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In recent years the Midway School System in Midway, Tennessee (pseudonyms are used for the town, the school, and the participants in this research), has experienced a significant demographic change that has had both social and academic impacts. An influx of Hispanic students, primarily from Mexico, has brought students who are culturally different and for whom English is not the first language into a school that has traditionally been comprised of almost all white English speaking students. In the era of No Child Left Behind and other large scale educational reforms, this demographic change presents many new challenges to educators in this environment and although standardized test scores are available to track student achievement across certain population groups, rarely do reports or studies focus on the perspectives of teachers. This ethnographic study of teachers at Midway High School focused on teacher perspectives on the population change, how it has impacted their work as educators, and the positive and negative effects of educational reforms in multicultural classroom settings. This study involved observations and interviews of teachers in various content areas and of the school principal. The results highlight many social and academic concerns that are in many ways disregarded by No Child Left Behind and by state-imposed reform efforts implemented in recent years.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how three festivals function together to meet the Mission Statement goals of Holden Village, an isolated Lutheran renewal center located in the Cascade mountains in Washington State. The Holden Village Mission Statement states that Holden Village is organized to provide a community for healing, renewal, and refreshment of people through worship, intercession, study, humor, work, recreation, and conversation in a climate of mutual acceptance under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The purpose of this community is to participate in the renewal for the church and the world by proclaiming the gospel of God's unconditional love in Jesus Christ; rehabilitating and equipping people for ministry in the world; lifting up a vision of God's kingdom of peace, justice, and wholeness; and celebrating the unity and the diversity of the church, all humanity, and all creation. (Lutz 1987:16-7) This ethnographic study provides an initial history of Holden from the days it operated as a copper mine, explains how Holden became a Lutheran renewal center, and explores the different ways the current villagers incorporate the Mission Statement into their everyday lives. After establishing the historical, cultural, and spatial context of Holden Village, I then analyze three festivals in detail vis-a-vis the Holden Village Mission Statement. To gain a better understanding of the function of these three festivals, and to place them within a broader context, I also provide a detailed description of the daily, weekly, and calendrical events at Holden. The three festivals analyzed in this thesis are the Fourth of July, Jubilee! Day, and Sun Over Buckskin Day. In my analysis of these three festivals, I rely on my role as a participant/observer in these festivals, journal entries written throughout my various volunteer experiences at Holden, letters I wrote to family and friends, recollections sparked by photographs, conversations with Holden friends and acquaintances, as well as relevant printed sources. The conclusions drawn from my fieldwork indicate that each of these three festivals contribute in some way to meeting the goals of the Holden Village Mission Statement. After my analysis of the three festivals, I briefly discuss some of the issues and concerns which have occurred at Holden during times of community stress and how the village has responded. My conclusions indicate that despite the problems which can arise at Holden, people leave Holden with a sense of renewal. This sense of renewal is facilitated by the daily, weekly, and calendrical events and festivals at Holden, all of which provide the villagers with the opportunity to celebrate themselves as members of a community.

In recent years the Midway School System in Midway, Tennessee (pseudonyms are used for the town, the school, and the participants in this research), has experienced a significant demographic change that has had both social and academic impacts. An influx of Hispanic students, primarily from Mexico, has brought students who are culturally different and for whom English is not the first language into a school that has traditionally been comprised of almost all white English speaking students. In the era of No Child Left Behind and other large scale educational reforms, this demographic change presents many new challenges to educators in this environment and although standardized test scores are available to track student achievement across certain population groups, rarely do reports or studies focus on the perspectives of teachers. This ethnographic study of teachers at Midway High School focused on teacher perspectives on the population change, how it has impacted their work as educators, and the positive and negative effects of educational reforms in multicultural classroom settings. This study involved observations and interviews of teachers in various content areas and of the school principal. The results highlight many social and academic concerns that are in many ways disregarded by No Child Left Behind and by state-imposed reform efforts implemented in recent years.

