Amidst growing concerns about the decline in the quality of political discussions in the United States, this dissertation introduces the concept of the “political discussion environment,” which is defined as the condition of a society’s discursive arena for political discussions, encompassing the associated social norms and practices. The dissertation argues that individuals assess this environment, both consciously and unconsciously, forming their own perceptions thereof. In order to empirically measure individuals’ perceptions of the political discussion environment, this dissertation develops a survey instrument based on Habermas’ communicative action theory, namely the Perceived Political Discussion Environment Scale. A communicative political discussion environment should facilitate clear and truthful communication, promote shared norms, allow genuine expression, and provide equal opportunities for participation, thereby creating a discursive space where individuals can freely and respectfully engage in dialogue. Accordingly, the Perceived Political Discussion Environment Scale incorporates 23 items to represent these aspects. Utilizing the Perceived Political Discussion Environment Scale, this dissertation surveys 600 voting-age American residents, offering insights into their perceptions of the current political discussion environment in the United States, the individual-level factors associated with these perceptions, and the relationship between their perceptions and discursive participation in politics. The survey results reveal that older populations, individuals identifying as females or third genders, and those with lower socioeconomic status tend to harbor more negative perceptions of the political discussion environment, unveiling another dimension of inequality within American society. Frequently consuming news media and possessing a strong comfort level with conflict are associated with maintaining more positive perceptions of the political discussion environment. This dissertation also discovers that individuals, when perceiving the political discussion environment as communicative, tend to exhibit higher levels of discursive participation in politics. Perceptions of a communicative political discussion environment also amplify the positive correlation between news media use and discursive participation in politics. When individuals perceive the political discussion environment as more communicative, the positive correlation between news media use and discursive participation becomes stronger. These findings suggest that fostering a communicative political discussion environment may promote active citizenship and strengthen the news media’s role within a democratic system by drawing more individuals to contribute to political discourse. / Media & Communication

According to the State of the Nation’s Housing (Harvard, 2005) more than one in five homebuyers is a single woman and twice as many unmarried women as unmarried men are buying homes. Notably unmarried women make up more than one-third of the growth in real estate ownership since 1994. The purpose of this study was to examine this cultural phenomenon. Utilizing an interpretative qualitative paradigm, in-depth interviews, social identity and reason action theories, this research explored the social, psychological, and symbolic meanings single, never-married, women in their 30s and 40s attributed to home buying as well as the design and purchasing behaviors they displayed. In an effort to create and refine the questionnaire for this research, a five participant pilot study was conducted in southwestern Virginia. The main body of this work consisted of 12 in-depth interviews and included six participants from southwestern Virginia, five participants from northern Virginia and one from western Pennsylvania. The average age of the participants was 39.5 years, with a range of 29 – 48 years. In total, 21 themes emerged in this study: 18 were strongly supported and mentioned by at least 50%, or six of the twelve, dissertation participants, while three received moderate support and were discussed by at least 25%, or three of the twelve, respondents. The themes were further divided into the following categories: behavioral themes which answer the question of the how women approach the buying process; behavioral themes which answer the question of what women buy, psychological themes which answer the question of why single women buy; social themes which promote a sense of security or stability; and social themes which promote a sense of isolation. The findings of this study can be used to enhance the residential construction industry and to assist housing professionals who routinely interact with female homebuyers. In addition, these findings suggest the continued need for home-buyer education and further research. / Ph. D.

