The purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes of teachers in rural locales towards giftedness and gifted education. Gagné and Nadeau’s (1991) Opinions About the Gifted and Their Education was used as the survey instrument. A total of 78 teachers from four public school districts in Kentucky classified as rural participated in the study. The respondents indicated slightly positive attitudes toward the need for specialized instruction for gifted students and the social value of giftedness but slightly negative mindsets towards acceleration. These results as a whole mirrored the findings of several previous studies utilizing the same survey instrument. However, individual teacher’s attitudes varied widely, with some very negative responses and some more positive, rendering the results determined using averaged scores from the full sample a somewhat inaccurate indicator of broad-scope, overall teacher mindset towards gifted education. When comparing the attitudes towards acceleration of teachers who had graduated from the district in which they teach to those who graduated from a district outside of where they teach, a significantly more negative attitude was indicated in teachers who remained within their home districts. Further study is recommended to determine if this could be an influence of more traditional and anti-intellectual mindsets often found in rural communities and if it has any effect on the quality of services and programming opportunities available to gifted students in rural locales.

It becomes evident that psychoanalysis of a large group is meaningful and necessary when persistent conflicts cannot be resolved, and the Volkan Tree Model opens the door for meaningful dialogue if both parties are engaged. This report studies two major religions and their varieties as these are manifested in two Asian countries helps us to understand the specific cultures of China and Japan, and also shows the limits of their compatibilities with Western Philosophy. In this examination, the philosophical-psychological analysis of two major groups is central to the argument and its conclusions.

Except for literary historians and Germanists, Robert Walser (1878-1956), the Swiss poet, was known until recently only to a small circle of readers. The reason why Robert Walser was “rediscovered” a few years ago and is being read again, is that theme, content and style of his novels – they can be counted on one hand – as well as the several hundred short stories and about four dozen poems , touch upon a constantly more or less urgent problem: man’s ontological inquiry. The unassuming manner of Walser’s fragments and vignettes fascinates and elates the system-weary reader; yet, his lack of assumption is not synonymous with idle chatter. Rather, the absence of presumptuousness is based on the realization that absolutes, whether intellectual, emotional or physical are meaningless. Thus they are incompatible with the “Lebensgefühl” of Walser’s literary protagonist, who suspects essence in the loss of identity of self. It has been said of Robert Walser that he was the first writer to explore the domain of the absurd in a novel. This at the beginning of the 20th century. Walser, quite likely, would be too modest to claim literary avant-garde. The absurdity of uncertainness creates a perspective and attitude which characterize Walser’s literary figures, perspective and attitude similar to the terminal mood at the end of an era, familiar from the writings of Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka and Georg Heym. The mood Walser portrays distinguishes itself insofar that he builds no cosmic or philosophical systems, because he abhorred the finite limits of man’s intellect. Where Kafka’s intellect ad absurdum metamorphoses into the madness of the incapable insect, Walser’s realization transforms into a gay carelessness; a careless superficiality that has healing quality, since it exhausts itself in the service to humanity and revels without point of reference in an existence without system. Nature serves as the poetic spring for the delightful game of the intellect. This paper [written in German] examines the dilemma of identity in two ontological main categories and eight social-philosophical motives. Interpretation of a short story and reference to the entire works of Robert Walser served as the vehicle in this attempt.

Researchers have shown that movement increases brain function, improves mental health, supports cognitive development for students, and reduces sedentary time, all which can influence overall health. Research concerning learning with intentional movement is limited. In the United States, Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are being mandated, and teachers are challenged to teach the standards creatively and to maximize time used for instruction. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the lived experiences and perceptions of elementary general education (GE) teachers who taught CCSS using a kinesthetic learning plan (KLP). Bandura's self-reinforcement and social learning theories provided the conceptual framework; the principles of interpretative phenomenological analysis were used to structure the study. Research questions were framed to understand how the teachers experienced teaching the KLP and their perceptions related to how students learned the CCSS. Data were elicited through individual interviews with 11 GE teachers from primarily rural areas in the western part United States. In vivo coding and iterative analyses revealed themes and findings. Themes included teacher understanding (confidence and comfort), implementing resources (creativity and resourcefulness), teacher feelings (pressure and success), making the mind-body connection, and teacher beliefs and perceptions about their practices. Teachers perceived KLPs as useful in teaching the CCSS and experienced support for expanding their teaching practices. Positive social change implications include helping teachers maximize instructional time and helping students achieve standards and address health needs.

