In 2008, a policy to address the territorialisation of the drug trade in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas was developed: the pacification of favelas. It involves two key elements, policing and local development, which are said to work in tandem to conquer the territory from drug dealers and integrate these areas to the city. Drawing from the literature on the governance of marginalized areas and neoliberal practices of security, this study explores how the pacification of favelas unfolds within a neoliberal context. The findings of this study are based on a thematic analysis of twenty-five in-depth interviews with key actors involved in the development and implementation of three core projects of the policy (the Pacifying Police Unit and two projects that coordinates social efforts, UPP Social and Peace Territories). Using the theoretical lenses of pacification proposed by Neocleous (2011) and Rigakos (2011), this research argues that the pacification of favelas can be considered a "project of pacification" (Rigakos, 2011). The analysis demonstrates that the dual strategy of the policy reinforces neoliberal practices to govern through fear, resulting in the militarization of favelas. Moreover, this study also finds that this policy serves capitalist interests when implemented within a neoliberal framework, even though its core elements resemble interventionist initiatives of colonial enterprises. My findings also reveal that some participants resist the implementation of initiatives based on a neoliberal framework. However, although their actions seek to emancipate and build an ethical community in favelas, based on long-term and fraternal bonds, the mainstream approach is still prevalent. As a result, favelas are progressively turned into aesthetic communities in which the interests of the market are the driving force.

Thesis advisor: Lauri Johnson / This qualitative case study, part of a larger group study about how leaders support marginalized student populations in a Massachusetts school district, explored how leaders develop and maintain cultural awareness and self-reflection for themselves and for their teachers. The study asked: 1) How, if at all, does the leader develop and maintain critical self-reflection to support marginalized populations? And 2) What leadership practices does the leader enact, if at all, to engage teachers in cultural awareness and self-reflection? Data was gathered and analyzed from 20 semi-structured interviews, including the superintendent, two assistant superintendents, director of bilingual education, two secondary level principals, two elementary level principals, and 12 teachers, and document reviews. Findings indicate that almost all of the leader participants exhibited cultural awareness and reflectiveness which was attributed to either feeling marginalized themselves, or through childhood and professional experiences. Leaders utilized a variety of leadership practices to maintain their awareness, engage in self-reflection, and create more equitable environments for marginalized students, but these practices were not consistent, embedded, or persistent. Implications of this study reveal that district and school leadership practices to enact cultural awareness and self-reflection of leaders and teachers are critical to effectively address inequities and to support marginalized students. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Lauri Johnson / This qualitative case study examined the perceptions of school and district leaders about fostering teacher leadership, specifically to support emergent bilingual and Latinx students in a public school district in the state of Massachusetts. The most recent model of transformational leadership developed from Leithwood’s research in schools (Leithwood & Jantzi, 2000) served as the conceptual framework. Data collection included 13 individual semi-structured interviews with district, building and teacher leaders as well as field notes and document reviews. Findings indicated that school and district leaders perceived they support formal and informal teacher leadership practices for emergent bilingual and Latinx students. Top-down approaches to collaboration and professional development impacted the development of teachers as leaders, creating barriers and challenges in each of three components of transformational leadership (setting direction, developing people, and redesigning the organization). Recommendations include establishing a collective vision for promoting and developing teacher leadership. Future research could be designed to better understand how teacher leadership is enacted to support issues around equity and social justice, and how we might encourage more teacher leadership among marginalized groups. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

This study explores the ways marginalised groups can be supported in their empowerment process, and specifically how art projects organised by non-governmental organisations can contribute in the process. The focus is on prisoners and indigenous children and adults in Mexico City and San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Mexico who are involved in the organisations’ projects. Results from qualitative interviews with organisations’ staff are presented and discussed covering organisations characteristics and relationship with the clients as factors in supporting the clients in their empowerment. Involvement in art projects influenced participants’ self-awareness, self-confidence, sense of achievement, gender roles and the way they cooperate with each other. The findings also show art projects as a possibility for marginalised groups to tell about their own lives and by doing so change stereotypes about themselves. The discussion focuses on interpreting these effects of working with art projects as empowering factors. It is suggested that working with art and in the non-governmental sector can complement the welfare system and serve as an inspiration to finding other ways of achieving empowerment. A closer look at how the non-governmental organisations work and relate to their clients, shows a more equal relationship than the one within the welfare systems, which opens up for more options of supporting marginalised individuals through their empowerment processes. The results of this research are based on the perception of the organisation’s employees, not the users themselves.Therefore it would be interesting to continue research on this topic, interviewing the users in order to get the marginalized people’s perspective on the issue.

This article introduces the concept of badass femininity, a marginalized femininity captured in the performances of contemporary b-girls (women breakdancers) and blues women of the 1920s. The author uses the work of Hortense Spillers, Maria Lugones, Chela Sandoval, and Angela Davis to argue that non-normative gender performances from the fringes of society are necessary consequence of histories of enslavement, genocide, and exploitation. Badass femininity is a one version of a multiplicity of femininities. It re-signifies qualities typically associated with masculinity through women whose work in dance and music move these gender performances from the margins to center stage.

