none

No description available.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2008. / Document formatted into pages; contains xi, 178 p. Includes bibliographical references.

<p> The Catholic nun and nunnery participate in the formation of eighteenth-century gender and national identities. Not only do nuns and nunneries appear in literary works from the Restoration to the Regency period and beyond, they also act as sites upon which major aesthetic, political, cultural and material theories of identity work themselves out in the eighteenth century. This dissertation argues that the antiquarian, literary, and aesthetic understanding of nunneries in the long eighteenth century had everything to do with imagining ideal domestic femininity, and at the same time disavowing that imagination. </p> <p> I begin with an analysis of the post-Reformation antiquarian treatment of medieval English nunneries, and then apply that analysis to three sites of literary imagination: Alexander Pope's "Eloisa to Abelard" (1717), Sophia Lee's The Recess (1783-5), and the gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe (1790-97). I also pair my analyses of these texts with cultural, political, and material contexts such as antiquary John Brand's treatment of Godstow Nunnery, William Beckford's architectural folly Fonthill Abbey, accounts of French emigres during the Revolution, the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots, and images of monastic ruins and wax bodies. </p> <p> With these varied contexts in mind, I come to the conclusion that the repression of Roman Catholic identity involves a very specific re-imagining of the nunnery and the nun's body within it; this re-imagination narrates Protestant domestic identity onto the site of female monastic ruins in order to re-signify such mutable sites as fixed symbols of virtuous femininity and maternity. I conclude with a look at how this construction of ideal femininity figures in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (1798) and Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley 's Secret (1861-62), as they both take as their setting a convent-turned-country house. The popular consumption of poetry, antiquarian history and art, novels, and consumer goods converge in my conclusion to show how concerns with a lack of distinction between the public and private are also about a lack of distinction between the ideal and subversive woman, as she is a version of there-imagined Catholic nun. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

This study is an investigation into school students' productive struggles in the simplification of trigonometric expressions and proving of trigonometric identities. Although studies have been published on the teaching and learning of trigonometrical concepts in schools and teacher education, there is a lack of published research into students' productive struggles in the simplification of trigonometric expressions and proving of trigonometric identities. To fill this gap in the literature, this study used a sample of 16- and 17-year-old students at a rural high school in South Carolina in the United States of America to conduct a study on the use of productive struggles in the simplification of trigonometric expressions and the proving of trigonometric identities. The study used the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic by Chevallard (1992) as the main theoretical framework. However, this main framework was supported by other frameworks. The Anthropological Theory of the Didactic contends that mathematical activities such as simplifying trigonometric expressions and proving trigonometric identities must be interpreted as a human activity rather than seeing these mathematical activities as a language, the creation of concepts (for example, “simplification” or “proof”) or a cognitive process. A praxeology consists of two parts, namely (in Greek) the praxis, or “know how”, and the logos, or “know why”. The praxis is commonly known as the practical block, and the logos the theoretical block. This means that the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic can be used to describe how certain actions regarding the simplification of trigonometric expressions and proving of trigonometric identities take place, and why these actions take place. The exercises in the activities were obtained and adapted from the students' prescribed textbook. These activity questions were sequenced using the Development Cognitive Abilities Test (DCAT). The DCAT reflects Bloom's (1956) hierarchy of cognitive abilities. This means that the exercises were organised in three groups of increasing complexity, i.e., easy, medium, and difficult. The easy exercises related to the DCAT's Basic Cognitive Abilities, referred to as DCAT 1; the medium exercises related to Application Abilities, referred to as DCAT 2; and the difficult exercises related to Critical Thinking Abilities, referred to as DCAT 3. The data in this study consists of video recordings from classroom observations in real time transcribed verbatim, documentary analysis of students' assessments, and audio-recorded focus group interviews. The focus group interviews were also transcribed verbatim. Each transcription focused on a different aspect of the students' productive struggles in the simplification of trigonometric expression and the proving of trigonometric identities. Errors made by the students in written assessments were analysed using the Newman Error Analysis framework. By using Newman Error Analysis, this study could investigate and compare how the errors on the assessments were related to the students' struggles as observed during the teaching and learning of the activity questions. Due to Co-Vid 19 restrictions that resulted in logistical difficulties, only one class of 15 students participated in this study. After listening to the focus group recordings numerous times and reading the transcripts, common patterns were noted that had emerged, either from paraphrasing or from direct quotes. The primary research question is: What is the nature of the productive struggles experienced by high-school students during the simplification of trigonometric expressions and proving of trigonometric identities and how do these productive struggles influence the learning and teaching of trigonometry? The study findings were that the students struggled with “carrying out known mathematical processes” such as manipulating equations, knowing under what conditions cancellation of terms can be applied, adding and subtracting algebraic fractions involving trigonometric expressions, and factorisation of trigonometric expressions. In addition, there were misconceptions about the concept of “simplification”. Delayed impasse struggles occurred; this is when a student does not initially struggle to get started with a question, but the struggling becomes apparent as the student progresses with the question. The students committed fewer Newman errors in proving trigonometric identities than in the simplification of trigonometric expressions. Subsequently, students performed better at proving trigonometric identities than at simplifying trigonometric expressions. It could well be that through productive struggles, the students developed some of their own strategies from the simplification of trigonometric expressions. Alternatively, proving identities could be seen as “easier”, since the students already know what the “answer” should be. Nonetheless, students still struggled to carry out common mathematical processes such as factorisation and the manipulation of algebraic fractions. Regarding factorisation and manipulation of algebraic fractions, students compartmentalised knowledge. For example, most students knew how to factorise algebraic expressions, but failed to see the resemblance between algebraic expressions and trigonometric expressions (and consequently, how to factorise trigonometric expressions). Although there was a decrease in the number of Newman errors from the simplification of trigonometric expressions to the proving of trigonometric identities, there was an increase at the comprehension hierarchy, which may be attributed to the fact that the students might have struggled with the concept of “proof”. Additionally, students in this study struggled with the concept of “simpler”. Some students thought that the solution to a simplification question should be more complex than the original question. Nonetheless, with both the simplification of trigonometric expressions and the proving of trigonometric identities it remained a challenge for the students to apply prior knowledge in a new mathematical context such as trigonometry. The significance of the study's findings is that they suggest that teachers re-evaluate how to instruct known mathematical processes and procedures, so as not to compartmentalise mathematical knowledge. Productive struggles may not always produce correct answers; but given sufficient time and appropriate intervention by their teacher, students can build their own knowledge and become independent thinkers who can apply prior knowledge in new contexts such as the simplification of trigonometric expressions and the proving of trigonometric identities. In future research, productive struggles in the simplification of trigonometric expressions and the proving of trigonometric identities should be explored with a bigger, more diverse group of students, taught by more than one teacher at more than one school. In addition, to investigate the long-term effects of productive struggles a study lasting more than six months could be carried out.

