<p>The social organization of Carrier bands is found to have been functionally dependent on a network of relations with coastal groups and other interior bands, including Carrier. This network involved kinship ties, economic exchanges between affines, coastal and interior trade, and participation in common ceremonial activities. The social organization of each Carrier band depended on the total set of participant communities within a ceremonial and social network specific to each band. By means of published sources and unpublished manuscripts the approximate extent and chronology of introduction of coastal features is traced and the arrangement of social units described. Ecological and historical factors in the formation of Carrier social organization are described. Due to differential contact with coastal groups, there is a west to east decrease among the northern Carrier bands in the incorporation and importance of matriliny as a structuring mechanism. Among the southern bands, a bilateral form of social organization was prevalent. Historical documents and jourrials provided a base line for tracing the development and incorporation of coastal features in the interior, the whole process a function of the increased importance of the fur trade, commencing in the late eighteenth century, and shifts in population centres and density.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

<p>Outward Bound wilderness school uses experiential, adventure-based learning strategies to facilitate personal transformation for its students. While this process has been well-researched from an individualistic, psychology-based perspective, the possible influence of cultural factors has not yet been well-addressed. This ethnography explores the cultural dimensions of transformation at Outward Bound, using a constructivist, narrative-based approach, as well as employing theoretical notions such as: rites of passage, communitas, experiential education, generative education, and 'border intellectual' in the interpretation of the narratives. Selfnarratives were co-constructed with twenty Outward Bound students at three points: before, at the end of, and three months after their courses. The research confirms that transformational learning was accomplished by 18/20 participants, in at least one of eight general areas that emerged from their narratives. A further eight cultural factors were identified which contributed to students' willingness and ability to undertake personal transformation in that environment: a culture of support for success and failure, intrinsic adventure, acceptance of diversity, open communication with others, improved communication with self, a culture of possibility, simplicity, and patience. Alternatives to the rites of passage model for post-industrial society are discussed. The overall learning is that it is possible to improve the likelihood of generating transformational learning, through managing the cultural factors indicated, in the learning environment.</p> / Master of Arts (MA)

Researchers have placed the number of expatriates in the world at between forty and sixty million people in the years 2010 through 2013 (Finaccord, 2014; Firth, Chen, Kirkman and Kim, 2014). One segment of the ever-expanding expatriate population is that of international school leaders who guide learning for a culturally diverse community of expatriates around the world. The International School Consultancy Group (2014) estimated that there were upwards of 3.5 million students being educated in over 7,000 international schools. As the number of expatriates and expatriate families with school-age children increases, this challenge of leading education for a diverse international school community also increases. This ethnographic case study analyzed transition stories from international school leaders at one international school and addressed the following questions: ● How do international school leaders make their own journey to cultural awareness? ● How do international school leaders make sense of and identify the culture of their schools? ● How do international school leaders recognize beliefs and practices in their schools? Thematic analysis based on Boyatzis's (1998) Prior Research Driven Approach was used to analyze data. The findings are shared through a two-article manuscript style dissertation. The research produced findings that indicate that while local and expatriate international school leaders recognize international school culture as unique and follow similar patterns of reactions in their transitions, they do not perceive school culture through the same lens nor do they experience the same support in their cultural transitions. / Ph. D. / Researchers have placed the number of expatriates in the world at between forty and sixty million people in the years 2010 through 2013 (Finaccord, 2014; Firth, Chen, Kirkman & Kim, 2014). One segment of the ever-expanding expatriate population is that of international school leaders who guide learning for a culturally diverse community of expatriates around the world. The International School Consultancy Group (2014) estimated that there were upwards of 3.5 million students being educated in over 7,000 international schools. As the number of expatriates and expatriate families with school-age children increases, this challenge of leading education for a diverse international school community also increases. This study analyzed transition stories from international school leaders at one international school and addressed the following questions: ● How do international school leaders make their own journey to cultural awareness? ● How do international school leaders make sense of and identify the culture of their schools? ● How do international school leaders recognize beliefs and practices in their schools? The findings of this research study are presented through two articles. The research produced findings that indicate that while local and expatriate international school leaders recognize international school culture as unique and follow similar patterns of reactions in their transitions, they do not perceive school culture through the same lens nor do they experience the same support in their cultural transitions. These findings can be used to guide international leaders through future transitions and help international school plan transition support for new leaders.

