While research on barriers to full participation for those with learning and other disabilities has focused largely on structural and institutional obstacles to work and education (Swain, French, & Cameron, 2005; Jones, 1996; Watson, 2002), the recognition of disability as a social justice issue is gaining currency (Kraus, 2008). Expensive, bureaucratic, and protracted procedures for reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities in colleges and universities may serve as institutional obstacles that can challenge notions of social justice. This study examined academic policy implementation surrounding foreign language substitution procedures and practices in five institutions of higher education. Nineteen academic administrators were interviewed to examine how and when policies are implemented, and how those responsible for decision-making around student requests for foreign language substitutions as a reasonable accommodation approach their decision-making. Additionally, content analysis of institutional material listed on websites and in documents available to students was conducted to understand in what model(s) of disability substitution requests are rooted. Finally, four students from one of the five institutions were interviewed to contextualize the findings from the institutional administrator interviews and content analysis. The framework of Strategic Ambiguity is utilized to examine how ambiguity in policy creation and implementation can negatively impact the experiences of some students with disabilities in higher education, even as it benefits administrators who can capitalize on ambiguity to align their policy decisions with individual interpretations of fairness. The framework of Universal Design is utilized to examine how diverse perspectives on the comparative importance of language and cultural study may legitimize the expansion of curricular options for all students.

While a great deal of theoretical work affirms the importance of spirituality in hospice care, the manner in which organizational members communicate about spirituality in hospice organizations, and most other health care organizations, remains under-explored and under-theorized. The purpose of this dissertation is twofold. First, this dissertation seeks to understand how hospice members talk about spirituality with one another and with care recipients. Second, this dissertation explores the antecedents and consequences of hospice members' communication strategies. To explore these issues, an ethnographic study was conducted in two branches of a mid-sized hospice. Over 200 hours of participant observation and 42 interviews were completed. Results showed that organizational discourse about spirituality was strategically ambiguous in response to multiple internal and external demands. Strategically ambiguous communication was successful in allowing for a wide range of actions and interpretations; however, it was also problematic in that it served as a source of discomfort and disconnection for some organizational members. Further, results demonstrated that communication about spirituality in interactions between care providers and care recipients was influenced by both organizational discourse and personal understandings of spirituality. Organizational and professional discourse and personal understandings created dialectical tensions between leading and following in care provider-care recipient interactions. Further analysis demonstrated five different strategies for managing the leading-following dialectic. Finally, results suggested that organizational discourses affected the personal identity and outcomes experienced by hospice workers. The preferred organizational identity of the "Gracious Servant" required hospice workers to perform spiritual labor which increased the care providers' propensity to experience stress and burnout. In total, these results demonstrate the importance of examining spirituality from an ecological perspective that considers community, organizational, and interpersonal discourse about spirituality.

I examined what brand new Ph.D.s in Communication experience when they start their first, entry-level, tenure-track assistant professor position at a new university. Through the lens of scocial construction, I review vocational and organizational socialization, individual agency by newcomers, academic socialization processes, and the concept of the academic career in the current climate of university change and transformation. Then, I present the method of research, including the population and sampling method, and rationales for utilizing a narrative approach, interactive interviewing, and autoethnographic writing. After presenting the participants' narratives, I revisit both within- and between-case issues, beginning with socialization from the "bottom-up" lived experiences of the new faculty. The universities socialized these new professors through individual socialization processes. To lessen their uncertainty in their new place of work, the faculty members utilized seven individualized tactics to lessen ambiguity. Collectively, the new assistant professors saw the organizationally provided orientations and mentoring processes as inadequate. The loss of graduate school cohort necessitates the development of a new cohort with peers for new faculty development, despite the modern isolationist definition of the academic "subject." The new communication faculty generally found teaching to be an activity of stabilization within the new equivocal university environment, despite the supposed unpreparedness of new faculty. I discuss the interrelated use of strategically ambiguous communication, power, and the disciplining of the self and how they relate to the tenure process. I examine how the discourses of academic capitalism impact the daily lives and decision-making of new faculty, including compromised research agendas and publication production. I interrogate the pursuit of prestige by higher educational institutions and the manner in which this pursuit adds additional pressure and stressors on new professors. Finally, I consider how the short-term narrative of "getting tenure" truncates the canonical narrative of the academic career, and legitimizes the outsider-within category of the new faculty members.

