VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Contesting the past, constructing the future: A comparative study of the Cyprus conflict in secondary history education
Keywords: History, Study and teaching (Secondary)
History, Cyprus
Cypriots, Wars
Peace-building, Cyprus

This study examines the images and representations of Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot perspectives on the Cyprus conflict, transmitted through secondary history education (textbooks and pedagogy) in the two communities. The study also discusses the possibilities for promoting peacebuilding via alternative approaches to history education in this divided society. Using qualitative research, the thesis analyzes selected Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot secondary school history textbooks, focusing on the period of 1955-1974 that led to the de facto separation of the island. Additionally, interviews with five educators and researchers from both communities probe their views and visions of nationalistic and pluralistic history education in Cyprus. Findings indicate that the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot school history narratives cultivate nationalistic collective memory and identity and exclude the voice of the 'other.' Cyprus history education holds the potential to prepare students from both sides of the border to participate in a more diverse and peaceful society.
Therapeutic abortion: The Brazilian case of anencephaly
Keywords: Abortion, Law and legislation
Abortion, Brazil
Anencephaly, Brazil
Women's rights, Brazil

This thesis analyzes the interpretation of Brazil's criminal law provision regarding risk to life as it is applied in cases of anencephaly. Relying on the constitutional and international women's rights framework, I argue that the criminal law provision regarding risk to life should be interpreted in accordance with the fundamental rights set forth in the Brazilian Constitution. The constitutional interpretation of the criminal provision on risk to life allows physicians to perform abortion in case of anencephaly without judicial authorization. Particularly, this understanding extends the meaning of risk to life in an integrative approach that gives effect to women's fundamental rights and international human's rights law. I believe that this perspective is strategic to overcome the unfair situation resulting from the understanding that women need to seek judicial authorization to have abortion in cases of anencephaly.
Moving towards a single economic market: should Australia and New Zealand further co-ordinate their competition policy?
Keywords: Competition, Government policy
Competition, Australia
International economic integration
Competition, Government policy
Competition, New Zealand

Australia and New Zealand have a long history of close economic relations. Both are former colonies of Britain and inherited its parliamentary and legal system. Prior to adopting and developing US antitrust principles into a distinctly antipodean approach, competition law in both countries was based on UK legislation. Today, competition policy in Australia and New Zealand aims to combat the unique challenges of both countries including their geographical isolation from the world's major markets, relatively small population and insufficient market capacity to produce at minimum efficient scale. Not surprisingly both countries have similar but not identical competition regimes. Multiple domestic competition regimes entail a number of costs. This thesis considers options for the closer coordination of competition policy between Australia and New Zealand that aims to minimize these costs while at the same time allowing both countries to retain sufficient flexibility to develop a welfare enhancing competition regime that takes into account their unique economic characteristics.
Narrative self exploration: the education of self-aware thinking
Keywords: Social psychology
Personality
Self
Self-perception
Conduct of life

Each individual has a web of meaning, a network of concepts that coalesce to form a worldview. The web of meaning can be examined and transformed using tools of narrative self exploration (NSE). There are two main classes of NSE. The first involves the reflective study of world mythology and great literature. The study of mythology puts the reader in touch with universal human experiences and the overarching cultural worldview. Like mythology, literature also captures human experiences in narrative form, but here the worldview being expressed is that of an individual, the author, rather than a culture at large. In the second class of NSE, the narrative becomes even more personal, as we turn to the technique of journaling. Using methodologies developed by several experts, with a focus on the work of Ira Progoff, the journal becomes an intensive instrument for illuminating the personal web of meaning of each practitioner.
Encouraging youth scholarship: an avenue of empowerment
Keywords: Youth, Study and teaching
Youth, Research
Youth, Attitudes

