This thesis examines the lives of Cuban refugees who entered Atlanta, Georgia between 1950 and 1980. It explores early trans-national ties between the two areas. and how Cuban refugees relied on this relationship when they left the island. It shows the process they went through from finding aid and shelter to becoming a strong active community. It explains the role religious institutions had in settling refugees and shows how the state had to work to become equipped to provide resources to a large influx of Spanish-speakers. Through this thesis one will learn of the beginnings of an important Latino community in Atlanta and how its formation prepared the city for larger immigrant groups that would arrive later.

This study uses the concepts of everyday politics and cultural resistance to explore how young people are experimenting with ‘free spaces’ in which to develop alternative ideas and practices within the food justice movement. Through a case study of the Spring Ridge Commons – a youth-generated free space – this research describes how youth are redefining relationships to place and to people by practicing alternative foodways like urban foraging; creating decommodified food sources; sharing skills and knowledge through peer-to-peer networks; building community through relationships of mutual support; and experimenting with non-hierarchical governance. Such practices have potential implications for child and youth care such as: reconnecting youth and adults through shared practice and meaningful work in “real life” politics and community building, reconceptualizing 'youth' and 'adult' such that both have greater access to acts of cultural production, and creating experiences of democracy in everyday life. / Graduate

viii, 77 p. : ill. / The focus of this study was a free site-specific dance and music performance for the general public in Alton Baker Park (Eugene, Oregon), designed to enhance public engagement with the park and with dance. Collaborative processes with participating dancers, composers, and musicians fostered community building between the artists. Informing literature covers the impact of site-specific dance performances on communities, choreographic methodology, the history of site-specific artwork, the impact on, and consideration of, the audience in site-specific projects, and collaboration in the arts. Consideration of the surrounding community and the inherent political nature of site-specific work directly influenced every decision throughout the process. Themes emerged from the focus on building community, engaging the patrons with the site, and investigating process. Themes include the Culminating Performance, Common Values, Collaboration, Audience, Process, Journaling and Research, and a Final Summary. Reflection on the process reveals insights and suggestions for future endeavors. / Committee in charge: Dr. Jenifer P. Craig, Chairperson; Christian Cherry, Member; Walter Kennedy, Member

The written text, and approaches to reading it, serves well as an analogy for the classroom space as a “text” that teachers are able to compose; and students are able to read, interpret meaning(s) of, and make responses to and about (Rosenblatt, 1988). Researchers point to ways in which the classroom can be conceptualized as a text to be evoked, experienced, and read (Freire & Macedo, 1987; Powell, 2009; Rosenblatt, 1988; Spears-Bunton & Powell, 2009). The present study analyzed secondary data including: 10 transcripts of teacher talks and six self-reports retrieved from the program evaluation archives of DOR Foundation. The data described six teachers’ classroom experiences subsequent to professional development centered on Goma character education curriculum that was used during a summer youth program located in South Georgia. Goma, an acronym that stands for Goal, Objective, Method, and Attitude, is a character education paradigm derived from The Inclusive Community Building Ellison Model, the theoretical framework used for this study. The Model identifies conflict resolution as one of its five foci (Hunt, Howard, & Rice, 1998). Hunt (2006) conceived Goma as part of a 7-Step unitary process, also named the 7-Step pathway, to demonstrate how conflict resolution is accomplished within a variety of contexts. Analysis of the data involved: (a) a priori coding of teacher talks transcripts using the components of the Goma 7-Step pathway as coding categories, (b) emergent coding of teacher talks transcripts for the types of experiences teachers evidenced, and (c) emergent coding of teachers’ self-reports for categories of teachers’ instructional activities. Results of the study showed positive influence of Goma curriculum on participating teachers and their instructional practices. Teachers were shown to have had cognitive, instructional, emotional, and social experiences that were most evident when they reported changes in their attitudes toward their students, themselves, and their instructional practices. The present study provided implications for classroom teachers wherein all aspects of teachers’ instructional practices can be guided by principles of positive character; and can be used to help compose the kinds of “texts” that may likely contribute to a classroom character culture.

