The development of a platform for community involvement in the decisionmaking processes for municipal management in the Tshwane area. This will ultimately lead to ownership. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Architecture / unrestricted

The purpose of this paper is to document and quantify the primary reasons for the gradual erosion of southern Democratic hegemony in presidential elections during the last twenty-four years. The results confirm and reinforce the findings of the historical study, which indicates the primary reason for changing southern allegiance has been the changing philosophy of the Democratic Party in the civil rights field.

Thesis advisor: James Keenan / Thesis advisor: Daniel J. Daly / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

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This dissertation is comprised of three manuscripts that coalesce around the topics of Dewey, Disability, and Democratic Education. Each manuscript is formatted for publication and the dissertation itself is prefaced by information that explains my background and how it connects to my current research. As such, the work contained in this dissertation is a product of my experiences as a social studies teacher, special educator, and administrator. Henceforth, my work focuses on Dewey, Disability, and Democratic Education. My research interests culminate in a three-article dissertation. The first paper is entitled, "Using Dewey to Problematize the Notion of Disability in Public Education." A version of this paper is currently under review for publication. In this paper I situate Dewey's theoretical underpinnings in the conversation around special education. Previous scholars of Dewey and disability have examined the ways in which his work speaks to educational growth and educational opportunity; my work adds to this body of research. However, my work is unique in that not only do I discuss pluralistic, communicative, participatory democracy as it pertains to students with disabilities, I also examine how Deweyan democracy can take shape, specifically within the context of an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meeting. I conclude by arguing that Deweyan democracy is not only ideal, but realistic, attainable, and necessary, especially in the lives of students with disabilities. In my second paper, I use the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) dataset in a paper entitled, "Can We Meet Our Mission? Examining the Professional Development of Social Studies Teachers to Support Students with Disabilities and Emergent Bilingual Learners." A version of this paper has been accepted for publication in The Journal of Social Studies Research. In this work, I first examine the social studies scholarship looking at students with disabilities and emergent bilingual learners, as well as research about the nature of professional development within the social studies. I then analyze the number of students with disabilities and emergent bilingual learners that we support in the social studies to provide a portrait of the field. Next, I examine the extent to which social studies teachers receive professional development to support those student groups, as well as the extent to which the social studies teachers found the professional development to be useful. My findings indicate that social studies teachers do not receive substantial professional development to support the learning of all students, as evidenced by the limited amount of professional development received focusing on students with disabilities and emergent bilingual learners. In my third paper, I build on previous research examining the possibilities and benefits of participating in informal learning spaces such as Twitter in a paper entitled, "'So I Feel Like We Were Theoretical, Whereas They Actually Do It': Navigating Twitter Chats For Teacher Education." A version of this paper is also under review for publication. In this paper, specifically, I examine the experiences and perceptions of pre-service social studies teachers who particip¬¬¬¬ated in a discipline specific Twitter chat known as #sschat. My findings indicate that pre-service teachers found value in the chat when they were able to share resources with practicing teachers and build professional learning networks. However, there were instances when the pre-service teachers felt like they contributed little because they did not have direct experience with teaching. Additionally, the pre-service teachers expressed dissatisfaction with using Twitter as a platform for professional chats. However, I still contend and conclude that the utility of such chats outweighs the negatives. Therefore, this study sheds light on the potentiality and necessity of utilizing Twitter chats as a space to provide ongoing and systematic support to pre-service teachers to help not only them, but the field of social studies education move forward. These papers when considered together form a foundation of scholarship and further inquiry focused on Dewey, Disability, and Democratic Education, on which I plan to build in the years to come. / Doctor of Philosophy / When I completed my undergraduate social studies teaching program, the job market appeared bleak in the coalfields of southwest Virginia. Coal, no longer king, had driven the economy for years. With its decline, my community barely managed to survive. My advisor at the time, honest and plain-spoken, told me that unless I obtained a license in special education, I would most likely not obtain a teaching job. Unlike many other areas of the country, in my hometown unless you could do other things like coach or drive a bus, a license to teach social studies was of little value. There was not much money and a new hire had to be willing to do many different jobs to prove his or her worth. Luckily, I had gotten my Commercial Driver License (CDLs) through a training program offered by the county school board, and I was consequently able to obtain a position, although not as a social studies teacher. I started my career in education as a special educator and substitute school bus driver. In this position I worked in an alternative education setting and taught vocational skills to secondary students with significant disabilities (in the institutional meaning of the word). From the start of my career, I aspired to become an administrator, so I enrolled in and completed a degree in Administration and Supervision. As I was working on that degree, I moved to the general education high school level, where I held a position teaching social studies and special education in an inclusive setting. Shortly thereafter, I obtained a job as an assistant principal. The part I enjoyed most about this position was working with and thinking about how to help teachers become better at their craft. At this point is when I decided to pursue a PhD in social studies education, so I could develop my interest into a body of research and eventually a career. Two years into my PhD program I was still grappling with who I was as a scholar. As I familiarized myself with social studies scholarship, I discovered that in my first position as an alternative education special educator, I was essentially preparing my students for the responsibilities of citizenship, which is the mission of the field of social studies (NCSS, 2013). Nevertheless, it was not until I started reading the work of John Dewey that I truly realized the complexity of what I experienced when I taught in the alternative education setting. That position allowed me to examine an element that I otherwise, would not have had the privilege to see; the complexity and intellect required for physical labor (Rose, 2004) and the inter-workings of true, vibrant, Deweyan democracy. Dewey’s work sparked a new interest in me and I started developing a deep-seated curiosity about how his theoretical underpinnings related to disability and democratic education. My interest in disability then caused me to ask other questions about social studies in relation to special education, which made me reflect on my prior experiences as a social studies educator. Although I had a license in special education, there were many instances in which I felt unprepared and unsupported in addressing the needs of all students in my classes which included general education students, students with disabilities (SWDs), and emergent bilingual learners (EBLs). I began to wonder if my feelings of unpreparedness and lack of support were in isolation. As I parsed the literature, I found that there was not a significant amount of research focused specifically on the extent to which social studies teachers felt they were prepared and supported to address the needs of all learners in their classroom. Additionally, my experience in both public education and teacher education gave me insight to realize that school systems do not have funding to provide specialized professional development and similarly, teacher education is under financial constraints as well. Therefore, I began examining what informal spaces such as Twitter offer educators in terms of professional support and development. My interests and curiosity fueled my scholarly work and eventually culminated into three distinct, but interconnected manuscripts. The three manuscripts that follow coalesce around my interests in Dewey, Disability, and Democratic Education.

