Burmese migrant workers leave Myanmar and come to Thailand because of the ongoing economic and political discrimination at home. Drawn to the greater work opportunities available in Thailand, these migrant workers are actively working and looking for jobs in Thailand’s menial job sectors such as agriculture, domestic work, fisheries, construction and manufacturing. They suffer from low-paid, difficult and dangerous work conditions which are largely unprotected by labor laws. Taking into account Thailand’s new minimum wage, the Thai economy’s labor shortage problem and the coming of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015, the Thai government should coordinate the efforts of its own various agencies, employers, migrant associations, civil society, the Thai public, ASEAN and the international community to improve Burmese migrant workers’ rights. Beyond the process of clarifying the rights of migrants in the workplace to Thai employers and labor unions, as well as enforcing existing laws, the Thai government should provide migrants with health care services, education, and the option of citizenship, so that the migrants can live a quality life in their adopted country.

<p>Globalization scholars have disagreed about the effects of globalization on the production and reproduction of difference: Do fundamental differences endure, do cultures converge, or is there hybridization? This dissertation analyzes the durability of distinct medical cultures in two technologically advanced healthcare systems that rely on an evidence-based, biomedical approach. Durability refers to the tendency to maintain or develop diverse, even idiosyncratic, practices and beliefs--even as the forces of globalization are perceived to be pressing health practices everywhere toward a single global standard. To do so, this dissertation offers a comparative, empirically based argument using the case of type 2 diabetes in the U.S. and Japan. As an inductive, theory-constructing project, the argument has at its foundation 11 months of ethnographic field work in Japanese hospitals and clinic exam rooms, 115 semi-structured interviews with patients and biomedical health practitioners in Japan, and 25 interviews with American health care providers and patients. I argue that physicians in both research sites, Okayama, Japan and North Carolina, USA, practice empirical biomedicine, but that empirical biomedicine is not all there is to biomedical practice. Practicing physicians in both contexts act not only on increasingly globalized professional standards, but also on local knowledge, on their own explanatory models for type 2 diabetes, and in reaction to local patient populations' explanatory models. Further, local knowledge and patient interactions shape the ways in which practicing physicians interpret global standards and best practices. Occasionally, they may even be reshaped beyond recognition without interfering with physicians' self-evaluation as participants in a universal, standardized scientific project. The interaction of globalizing standards of practice, local knowledge, and local explanatory models of illness can result in dramatically divergent medical practice across different social contexts--in this case, the U.S. and Japan.</p> / Dissertation

This paper examines China’s policy towards human rights internationally with the intent of discerning real support for human rights. It compares China’s responses to two cases of mass human rights violations (the Darfur and Israel-Palestine conflicts) in which it has a serious interest (energy in particular). It finds that China treats human rights self-interestedly, but also has some support for them when its interests are not at stake.

<p>Throughout American history, parental involvement has been a ?hot topic? in American education. Parents have great influence on their children?s schooling. Chinese immigrants are one of the largest populations in the United States, which introduces new challenges for American teachers. Along with the increasing numbers of Chinese in the United States, many American teachers have limited knowledge and resources to help them. Using Joyce Epstein?s six types of parental involvement and Grolnick and Slowiaczek?s three dimensions of parental involvement as a theoretical framework, this study investigated 10 Chinese immigrant parents in northwest America. The purpose of this study was to explore how Chinese immigrant parents? heritage, culture, and beliefs affect their understanding of American education. In addition, this study explored the factors that affect Chinese immigrant parents? participation in their children?s cognitive development.

