Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 390-413).

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1981.

This dissertation considers the early career of Boston-based, African American artist Allan Rohan Crite (1910-2007) and situates his central artistic Goal--to present uplifting images of middle class black Bostonians--within the ideological framework of the New Negro Movement of the 1920s-1940s. In each of the chapters, I consider one of the four bodies of work Crite produced simultaneously during his early career--painted portraits, neighborhood street scenes and church interiors and brush and ink illustrations of African American spirituals. I focus on these subjects in order to explore Crite’s desire to portray the middle class status of his family and community and to redefine the spirituals in terms of his own middle-class sensibility. I describe Crite’s visualization of his black middle class Episcopal and Bostonian identity in these works as performances or enactments created through a series of repeated gestures of “respectable” appearance and behavior. My analysis also considers the artist’s motivations to preserve, in the physical form of his artworks, the black middle class values and way of life in Boston that he feared was in danger of being lost and forgotten. Rooted in the Community is also a revisionist account, for it seeks to revise the notion of an African American artistic “rootedness” to mean an artist rooted in his own immediate community rather than in a search for his cultural roots in the African past or within the rural folk culture of the American south. This study challenges a bias within the discourse on racial identity in art that privileges a notion of racial authenticity, or an essentialized conception of black identity centered upon the “folk,” or working and lower class African Americans. I also challenge the negative assessment of the black middle class as a group devoid of interest in the black community and propose that early twentieth century definitions of black middle class identity embodied in the notions of the “talented tenth” and the “race” man or woman best define Crite’s sense of himself as a black artist, for he felt a responsibility towards the black community and was not alienated from it. / text

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Latin America has been envisioned, time and again, as home to the semi-civilized. Or so (post)colonial imaginaries continue to impress upon us in developmental renderings of a New World that has yet to take off. Neither backward (in the ways of a ‘dark continent’) or advanced (as guaranteed by the status of a ‘first world’), its giants are, at best, chronically emerging. This in-between position is acutely exemplified by the Brazilian dilemma of an interminable modernization, responsibilized for curing all of our ills. The most wide-ranging projects of development are mobilized within this context, but the closer that we get to their distinct materializations, the more that they appear to us as mirages of what ought to be rather than what is, measured against the incorruptible standards of a modernity realized somewhere ‘out there’. In this study, I look to everyday dynamics in Brazil’s aspiring world-city, Rio de Janeiro, that compose the fields and subjects on which development projects operate, in turn revealing and obscuring ‘successes’, ‘failures’, and ultimately, assorted desires and expectations that (mis)lead a politics of transformation in the peripheries of the modern world. In Part III, I elaborate this history of the present as a way to reorient such grand narratives of arrested development, corruption, and other ‘third world’ problems, by drawing on a range of sites of sociability that nurture particular kinds of relations between (dis)obedient subjects and their governing institutions. To this end, I reconceive the terms of debate for thinking about places of an allegedly incomplete or corrupted modernity, in Part II, where I largely reframe the problems that a developmental ethos appropriates for itself, which situates the third world as the constitutive outside of idealized ways of living. By investigating the predominant developmental archetypes of the last century of Brazil’s promised take-offs, in Part I, I set up the pathways to decondition and recondition how we think about the limits and possibilities of a peripheral politics of transformation. In these ways, I conclude that the standards of political judgement that follow from such idealized ways of living neutralize contentions and negotiations over how we want to live, here and now, making way for confused desires, expectations, and responsibilities more in line with (inter)nationalist paradigms and prescriptions than the politics of everyday life in out of the way places. / Graduate / 0615 / 0616 / 0700 / andrea.b.gill@gmail.com

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Master / Master of Philosophy

This dissertation sought to better understand the K-12 school experiences of middle and upper income Blacks educated in predominantly White and integrated suburban school systems. Through the narratives of six (6) participants—four females and two males (split evenly between Generations Y and Z)—the study contributes toward knowledge on African American within-group differences and perspectives on K-12 school experiences. The theoretical frames of social location and trust were used to help guide this investigation. Through social location, I sought to understand the interconnectedness of one's race, class, and gender and how these locations impact school experiences. Through the theoretical frame of trust, I sought to understand "overall" participant confidence in the educational processes (academic and social) they underwent. While findings from this dissertation matched some of what is already well-documented on the K-12 school experiences of Black American students in general, by focusing on within-group differences relevant to class and generational grouping, key variances in experiences (not often reported) were revealed. For example, as the study was intergenerational in scope, there was a clear generational divide among study participants in terms of their views relating to how race impacted their K-12 school experiences. Despite the fact that most felt that their schools were not sensitive to their needs as African Americans, race seemed to be less of a concern with Gen Z'ers than with Gen Y'ers. More specifically, while participants from Generation Y were explicit in stating that race had an impact on their school experiences, Generation Z was hesitant to say that race influenced their experiences. Interestingly, as all participants dealt with racial stereotyping, the biggest perpetrators of such stereotypes were peers and not educators. The influence of socioeconomic class on school experiences was also significant as most participants felt that their economic status influenced their cross-cultural interactions. In addition, while the social location of gender was not heavily emphasized in this dissertation, there were variations in perspectives stratified across gender lines. Taken together, a major conclusion was that one's social location (inclusive of generational grouping) cannot be ignored when taking into account the academic experiences of African American students as a whole. Finally, this dissertation highlighted the overall confidence each participant had in the educational process they experienced (academically and socially). Although all encountered some tough circumstances directly related to their social location, everyone felt positive overall about their school experiences—perceiving the academic training they received and inter-ethnic social interactions, as an asset.

ABSTRACT THE EASY WAY VERSUS THE HARD WAY: MIDDLE- CLASS BLACK MALE STUDENTS‟ PERCEPTIONS OF EDUCATION AS IT RELATES TO SUCCESS AND CAREER ASPIRATIONS by Rita D. Williams “Education is the key to success” is a common mantra on which schools base their goals and daily operations as well as the reason why most teachers enjoy job security. The majority of school personnel project two beliefs: (a) College is the appropriate next step after graduating from high school, and (b) white-collar occupations, such as professional, management, and supervisory positions, are desired career choices. However, after interacting with and observing the behavior of students in my classroom, I wonder how many young people agree with educators‟ thoughts on college and careers. Many Black males, in particular, do not enroll in college upon graduating from high school and often work in jobs that require less education (Joint Center Data Bank, 2003; Mincy, Lewis, & Han, 2006). Herr (1996) believed people operate within an ecological context that included “the combination of physical, social, political, and economic environments that persons occupy and combine to create the circumstances in which each person negotiates his or her identity, belief systems, and life course” (p. 6 – 7). Within this context, individuals developed values that are personal and important. These values may or may not be aligned to values that are prevalent in society. As such, it was worth conducting a qualitative study of how middle-class Black males perceived the role of education in success as well as their career plans. Any misalignment of thoughts between some middle-class Black males and school personnel could inform our understanding of why middle-class Black males, as a subgroup, academically perform lower than other similar subgroups. Research questions included (1) How do middle-class Black males in a predominantly Black high school perceive the role of education in success as well the career aspirations of Black males? (2) What self-identified factors influenced their perceptions of education, success, and careers? Through interviews and focus groups, I gained insight on the academic and career perspectives of 13 middle-class Black males. Constant comparison methods (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and organizational displays (Miles & Huberman, 1994) guided data analysis. The findings reveal that, although all participants plan to attend college, most respondents believe additional routes, besides a higher education, lead to career and life achievement.