AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF Aubrey A. Huber, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Speech Communication, presented on March 29, 2013 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: HELP AS COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE: A CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY OF A TEACHER EDUCATION CLASSROOM MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Nathan P. Stucky As a scholar studying critical communication pedagogy, I am interested in the ways help is produced in communication by future educators. I take Stewart's (1995) claim seriously that words are not merely representational, but instead produce reality. Working from this paradigm, I examined help-producing communication and its implications to theorize help and generate strategies to improve help practices, specifically between teachers and students. To collect data for this project I conducted an ethnography of the teacher education course, "Schooling in a Diverse Society," EDUC311. I was interested in future teacher discourse because teaching often is articulated as a helping profession. For example, a common argument from my research was that to teach is to help students learn content, skills, and particular worldviews. Schein (2009) argues that help is a process that cannot be easily explained. He asserts, "Helping is a common yet complex process. It is an attitude, a set of behaviors, a skill and an essential component of social life" (p. 144). However, very little work has been done to theorize or analyze the implications of help, particularly in terms of communication and educational contexts. In this dissertation, I examined how future teachers articulate and produce help in and through communication. In my experience as a former teacher education student, I found that the help articulated in teacher education classes, that focus on democracy and social justice was remarkably different than the help articulated in everyday experience. Hunt (1998) resolves, "A focus on teaching for social justice reminds us that our children need not only a firm grounding in academics but also practice in how to use those academics to promote a democratic society in which all get to participate fully" (p. xiii). Social justice educators recognize students have the ability to enact change. They recognize inequity and actively work with their students to understand their subject positions in order to work against systems of oppression. In social justice education, help is a process "with" students instead of "help for" students. EDUC311 explores the relationship between social justice and democracy. As a required course for all teacher education students at Southern Illinois University, this course provided me with an ideal population of future educators. By studying the communication of future educators in a course that emphasizes social justice, I analyzed the ways they produced notions of help, generated a definition of social justice-oriented help, and provided strategies that current and future educators could use to better help their students.

The media industry has incorporated romantic/sexual intimacy as a hot commodity. A prime example is the mobile dating app Tinder, which has served as a site that encourages users to forge intimacy online in non-traditional ways by appealing to the sexual freedom and fun associated with youth hookup culture. Many studies on romantic/sexual intimacy have alerted us to how social hierarchies of race and gender are adroitly concealed in contemporary visual culture through democratic post-civil rights discourses. In tandem with consumer culture, the increased media visibility of young, postfeminist-generation women deflects political discussions and restructures politics within economic principles. There are two problems here.

This thesis looks to re-evaluate the East Greek intellectual view of non-Greeks in the middle to late fifth century. To do this I examine how ethnic difference is understood in the Hippocratic treatise Airs, Waters, Places (as well as the rest of the fifth-century Hippocratic corpus) and Herodotus' Histories, which together represent the new ethnographic thought of the fifth century. I will argue that neither author understood there to be any essential difference between Greeks and non-Greeks, nor represented non- Greeks as anti-Greeks, as many scholars today hold. Furthermore, I will argue that the idea of a Greek/barbarian dichotomy was to a considerable extent a construction of Athenian ideology, which stood in contrast to an East Greek cosmopolitanism that understood ethnic difference not in terms of differences in nature but of cultural variation within a common human condition. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Throughout history, the Black Diaspora has used fashion as a form of protest. The element of fashion is often overlooked when considering the history and struggle for Black equality, because it is less tangible or definable in terms of its influence and effect, but it is still important because Black males resist the dominant culture via dress by dressing in military uniforms, creating their own style, and using different colors in their dress. Studying the Black struggle in American history during specific periods is one way to better understand opposition to the majority culture through fashion. We should also consider the mood of a social system when examining the dress of a particular group during conflicts. Hence, the purpose of this study is to investigate the role of fashion as a protest tool against the majority culture, and the social mood that affects the fashion choices of Black males. The study focuses on Black fashion from 1910 to 2015. Text data were collected and analyzed from articles published in The Crisis magazine, and men's fashion was specially examined. Additionally, images were studied via visual ethnography and images were coded based on color choice, fit, and accessories. For conducting sentiment analysis, lexicons were used, and the text was examined for negative sentiment. The overall negative sentiment of the document was obtained. Graphical analyses are included to present the findings. The findings, conclusions, limitations, and future research are discussed.

