This dissertation examines the educational journey of a Chicano educator; from his early experiences with colonization while growing up in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas to his role as a lecturer in a First Year Experience course at a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) along the U.S. - Mexico border. Ultimately asking the question, "what is his role as a Chicano educator?" and can the once colonized decolonize his own classroom? / text

Deaf-Latina/Latino Critical (Deaf-LatCrit) Theory in Education is a new theoretical proposition for this qualitative study. Deaf-LatCrit recognizes and validates Deaf-Lat epistemology and challenges the topic of racism and linguicism in educational research. This study explores the multiple identities and experiences of five Deaf-Latina/o (Deaf-Lat) high school students. Deaf-Lat students reside at a residential school for the Deaf, "Rainy State School for the Deaf" (RSSD), during the week and go home for the weekend, traversing from the margin to the center of educational scholarship and discourses. The intention of this research is to explore the singular Deaf identity discourse and its inter-group diversity in the field of Deaf Studies, particularly in education. This study examines the main question: What are the intersectional identities and experiences of high school Deaf-Lat students enrolled in a residential school for the Deaf? The methods include demographic questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, participant observations, and cultural documents/artifacts. Using Deaf-LatCrit ethnographic techniques, the researcher worked with Deaf-Lat students and their families for over one year at each Deaf-Lat student's home and RSSD. This study emerges with two themes: cultural-emotional ties and microaggressions. First, it discusses how Deaf-Lat students' cultural-emotional ties in certain spaces make reference to their multiple intersecting identities. The second theme discusses how Deaf-Lat students experience multiple microaggressions and how their agentic behaviors help them cope. The findings suggest the need to look beyond Deaf identity by embracing the multiple intersectional race, class, gender and sexual orientation identities of Deaf-Lat students, particularly in schools. Understanding the experiences and overlapping identities of Deaf-Lat students can promote that residential school administrators and classroom teachers explore into their privilege(s) and learn about the history of institutional and individual racism and linguicism. These findings can push for the creation of safe spaces for Deaf-Lat students in the field of education and other multiple disciplines. / text

Theodor W. Adorno, the towering twentieth century German intellectual figure and distinctive musical thinker, was legendary for being over-critical of jazz music. Through a consideration at his admiration for avant-garde chamber and symphonic music, I plan to develop a position that, surprisingly, points towards a theory of unacknowledged acceptance of jazz. The style of jazz that will be the newly constructed musical idiom of admiration for Adorno will be of the heterodox variety. My method of reconstruction will be to interrogate the inconsistencies in Adorno's critical musical writings, and negate such negations with factual evidence of affirmation found in the avant-garde jazz community. This Hegelian approach to musical scholarship has not been as common in the field's published literature as it should be. A linear motive that will be initiated by this treatise's unfolding will be to restore the integrity to jazz culture which Adorno ravished in the realm of critical theory from the 1930's through the middle part of the twentieth century. Adorno's two primary interests will undergo a type synthesis in this study that will render justice to both music and philosophy. Early in the study, Adorno's youth experiences with Simmel and Kracauer (as well as his later apprenticeship with Walter Benjamin) will be discussed and an effort will be made to determine how such studies altered Adorno's aesthetic values. I am particularly interested in mapping the development of the theory of aura from Benjamin to Adorno, and how auratic art differs from aura-exuding music. Next, an avant-garde jazz composer will be looked at. This will be done to enforce the point that the next generation of jazz musicians who Adorno disliked so much had firmly committed aesthetic values of their own. The modern social philosophical thought that informed these values, which include Kant's Third Critique up to Anthony Giddens' concept of a double hermeneutic, intersect with Adorno's intellectual background. Thus the scholarly aesthetic distance between the 'new jazz' musician and Adorno, I will show not really that wide.

