Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This study explores the ways a small group of girls, ages 11-13, spoke about courage over a two-year period. Using Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics as a guide, the purpose of the present study is to discover how courage is present in the lives of a select group of girls, what their thoughts and perceptions are on courage, and how these thoughts and perceptions explain the operation of emotion and rationality in producing courage. This last question is based off Marcia Homiak's (1993) suggestion that Aristotle offers a way to explain how emotion and rationality operate together to develop positive, caring, independent and strong individuals. Differing from the predominant framework of Carol Gilligan's theory of an "ethic of care" in girls' developmental research, the present study uses and suggests that the practice of returning to the classical work of Aristotle offers a different approach to studying girls' development. The girls were interviewed in an effort to discover personal conceptions of courage, their thoughts on the relevance of intention, experience, emotion, sanguinity, and ignorance to courage, as Aristotle describes these terms, and how courage is present in their lives. The girls also performed an essay-writing task to clarify their thoughts. Several dominant themes resulted from this study. These included the participants stating that (1) a courageous act must stem from good intentions; (2) courage comes as a matter of experience or practice; (3) with enough practice courage can become a habit and thus part of your character; (4) while emotion is a precursor to courage, a courageous act cannot be done rashly and requires a degree of rationality to act in order to be considered true courage; and (5) their own recollections of acting courageously are in early development and thus far have been minimal. An additional finding was the degree to which participants found overly aggressive girls spur opportunities for courage. Implications for a model of active learning, character education, and further research on girls' development are suggested. / 2031-01-02

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No / This article looks at the recent contributions made by feminists who advocate a distinctive `ethic of care¿ to replace the conventional `ethic of rights¿. The article explores ways in which the ethic of care could be utilized and applied to the children¿s rights context. After looking at the important feminist criticisms of conventional rights-based approaches, it is argued that there needs to be some caution applied to the feminist ethic of care, if it is to be successfully applied to the context of children. These cautions are that it is important to recognize the contested nature of care and not to valorize the perspectives of carers over those being cared for. Second, the feminist ethic of care might lead to a `needs-based¿ discourse, an approach that is unsatisfactory in its implications for children¿s rights. Finally, conceptions of justice and equality must not be dropped from political arguments. Rather, their limitations must be acknowledged and then used strategically and partially. However, despite these cautions, the feminist ethic of care remains a constructive approach to the children¿s rights context as it emphasizes responsibilities and relationships, the concrete contexts of caring interdependencies, and allows children to be active social players with a voice rather than passive recipients of care and rights. It is hoped that this article might serve as both a corrective and conceptual enrichment of the feminist ethic of care.

The dissertation focuses on understanding the mothering experience of three internal organizational development consultant/managers who perceive that their experience informed their professional functioning. The questions that guided the study were: (a) What is the mothering experience of the internal organizational development consultant/manager who perceives that her experience informed her professional functioning? and (b) How does the mothering experience inform the professional functioning of the internal organizational development consultant/manager? A case study method using the grounded theory method of data analysis produced three narratives that suggested how the mothering experience influenced consulting and managerial functioning. Three themes emerged; namely: "being fully present," "protecting by fighting for trust and safety / Ph. D.

This study is a literary analysis of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, which focuses on how female and male characters approach religion. A stark contrast is presented between the two approaches - differing according to gender - which point to two different forms of religion. The novel highlights one form, the religion of the heart, as the superior form as it empowers women to achieve spiritual, mental and physical independence. The analytical approach is based upon Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar’s theory of imprisonment/escape as well as Carol Gilligan’s discussion of ethic of care and ethic of justice. Through these theories my study shows that the function of religion in the novel is not to discredit it, but to bring to the fore the disadvantages and benefits of religion. In the character Jane a biblical feminism is displayed which challenges the novel's patriarchal society.

Current approaches to sex trafficking appear to be neither very successful in stopping sex trafficking nor, more importantly, very effective in helping those women for whom it is intended. Rather, the overwhelming focus on the issue of prostitution obscures the more fundamental issue of providing relevant assistant to trafficked women. The theoretical debates among academics and feminist activists do not delve sufficiently deep enough into this issue, while the policy discussions and the resulting international policy reflect the moral positions of abolitionist activists and policy-makers regarding the unacceptability of prostitution as a legitimate income-generating activity— a debate that is distinct from the issue of sex trafficking. I will argue that existing national anti-sex trafficking policies in India and Nepal, the regional policy for the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, and the United Nations Trafficking Protocol are ineffective because they reflect an association of sex trafficking with prostitution. A more effective policy would dissociate sex trafficking from moral judgments about prostitution. This can be accomplished by applying a feminist ethic of care as a methodology and as a political practice. Trafficked women emerge from a context of complex life histories and decision-making processes. Anti-sex trafficking governance structures are meant to provide care for trafficked women. As a methodology, an ethic of care would employ a critical moral ethnography to distill the experiences and articulated needs of trafficked women in order to show whether this is being accomplished and, if not, why. As a political practice, it can use the information that its methodology necessitates to provide guidance on how these governance structures might best be designed to provide care for trafficked women.

