VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Politics Put to Work: Labour in the Social Economy in Italy

This dissertation uses the lived experiences of workers in Milanese social cooperatives as a vantage point to understand the ways that work extends into people’s lives, and how this extension is resisted and negotiated. Social economies require a great deal of dedicated labour. However, workers and their efforts are often overlooked by researchers. Social economy organizations bring about a particular kind of work that combines employment with activism, thus attributing new meanings and functions to work. In the social economy, work is not only an activity to sustain oneself or obtain social status. Instead, it resonates with people’s political commitment and their desires for social change. The dissertation is based on interviews and participant observation in social cooperatives in Milan, Italy. It studies how workers’ political values are put to work by social cooperatives, and how workers experience and act upon their politicized labour. To analyze the politicization of work in these organizations, the dissertation deploys a theoretical framework that merges Italian Autonomist thought with feminist economic geography. The resulting Feminist Autonomist geography is a materialist approach that troubles binary distinctions between life and work, and appreciates how work is made sense of, performed, valorized, and contested in multiple ways. Theorizing labour as a re/productive process that defies conceptual boundaries and expands across time and space makes visible the embodied, affective, interactive, and creative practices of the people who make social cooperatives work. Italian social cooperatives are a laboratory where the politicization of work is both fostered and resisted, a testing ground for transformations of the meanings and practices of work. The case studied in this dissertation is thus a window into the ever-changing geographies of labour and the active role that workers play in them.

Keywords: Autonomist Marxism
Italy
Labour
Social Economy
Social Reproduction
Work Organizations
Advisor: Ekers, Michael
Popular Music and Piano Pedagogy: Case Studies in Individual Instruction

In this study, I set out to examine the pedagogical backgrounds, philosophies, and practices of piano pedagogues who teach popular music in private lessons. The first goal was to understand how their formative musical experiences and education led them to teaching popular music and influenced their pedagogical practices. The second objective was to observe how and what these teachers taught when they taught popular music, and how these pedagogies and curricula departed from their classical pedagogy. In pursuit of this understanding, I developed five case studies consisting of two interviews with the teachers, two lesson observations, and document review of any curricula or lesson plans they use. The cross-case analysis unearthed two primary pathways that took the teachers to popular music: 1) for independent enjoyment, and 2) for functional purposes, such as playing for weddings or teaching students. When teaching popular music, the teachers departed from their teacher-driven classical pedagogies towards a collaborative, student-centered model. This student-centeredness impacted both the repertoire selection and how they learned the music. While the teachers were theoretically open to working with any popular music, they emphasized skills used primarily in western popular music, such as reading lead sheets, chord charts, and arranging. Because all the teachers were exclusively classically trained both musically and pedagogically, working in popular music was occasionally fraught. Teachers either worked to reconcile their classical and popular pedagogical differences, neglected popular music at times in favor of classical music, or employed strategies from both pedagogies to accommodate the student. These case studies can serve as pedagogical models or foundations for further research in how popular music is taught in individual instruction.

Keywords: individual instruction
music education
piano pedagogy
popular music
popular music pedagogy
private lessons
Advisor: Niknafs, Nasim
Koga, Midori
Lyric Diction Instruction Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A Search for Instructor Qualifications

Lyric Diction Instruction is a field which has no qualifying degree programs, no apprentice programs, a dearth of research, and no governing body ensuring standards and best practices to which the Lyric Diction instructors could be held accountable. Motivated by this lack of codified standards and training programs, I designed a study to investigate my own Lyric Diction instructional practice, and to identify, through the research framework of action research: (1) What comprises Lyric Diction Instruction Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK)? and (2) What impact does my Lyric Diction Instruction approach have on the participants’ diction development over the course of time between an initial Lyric Diction Instruction one-on-one session, and the final performance? Data were collected from two individual case study projects comprised of ten (Case 1) and eleven (Case 2) one-on-one Lyric Diction Instruction sessions. The data included: audio recordings of the one-on-one sessions, which were partially transcribed post-session; field notes; post-session instructor/researcher reflections; and post-instruction feedback given to the lyric diction students by experts in the field. The study generated a literature and data-based PCK break-away specialization entitled Lyric Diction Instruction Pedagogical Content Knowledge, or LyD-PaCK. The investigation identified the fields of research and education which comprise the pillars of Lyric Diction Instruction. It also delineated the role of accountability in Lyric Diction Instruction, on three disparate levels. This study precipitated the design of a Lyric Diction Instruction-specific data collection tool; a process for data coding and analysis; and it delineated the process by which findings were elicited and then connected back to the literature. Finally, through the one-on-one sessions detailed in this study, Lyric Diction Instruction research now has multiple empirically tested Lyric Diction Instruction-specific Methods Approaches Tools and Techniques (MATTS), with in-action examples of each. In sum, and critically, Lyric Diction Instruction can never again be thought of as a field for which no academic credentials are required.

