James Robert Gillette (1886-1963) was an early advocate for original wind band music at a time when marches and band transcriptions of orchestral music contributed heavily to the wind band repertoire. Primarily known as an influential, in-demand organist and composer, Gillette became the director of the Carleton College band program in Northfield, Minnesota in 1924. Taking an innovative approach to building, organizing, and programming, Gillette transformed that group into the Carleton Symphony Band and led a wider push for the symphonic band movement. In promoting his ideals of the symphonic band, he composed and arranged music specifically for the Carleton Symphony Band. One of his original works, Vistas, was widely performed and well-received in the decade just prior to and after its publication in 1934. Despite the popularity of the piece at that time, it has since gone out of print and is a rarely performed piece from Gillette's repertoire. This dissertation focuses on Vistas, Gillette's second published tone poem. This study starts with the examination of the history of Vistas from its origins as a movement in Gillette's transcription of Paul Robert Fauchet's Symphony in B-flat to its subsequent transformation and publication as an original work for band. Next, the performance history and reception of Vistas in the United States is traced and described from the year of publication to the present day. Finally, discrepancies present in the 1934 publication of Vistas are addressed through the creation of a performance edition. This performance edition also provides modifications to make the piece more widely accessible to wind bands today and the full score is presented at the end of the study.

Magister Educationis - MEd / This thesis is a record and analysis of as well as a commentary on an emancipatory.educational action research project in which I participated at three educare centres serving 0 - 6 year old children in Nyanga, Philippi and Old Crossroads of Cape Town, South Africa. The study sprang from my need to examine closely the work I was doing as a volunteer in the hope of maximizing my efforts to bring about sustainable change in these challenging settings. . Ultimately my goal was safe, healthy and stimulating educare. I chose what I perceived to be a few important areas for improvement which reflected both the teachers' prior educare training as offered in several non-governmental organizations in Cape Town as well as ideas which I contributed from my own readings and studies. Room arrangement to ease flow and promote independent, individual learning was one area. Establishing routines in a daily programme that encouraged children to become interested and responsible members of the educare community, that fairly divided teacher tasks and that increased child/teacher interactions was another area for improvement. The thesis includes a discussion in Chapter 3 of emancipatory educational action research as a good vehicle for the work I undertook with all the teachers in each of the three centres. Central to this choice was my participation in change including change within myself as a volunteer in-service field worker. Flexibility in timing, including delays and many repetitions, were a feature of my work with women whose lives of grinding poverty were at the mercy of tragedy and disaster as well as time-consuming tasks making for absenteeism. The main benefit of this form of research was its potential for growth in self-esteem and empowerment in individual teachers as they witnessed the benefits of their planned work multiply at the centres. I divided the work at each centre into three phases. The first included getting to know the centre, its teachers and children and making decisions around what tasks to undertake. In the same phase the teachers and I began to work on the identified areas. In the second phase, I introduced the teachers to teachers at other successful educare centres so that linkages could be established that would strengthen the work we were doing and broaden their base of support. Ultimately, I intended that this would allow me to decrease my presence and input gradually while change continued at the three centres. The third phase involved the teachers at a centre plowing back their new skills into the wider network of Mustadafin Foundation educare centres in which they were involved and which needed similar assistance. I have presented a new understanding for sustainable change resulting from this study and it is my hope that donors and others involved in community upliftment will understand that continued input and follow-up involvement need to accompany material gifts and intensive upgrading. Finally, I have written what I hope is a very readable thesis so that the teachers involved can read their own and each others' stories as I have done my best to record and interpret them.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / A group of well-to-do women formally organized the Indianapolis Free Kindergarten and Children’s Aid Society with the goal to open kindergartens for children like Onis Williams. Reverend Oscar C. McCulloch, a social gospel proponent, was influential in organizing these women as well as several other Indianapolis charitable organizations. The clubwomen of the Indianapolis Free Kindergarten and Children’s Aid Society collected funds and goods from local businesses and wealthy businessmen to support their work; the clubwomen also hosted teas, parties, and an annual ball to raise money. At first, the women of the Indianapolis Free Kindergarten and Children’s Aid Society (hereafter IFK) opened kindergartens and distributed clothing to young children in the poorest districts of the city. Over time, however, IFK expanded to include adult programs, programs for children of all ages, and opened a teachers’ training school. This thesis consists of three chapters. The first chapter will focus on the Indiana Primary and Normal Training School, the teacher training school run by IFK. The second chapter will discuss the various social and academic programs available to Indianapolis children, including the actual kindergarten. The third chapter will focus on six different programs available to mothers whose children attended kindergartens and other programs. This thesis will show how some Indianapolis clubwomen used the teacher’s school, the kindergartens, and the programs for mothers of IFK to create a successful Progressive program that endured for nearly seventy years.