<p> Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) education programs are currently being introduced and expanded across &ldquo;developing&rdquo; nations. STEM programs often conflict with hegemonic gender norms, for example by targeting girls and women in male dominated societies. However, given the cultural complexity of STEM for girls, implementing educators are rarely asked their point of view on programs from abroad. This study explored the perceptions of educators in Nepal who participated in the Girls Get STEM Skills (GGSS) program, a program funded through the U.S. Department of State for 2015/2016. The 8-month program reached 254 girls across three government schools and included the donation of 30 laptops. In August, 2016, the researcher conducted one-on-one interviews and focus groups with 18 participants at GGSS school sites in Pokhara, Nepal. Qualitative data was gathered on educators&rsquo; perceptions of teacher roles, Nepal as a developing nation, gender imbalance in STEM, and the GGSS curriculum. The study argues that educators viewed educational topics through the lens of bikas, the Nepali word for development. This suggests that the principal impact of STEM programs&mdash;as part of larger development initiatives&mdash;may be the creation and reinforcement of new social meanings rather than the tangible impacts of the projects themselves. </p>

This study uses a postcolonial perspective to examine the construction of cultural identities in second generation South Asian women. It critiques traditional strategies of immigrant incorporation, including assimilation and cultural pluralism, for their androcentric and essentialist tendencies. It was found that the women constructed a cultural hybrid identity, and using Homi Bhabha's notion of third space, I discuss the process of how this hybrid identity is constructed. A phenomenological approach, in which the subjective voices of the participants are privileged, was used to analyze nine interviews for themes relating to the construction of a hybrid identity.

This study explored honour and shame for South Asian British Muslim men and women. It aimed to offer plausible answers to the definition, concept, impact and gender differences of honour and shame for this sociocultural and faith group of people. This qualitative piece of research encompassed triangulation of individual interviews, focus groups and photo elicitation. Thirty participants who were of South Asian British Muslim identities were recruited via a purposive sampling strategy. This included men and women of diverse demographics and locations with an age range of nineteen - sixty-four. The majority of interviews were conducted in English, with some participant's sporadic dialogue in Arabic, Bangla, Punjabi and Urdu. The methodology was thematic analysis. Seven main themes were identified via thematic analysis of the data. A humanistic stance underpinned the conduct of the study alongside a hermeneutic researcher stance. A social constructivist and interpretive epistemological position in conjunction with a critical realism perspective infused the research process. A predominantly insider researcher position was established which was a major influence in eliciting the rich, deep and meaningful data which emerged regarding the honour and shame phenomena. Researcher reflexivity was a key factor in how the research was approached, conducted, interpreted and understood. This study identified a threefold patriarchal construct; Western, South Asian and Muslim underpinned the honour and shame phenomena. The research illustrated honour appeared to be relational and the nexus which held the family relationships together. Shame seemed to be the substance which fractured this complicated structure. There were narratives of some South Asian British Muslim women being sectioned and admitted into psychiatric institutions due to them being at risk to themselves/and or other persons. The deterioration in their mental health appeared to be closely associated with their experiences of being subjected to abusive honour and shame stipulations. The study also found cultural and traditional mores were very influential components in deleterious honour and shame practices, which at times replaced Islamic principles. One of the more significant findings to emerge from this study was that some British Muslim Bangladeshi communities practised a bride price system. These findings cannot be extrapolated to all South Asian British Muslims as they derived from a small sample size.