This thesis investigates how and why various Iraqi and Lebanese politicians and laypeople account for the armed conflicts, which they have been living through, and the involved sides of these conflicts. In both of these countries people have been exposed to major international and civil wars. Both nations are also cosmopolitan societies that contain multiple ethnic, racial, and religious groups, which make the issue of identity of great importance. How wars should be examined is a subject of much debate within psychology. On the one hand, the majority of psychological studies of war rest upon the assumption that war is primarily a destructive experience. Thus, the focus has been traditionally on investigating lasting psychopathological effects of war. A Large number of previous studies have reported that a significant segment of people who were exposed to the experience of war developed psychological problems, especially post traumatic stress disorder. On the other hand, a growing number of psychology researchers contend that most people maintain their psychological equilibrium in the face of almost all types of traumatic experiences, including war-related affairs. These researchers have shifted the focus toward examining and explaining this finding. Within this vigorous debate, limited attention has been paid to the question of how and why people account for their experiences as well as the various aspects of war in their own words. Currently, a limited number of studies indicate that people can and do present the same war in significantly different ways, as a means to attain certain ends. Furthermore, a significant body of research suggests that people’s collective identities play an important role in relation to their understandings, descriptions, preferences and behaviours in relation to war. The war rhetoric is also reported as an important issue that can influence the people’s understanding of war, as well as war’s course of events. Hence, through adopting a discursive psychological approach to analysis, this thesis examines several important issues simultaneously. Accounts of the wars and collective identities are approached as communicative resources that are constructed and deployed as a means to accomplish social actions. This thesis examines, specifically, how different Iraqi laypeople and politicians construct the 2003 American and Allies intervention in Iraq, with focus on collective identity. It also examines how various Lebanese construe the events of the 2006 war and the civil strife that occurred during and afterward this war. The data is taken from three sources. The first one is represented by semi-structured interviews conducted in Lebanon in October 2006. The second source is TV interviews conducted and broadcasted live with Iraqi politicians and decision makers in the period from 2003 to 2008 and with Lebanese politicians from 2006 to 2008. The third source is an open-ended question distributed in Basra City, Iraq in May 2005 as part of an extensive questionnaire. This study has several practical and theoretical implications to psychology in general and in particular to the study of armed conflicts. The first contribution is highlighting the importance of analysing laypeople’s rhetorical accounts of wars, as directly involved people can and do present surprisingly different discourses from the outsiders’. I argue that to gain a realistic and applicable understanding of the discourse of war, its function and its potential implications, it is necessary to study the general public’s versions of such experience in addition to the elite’s discourses. The analysis shows that different participants have constructed different action-oriented accounts of the same war. Within these various accounts the participants invoked and incorporated a number of different stimulating notions, such as dignity, nationalism, religion, resilience and victory as part of the rational of the war. These accounts have important practical and discursive functions, such as establishing, warranting, rejecting, and promoting specific views of the war, the involved sides, and the appropriate course of action. Secondly, this study contributes to the theoretical understanding of the role of rhetorical collective identity during armed conflicts. The analysis shows that collective identities attain their meanings and their functions from, by, and through the accounts they are situated within. Thirdly, the findings of this thesis highlight the complex and consequential role of rhetorical accounts in relation to wars and to violence and the relevance of qualitative analysis. I argue that discourse of war can obscure its destructive effects, which in turn can contribute to maintaining people’s psychological equilibrium but, also, prolong the conflict. Thus, exposing the rhetorical strategies that legitimate war and warrant killing other people can be an important step toward making war unconditionally morally unacceptable.

No description available.

No description available.

My Master of Fine Art research explores the fracturing and fermentation that occurs when two cultural identities first collide, then begin to merge, one traditionally steeped in collective thinking and community – Korea, and the other with a focus on the individual and autonomy – Canada. I was trained as an artist in South Korea and learned from masters who had decades of experience in the field of traditional ceramics. Until I moved to Canada, my work focused on Korean traditional ceramics and its history. However, my desire to be recognized as an individual artist instead of another anonymous traditional ceramic artist has grown tremendously since I restarted my journey as a ceramic artist here in Canada. After practicing in the ceramics field in North America for two years, I am starting to understand what the differences are between Korea, where I received my initial education, and Canada, my adopted culture. The struggles I have experienced as an artist from outside of this new culture made me think about myself as an individual. I am now starting to discover my own unique voice in my work with clay. / October 2016