Like so many other developing nations, Brazil has suffered from extreme inequality. Even though it has a healthy economy, free elections and multiple political parties, there are deep divides and unstable political institutions. The relatively recent transition to democracy has allowed a large and growing Evangelical community to emerge which is causing a religious shifting. The Pentecostal faith is providing alternative structures for social and political expression previously denied to many. Through community networks, many of Brazil's marginalized are accessing legitimacy, making them an undeniable force. The focus of this paper is to determine if Pentecostalism undermines or strengthens democratic consolidation in Brazil, and what role it has to play in power sharing.

Becoming an ally to Indigenous peoples, as a planner, depends on understanding the oppressive dynamics of colonialism and neoliberalism that invisibilize their everyday realities. Resisting these dynamics as an ally, and as a planner, also depends on becoming liberated from them, and to create spaces for collectivization, since only the collective has the power to resist the oppressive systems and discourses that characterize these ideologies. In Winnipeg, a coalition of Indigenous inner city community development practitioners (CLOUT) is effectively resisting these hegemonies. Contrasting this everyday resistance praxis is the practice of non-Indigenous city planners who are placated in their own everyday by the problems of difference and separation these hegemonies produce; effectively being thwarted in their ability to resist. Alliance building will remain a challenge between these two groups, that is unless the planners learn from CLOUT: become allies to each other, unlearn their euro-western way of thinking and learn the value of practices oriented towards integration, that in themselves counter the divisive nature colonialism and neoliberalism.

This project examines the work of four elementary music educators who strive to challenge the dominant paradigm of music education. I employed the methodology of a multiple case study (Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2009) to consider the discourses, practices, and philosophies of these four educators. I observed in each school for an eight-week period for two full days each week, conducting semi-structured interviews at the beginning, middle, and end of each observation process. At each school, I followed an observation protocol, in addition to completing three interviews, and keeping a journal. In this work, I mobilize a tri-faceted lens that combines the theoretical frameworks of anti-colonialism, anti-racism, and anti-racist feminism toward counterhegemonic goals. The teachers' diverse practices include critically engaging with issues of social justice, studying a broad range of musics, introducing multiple musical epistemologies, creating space for students to own the means of cultural production, contextualizing musics, considering differential privilege, and subverting hegemonic practices. In many ways, these four individuals interrupt the traditional Eurocentric focus on Western classical music to explore different possibilities with their students. However, within this work to subvert, there were moments in each classroom where the dominant paradigm was reinscribed. These subversions and reinscriptions are instructive to music education and carry broader implications for the discipline. Ultimately, this thesis argues that a truly radical music education involves shifting from a liberal to a critical paradigm. Many values and strategies traditionally found in liberal education can be reread radically, and doing so puts forward tenets of a radical music education. Within these four classrooms, there were myriad examples of this shift from a liberal to a critical orientation. However, this work also raises questions of positionality and asks explicitly which bodies are able to do radical anti-oppressive work in music education, acknowledging that it is possible to unintentionally reinscribe dominant power relations while working to subvert them.

This project examines the work of four elementary music educators who strive to challenge the dominant paradigm of music education. I employed the methodology of a multiple case study (Merriam, 1998; Yin, 2009) to consider the discourses, practices, and philosophies of these four educators. I observed in each school for an eight-week period for two full days each week, conducting semi-structured interviews at the beginning, middle, and end of each observation process. At each school, I followed an observation protocol, in addition to completing three interviews, and keeping a journal. In this work, I mobilize a tri-faceted lens that combines the theoretical frameworks of anti-colonialism, anti-racism, and anti-racist feminism toward counterhegemonic goals. The teachers' diverse practices include critically engaging with issues of social justice, studying a broad range of musics, introducing multiple musical epistemologies, creating space for students to own the means of cultural production, contextualizing musics, considering differential privilege, and subverting hegemonic practices. In many ways, these four individuals interrupt the traditional Eurocentric focus on Western classical music to explore different possibilities with their students. However, within this work to subvert, there were moments in each classroom where the dominant paradigm was reinscribed. These subversions and reinscriptions are instructive to music education and carry broader implications for the discipline. Ultimately, this thesis argues that a truly radical music education involves shifting from a liberal to a critical paradigm. Many values and strategies traditionally found in liberal education can be reread radically, and doing so puts forward tenets of a radical music education. Within these four classrooms, there were myriad examples of this shift from a liberal to a critical orientation. However, this work also raises questions of positionality and asks explicitly which bodies are able to do radical anti-oppressive work in music education, acknowledging that it is possible to unintentionally reinscribe dominant power relations while working to subvert them.

