VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Masking terror: Child literacy/literature and the dialectics of racialized violence
Keywords: Racism
Racism in literature
Violence in literature
Children's literature, Social aspects

This study examines the masked and encoded racist discourses present within dominant knowledge production for children and youth. Focusing on stereotyping, racial omission, language and linguistics in literature, film, and visual art, the analysis examines the construction of bodies on raced, classed and gendered lines that determine not only the fictional relationships of racialized power within the texts themselves but are conditioned on the factual power relationships that exist in the social worlds from which the texts emerge and re-emerge. Significantly the study explores the nature in which white centric social relationships and notions of social existence within the texts serve as a mask to justify and diminish the different ways white supremacist violence and political terror has impacted against communities and peoples of color—a violence that is integral to the making and nurturing of whiteness as superior, subjective, and human in relation to an inferior non-white Other.
A perfect blend?: a study of coworker relationships between native English speaking and nonnative English speaking teachers in two school sites in Brazil and Indonesia
Keywords: English language, Study and teaching
English language, Foreign countries
English language, Study and teaching
English language, Brazil
English language, Study and teaching
English language, Indonesia
English language, Foreign countries
English teachers, Brazil
English teachers, Indonesia
Teaching, Brazil
Teaching, Indonesia

This research considers the relationships between teachers of English who are native speakers of English and teachers of English who are nonnative speakers of English as they work together on a school staff. A case study approach is used to investigate this topic, by looking at two school sites: An English language institute in Brazil, and a bilingual school in Indonesia. At each school site, native English speaking and nonnative English speaking teachers share their experiences and perspectives about native speaker/nonnative speaker teacher interaction through interviews, questionnaires, and focus group sessions. Further information about each school site is gathered through observation and school documents. This study affirms the value of native speaker/nonnative speaker teacher relationships in schools that teach English as a foreign language. It brings to light cross-cultural issues that are faced in such relationships, but also the value that these relationships can bring to individual teachers, their students, and the school environment. It shows that relationships between these two groups of teachers are enhanced when a school makes purposeful choices to allow for optimal integration of the two groups, just as relationships can be diminished when a school setting does not value and promote native speaker/nonnative speaker interaction. This study finds that native English speaking teachers and nonnative English speaking teachers can contribute equally to school effectiveness, as well as to overall professional and personal growth for all members of a teaching staff.
Information and communication policy development in higher education: a case study of the vice-president's Task Force on Information Technology (TFIT) at Brock University
Keywords: Education, Higher, Data processing
Information technology

Increasingly, university administrations across North America are looking at Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a way to address a variety of institutional problems such as rapidly increasing student enrolments, declining or drastically limited human and financial resources, and increased global competition for higher education services. At the same time Information and Communication Technology is presented in the media, and perceived by the general public, as a means for universities to accommodate the access and learning needs of a growing, diverse and technologically sophisticated learner population. Realizing either of these views of ICT requires continuous research, planning and the development of strategic policy initiatives all of which have tended to lag behind the purchase and implementation of technology at many higher education institutions. This study represents an insider's view of the policy research and planning process for Information and Communication at Brock University in Ontario, Canada. The insider perspective was achieved through semi-structured interviews with a group of faculty and staff working as a Vice Presidential Task Force on Information Technology (TFIT) at the university. The researcher, was a participant-observer on the committee, and as such was well positioned to continent on the nature and meaning of the processes and outcomes of the group's work. This study examined and interpreted the process and implications of one higher education institution's ICT policy research and development efforts from the perspective of those individuals engaged in that process. Their experiences and informed perceptions, insights and recommendations offer a starting point for further examination of how the process of policy development for ICT in higher education can, or should be, managed in an increasingly complex higher education environment.
Colonialism: acculturation and resistance in Travancore, late nineteenth century South India
Keywords: Middle class, History
Middle class, India
Acculturation, History
Acculturation, India

This thesis explores acculturation and resistance to British colonial ideology in the identity formation of indigenous elite in the "princely state" of Travancore in South India at the end of nineteenth century. The category "caste" shifted in this period from a passive term associated solely with religion to a term that could manifest political power and identity in society. Notions of gender, race, and class played an important role in this transformative process. Connected to this was a group of elite, English-educated, middle class men that organized themselves under "Nair caste" and attempted to gain hegemony in the cultural realm. They attempted to recreate their identity and their relationship to society in the areas of history, law, and vernacular print capitalism. The development of a gendered public sphere aided, shaped, and was a catalyst for this reconceptualization of society and group identity during this time period.
The experiences of black girls in the Toronto high school system: a race, class and gender analysis
Keywords: High school students, Black, Ontario
Women, Black, Education (Secondary)
Women, Black, Ontario
Discrimination in education, Ontario
Sexism in education, Ontario