Current approaches to sex trafficking appear to be neither very successful in stopping sex trafficking nor, more importantly, very effective in helping those women for whom it is intended. Rather, the overwhelming focus on the issue of prostitution obscures the more fundamental issue of providing relevant assistant to trafficked women. The theoretical debates among academics and feminist activists do not delve sufficiently deep enough into this issue, while the policy discussions and the resulting international policy reflect the moral positions of abolitionist activists and policy-makers regarding the unacceptability of prostitution as a legitimate income-generating activity— a debate that is distinct from the issue of sex trafficking. I will argue that existing national anti-sex trafficking policies in India and Nepal, the regional policy for the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, and the United Nations Trafficking Protocol are ineffective because they reflect an association of sex trafficking with prostitution. A more effective policy would dissociate sex trafficking from moral judgments about prostitution. This can be accomplished by applying a feminist ethic of care as a methodology and as a political practice. Trafficked women emerge from a context of complex life histories and decision-making processes. Anti-sex trafficking governance structures are meant to provide care for trafficked women. As a methodology, an ethic of care would employ a critical moral ethnography to distill the experiences and articulated needs of trafficked women in order to show whether this is being accomplished and, if not, why. As a political practice, it can use the information that its methodology necessitates to provide guidance on how these governance structures might best be designed to provide care for trafficked women.

Drawing on Weber’s rationalisation theory and feminist critiques of the consumption-production literature, this thesis describes the impacts and changes in dietary practices that have occurred in households as a result of limited or constrained time available for family food provisioning, and how these changes can be understood as a product of contemporary Australian policy, cultural and food landscapes. It adopts feminist ethnography and household food strategies as important methodological innovations to forge a culturally informed account of convenience-orientated dietary practices in family households within contemporary Australian society. The data were collected from 15 Brisbane family households between January 2002 and August 2006. The thesis argues that dietary practices observed in ‘time-poor’ households have evolved as solutions to the problem of time scarcity by women whose role has traditionally been to feed families. The ‘solutions’ are shaped by the resources to which households have access, and ideas and traditions about family care, food and its responsibility, and available alternative options. Change is observed in diets, menus, source of prepared meals and prepared ingredients, but also organisation of food provisioning and distribution of workload. Also being reshaped is the role of food in the expression of cultural identity, commensality and, in the family setting, the transmission of food skills and knowledge. An analysis that critiques the usefulness of ‘speeding up’ domestic food provisioning as a viable and sustainable solution to the retention of the family meal is drawn, highlighting the problematic nature of persistent nostalgic interpretations of commensal eating patterns in culinary, food activism, sustainability and nutrition discourses. In the absence of a coherent moral philosophy for guiding current public health policy and practice, Kittay’s public ethic of care is proposed as a suitable model. A key challenge for future research is to ensure that household level sociocultural analysis continues to enrich broader debates in food policy and public health.

The increase in the presence and influence of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) locally and internationally is having a noticeable effect on the policy process at a national level. While the NGO sector is more commonly examined at an international level, its impact at the state and sub-state level remains unexplored. This gap in the literature is addressed as a primary problem in this thesis. By exploring the relationship between the NGO and the state, the significance of this relationship is emphasised as a necessary inclusion in International Relations literature. The NGO sector presents civil society with a road into, and in some cases an alternative to, traditional modes of political advocacy. This increases civil society's ability to impact the policy process by creating, what is identified in this thesis as, a dialogical space. The dialogical space allows for an exchange of ideas and thus influences the decision-making process of the state, if and when it is explored. Furthermore, the dialogical space facilitates, as is shown here, learning through the conversations that take place between NGOs and the state. This thesis asks ‘what do NGOs learn from their conversations with states?' and presents the ‘lessons learned' from Scottish and Zambian case studies. NGOs are identified here as civil society in organisation and have a particular relationship with the communities they represent. This relationship is empirically examined and presented here in the Scottish and Zambian case studies. This thesis examines the relationship between the NGO and civil society, and most importantly the relationship between the NGO and the state using the ethic of care as a theoretical lens. Conclusions are drawn from the interviews conducted during the fieldwork. The ethic of care is located in practice and used as a theoretical lens to examine what the local NGOs learn from their interactions with the state. Both case studies confirm that an ethic of care is a prevalent ethic in NGO practice, as identified by the NGO workers interviewed. Furthermore, when used as an analytical lens the ethic of care is shown to be used as a tool by NGOs to nurture an ethic of care in statesmanship. The thesis specifically highlights that NGOs have learned from their conversations with states and that, through the creation and use of the dialogical space, an ethic of care in practice can be traced. The greater significance of this thesis is that it addresses the relationship between the NGO and the state at a local and national level; a topic which is lacking in current IR literature, despite being of crucial value for understanding the state's interaction with non-state actors, in this case local NGOs. Furthermore, through the use of the ethic of care both as an exploratory lens and in its identification as a practical ethic, this thesis highlights the importance of an ethic of care in theory and practice.

This case study of a school garden focuses on concepts of community that are fostered and embodied at this setting. By utilizing participatory ethnographic methodologies, this research explored gemeinschaft and gesellschaft concepts of community. Data reveals that students are able to learn mastery, belonging, generosity and independence while participating in the garden work. Teachers manage students who attempt to challenge the boundaries of this community by utilizing and ethic of care which allows teachers to de-emphasize authority and to first consider the networks of relationships and how to mend and improve them. Students are able to experience governmentality and an opportunity to reassess their behaviors against the community norms. It also appears that students are socialized into gemeinschaft values by experiencing caring, loving, and nurturing relationships that are meaningful and significant. Students also experience their own independence and self-governance and are afforded opportunities to share authority in a bottom-up approach. It appears that school gardens have benefits that are far more significant than simply learning math and science skills.