Keywords: Diction instruction
Lyric diction
Opera pronunciation
Pedagogical Content Knowledge
Advisor: Kerekes, Julie
Elucidating the Role of the Hippocampus in Pain

Multiple lines of evidence in animal and human studies have shown that the hippocampus, a brain region canonically responsible for memory, may be involved in pain. However, there is no consistent or direct evidence establishing this relationship. Hence, my primary goal is to determine whether the hippocampus is consistently associated with pain perception in humans. In two meta-analyses of acute and chronic pain neuroimaging studies, respectively, I found two major findings: 1) consistent increase in hippocampal activation in response to acute experimental pain in healthy individuals, and 2) less hippocampal activity in chronic pain patients compared to healthy individuals. In a follow-up functional connectivity study, I found that patients with chronic low-back pain had reduced hippocampal resting state connectivity with the medial prefrontal cortex, compared to healthy individuals. Then, quantitative and qualitative methods in a clinical model of hippocampal damage revealed that nociception is intact in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). They feel blunted pain to suprathreshold stimuli in the noxious range. Finally, the extent of hippocampal damage in patients with TLE is associated with the degree of pain sensitivity. In other words, patients with more hippocampal damage were less pain sensitive. Overall, these findings establish a role of the hippocampus in pain: it is an important site for the human pain experience.

Keywords: Hippocampus
Neuroimaging
Pain
Advisor: Moayedi, Massieh
McAndrews, Mary Pat
Towards Single-Cell Proteomics: Integrated Methods Relying on Digital Microfluidics and Mass Spectrometry

Cellular heterogeneity is a fundamental property of the trillions of cells that make up living mammals. Specialized single-cell analysis techniques are required to identify and interpret these differences, to be able to better understand the role of this heterogeneity in biological processes. Single-cell proteomics, or the attempt to evaluate all of the proteins expressed in a given single cell, has historically been limited by the complexity of the proteins, and limitations on analytical sensitivity (exacerbated by analyte loss during sample preparation). Microfluidic technologies have the potential to reduce the amount (or at least standardize the amount) of sample that is lost, through miniaturization, automation, and precise liquid handling. This dissertation describes my efforts to develop ultrasensitive digital microfluidic workflows coupled to liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry for the analysis of precious mass-limited protein samples, including single cells. The first chapter introduces methods for protein analysis and conventional mass spectrometry-based proteomics workflows. Chapter 2 presents an all-in-one digital microfluidic platform for proteomic sample preparation of a limited number of cells. A multiplexed sample preparation process was completed on the all-in-one platform with direct coupling to a nanoflow chromatography autosampler, and was applied towards the proteomic cancer sub-typing of breast cancer cell and tissue samples. Chapter 3 presents the first digital microfluidics proteomic workflow for the analysis of small tissue samples on-chip, facilitated by a photocleavable mass spectrometry compatible surfactant. This workflow combined surfactant-aided liquid extraction with on-chip sample preparation to profile proteins from microgram biopsies of murine brain tissue. Chapter 4 compares seven commonly used protein database searching algorithms against three sets of single-cell proteomics data. The differences in identification in this dataset highlight the importance of algorithm selection and continued development of new algorithms for specific applications in the future. Overall, this dissertation details important steps towards routine ultrasensitive mass spectrometry-based proteomics analysis of mass-limited samples, down to the single-cell level, using digital microfluidics technology.

