No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This qualitative study sought to examine the experience of second-generation Middle Eastern Coptic Americans managing their multicultural identity and its impact on their relationships. Semi-structured interviews regarding how participants defined themselves, how they represented their identity to others, how they balanced the values, beliefs, and traditions came to take care of their parents, as well as its impact on their relationships, including family, friends, and significant others. The study addressed both challenges and advantages of multiculturalism. The data were analyzed using thematic analysis and themes were organized around the areas of inquiry. Participants spoke about highlighting their religious identity to avoid assumptions, the limitations of the Middle Eastern label for Copts, people's lack of understanding about the Coptic faith, the overlap between cultures. They also discussed their identity in terms of internal conflict, external conflict with parents over values and cultural distance, as well as their preferences in relationship choices. Participants addressed advantages in multiculturalism in their ability to relate to others, feeling a strong sense of community, as well as feeling uniqueness and pride in their identity. Limitations, clinical implications, and directions for future research are discussed. / Master of Science

This thesis investigates how queer women on the social networking site (SNS) TikTok are expressing their cultural identity and building community. Previous research has shown that self-expression and self-presentation are important parts of defining one's identity and building community for queer individuals, and this study analyzes details specifically within the unique platform of TikTok. Its popularity and success as an SNS that utilizes an advanced algorithm justifies its examination and highlights its multifaceted benefits, such as ease of community building and accessibility to diverse content. In a thematic analysis of 66 TikTok videos using the song "girls" by Girl in Red, and consisting of female-presenting individuals, two themes were revealed and defined: color combinations communicating identity and viral trends as queer confirmation or communication. These themes reveal two ways those in the queer community are embracing small content details to find each other and practice cultural identity expression. Study findings outline the social and technological advancements of online community building, while also illuminating how stigma symbols defined by previous studies are continually employed in the TikTok videos examined in this study. Results also support previous TikTok research suggesting that queer users are developing self-organized practices in response to algorithmic functions. / MACOM / This study examines strategies employed by queer women on TikTok to express their identity and build community with one another. The mobile app, which allows users to post short video clips accompanied by audio, often songs that are popular or coordinated with the message of the video, has become an increasingly important channel of communication for members of various communities. For gender and sexual minorities, self-expression and self-presentation are important parts of defining one's identity and building community. Inspired by the growing popularity online of the Norwegian singer-songwriter Girl in Red, this study analyzes the contents of 66 videos using her song, "girls." The study illustrates how online community building has advanced since early social media, the influence of the innovative TikTok algorithm, and provides context for a popular trend on the app. Results show that queer women recognize and utilize TikTok affordances to their advantage, such as participating in trends or liking specific content to encourage cultural identity connections via the algorithm.

The purpose of this qualitative ethnographic case study was to investigate how an adult agricultural educational program generates new learning spaces for military veterans. Utilizing Symbolic Interactionism and Cultural Capital Theories this study illustrates how military veterans use and making new meanings of military symbols in an agricultural educational context. After leaving their military service, veterans often discharge with not only the physical scars of battle, but sometimes harboring mental and emotional distress that can prevent their abilities to successfully reintegrate into a civilian setting. For several veterans, adult agricultural programs can provide a vital educational experience to help them address physical and mental challenges, launch a new career in agriculture, and form new civilian identities. Findings from this research indicate that participants of this study transformation of a civilian identity is positively impacted when familiar symbols of the military are used in the implementation of agriculture education and that these symbols then take on new meanings supporting Blumer (1969) Symbolic Interactionism Theory. Further, mutually beneficial experiences occurred between veterans and community members, allowing for the veteran to build positive connection with civilians and move up in civilian society. This supports the concept of Pierre Bourdieu (1986) Cultural Capital Theory. Further, these finding show that military veterans are employing this adult agricultural education program to transform their cultural identity and re-assign symbolic military meanings of objects and self. They connect with familiar military constructed language, behaviors, and physical symbolism to represent their identity, during and after their service. For them, it is important to be able to express their military identity to civilians and other veterans. It is also, vital for them to participate and express their military identities through symbolic military behaviors. This military symbolism is critical to their ability to socialize with others, acquire a civilian identity, and navigate social mobility. When the use of symbolism is not applied, or is not recognized by civilians, it influences their civilian identity and for some, creates transition challenges and challenges to their connection to civilian population. / Ph. D. / The United States has been engaged in a number of wars and conflicts throughout the world, including the more recent wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Military members returning from wars sometimes come home with not only the physical scars of battle, but many times harboring mental and emotional distress that inhibit their abilities to successfully reintegrate into civilian life. As such, adult agricultural education programs that serve veterans have grown in number to assist these service members as they transition back into the civilian society, face physical and mental challenges, begin a new career in agriculture, and construct new identities. This process is enticing veterans across the country to enter farming educational programs and many of those veterans are reporting transformations in their self-identity and quality of life. The purpose of this qualitative ethnographic case study was to investigate how an adult agricultural educational program generates new learning spaces for military veterans. Utilizing Symbolic Interactionism and Cultural Capital Theories, this study illustrates how military veterans use and make new meanings of military symbols in an agricultural educational context. Findings show that military veterans are employing this adult agricultural education program to transform their cultural identity and re-assign symbolic military meanings of objects and self. They connect with familiar military constructed language, behaviors, and physical symbolism to represent their identity, during and after their service. For them, it is important to be able to express their military identity to civilians and other veterans. It is also, vital for them to participate and express their military identities through symbolic military behaviors. This military symbolism is critical to their ability to socialize with others, acquire a civilian identity, and navigate social mobility. When the use of symbolism is not applied, or is not recognized by civilians, it influences their civilian identity and for some, creates transition challenges and challenges to their connection to civilian population