Performance policies propose to enhance the quality of services provided to vulnerable citizens. However, the ability to accomplish this goal is largely unsubstantiated. In the field of education, the No Child Left Behind Act outlined performance policy guidelines that held educators accountable for disadvantaged students outcomes and provided students with the option to seek the serves of alternative providers through a student transfer provision. This dissertation assesses the quality of states’ NCLB provisions that targeted minority and vulnerable student performance as well as utilization of the NCLB transfer provision allowing students to exit underperforming schools. It indicates that teachers’ union strength, minority student population, and past performance impacted the development of vulnerable student accountability provisions. The use of the transfer provision was limited by the strength of the accountability system implemented. As a result, the transfer provision is being poorly utilized and the states have negatively affected the educational opportunities of marginalized populations.

Sex offender community re-entry is a process fraught with many challenges. As jurisdictions face increasing demands from the public and legislative bodies for mandatory community supervision and treatment, those tasked with adequate risk management in our communities must often balance the needs of community safety and policy compliance with what is most beneficial and most realistic for the offender. Such challenges are more pronounced in rural communities with limited resources. Identifying clinicians who are willing to provide sex offender treatment services and able to communicate effectively with involved agents (e.g., offices of probation and parole), locating additional treatment services for offenders who struggle with other co-morbid issues like mental illness or addictions, and finding adequate residential and vocational placements, are some of the specific obstacles that clients face in any setting, but perhaps more so when returning to rural or isolated communities. Are such communities equipped for the needs of these clients? In this presentation, sex offender community reintegration within the context of rural treatment settings will be discussed. This will include a discussion of pilot research that has identified barriers to effective risk management, such as a need for intensive case management and follow-up, coordination with the courts and other responsible agencies, struggles with compliance with residency restrictions, stigma, and unique challenges in ensuring a good quality of life for sex offenders in small communities. Additional preliminary results from an ongoing survey of community and primary care providers describing knowledge, training, and experience related to offender treatment and working with clients involved in the forensic mental health and correctional systems will be included. Here, implications for provider training will be discussed, as well as future directions for more effective interaction between interdisciplinary providers in community settings to facilitate comprehensive risk management for this client population.

This qualitative study focused on the strategies that two marginalized seventh graders used as they completed an Internet inquiry project about survival. The participants spent time over a four-week period in three phases—selecting a topic, locating information, and presenting information. Participants completed journals and participated in interviews. The participants' online searches and how they organized their presentations were recorded. The researcher took field notes. These four data sources were used to determine subcategories in each phase to document the strategies they employed as they completed the project. Participants used phrases and questions as they decided on key words to locate information. The majority of the sites they visited ended in the .com domain. They used different web browsers and spent varied amounts of time reading websites once they decided on key words and selected sites. Each participant approached the project uniquely and met the requirements to complete it.

This thesis assesses sanitation realities experienced by peri-urban slum dwellers in Chennai, India, to investigate whether rapid economic growth translates into pervasive safe sanitation, otherwise a threat to human security. This is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals of ‘leaving no one behind’. The empirical methodology consists of qualitative comparative case studies approached through rapid appraisal. At least 5 interviews at each of the 10 different slum settlement locations within the Chennai Metropolitan area were conducted. Both the locations and the settlers were conveniently sampled. The settlements were chosen as they mostly lay in a rapidly urbanizing area. The selection of interviewee was determined by availability, yet leaning towards women who are more vulnerable when lacking safe sanitation facilities, and who are the primary caregivers in the household. The research found that out of the 10 settlements visited, 5 habitually practiced open defecation, as no sanitation facilities were available. Hence some settlers were restricted in their freedom to be safe from emotional or physical harm: threatened by dangerous pathogens released into the environment, and insecurities due to lack of privacy. Conceptually the thesis applies an understanding of how affecting influences in individual history and living environment impact upon an individual’s conscious mind, connecting the capability approach to consciousness research. The thesis argues how settlers, overlooked by public services, and subjected to the dangerous and humiliating practice of open defecation, are faced with mental health issues and a diminished likelihood to productively engage, and exercise agency for human growth.

To accurately describe the past, historians strive to learn the cultural ideologies of the time and place they study so their interpretations are situated in the context of that period and not in the present. This exploration of historical context becomes critical when researching marginalized groups, as evidence of their rhetorics and cultural logics are usually submerged within those of the dominant society. This project focuses on how factors, such as rhetor/audience perspective, influence cross-cultural historical interpretation, and how a community history database can be designed to illuminate and affect these factors. Theories of contact zones and rhetorical listening were explored to determine their applicability both to history-making and to the creation of a community history database where cross-cultural, multi-vocal, historical narratives may be created, encountered, and extended. Contact zones are dynamic spaces where changing connections, accommodations, negotiations, and power struggles occur, and this concept can be applied to history-making, especially histories of marginalized groups. Rhetorical listening focuses on how perspective influences understanding the past, and listening principles are crucial to both historians and the consumers of history. Perspectives are grounded in cultural ideologies, and rhetorical listening focuses on how tropes, such as race and gender, describe and shape these perspectives. Becoming aware of tropes-both of self and other-can bring to view the commonalities and differences between cultures, and allow a better opportunity for cross-cultural understanding. Rhetorical listening steers the historian and the consumer of history towards looking at who is writing the history, and how both the rhetor and the audience's perspective may affect the outcome. These theories of contact zones and rhetorical listening influenced the design of the project database and website by bringing perspective to the forefront. The visualization of rhetor/audience tropes in conjunction with the co-creation of history were designed to help foster cross-cultural understanding.