Parental participation supports students' academic success and increases positive peer interactions. Prior to the 1980s, parental participation was viewed as a unidimensional construct; however, it has since been understood as a multidimensional one. Studies from Epstein have demonstrated that culture, community, and family structures are some of the many factors that affect parental participation. In addition, Huntsinger and Jose have demonstrated that Asian-American parents participate in their children's education differently than do European Americans, yet research has not examined the specificities of South-Asian Americans' (SAAs) and Asian-Indian Americans' (AIAs) parental involvement. There are 6 recognized methods that parents can use to participate in their child's education. Assuming that the methods of participation used by parents can affect their children's academic performance and social development, the purpose of this study was to examine these methods of parental participation with respect to AIAs and SAAs. Using Epstein's questionnaire, 308 AIA/SAA parents were recruited who had a child born in the United States and who was attending a U.S. school between kindergarten and Grade 2 at the time of the study. MANOVA and ANOVA tests were used to calculate whether a significant difference existed amongst the 6 methods of parental participation, based on the gender of the parent or the gender of the child. There was no significant preference among the 6 methods of parental participation, nor was any difference found that related to the gender of the child. However, the results indicated that mothers were more involved than fathers in their child's education, although there was no preference among the 6 methods. Given the lack of clear direction emergent in these findings, implications for future research to further the understanding of parental participation of SAA/AIA are discussed.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs), established to combat the rise of chronic disease in America, serve as the primary source of current nutrition science in the U.S. These guidelines dictate nutrition policy, programming, and medical efforts nationwide. Rates of diet-related chronic disease, however, continue to increase, despite the efforts of the DGAs and subsequent programming. This is particularly prevalent in low income communities and communities of color. In examining the DGAs, we found a lack of relevant discussion regarding the impacts of cultural differences on nutritional health. Efforts to integrate culture were limited to static cultural competency discourse. Thus, we propose an alternative model to understanding cultural experiences within nutrition. An in-depth literature review revealed the importance of three elements as a part of the cultural ethnographic model: structural barriers and inequities, cultural consonance, and cultural healing methods. In an effort to apply this framework to a sample population, we looked at experiences of South Asian populations in and around the United States to create a survey format that incorporates ethnographic considerations into guidelines on nutrition.

This dissertation is a study of how Buddhism informed development projects as they were emerging in Bodhgaya, located in the Indian state Bihar. Bihar had a national reputation for being corrupt, prone to outbreaks of violence, and for having high rates of illiteracy, poverty, and child mortality. It was thus positioned as a place in dire need of development. In recent years, particularly since the Mahabodhi Temple, the temple marking the site of Buddha's Enlightenment 2500 years ago, was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2002, the Bihar state government has sought to intensify international tourism to Bodhgaya as a means to ameliorate Bihar's underdevelopment. Drawing on sixteen months of ethnographic research with Bihari and foreign NGO workers, villagers, streetvendors, foreign Buddhists, and others, this study explores the two varieties of development in Bodhgaya most often discussed and publicized -- large-scale projects pursued by the government and grassroots projects pursued by Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). / The foremost government project, the City Development Plan for Bodhgaya, was an urban renewal and development plan that envisioned transforming Bodhgaya into something of a Buddhist theme park over a fifty year period, and was developed by a committee of non-local Indian businessmen, government officials from the central and state governments, foreign development experts, and Buddhist monks and ambassadors from Thailand, Myanmar, Tibet, Japan, and Sri Lanka. During my research period the pursuit of this project involved the forced removal of villages, the destruction by paramilitary and police of homes and long-standing local businesses, and the removal of street vendors, all of which were met by vigorous protests. As a counterpoint to the government-led development projects, this study explores how Buddhist practice informed the shape of grassroots development projects pursued through the more than 500 NGOs registered in the Bodhgaya area. I pay particular attention to how conflicts and miscommunications between foreign donors and Bihari NGO staff were constitutive of NGOs as both sites through which Buddhists could pursue socially engaged practice and Biharis could pursue work in a part of India where currency is increasingly needed but wage earning occupations are scarce. / So as to illuminate how contemporary power relations in Bodhgaya relate to the ongoing emergence of geographically disperse networks of exchange, this study approaches these varieties of development as a part of the history of Buddhism and the ongoing emergence today of a "Buddhist world," one that has spread, diversified, and been forged and reforged for more than 2000 years. At a moment when much international media attention is given to Islam and Christianity, this perspective, drawing inspiration from postcolonial approaches to history, views Buddhism as a global force of non-European origin mobilizing hundreds of thousands of people, informing international and national policy, and compelling state interventions to facilitate the movement of capital. Through this Buddhist worlding process, a process I approach as an assemblage of historically contingent cultural practices and relations, international connections are forged as national boundaries and local sovereignties are varyingly contested and affirmed in the pursuit and production of desires for such things as modernity and varieties of mobility. In particular, I consider the role of NGO development projects in constituting the form that Buddhist social engagement has taken in Bodhgaya while also being the product of Buddhist desires to pursue social forms of spiritual practice. Further, this theoretical approach helps me to consider the government led tourism project not simply as the inevitable outcome of neoliberal capitalism, hut as a cultural project constituted by a diverse array of cultural processes.

