<p> Waste as a topic for anthropological investigation has enjoyed a recent resurgence in interest, mirroring burgeoning discussion among policy-makers and the general public about questions of environmental impacts, economic costs, and social detriments of contemporary waste management paradigms. While waste management in the United States has largely focused on technical and organizational solutions typically considered the domain of environmental planning and engineering (such as source reduction, recycling, and reuse), anthropology and the social sciences have become more prominently involved in efforts to inform policy-makers and researchers about the social and behavioral factors influencing waste norms and habits, particularly in educational institutions and municipal governments.</p><p> The central questions to this research were as follows: (1) What are some of the perceptions and practices concerning food waste at an environmental charter elementary school in Florida? (2) What do self-reported data on food waste behaviors suggest about disposal habits and norms? (3) What is the extent to which food is discarded relative to other types of refuse? and (4) From the perspectives of school staff and students, what are some of the factors influencing food waste?</p><p> To answer these questions, I employed both "garbological" and ethnographic methods at an environmental charter school, Learning Gate Community School, over a period of nine months, including (1) participant observation, (2) garbological audits of the cafeteria waste stream, (3) key informant interviews with students and staff, and (4) log sheets sent home to a random sample of parents to gauge the fraction of leftovers taken home that are ultimately discarded in order to gain a more holistic understanding of the waste stream of the school cafeteria. </p><p> The results of this project support the following conclusions: (1) students at Learning Gate tend to agree that food waste is a detriment, but these concerns are subordinate to factors such as the degree of hunger at lunchtime and the perceived palatability of certain food items and (2) lunch periods are an important block of unstructured time, which Learning Gate students use for a far broader variety of activities than merely nourishment </p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Educational Leadership & Policy Studies, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Oct 30, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-02, Section: A, page: 0527. Adviser: Margaret Sutton.

<p> The purpose of this research was to quantify and measure the success of a culture transformation. Using the Organization Cultural Assessment Instrument (OCAI) to determine the current and desired culture state, 272 employees responded to the survey. An executive focus group provided in-depth understanding of the culture and worked to align the culture to the mission and strategy as they drove the change process throughout the organization to the preferred culture state. The study showed that bringing cultural awareness to an organization is important, and that organization design is a key component to successful organizations. The Human Capital Return on Investment (HCROI) was calculated before, during, and after the culture change. Findings concluded that financial measurements aid in gauging the transformation process of a culture change. </p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Education, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Feb 4, 2010). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-04, Section: A, page: 1152. Adviser: Margaret Sutton.

<p> Archaeological education and outreach have become priorities in a discipline that struggles to make its research accessible and relevant to the diverse public. In recent years, researchers have begun to address this issue through the design and implementation of grade school lesson modules on various archaeological topics. Although these lesson modules are readily available, little has been done to assess the efficacy of such public education and outreach agendas. With stimulus and funding from the Blackfeet Tribe and the Montana Department of Transportation, respectively, this thesis addresses this gap by (1) designing archaeological lesson modules for middle school students, and (2) assessing the general efficacy of the lessons. Specifically, the study systematically analyzes four science units for their overall efficacy, general impact, and utility through pre-and-post assessments that measure student understanding and interest. The quantified analyses are then combined to attain an overall percentage of curriculum efficacy. As a public outreach strategy for archaeology, these modules emphasize a pluralistic, multivocal, inclusive, and pragmatic perspective of the past that both connects with a multifaceted, diverse public and avoids educational marginalization of a shared, collective past. Thus, Native perspectives are interwoven with scientific archaeological knowledge to, in essence, pluralize the past. The topical focus of the lessons is bison&mdash;a uniquely North American past and present species with which humans have interacted intimately at a multitude of levels but, also, a species that is not always accepted among contemporary ranchers and land users. The curriculum is aimed at middle school students, recognizing that these students, as the future decision-makers, are a key demographic to target. It is hypothesized that (1) the respectful incorporation of archaeological education in a pluralized, inclusive fashion allows the interdisciplinary potential of archaeology to be more fully realized, and (2) such a strategy allows the significance of bison to be better understood and more widely appreciated.</p>