This thesis assesses the experiences of Black girls in high school in Toronto. It shows how the Canadian Education system works as a form of oppression to silence and marginalize the voices of these girls making them invisible. This is reflective in the curriculum and teaching practises which fails to recognize the contributions of Blacks in Canada, thus rendering their worldviews invalid. I reflect on my own personal stories and formal educational experiences around my struggle to weave through the system and ultimately making it through.
Exploring differences in achievement motivation in a diverse sample of Canadian students
Keywords: Educational tests and measurements, Canada
Performance
Underachievement, Canada
Achievement motivation, Canada
Motivation (Psychology), Canada

This study examined the relationship between achievement motivation and academic performance, as well as factors predicting these variables, in a diverse sample of 12--15 year old Canadian students. A total of 4,237 students of East Asian, South Asian, Native, African Canadian, and Euro Canadian backgrounds were included in analyses using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. In general, this study provides modest support for achievement motivation theories, and empirical evidence that Native and African Canadian students may be at-risk with respect to motivation and achievement. The results confirmed a positive correlation between achievement motivation and academic performance. Significant mean differences in achievement motivation and academic performance were found between ethnocultural groups, with East and South Asian students showing the highest outcomes on these measures, and Native and African Canadian students showing the lowest. Positive correlations were found between achievement motivation and several theoretically-meaningful predictor variables.
The last chapter: A phenomenological study of aging Holocaust survivors' views on their own dying and death
Keywords: Mental health
Gerontology
Social service

Elderly Holocaust survivors have a paradoxical experience with end of life. Over sixty years ago, as children or young adults they experienced and survived a genocide where millions were murdered. Today they are all older adults dealing with their own aging and mortality. As they approach the last chapter of their life course, the concept of 'normal' death or 'death by natural causes' may be one that is not readily understood. This study, using phenomenological methodology, invited ten women, all elderly Holocaust survivors, to examine their views and thoughts regarding their own death and dying.
Subjectivity and the mind-body problem
Keywords: Mind and body
Philosophy of mind
Subjectivity

This thesis has its origins in the philosophical problem of mind and its relationship to the body. Despite well-known and irreconcilable difficulties with Descartes's articulation of mind body dualism, subsequent philosophers nonetheless accepted his commitment to scientific objectivity in their own theories of mind. As a result of their obsession with scientific objectivity, contemporary physicalists, computational theorists and naturalists ultimately discouraged a successful resolution for the mind/body problem. After critically examining their theories in this light, I argue that a resolution to the problem of mind will be better served by a renewed conception of what constitutes objectivity, one which is better equipped to accommodate subjective, first-person features of mind. I call this new conception “relational (or intersubjective) objectivity” and point out some of the advantages of this approach. In the final chapter, I discuss some consequences of this for education and especially for the use of computers in education.
Inheritances of white supremacy: familial and feminist genealogies
Keywords: White supremacy movements, History
White supremacy movements, Canada
Feminism, History
Feminism, Canada
Racism, History
Racism, Canada

This thesis responds to literature and debates that converse with the residual effects of imperialist violences on feminist praxis and maternal lineages of white settlers. I am interested in the gendered dimensions of inheritances of white supremacy, and performing genealogies of some of the locations where feminist movements may (consciously, or not) fuse with imperialist practices. I situate my grandmother, and some of the lessons and stories she told about our family's involvement in race-based organizing in Southern Ontario, as a way into the locations where Canadian women's gender-conscious praxis becomes entangled with imperialist ventures. Theorizing my grandmother's active involvement in the Imperial Order of Daughter's of the Empire, I read the history of this organization within and against discursive regimes that have enlisted women to realize their 'duty' to reproduce the nation and sanitize the Empire's colonies in the historical present.
Burying nuclear waste, exposing nuclear authority: Canada's nuclear waste disposal concept and expert-lay discourse
Keywords: History
Philosophy
Science, History
History, Modern