Bangladesh has been part of the globalized readymade garment (RMG) industry since the early 1980s. In 2008-09 there were 4,825 RMG factories in Bangladesh employing 3.1 million people. This workforce included 2.38 million women and is an illustration of a globalization process termed the feminization of labour. Bangladesh's RMG industry has flourished because its workers are among the lowest paid garment workers in the world. / This dissertation is a longitudinal case study of labour unions and labour movements in the RMG industry in Bangladesh between 1980 and 2009. The research and analysis are informed by insights from classical Marxist theory, world-systems theory, and Ronaldo Munck's influential "globalization and labour" thesis. / In the early years of the RMG industry there was relatively little resistance by the workers to their abject exploitation. The reasons that workers failed to resist included the harsh tactics of factory owners who would terminate, sue or arrange to have local leaders assaulted by paid thugs or the state police; the failure of civil society organizations, with the exception of a few leftist unions, to support the workers' struggles; and the fact that the garment workers were 'first generation' rural migrants to the city who lacked any knowledge of workers' rights. / In May 2006 there was a massive protest by RMG workers that secured a significant increase in the minimum wage and the first tripartite agreement in the industry's history. This victory for workers was partially undermined by unions that work collaboratively with the employers' association. Nevertheless the May 2006 upsurge changed the terrain of struggle as evidenced by the 2007 concession that legalized labour unions organizing in the export producing zones. My conclusion is that until the state changes its elite-centered policy, until the owners change their feudal mindset and abide by the labour laws and ILO conventions, and until international labour organizations are free from any hidden, protectionist agendas, militant labour movements are the only way that Bangladesh's RMG workers will be able to successfully pursue their demands.

This study examines the contextual factors influencing polytobacco use behavior, or the concurrent use of two or more forms of tobacco, among young adult South Asians. Fifteen in-depth and qualitative case studies of South Asian college students were conducted in order to illuminate and understand the intrapersonal, social, cultural, and environmental determinants of polytobacco use. Results from the study highlight the dynamic and diverse nature of tobacco use, as patterns of consumption were found to be profoundly influenced and differentially distributed across lines of gender, socioeconomic status, age, nationality, situational context, and ethnic identity. Participants used two to five forms of tobacco, with 60% using more than two. In addition to cigarettes, several alternative tobacco forms, predominantly hookah, spliffs, and dokha, emerged as popular modes of tobacco consumption among this population. South Asian college students use multiple products intermittently in community settings, where use is normalized as a component of a social activity. The current cigarette-centered model for tobacco control must be adjusted to account for the variety of tobacco forms now accessible to and utilized by young adult South Asians, whose choice of product and frequency of usage is guided by the contextual factors identified in the case studies. Tobacco intervention efforts and cessation programs must develop cultural sensitivity that is attuned and responsive to unique patterns of polytobacco use in order to effectively combat the current tobacco epidemic.

The current study’s aim was to explore and document the role of South Asian traditional healers residing in Toronto as it has been observed that South Asians tend to approach these traditional healers for assistance with their physical, psychological and spiritual distresses. These healers were interviewed about their background, training, the South Asian traditional healing processes and their thoughts on collaboration with Western Mental Health practitioners. The data was analyzed using Grounded Theory. The results revealed that these traditional healers closely followed the South Asian traditional healing theories and cultural norms in their practices. The healing processes reflected the ideas of holism, planetary effects and religious healing. The traditional healers also expressed eagerness to associate with the Western Mental Health care services to benefit their clients. The findings suggest that South Asian traditional healers play a major role in the lives of South Asians.

The current study’s aim was to explore and document the role of South Asian traditional healers residing in Toronto as it has been observed that South Asians tend to approach these traditional healers for assistance with their physical, psychological and spiritual distresses. These healers were interviewed about their background, training, the South Asian traditional healing processes and their thoughts on collaboration with Western Mental Health practitioners. The data was analyzed using Grounded Theory. The results revealed that these traditional healers closely followed the South Asian traditional healing theories and cultural norms in their practices. The healing processes reflected the ideas of holism, planetary effects and religious healing. The traditional healers also expressed eagerness to associate with the Western Mental Health care services to benefit their clients. The findings suggest that South Asian traditional healers play a major role in the lives of South Asians.