In the counseling profession, clinical supervision is utilized to facilitate the personal and professional development of counselors in training (Bernard and Goodyear, 2014). Within this supervisory relationship, supervisors must adhere to the 2015 ACA Code of Ethics, which describes the need for infusing cultural competence into both counseling and supervision practices. This emphasis is warranted; as the population of the United States is growing more diverse and cultural sensitivity in counseling will be needed in order to best serve clients. Both qualitative and quantitative research in various allied fields and settings suggest that supervisor cultural competence positively impacts the supervision working alliance (i.e., Ladany, Brittan-Powell and Pannu, 1997; Ancis and Marshall, 2010; Wong, Wong and Ishiyama, 2013). However, research conducted from the perspective of supervisors working in community settings is limited. This study sampled 78 community supervisors to address the dearth in the counselor education literature concerning the relationships between supervisor cultural competence and the working alliance. Results indicated an overall positively correlated relationship between supervisor multicultural competence and the working alliance. Additionally, the results suggested that supervisor cultural knowledge and supervisor cultural skills are the greatest predictors of a strong working alliance, while supervisor multicultural relationship and supervisor multicultural awareness accounted for some additional variance. The results support the trend away from a competency-based model of cultural sensitivity and attention in counseling and toward a model of cultural humility. / Ph. D.

As a political disturbance and social movement, the Cultural Revolution hugely impacted the development of Chinese piano art. The piano went through many stages throughout this ten-year period. This dissertation examines the suppression and later expansion of piano music in China during the Cultural Revolution, along with the historical motivations and forces that shaped each stage of its development. The study is supported by historical documents and relevant literature. This dissertation includes an analysis of the roles that piano music played during this era and the piano's relationship with the Cultural Revolution's modernizing goals. The analysis focuses on the musical characteristics of three piano pieces from this period and explores the instrument's historical importance, to better understand how Chinese piano music maintained a careful balance between its value as a tool for socio-political propaganda and its transformation under the burden of political pressure and creative limitations. Additionally, this dissertation examines playing techniques in these works that define a distinctly Chinese piano style that is enormously popular today. To complement the dissertation, these piano pieces were performed during the dissertation recital.

The purpose of this research is to examine the ways in which mentoring affects black graduate students' completion of programs of study. Performance is measured by completion of their graduate program, length of time taken to complete the program, grade point average (GPA), and overall attitude about their graduate school experience. On average, over half of all black graduate students leave their programs of study before completion compared to 25% attrition (non-completion of program of study) of white students. A review of the literature suggests that any form of mentoring improves completion rates among black graduate students. Existing research further suggests that when paired with like mentors, such as same race or gender, black graduate students complete their programs at even higher rates. The existing research is, however, limited due to the age of the research and factors such as attrition by discipline. Updated research is needed to determine why, despite being admitted to graduate programs of study at the highest rates in United States history, black students are leaving without graduate degrees more than any other race. Vincent Tinto's theory of social adjustment states that students who are not socially adjusted are less likely to persist (complete their program of study). Because black students are attending Predominately White Institutions (PWFs) at the highest rates since Reconstruction, this research will examine ways in which black graduate students become socially adjusted and how it affects their persistence. The anticipated results of the study are that black graduate students who had mentors completed their programs more often than those who did not have mentors. Additionally, those who had mentors of the same race, gender, or socio-economic backgrounds may report even higher percentages of completion. In contrast, those who did not have mentors may report lower percentages of completion.

<p> By now scholars, practitioners, government officials and others in the global community have witnessed a number of countries and their populations going through extreme destruction and trying to rebuild in the aftermath. Country case studies are invaluable for their in-depth, continuous look at how a nation-state collective and the individuals who make up that collective recover, regroup, develop, but also remain very harmed for a long time. They must live among and beside their former enemies.</p><p> Studies of the resettlement of refugees in a third country offer a different view: there are varied populations arriving with different socio-cultural and economic histories and experiences, and different definitions of a normalcy to which they aspire. They are in a setting that is much different than what characterized their pre-war experiences, and they do not have to rebuild out of ashes in the place that they were born.</p><p> Refugees from various countries resettling in a third country have so much in common with each other from the experience of extreme violence and having to resettle in a foreign land that one key informant suggested that we think about a &ldquo;refugee ethnicity.&rdquo; Though they would not have wished for them, they have gained numerous new identification possibilities not available to those in the country of origin: U.S. citizen, hybrid, diaspora, cosmopolitan global citizen; refugee/former refugee survivors.</p><p> But the &ldquo;fit&rdquo; of these identities vary, because the receiving society may perceive individuals and families along a continuum of belonging vs. &ldquo;othering.&rdquo; In the post-9-11 era in the U.S., the &ldquo;belonging&rdquo; as a citizen and member of the imagined community of the nation that a refugee or former refugee is able to achieve may be precarious. Will refugees resettling turn out to be vectors of socio-political disease, infecting the new host? Or will they be vectors of development and agents of host revitalization as they realize adversity-activated development in a new environment?</p><p> The U.S. &ldquo;host environment&rdquo; has changed considerably since the modern era of resettlement began in the 1970s and then passed through the dramatic incidents of 9-11. The &ldquo;hosts&rdquo; have now also undergone an experience of extreme political violence. U.S. institutions are responding to the events and subsequent wars, and have themselves been changed as they adjust practices and policies in response to the trauma experienced by the people they are meant to serve.</p><p> Much is in play. The times beg for a better understanding of refugees&rsquo; social experiences of resettlement in a new country, the forms of suffering and marginalization they face, and the healing processes in which they engage. We need a far better understanding of what it takes to assist refugees as they work to re-constitute social networks, recover economically, find opportunity and meaning, pursue goals, and&mdash;with receiving communities--express solidarity across social dividing lines.</p><p> This dissertation calls out this problematic; and analyzes it at the multi-stakeholder site of refugee resettlement.</p>