Strategic Ambiguity: U.S. Policy Towards Taiwan since 1987 Jana Sehnálková Abstract This dissertation focuses on U.S.-Taiwan relations in the context of U.S.-China relations. It examines the development of mutual ties since the end of the 1980s when Taiwan started its transition towards democracy, which changed the dynamics of the relationship among Washington, Beijing, and Taipei. The dissertation also analyzes which events and issues impacted the development of mutual relations and examines U.S. reaction to such phenomena. These include, for example, the Beijing Massacre of 1989, Taiwan Strait crisis of 1995-1996, or the rise of China, which influenced the position, politics, and international space of Taiwan and with which the United States has to cope. The dissertation particularly focuses on the following questions: What motivates the United States to continue its support of Taiwan? How does Beijing react to such support and how does this impact the U.S.-China relations? The analysis concludes that the United States continuing support for Taiwan is motivated by ideological and strategic goals. Using the analytical frame of "pivotal deterrence", the dissertation shows that the United States takes a pivotal position and by its careful balancing between the PRC and Taiwan, Washington supports the existing...

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This research project sought to find out more about how clergy experience preparing to move jobs in the Church of England. This is important and timely for several reasons. First, there has been limited theoretical and empirical attention paid to the process and tasks of preparing for a career transition. Second, clergy are contemplating job moves in a dynamic institutional context which is affecting how they perceive and construct their future career trajectory. Third, I set out to investigate clergy as members of a workforce facing some of the same issues and concerns as those in other occupations rather than viewing them as being in any way special by virtue of their ordained status. The study is framed by career theories which attend to transition, turnover and the determinants and antecedents of career and job mobility. A total of 31 clergy from three Church of England dioceses were interviewed as part of a qualitative study. A social constructivist method was adopted and thematic analysis applied to the data with attention being paid to the reflexive research process. The findings indicate that a religious context is an important site for enhancing our understanding of the complex relationship between individual agency, structural constraints and the antecedents to preparing to move jobs. Following structural changes to how clergy are recruited, selected and appointed to posts participants are found to be experiencing cognitive dissonance as they anticipate a move. This is explained by a shift in the delegation of authority to individual clergy and the erosion of strategic ambiguity as a mode of communication between different parties. These are changes which undermine value systems rooted in history, tradition, custom and practice and calling which clergy rate highly. The study identifies facets of calling and vocation which clergy correlate with preparing to move jobs rather than an original call to ministry.

Since 2016 the external communication of the Swedish international development cooperation agencys (Sida) has been governed by the ‘Strategi för informations- och kommunikationsverksamhet, inklusive genom organisationer i det civila samhället, 2016–2022’. Government investigations have shown that the strategy leaves room for divergent interpretation due to abstract formulations and ambiguous objectives. Several researchers have studied How ambiguous strategy is interpreted by organizational members. However, there are no studies that, beyond the scope of profession-related factors, examine Why the interpretationsappear in any given way. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze the interpretation process of an ambiguous strategy, by examining how cognitive, social and structural factors affect how employees at the communication units of Sida and Sida Partnership Forum interpret, and (consequently) enact the 'Strategy for information and communication activities 2016-2022 '. Based on the idea of accumulative understanding, the thesis theoretical framework consisted of Eric Eisenberg's Strategic Ambiguity, Abdallah & Langley's dimensions of the strategy process, and Hall's encoding/decoding model for communication. We used a combination of strategy documents and semi-structured interviews to answer the research questions through an interpretive discourse analysis. Ascertained organizational discourses were linked back to the theories of Strategic ambiguity and encoding/decoding to draw conclusions from chosen theoretical perspective. We found that organizational socialization, governing signals and actors as well as formal structures for strategy planning caused divergent interpretations and perceptions of the InfoCom-strategy. We also found that how the employees interpreted the InfoCom strategy affects how it was enacted in their work. Since the strategy does not offer clear directives, the enactment seems to differ depending on the employee's position at Sida or SPF.

Teacher clarity supports both cognitive and affective learning for all learners. The scholarly literature lacks research related to teacher clarity in nonlecture learning environments. The purpose of this qualitative study was to discover teacher clarity strategies that effectively promote student learning, particularly in nonlecture learning environments. The conceptual framework involved cognitive load theory and constructivism. The research questions explored how highly effective teachers experience clarity to promote student learning in nonlecture learning environments and what innovative strategies highly effective teachers practice to ensure clarity in nonlecture learning environments. For this in-depth qualitative interview study, data were collected through virtual synchronous focus groups and interviews with 10 State Teachers of the Year and State Teacher of the Year finalists and analyzed using manual and digital coding of emergent themes. Key nonlecture teacher clarity strategies discovered emphasized the importance of interaction, facilitation, and responsiveness through the establishment of safe and inclusive learning environments, active monitoring of student work and understanding, individualized application of strategic ambiguity, and utilization of technology tools. Further research is recommended in strategic ambiguity, interaction through facilitation, safe and inclusive environments, and teacher clarity through technology tools. By contributing to the body of knowledge of educational practices that improve student learning, my study has the potential to empower individual teachers to benefit all learners, and to support organizations in delivering equitable instruction in diverse secondary school settings.

