Rhetoricians have long been interested in public policy discourse. However, studies have yet to apply the micro-lens of writing process to this context. One consequence is that, while studies of policy discourse point to the complexity of this area, they do not investigate the writing behaviors this complexity inspires. Secondly, while studies of writing process in other areas of rhetoric allow us to theorize process, our theories are typically based on more structured writing environments—such as the classroom, academic discipline, and professional workplace. As a consequence, we know less about invention and other writing processes in more unpredictable, explicitly contested settings. To address these gaps, this dissertation presents a process-based case study of collaborative writing within the context of policy and legal discourse. The case study tracks the year-long work of a group of advocates who attempted to establish Domestic Partner Benefits (DPB) at a large public university. Due to legal restrictions, the writers could not assume a clear authority as they attempted to write a policy proposal together. In meetings in which they invented ideas, a prominent behavior emerged in their talk, what this dissertation refers to as role-play work. Role-play work is a theory of rhetorical invention in which writers propose roles for themselves and their audiences, develop arguments from within those roles, and try to identify how they might be recognized or misrecognized as a consequence of assuming roles. Tracing patterns in the writers’ talk, this dissertation describes role-play work at three critical junctures: in the early stages, when the group lacks legal resources, during a tumultuous hunger strike in which the institution delivers its interpretation of the law, and during the group’s later writing process, when the group has a working understanding of a legal argument they can propose. This dissertation analyzes how writers use role-play to engage authoritative discourse that manifests at each stage: first, to imaginatively co-construct what might be authoritative, next, to confront authority-as-articulated, and finally, to understand the nuance of a potentially authoritative argument. Findings presented in this dissertation may be relevant to scholarship in professional and technical communication, collaborative writing and invention, writing process research, policy discourse, discourse analysis, and queer studies. / text

Since the 1970s multiculturalism has emerged as an important area of scholarship within both academic and applied psychology. Scholars have offered a range of theories to assist psychologists in understanding the ways cultural context impacts psychological development and well-being with the aim of moving the field towards an affirming position on psychological differences that depart from the Eurocentric mainstream. One prominent example is the Multiple Dimensions of Counseling Competency (MDCC) by D. W. Sue (2001) which enjoins psychologists and counselors to acquire knowledge, awareness, and skills (KA&S) for five different racial and ethnic groups to promote culturally affirming work in a variety of professional and societal contexts. KA&S approaches like the MDCC remain the primary mode for conceptualizing multicultural competence today. This dissertation begins with a critical analysis of the extant multicultural competency literature which yields three important areas of concern. First, theorists face a dilemma regarding the definition of culture itself. Race and ethnicity receive stronger emphasis in the multicultural discourse which marginalizes other oppressed voices and perpetuates the invisibility of their unique struggles. In turn, attempts to expand the definition of culture to a non-hierarchical approach to all social identities and contexts draws attention away from race, an area already too easily avoided. Currently, no solution has balanced these two poles in the treatment of the word culture. Second, current models draw no limits to cultural relativism leaving questions of intragroup oppression unanswered. Third, models inadequately conceptualize the multiple social and cultural identities within the same person and offer insufficient guidance to professionals when intrapersonal identities conflict. Each of these three concerns is addressed by drawing from interdisciplinary scholarship in anthropology, political philosophy, and social psychology. These answers yield a new model for work with diverse social identities, Recognition Competency Theory (RCT). This new approach to competency with diverse populations has implications for the ways the psychology of oppression is conceptualized, taught, and treated as a focus of professional policy. Strengths of this new model, its relationship to the MDCC, its limitations, and implications for future research are discussed. / text

This study focuses on Charles Taylor’s educational thought with a view to understanding his contributions to the discipline of Philosophy of Education. No comprehensive study of Charles Taylor’s educational thought has been attempted. There is a single dissertation and a dozen or so published periodical articles that do take Taylor’s educational views into consideration, to be sure. Yet these studies, which limit themselves to Taylor’s account of the recognition and/or non-recognition of identity in multicultural societies, are insufficient on five accounts: i) they are indifferent to the historical nature of Taylor’s scholarly work; ii) they neglect the philosophical sources of his educational thought; iii) they fail to highlight the interconnections between the key educational themes he takes up; iv) they disregard his major critics and the dialectical tensions raised by these critics; and v) they are somewhat dated in that they do not consider his more recent scholarship. My dissertation seeks to fill these scholarly gaps. My thesis is that an inner logic is implicit in Charles Taylor’s educational thought. I argue that Taylor’s views on the modern condition, (i.e. in his readings of Descartes, Kant, Herder, and Hegel), are closely interwoven with his views on modern education, and that interconnected currents in the modern history of ideas elucidated by Taylor, (i.e. scientific rationality, exclusive humanism, and the ethics of authenticity), have contributed to the rise of, and the sensitivity toward, both the theory and the practice of the politics of recognition in contemporary educational institutions. I conclude that an education for culturally diverse minds and hearts, anchored in human, historical, and epistemological recognition, and democratically open to both immanence and transcendence, is the true calling of Taylor’s educational thought.

Minorité ethno-religieuse originaire du Nord-Ouest de l’Inde, les sikhs ont une longue histoire migratoire qui prend naissance pendant la colonisation britannique. Cette thèse s’intéresse à la manière dont les sikhs de la diaspora, et particulièrement ceux de Grande-Bretagne, ont contribué de manière décisive à définir les contours de l’identité sikhe contemporaine.Pour ce faire, nous nous intéressons à la genèse coloniale du discours identitaire dominant, développé par l’élite sikhe réformiste dans la deuxième moitié du 19e siècle, qui repose sur l’élaboration de frontières socio-culturelles rigides séparant les sikhs des non-sikhs et sur la création d’une communauté unie et distincte, dotée d’un univers symbolique autonome, de rites propres et d’une histoire particulière. Cette notion normative d’une communauté sikhe monolithique s'est trouvée consolidée en Grande-Bretagne sous l'effet des politiques publiques et de décennies de mobilisations communautaires pour le turban. La politique sikhe de reconnaissance repose sur l’idée d'exceptionnalisme des sikhs, de leur contribution importante à la société britannique et d’une relation historique privilégiée avec les anciens colonisateurs. Cependant, l’étude de la pluralité des appartenances socio-religieuses – en particulier sectaires et de caste - révèle la diversité des manières d’être sikh en diaspora et bat en brèche les prétentions du leadership à parler au nom de « la » communauté sikhe. / As an ethno-religious minority originating from the North-West of India, the Sikhs have a long migration history, starting during the colonial period. This dissertation focuses on how the Sikh diaspora, particularly British Sikhs, have decisively shaped contemporary Sikh identity narratives.Sikh dominant identity narrative was shaped in a dialogic relation between the colonizers and Sikh intellectual elite in the 19th century and it relied on rigid boundaries between Sikhs and non-Sikhs. Sikh reformists strived to create a unified and distinct community, with its own rituals, symbols and collective memory. This normative definition of a homogeneous community has been strengthened in post-colonial Britain, under the influence of public policies towards immigrant minorities and of Sikh politics of recognition. The latter draws on the idea that Sikhs represent a model minority, entertaining a priviliged relationship with the British.However, the diversity of socio-religious practices and belonging observed during fieldwork highlights that, despite Sikh leadership claims to represent a homogenous community, there remains a plurality of ways to be a diasporic Sikh.