Due to an impending STEM shortage facing the United States, it is critically important that students of color are recruited to scientific disciplines. This STEM shortage affects agricultural fields, as many agricultural disciplines are scientifically based. There is currently a lack of students of color within agricultural disciplines when compared to the increasingly diverse make-up of the United States. This qualitative study utilizes the path-goal theory of leadership (House, 1971) and reasoned action theory (Fishbein and Azjen, 2010) to examine the perceptions of administrators regarding the barriers that students of color face within colleges of agriculture at 1862 land-grant institutions. Another important purpose of this study is to identify strategies that department heads, deans, and administrators within colleges of agriculture can use to increase the recruitment and retention of students of color. The study utilized phenomenology, as this method focuses on participants' subjective experiences and interpretations of the world. Eighteen participants at 17 institutions were interviewed about their perceptions of diversity, the barriers that students of color face within colleges of agriculture, and strategies for success. The findings of this study reveal that (1) diversity is a multifaceted and evolving concept that varies from individual-to-individual, (2) students of color face barriers to access, (3) successful recruitment and retention strategies for students of color require investments from administrators, and (4) data validates program success. / Ph. D.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of South Africa, 2002.

A partir de la fin du XIXe siècle, et notamment à travers les travaux de Richard Von Krafft-Ebing, de nouvelles représentations des perversions sexuelles humaines se mettent en place. La prise en compte de ces dynamiques dans l’homicide modifie les modes de classification des scènes de crime. Au XXe siècle, ces changements historiques conduisent à l’étude d’un phénomène rare et singulier : le meurtre sexuel sériel. Durant les années 1980, le F.B.I acquiert le monopole des savoirs et pratiques concernant la problématique des « serial killers ». De nos jours, ce monopole est remis en cause. Les profileurs du Bureau d’Investigation seraient les représentants d’une pratique pseudo-scientifique. Le serial killer serait avant tout une construction sociale initiée par la politique conservatrice des années Reagan. Selon certains psychiatres-psychanalystes, le F.B.I, en affirmant la place centrale des fantasmes sexuels dans la dynamique des crimes, aurait donné une image trompeuse du meurtre en série. A l’opposé, la présente étude entend démontrer que le principal enjeu n’est peut-être pas de déconstruire les discours du F.B.I, mais plutôt de confronter ces derniers à l’actualité des recherches scientifiques. Le profilage désignerait plutôt une méthode d’enquête dont les éléments de base sont susceptibles d’être corrigés et complétés. Sous cet angle, les modèles théoriques concurrents, notamment ceux défendus par la psychanalyse française, semblent également souffrir d’un certain nombre de difficultés. Certes, l’intensité des fantasmes sadiques ne peut pas être la seule dimension des actes criminels. Mais les fantasmes interagissent probablement avec les désirs et croyances des meurtriers. Si l’homicide sexuel sériel s’apparente, comme la plupart des commentateurs s’accordent à le dire, à une succession d’actes ritualisés, une approche anthropologique du phénomène pourrait avoir une certaine légitimité. Sous cet angle, des concepts tels que la psychopathie, la pulsion de mort ou l’omnipotence narcissique dissimulent peut-être l’existence d’un mécanisme victimaire à travers lequel les meurtriers engendrent leur propre religion ou mythologie. / From the late Nineteenth Century, in particular through Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s studies, new concepts have shaped the representations of sexual perversion. The study of the sexual dynamics in homicide cases changes the common methods of crime scene classification. In the Twentieth Century, these historical approaches lead to the study of a rare and particular phenomenon: serial sexual homicide. During the 1980s, the F.B.I dominates the field of practices and knowledge concerning the serial murder issue. Today, that domination is challenged. The F.B.I’s profiling methods are qualified as pseudo-scientific practice. Serial murder is nowadays more perceived as a simple social construction initiated by the Conservative politics of the Reagan years. According to some psychiatrists, the motivational model of the F.B.I has given a misleading picture of serial murder. The aim of the present work is to show that the main issue may not be to deconstruct the F.B.I’s studies, but to compare these first studies with current scientific research. Criminal profiling might be a method whose basic elements are likely to be corrected and completed. In this perspective, competing theoretical models, especially those held by psychoanalysis, also raise a number of difficulties. Of course, the intensity of sadistic fantasies can’t be the only dimension of criminal behavior. But fantasies probably interact with the desires and beliefs of the murderers. If serial sexual homicide appears to be, as most commentators agree, as a series of ritualistic acts, an anthropological approach may be legitimate. From this point of view, concepts such as “psychopathy”, “death drive” or “narcissism” do probably conceal the existence of a scapegoat mechanism by which killers are creating their own religion or mythology.