<p> The &ldquo;glass ceiling&rdquo; (Hymowitz &amp; Schellhardt, 1986), invisible barriers preventing women from reaching executive-level organizational positions, has not been cracked (Seltzer et al., 2017) and &ldquo;sticky floors&rdquo; (Booth et al., 2003), representing women becoming stuck as they try to climb the job ladder, contribute to their underrepresentation in top management positions. </p><p> These phenomena are represented in the federal sector with senior executive service (SES) membership, (Lashley, 2013). Only 34% of the SES are women despite the federal work force composition of 43% women (OPM, 2014). Belenky et al.&rsquo;s (1986) seminal model of women&rsquo;s ways of knowing focused on the learning styles of women. It is still used today to understand how women develop knowledge in the workplace. This phenomenological study extends that tradition to explore how women SES also used their voice in the workplace throughout their career advancement and contributes to the empirical literature on how women SES speak out and learn through the lens of memory and life stories. </p><p> In this study, talking and learning, were conceptually framed by Belenky et al.&rsquo;s (1986, 1997) work. Ten participants recently retired from the SES from six federal agencies were selected and interviewed using a modified version of Seidman&rsquo;s (2013) three stage interview method; data were analyzed using Moustakas&rsquo;s (1994) heuristic inquiry. </p><p> Eleven themes emerged from the experiences of study participants offering insight into developing voice in the workplace. Two contributions, talking in changing ways and turning points, were added to a conceptual framework of a Belenky&rsquo;s developmental staged model of talking and learning. All participants were at the highest stage, yet a few moved between the highest and a lesser stage of talking, depending on the situation and influence. </p><p> The study concluded that the few who moved between stages would have remained at the most advanced stage through mentoring until retirement. The findings from this study provide insight into the role of voice and learning in career advancement of women in the federal sector and suggest contributions for future research.</p><p>

<p> Holyoke, Massachusetts is not traditionally seen as a hub for immigrant experience. To the contrary, there is a rich history of diverse groups occupying Holyoke. For the purposes of this thesis, I focus on two pan-ethnoracial groups: Puerto Ricans and Indians. On the one hand, Puerto Ricans, a Latinx subgroup, comprise the majority of the downtown population of Holyoke, which is the site of the highest concentration of Puerto Ricans outside of the island. On the other hand, Indians, a South Asian subgroup, have very little visibility in the larger community fabric. Additionally, South Asians are undertheorized in the context of the east coast, and particularly in Massachusetts. Yet, despite these differences, both the Puerto Rican and Indian diasporas create their identity vis-&agrave;-vis the other. I analyze the sociolinguistic and sociocultural experiences of these two groups through a comparative, community-based examination. Through analyzing the experiences of two pan-ethnoracial groups simultaneously and in relation to each other and whiteness, I seek to bypass the white/black racial imaginary in the U.S. context. My analysis is sharpened by paying attention to the ways ethnoracial and linguistic identities come to be enacted, reproduced, and transformed in the context of mass mediatization of language and identity. Examining the construction of identity in a comparative manner of two groups who are represented varyingly in popular media and everyday discourse illuminates the profound erasures that happen when experiences of a particular group are homogenized. A theoretical lens on language adds to complexity of the analysis, as it is often a group boundary marker and through which differences are perceived. </p><p>

This study asks anew the question: can faith lead to knowledge? The received view about the relationship between faith and evidentialism is that, because faith involves belief without evidence (by definition), and evidentialism requires evidence for knowledge (by definition), evidentialism unequivocally finds faith epistemically valueless. I argue that this conclusion is mistaken on both counts: the concept of faith is too diverse to be encapsulated as belief without evidence, and evidentialism leaves much room for different kinds of evidential processes to be recognized. In other words, depending on what “faith” means in any given case, evidentialism might be more accommodating than is typically thought. This study pursues this conclusion by developing an evidentialist theory of knowledge, rejecting the major alternative of externalism along the way, while defending the continued use of the concept of belief in religious studies discourse, necessary to conducting evidentialist epistemology. It then examines the concept of faith by considering its formal structure, and by cataloguing and comparing many discrete conceptions of faith from historical literatures on this topic, across cultures. Finally, it draws on the typology developed to propose seven ways that faith might be conducive to knowledge under the strict rules of evidentialism, contrary to the received view.

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The purpose of the study was to identify teacher perception regarding the effects of NCLB on the development of knowledge among elementary school students in two school districts in a Midwestern state. I applied a case-study design to address the research questions, with data obtained from interviews with eight experienced school teachers, who reported on the state of the cognitive development of their students. Epistemology, specifically social and virtue epistemology, served as the theoretical framework for the analysis of the data, thus filling a gap in the literature for an epistemological study of the effects of NCLB. The hypothesis for the study was that NCLB is detrimental to the development of knowledge among elementary students by placing too much emphasis on mandated standardized testing, and by limiting the curriculum to the subjects that are under the requirements for Adequate Yearly Progress (YAP). The analysis of teacher input indicates that NCLB hinders the development of knowledge among elementary school students. This is because educators are constrained by excessive testing requirements, and are thus not able to foster in their students the intellectual virtues necessary for the development of the lifelong learner, the student who is capable of and understands that learning continuous throughout one’s life. Future research is needed to link the scholarship on intellectual virtues to the education of school children, making of the virtues a central and intrinsic part of the educational effort.

In this thesis I searched for an Underground Man in Nietzsche and Marx. My search depends on an epistemological ascertainment. Kant&rsquo / s argument that the human mind cannot achieve knowledge of the thing-in-itself lies in the background of my thesis. I think that this argument is connected with the origins of modern philosophy. My thesis is concentrated on the 19th century. I perceived that with Kant&rsquo / s argument the fact that we can know this world within a subjective framework is emphasized especially in this century. The emphasis on a subjective framework is grounded on Kant&rsquo / s philosophy. This emphasis has a significant role in the epistemological arguments of Nietzsche and Marx. They also insist on the role of subjective contribution in knowledge. However their attitude towards epistemology is different from Kantian philosophy in that they emphasize social, historical and economical conditions. Thus, I call attention to the fact that they transpose epistemology into a social and historical context. My conception of the Underground Man is born in this social context. My thesis aims at making room for an analysis of the Underground Man who is conceived in opposition to the Kantian understanding of the subject, in the context of are Nietzsche&rsquo / s and Marx&rsquo / s social and epistemological analyses.

This thesis addresses the problem of the analysis of knowledge. The persistent failure of analyses of knowledge in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions is used to motivate exploring alternative approaches to the analytical problem. In parallel to a similar development in the theory of truth, in which the persistent failure to provide a satisfactory answer to the question as to what the nature of truth is has led to the exploration of deflationary and minimalist approaches to the theory of truth, the prospects for deflationary and minimalist approaches to the theory of knowledge are investigated. While it is argued that deflationary approaches are ultimately unsatisfactory, a minimalist approach to epistemology, which characterises the concept of knowledge by a set of platitudes about knowledge, is defended. The first version of a minimalist framework for the theory of knowledge is developed. Two more substantive developments of the minimalist framework are discussed. In the first development a safety condition on knowledge is derived from the minimalist framework. Problems for this development are discussed and solved. In the second development, an ability condition is derived from the minimalist framework. Reason is provided to believe that, arguably, the ability condition can avoid the problems that beset traditional analyses of knowledge. It is also shown that even if this argument fails, minimalist approaches to epistemology may serve to provide a functional definition of knowledge. Reason is thus provided to believe that minimalist approaches to epistemology can make progress towards addressing the problem of the analysis of knowledge.

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