Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary C. Kingery-Page / Chester I. Lewis Reflection Square Park in Downtown Wichita, Kansas commemorates the life of Chester I. Lewis, president of the Wichita Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1958 and leader of the Dockum Drugstore Sit-In of 1958, the first successful sit-in of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. In its current condition, the reflection park is underutilized and often subject to vandalism. As a historically significant park, it is important to the community of Wichita to maintain the integrity of the meaning of the site while simultaneously improving the physical design. The purpose of this project is to provide a redesign of the historically significant Chester I. Lewis Reflection Square Park which reflects the implication of the reflection park as a culturally inclusive and historically significant downtown space. Access to culturally and socially inclusive outdoor spaces is imperative to providing opportunity for people of all different backgrounds to personally connect to the space. While the goal of this project is to design inclusive spaces, the author recognizes inclusiveness in a space is interpreted by and culturally dependent on the user of the space (Kemmis, S., & McTaggart, R. 2000). The author conducted research through a cyclical process of engagement meetings with stakeholders, one-on-one interviews with Wichita community members, and design proposals for Lewis Park. Content analysis was performed on data from meetings and interviews to inform a set of guidelines to redesign Lewis Park. Theories of cultural interpretation were also explored to recognize how to integrate different audiences into one culturally inclusive outdoor space (Ulrich 1986). Findings include guidelines guided by community input for designing Lewis Park as a culturally inclusive outdoor space and a theoretical design proposal for stakeholders and the City of Wichita to consider. The redesign of the reflection park was driven by the aspiration to reflect the cultures of Wichita’s ethnically and racially diverse communities in the contemporary context of dialogue on race and memorials in public space.