Published Article / Freedom of religion is a constitutional right of every employee. It is the duty of the employer to respect and honour this freedom of religion of the employee. The question arises what the employer must do if there is conflict between the right to religion and the interests of the business. The current approach in the South African law is that the courts are of the opinion that employers are not very sensitive regarding the aspects of religion. Case law also favours the employee in case of judgements regarding the absence at the workplace due to religious reasons. The proposal is made that each case be investigated on its own merits. The approach should still be sensitive, but not so much that the legislation is boycotted. It is also recommended that no specific religion should get preference and that religion and science should work together. All religions must be given the same treatment, but the legislation should still be the determining factor.

The Nigerian city of Jos used to be seen as a peaceful place, but in 2001 it was struck by clashes that arose from what was largely understood as issues of ethnic and religious belonging. The event, which would become known as ‘the crisis’, was experienced as a rupture and a loss of what the city had once been, and as the starting point of a spiral of violence that has continued up to today. With the crisis, Jos changed. Former friends became enemies, and places that had been felt to be safe no longer were so. Previous truths were thrown into confusion, and Jos’s inhabitants found themselves more and more having to manoeuvre in an unstable world coloured by fear and anger. Life in Jos became increasingly hard to predict, and people searched for different ways forward, constantly trying out new interpretations of the world. This book, which is inspired by pragmatism, analyses the processes that were shaping the emergent city of Jos and its inhabitants in the aftermath of the crisis. At its core are some of Jos’s practitioners of traditional medicine. As healers, diviners, and providers of spells to protect from enemies or solve conflicts, they had special skills to influence futures that were becoming more and more unpredictable. Still, the medical practitioners were as vulnerable to the changing circumstances as everyone else. Their everyday lives and struggles to find their footing and ways forward under the changing circumstances are used as a point of departure to explore larger wholes: life during times characterised by feelings of uncertainty, fragmentation, fear, and conflict – in Jos as a city and Nigeria as a nation.

This thesis explores the Malay songket motifs in relation to Malaysia's cultural identity and the transformations of these motifs within the context of the researcher's own art works. An examination of Malaysian government's fixed National Culture policy on identity is contrasted with the reality of identity as dynamic. The identity policy was created and asserted on a multi-racial population based on concept of MalaylBumiputera with no recognition of the 'Other', the nonBumiputera culture. Divisions among the populace were created by the privileges of political, economic and social adjustments given only to the Bumiputera. The lack of addressing the concerns of recognition and acknowledgement of the 'Other' and existence of 'difference' and stereotyping becomes the main interest of this research. In this thesis, the Malay songket motifs were used as a vehicle to demonstrate the Malay's strong association with traditional customs and rituals, a culture that became the focus of the National Culture policy. The motifs symbolises the dominance of the Malays clinging on to power to control the nation, echOing the height of the Malacca Malay Sultanate Empire eight centuries ago. The sense of growth, unity and human spirituality associated with animism was expressed in the songket motifs. However, evidence of the motifs assimilation with Hindu-Buddhist and Islamic influences proved that there is no Malay 'purity' in this art form. The researcher's practice transforms the flat images of the songket motifs into installative art works. Foods, light, shadow, images and sound become the media which express the research findings drawn from documentary, visual and oral sources concerning the songket motifs. His practice differs from the normal practice of Malaysian artists, who literally translate Malay culture into art work. The researcher's practice employs specific references to Malaysian sources free from didactic, cultural-political content. Above all, as a Malaysian working in the UK, the researcher not only engages his theoretical findings to inform his practice, he becomes part of the research. He is both a Malaysian artist himself and a contributor to that part of Malay culture that is examined in this thesis. He contributes to the compilation of the songket motifs information into CD-ROM.