<p> Zoological parks are a complex place of human-animal, animal-environment, and human-environment interactions; as the global population becomes more urbanized, zoos are one of the only places in which urban dwellers can learn about and experience the "natural" world. Zoos now act as key purveyors of public conservation education, shaping the ways in which visitors understand and situate themselves within local and global conservation issues and natural environments. Zoos educate the public on these and other topics through the implementation of informal education programs (IEPs) within their institutions, but the effectiveness of these programs in positively altering visitor knowledge, attitude, and behavioral is not well understood. Through interviews, questionnaires, and participant observation conducted at the San Antonio Zoo I explored (1) how zoo visitors interacted with and perceived of a zoo animal species, the white-cheeked gibbon; (2) how zoo visitor perceptions of animals were influenced by visitor-animal interactions in various zoo contexts (e.g. within and outside of IEPs); (3) what zoo visitors were learning about animal and conservation within these various contexts; and (4) the effectiveness of an IEP in inspiring zoo visitors to actively participate in conservation initiatives. I framed my inquiry into visitor and zoo animal relationships within post-humanist theories and explored visitor perceptions of animals, the environment, and conservation through the lens of virtualism, resulting in a novel view of visitor experience and learning within the zoo setting. In this thesis I discuss the results of this research and their implications for conservation education efforts within zoos.</p>

<p> With the increasing number of Chinese international students coming to the United States every year, a more in-depth understanding of these international students' acculturation is necessary and urgent. Given the fact that past researches mostly describe Chinese immigrants, migrates or international students as oppressed cultural adaptors, who cannot avoid being marginalized; who suffer from various adjusting problems; and who have to make use of acculturative strategies to adapt to the new country, this thesis takes the factor of wealth and its relation with class, status and power into account during Chinese international students' acculturation under the globalized context. Instead of sticking to the stereotypical view of regarding Chinese International students as simply marginalized group, this thesis explores the possibility of these students as power negotiators in their everydayness of life by using the methodological tool of interview.</p>

<p> This qualitative study not only describes the intercultural capacities of 20 high-achieving, homeschooled, evangelical university students from diverse backgrounds, but also far surpasses this original aim by generating a new model that critiques and complements cultural intelligence theory (CQ). Debate regarding tolerance among homeschoolers has lacked adequate study because the right questions have been obscured by terminology too broad (socialization) and impossibly loaded (tolerance). This constructivist, grounded-theory study thus addresses the question through intercultural lenses. </p><p> Chapter 2 reviews literature to propose a Process-Outcome Model of Socialization, a 10-pair categorization of critics' concerns, and introduces a reconceptualization of Perry's (1970) scheme of epistemological development for a faith-based university. Chapter 3 describes data-collection. In Southern California, strategies include participant observation, interview, focus-group, narrative, written reflection about Emerson &amp; Smith's (2000) <i>Divided by Faith,</i> and case study response. In metropolitan DC, shorter measures confirm theoretical saturation. Chapter 4 presents 20 participants' intercultural journeys. Chapter 5 traces cognition. Chapter 6 outlines motivation, describing intercultural self-efficacy, initiative, and perceived value. Chapter 7 offers evidence of metacognition. Chapter 8 provides the missing piece&mdash;concern&mdash;as the connector of knowledge and desire, showing that the most intense reflection and regulation operate based on higher commitments (metaphysical, existential, and ethical). </p><p> Chapter 9 integrates core categories to present two new models. One shows the complementarity of CQ and concern. The other unites them as Sustainable Cultural Concern (SCC), a model explaining why some people grow in intercultural capacities while others do not. Three assertions underlie these models: a) concern is a meta-commitment that differs from motivation; b) CQ and border-crossing concern cooperate to sustain growth; c) a culturally-concerned person seeks to wed knowledge and desire according to concern. Though most participants display sustainable cultural concern, unconcerned outliers strongly suggest that homeschoolers and organizations should intentionally cultivate it. </p><p> Methodologically, the models correct inconsistencies regarding homeschooling socialization and challenge the prevalence of quantitative studies. Theoretically, they highlight ambiguity and overlap in CQ domains and the disproportionate scope of metacognition. Practically, they guide personal evaluation of intercultural engagement and growth in perception (honor), understanding (humility), regulation (integrity), and volition (faithfulness).</p>