<p> For the last several years, Americans have fallen behind in the area of mathematics when compared to their peers in industrialized countries around the world. Singapore, on the other hand, was at the top of the world rankings in mathematics in the last four Trends in International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) assessments taken by fourth and eighth graders every four years. This project focused on the impact of the Singapore Math program on two cohorts of students by utilizing their Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) scores from the mathematics subtest. The first cohort, A, was comprised of students who were in third, fourth, and fifth grade during the first years of the implementation of the Singapore Math program in 2007, 2008, 2009, and compared with students in Cohort B who were exposed to the math program since first grade, as intended by the publisher. The students of Cohort B were in third, fourth, and fifth grade in 2010, 2011, and 2012, respectively. Data were also analyzed to see if the program had a correlation with a decrease in gender, ethnic, or socioeconomic (SES) achievement gaps when compared to Cohort B. Three tests were given in order to triangulate the results of the MAP test: difference in means by way of a <i>z</i>-test for a difference in means, a comparison of students scoring proficient and advanced through the utilization of a z-test for difference in proportions, and an <i>F</i>-test for difference in variance in MAP scores. </p><p> Results of the study yielded mixed results. While there was not a significant statistical difference in achievement between Cohort A and B in third, fourth, or fifth grade, there was evidence to support that the subgroups that were included in the study (female students, Black students, and students with Free and Reduced Lunch status) performed commensurately with their peers in Cohort B.</p>

Buddhist forms of “ethical advice”—instructions that address life’s problems and offer methods for alleviating them—are widespread in Buddhist literary history. This dissertation studies four such works, all written by the nineteenth-century Tibetan teacher Dza Patrul Rinpoche (Rdza dpal sprul O rgyan 'jigs med chos kyi dbang po, 1808-1877). I provide a rhetorical analysis of these compositions and endeavor to show how each aspires to reach outside of itself to act on its respective audience. The compositions do so, I argue, by deploying special literary devices that encourage their audiences to invest themselves, emotionally and imaginatively, in the practices of self-development that the works themselves advocate. The aim of the project is to use Patrul’s writing as a case study to suggest modes of analysis that can offer us insight into the ways in which specially designed modes of writing enable moral self-cultivation. The dissertation specifically addresses the relationship between the recurring themes of singularity, performativity and reflexivity as they appear in Patrul’s advice writings. I argue that these compositions employ discursive devices that play on their audience’s feelings and expectations, aspiring to generate affective responses that range from utter hopelessness to profound relief. They employ expositional strategies designed to compel their audiences to imagine familiar practices anew. Finally, their performative character calls attention to the status of Patrul, the model author, as a singularly capable and skillful teacher. The reflexive nature of Patrul’s works thereby serves to provoke the implied audience’s imagination about “Patrul” the heroically talented teacher. These self-reflexive writings also act as devices for Patrul’s own self-transformation. They are sites of imagination, opportunities for Patrul to enact a self-creation via the medium of advice writing. Patrul’s compositions not only aspire to work on their audience. They, in and of themselves, constitute transformative work for Patrul.

Why do we observe such widely differing patterns of repression and state violence under authoritarian rule? Despite a wave of recent interest in authoritarian politics, the origins, design and behavior of the coercive institutions that embody the state's monopoly on violence remain relatively unexamined. This project draws on new statistical and geographic data, elite interviews, and archival evidence from the U.S. and Asia to chronicle the origins and operation of the internal security apparatus in three Cold War anti-communist authoritarian regimes – Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea – and compares them to similar processes in Communist authoritarian regimes in North Korea and China. Its findings challenge dominant narratives about contentious politics and state-society conflict in Asia; offer an unprecedented view inside 'secret police' use of surveillance, coercion, and violence; and provide a new understanding of the institutional and social foundations of authoritarian power.I argue that autocrats face a fundamental tradeoff between designing their internal security apparatus to deal with a popular threat, or coup-proofing it to defend against elite rivals. Coup-proofing requires an internally fragmented security force drawn from narrow segments of society; managing popular unrest requires a unitary apparatus with broadly embedded, socially inclusive intelligence networks. Autocrats construct coercive institutions based on the dominant perceived threat when they come to power, but these organizational tradeoffs, exacerbated by institutional stickiness, blunt their ability to adapt as new threats arise. Organizational characteristics thus give rise to predictable patterns of state violence. A more fragmented, exclusive security apparatus – associated with a high initial threat from fellow elites – is likely to be more violent, both because it has stronger incentives to engage in violence and because it lacks the intelligence capacity to engage in discriminate, pre-emptive repression. In contrast to existing threat-based explanations of repression, I demonstrate that autocrats who are deeply concerned about popular threats use less violence rather than more, and do so because they mobilize organizations expressly designed for that purpose. In these organizations, intelligence becomes a substitute for violence, and citizens relinquish their privacy, but less often their lives. / Government