This Master thesis investigates how cultural processes exclude, or might include, women from the corporate culture as well as how the cultural processes could impact the women’s abilities to career advancement within an organization that operates in the financial and IT industries. Previous studies have provided knowledge about culture and gender relations within the financial (Rutherford, 2001; Renemark, 2007) and IT-sectors (Davies and Mathieu, 2005: 12-22) respectively, but there is a lack of studies of financial service organizations in Sweden that operates in both these industries. These industries are described in earlier studies as having an uneven female representation at managerial levels (Nordling and Samuelsson, 2014; Rutherford, 2001) and organizational cultures that marginalizes women (Renemark, 2007; Davies and Mathieu, 2005: 12-22; Rutherford, 2001). Thereof is the corporate culture’s effect on women and female managers in particular, important to understand in an organizational constellation that strives to increase the number of female managers such as the case company in this study. This study utilizes a theoretical framework defined by Rutherford (2001) comprising nine cultural constituents that are interpreted as including several cultural processes. These cultural constituents are organizational background, Physical artefacts, Management style, the Long hours culture, Work ideology, Informal ways of socializing, Language and communication, Sexuality, and Gender awareness. The nine cultural constituents and the respective processes could have excluding effects, or possible including effects, on female managers position in the corporate culture and impact their further career advancement. In this study is the framework used to investigate the situation for female managers as well as the situation for the female employees as perceived at the managerial level. A case study methodology is used and the including data collection methods are; semi-structured interviews, secondary data, and a field study. Nine semi-structured interviews with managers that directly report to the executive team members constitute the main data gathering method. The findings show the existence of cultural processes related to all nine constituents at the case organization and how these processes impact women. These cultural processes exclude or include women from the corporate culture and impact female career advancement negatively or positively. The identified excluding cultural processes could constitute managerial implications for gender equality work. In addition, the findings provide knowledge of how the generic framework defined by Rutherford (2001) could be applied in the present corporate environment of an actor that operates in the Swedish IT and financial industries. Further, two adjustments of the framework are proposed. The constant connectivity provided by today’s technology proposes a more interlinked relationship between the long hour culture and the work ideology than earlier defined. Further, an extension of the cultural constituent Informal ways of socializing is proposed to incorporate several hierarchical levels to be applicable for young and less hierarchical actors.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:12:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Viviane Panelli Sarraf.pdf: 2554843 bytes, checksum: bfd543b2c0a09460280f618bc38d570a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-13 / Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo / The research Communication of the five senses in Brazilian cultural spaces: strategies of mediations and accessibility for people with their differences , discusses communication strategies that utilize the senses as touch, hearing, smell, vision, synesthesia, kinesthesia, proprioception and taste in cultural Brazilians spaces, considering its importance to the cultural inclusion of individuals, especially people with disabilities who are least benefited by their different ways of perception, mobility and communication. Based on the justification that visual communication is losing the ability to seduct the individual, were presented and analyzed theories and cases of sensory cultural communication, which can serve as an example for the development of a communication theory of the five senses in cultural spaces. The theoretical research were focused on semiotic theories of culture, and the Theory of the Media, with the concepts of primary media and crisis of visibility with authors Harry Pross, Norval Baitello, Ivan Bystrina, Dietmar Kamper, Stuart Clark and Christopher Wulf, ecology of communication influenced by ethology and psychology with authors such as Vicente Romano, Edgar Morin, Ashley Montagu, Diane Ackerman and Boris Cyrulnik. As complementary bibliographies were searched theories in the areas of cultural and political action to the authors Pierre Bourdieu and Teixeira Coelho, museology with Waldissa Russio Camargo Guarnieri and Maria Cristina Oliveira Bruno, the area of social inclusion, specifically the concepts of Universal Design and accessibility with Romeo Sassaki, Joseph Shapiro, Dorina Nowill, Luis Pierre Grosbois, Ron Mace, Regina Cohen and Silvana Cambiaghi. The methodology combines the bibliographical and historical analysis with field research in primary sources. The field stage focused on primary data collection, records of visits to exhibitions, projects and interviews with employees in museums and cultural spaces Brazilians and foreigners who invest in programs to accessibility for people with disabilities and sensory communication strategies. The cases selected for analysis were those in which the theories of sensory communication and cultural accessibility materialized in more effective actions, taking into account the diversity of examples in different locations and extent of mediation strategies and accessibility for the inclusion of non-usual audiences to these environments. As results of the study were pointed reflections and ways to bring the practice of sensory communication for cultural area / A pesquisa A Comunicação dos cinco sentidos nos espaços culturais brasileiros: estratégias de mediações e acessibilidade para as pessoas com suas diferenças, discute as estratégias de comunicação que utilizam os sentidos como: o tato, a audição, o olfato, a visão, a sinestesia, a cinestesia, a propriocepção e o paladar em espaços culturais brasileiros, considerando sua importância para a inclusão cultural dos indivíduos, em especial das pessoas com deficiência que são as menos beneficiadas nesses espaços por suas formas diferentes de percepção, locomoção e comunicação. Com base na justificativa de que a comunicação visual vem perdendo a capacidade de sedução do indivíduo, foram apresentados e analisados teorias e casos de comunicação cultural sensorial, que podem servir de exemplo para o desenvolvimento de uma teoria da comunicação dos cinco sentidos nos espaços culturais. Os referenciais teóricos da pesquisa se concentram nas teorias semióticas da cultura, e na Teoria da Mídia, com os conceitos de mídia primária e crise da visibilidade com os autores Harry Pross, Norval Baitello, Ivan Bystrina, Dietmar Kamper, Stuart Clark e Christopher Wulf , ecologia da comunicação e psicologia influenciada pela etologia com autores como Vicente Romano, Edgar Morin, Ashley Montagu, Diane Ackerman e Boris Cyrulnik. Como bibliografias complementares foram pesquisadas teorias nas áreas de ação e políticas culturais com os autores Pierre Bordieu e Teixeira Coelho, da museologia com Waldissa Russio Guarnieri e Maria Cristina Oliveira Bruno, da área de Inclusão Social, especificamente os conceitos de acessibilidade e desenho Universal com Romeu Sassaki, Joseph Shapiro, Dorina Nowill, Luis Pierre Grosbois, Ron Mace, Regina Cohen e Silvana Cambiaghi. A metodologia de pesquisa une a análise bibliográfica e histórica com a pesquisa de campo em fontes primárias. A etapa de campo se concentrou na coleta de dados primários, registros de visitas às exposições, projetos e entrevistas com colaboradores, em museus e espaços culturais brasileiros e estrangeiros que investem nos programas de acessibilidade para pessoas com deficiência e estratégias de comunicação sensorial. Os casos selecionados para análise, foram aqueles nos quais as teorias de comunicação sensorial e acessibilidade cultural mais se concretizaram em ações efetivas, levando em consideração a diversidade de exemplos em diferentes localidades e a extensão das estratégias de mediações e acessibilidade para inclusão de públicos não usuais desses ambientes. Como resultados do estudo foram apontadas reflexões e caminhos para trazer a prática da comunicação sensorial para a área cultural

Five year old children starting their formal education in primary schools bring with them a range of informal mathematical understandings. Transitioning from an early childhood setting to the reception class at school can have a profound impact on their developing mathematical concepts. Traditionally their first teachers (parents, caregivers and whanau) gradually remove the support and encouragement and some of the familiar surroundings of their early childhood centres are no longer there. As children from 5 – 13 years of age spend approximately 85% of their time out of school it is important that their first teachers are encouraged to continue that support. This paper outlines a New Zealand project ‘Home School Partnership: Numeracy’ that gives one approach to enhancing children’s mathematical learning through shared understandings between home and school.

Five year old children starting their formal education in primary schools bring with them a range of informal mathematical understandings. Transitioning from an early childhood setting to the reception class at school can have a profound impact on their developing mathematical concepts. Traditionally their first teachers (parents, caregivers and whanau) gradually remove the support and encouragement and some of the familiar surroundings of their early childhood centres are no longer there. As children from 5 – 13 years of age spend approximately 85% of their time out of school it is important that their first teachers are encouraged to continue that support. This paper outlines a New Zealand project ‘Home School Partnership: Numeracy’ that gives one approach to enhancing children’s mathematical learning through shared understandings between home and school.