In this thesis I use music as a starting point to animate the wider social experience of individuals and groups responding to rapid social change in South Africa. Social change in South Africa is linked in to discourses about identity that have been rigidly racialised over time. The cohorts and individuals who I engaged with cross, or are crossed by, the boundaries of racial categories in South Africa, either through family background or by the composition of cohort membership. The affective quality of music in people’s experience allows a more nuanced view of the changing dynamics of identity that is not accessed through other research methods. Music is used as a device to track biographies and stories about lived experiences of social change from the 1940’s to the first decade of the 21st Century in South Africa. Popular music cultures, including multi-racial church dances of the 1940’s, the 1970’s Johannesburg jazz and theatre scene and Kwaito, the electronic music that emerged in the 1990’s, provide a canvas to explore personal memories in very close connection to historical developments and groups of people ageing and working alongside each other in the inner western areas of Johannesburg, extending into other areas of the metropolis and the coastal city of Durban.The ethnography includes the life story of a member of a multi-racial family,the dynamic and biographies of a post-apartheid friendship cohort in Western Johannesburg, and an exploration of racial tension in a lap dancing club with a mixed clientele and staff base. The thesis draws on a period of 18 months of dedicated fieldwork in Johannesburg, where I was employed as a DJ in a number of night clubs, as well as many years living in the city as a South African national both as a child and an adult. The methodological implications of a close personal connection to the field site are thus also explored as a determinant of data gathering.

This thesis is based on fieldwork, carried out over a five year period, amongst a group of young, male, football fans. The question of what football means to its loyal adherents is asked and answers such as a religion, a quasi religion, or a magical ceremony are analysed and discussed. The language of the fans in terms of songs, chants, and graffiti, as well as emblems, scarves and their way of dress is e camined as a development of this analysis, and finally the position of football as a central interest in the lives of the fans is discussed. Throughout ethnographic examples and case studies from the group under study are dispersed in the relevant sections, linking the twin themes of violence and football, and, in the case of this particular group, putting the emphasis firmly on football. The thesis also looks at the history of violence at football grounds and at other places over the years where young males from working class backgrounds have been involved. Issues of class and culture, especially the sub-culture of the young and the sub-culture of violence are also examined with special reference to young males and their occupation of the football terraces. Statistics on arrests and ejections at football matches are analysed and correlated with research already carried out on football related offences, convictions and punishments. Particular attention is paid to the role of the group as an intervening variable on the football terraces between the individual and the crowd on the football terraces.

Social, economic, and cultural components of trapping furbearers was studied in six Northeast states. In 1994, a 12 page mail-back questionnaire was sent to a sample of licensed trappers in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and West Virginia. A total of 2,279 questionnaires was returned for an overall response rate of 65 percent for the six states combined. Factor analysis identified five underlying dimensions associated with the importance of reasons for trapping. The strongest reasons related to dimensions associated with "Lifestyle Orientation," and "Nature Appreciation," followed by "Wildlife Management." Other reasons related to "Affiliation with Other People," and "Self Sufficiency," though they did not rank as high in importance for the overall sample as did the previous three dimensions. To identify the existence, structure, and function of trapping-related networks of trappers, 92 fur trappers from the six states participated in face-to-face, in-depth interviews designed to gather data on their trapping-related social relationships and interactions. Participation in trapping-associated activities included cooperatively setting and checking traps; processing pelts; verbally sharing trapping experiences with others; giving, bartering, or selling pelts, products, meat, and trapping services; and participating in events such as a fur auction or rendezvous. These forms of interaction linked trappers to broader social network structures that included nuclear family, extended family, friends, workmates, neighbors, landowners, wildlife agency personnel, trapping association members, and fur buyers. Overall, respondents who trapped alone, primary alone, or with others, exhibited similar patterns of trapping-related ties and interactions with other people. These patterns included a high level of trapping-related interactions with nuclear family members, friends, participants at trapping association events, and fur buyers; and a moderate level of interaction with extended family, landowners, and wildlife agency personnel. Far fewer trappers reported trapping-related interactions with workmates and neighbors. Findings indicate women trappers exhibited much less of a tendency than men to have trapping-related ties with friends or with fur buyers. Results suggest network relationships act as 'social resources' that not only facilitate affective ties of sociability and companionship but also serve instrumental purposes such as sharing of information, social support, and exchanges of furbearer-related goods and services.