abstract: ABSTRACT This study examines the language and literacy experiences of Kurdish minority children during their first year of mainstream schooling in a southeastern village in Turkey. I employed ethnographic research methods (participant observation, multi-modal data collection, interviewing, and focus groups) to investigate the language practices of the children in relation to language ideologies circulating in the wider context. I focused on the perspectives and practices of one 1st grade classroom (14 students) but also talked with seven parents, three teachers, and two administrators. A careful analysis of the data collected shows that there is a hierarchy among languages used in the community—Turkish, English, and Kurdish. The children, their parents, and their teachers all valued Turkish and English more than Kurdish. While explaining some of their reasons for this view, they discussed the status and functions of each language in society with an emphasis on their functions. My analysis also shows that, although participants devalue the Kurdish language, they still value Kurdish as a tie to their ethnic roots. Another key finding of this study is that policies that appear in teachers’ practices and the school environment seemed to be robust mediators of the language beliefs and practices of the Kurds who participated in my study. School is believed to provide opportunities for learning languages in ways that facilitate greater participation in society and increased access to prestigious jobs for Kurdish children who do not want to live in the village long-term. Related to that, one finding demonstrates that current circumstances make language choice like a life choice for Kurdish children. While Kurds who choose Turkish are often successful in school (and therefore have access to better jobs), the ones who maintain their Kurdish usually have only animal breeding or farming as employment options. I also found that although the Kurdish children that I observed subscribed to ideologies that valued Turkish and English over their native language, they did not entirely abandon their Kurdish language. Instead, they were involved in Turkish- Kurdish bilingual practices such as language broking, language sharing, and language crossing. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2015

A Marxist feminist standpoint positions patriarchy and capitalism as mutually beneficial, thus interestingly situating the new market of male contraceptives (MCs). This project takes an in-depth look at the opinions of 15 young men regarding the use of MCs by examining how Western, heterosexual masculinity informs their attitudes and discusses how a new economic market of MCs may affect current social ideologies about of the sexual division of labor. Because notions of masculinity are essential in perpetuating such ideologies, understanding masculinity as it relates to a new market for MCs is imperative. During a series of focus groups men described this relationship in terms of responsibility, control, sexual pleasure, cost, gendered ideologies, and side effects. As a result of this research, I argue that the emerging market for MCs may simultaneously strengthen power dynamics and restructure labor practices within the sexual division of labor.

For this study, I set out to examine the electoral manifestos of four European populist parties in national elections, in order to analyze the ideological similarities and differences between the Finns Party, the Sweden Democrats, the National Rally, and the League. Political manifestos represent authoritative statements on party policies. I aimed to compare the ideologies expressed in the manifestos and to allocate them on a left-neutral-right scale according to a model developed by Backlund (2013), Benoitand Laver (2007), and Lowe et al. (2011). The theoretical background comes from Spatial theory (Downs 1957, Sartori 1977, Adams 1998) and Saliency theory (Budge & Farlie 1983, Budge et al. 2001, Klingemann et al. 2006). I derived the research data from the Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR) database; the data are longitudinal, covering 48 variables from two elections during the period of 2011-2018. I investigated how the parties present their political goals through qualitative analyses, as well as an examination of the salience and frequency of issues. I compared the data to long-term trends from MARPOR data and from the Chapel Hill Expert Surveys. My findings indicate that the parties have common ideological traits such as nationalism, European Union (EU) opposition, and immigration negativity, but they differ in how they advocate for various policy matters. The Finns Party is the least moderate and openly exhibits nationalism and discriminatory features. The Sweden Democrats share attributes with leftist ideologies, except for the EU opposition and a veiled immigration negativity. The National Rally is nationalistic and privileges protectionism, but is more indirectly immigration and EU negative. The League shows an increasing preference for federalism and EU and immigration negativity during the two elections.

The thesis examines, philosophically and practically, what duties humanity has towards refugees. As the foundation for the thesis, a philosophical background related to human development is provided. Next, a control group of countries in the European Union is used to investigate how refugees impact societies in reality in order to analyze whether countries have an ethical duty to protect their own domestic population, overriding obligations towards refugees. Continuing in this vein, certain political ideologies and religious doctrines are examined in order to determine if there is an underlying theme towards refugees. Stemming from this is an analysis of various international treaties in order to understand what the treaties require and permit countries to do legally. Finally, everything is combined, and the ethical and moral argument related to helping refugees is thoroughly explored. The aim is to uncover the problematization of the current literature and to establish that everyone has ethical duties towards refugees. Refugees are shown not to be a group of people damaging society; not helping refugees in any way damages the human development of a refugee and the inherent moral duties of the person/state/community not providing assistance; all religious doctrines and political ideologies push for...