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Within Odes 1-3 Horace consistently locates an idealized version of Rome in Sabinum and Italia. The former had long been a moral foil for Rome. The latter consisted of the regions of Italy that rebelled against Rome during the Social War and fought on the side of Marius in the civil wars that followed. Horace joins these two groups with the term Sabellians and places them together in moral opposition to the corruption and decadence of the late first century BC. Thus Horace elevates the formerly rebellious and still foreign Italici into Roman politics in the lofty position of virtuous outsider, a post formerly exclusive to the Sabines. This dialogue of Italian morality can be seen in Horace's geography. Almost without exception, whenever Horace locates a poem within Sabinum or Italia he does so within the context of ideal Roman values. In contrast, his geographical references to the city of Rome and the areas of Italy that sided with Rome in the Social War and Sulla thereafter are almost all in the context of luxury, excess, and general moral bankruptcy. Horace's use of Roman individuals and families divides Rome along the same lines. Odes 1.12 features a list of excellent Romans. Of the many possible and usual individuals, Horace chooses only the Sabellians. Throughout the Odes, Horace contrasts the proverbial luxury of the Etruscans with Sabellian simplicity and implicit moral superiority. His patron Maecenas is frequently the representative Etruscan for these sermons. It has long been assumed that Horace wrote about Sabinum in such laudatory language because his famous Sabine farm was a gift from Maecenas. But, Horace's praise extends beyond the Sabine hills into Italia as well. He sees himself and his fellow Italici—Horace's hometown of Venusia sided with the rebels—as virtual Sabines. Thus his true motivations are the elevation of the formerly rebellious parts of Italy to the status of ideal Romans and the subsequently easier integration of the recently enfranchised Italici into Roman politics as virtuous examples for Rome to follow.

Little is known about how nurses learn and use coping and adaptation skills in the workplace. Quantitative studies have identified the factors, nature, and outcomes of nursing stress. However, qualitative studies describing the human experience associated with workplace stress are lacking. The phenomenon of interest for this study using focused ethnographic method is the self-described experience of coping and adaptation associated with workplace stress of registered nurses working 12-hour shifts employed in acute care hospital facilities in east central and central Florida. Three aspects of the phenomena were examined: the self-described experiences of stress, the manner in which coping skills are acquired, and the manner in which adaptation strategies are developed by experienced bedside nursing working 12-hour shifts in acute care hospital facilities. The purposive sample included nine female bedside nurses with five or more years’ experience, working 12 hour shifts in acute care hospital facilities on bedside units, with patient ratios of 4:1 or greater. Data were collected using semi-structured, digitally recorded interviews at mutually convenient locations. The qualitative data were analyzed using inductive, constant, comparative process of coding, sorting, generalizing, and memoing to guide exploration and identify emergent themes and patterns. The predominant theme of stress emerged as the overwhelming sense of duty to the patient. Additional themes of coping and adaptation were noted. Recommendations for research, education, practice and policy are offered to support a healthy and sustainable nursing workforce.