From the Polanyian perspective on the double movement of labour commodification and self-protection of Society, the aim of this study was to examine how unionists perceive and problematise precarious employment and what are their practices for unionising and thereby securing precarious workers. A double case study was conducted in the hotel-restaurant and construction sectors in Sweden with the participation of blue-collar unionists with diverse backgrounds and experiences. The results show that precarious work is associated with labour market segmentation, subcontracting and fragmentation of economic organisations, deskilling of work, loss of autonomy and sometimes over-qualification of workers. Perceived difficulties for unionisation are fear, lack of knowledge of precarious workers about their rights, membership cost, status frustration and lack of interactions with other workers. Reported practices for unionising precarious workers consist of dealing with these barriers in order to build trustful relations and empowering workers through education and inclusion in leadership positions. Actions taken to protect and secure precarious workers are strongly interlinked with their unionisation and seem to rest mainly on negotiations. The main conclusions of the study are that precarious work means a loss of control by workers over their work life stemming from labour commodification and flexibilisation due to increased management control and lack of rights and protections surrounding work. The formation of solidarities needed for unionisation is hindered by the detachment of precarious workers from the work community and by inequality regimes. The domination of fear manifests the prevalence of emotions. Therefore, the care and emotional work of unionists is essential for making workers feel confidence. Unions practices tend to lean also, to some extent, towards organising and community building models. Thereby, union agency appears to be able to engage in an interplay with structures to exert some influence on employment and industrial relations.

Creating a community of learners with and among students in a collaborativeclassroom environment provides the keystone for developing the skills necessary forsuccess in the 21st century. Some preservice teachers envision that community building can enhance the learning experience for them and their students and want to learn and employ the necessary strategies. This study examined whether such a desirous group of novice teachers could identify the key factors they believed comprise community building and could successfully establish a community of learners during their first full year of teaching, supported by participation in a collaborative inquiry group. Four novice teachers met monthly throughout their first year for two-hoursessions during which they discussed and examined various aspects involved inestablishing their classroom communities. They created and shared artifacts designed to promote a caring, respectful relationship between them and their students as well as among the students themselves. These novice teachers discussed the challenges inherent in helping students with differing sociocultural, language, and behavioral needs bond with one another. They also supported each other in dealing with the myriad of necessities and constraints involved in implementing a start-up classroom. During the final session, group members synthesized what they believed constituted the essence of community building. They also elaborated regarding the areas of success they had achieved during their initial year of teaching. Finally, the members identified that participation in a collaborative inquiry group had supported their first-year experience. The group judged their overall experience as productive and successful. The researcher’s perspective was somewhat different from the other groupmembers. Difficulties identified in the process were using collaborative inquiry as themethod to gather data for a dissertation while endeavoring to act as an equal groupmember, requiring in-depth analysis of novice teachers who had not previouslyparticipated in action research and were still in the early stages of developing theirpractice as well as the tendency of novice teachers who had experienced the samepreservice program to employ groupthink rather than to challenge one another’sstatements. Further research should study collaborative inquiry as a method employed throughout preservice programs.

To increase social sustainability in cities and communities, interactions between community members is a key factor. This has engaged a research project on social sustainability, connected to an emerging urban district in Sweden. This research was done in collaboration with local stakeholders being part of this research project. Qualitative methods were used, including semi-structured interviews, and thematic analysis. Design iterations has lead to a final design proposal for a public installation and technologically enhanced interaction, containing significant characteristics. The first characteristic is playful and exciting tiny-scale events happening in the everyday life that makes people in the same urban area to be aware of each other, giving opportunities for new relationships as well as enhancing their social and emotional connection to a place, what I call microevents. A second characteristic found is the loosely structured community, which entailed the focus on people of a community that has primarily the place in common, rather than a specific interest. Finally I identified the characteristic of villagescape that strives towards the village’s community in an urban environment. This concept contains a number of attributes, for example the acknowledgment of all people belonging to a specific urban place, the promotion of a welcoming, trustful and genuine feeling, and to keep thresholds low for meetings to occur between people.

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In Canada mental health related concerns are estimated to cost the economy $20-$50 billion annually. 500,000 Canadian each week have to take time off of work because of a mental health disability. This study explores the experiences of people living with a mental health disability in the workplace. The goal is to provide an opportunity to highlight many of the obstacles they face every day. This study relies on qualitative methodologies, using semi-structured interviews to get a more detailed understanding of their experiences. This study not only highlights the perceptions, experience and challenges of people living with a mental health disability, it highlights coping strategies and suggestions for building mentally health workplaces. The participant’s personal narratives can help by providing a chance for a community to build and be used to challenge the stigma and discrimination associated with mental health. / October 2016