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-25T20:20:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Andre Luiz da Silva.pdf: 3705733 bytes, checksum: 52b572c932cddce4aec507bb8d1e13be (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-05-27 / Universidade de Taubaté / This text examines the action of popular masters of devotional groups called moçambique and congada which exist in Vale do Paraíba, state of São Paulo. Their action has been under certain changes in the scope of recently adopted public policies on culture and the growth of the regional market for tourism and entertainment, which directly bear upon the groups led by such masters. These circumstances demand tactics in order to intercede in a plurality of domains which imply different logic of action. They show how cultural policies, the celebration of diversity and the search for cultural gratitude of popular actors affect cultural mediations which take place among groups of traditional popular culture in the region. It is argued that masters use tactics to access and leave the new domains of action in order to seize them, thus escaping new restrictions and alternatives and becoming actors of a contemporary cultural production in its hybrid characteristics, both plural and ambivalent. This imparts the analysis of the result and the appropriation of public policies from the popular producer's point of view. There is an attempt to understand the strategies of popular masters and how they deal with mediators of the popular cultural production sphere. The approach of this investigation is the ethnographic interpretation of the interests and strategies of the actors under study, with the help of other disciplines, mainly sociology. The analysis tries to specify how the actors built their relations between their concrete devotional practices, the local culture and the global processes of ressignification of culture. Through an empirical survey situations which could show the relations between different worlds of action were registered. Two interviews were carried out with each of the selected seven masters. Many moments of informal conversation improved information and the triangulation with documents made possible a strengthening on the quality of collected data. It may therefore be inferred that the context in which the groups were generated and the pressure of present circumstances occur in directing the changes of meanings and practices in the production of traditional popular culture in this region. Tradition, which until then was restrained to the interior of the popular-catholic devotional sphere, has been increasing evermore its universe of influence and adherence. This steady increase results from the prizing of traditional popular culture within the scope of re-emerging public policies turned to popular culture and the use of traditional goods and the legitimacy provided by the appropriation of the industry of tourism and mass media / Este trabalho examina a ação de mestres populares dos grupos devocionais nomeados moçambique e congada localizados no Vale do Paraíba paulista. Esta ação vem sofrendo modificações dentro do contexto das novas políticas públicas de cultura implementadas e do incremento do mercado regional de turismo e entretenimento, que afetam os grupos liderados por tais mestres. Estas circunstâncias exigem táticas para agir em uma pluralidade de domínios que supõem distintas lógicas de ação. Mostram como as políticas culturais, a celebração da diversidade e a busca de reconhecimento cultural dos atores populares influenciam as mediações culturais que ocorrem nos grupos de cultura popular tradicional da região. Argumenta-se que os mestres utilizam táticas para entrar e sair dos novos domínios de ação, para se apropriar e escapar de novas injunções e recursos, tornando-se atores de uma produção cultural contemporânea em suas características híbridas, plurais e ambivalentes. Isto contribui com a análise do resultado e da apropriação das políticas públicas do ponto de vista dos realizadores populares. Procura-se entender quais são as estratégias dos mestres populares e como se relacionam com os intermediários do setor da produção cultural popular. A abordagem da pesquisa é a interpretação etnográfica dos interesses e estratégias dos atores estudados, com o auxílio de outras disciplinas, especialmente o da sociologia. A análise procura explicitar como os atores elaboraram as relações entre suas práticas devocionais concretas, a cultura local e os processos globais de ressignificação da cultura. Por meio do