This ethnography of interreligious dialogue in Rome is concerned with how interfaith encounters and social transformation are dialectically constructed and enacted. The network of Roman interfaith organizations is placed in a Durkheimian framework as a moral community with distinct rituals and sacred objects, referred to as the "interfaith society." The interfaith society described here is distinctly shaped by its location in Rome: the neighboring Vatican, engrained cultural Catholicism, and-through global migratory patterns distinct to the late 20th century-the inundation of non-Catholic religions into Italy. This research analyzed the differences that exist between elite institutional events and informal grassroots (di base) gatherings, noting the way third sector nonprofits form a "hinge" between the two. In-depth examination of the publishing cooperative and program office Confronti shows the evolution of Catholic ecumenical efforts into today's interfaith society. It also shows the value of creative dialogue as a form of interfaith engagement. This exploration is based upon interviews with 52 participants across these settings, participant-observation of interfaith practices, and interviews with 17 Romans who do not practice dialogue. Interfaith encounters and interviews with 25 dialoguers in Israel and Palestine illustrate the difference geographical and sociopolitical context can make in the practice of dialogue, and demonstrate that dialogue is framed in both settings as a method to disrupt historical patterns of stereotyping and objectification. This study finds that interfaith dialogue can best be understood by examining its processes and asking what they mean for participants, rather than looking for "metrics." Encounters across religious difference are found to require intention, leadership, and repetition in order to establish a "safe haven." Participants speak of their goals in terms of "humanizing" the other and striving for "mutual recognition." Each of these discursive goals is explored through the narrative data gathered. They are found to be best understood not by measurement of their "success," but as shared sacred values that bind together the interfaith society. The repeated, communal invocation of these sacred values signifies to the members of the community that they belong to the collective, solidifying also awareness of who is not in their group.

This study is an exploration of the ways in which four Somali students use language to express their identity and assert their views. The study explores the ways in which the Somali students' home culture and the school culture influence the development of their identity. Students participated in a lunchtime focus group on a regular basis over a period of several weeks. Using a micro-ethnographic approach to analysis, the students' interactions were reviewed while considering the ways in which knowledge was affirmed and contested, examples of intertextuality and intercontextuality were identified, and ideational notations or larger world view constructs were pinpointed. In this approach, specific events and interactions were linked to the broader contexts and connections that the participants were using in their communications. The result suggests a new and deeper understanding of the way in which these Somali learners use language to express their identity and negotiate the world. As a result of the examination of their interactions, educators can take from these participants' experiences some ideas about issues to consider when working with second language learners and their families. In this study students used language to assert their own identities as well as to position others in the group. These identities were continually negotiated by students and teachers alike. Students at times pushed back against ways in which they were identified. The Somali learners spoke of changing roles in the family as a result of learning English and being relied on to translate for parents who were non-English speakers. There were occasions where students used language in meaningful and contextually appropriate ways, but without understanding the power of the terms they used. Teachers have a significant role to play in shaping learners use of language and terms and guiding them to a more nuanced understanding of language. By examining children's language, it became apparent that teachers can provide critical information to help parents of second language learners negotiate the school and district resources. Students did express their Somali language and culture as they negotiated their school experience.

While careers are often conceptualized as individual paths through occupations - propelled by internal drive and (for the lucky ones) passion - this research takes a more social and political perspective, understanding careers as coordinated by forces external to people and their immediate local settings. In particular this study uncovers ways that imperatives and activities associated with contemporary regional economic development have uneven consequences for young workers depending on socioeconomic status. For this dissertation I undertook a three-year longitudinal study of a much publicized initiative by top administrators of a state university to entice more college students to remain in that northeast US state to work upon graduation. Using the theoretical framework and methodology of institutional ethnography, a mode of analysis designed to “explore a regime of social policy from the standpoint of those subject to it,” (DeVault 2008: 2) this research is anchored in the actual experiences of young students and workers transitioning into careers - potential young professionals. Through extensive observations of the activities of those involved with the initiative, interviews of business leaders, students, and recent graduates, analysis of initiative documents, as well as analysis of related practical and academic texts, I mapped the complexes of career-related social relations around students and workers that have material consequences on their everyday lives. According to the leaders of the university initiative “young professionals” – a category applied rather freely - were the creative, energetic, hard workers needed by the state for economic growth. This research investigated the “work” – paid and unpaid - that goes into performing as a “young professional,” and reveals the disjunctures between the idealized images of young professionals and their actual lived experiences. It is much easier for some to perform the work of young professionalism than others, given structural inequities in economic, social, and educational structures. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the consequences of these findings, including implications for university professors who work to prepare college students for their future careers. Despite the prevalence of young professional discourse in the United States, there is very little careers research specifically focused on young professionals and their careers. This research addresses that gap and also adds a needed contextual, longitudinal perspective to that body of management scholarship.