This dissertation examines two major kingship rituals-- the coronation and the autumnal navaratri--as discussed in Hindu religious literature and ritual texts, and as practised in Nepal. These rituals are based on sacred myths and primarily oriented to the production of religious and socio-political dimensions of sovereign power. The Vedic, tantric, and other devotional acts as found in these rituals empower the king and construct his personal and corporate identity. The rituals are consequently strongly political, as various divine, human and other agencies invest the king with multiple powers and authorize him to rule; these agencies also negotiate their own relations, domains of influence, and hierarchies. These rituals produce a sacred and divine king and kingship, as well as sacred space, by establishing the king's connection (bandhu) and identification with many sources of power. As myth and ritual are used in the service of power and authority, they jointly promote each other to create, perpetuate, and strengthen these attributes. Since the uses of myth and ritual are strategic and ideological, they can be used to legitimize the status of the king and enforce the use of power on others. As illustrated in the recent history of Nepal, the myth and ritual can also be sites for dialogue, negotiation, resistance, subversion, and replacement of the same power. Religion and politics are deeply intertwined in these ritual activities; in fact, only in the deeply religious and devotional settings can the rituals exert maximum socio-political powers.

This dissertation examines the so-called revival of local traditions in reform-era China. It compares the different paths of adapting local traditions to market transitions and a changing political landscape. Three questions guide this study: 1) given state suppression of tradition, to what extent is power and society in localities still structured by traditional practices? 2) What determines how a particular community can provide support to individual members? 3) Does the cultural legacy of a community constrain how the community can respond to new situations? And how easily can a community reformulate the past to suit the present need? This study argues that local communities have actively used traditional practices to build community strength and deal with a variety of community issues arising from changes in the political landscape and socio-economic situations. Traditional practices are not nostalgia, but are the base for collective action and social organization in rural communities. The revival of traditional practices constructs community identity, defines how one relates to others, and instructs how one experiences the group to which one belongs. This study shows that the same sets of cultural practices and symbols with different arrangements can produce different degrees of community solidarity and strength. Variation on the use of traditional practices for building community in different localities is explained through an interactive model with a number of factors jointly shaping the community strength. These are the local legacy, the state, the new market economy, and interests of individual community members. These factors have different interactive relations in each local community, and result in different degrees of community strength. This study adds to our understanding of reform era China in two particular aspects. The first is to demonstrate how the collective aspect of traditional practices has worked in rural communities. The second is to demystify the effectiveness of Chinese culture on economic development. My study does not treat Chinese culture as a holistic system. Rather, it shows that in economic behavior there is nothing essentially Chinese, such as using lineage or family networks. Cultural utility, such as strong and effective lineage networks, is a result of complex interaction among top-down state forces, the market, local culture, and individual interests, and cannot be duplicated simply out of functional utility and rational calculation. / Sociology

"Yuewang Goujian shijia," the forty-first chapter of the Shiji, is one of the most important sources for the history of the ancient state of Yue. However, this chapter has not received serious scholarly examination in the West. Unlike those chapters of the Shiji which have been translated in the Shiji translation project headed by William Nienhauser, "Yuewang Goujian shijia" has not yet been translated into English. This thesis provides an annotated translation of the "Yuewang Goujian shijia." In addition, it has been argued that the history of the Spring and Autumn period in the Shiji is a compilation of earlier sources. The introduction to the translation will specifically look at the relationship of the "Yuewang Goujian shijia" to one of its proposed sources, the "Yueyu xia," which is the twenty-first chapter of the Guoyu. In comparing these two texts, it will be shown that dependence cannot be definitely demonstrated.