Having an understanding of when, where, and why people settle in an area is crucial in explaining the growth course of a city. However, this cannot be done by looking at a city in isolation. Its surrounding region has a tremendous impact on its development. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the growth of Los Angeles from a regional perspective, called the Los Angeles city-system, which consists of Los Angeles and its hinterland. Connections are made between the history and the geography of the Los Angeles city-system by examining the spatial distribution of population within the region between 1769 and 2000. The Hoover Index of Population Concentration is used to determine the population concentration, and major shifts in the concentration are illuminated by the geography and historical events of the Los Angeles area. The main factors contributing to the changing concentration were the region's physical geography, the introduction of transportation innovations, the region's economic structure, historical and political events, and migration trends. It was found that the counties in closest proximity to Los Angeles County are becoming more alike, while the more peripheral counties are becoming more different. This has led to a greater understanding of urban/periphery growth economics.

The site of today’s Civic Center in Downtown Los Angeles evolved gradually over the course of over 150 years before being dramatically transformed in the early to mid 20th century. Understanding how this area evolved and was redeveloped can help guide efforts to restore physical and historical continuity throughout the area. Specifically, this historical understanding can assist in identifying key opportunity sites within the area, such as Civic Center South, and in setting urban design goals for new development. Research for this thesis included an analysis of the area’s historic development and a review of its current conditions. The historical analysis examined how the study area initially developed and how it was subsequently transformed through redevelopment. The review of current conditions examined recent and proposed development in and around the Civic Center South site and recent policies and regulations that are guiding new development within Downtown Los Angeles. This study ultimately provides an overview of the historic development context of the north end of Downtown Los Angeles as well as a review of the developments and regulations influencing development within that area today.

This project focuses on two case studies as representative examples of Los Angeles’ progressive tolerance in the period of the 1920s: The Pentecostal mega-church of Aimee Semple-McPherson, and the Vedanta Ashram of Swami Paramananda. Both religious institutions opened in Los Angeles in 1923, just thirteen miles away from each other, and continued to thrive side-by-side throughout the twentieth century until present day. Each religious figure spoke to a part of the growing Los Angeles population: McPherson’s staunchly Christian, emotionally-driven, Hollywood-style ministry appealed to a large number of Los Angeles natives and newly-arrived immigrants, rocketing the emerging Pentecostal denomination into nationwide fame. Swami Paramananda’s message, conversely, offered a universalistic tolerance, appealing to those struggling to grasp America’s continued attachment to a strictly Christian message in a rapidly expanding world. Both institutions offer insight into the ability of remarkably varied religions to co-exist peacefully within a shared space. Beyond the exploration of these two figures and their religious groups, this project also approaches the broader topics of religious pluralism in 1920s Los Angeles, the impact of immigration and urbanization on the religious diversity of Southern California, and the shifting religious climate of post-WWI America generally. This paper engages urban sociological theory and postcolonial thought to analyze the effects of rapid population growth and the rural-urban shift on religious environments in 1920s Los Angeles. This analysis has implications for the present, as American cities continue to struggle with managing diversity of religious beliefs and expressions.

This dissertation examines the development of alternative spaces in Los Angeles from 1970 to 1990. In the absence of museum support during the 1970s, artists in Los Angeles—many of whom were women, queer, racially diverse, young, politically active, and pushing the boundaries of new media—began to create organizations to provide the resources they lacked. I argue that this flourishing network of alternative spaces became one of Los Angeles’s most significant art-historical developments in the latter half of the twentieth century. This emergent contemporary art scene was defined largely in opposition to the city’s principal cultural repository, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and formed the primary support structure for contemporary artists and exhibitions between the 1974 closure of the Pasadena Art Museum and the launch of the Museum of Contemporary Art’s (MOCA) exhibition program in 1983. The resulting complex of artist-run organizations laid the groundwork for the rebranding of Los Angeles as a capital of contemporary art and culture in the twenty-first century. My study is divided into three chapters, each of which focuses on the history and legacy of a different alternative institution. Chapter one examines the Woman’s Building (1973-1991) through this feminist institution’s exhibition and pedagogical programs, with a focus on the Feminist Studio Workshop (1973-1981). Members of the Woman’s Building sought to transform their Los Angeles community by educating both the women who came there to study and the audiences that encountered their work. The second chapter traces the history of LAICA (Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, 1974-1987), which became the city’s first non-profit exhibition space dedicated to contemporary art. Through its exhibitions and publication, Journal, LAICA validated and disseminated Southern California’s artistic production to national and international audiences. The third chapter introduces LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, 1978-present), which emerged out of a community mural program to become the preeminent laboratory for experimental art in Los Angeles. The diverse group of artists who founded LACE established a democratically operated organization that prioritized artistic freedom. These three institutions anchored a network of alternative spaces that transformed the cultural landscape in Los Angeles. / 2022-07-08T00:00:00Z

