While much research has been conducted on the cognitive and methodological aspects of language pedagogy, there has been little research on the other essential aspects of teaching and learning, such as teacher presence. The aim of this doctoral research study was to discover, describe and document the various ways in which holistic education is operationalized in the Canadian post-secondary language teaching-learning context. Using French as a second language (FSL) instruction as a concrete example, the study was further aimed at developing a comprehensive understanding of what teachers do to facilitate holistic engagement in learning a second, foreign or additional language in the post-secondary classroom and beyond. Particular attention was paid to the various holistic interconnections and relationships involved in language teaching and the ways in which these helped to foster a spirit of inclusiveness, balance and connectedness in the language teaching-learning environment. This qualitative research inquiry utilized a blend of narrative and case study methodologies, and included a variety of data sources such as face-to-face (individual and focus group) interviews, classroom observations, and surveys. The research has been primarily informed by a core group of participants comprising of six FSL university instructors as well as a peripheral group of five other language instructors from both the college and university contexts. Students of the core participant group also lent their voices to this endeavor, thus providing a rich understanding of how they perceive their experiences of post-secondary language teaching. On the one hand, beliefs and assumptions underlying teachers’ approaches as well as the methods and strategies that they employ, constituted an important aspect of the investigation. However, on the other hand, significant emphasis was placed on the participants’ perspectives on teaching presence and how they seek to engage the whole student -- body, mind and spirit. The findings highlight the centrality of teaching presence as a fundamental element for maintaining flow and connectedness within and beyond the classroom. Implications include rethinking the relevance of teaching presence in the post-secondary language classroom and its potential for enhancing the teaching and learning experience, fostering positive emotions, building relationships and encouraging lifelong learning.

This thesis explores the ways in which the legacy of colonialism continues to shape the material and non-material conditions of rural indigenous communities in Bangladesh. This research examines the complex confluence of power, politics, economics, and identities in rural Bangladesh; it explores the web of local, national, and global mechanisms that (re)create and maintain oppressive systems and structures. Adopting an anti-colonial discursive framework and a case study approach, this research incorporates data from semi-structured and informal, in-depth individual interviews, focus-group interviews, an observational journal, and a review of relevant literature to study a remote Santal village in the Rajshahi division of Bangladesh. This study focuses on the voices of the local people, their experiences and narratives, and analyzes the data within the wider contexts of history, politics, and culture. The anti-colonial discursive framework that guides this study acknowledges the material and intellectual agency of local people and the value of their knowledge and lived experiences; it contributes to understanding local history and culture and the saliency of local resistance to oppressive practices. The research findings reveal that colonial structures of oppression are perpetuated by the devaluation of indigenous peoples’ mother tongue, education, culture, and religion and by distancing them from the land that has belonged to them for centuries. The findings present a shift from the ritual-based, cultural matrix of the rural indigenous community and its tradition-oriented socio-political and education systems. Exclusionary policies and practices of the nation state and Christian aggression have fragmented the Santal community, devalued their collectivist mode of living, and alienated them from their traditional ways of life. The process of land alienation has perpetuated the colonial legacy of terra nullius and displaced the indigenous Santal community’s sense of belonging and its inherent connection to Mother Earth, the bongas , and the spirits of their ancestors. This dissertation suggests that there is urgent need for activism to resist colonial structures of oppression that continue to this day. This study contributes to literature on anti-colonial struggles across the globe and offers a framework for understanding other colonial and indigenous contexts.

