Historical empathy (HE) is refers to deep inquiry in which academic and emotional responses to historical content are shaped through source analysis of the actions, motives, perspectives, and beliefs of people in the past. There are limited studies about whether students demonstrate HE through analysis of underrepresented historical figures. Additionally, studies are limited on how students’ social identities influence demonstration of HE. Consequently, there is a gap in the literature with regard to whether source analysis of underrepresented historical figures, as well as students’ social identities, impact demonstration of HE and critical race consciousness (CRC). Elizabeth Jennings is an example of an underrepresented historical figure. She was an African American teacher who was forcibly ejected from a streetcar due to her race in 1854. Jennings sued the streetcar company and won. Although Jennings set an important precedent for African Americans to use the legal system to challenge antebellum segregation ordinances, she remains a relatively obscure historical figure. The purpose of this study was to examine whether or not an instructional unit about Elizabeth Jennings called “The Elizabeth Jennings Project” (EJP) promotes conditions conducive for student demonstration of HE and/or CRC. A case study of one middle and two high school classes was conducted at one private, non-secular school in an urban area of the Northeast. Instructional methods that best promoted HE included in-class discussion and debate. Students provided insights about their social identities during focus group sessions with regard to how the EJP fostered HE and CRC.

Since the early part of the 1800s many aspects of music education have remained "very traditional" with little changes in underpinning rationales (Jorgensen, 2003, p. 3). Due to this lack of change, a divide exists "between musical ideology and education practice" (p. 4). The primary purpose of this thesis is to suggest that changing the music education profession begins with reconceptualizing music education. The secondary purpose is to propose one solution, the Timeline Integration Model. Reconceptualization is the process of challenging the atheoretical and ahistorical perspectives of traditional curricula (Pinar, 1975). Rethinking curriculum research starts at the intersections of social structure, history, and biography (Popkewitz, 1988). This philosophical qualitative research thesis presents an analysis of the social structure of School of Music programs. It uses the symbolic interaction theory to investigate how language and music-for-music's-sake ideology influence the music education profession. It briefly examines the history of music education and provides a review of literature of symbolic interaction theory and reconceptualization in relation to music education. The symbolic interaction theory is also applied to an autobiography to further investigate the social structure of School of Music programs and the music education profession. The autobiography demonstrates how social structure, history, and biography are interconnected. This thesis introduces the Timeline Integration Model. The Timeline Integration Model is an interdisciplinary approach developed by the author that uses socio-historical contexts to rethink musical learning. The Timeline Integration Model also provides teachers with tools to design meaningful and integrative lessons in K-12 general music classrooms.

This thesis takes the position that current analyses of digitally mediated interactive experiences that include narrative elements often lack adequate consideration of the technical and historical contexts of their production. / From this position, this thesis asks the question: how is the reader/player/user's participation in interactive narrative experiences (such as hypertext fiction, interactive fiction, computer games, and electronic art) influenced by the technical and historical limitations of the interface? / In order to investigate this question, this thesis develops a single methodology from relevant media and narrative theory, in order to facilitate a comparative analysis of well known exemplars from distinct categories of digitally mediated experiences. These exemplars are the interactive fiction Adventure, the interactive art work Osmose, the hypertext fiction Afternoon, a story, and the computer/video games Myst, Doom, Half Life and Everquest. / The main argument of this thesis is that the technical limits of new media experiences cause significant ‘gaps’ in the reader’s experience of them, and that the cause of these gaps is the lack of a dedicated technology for new media, which instead ‘borrows’ technology from other fields. These gaps are overcome by a greater dependence upon the reader’s cognitive abilities than other media forms. This greater dependence can be described as a ‘performance’ by the reader/player/user, utilising Eco’s definition of an ‘open’ work (Eco 21). / This thesis further argues that the ‘mimetic’ and ‘immersive’ ambitions of current new media practice can increases these gaps, rather than overcoming them. The thesis also presents the case that these ‘gaps’ are often not caused by technical limits in the present, but are oversights by the author/designers that have arisen as the product of a craft culture that has been subject to significant technical limitations in the past. Compromises that originally existed to overcome technical limits have become conventions of the reader/player/user’s interactive literacy, even though these conventions impinge on the experience, and are no longer necessary because of subsequent technical advances. As a result, current new media users and designers now think of these limitations as natural. / This thesis concludes the argument by redefining ‘immersion’ as the investment the reader makes to overcome the gaps in an experience, and suggests that this investment is an important aspect of their performance of the work.

This research seeks to address the gap in the literature on women, health, and environments by exploring the factors that motivate Jamaican women farmers to practice organic agriculture and how these might relate to their understandings of environment and health. The experiences and decisions of women farmers are also positioned within wider historical contexts of colonialism and agricultural change. Integrating a variety of theoretical frameworks, including public issues anthropology, ethnoecology, rural sociology, and feminist political ecology, my own scholarly analysis is merged with the perspectives of the women farmers interviewed in this qualitative study. This research found that women organic farmers in Jamaica were motivated by various factors related to environment and health and impacted by the island’s legacy of slavery and industrialization. The findings of this thesis can be used to encourage the practice of organic agriculture and to improve human health and environmental wellbeing in Jamaica and beyond. / Richard and Sophia Hungerford Travel Scholarship, Yeandle Family Graduate Scholarship, Richard and Sophia Hungerford Graduate Scholarship, Registrar’s Research Grant for Graduate Students, Registrar’s Research Travel Grant