragment of writing through its structure and mediations. In sum, I present a reading of <italic>Caja negra</italic> as a text engaged in the intervention on the field of culture in Chile, articulated in continuity and contrast to its predecessors in the nineties.</p> / Dissertation

This degree project has three aims. First, it will investigate students’ attitudes towards reading novels in English and how their motivation for reading differs whether they attend vocational or university-preparatory programs.  In order to investigate this, a total of 73 students were asked to participate in the implementation of a questionnaire. Second, this degree project sets out to study if there are differences in how four teachers approach reading novels in English and third, it will study how these four teachers motivate their students in their studies. This part of the investigation was conducted by performing qualitative interviews with each of the teacher informants. The theoretical framework of this degree project has its basis in the theories regarding cultural capital by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The results show that there are clear divisive lines between the attitudes and the motivation of students depending on which program they attend and that these divisions can be attributed in part to students’ social background. The results also indicate that teachers are aware of these differences and approach reading novels in the classroom accordingly.

This thesis examines how a jury on an artistic education adopts next year's students to a BA program at an art school. My intention is to explore how we established artists who are involved in education as professors, teachers (or students) in art education affects who will be released to the exclusive educational path as an art school represents our work in the admissions jury. My ambition is to create an awareness of what it might mean for the reproduction of the artist.

Issues of educational inequality have been hotly debated in China ever since the higher educational reform in the late 1990s. High tuitions and the privileged access of advantaged groups are attracting more peoples concerns. This thesis examines the current status of Chinese student access to higher education in the post-reform era, and explores the urban-rural and strata differences among students with different social origins and family backgrounds. The expansion and tuition reform of Chinese higher education not only poses financing college as the biggest difficulty for those disadvantaged groups, but also perpetuates the established social hierarchy. This thesis finds that, despite the progress made in equalizing access by urban-rural and strata origins at the mass higher education era in China, disadvantaged groups remain their unfavorable status in accessing higher education, as compared to their counterparts who are economically, culturally, and socially superior. The initial quantitative access differences are gradually turning into qualitative disparities, the higher the demand for the university or/and major, the more urban and higher socioeconomic students enroll. The theories of financial, cultural, and social capital were employed in the thesis and provide a plausible explanation to the continuing disadvantaged status of poor groups. The methodology used is mainly a quantitative technique that resorts on a variety of secondary data, such as national and provincial yearbooks of educational statistics and census, large sample surveys, and case studies from previous research. The findings will have many policy implications concerning the expansion, financing, and affordability of higher education in China.

Despite efforts of U.S. education institutions to encourage study abroad participation, Black and low income students are severely underrepresented compared with their White and higher income peers. Literature reveals that a combination of individual and institutional factors influences study abroad involvement; however, they fail to address how these factors work to limit the participation of interested students. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 21 Black and White students to investigate how they navigate the study abroad process. Cultural and social capital theories were used to understand their experiences. My findings demonstrate that for students that did not study abroad, Blacks compared to Whites encountered more difficulties when trying to activate their available resources to navigate the process. Also, non participating White students were more likely to make the conscious decision not to invest their class privileges to study abroad compared with their Black counterparts. Together, these findings suggest that race and class play a role in the activation and usage of cultural and social resources to study abroad.

Abstract: According to the curriculum of the Swedish school the pupils should develop their historical consciousness. The aim of this study was to find out which pupils develop this consciousness by listing to an historical novel, talking about that book and writing stories. The study went on for four weeks and the subject of the teaching was the Middle Ages. 28 pupils took part and a variety of methods were used: 1: questionnaire about the lives of the pupils, 2: Making observations of their attitude to the teaching and 3: story writing. The results show that the social background does not influence the development of an historical consciousness. Pupils who wrote diaries, spoke many languages and were interested in history, they had already or could more easily develop one. It is not sure that this depends on the cultural capital, which includes many different parts. Therefore there could still be a connection, this, however, has not been confirmed in this study. It is also shown that pupils who lived in the countryside already had an historical consciousness or could more easily develop one. It is difficult to explain the reasons for this influence.