How ironic it is that the field of youth studies is written almost exclusively by adults. While feminist and antiracist discourses feature numerous women and non-white authors, there are few if any opportunities for young people to contribute scholarship about them. But why aren't young people taken seriously? Why won't we admit their words and perspectives into decision-making sectors of society? A long tradition of progressive scholarship on youth testifies that many scholars support empowering youth perspectives and positions. In schools, young people still most often tell the textbook back to the teacher in the "banking" tradition of education (Freire 1974). The way that universities privilege the adult "expert" perspective is also relevant, as professionalism is based on powerful ideologies of when young people are "ready" or "mature enough" to contribute to scholarship. This project, albeit in a modest and temporary fashion, sought to take young people seriously by experimenting with a way that social scientists could support the research endeavours of a group of youth, and grant a group of young people a kind of knowledge empowerment. The structure borrowed from models of graduate student/supervisor relationships, the thesis group, and participatory and feminist research structures among others, to attempt to create a semi-autonomous environment in a school to facilitate youth research. The radical expression of this research is that young people could construct original research projects of their own choosing. Thus, this study also highlights that it is possible to give youth something more than the "illusion of freedom" (Walkerdine 1988) common to liberal school settings, elite or otherwise. In a private school context, the project was able to study how seven young women responded to the challenge of becoming researchers-in-training, the supportive facilitator-researcher role, and how identities are produced along lines of race, class, and gender. Opportunities should be created for young people to research issues of interest. Lack of infrastructural supports for youth research indicates a pervasive hidden curriculum of "adultism" in both lower and higher educational settings, which is perhaps the best argument for encouraging young people to contribute to scholarship.
Kelvin characteristics of substrate-attached protein layers and the protein microarray
Keywords: Chemistry, Analytic
Biochemistry
Chemistry, Physical and theoretical

The use of the Scanning Kelvin Nanoprobe (SKN) as a label free detection method for protein microarray-based applications has been investigated. It is argued that Kelvin physics can be used to collect information about the orientational/conformational state of a protein adsorbed to a surface. By recording changes in the surface potential of a protein with respect to its various properties (such as orientation, original dipole moment, different pH conditions and tertiary structure) it was determined that the actual dipole moment of the protein is the dominant factor affecting its Kelvin physics. The change in surface potential relative to the thickness of the protein layers was also studied, with the results discussed in terms of the Schottky model, and adapted to protein semiconductive properties including depletion width and band bending.
The lived experience of college faculty: workplace change, workplace learning?
Keywords: Community colleges, Finance
Community colleges, Ontario
Community colleges, Management
Community colleges, Ontario
Educational change
Knowledge management
College teachers, Job stress
Organizational change
Educational leadership
Experiential learning

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore organizational trauma and work behaviors from the lived experiences of organizational trauma on the work behaviors of community college faculty members. The problem addressed the residual effects of organizational trauma on higher education faculty members’ work behaviors. Full-time and adjunct faculty members were emailed an invitation to participate in interviews. A qualitative and field-tested interview guide was used for data collection. The target population for the sample participant (N=10) was faculty members employed at the community college between the years 2012-2020. After interviewing participants and member checking, responses were transcribed and coded by hand, allowing for immersion into the data. The ten participants met the requirements and consented to a 50 minutes interview conducted on Zoom. The data analysis process identified phenomenological themes on how organizational trauma was propagated in a community college in Virginia. Five themes were extracted from the data identifying the trigger themes, professional impact, emotional impact, interpersonal relationships, and adaptation attempts. The results indicated that participants continued to experience the after-effects of the trauma events; each theme produced raw and in-depth suffering as if the events happened in the present tense. The recommendations for future research and practice should explore how higher education institutions acknowledge and facilitate a healing process for emotional healing and instituting the practice of resilience building. Because higher education institutions function with continual change due to restructuring, layoffs, a decline in student enrollment and funding, leadership should be studied to examine how they are trained to facilitate trauma impact and ways to incorporate healing through organizational forgiveness.
Lessons at the threshold: loss and grief in mid-life
Keywords: Grief
Loss (Psychology)
Separation (Psychology)
Midlife crisis
Middle age, Psychological aspects
Middle age, Social aspects
Adjustment (Psychology)
Life skills