levantamento empírico, registraram-se as situações que podiam mostrar as relações entre distintos mundos de ação. Foram realizadas duas entrevistas com cada um dos sete mestres selecionados. Muitos momentos de conversas informais complementaram as informações e a triangulação com documentos possibilitou um reforço na qualidade das informações levantadas. Conclui-se que o contexto de engendramento dos grupos e a pressão das circunstâncias presentes agem no direcionamento das mudanças dos significados e das práticas de produção de cultura popular tradicional na região. A tradição, que, até então, tinha circulação restrita no interior do campo devocional católico-popular, vem ampliando cada vez mais seu universo de influência e adesão. Tal ampliação decorre da valorização da cultura popular tradicional no âmbito das re-emergentes políticas públicas voltadas para a cultura popular e do consumo de bens tradicionais e de autenticidade propiciado pela apropriação da indústria do turismo e da comunicação de massa

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T14:53:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Andre Luiz da Silva.pdf: 3705733 bytes, checksum: 52b572c932cddce4aec507bb8d1e13be (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-05-27 / Universidade de Taubaté / This text examines the action of popular masters of devotional groups called moçambique and congada which exist in Vale do Paraíba, state of São Paulo. Their action has been under certain changes in the scope of recently adopted public policies on culture and the growth of the regional market for tourism and entertainment, which directly bear upon the groups led by such masters. These circumstances demand tactics in order to intercede in a plurality of domains which imply different logic of action. They show how cultural policies, the celebration of diversity and the search for cultural gratitude of popular actors affect cultural mediations which take place among groups of traditional popular culture in the region. It is argued that masters use tactics to access and leave the new domains of action in order to seize them, thus escaping new restrictions and alternatives and becoming actors of a contemporary cultural production in its hybrid characteristics, both plural and ambivalent. This imparts the analysis of the result and the appropriation of public policies from the popular producer's point of view. There is an attempt to understand the strategies of popular masters and how they deal with mediators of the popular cultural production sphere. The approach of this investigation is the ethnographic interpretation of the interests and strategies of the actors under study, with the help of other disciplines, mainly sociology. The analysis tries to specify how the actors built their relations between their concrete devotional practices, the local culture and the global processes of ressignification of culture. Through an empirical survey situations which could show the relations between different worlds of action were registered. Two interviews were carried out with each of the selected seven masters. Many moments of informal conversation improved information and the triangulation with documents made possible a strengthening on the quality of collected data. It may therefore be inferred that the context in which the groups were generated and the pressure of present circumstances occur in directing the changes of meanings and practices in the production of traditional popular culture in this region. Tradition, which until then was restrained to the interior of the popular-catholic devotional sphere, has been increasing evermore its universe of influence and adherence. This steady increase results from the prizing of traditional popular culture within the scope of re-emerging public policies turned to popular culture and the use of traditional goods and the legitimacy provided by the appropriation of the industry of tourism and mass media / Este trabalho examina a ação de mestres populares dos grupos devocionais nomeados moçambique e congada localizados no Vale do Paraíba paulista. Esta ação vem sofrendo modificações dentro do contexto das novas políticas públicas de cultura implementadas e do incremento do mercado regional de turismo e entretenimento, que afetam os grupos liderados por tais mestres. Estas circunstâncias exigem táticas para agir em uma pluralidade de domínios que supõem distintas lógicas de ação. Mostram como as políticas culturais, a celebração da diversidade e a busca de reconhecimento cultural dos atores populares influenciam as mediações culturais que ocorrem nos grupos de cultura popular tradicional da região. Argumenta-se que os mestres utilizam táticas para entrar e sair dos novos domínios de ação, para se apropriar e escapar de novas injunções e recursos, tornando-se atores de uma produção cultural contemporânea em suas características híbridas, plurais e ambivalentes. Isto contribui com a análise do resultado e da apropriação das políticas públicas do ponto de vista dos realizadores populares. Procura-se entender quais são as estratégias dos