This thesis examines the extent to which the 1960s process art strand of post-Minimalism can provide an analytical template for critical writing around contemporary ceramic art. A dearth of critical writing is an acknowledged problem in all types of ceramics practice and some of the reasons for this situation will be explored. In the past decade frequent calls have been made by artists, critics, academics, and curators for a body of critical writing to underpin contemporary work and connect with wider cultural debates. During this period, artists have begun to use the process of making the work to form part of the content. Such work has no relationship to traditional studio pottery, and critics have described it as difficult to write about and classify in normative ceramic terms. However, this area of ceramic practice shares characteristics with post-Minimalism, a movement of the 1960s that emphasised the behaviour of materials and the act of making. In The Archaeology of Knowledge the French philosopher Michel Foucault suggests that a new critical language may emerge from the appropriation of other discourses, providing new interpretations for subject areas not yet theoretically mapped out. Foucault’s notions on the formation of discourse are used as a methodological approach to investigate how process-led sculptural ceramics may be articulated by an understanding of post-Minimalist critical writings. A substantial body of critical writing developed around post-Minimalist process art, providing a context for radical new approaches which broke with modernist traditions and which expanded and changed traditional definitions of sculpture. Key post-Minimalist texts are investigated as an analytical template for a new critical discourse for process-led ceramic art. A study of the sculptural ceramics of Richard Deacon and Kosho is undertaken as a means of identifying process-led tendencies and the possibility of a re-conceptualisation from a post-minimalist perspective. An analysis of the role of process within my own practice is used to provide visual evidence of contemporary ceramic work that can be re-conceptualised from a post-Minimalist perspective. After twenty years of stagnant debate in the ceramics field, this research might provide a new critical context for process-led ceramic art. The project shows a way that artists may be empowered to develop a critical literacy in a field that has traditionally lacked a research based approach. It is hoped that it may well encourage other ceramics practitioners to explore new ways of presenting an academic critique of their own area of practice. The contribution to knowledge identifies a new critical context and approach to writing for the process-led area of ceramics practice that is currently described as being difficult to write about, as having no appropriate critical language of its own, and of being difficult to categorise in standard ceramic terms.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender (LGBT) college students have a history of suffering from discriminatory, marginalizing, and prejudicial attitudes and practices on American college and university campuses. Implementing a critical qualitative methodology, this study examined the lived experiences of 9 out gay and bisexual male college students at an urban research university located in the southeastern United States. The study focused on three research questions: 1) What is the college experience like for an individual who identifies as an out gay or male bisexual student? 2) What does safety mean to an individual who identifies as an out gay or male bisexual student? 3) How does an individual navigate staying safe as an out gay or male bisexual student? The study found: 1) The presence of LGTB’ness is integral to the LGBT student experience. 2) Being involved and feeling connected to campus serves as a pivotal component of the LGBT student experience. 3) Navigating masculinity is complicated given traditional gender roles. 4) Classroom climate is a major factor for the success and safety of LGBT students. Reviewing the results of this study college faculty, staff, and administrators can begin to understand the unique experiences of LGBT college students; and through this meaning making process, higher education officials can learn what is needed to improve the college experience for this historically marginalized minority. This study informed what colleges and universities can do to better meet the needs of LGBT college students and ensure they have a welcoming and safe college environment.

The institution of schooling is one of the most formative spaces in which young people learn about gender norms and expectations. Rather than being a biological given, gender identity is achieved through gender practices and gender achievements (Butler, 1990/1999; Nayak & Kehily, 2008). This study was a year-long ethnography during which I observed an all girls’ after-school club. The club included 15 girls who were in sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. The majority of the club’s participants were African American girls. This ethnography utilized participant observation and interviews. Club documents were also analyzed during data analysis. My primary research question was: How was girlness conceptualized, perpetuated, and performed in an after-school club for middle school girls? Using critical theory and feminist poststructuralism, I investigated the work that goes into creating and maintaining current binary gender formations, and how this is related to race, class, and sexuality.