The study grew out of several personal and professional changes that seemed to challenge my conception of myself as a self sufficient person and my theoretical understanding of how to facilitate adult bereavement education. Specifically, my response to a sudden and unexpected marital separation in middle age left me feeling caught at the threshold between what to do and how to be. I knew that I could not return to what had been but I was uncertain about how to move forward. Adults remain dependent on one another throughout their lives. In the West, however, we tend to equate maturity with independence. One consequence of promoting self reliance is a preference for stoic responses to loss and grief. I believe that our silence interferes with the interrelated processes of grief resolution. In this thesis, my concern is how reflection, creativity, dialogue and action can help us to become more aware of the needs and values that influence grief resolution in mid-life. I called my experience core loss grief. Core loss grief is a sorrow for ourselves that may follow the loss of someone or something that has become entangled in our sense of who we are. It leaves us wondering about how we give meaning to our lives. To show how distinguishing between what we think should matter and what actually matters to us can help us to release the powerful, if painful, potential for personal and relational renewal that lies within sorrow itself, I draw from published theoretical and experiential accounts of loss and grief, holistic approaches to adult education and my own experiences of loss and grief in middle age.
A socio-historical study of the birth and adoption of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE)
Keywords: Medical students, Examinations
Physicians, Training of
Medicine, Study and teaching
Education, Standards

The Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) was invented in 1975 for the assessment of medical students at the University of Dundee. This examination was radically different from anything that had been utilized before. During OSCEs, students were observed interacting with a series of patients in fixed-interval "stations" and scored by observers on standardized measures. Some of the patients were actors called "simulated patients". Assessment with OSCEs and simulated patients represented a new direction in examination of competence that emphasized 'standardization' and 'objectivity'. The research reveals three discourses related to OSCEs: performance, psychometrics and production. Each discourse is associated with characteristic statements, modes of expression and models of legitimation; each has brought into existence specific roles for individuals to occupy; and each augments the power of different types of institutions. Analysis of these discourses reveals the extent to which they have become dominant, or conversely are resisted, at different times and in different locations. These differences in legitimacy are, in turn, related to larger socio-historical contingencies such the emergence of neo-liberal capitalism; the unequal distribution of power and opportunity on the basis of gender and ethno-racial origin; and the general adoption of governmental technologies of surveillance for social control. Subsequently, OSCEs were adopted by medical schools around the world and for national medical licensure in Canada and the United States. OSCEs were also adopted for midwives, nurses, pharmacists, physiotherapists, police and massage therapists in North America and the UK and in Asia, South America and Africa OSCE projects were launched in order to 'meet international standards'. Why did this simple examination spread so quickly into every aspect of education and assessment? In the research presented here, a Foucauldian genealogy is undertaken to address this question. The objective is to identify different discourses that are linked to the legitimation and uptake of OSCE technology. The "archive" from which these discourses are sought includes over 600 published articles, interviews with 25 key informants in Canada, the UK and the USA and visits to institutions that have been central in promoting the use of OSCEs.
Bicycles traveling in the rain: A participatory, arts-informed account of Mexican farmworkers in Canada
Keywords: Migrant labor, Social
Migrant labor, Ontario
Mexicans, Social conditions
Mexicans, Ontario
Agricultural laborers, Social conditions
Agricultural laborers, Ontario
Art and society

This participatory, arts-informed study examines the experiences of workers from Mexico that live and work in the Niagara-on-the-Lake region of Ontario, Canada under the Commonwealth Caribbean and Mexican Seasonal Agricultural Workers program (SAWP). Whereas previous literature on the experiences of SAWP workers has relied on researcher-driven interviews and observations, this study looks at how workers themselves choose to tell their stories using collage and drama in a series of interactive workshops. This document begins by outlining the research problem and goes on to review existing literature on guestworker programs like the SAWP and the global context surrounding them. An overview of the participatory, workshop methodology follows. Data collected in this study is then presented and analyzed, including a number of new findings. Finally, the effectiveness of the methodology is evaluated, along with recommendations for further research and community organizing with SAWP workers.
Do school councils empower students?: two Japanese case studies
Keywords: Student participation in administration, Japan
Citizens' advisory committees in education, Japan