Keywords: Bioinformatics
Digital Microfluidics
Mass Spectrometry
Proteomics
Surfactants
Ultrasensitive
Advisor: Wheeler, Aaron R
The Positive Influence of Dog Presence on Perceptions of Therapists in Introductory Videos

Research shows that individuals who are accompanied by a dog are perceived more positively compared to when they are alone in multiple contexts, including in photographs, vignettes and in public. A similar effect has been observed for therapists. Previous research demonstrated that therapists were perceived more positively in video vignettes when their dogs were seen with them. Further research demonstrated that therapists were perceived more positively when their dogs were physically present at the time of filming videos compared to when they were not, even when the dogs were not visible to participants. This suggested that perceptions of therapists may not only improve because of their dogs, but also because of the influence of dog presence on therapists’ personal presentations. Though this research provided further insight into the influence of dogs on perceptions of therapists, the limited research that exists on this effect is inconsistent. Thus, further research is necessary to understand it. Part 1 investigated the effects of therapists having just spent time with their dogs and discovered that therapists were perceived more favourably by participants after the therapists just spent time with their dogs compared to before the therapists spent time with their dogs. Part 2 investigated potential changes in the effect of dog presence depending on whether participants could see the dogs in the video vignettes, and found that dog visibility improved perceptions of therapists, but not willingness to disclose to therapists. Part 3 utilized semi-structured interviews to investigate changes in therapist characteristics in video vignettes when their dogs were present but not visible to participants. Reflexive thematic analysis revealed most participants preferred the therapists in the presence of their dogs, despite their dogs not being visible, because they smiled more, made more eye contact, and appeared more friendly, enthusiastic, and relatable, among other characteristics. A summary of the themes identified when comparing the therapists’ presentations in the presence and absence of their dogs is provided. The findings suggest that dog presence may be a helpful addition to the therapeutic process for therapists either by integration into their pre-session rituals or by accompanying therapists in session.

Keywords: dog presence
human-animal interaction
perception
therapeutic alliance
therapist
therapy
Advisor: Schneider, Margaret
Transformative Peace Leadership: Reflections of a School Leader’s Journey using Gandhian Perspectives Towards Education for Peace

My research explores a non-western alternative for transformative leadership. Through education for peace, critical pedagogy and a Gandhian philosophy of nonviolence known as ahimsa, this presents a unique lens of leadership practice. In this study, I used narrative inquiry to understand how Ali, an administrator of an elementary school enacted education for peace through Gandhian principles and unearthed nonviolent approaches to his leadership practice. Specifically, it explores nonviolent ways of moving leadership practice that integrates transformative leadership and notions of slow peace. The idea of slow peace emerged from Nixon’s work on slow violence, that grows gradually out of sight and dispersed across time and space (2001). Analysis of the data found that when 1) a Gandhian philosophy of ahimsa “to do no harm,” (1940, 1943, 2015), 2) Freire’s notions of critical pedagogy and transformative leadership (Freire, 1970, 2000 & Bennis 1986) and 3) Joshee et al. approaches of slow peace (2020), work together in a sustained and intentional practice, transformative change and agency can occur. Ali’s stories show that transformative change and agency can occur when these three elements of nonviolence work together in a sustained and intentional practice. Additionally, the stories from my study demonstrated that the involvement of the school community takes time through consistent and ongoing dialogue and hope for the goodness of humanity in students. In sharing these narratives, I hope to share valuable insight into a reimagined model of educational leadership that promotes peace and justice for all: transformative peace leadership.

Keywords: Critical Pedagogy
Gandhi
Leadership
Peace
Slow Peace
Transformative
Advisor: Joshee, Reva
Examining the Impact of University Quality Assurance: Mechanisms Shaping Individual and Departmental Responses to the Cyclical Program Review

This study examines the impact of academic quality assurance policy implementation within departments in a large university in Ontario, Canada. As quality assurance regimes have become a staple of higher education governance and regulation around the world, it has become ever more important to gain a rich understanding of their impact and effectiveness in improving academic quality. This study uses critical realism and social realism as its meta/theoretical perspectives, which both posit the social world as a layered, open system and in so doing they provide a deeper look into quality assurance work by uncovering the complex workings of social structure and human agency in bringing about change. Through a methods design involving case study analysis of documentation produced in the university’s program review process, primarily self-studies generated by 8 university departments, as well as interviews with 12 faculty and staff members, this study seeks to understand individual and departmental responses to quality assurance policy and the cyclical program review in particular. It explores how individuals within the institution conceive of quality and quality assurance, how they interpret and act in response to the university’s program review and what role contextual factors, including a department’s underlying knowledge structure, play in shaping responses to the review. The findings challenge the importance given to the program review as a key tool within the quality assurance system in Ontario, as a result of design and implementation that create significant obstacles to engagement that hinder its ability to bring about the kind of social change needed to significantly impact quality. These obstacles include confusion over the nature and purpose of the review process, the significant disconnect of the review process from the local departmental or unit levels, a trend towards genericism of disciplinary knowledge and programs, and ultimately a failure to engage the agency of its participants. As a result, quality assurance as a policy tool is found to be limited in its ability to bring about its aim of meaningful and lasting change to program quality.