This thesis investigates Canada's debates about nuclear waste disposal, concentrating on the public inquiry into a nuclear waste disposal concept (held 1996-97). My evidence is an analysis of public inquiry transcripts, plus industry and Government documents (produced since 1954). My focus is on disputes about what the issue was that was in contention. I identify several different ways in which the issue in dispute was framed, specifically how expert and public groups enacted competing framings. I show that proponents of the waste disposal concept shifted grounds in terms of how they framed the issue: from solving the nuclear waste problem as intimately connected to ensuring a future for commercial nuclear power, to separating these two issues. Proponents also initially excluded the public from involvement in decision-making, but in contemporary times they embrace public involvement. This shift was mediated by declining support for nuclear power in general, as well as failures to retain control over the terms of debate and assessment themselves. Disposal concept supporters framed the issue as one of how to proceed in the face of technical uncertainty, and have thus marginalized deficiencies in present-day evidence for safe disposal by arguing future site-specific investigations will resolve all technical issues. This 'viable in principle' defense has been strenuously opposed by public opposition groups, who have framed the issue as involving more than just narrow questions of concept feasibility and safe disposal. Public critics have framed the issue as intimately connected with the legitimacy of present-day democratic procedures for ensuring the accountability of decisions. An analysis of the history of these competing framings suggests that much skepticism should attend recent nuclear industry claims to be accountable to public feedback. I also draw upon this history to comment upon debates about what is more salient: public capacities as experts or public rights as citizens. I show that ensuring democratic accountability, rather than just representation, has been an underlying political demand of public opposition groups, and that their main concern has been with the very ability to negotiate what the nuclear waste disposal issue ought to mean.
'Part of the solution': developing sustainable energy through co-operatives and learning
Keywords: Wind turbines, Ontario
Renewable energy sources, Ontario
Energy conservation, Ontario
Cooperative societies, Ontario
Environmental education, Ontario

This thesis shows that green energy co-operatives, like WindShare, play an important role in advancing sustainable energy development, energy literacy and the triple bottom line. Members of WindShare expressed resounding feelings of pride, efficacy and understanding of WindShare's role in sustainable energy. WindShare Co-operative provided the structure whereby members felt a part of the solution in terms of sustainable energy development. Policies and practices at all levels of government should encourage the advancement of green energy co-operatives to support Canada's efforts at public involvement in combating climate change and pollution. After five years of development, WindShare Co-operative in Toronto, Ontario became the first urban wind turbine in North America and the first co-operatively owned and operated wind turbine in Canada. The development of WindShare Co-operative has spurred the growth of a green energy co-operative sector in Ontario. This study, which included 27 interviews and a focus group with members of WindShare Co-operative, focuses on the roles of community-based green energy co-operatives in advancing sustainable energy development and energy literacy. Sustainable energy development is firmly rooted in the triple bottom line of environmental, social and economic success, and green energy co-operatives can be a way to help achieve those successes. Green energy co-operatives are structures for providing renewable energy generation or energy conservation practices, both of which have important environmental impacts regarding climate change and pollution levels. Co-operative structures are supported by processes that include local ownership, democracy, participation, community organizing, learning and social change. These processes have a significant social impact by creating a venue for people to be directly involved in the energy industry, by involving learning through participation in a community-based organization, and by advancing energy literacy within the membership and the general public. In regards to the economic impacts, green energy co-operatives foster a local economy and local investment opportunities, which have repercussions regarding building expertise within Ontario's green energy and co-operative development future, and more generally, captures members' interest because they have a direct stake in the co-operative.
Contributing factors to increased HIV infections: a qualitative investigation
Keywords: HIV infections
AIDS (Disease), Prevention
Social psychology

Sixteen self-identified gay or bisexual men from the Greater Toronto area were interviewed to assess their attitudes towards, and knowledge of safer sex practises and negotiation. Participants were interviewed regarding seven central themes: HIV Awareness; HIV Prevention Advertising Campaigns; Safer Sex Fatigue; HIV Treatment Optimism; Sexual Practise and Negotiation; Alcohol and Drug Use; and Self-Esteem. Additional data was also gathered regarding participants' ages, ethnicity, current relationship status, and HIV status. Results indicate a great deal of awareness about safer sex practises, and HIV prevention advertising campaigns. Treatment optimism, which reduces concern about HIV, intoxication due to alcohol and drug use, and lower self-esteem were identified as factors that may serve to reduce safer sex behaviours. Safer sex fatigue (e.g. being tired of condom usage and protecting oneself from the HIV virus) was also implicated in unsafe sexual behaviour by many of the older, but few of the younger study participants.
Mutual recognition in the third pillar of EU law: a shaky cornerstone
Keywords: Human rights, European Union countries
Police, European Union countries
Judicial assistance, European Union countries
Judgments, Foreign, European Union countries