The findings for each case study is described and analyzed separately, in both narrative and tabular form. The case studies were also cross analyzed to determine significant similarities and differences in the student empowerment function of school councils, and what were the factors of school councils that brought about student empowerment. Many of the findings are tied to the context of each school. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)The primary purpose of this study is to uncover whether school councils empower students, and if so, how they empower, by comparing two high schools in Japan. The establishment of school councils is a common agenda in the ongoing education reform in many parts of the world. However, many of the previous studies have not revealed what influence school councils have on student growth. Many reforms attempt to improve student academic performance through school councils, yet no evidence of a relationship between the two has been discovered. This study focuses on the empowerment function of school councils on students. Empowerment in this study is broadly categorized into two aspects: personal and organizational. Although students' involvement in school councils and their empowerment are the main focus, how other stakeholders such as teachers and parents are related to student empowerment through school councils is also examined. The role of principals in school councils is also investigated in terms of empowerment of stakeholders. The collection of data for this study was carried out over a period from October 2001 to February 2002. Collecting documented data was accomplished by visiting the schools, as well as the school websites. This study is based upon qualitative case study methods, which include observations of school council meetings, interviews, and documented data related to the schools. A school council meeting was observed at each school. Nineteen individuals were interviewed at each school. The list of the interviewees at each school included three school council student representatives, nine non-representative students, three teacher representatives, three parent representatives, and the school principal. Thirty-eight individuals in total were interviewed. One of the school councils in this study was instituted voluntarily, while the other was mandated.
Women, sodomy and sexual abuse in late-Renaissance Lucca
Keywords: Sex crimes, History
Sodomy, History
Women

In the mid-sixteenth century, the oligarchic government of the small city-state republic of Lucca responded to concerns over moral crime by setting up or re-vamping various magistratures to control the behaviour of its citizens. One of these magistratures was the Offizio sopra l'Onestà, the Office of Decency, which maintained the authority to try and condemn those suspected of participating in the “nefarious vice of sodomy.” Although this court was mainly occupied with cases involving male same-sex relations, a surprising number of women appeared before the court. The records of the trials show women appeared as victims of abuse, culprits of sodomy for erotic purposes, mothers of pedophile victims, and key witnesses. As sodomy was anathema to the authorities, women seeking redress found that their complaints were taken seriously by the Onestà. Given the chance to tell their story in court they appear resourceful, confident, feisty and sometimes manipulating. The oligarchy's fear that the young men of the city were turning to sodomy meant that the government recruited prostitutes as “soldiers in the war on sodomy” and gave them full citizenship and protection. This protection, however, did not extend to toleration of prostitutes offering their clients erotic sodomy. The court records reveal a wealth of detail about those who appeared before them. Cases were seldom straightforward. Sometimes the guilty were innocent and the innocent guilty, as can be seen in cases involving some very young sexual offenders. Spontaneous information volunteered in the testimony and the interaction between the people and the courts provide rare glimpses into the lives of ordinary men, women and children in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Lucca. This information contributes a new facet to the understanding of family dynamics in premodern society as well as both elite and popular attitudes to sexuality and gender relations.
From TT to T.O.: second generation identities in the Caribbean diaspora
Keywords: Group identity, Ontario
Identity (Psychology), Ontario
Children of immigrants, Ontario
Trinidadians, Canada
Trinidadians, Ethnic identity
Immigrants, Cultural assimilation
Immigrants, Ontario

The diasporic and transnational construction of identities by migrants who make "home" in a new land has increasingly been the focus of interest and study by academics. However, the construction of identities by the offspring of these migrants---the second generation---has often been overlooked in the scholarship. Being born and/or raised in the diaspora, the experiences of identity among second generation experiences are very diverse, sometimes markedly different from the first generation's, and at other times echoing the first generation's sentiments of a longing for "home", nostalgia, and alienation. In this study, I examine identities and identity-making among second generation people who are of Trinidadian descent living in Toronto. I combine in-depth interviews with key individuals along with textual analysis of "sites" in which identity is performed and expressed: Caribana, soca fetes, websites, literature, as well as the consumption of music, food and clothes. My objective is to address the complexities of identity formation and negotiation in a multicultural yet white-dominant society such as Toronto. The study explores why and how certain individuals may choose to maintain and cultivate a distinct "Trinidadian" identity in a locale far-removed from Trinidad, while attending to the range of meanings they attach to being "Trini". I argue that new forms of creolization that are occurring among second generation people in the diaspora, a continuation of a tradition fostered in the Caribbean experiences of colonialism, slavery, indentureship and newer postcolonial trans-nationalisms.