This study explores with theoretical and practical challenges surrounding the roles of civil society organizations (CSOs) and participatory approaches in development and democratization processes in contemporary Africa. Through a grounded, contextualized analysis of a coalition of Zambian CSOs, the Oasis Forum, and its (dis)engagement with the ongoing constitution-making process, this thesis interrogates the possibilities and limitations of various conceptions of „popular participation? in efforts to open up potentially transformative spaces for citizen engagement. The case of the Oasis Forum complicates, enriches and challenges both liberal and critical narratives of civil society, and demonstrates that even within superficially liberal language and objectives, there can be efforts to advance, and articulate with, more far-reaching possibilities for social change. Though the constraints of neoliberal globalization fundamentally constrain the scope of Zambian economic and political self-determination, this work reveals the under-acknowledged radical potential of liberal conceptual and policy tools to challenge this hegemonic order. More grounded, nuanced theoretical approaches are required to address the mutually constitutive nature of hegemonic structures and the agential subjects struggling within and against them.

This thesis provides two interwoven sets of detailed descriptions with narrative lines. The first relates to five case studies involving secondary school teachers in schools in and around Durban during 1993 and 1994. This account focuses on the relationships between the teachers' thinking about knowledge and learning and their classroom practice. The second account describes the processes and difficulties involved in qualitative research incorporating case study and participant observation methodologies - from gaining access to schools and developing a task to access teachers' thinking about knowledge to acquiring skills for observation, writing lesson descriptions, conducting interviews and completing different levels of analysis. In essence, this account traces the development of the researcher during the course of this project and also highlights both the strengths and the weaknesses of qualitative research as a mode of social inquiry. Analysis of theory/practice relationships in each of these descriptions is centred around issues of power and identity, the data collected during the course of the fieldwork being used to develop grounded theory. The work of George H. Mead, Michel Foucault and Thomas Popkewitz provide the basis for the concept of power identity. The relational and shifting nature of power and its role in identity and theory/practice relationships - both in the work of the five teachers work and in qualitative research - is explored. In the former, seven interrelated components of power are identified and the ways in which these strengthen and limit teachers' power identities are described. In the latter, the connections between epistemology and research methodology and the similarities between qualitative research and local criticism are highlighted together with the critical roles played by contradiction, language and reflexivity. Finally, the insights gained about theory/practice relationships and power identity are extended to provide possibilities for conceptualising rationality and teacher education. The thesis is structured so as to capture both the contradictory elements and the shifts and developments that occurred during the study - those in the work of the participating teachers during the period of collaboration and those related to my personal epistemology and my practice as a qualitative researcher. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, 1997.