Violence against gay men occurs every day. Stories can be found in newspapers, magazines, and on the World Wide Web reporting these incidences, yet there has been little research done from a qualitative perspective that explores the impact of violence on the lives of gay men. How do gay men make sense of the experience and the affects that violence perpetuated against them has on their lives? This research project examines the experiences of gay men that have been victims of various levels of violence directed at them as a result of their sexual orientation and identity as gay men. Using a qualitative approach, six gay men were interviewed and shared their experiences through personal interviews. The data collected within the interviews was then analyzed using Grounded Theory as the methodology. As there has been little research done on the impact that gay bashing has on gay men’s lives, the main objective of the research was to explore the experience of gay bashing with gay men that have been victims of such violence and gain a better understanding of the issues related to this experience. This research will add to the knowledge base around the experiences of sexual minority men and provide information for social workers, medical practitioners, law enforcement agencies, teachers and other service providers that will encounter gay men that are victims of violence. It provides valuable information that can be used to shape policy and practice to better assist gay men that are victims of violence. It also provides a voice to the many men whose stories are never heard and whose experiences are often discounted.

Instruments of Righteousness investigates the class-, race-, and gender-based identities and intersections of women and men in the Black Power movement and their various organizing activities to gain certain and defined concessions from federal, state, and local governments. It argues that the intersections of Black Power and anti-Vietnam War activism created changing definitions of black masculinity and femininity, expressed through anti-draft and anti-war work. Black Power and anti-war activism cannot and should not be investigated separate from one another. The experiences of Black Power soldiers, antiwar members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Black Panther Party, and the Third World Women’s Alliance, and exiled black Americans highlight the ways the anti-Vietnam War and Black Power activism depended on each other for rhetorical, theoretical, and personnel needs. Additionally, it explores the ways that Black Power organizations articulated “Third World” mentalities in their anti-war battles. By espousing a shared identity with people of color throughout the world, Black Power organizations placed themselves in a transnational conversation among radical, decolonizing nation-states. Black Power’s advocates’ roles as non-governmental actors in the Third World strengthened ties with and presented new images of United States citizens throughout the decolonizing world.

Målet med uppsatsen är att visa hur Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games kan användas i ett språkklassrum för att introducera begreppet makt. Målet är även att, från ett makt-perspektiv, kunna påvisa att spektaklet Hungerspelen kan uppfattas som ett medel för systematiskt förtryck, förödmjukelse och avhumanisering av den styrande makten. Ett ytterligare mål är att yrka på att huvudkaraktären Katniss handlingar i Hungerspelen kan uppfattas som motstånd mot detta. Novellen analyseras med hjälp av teorierna ”power over” och ”power to” för att kunna identifiera olika kategorier av makt. ”Power over” är ett uttryck av makt som används för att påverka, tvinga eller utnyttja någon. I novellen kan detta bland annat identifieras när den styrande makten tvingar befolkningen att titta på, eller delta i Hungerspelen. ”Power to” hänvisar till en persons individuella förmågor och kan identifieras i Katniss intelligens, självständighet, överlevnadsfärdigheter och mod. ”The Theory of Consent” är en teori som berör medgivande i en dominant-underordnad relation. Teorin påvisar att utan de underordnas medgivande har den dominanta parten dåliga förutsättningar för att styra. Denna teori presenteras som grund till den styrande maktens motiv för att tvinga dess underordnade att medverka i de farliga spelen. Skolan kan vara en plats som ger ökad förståelse av makt och mänskligt värde, något som betonas i Skolverkets styrdokument.  Detta genom att koppla diskussioner om olika perspektiv om makt till läsningen. Teorierna kan bistå elever med djupare förståelse om begreppet och kunna identifiera och ifrågasätta maktmissbruk och maktutövanden som utnyttjar och förtrycker sina underordnade. Den didaktiska delen kommer ge förslag på ett lektionsupplägg där elever kommer, utöver utveckla sin kunskap om makt, även träna sina språkliga egenskaper genom att läsa, tala, lyssna och skriva. Detta är något som betonas i styrdokumenten.