The scholarly debate on Venezuela's democratic character has become tremendously polarized since the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998. This starkly divided debate has demonstrable impact on the policy realm, as well as the scholarly literature on democratic theory. This debate has run along ideological lines and has focused on differing conceptualizations of normative democracy, namely representative and participatory avenues of democratic engagement. Beyond providing an impactful analysis of this academic debate, this thesis works to supply an Arendtian defense of participation as a potential lense to assess Venezuela's democratic character. I will effectively argue that scholars should return to traditional conceptualizations of democratic theory, such as Arendt's, in order to provide richer and more substantial empirical assessments of democratic performance in light of the multitude of recent experimentations in democratic praxis that has swept the world. This project is relevant to both the scholarly community, as well as the policy realm. / Master of Arts

The purpose of this thesis is to inquire into the hard decisions that democracies are making in the 21st century in the context of working to spreading democracy and maintaining peace through foreign policy. Ever since the American-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 terror attacks, democratic peace theorists have been pushed further to the sidelines as their theory has been put to the test and struggled to stand up to the challenges of political realities in contemporary world politics. The idea that the diffusion of democracy would help build a Kantian world peace would seem to have taken a severe blow with the rise of populist candidates and policies in the West in recent years. The democratic peace theory (DPT) is in crucial respects about the mechanisms to indirectly control other countries' economies and politics through forcibly installing democratic regimes. Though done in the name of safety and security for western nations, this foreign policy looks an awful lot like an attempt at biopolitical engineering. Has DPT morphed into a form of biopolitics? The goal of this thesis is to delve into this question and to learn what the implications are if this is the case, and what it means for the West, democracies, terrorism, and societies. For if democracies are less and less able to justify their role in driving the proper conditions for peace, we must scrutinize the role they play in international affairs in a much broader political perspective. / Master of Arts

No / Many current threats to security arising from terrorism, 'rogue' states and civil wars are highly complex and often transnational in nature and effect. Such threats can no longer be meaningfully addressed at the national level alone but require an international response. Since the end of the Cold War, the use of force under international auspices (UN, NATO, EU) has increased substantially. However, such actions have not necessarily been accompanied by improvements in their democratic accountability. Pre-existing problems and inadequacies of parliamentary oversight of armed forces and use of force at the national level of many democratic states are mirrored, and even magnified, at the international level. The effect of imperfect democratic controls at the national level and the challenges to provide transparent and accountable multilateral responses results in the so-called `double democratic deficit¿ of the international use of force. Each chapter in this innovative work analyses the challenges of parliamentary and democratic supervision of international security structures and puts forward proposals on how to improve democratic accountability of multinational responses to complex security challenges.