mestres populares e como se relacionam com os intermediários do setor da produção cultural popular. A abordagem da pesquisa é a interpretação etnográfica dos interesses e estratégias dos atores estudados, com o auxílio de outras disciplinas, especialmente o da sociologia. A análise procura explicitar como os atores elaboraram as relações entre suas práticas devocionais concretas, a cultura local e os processos globais de ressignificação da cultura. Por meio do levantamento empírico, registraram-se as situações que podiam mostrar as relações entre distintos mundos de ação. Foram realizadas duas entrevistas com cada um dos sete mestres selecionados. Muitos momentos de conversas informais complementaram as informações e a triangulação com documentos possibilitou um reforço na qualidade das informações levantadas. Conclui-se que o contexto de engendramento dos grupos e a pressão das circunstâncias presentes agem no direcionamento das mudanças dos significados e das práticas de produção de cultura popular tradicional na região. A tradição, que, até então, tinha circulação restrita no interior do campo devocional católico-popular, vem ampliando cada vez mais seu universo de influência e adesão. Tal ampliação decorre da valorização da cultura popular tradicional no âmbito das re-emergentes políticas públicas voltadas para a cultura popular e do consumo de bens tradicionais e de autenticidade propiciado pela apropriação da indústria do turismo e da comunicação de massa

Cette thèse a pour objet une étude qualitative de l’enseignement d’un instrument de musique en orchestre et en groupe restreint dans deux écoles primaires d’un Réseau d’Education Prioritaire en France et dans un conservatoire. La finalité est de comparer dans ces deux configurations, les moments de travail collectif et les moments de travail individuel entre professeur et élèves pour savoir s’ils s’opposent, se complètent et/ou convergent.Nos outils théoriques, en didactiques comparées, s’appuient sur la Théorie de l’Action Conjointe enDidactique principalement avec les notions de jeux d’apprentissage, la double dialectique contrat/milieu etréticence/expression et la dévolution. Nous convoquons également les concepts sociologiques suivants : concept de configuration, habitus social, habitus didactique. Notre méthodologie s’appuie sur les transcriptions et photogrammes tirés des séances de cours filmées pendant trois ans.Des premiers résultats montrent que les élèves ne jouent en tutti autour de cinquante pourcent du temps du cours en orchestre. Ce qui influence la pratique d’enseignement et le contenu enseigné, de même que le rapport des élèves aux savoirs et le rapport au corps. Ce qui se retrouve aussi bien dans le jeu instrumental des élèves que dans la signification qu’ils donnent aux gestes et aux mimes du professeur. Les compétences décrites lors des analyses didactiques montrent que les enseignements en collectif, en groupe restreint et en individuel sont complémentaires (pour le jeu d’ensemble : la compréhension gestuelles des chefs d’orchestre,L’écoute collective, la synchronisation et pour les cours d’instrument : le jeu technique et musical) convergent (écoute de la justesse, le travail sur les sensations) et sont indissociables. Grâce à une étude détaillée de l’activité musicale, la thèse a montré comment les élèves tirent profit d’un enseignement individuel et collectif dans les relations qu’ils construisent entre les deux. / This thesis aims at a qualitative study of the teaching of an orchestral musical instrument and of a small group at two primary schools and one conservatory. The aim is to compare these configurations with that of individual teaching in order to know if they are opposed, complementary, and convergency.Our theoretical is on the Joint Action Theory in Didactics. We take support on the notions of learning games, the double dialectic contract/milieu and reluctance/expression, devolution. We also convene the following sociological concepts: concept of configuration, social habitus, didactic habitus. Our Methodology is based on the transcripts and photograms taken from the lecture sessions filmed during the three years of observation.Initial results show that students do not play in tuttis fifty percent of the time in the orchestra class. This teaching configuration of course influences the teaching practice and the content taught, as well as influencing the students’ relationship to knowledge through the choice of modes of privileged knowledge transmission. The relationship to the body, both in the students’ instrumental play and in the meaning they give to the teacher's gestures and mimics, is complex. The skills acquired by the pupils and described in the didactic analyses show that collective, restricted and individual teachings are complementary on certain points (collective playing, gestural understanding of conductors, collective listening, synchronization and/for instrumental courses, technical and musical play). They are convergent on other points (e.g. listening to the corrections, working on the sensations). They are complementary and inseparable.