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Behind the Scenes and Across Screens: Michael Jackson, His Dancing Chorus, and the Commercial Dance Industry examines the history, ideologies, and production culture of the Los Angeles commercial dance industry. Michael Jackson was the best-selling crossover pop star of the 1980s, and a recognized vanguard of music video dance who worked with many dancers and choreographers from both “studio” and “street” dance backgrounds. My focus on Jackson, his choreographic and dancing collaborators, the different styles of dance incorporated into their works, and the dynamics and aims of the conglomerate entertainment/advertising industry in which these works were produced contributes to a critical examination of commercial dance more broadly. I argue that during the critical juncture of the 1980s, the works of Jackson and his dancing chorus illuminate both the enduring paradigms and shifting dynamics of the commercial dance industry regarding practices of attribution and recognition, commodity culture and commercialism, and racial politics and ideology. My dual analytic framework of behind the scenes and across screens recognizes commercial dance works as both creative processes and commercial products. Behind the scenes examines creative labor and production practices, shedding light on how the industry functions in social, political, and economic terms. The original intention of the producers frequently differs from how consumers interpret the mass-produced artifacts. Therefore, across screens explores how divergent dance aesthetics, cultural trends, and semiotic tropes circulate via various screen technology, are re-circulated as cultural commodities, and might be received by different audiences. Together, both analytic perspectives reveal commercial dance’s complicated, sometimes contradictory, multivalence, especially regarding race. Methodologically, Behind the Scenes and Across Screens is rooted in dance studies, but draws upon the disciplinary lenses of historiography, production studies, African American cultural studies, racial theory, media studies, and screendance studies. Through archival research, interviews, and screendance analyses, I examine the entangled themes of attribution, commercialism, and race as they manifest in some of Jackson’s most iconic commercial dance works from the 1980s. The focus on Jackson and his chorus illuminates the historically vexed status of dance as labor and divergent practices of credit-giving, how commodity culture and crossover marketing shape the dancing, and how commercial dance variously redresses or reifies past racial politics and contemporary racial ideologies. While I highlight the ways in which commercial dance workers assert their agency and attempt to make dances that offer positive social messages, ultimately the paradigms regarding labor, commercialism, and race in which the commercial dance industry is imbricated curtails progressive political critique. / Dance

Traditional pedagogy offers students opportunities to enhance various skills and acquire content knowledge; however, additional steps can be taken to enhance student achievement, prepare them for future occupations, and bridge the divide in access to technology. A curriculum that integrates coding instruction affords students the opportunity to augment their collaboration, communication, creative thinking, and problem-solving skills. This is especially crucial for traditionally marginalized populations who have experienced inequitable access to technology. Nevertheless, coding is not integrated in schools in different domains, including Catholic institutions in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles (ADLA). This dissertation used a descriptive and inferential quantitative methodology to survey K–12 Catholic school teachers’, administrators’, and STEM directors’ understanding of what coding entails, assess their perceptions of coding’s potential to enrich student achievement, to prepare them for future occupations, and diversify STEM representation both in academics and in the workplace, and evaluate the potential link between educator epistemology and pedagogy with the penchant to incorporate coding instruction and the constructionist framework in the classroom. The largest diocese of the country, the ADLA, was the sole focus of this study and the data demonstrated participants have a relatively limited understanding of what coding entails, but they do believe it results in various benefits for students. Nevertheless, their epistemology and pedagogy are not ripe for constructionism to take hold in the classroom to facilitate coding.

Research clearly indicates that parental involvement plays an essential role in the educational process of any student regardless of grade level. However, technology is changing the way schools communicate, which affects the way parents are involved in their children’s education. Research on the digital divide indicates that there are differences in access based on race and family income. In other words, lower income and minority families tend to have less access to technology, and therefore may be less able to fully participate in schools. This issue of social justice was investigated at a small charter school located in West Los Angeles, California, where the researcher was an administrator. Over the past several years, there had been a demographic shift in enrollment. Teachers and administrators noticed a problem related to parental involvement at the school and all school communication relied on technology. The purpose of this study was to investigate the intersection of technology and parental involvement at West Los Angeles Charter (WLAC). Applying the theoretical lens of Epstein’s (1988) work on parental involvement and Davis’s (1989) work on technology acceptance, the administrator-researcher interviewed 16 parents, stratified by income level to guarantee that various experiences were represented, and concluded that while all parents expressed interest in being involved in their child’s education, barriers limited that involvement, particularly for the lower-income families. These barriers included issues related to language rather than issues related to access, which WLAC will be able to address to support parental involvement among all families.

The purpose of this study was to develop a better understanding about the experiences and needs of foster parents who care for medically fragile children and indentify characteristics related to providing quality care.

This Thesis is a proposal for a prototypical hillside housing community in Los Angeles, California. As a prototype it is responsible for setting an architectural precedent. In this effort, the Thesis continues with focus on issues of construction methodology, urban planning, and land use relationships concerning the present city. Being clear and uncomplicated is the driving force of this architectural process. On the horizon is the 21st Century. Architecture has become increasingly convoluted rather than enlightened. Here, I have focused my attentions on developing a technologically based, material-driven, compassionate solution to answer the issue of housing on the hillsides of Los Angeles. I have realized a clear system of building using uncomplicated technology and material. However, as demonstrated, this system of building provides only an envelope for space definition. It becomes the architectural precedent, a canvas, through which the inhabitant can define his existence. Enlightened limitations. / Master of Architecture