Recent years have seen a marked increase in legislative activity in the Third Pillar of the European Union -- Cooperation in Police and Judicial Matters. The author argues that the Union's development in this area is symptomatic of its approach to human rights generally, whereby they are subordinated to the goal of economic integration. There is, in particular, an inherent tension between human rights and the principle of mutual recognition of judgments, the so-called "cornerstone of cooperation" in the Third Pillar. This internal market principle compromises the Union's capacity to ensure that human rights are protected in criminal law and procedure, and causes "irritation" in the law itself. Using examples of mutual recognition measures already adopted in this area, the author demonstrates that mutual recognition does not work and that it hinders effective human rights protection. He suggests that the EU focus instead upon harmonising national standards whilst protecting human rights.
The TRC of South Africa: A dialectical critique of its core concepts
Keywords: Literature
Religion
Political science

Despite the length of time that has passed since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (TRC) declared its duties done, it continues to have far-reaching consequences for the understanding and treatment of the issues of forgiveness, justice, memory, truth, and reconciliation within South Africa. This legacy, however, also extends beyond the South African context. Since other such Commissions have sprung up elsewhere in the world, it is imperative that the TRC, currently regarded as paradigmatic in the approach now taken for granted in dealing with post-conflict reconciliation, be thoroughly examined in order that its legacy may prove more positive and expansive.
Complementary comparativism: A jurisprudence of justification
Keywords: Constitutional law
Comparative law

This thesis addresses one of the central normative questions in comparative constitutional law as it applies to adjudication: why should courts resort to comparative law in constitutional adjudication? It presents a normative justification for the use of comparative law based on its role in the judicial decision-making process. This theory is called complementary comparativism . Complementary comparativism is contrasted with existing theories of the use of comparative law in constitutional adjudication and focuses on the critical connection between comparative method and theory. The theory of complementary comparativism is applied to three case studies: decisions of the highest courts for constitutional matters in Israel, South Africa and the United States. The central argument of complementary comparativism is that it provides a strong measure of accountability for the exercise of judicial power by requiring courts to articulate the basis for their decisions in a more open and transparent manner.
Necessary evils: Strangers, outsiders and outports in Newfoundland drama
Keywords: Canadian drama, History and criticism
Canadian drama, Newfoundland and Labrador
Canadian drama, Effect of strangers on
Canadian drama, Newfoundland and Labrador
Canadian drama, Effect of outsiders on
Canadian drama, Newfoundland and Labrador
Strangers in drama
Outsiders in drama

This dissertation examines the dramatic literature of post-Confederation Newfoundland within the context of Stranger figuration and other degrees of alienation. It is here argued that a continuing feature of Newfoundland culture is its identification with Strangeness and its consistent self-definition through a filter of otherness. The figure of the Stranger, and other related figures of alienation, occurs repeatedly within the emergent drama of the region. Using a method of literary analysis which combines sociological aspects of otherness with a close reading of both the language and physical action of each play, a selection of plays are introduced as examples of this pattern of Stranger figuration. The first two chapters introduce and define the terms of analysis used within the dissertation, and the rationale for play selection. The political, social, and cultural histories of Newfoundland are inextricably intertwined. Short accounts of the political and social events which may be regarded as pivotal in assisting with the development of this alienated stance are included. The theatrical history of the island's people is followed from its early manifestations as popular folk tradition in the outports to the convention-based theatre favoured by the emerging bourgeoisie in St. John's from the 19th century onward. The development of an indigenous theatre community took place in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This development may be seen as a response to the amateur theatre tradition, which generally eschewed local playwriting, and which used as its model the neo-Aristotelian narrative framework popular in Britain. The new professional community, in contrast, strove to incorporate Newfoundland subject matter and performance modes into its work. In so doing it produced, in general terms, two streams of theatrical production: the collective creation and the playwright-driven script. Both types of theatre have consistently maintained the sense of Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders as Strangers within Canada and the wider world. In recent years this cultural self-definition has grown to include an awareness of Strangeness which may be found within the region's own micro-communities. The final chapter provides an analysis, within this critical framework, of nineteen plays written between 1945 and 2002.