The central argument of this thesis is that, contrary to what is generally believed, Critical Theory (CT) – as understood by the Frankfurt School (FS) – did exist and was developed in Spain influenced by and parallel to the FS’s own research during the second half of the twentieth century. Thus, the aim of this research is to provide evidence of and explore the CT developed by three leading Spanish thinkers: José Luis López Aranguren, Jesús Aguirre, and María Zambrano. This will be done from the perspective of two pivotal currents of thought emerging from Germany: neo-Marxism and Heideggerian thought. To this end, I will carry out an interdisciplinary comparative study analysing what aspects of the thought of these Spanish thinkers converge with the thought of the FS, and which differ from them. Attention will also be paid to the socio-political atmosphere they were immersed in, so as to find out how it may have contributed to shape their thought. This research is firmly rooted in the context and methodology of the history of ideas. Consequently, biography and intentionality play key role in the reconstruction and analysis of these three authors’s thought. As a result of this methodological choice, the thesis has been divided into two parts which are quite distinct in focus and style. The first part, more theoretical and historical in nature, comprises two chapters. Chapter One provides a brief introduction to the main argument of the thesis as well as to the authors that it focuses on. It also introduces the reader to what CT is and in the context of the FS. In addition, this chapter provides some background into the history of ideas and discusses in depth the methodology adopted throughout the thesis as well as the theory which supports it. Chapter Two constitutes a short introduction to twentieth-century Spain. It provides some initial background on Aranguren, Zambrano, and Aguirre and their political positions. It also provides a contextualization of the socio-historical period that they lived in. The second part of the thesis comprises a total of four chapters: a chapter for each individual author and the conclusion. This second part is more critical and focuses more closely on each one of the three authors which are the object of this thesis, so that their work and development can be studied acknowledging the singularity of their approach. It is for this reason that, the conclusion will underline the cohesiveness of their work and their achievements in relation to each other, as well as highlighting the key concepts explored throughout the thesis. Chapter Three explores Aranguren’s relationship to neo-Marxism and, more specifically, to Marcuse. Moreover, the fact that Aranguren explicitly takes up and develops some of the key topics first identified by the FS, which are central to the critique of instrumental reason, is brought to light, specifically, Aranguren’s criticism of consumerism and his denunciation of the manipulation citizens are subjected to from the mass media and the State. The implications of this critique and Aranguren’s defence of the role of faith and of democratic values are discussed at length. Chapter Four discusses the political nature of Zambrano’s thought. Because of the idiosyncrasies of her expression, the highly symbolic nature of her language, as well as its abstraction and dispersion, the analysis of her work requires a process of reconstruction. This is carried out in the light of Heideggerian thought, which proves to be an influential factor in her development. Finally, the value of poetic reason as a practical alternative to instrumental reason is considered, so that the significance and implications of poetic reason and of her political project can be re-evaluated. Chapter Five focuses on Aguirre, who, despite being a very well-known public figure, has not been the object of any previous scholarly work. This chapter evaluates the role and influence of the different positions that this charismatic intellectual held throughout his life, paying particular attention to his role as the introducer of the FS in Spain. Even more importantly, this chapter specifically aims to clarify his controversial relationship to CT. The sixth and final chapter focuses on pivotal aspects of CT, as argued throughout the these two volumes (the role of biography, fragmentation, exile, art, the subject, psychoanalysis, and spirituality) and it argues that all these elements are present in some form in the work of these three authors. Thus, it examines, by way of conclusion, the aspects of the approaches adopted by Aranguren, Zambrano, and Aguirre which account for their work to be considered CT. Furthermore, I argue that by introducing the elements of spirituality, faith, and the role of choice, transcendentality becomes a key aspect of their alternative to instrumental reason. As a result, not only do they establish the singularity of their approach, but they also by-pass the limitations associated with the FS.

What does emancipation mean today? In political theory, the idea of emancipation has typically been understood as a process of rationalization involving the promotion of human rights or the historical overcoming of capitalism. However, in contemporary social criticism the earlier antagonism between liberalism and Marxism has largely been replaced by the conflict between Enlightenment thinking and Enlightenment critique. The tension between Enlightenment philosophy and Enlightenment skepticism can be taken as emblematic of the two main tendencies within contemporary critical thought. However, a similar ambivalence can be found in the classical critical theory of the so-called Frankfurt School. Given that we have to distinguish between two types of critical theoretical thought, is it even possible to answer the question about emancipation in an unambiguous way? The overall aim of this study is to examine the meaning of emancipation in contemporary critical thought. More specifically, the principal aim is to demonstrate that Jürgen Habermas’s critical theory can be understood as an attempt to overcome the opposition between the early and the late Frankfurt School in order subsequently to evaluate this attempt and thereby judge whether Habermas’s approach can serve as a key for combining the concepts of emancipation corresponding to these two types of critique. My main objection to Habermas’s reformulation of critical theory is that it is characterized by a lack of emancipatory potential and a lack of critical force. In trying to pave the way for an alternative approach, my strategy for accommodating the tensions between the two models of critical theory is to show that emancipation can be viewed as a process involving three disparate yet interconnected stages: an initial break in the continuity of history; a collective political struggle in order to realize the utopian vision thereby opened up; and, a possible understanding among the participants in a discourse.