Abstract The purpose was to investigate whether a recovery perspective, viewed from a psychosocial approach is applied in municipal / private and county related care and rehabilitation. A recovery perspective means that the attending staff ensures that the clients are viewed as holistic individuals, where all aspects of life are considered to ensure adequate care and rehabilitation. A questionnaire was answered by staff in psychiatry, social psychiatry and addiction treatment from different areas of the municipal / private and county related sector. The results show no difference in application of a recovery perspective between these two types of organizations. However, there is a slight tendency (non-significant) to lower-rated general individual competencies for municipal / private. There is also a strong tendency (non-significant) to a general difference between the aspects of the implemented recovery perspective, where the tendency is that the respondents as a whole estimate that the organization to a greater degree creates good conditions for a recovery perspective compared to the degree they are actually working on that basis. The results of the thematic analysis highlights that the county based organizations more widely create favorable conditions for the implementation of a recovery perspective, and that these organizations to a greater extent already has completed an implementation and apply a recovery perspective. It is concluded that there are no differences in application of recovery perspective between the investigated municipal / private and council based organizations, but that that there is a tendency for the county associated organization to better represent a recovery perspective.   Key words: recovery, rehabilitation, psychosocial, holistic, therapeutic, application, implementation. / Sammanfattning Syftet var att undersöka om ett återhämtningsperspektiv med grund i ett psykosocialt förhållningssätt tillämpas inom kommunal/privat och landstingsknuten vård och rehabilitering. Ett återhämtningsperspektiv innebär att som behandlande personal, se till människan som en holistisk individ, där alla livets aspekter beaktas för att säkra en fullgod vård och rehabilitering. En enkät besvarades av personal inom psykiatri, socialpsykiatri och beroendevård från kommunal/privat och landstingsknuten sektor. Resultatet visar ingen skillnad i tillämpning mellan dessa två typer av verksamhetsregi. Det finns dock en svag tendens (icke-signifikant) till lägre skattad generell individkompetens för kommunal/privata verksamheter. Det är också en stark tendens (icke-signifikant) till generell skillnad mellan aspekterna av implementerad återhämtning. Tendensen är att respondenterna i högre grad skattar att verksamheten skapar goda förutsättningar för ett återhämtningsperspektiv jämfört med till vilken grad man faktiskt arbetar utifrån detta. Resultatet av den tematiska analysen lyfter fram att de landstingsknutna verksamheterna i större utsträckning skapar goda förutsättningar för att genomföra en implementering av återhämtningsperspektivet, och att dessa verksamheter i större utsträckning redan genomfört en implementering av och tillämpar ett återhämtningsperspektiv. Slutsatsen är att det inte finns skillnader i tillämpning av återhämtningsperspektiv mellan de undersökta kommunala/privata och de landstingsknutna verksamheterna, men att det finns tendenser till att de landstingsknutna verksamheterna bättre företräder ett återhämtningsperspektiv.     Nyckelord: återhämtningsperspektivet, implementering, tillämpning, kommunal, landsting, utbildning.

Automatic image annotation is the process of assigning keywords to digital images depending on the content information. In one sense, it is a mapping from the visual content information to the semantic context information. In this thesis, we propose a novel approach for automatic image annotation problem, where the annotation is formulated as a multivariate mapping from a set of independent descriptor spaces, representing a whole image, to a set of words, representing class labels. For this purpose, a hierarchical annotation architecture, named as HANOLISTIC (Hierarchical Image Annotation System Using Holistic Approach), is dened with two layers. At the rst layer, called level-0 annotator, each annotator is fed by a set of distinct descriptor, extracted from the whole image. This enables us to represent the image at each annotator by a dierent visual property of a descriptor. Since, we use the whole image, the problematic segmentation process is avoided. Training of each annotator is accomplished by a supervised learning paradigm, where each word is represented by a class label. Note that, this approach is slightly dierent then the classical training approaches, where each data has a unique label. In the proposed system, since each image has one or more annotating words, we assume that an image belongs to more than one class. The output of the level-0 annotators indicate the membership values of the words in the vocabulary, to belong an image. These membership values from each annotator is, then, aggregated at the second layer by using various rules, to obtain meta-layer annotator. The rules, employed in this study, involves summation and/or weighted summation of the output of layer-0 annotators. Finally, a set of words from the vocabulary is selected based on the ranking of the output of meta-layer. The hierarchical annotation system proposed in this thesis outperforms state of the art annotation systems based on segmental and holistic approaches. The proposed system is examined in-depth and compared to the other systems in the literature by means of using several performance criteria.

This thesis analyzes the process of proactive urban design in a theoretical framework. It asks searching questions about how built environments are conceived of, designed, delivered, protected, enhanced and managed, and it explores these by examining the proactive planning practices in Britain. It defines the proactive approach firstly as / how both the spatial policy and detailed guidance express and prescribe the desired physical form, and secondly / how this is pursued through active negotiation. While encompasses land use planning, spatial planning goes beyond physical planning with a clearly defined local vision which emphasises social, economic and environmental values. This inclusive approach defines urban design as a spatial policy describing both the form and the life of the city. It deals with how urban design infuses planning policies at all levels. The case study looks into policy mechanisms associated with the delivery of good urban design. It represents the proactive planning practice through involvement, partnership working and negotiation processes based on a sustainable community strategy. It focuses on the policies influencing design quality and how these shape the decisionmaking processes of public and private sector stakeholders resulting in better quality of built environment and a more vibrant public realm. This study examines the social structure that developed the proactive approach for best practice to become common practice. It explains the lessons to learn from the definition of spatial planning process with its context and implementation tools, even if these might not be adapted to Turkey without the same intellectual and philosophical backgrounds.

Thesis (D. Min.)--Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 213-218).

