Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1993. / Vita. Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 86-91). Also available via the Internet.

Thesis (MA(Counselling Psychology)--University of Pretoria, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (B.A. (Hons.)) - University of Queensland, 2005. / Includes bibliography.

This research explores clusters of meanings, understandings, and shared reference points that people with white skinned privilege may share. The literature often refers to these as "White culture". Interviews with nine English-speaking diversity educators of European ancestry provide the primary data. W e discussed their perceptions of the social constructions of whiteness and privilege, the consequences of selective privileging, how is this maintained and the problems involved in addressing systemic inequality. I bring the salient points from these discussions together with the literature to offer a comprehensive, grounded portrayal of situated conceptions of "White culture", privilege and dominant culture. I employed qualitative methods of open-ended, in-depth interviewing, which incorporate feminist research methodology (research a s praxis, research as empowerment) and critical perspectives (critical ethnography, grounded theory, interpretative analysis). This approach is consistent with my values of being inclusive, gaining insight into the perspectives of others and creating a mutually enriching, collaborative process of inquiry. The significance of this investigation lies in raising awareness about interactions among factors within whiteness, privilege, dominance and oppression; enhancing educators' abilities to recognise other contributing factors; identifying why/ how the system is maintained, recognising its consequences and considering how to alter this condition in society. Multicultural education in Canada has generally focused on Others, and can be enhanced through fostering a dialogue among the relatively privileged as well as between dominant and oppressed peoples living within a society of cultural/ racial privilege. The product of this research includes concrete representations summarising various aspects of privilege and dominant culture. Through charts, tables and figures I make privilege more visible and dominant culture more tangible. To portray the complex dynamic among aspects of the dominant culture, which shapes these into a multitude of different configurations, I employ the metaphor, constellations of privilege. Essentially, I offer a possible model for understanding the elements and interrelationships that comprise and maintain a system of selective privileging, which underlies dominance and oppression within society. I conclude this study with a discussion of transformative learning theory and how we may use it to incorporate the insights uncovered through this research into educational practice. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

No description available.

This study assessed how Constructivist theory accounts for verbal dominance. Conversations of rotating dyads were tape recorded, then coded for measures of dominance. Subjects completed a trait dominance scale and a constructivist personality test. Interpersonal rankings of dominance were found to be more consistent with observed behavior than trait dominance scores. Extreme trait dominance scores were associated with a constructivist measure indicating maladjustment. Dyads identified as more resistant to change were found to use fewer verbal control strategies; male/male dyads were characterized by direct, functional interactions. Dyads that were highly comfortable with one another utilized fewer verbal control methods. Lastly, interactions in which participants reported unfamiliar self-experiencing utilized higher levels of verbal control. Implications for group processing, assessment of dominance and sex differences are discussed.

In this dissertation I study how different cognitive constraints affect individuals' belief formation process, and the consequences of these constraints on behavior. In the first chapter I present laboratory experiments designed to test whether subjects' inability to perform more rounds of iterated deletion of dominated strategies is due to cognitive limitations, or to higher order beliefs about the rationality of others. I propose three alternative explanations for why subjects might not be doing more iterations of dominance reasoning. First, they might have problems computing iterated best responses, even when doing so does not require higher order beliefs. Second, subjects might face limitations in their ability to generate higher order beliefs. Finally, subjects' behavior might not be limited by cognitive limitations, but rather justified by their beliefs about what others will play. I design two experiments in order to test these hypothesis. Findings from the first experiment suggest that most subjects' strategies (about 66%) are not the result of their inability to compute iterated best responses. I then run a second experiment, finding that about 70% of the subjects' behavior come from limitations in their ability to iterate best responses and generate higher order beliefs at the same time, while for the other 30% their strategies are a best response to higher order beliefs that others are not rational. In the second chapter I study whether a Sender in a Bayesian Persuasion setting (Kamenica and Gentzkow, 2011) can benefit from behavioral biases in the way Receivers update their beliefs, by choosing how to communicate information. I present three experiments in order to test this hypothesis, finding that Receivers tend to overestimate the probability of a state of the world after receiving signals that are more likely in that state. Because of this bias, Senders' gains from persuasion can be increased by ``muddling the water'' and making it hard for Receivers to find the correct posteriors. This contradicts the theoretical result that states that communicating using signal structures is equivalent to communicating which posteriors these structures induce. Through analysis of the data and robustness experiments, I am able to discard social preferences or low incentives as driving my results, leaving base-rate neglect as a more likely explanation. The final chapter studies whether sensory bottlenecks, as oppose to purely computational cognitive constraints, are important factors affecting subjects' inference in an experiment that mimics financial markets. We show that providing redundant visual and auditory cues about the liquidity of a stock significantly improves performance, corroborating previous findings in neuroscience of multi-sensory integration, which could have policy implications in economically relevant situation.

The purposes of this study are as follows: 1. To measure, compare, and evaluate the level of self-esteem of college women in two colleges. 2. To show the relationship of certain background factors to dominance-feeling in college women.

This thesis is an ethnographic account of how people in a particular situation of bureaucratic domination developed tactics and adopted discourses to present themselves as active agents capable of mobilizing resources, individually and at a collective level. Specifically, it involves a description and analysis of power dynamics, experienced efficacy, and associated processes of defining self and others in the context of a newly forming injured workers support group in their relations with a Workers' Compensation Board. Appropriate to the study of an injured workers group, the thesis draws upon a body of literature which focuses on the everyday practices of people in concrete social contexts. James C. Scott's work on domination and resistance privides a primary framework for the study, elaborated by Michel De Certeau's concepts of 'strategy' and 'tactic' as well as Foucault's notion of 'carceral' networks. Among the main findings was the recognition of the extent to which individual group members engaged in creative, and often effective tactical acts of resistance against the WCB and yet also against their own formal association. Moreover, as the group appropriated elements of bureaucratic and trade union discourses it shifted toward also engaging in strategic social action. The thesis concludes with practical recommendations concerning the ways such associations are formed and operate, as well as policy options for workers' compensation boards in general. / ix, 215 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm.

Thesis (doctoral)-Universität, Zürich, 1999/00. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 106-118).