The infusion of market-logic has undermined American universities as democratic institutions. This issue was examined through an analysis of what role universities play in democratic governance. As a philosophical inquiry, the data were seminal texts from political science, education, and philosophy, such as those by Alexis de Tocqueville, John Dewey, and Henry Giroux. The most salient theme unveiled by this study was how central universities are to functional democracy, both as key fixtures and critics. However, universities have adopted market-logic ideologies, which inhibit universities’ abilities to function as democratic institutions. The study concludes by calling for a reinvigoration of the public, requiring universities to maintain a public nature. Such transparency lives in tension with neoliberal efforts to privatize public institutions, so universities must provide spaces for debates on that tension. In this way, universities will be able to embody the democratic dispositions necessary for supporting and defending democratic values.

The purpose of this study was to examine the financial portfolios of near-retiree women and compare their assets to near-retiree men. This study also investigated how economic and demographic factors were associated with the probability of holding aggressive assets and the level of savings. Socioeconomic variables were used to create a profile of the investment behaviors and to examine the level of savings among near-retiree women and men. Specific variables key to the study included household income, age, marital status, education, race, and self-reported health of near-retiree women and men. The descriptive statistics indicated that overall, average levels of all asset categories for the female group were much lower than they were for the male group among near-retirees. According to the findings of this study, women tended to invest in safer assets such as CDs, savings bonds, and T-bills rather than in more aggressive assets such as stocks, business assets, and real estate assets. The results from both the logistic regression and Ordinary least squares regression analyses indicated that gender had no statistically significant impact on the investment and savings behavior among near-retirees aged 51 - 64. However, household income, age, marital status, education, race, and the self-reported health status of near-retirees were all significant determinants of the investment and saving behavior among near-retirees aged 51 - 64. For example, near-retirees, with higher income, older, married, higher education, Whites, and in good health, were more likely to own aggressive assets and reported higher level of savings as compared to other near-retirees. This study also explored socioeconomic factors associated with the level of savings among near-retiree women aged 51 - 64. The findings of this study indicated that household income, age, education, and race were significant determinants of the level of savings among near-retiree women aged 51 - 64. The results of the OLS regression analysis showed that women with lower income, younger, less education, and non-Whites reported lower levels of savings than did other women. Implications of the findings, limitations of the current study, and suggestions for future study were presented in the final section. (88 pages)

The advent of positive psychology has increased awareness of factors that lead individuals to thrive in life, allowing for a more comprehensive model of mental health service delivery. However, while measurement and understanding of character strengths and well-being have improved over the last decade, the interaction of these factors with social risk factors is not entirely understood. The current study analyzed an archival dataset consisting of self-report data from 425 high school students, to examine the extent to which high school students' specific character strengths (i.e., social competence, self-regulation, responsibility, and empathy) are associated with positive psychological outcomes (i.e., gratitude, life satisfaction, and hope), and moderate the relationships between positive psychological outcomes and relational and overt peer victimization. All measured character strengths were positively associated with life satisfaction and hope except for empathy, which was negatively associated with both in multivariate analyses. Social competence and self-regulation were positively associated with gratitude. Relational victimization (but not overt victimization) was inversely associated with life satisfaction and gratitude, and indirectly predicted hope as mediated by gratitude. Gratitude and hope predicted life satisfaction in both models, and served as partial mediators of character strengths and relational victimization. For overt victimization, social competence served as a protective factor and self-regulation served as a risk factor to gratitude. For relational victimization, self-regulation served as a protective factor to gratitude. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