The purpose of this study was to investigate the co-optation of the heterodox medical system of osteopathic medicine by the hegemonic medical system of biomedicine and its impact on the practice of osteopathic medicine in America. The study particularly explored students (n=20), practitioners (n=5), and faculty (n=5) regarding their views of osteopathic medicine. The process of professionalization of osteopathic medicine has caused DOs to become more akin to MDs, which may have led to an identity crisis within the profession. This case study took place at a private osteopathic medical school in the Southeastern U.S. A content analysis of the interviews, direct observations, and curriculum analysis was conducted to answer the qualitative research questions in this study. The qualitative research questions required in-depth interviews, direct observation, survey questionnaires and analysis of curriculum.

Despite the amount of empirical evidence available to validate the claim that language learners have the ability to evaluate their own abilities in a foreign language, many educators feel that self-assessments are unreliable and do not fit into the foreign language classroom. However, the move towards a proficiency-based student-centered classroom over the past two decades has caused many educators to rethink the use of self-assessment measures in the foreign language classroom. At the same time, portfolios have emerged as assessment tools for both educators and learners. Most recently, with the technological advancements in the past decade, Internet-based e-portfolios have become increasingly popular in education. However, there are very few studies on the use and implementation of e-portfolios, specifically in the foreign language classroom. This dissertation examines the role of self-assessment in the foreign language classroom. It utilizes an e-portfolio platform with pre-loaded can-do statements to create an evidence-based self-assessment for an intensive Russian language class. This dissertation presents self-assessment as a teacher-validated process utilizing formative assessment to create a learner-centered environment outside of the classroom. The study correlates results from three separate foreign language assessment tools to determine their relation to one another. The study promotes a holistic approach to language assessment and provides a process for holistic approach in the foreign language classroom. The process outlined in this study is easy to replicate and can be incorporated into foreign language courses with a limited amount of resources. / text

This study investigates the resilience of children living at Sundara, a home in North India, which serves destitute and/or orphaned youth who live and are educated on site. Despite the adversity my participants have encountered they are thriving spiritually, emotionally, physically, and mentally. My research examines this phenomenon and the holistic education practices that support the children in engaging the process of resilience. I employ two theoretical frameworks to illuminate both what is occurring (resilience) and how it is occurring (holistic education). As resilience is understood as largely an external phenomenon, it then follows that the children of Sundara do not necessarily arise from families with the correct genetic disposition to allow them to engage this process (although this can definitely be a factor). Rather, they are educated and raised in such a way to make resilience a possibility. I seek to understand the role holistic education plays in the resilience process at work in Sundara. To this effect, two questions central to my study are: What constellation of factors is present at Sundara that enables children to participate in a community of resilience? What kinds of holistic educational practices support the children’s participation in this community? To perform this research in a way that honours the relational and holistic way of life at Sundara, I utilize a method inspired by photovoice and I draw upon poetic inquiry as a part of my exploration. My findings indicate that the holistic practices of the home create abundant opportunities for resilience. The three key themes that emerged were: reciprocal relationships, the holistic curriculum (moral and spiritual), and resilience enabling space. In addition, the home fosters a certain being-ness, a mode that the children and staff abide in that allows for greater resilience in their community. My participants appeared to be distinctly rich in spirit. It may be that out of such spiritual consciousness comes a greater ability to connect and engage the relationships at the core of the resilience process. / Graduate / 0515 / 0527

Making decisions about whom to admit to medical school and how to create diversity in the process has come under increased scrutiny. An additional layer of complexity is introduced when committees utilize the AAMC's prescribed holistic review in addition to their institutional diversity policies. This comparative case study explores how two medical schools (one public and one private) are charged with implementing holistic review when challenged by the institutional culture which may resist a holistic approach. Through interviews, meeting observations, and document analysis, the study examines how and when diversity is introduced into the admissions process, and how diversity policies function in the overall medical school environment. Applying a framework of institutional isomorphism (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983), the study found that medical schools are highly concerned about a decrease in MCAT scores and coursework grades, which could negatively impact medical school rankings. It could also contribute to institutional inertia when introducing a new review process, causing resistance by admissions committee members. Additionally, admissions committees and leadership may differ regarding philosophical and historical factors that create bias within the process resulting in isomorphic change. Isomorphic change is a result of the ambiguity and the lack of institutional buy-in on various levels (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Virtual adoption (Birnbaum, 2000) is a result of an increased focus emulating processes of peer medical schools that misalign the school's priorities, creating confusion about how to address the national shortage of diverse physicians. Future research needs to account for additional influences on admissions decisions, including the impact of the current Fisher v. University of Texas case that may redefine how diversity is measured in medical school admissions.