L’essence la plus profonde de l’homme est constituée de pulsions qui sont du même ordre chez tous les êtres humains, et qui visent la satisfaction de besoins primordiaux dans les conflits latents ou manifestes ininterrompus. Le processus de la civilisation mène nécessairement de la famille à l’humanité, et est indissolublement lié au conflit inné de l’éternelle lutte entre l’amour et le désir de la mort. Conformément à cette idée et aux travaux de Freud, de Lacan, de Jung, de Binswanger et d’autres, notre thèse interroge le rapport entre les conflits qui existent en cinq niveaux (intrapersonnel, interpersonnel, intragroupal, intergroupal, international) et leur impact spécifique sur les interactions internationales. La résolution de ces conflits est le choix entre deux ou plusieurs solutions possibles et parfois contradictoires (guerre ou paix, hostilités ou diplomatie, etc.). Ce choix se détermine souvent dans les négociations internationales à travers des vecteurs psychanalytiques (enjeux identitaires, impact du bilinguisme et du plurilinguisme dans les interactions, discours politiques, etc.). L’enjeu de notre thèse est d’analyser le rôle et les conséquences des négociations principales dans la résolution des conflits internationaux (avant, pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale-1918-1945 et durant la guerre froide -1945-1991). / The very essence of man’s existence is constituted from drives, which are of a similar order in all human beings and aim at the satisfaction of primal desires in permanent latent or manifest conflicts. Civilization is the necessary path from family to humanity; it is inextricably linked to the innate conflict of the eternal struggle between Eros and Thanatos. In accordance with this idea and in the work of Freud, Lacan, Jung, Binswanger, etc., my doctoral research examines the relation between intrapersonal, interpersonal, intragroupal, intergroupal, international conflicts and their specific impact on international interactions. The resolution of these conflicts involves a choice between two or more equally possible, yet sometimes contradictory, solutions (war or peace, hostility or diplomacy, etc.). This choice is often determined by international negotiations, and can be understood through psychoanalytical vectors such as identity issues, the impact of bilingualism on intercultural interactions, and political discourse, etc. The implications of this doctoral research are to evaluate the role and the consequences of principal negotiations in the resolution of international conflicts before and during the Word War II, 1918-1945, and during the Cold War -1945-1991

There are 184 active charter school districts in Texas, which use public tax dollars like traditional school districts, providing educational opportunities to over 350,000 Texas students. Charter schools accept state and federal funds and often operate with less oversight than their neighboring local public schools, yet they have the autonomy to accomplish the mission(s) set forth by the charter school operator. Although there have been numerous studies looking at the effectiveness of charter schools in terms of student achievement, very little research has been on the programs that charter schools implement to address the needs of their English learner populations. This study examined charter school leaders' perceptions in the selection of the EL instructional programs that are offered to their English Learners. Interviews of district bilingual/ESL directors of Texas charter schools, or their equivalents, were conducted. Using a constructivist grounded theory design, this study explored the factors and decisions of instructional leaders in implementing a particular second language program, with special attention to the ideologies informing these decisions. Themes emerged from the data and were be explored. The findings of this study are vital in helping other charter school operators better understand the challenges and potential pitfalls faced by current charter school operators in supporting their EL populations.

This research examines the new social media site, Pinterest, to uncover the processes through which mothers construct self- and public-identities. Despite being valued at over $3.8 billion dollars (Perez 2013), having an impressive user retention rate (Moore 2014), and having a highly gendered user base (Tekobbe 2013), Pinterest has been the site of limited sociological inquiry. Seventeen semi-structured qualitative interviews on mothering and Pinterest use were conducted with central Florida mothers who have a Pinterest account and at least one child between 6 months and 10 years old. Through analysis based in a grounded theory approach, three central themes emerged from the data: (1) mothers negotiate motherhood ideals, perpetuated through Pinterest, through drawing on gendered ideologies; (2) mothers' use of Pinterest both supports and impairs construction of positive self-identities, complexly overlapping with concerns of technology overuse; and (3) the compartmentalized nature of Pinterest facilitates the activation of multiple identities which allow 'escapes' from the pressures of motherhood and everyday responsibilities. Insights derived from this research can also be helpful in explaining the overlaps between online and offline identities, how women manage motherhood ideals, and the compartmentalization of self-identities.

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This dissertation investigates how the vision of the linguistic reality influences asylum seekers and refugees inclusion policies with attention on attitudes, prejudices and phenomena of "banal nationalism" and "banal colonialism" related to languages. By focusing on micro- level actors, i.e. people who carry out the activity of reception of asylum seekers and refugees and their linguistic ideologies and attitudes, the research wants to add some epistemological reflections form the sociology of language to the study of political science and to contribute to reanalyse some of the conditions that can help implement successful inclusion policies. The research is oriented towards the ideologies and "taken for granted" ideas on language that influence general integration and inclusion policies, with an eye on its repercussion on general political issues like human rights or democracy. The theoretical background has its roots on the recent literature about linguistic justice and language rights as human rights and has been applied through a qualitative comparative field research in Rome and Stockholm. / Questa tesi indaga il modo in cui la visione della realtà linguistica influenzi le politiche di inclusione dei richiedenti asilo e dei rifugiati, con attenzione agli atteggiamenti, ai pregiudizi e ai fenomeni di "banal nationalism" e "banal colonialism" legati alle lingue. Concentrandosi sugli attori di micro-livello, cioè sulle persone che svolgono l'attività di accoglienza di richiedenti asilo e rifugiati e sulle loro ideologie e atteggiamenti linguistici, la ricerca vuole apportare alcune riflessioni epistemologiche della sociologia del linguaggio allo studio delle scienze politiche e contribuire a rianalizzare alcune delle condizioni che possono aiutare a implementare politiche di inclusione di successo. La ricerca pone attenzione alle ideologie e alle idee "date per scontate" sulla lingua che influenzano le politiche generali di integrazione e inclusione, con un occhio alle ripercussioni su questioni politiche generali come i diritti umani o la democrazia. Il background teorico affonda le sue radici nella recente letteratura sulla giustizia linguistica e sui diritti linguistici in quanto diritti umani ed è stato empiricamente applicato attraverso una ricerca qualitativa comparativa sul campo a Roma e Stoccolma.