This diploma thesis deals with the historical development of the Israeli nuclear program and examines motives which led either to the decision to acquire nuclear weapons or to further develop Israeli nuclear arsenal. Indentified motives are compared with the theory by Scott Sagan who proposed three 'models in search of the bomb'. Security Model sees the effect of nuclear weapons on state security as the motivation, the Domestic Politics Model considers nuclear weapons to be a tool for gaining political profit and the Norms Model emphasizes their symbolic value. My proposition is that other than abovementioned motives, or more motives from different models might be found. Such a result would pose a challenge to Sagan's theory, and could be used a basis for further research. To define independent variables, which are the motives in my case, the method of process tracing is used. I identify critical moments which led to changes in the direction of the program, and define motives on their basis. In the thesis, I further deal with the policy of strategic ambiguity, which consists in complete non-acknowledgement of Israel's nuclear status and enabled Israel to reduce negative effects of the region's nuclearization.

崛起中的中國大陸，對國際政治、經濟秩序而言，是一個日趨重要的影響因素。尤其是對美外交為中共對外政策之主軸，其重要性實不言可喻，深具研究價值。 研究中共對美外交政策，可以發現在政策演變的過程中，其對美政策取向與內涵係因應內外環境的轉變及美中的互動關係而逐漸形成。因此，經由中共美外交政策的系統研究，可進一步掌握其政策思維與運作內涵，正確分析影響其外交政策的要素，以瞭解其發展與演變之脈絡。 基此，本文的研究目的在於： 一、闡明中共外交形成的因素，無論是在宏觀層面，諸如國內外環境因素導致中共外交理論與原則的改變、決策過程機制以及參與程度與範圍之變化；配合微觀層次決策者所起的作用，以檢視中共外交政策內涵，以瞭解其發展與演變。 二、經由中共與美國互動情形，分由政治、經濟、軍事、涉台外交等層面分析雙方關係內涵，以論證中共對美外交政策之發展與特質。 三、由於雙邊關係日趨密切，合作範圍與領域日增，因此經由雙邊互動模式之探討，以展望雙邊關係未來的可能發展。 四、「台灣問題」在雙邊關係的重要性日增，美中關係有可能因為「台灣問題」而面臨嚴峻的挑戰，因此格外值得探討。 經由上述議題之探討，本文歸納了影響美中關係的可能因素，並對政策的持續面與演變面加以探討，最後並提出美中關係未來發展之看法，作為本文之總結。 / China, as a rising power, is a factor with growing impact that affects international politics and economic order. Being at the core of its foreign policy, China’s US policy is of great importance and worth a close look. By examining China’s foreign policy regarding the US, we can find that China shapes the orientation and content of its US policy in accordance with changes in domestic and international circumstances and in US-China interactions. Therefore, by studying China’s US policy systematically, we can further understand its policy reasoning and course of implementation, analyze correctly the influential factors, and hence obtain a clear view of the context of its policy forming. Therefore, the purposes of the article are: 1.To elucidate influences upon China’s foreign policy, including macroscopic aspects such as domestic and international circumstances that caused China’s adjustment in the theory and principles of its foreign policy, and variations in policy-making mechanism and the extent of involvement, along with microscopic aspects such as the impact from policy makers. This is to look into the content of China’s foreign policy in order to acquire a clear picture of its development. 2.Via examining the interactions between China and the US, to analyze the China-US relation from aspects of politics, economy, military and Taiwan affairs. This is to find out the course of development and characteristics of China’s US policy. 3.With links between China and Taiwan growing stronger and scope and fields of collaboration increasing, to anticipate the possible development in cross-strait relations by studying patterns of bilateral interactions. 4.With the “Taiwan Issue” being of growing impact upon bilateral relations, the China-US relations can be serious challenged by the issue, and is therefore worth a close investigation. By exploring the above issues, the article catalogues possible factors that will affect China-US relations, observes the potential continuity and alteration of the policy, and finally concludes with a prospect of future China-US relations.