<p> This dissertation investigates the normative construction of a politics of language and community in north-west Wales (United Kingdom). It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted primarily between January 2007 and April 2008, with central participant-observation settings in primary-level state schools and in the teaching-spaces and hallways of a university. Its primary finding is an account of the gap between the national visibility and the cultural (in)visibility communities of speakers of the indigenous language of Wales (Cymraeg, or &ldquo;Welsh&rdquo;). With one exception, no public discourse has yet emerged in Wales that provides an explicit framework or vocabulary for describing the cultural community that is anchored in Cymraeg. One has to live those meanings even to know about them. The range of social categories for living those meanings tends to be constructed in ordinary conversations as some form of <i>nationalism,</i> whether political, cultural, or language <i>nationalism.</i> Further, the negatively valenced category of nationalism current in English-speaking Britain is in tension with the positively valenced category of nationalism current among many who move within Cymraeg-speaking communities. Thus, the very politics of identity are themselves political since the line between what is political and what is not, is itself subject to controversy. The result is what I call the &ldquo;submergence&rdquo; of Cymraeg-oriented cultural communities: People who would say Cymraeg is an essential part of their personality and communities mark out cultural space for their sense of continuity (to the past, to others) in ways that do not require <i>or enable</i> them to make any substantive cultural claims. </p><p> Within these settings of a modalized Welsh culture&mdash;always only partially expressed&mdash; indigeneity and ethnic difference are symbolized by the emblematic and lived importance of Cymraeg, while the significance of Cymraeg tends to be implicitly conveyed by means of overt references to &ldquo;Welshness&rdquo;. </p><p> This cultural submergence of the resources for Cymraeg-centered identity seems motivated and sustained by the fact that it produces a haven from holiday-goers and English patriots who do not value Welsh cultural features as highly as do those who take pride in the Cymraeg-centered cultural community. In light of these features of local life, I suggest several terms of art&mdash;including &ldquo;language demesne&rdquo; and &ldquo;language corridor&rdquo;&mdash;because they are more fitting of local politics than is the idea of a (global) language community. </p><p> This dissertation also contributes a theoretical basis for examining the pragmatics of language communities, which requires differentiating phenomenal-level semiotic analyses from investigations of the dynamics of cultural discourse. The &ldquo;obvious&rdquo; empirical situation in Wales&mdash;as analyzed using a Peircean-phenomenological semiotics&mdash;runs contrary to the relatively opaque and counter-empirical cultural dynamics in Wales. As a result, this account of the tensions between semiotic descriptions and cultural dynamics signals a wrinkle in received theories of metapragmatics. Conventionally, metapragmatics makes sense of the text&ndash;discourse relation, but not the relations between discourse and consciousness because theories of metapragmatics apply only to the former. Unless the relationship of text-and-discourse to consciousness is explicated at the epistemological level of analysis, ethnographic descriptions of locales within language communities&mdash;particularly those rife with language politics&mdash;can take on the appearance of an ontology of human kinds. Given this condition, any broad account of the cultural dynamics of language and community must take an analytic position regarding the relationship between the surface-level of semiotics and the historical and cultural processes of community constitution. </p><p> My approach engages directly with the neglected conflict between the strategy of primordialist essentialism and that of constructivism. The analytic strategy and theoretical perspective of this dissertation avoids the scholarly tendency to treat certain local conceptions as misconstruals of sociocultural life. Instead, they are treated as locally valid and proper constitutings of divisible community. Academics would be no less inclined to reject analogous conceptual entailments in their cultural worlds despite their commitment to the view that sociocultural realities are constructed. The position adopted here underwrites an account that denaturalizes without denaturing the essentializing claims (e.g., of language activists) in north-west Wales. </p><p> In engaging with current analytic strategies in linguistic anthropology, my &ldquo;inferentialist&rdquo; and pragmatistic strategy frames the politicizing of language and community in north-west Wales using an alternative to linguistic indexes or icons, which are grounded in an empirical sense of necessity. The framework adopted here envisions an empirical field organized not only by <i>necessary</i> principles of Welsh belonging that are practiced or not, but by tensions among many different &ldquo;modal&rdquo; types of constraints&mdash;normative principles that are inferable from community-specific ways of enacting belonging to a particular sociocultural imaginary that owes its coherence to language affinity. Consequently, this dissertation treats languages themselves as inhabitable and provides a theoretical justification for doing so.</p>

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