Keywords: Bernstein
continuous improvement
critical realism
Knowledge structures
program evaluation
Quality assurance
Advisor: Wheelahan, Leesa
Area-Level Constrained Income, Immigrant Status and Adverse Maternal and Neonatal Birth Outcomes in Ontario, Canada

Living in low-income neighbourhoods, or being an immigrant, are each associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. However, little is known about the comparative risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes among immigrant vs. non-immigrant women living in low-income areas. This dissertation is comprised of three original epidemiologic studies of the risk of adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes among women residing exclusively in low-income areas in Ontario, Canada. The studies assessed whether the risk of these outcomes was influenced by maternal migration status, and separately, maternal neighbourhood income upward mobility. Each used a retrospective population-based cohort design, comprising administrative data housed at ICES.The first study compared the risk of severe maternal morbidity and maternal mortality (SMM-M) between immigrant and non-immigrant women residing exclusively within low-income urban neighborhoods. The overall risk of SMM-M was slightly lower among immigrant than non-immigrant women (adjusted relative risk [RR] 0.92, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.88-0.97). There was heterogeneity in the RR estimates depending on the immigrant source country. The second study compared the risk of severe neonatal morbidity and neonatal mortality (SNM-M) between newborns of immigrant and nonimmigrant women residing exclusively in low-income urban neighbourhoods. Newborns of immigrant women had an overall lower risk of SNM-M than non-immigrant women (adjusted RR 0.76, 95% CI 0.74-0.79), with considerable variation by maternal country of origin and duration of residence in Ontario. The third study included mothers living in low-income urban neighbourhoods, and evaluated their subsequent risk of SMM-M and SNM-M. Those who achieved upward area-level income mobility between 2 consecutive births were compared to those who did not experience such upward mobility. Women who moved to a higher-income area between births had a lower associated risk of SMM-M in their second pregnancy, compared to those who remained in low-income areas between births (adjusted RR 0.86, 95% CI 0.78 to 0.93). A similar effect was seen for their newborns, who also experienced a lower associated risk of SNM-M (adjusted RR 0.91, 95% CI 0.87 to 0.95) Together, these findings make a substantial contribution towards the understanding of adverse maternal and neonatal birth outcomes among women residing exclusively in lowest-income urban neighbourhoods.

Advisor: Ray, Joel G
O'Campo, Patricia
Mapping Attitudes Towards Controversial Technologies

New technologies in agriculture, reproduction, medicine, and elsewhere can provide significant social benefits, but may also pose significant risks. Consequently, it is important to understand which technologies will be adopted or rejected by the public, and why. Seven studies presented here examine underlying regularities in laypeople’s technology evaluations. Studies 1a-1b provide evidence for underlying regularities in technology evaluations, such that evaluations of superficially quite different technologies tend to cohere across individuals. Dimension reduction of people’s ratings of a wide range of technologies recovers three groups, which I label Contaminating, Playing God, and Mainstream. Attitudes towards these groups of technologies: (1) are associated with distinct individual differences (Studies 1-2b); (2) fall into distinct areas of a psychological risk perception space (Study 3); (3) are differentially affected by a manipulation of deliberative processing (Study 4). Finally, Study 5 investigates the extent to which technological risk assessments are grounded in moral convictions and are treated as sacred values. Implications of this work for technology developers and policy makers are also discussed.

Advisor: Inbar, Yoel
Neuronal Membrane Surfaces and their Role in Information Transmission and Disease

The neuronal membrane is a heterogeneous multi-domain interface with intrinsic relevance to signal propagation mechanisms and neurodegenerative disease pathology in-brain. This thesis compartmentalizes the role of neuronal membrane surface effects into four categories: organization of interfacial water molecules, membrane soliton properties and their incorporation into electrical signal propagation models, membrane bound biomolecules and their influence on beta amyloid adsorption, distinct neural zones and their relative vulnerability to Alzheimer’s pathology. These neuronal membrane effects are investigated and characterized through a combination of quantum chemical/molecular mechanics static calculations and dynamics simulations. An overall connection between neuronal surface environment and brain function/disease is established. Remaining open questions and suggested future work are also outlined.

Advisor: Weaver, Donald F.