Becoming an ally to Indigenous peoples, as a planner, depends on understanding the oppressive dynamics of colonialism and neoliberalism that invisibilize their everyday realities. Resisting these dynamics as an ally, and as a planner, also depends on becoming liberated from them, and to create spaces for collectivization, since only the collective has the power to resist the oppressive systems and discourses that characterize these ideologies. In Winnipeg, a coalition of Indigenous inner city community development practitioners (CLOUT) is effectively resisting these hegemonies. Contrasting this everyday resistance praxis is the practice of non-Indigenous city planners who are placated in their own everyday by the problems of difference and separation these hegemonies produce; effectively being thwarted in their ability to resist. Alliance building will remain a challenge between these two groups, that is unless the planners learn from CLOUT: become allies to each other, unlearn their euro-western way of thinking and learn the value of practices oriented towards integration, that in themselves counter the divisive nature colonialism and neoliberalism.

Violence against gay men occurs every day. Stories can be found in newspapers, magazines, and on the World Wide Web reporting these incidences, yet there has been little research done from a qualitative perspective that explores the impact of violence on the lives of gay men. How do gay men make sense of the experience and the affects that violence perpetuated against them has on their lives? This research project examines the experiences of gay men that have been victims of various levels of violence directed at them as a result of their sexual orientation and identity as gay men. Using a qualitative approach, six gay men were interviewed and shared their experiences through personal interviews. The data collected within the interviews was then analyzed using Grounded Theory as the methodology. As there has been little research done on the impact that gay bashing has on gay men’s lives, the main objective of the research was to explore the experience of gay bashing with gay men that have been victims of such violence and gain a better understanding of the issues related to this experience. This research will add to the knowledge base around the experiences of sexual minority men and provide information for social workers, medical practitioners, law enforcement agencies, teachers and other service providers that will encounter gay men that are victims of violence. It provides valuable information that can be used to shape policy and practice to better assist gay men that are victims of violence. It also provides a voice to the many men whose stories are never heard and whose experiences are often discounted.

Indigenous women who are single parents and who have had involvement with social services such as child welfare or social assistance have had to be strong and courageous to maneuver through these large institutions. Over the course of this research, I examined the concept of strength by asking the question “how do Indigenous women perceive their own strengths". This research is grounded in Indigenous methodologies through the worldview that all things are interconnected, all people and things have a soul, and that we have a physical effect on our surroundings as our surroundings affect us. The focus of my research interest is to gain a better understanding of Indigenous women’s strengths through their own lived knowledge and by contextualizing it within the experiences of oppression that they have had as a result of colonization. I undertake a literature review as well as field research to address my research question. For my field research I ask one simple question with probes to better understand their view of the strengths they possess: “Tell me your life story beginning with your earliest memories”. I use the research methodology of storytelling. Storytelling is another form of narrative methodology. Storytelling is about sharing stories from the past and present. To hear stories from the past is vital to our understanding of who we are as Indigenous people as this is how we learn where we come from and who we are. Storytelling is essential to re-claiming our histories. Data was collected from three Indigenous women who I interviewed twice. Two themes emerged from analyzing the data. One theme was oppressions and within the theme of oppressions emerged: assimilation, loss of traditional gender roles in the family, financial systemic oppression, physical and sexual abuses, and addictions. The second theme was strengths. The themes that emerged within strengths were: women being active and having agency, women as protectors of family and community, reconnecting with Spirit – Soul work, and women as keepers of tradition. Indigenous women’s voices and their experiences must continue to be researched and included in today’s education. / Graduate / 0452 / 0453 / 0740 / dfklaws@gmail.com