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This thesis uncovers the rational and Romantic assumptions about the relationship between objects and identity that are embedded in occupational therapy, and critiques current practice from that perspective. It is based on an initial assumption that there is in fact a relationship between people's identity and the objects they make, have, use and are associated with. This assumption is explored through an interpretive examination of the fields of literature that are commonly identified as informing occupational therapy, supplemented by selected popular literature. The exploration takes a philosophical approach, guided by notions from philosophical hermeneutics, including pre-understandings, the hermeneutic circle and fusion of horizons. The conclusion reached is that people informed by Western philosophies interpret the identity meanings of objects in both rational and Romantic ways. To inform the study, the nature of rationalism and Romanticism are then explained, and the implications of these philosophical traditions in relation to objects and identity are teased out. This interpretation is guided by a history of ideas methodology, which entails approaching historical texts from a new perspective, in this case the identity meanings of objects. Thus informed, occupational therapy literature, primarily that published in Britain between 1938 and 1962 is examined from the perspective of objects and identity. What is revealed is that rational and Romantic understandings of objects, and of patients' and their own identity are clearly discernible. Such understandings afforded early occupational therapists both ways to organise their growing knowledge of the therapeutic application of crafts and the transformative outcomes of occupational therapy intervention. Gradually however, factors both internal and external to the profession served to undermine therapists' Romanticism. Primary amongst these were World War II, which saw a redeployment of occupational therapists from mental health to physical rehabilitation settings; advances in rehabilitative medicine, which brought a reduction in secondary complications and the adoption of teamwork; and the development of new practice areas including domestic rehabilitation using gadgets to enhance function and pre-vocational rehabilitation. As a result, tensions between rational and Romantic understandings crystallised around two long-standing controversies. These were whether or not craft equipment such as weaving looms should be adapted to serve specific remedial purposes, and whether it was the process of making a crafted object or the quality of the finished product that was more important. In the event, these contested ideologies became largely irrelevant as craftwork was sidelined from mainstream practice. With it, occupational therapists' Romantic vision of transforming people's lives through creative activity also slipped away. Several reasons for this loss of one of the profession's founding philosophies are proposed. They include the substantial absence of the professions' philosophical foundations from its education, and the paucity of theory and research methodologies that might have informed the nature and process of transformative change that earlier occupational therapists had observed and reported. The thesis concludes by arguing for the importance of recovering a balance between rationalism and Romanticism. A call to action is issued, addressing change in educational practice, concerted research effort to identify and articulate transformative processes within occupational therapy, and political action focusing on the inclusion of Romantic perspectives within policy and strategic documents.

I decided to write this thesis many years ago and in the process of ‘becoming’ a Palawa man I finally understood the global agenda between black and white Australians and the direct actions required to attain a traditional form of Aboriginal democracy. I share in this understanding in this thesis. Mind you I share with trepidation because the options are very existential to the prevailing discourse. However a doctoral thesis will add to the body of knowledge not simply to confirm existing theoretical discourse or to leave this discourse un-challenged. Therefore this thesis is about the critical mass of cultural variables pertaining to teaching of Australian Indigenous peoples and the conduct of meaningful research. Its primary intent is to offer an alternative to the inappropriate methodologies that currently apply in the generic areas of pedagogy and research (in their broadest sense). In my opinion at present both these areas are pathologically dominated by Western thought. The idea of change and alternative paradigms is addressed in the introduction and this thesis is not intended to achieve anything more than a hearing of these options. This is why the discourse of this knowledge terrain in this thesis is so diverse and so demanding of the reader. The core notion of this discourse is the Japanangka Teaching and Research Paradigm.The Japanangka Teaching and Research Paradigm has as its core the articulation of eight dimensions or sub-paradigms. These are the quality of life dimensions: Cultural, Spiritual, Secular, and the other five: Intellectual, Political, Practical, Personal and Public dimensions. These eight constitute the sum of human experience relevant to the daily lives of Aborigines and as such are key categories to the unravelling of the seemingly imponderable mystery of “learning journey paths” so critical to the success of our students in formal Western education activities.