Certain urban public spaces seem to embody the cities in which they are found, helping to make those cities the vibrant places they are. This project explores how urban public spaces can be created to reflect the vitality of the city by embracing the culture and the people who reside in it. Through literature review and case studies, a framework is developed focusing on the areas of identity and use in the design of public spaces. Identity is looked at in terms of place attachment, spatial identity, and how surrounding uses affect the identity of a space. Use is explored in terms of designing a public space to encourage a diversity of uses at different times. Identity and use are inevitably linked: much of a space's identity depends on the uses that take place there and whether or not the space meets the needs of its users. In the same way, a space will not be used unless potential users can identify with it and feel a connection to it. A design project is carried out in an urban neighborhood based on this framework to create a space that is connected to its users and its city. / Master of Landscape Architecture

This study investigates the literature of the Creative Pedagogy of Play to examine the potential for this pedagogy to support cultural identity development of immigrant preschoolers in the Swedish context. Twelve articles were reviewed in order to characterize outcomes of the Creative Pedagogy of Play potentially relevant for this support. Identified outcomes included: recognizing and promoting children’s agency, co-creation of an imaginary world through diverse forms of expression, emotional involvement (“perezhivanie” as lived through experience), building peer relationships, valuing ambivalence, narrative teaching and narrative learning.  In this thesis, we argue that these outcomes of Creative Pedagogy of Play have the potential to create supportive conditions associated with the development of cultural identity (such as: social inclusion, respect for diversity, care, guidance and teaching offered by adults, recognizing children’s agency, and building relationships with friends and peers). The combination of these conditions creates a potential for the cultural identity formation through the Pedagogy of Play. Implications of this systematic review for early childhood education research and practice are discussed with particular focus on implications for engaging with questions of culture in preschool pedagogy.

Doctor Educationis / This study investigates how two groups of African pupils, namely the low and high performers in standard 9 mathematics classes in some high schools in Mangaung, construct meaning of their African cultural, individual African identity and performance in mathematics respectively. The observation underpinning this investigation is that social structural factors have not gained much attention in research as bases for explaining differentiated performance in mathematics, hence this study. To arrive at the findings mentioned below, the study used three quantitative instruments namely Mboya's Self-Description Inventory II (MSDI-II), Rotter's I-E scale and Tuekman's Mathematics Attitude Scale (MAS). Four hundred pupils who constituted the sample that responded to these questionnaires were controlled as to confounding variables like, gender, social class, exposure to mathematics and future aspirations relating to this subject. MSDI-II and Rotter's I-E Scale accessed data relating to signification of African individual identity while MAS and one of MSDI-Il's subscale, Maths Ability were 'triangulated' to access data relating to signification of performance in Mathematics. To triangulate findings on these two variables as well as to allow the sampled pupils' voices to be heard, discourse analysis was conducted on the open interviews with the two groups of low and high performing pupils in their respective schools. This qualitative approach also enabled the study to access information relating to signification of African Cultural Identity. No quantitative instrument was found suitable for this purpose. Although the study is careful not to make strong causal inferences between meaning construction (signification) and performance, the results show that (i) low performers are not sure about whether they are Africans or not since according to them African cultural identity implies an obsolete and primitive way of doing things. They are unable to identify with this. High performers see African Cultural Identity as involving lived experiences which challenge them to transform their despised status as Africans (ii) Low performers are not as positive as high performers about Africanness (individual identity) and (iii) they are also not positively inclined towards mathematics and their own ability to perform well therein, while high performers are very positive as they see doing well in mathematics as an act of struggle that would enable them to improve their social standing and that of other Africans. On the basis of the above the study is able to conclude that low performers construct meaning of the mentioned factors in agreement with the dominant discourses that see Africanness as being primitive, incompetent and unable to adequately comprehend the intricacies of modem day subjects like mathematics. High performers on the other hand tend to contest this negative definitions about what it means to be an African (identity, culture and performance in mathematics). They are thus positioned within counter-hegemonic ideology and discourses in as far as their meaning construction is concerned. Grounded on the above findings and conclusions, the study recommends that efforts should not be spared to enable the low performers (and/or pupils at risk of failing) to adopt positive meaning making strategies of high performers. These strategies may be accompanied by enhanced positive feelings about self and what one is capable of, which may in tum also impact positively on performance in mathematics, in particular. The research further argues that this goal may be achieved through curriculum enrichment, guidance, counselling and teaching, couched in the framework of African Renaissance. Therefore further research needs to be conducted that will elaborate clearly (i) what the implications of African Renaissance are on education, teaching, learning and mathematics curriculum in particular, (ii) what are the most effective means of transferring high performers' strategies of meaning construction to the low performers in the context of African Renaissance and (iii) how to strengthen and further sustain the positive meaning making strategies among high performers. Recommendations relating to curriculum enrichment in the context of Curriculum 2005 and Outcomes Based Counselling are also made as well as suggestions for future relevant research based on the concepts generated in this research.

In this mini-dissertation, the main aim is to investigate and to describe the representation of gender identity in the four short stories in Mmualebe (A.M. Malope). It also implies developing a critique of the representation of gender identity in the four short stories of Mmualebe; comparing traditionalism and modernity with regard to the representation of gender identity; describing possible responses of the implied readers (male and female) with regard to reception aesthetics and developmental psychology; and to supply the variants and constants regarding the representation of gender identity in the four short stories of Mmualebe. In developing a critique of the representation of gender identity, some important literary techniques are used. Through these techniques, the role of the conflict between traditionalism and modernity regarding the representation of gender identity is determined. In general, it is evident that all theories used in this study, when integrated, can help with the development of a positive gender identity. Men and women need to be made aware of gender equality and equity and at the same time not to abuse their gender rights. / Thesis (M.A. (African Languages))--Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 2003