<p> English language teaching and learning receive considerable attention in Saudi Arabian schools as seen in existing efforts of development. A primary purpose of this study is to participate in these efforts of development through the application of a modern constructivist instructional practice for English language teaching and learning on the intermediate school level. This study, in part, strives to determine whether or not the adoption of Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT) would be a more effective means of increasing the students' reading comprehension achievement scores when compared to the traditional teaching method of the English language that involves (among other things) prompting and drilling of students. This study also strives to gain issues and insights that accompany the application of TBLT through constant comparison and contrast with those that accompany the traditional teaching method. </p><p> This mixed-method study is quasi-experimental that uses a pretest and posttests for collecting quantitative data, and classroom observation and researcher log for collecting qualitative data. The study involved 122 participants divided into treatment and control groups. The treatment group has received ten weeks of English language instruction via the TBLT method while the control group has received ten weeks of English language instruction via the traditional teaching method. The independent variable is the use of TBLT in the classroom and the effect/dependent variable is the students' reading comprehension achievement scores. </p><p> A Two-Factor Split Plot analysis with the pretest as the covariate is used for analyzing the quantitative data. Analysis of qualitative data included synthesis, rich, and detailed description for classroom observation and grounded theory for researcher log data. The findings show that teaching via the TBLT method has significantly helped students increase their reading comprehension achievement scores more than that of the traditional teaching method of the English language. The findings also suggest that the TBLT method, as a constructivist practice, is a better way for English language teaching and has involved practices that are desired in a modern educational context when compared to the traditional teaching method of the English language.</p>

<p>How do political leaders strategically manage fiscal policy formation to enhance their political survival? What are the implications of the fiscal mechanics of survival for theories of redistribution and democratic transition? This dissertation examines the complex relationship between political regime types and fiscal information asymmetries. I focus on budgetary policies (taxation and public spending) as major strategic tools available to the executive for co-optation and punishment of opponents. I argue that allowing some degree of contestation and transparency on the fiscal contract in electoral authoritarian regimes helps the executive identify distributive claims and co-opt the opposition. Paradoxically, in new democracies, political survival depends more on lower levels of budget transparency than existent theories would have us expect. Chapters 1 and 2 present a general formal model from which I derive the major hypotheses of the study. Second, Chapters 3, 4 and 5 use new cross-national measures of fiscal transparency and test empirically the theoretical implications. The statistical models confirm the main theoretical intuitions. Finally, Chapter 6 compares in greater detail the evolution of fiscal transparency in Morocco, Turkey and Romania between 1950 and 2000. I argue that fiscal taboos closely followed the shifting political alliance and their distributional consequences for leader's survival.</p> / Dissertation

This study examined the drivers' perception of the SAHER (means "watchful" in Arabic) system in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this study was to analyze the perception of the SAHER system on impacting the overall traffic conditions in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia including its effectiveness and flaws. A survey was conducted and distributed to 70 drivers and residents of Jeddah. Drivers were divided into two groups based on their age. Five hypotheses were tested in this study. Hypotheses one through four were tested using the averages of related questions. Hypothesis five was tested statistically using a z-test for differences between the means. The overall conclusion of drivers' perception of SAHER on increasing road safety and reducing loss of life was generally positive. The conclusion for hypothesis 1, 2, and 3 was positive. The conclusion for hypothesis four was inconclusive. The conclusion for hypothesis five was retained to the null hypothesis with a 95% confidence level. A key recommendation from the study is that to measure the overall effectiveness of the system it will be prudent to observe how the system is perceived in other major cities of Saudi Arabia apart from Jeddah.

This study will examine if Akhuwat provides a sustainable Islamic interest-free Microfinance model for potential poverty alleviation. This question is particularly complicated for an organization that relies so heavily on subsidies. Theoretical debates of sustainability and the recognition of donations, cross-market comparisons, and data from audit reports will validate Akhuwat’s potential for long term sustainability. Analysis also highlights the discrepancies that plague this opaque industry.

This thesis examines the way in which imponderable problems are mediated in the everyday work of commercial film production in Egypt. By 'imponderable problem', I mean a working problem encountered in an extended production process whereby the individual worker, in the present, cannot account for all courses of action leading onto the process's expected outcome. I argue that workers in film production can never entirely solve this kind of problem: they 'mediate' it. They rely on various assumptions and material mediators to break this overall imponderability into a series of contingent tasks, thereby modifying the expected outcome. I situate this mediation in the wider context of the contemporary Egyptian film industry, with its interpersonal mode of interaction, its labor hierarchy, its socio-technical process of production, and its technological implements. This thesis analyzes three imponderable problems in particular: how to coordinate a shooting day; how to visualize the film; and how to anticipate the audience's composition and reaction. The overall argument is situated within media anthropology, where media production tends to be examined as a 'social' phenomenon inscribed on an invisible technological substratum, without exploring the material implications of everyday technological objects in a temporally extended process of production. This literature, moreover, tends to be inattentive to the gap between the way in which the film unfolds and the way in which social agents involved in its making anticipate this unfolding. This thesis, by contrast, considers how Egyptian filmmakers try to anticipate the future of their activity. In addition to being an ethnographic account of the Egyptian film industry, this thesis contributes to the anthropological literature on media production by exploring how workers concretely mediate between the present and the near-/far-future.