Despite the criminal nature of intimate partner violence, scholars infrequently apply general theories of crime to understanding its causes (Dixon, Archer, & Graham-Kevan, 2012). Indeed, some scholars reject the notion that the causes of intimate partner violence align with the causes of general crime and violence (Dobash, Dobash, Wilson, & Daly, 1992). A second area of contention is whether male and female violence can be explained within the same theoretical framework (Dutton & Nicholls, 2005). In this thesis I argue that as a type of criminal behaviour, understanding the causes of intimate partner violence from a criminological perspective is a valid and necessary research endeavour. Further, guided by the principles of the theoretical framework of this thesis, I submit that both male and female intimate partner violence can be explained within the same general theory of crime. This thesis applies situational action theory, a general theory of crime that places morality at the centre of its explanatory framework, to the understanding and explanation of intimate partner violence. This thesis concentrates on the roles of personal morality and provocation in intimate partner violence perpetration. Partner conflict is defined as the experience of provocation, while friction sensitivity and low partner cohesion are included as key factors leading to partner conflict. Specifically, this thesis examines whether the strength of personal morality influences whether individuals respond to provocation with violence against a partner. To address the aims of the research, this thesis uses data from the Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study, a study designed to test situational action theory. Participants are a representative sample of males and females between 24 and 25 years of age. Path analyses using a multiple-group method revealed that high friction sensitivity and low partner cohesion contributed to increased partner violence perpetration by influencing the level of partner conflict. Morality had a significant moderating effect on the path between partner conflict and partner violence perpetration. Namely, individuals with weak morality, and who frequently engaged in partner conflict, were significantly more likely to perpetrate acts of partner violence than individuals with strong morality who engaged in frequent conflict with a partner. These findings were replicated across males and females. The findings of this research illustrate the importance of morality in the explanation of partner violence, and provide evidence that both male and female partner violence can be explained within the framework of situational action theory.

The general purpose of this thesis is to understand how participation in the activity of education relates to communication and tools. This purpose unfolds by drawing on possible conceivable consequences. In the fulfilment of this purpose communication, education, participation, and tools are analytically linked by a common denominator: human action. The commentary text expounds on these links, while the four included papers illustrate how these links operate in educational settings. The general purpose serves to frame a narrower purpose: a discussion of participation through computer-mediated communication in online settings of Swedish higher education. The theoretical departure derives from a transactional approach that embraces human action as an inseparable aspect of a dynamic whole, here defined as the activity of education. This activity is discussed in terms of its cultural, ecological, historical, and social aspects. This theoretical departure embraces ideas largely taken from ecological, pragmatic and sociocultural perspectives of human action. The papers include analyses of, variously, empirical material taken from interviews with students, online exchanges of utterances, syllabuses, and study-guides. Two of the papers are literature reviews. The findings indicate that participation in education is a complex boundless phenomenon that is best understood as a dynamic whole. In this whole, participation in education is culturally, ecologically, historically, and socially transformed by actions, agents, communication, tools, and the setting. In this thesis, concepts such as computermediated communication, communicative genres, dialogical intersections, and educational settings are utilised to reach a dynamic understanding. The dynamics of these findings, therefore, are a challenge to all dualistic conceptualisations of education, such as those building on the idea of learners operating in learning environments. Particularly, these findings challenge operationalisations of education that rely on computer-mediated communication and which build on the idea of so-called online learning environments. A more coherent understanding of participation in education is possible if educational research and design builds on a non-dualistic conceptualisation that includes the idea of participation being performed in a boundless activity.