abstract: Belief affects behavior and rhetoric has the potential to bring about action. This paper is a critical content analysis of the ideology and rhetoric of key Islamist intellectuals and the Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, as stated on the website http://english.hizbuttahrir.org. The responses of specific Muslim Reformers are also analyzed. The central argument underlying this analysis centers on the notion that such Islamist ideology and its rhetorical delivery could be a significant trigger for the use of violence; interacting with, yet existing independently of, other factors that contribute to violent actions. In this case, a significant aspect of any solution to Islamist rhetoric would require that Muslim Reformers present a compelling counter-narrative to political Islam (Islamism), one that has an imperative to reduce the amount of violence in the region. Rhetoric alone cannot solve the many complicated issues in the region but we must begin somewhere and countering the explicit and implicit calls to violence of political Islamist organizations like Hizb ut-Tahrir seems a constructive step. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Communication Studies 2010

abstract: This study is a feminist historiography of Al-Raida, a Lebanese feminist journal introduced in 1976 by the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World at the Lebanese American University. This study recovers foundations of modern Lebanese feminist discourses as they are articulated in the journal by employing Foucauldian CDA as a means to trace discourse strands, or conversations, which include Family Planning, development, politics and narratives of the Lebanese civil war. This study explores, by situating each discourse strand within dominant and local historical contexts, the shifting rhetorical function of the journal through various historical moments. Tracing the dominant discourse strands within the first decade of the journal, this study rhetorically analyzes the ways in which arguments are positioned, research studies are presented, and methodologies are employed to forge viable solutions to Middle Eastern women's issues. First, the study traces the conversation on Family Planning in Lebanon and its relevance to the economic and social situation during the late 70s. Second, the study presents the shift in the early 80s towards a discourse on development and explores how Al-Raida presents the issue of development, attempts to define it, and in doing so outlines some of the concerns at this time, including illiteracy, access to health care, access to paid employment, and women's access to developmental opportunities. Third, the study presents the discourse in the mid-80s on the civil war in Lebanon and highlights Al-Raida's rhetorical function by documenting trauma and war narratives through personal interviews, testimonies, and ethnographies. The shift in the methodologies of the research articles published in the first decade, from quantitative studies towards qualitative studies, indicates the journal is rhetorically situated within both the dominant international discourse and within the local context, exhibiting an ability to respond to the nuances in the local Lebanese women's movement while simultaneously maintaining international visibility. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. English 2012

This thesis focuses specifically on student media consumption around the Syrian Refugee Crisis at the Claremont Colleges through interviews and participant observation in order to understand the role of media photos in knowledge production around the Syrian Refugee Crisis. Looking at the role of photos in a cross-cultural understanding of the Refugee Crisis, this thesis analyzes the way individuals read and interpret these photos. I argue that photos have a vital role in knowledge production of the Syrian Refugee Crisis however their presentation and consumption occurs in a complex world without guidelines of what photos impact are and how they should be used. Finally, I aim to understand the potential for more ideal representation of the Syrian Refugee Crisis.

ix, 179 p. / This thesis, based on field research in Lebanon, explores how the confessional nature of the Lebanese state affects the construction of civil society. It elaborates on the state's role as a social service provider and its legal and bureaucratic relationship with the Lebanese NGO community while also exploring how the state's role as a service provider is perceived in the Lebanese media. Pulling from a variety of archival sources in Lebanon, this thesis surveys 26 Arabic language newspaper articles published between 2006 and 2008. It also utilizes a myriad of primary sources including government and donor documents, unpublished NGO studies and statistical data. This thesis argues that confessionalism inhibits the state's capacity to provide social services efficiently. The politicization of these services conditions the relationship between the state, sectarian political parties and the NGO community. This phenomenon is reproduced in the Lebanese media and allows confessional relationships to infect civil society. / Committee in charge: Dr. Anita M. Weiss, Chairperson; Dr. Alexander B. Murphy, Member; Dr. Frederick S. Colby, Member

abstract: The conflict conditions that afflict the livelihoods of Palestinian residents living in the West Bank are embedded within the population's ability to travel more so than any other routine activity. For Palestinian residents, domestic and international travel is a process of following paths riddled with multiple barriers that are both physical and political. Past studies have done well to paint a clear picture of the harsh transportation landscape in the region. However, less attention has focused on how barriers interact to indirectly and directly affect levels of accessibility and well-being. Additionally, suggested development solutions are rarely capable of being successfully implemented given current political conditions. This dissertation uses a systems approach to understand drivers of accessibility challenges in the West Bank and uses the understanding to propose a method to identify transition strategies that may be presently initiated whilst maintaining the ability to provide adequate benefit. The research question informing the study asks, How do drivers influencing the issue of poor accessibility and well-being in the West Bank persist and interact, and how might solutions be approached? The dissertation approaches the question in four sequential actions that each produces a functional planning deliverable. First, a system map that depicts the drivers and influences to the problem of poor accessibility and well-being is constructed (Chapter 4). Second, a future vision for the transportation system in the West Bank is identified (Chapter 5). Third, the system map and vision are used to assess how conflict conditions affect transition research (Chapter 6). Finally, the previous three deliverables are used to suggest a guide for transition management for transportation development in the West Bank (Chapter 7). Combinations of four different data sets, including an extensive review of published literature, field observations, individual field expert interviews, and group commuter interviews inform the research. Additionally, the Transformational Sustainability Research framework provides a normative base for the steps taken throughout the research. Ultimately, the dissertation presents an interpretation of information that has theoretical and practical application potential in transformational sustainability research and development efforts in the region respectively. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Sustainability 2015