ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
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Description
The notion of a teacher is an archaic, dynamic, and diverse concept that is embedded in and therefore revealed in the various complex and coexisting cultural and national contexts, ways of teaching and learning, and the entanglements with beings in multiple worlds. However, under the fundamental impacts of westernization, coloniality, and modernization in the Anthropocene, the concept of a teacher has been endowed with narrow colonial, human-centric, politicalized, as well as vocationalized and secularized connotations. It has been oversimplified to a profession, while other possible interpretations have been omitted and marginalized at the same time. My dissertation questions the implications of the gradual narrowing down of the concept over time and reexamines the concept of a teacher with the aim of ontologically broadening the scope of different connotations and embracing more diverse and inclusive forms as well as contexts of being a ‘teacher.’ In response, this dissertation traces the history, evolution, and cultural contexts of the notion of a teacher in ancient and modern China. It explores the concept of a teacher ontologically through multiple historical and theoretical frames, including decolonial theory in comparative education and several conceptual constructs in Taoism, Confucianism, and posthumanism. Guided by these frames, I introduce innovative (post)qualitative methodologies in data generation and collection, referring to collective re-membering activities, reanimating sense, and speculative fabulation experiences (Haraway, 2013) in terms of “teaching without words/actions,” “sitting and Wu,” and “Ge wu zhi zhi.” This dissertation is designed as a multi-scenario, multi-sense, and multispecies ethnography, and the fieldwork was conducted over three months of summertime in 2022 in a small town and a modern supercity in China. Using a diffractive analysis of memories, stories, and experiences with multiple participants, I attempt to broaden the concept of a teacher by presenting a variety of coexisting conceptualizations of the term and bringing into focus multiple ways of teaching, learning, and being a teacher.
ContributorsJiang, Jieyu (Author) / Silova, Iveta (Thesis advisor) / Goebel, Janna (Committee member) / Wu, Jinting (Committee member) / Anderson, Kate (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023
Description
University-level sustainability education in Western academia attempts to focus on eliminating future harm to people and the planet. However, Western academia as an institution upholds systems of oppression and reproduces settler colonialism. This reproduction is antithetical to sustainability goals as it continues patterns of Indigenous erasure and extractive relationships to the Land that perpetuate violence towards people and the planet. Sustainability programs, however, offer several frameworks, including resilience, that facilitate critical interrogations of social-ecological systems. In this thesis, I apply the notion of resilience to the perpetuation of settler colonialism within university-level sustainability education. Specifically, I ask: How is settler colonialism resilient in university-level sustainability education? How are, or could, sustainability programs in Western academic settings address settler colonialism? Through a series of conversational interviews with faculty and leadership from Arizona State University School of Sustainability, I analyzed how university-level sustainability education is both challenging and shaped by settler colonialism. These interviews focused on faculty perspectives on the topic and related issues; the interviews were analyzed using thematic coding in NVivo software. The results of this project highlight that many faculty members are already concerned with and focused on challenging settler colonialism, but that settler colonialism remains resilient in this system due to feedback loops at the personal level and reinforcing mechanisms at the institutional level. This research analyzes these feedback loops and reinforcing mechanisms, among others, and supports the call for anti-colonial and decolonial reconstruction of curriculum, as well as a focus on relationship building, shifting of mindset, and school-wide education on topics of white supremacy, settler colonialism, and systems of oppression in general.
ContributorsBills, Haven (Author) / Klinsky, Sonja (Thesis advisor) / Goebel, Janna (Committee member) / Schoon, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022
Description
Amidst mounting global crises spanning environmental, social, and economic domains, sustainability education has emerged as a vital pathway toward a thriving future. However, despite its promise, the concept of sustainability often remains superficial, leaving educators ill-equipped to address its complexities. While efforts to integrate sustainability into education are underway, critical pedagogy, a crucial tool for fostering social change, is notably absent from instructional practices. This action research project utilized critical pedagogy to design and implement a critical professional development (CPD) workshop within a larger fellowship program to center justice within sustainability in both content and pedagogical approach. As a result, participants’ definitions and understandings of sustainability increased across all measurements of extent, breadth, and depth. Specifically, participants redefined collaborative relationships and more prominently included notions of justice and equity in their conceptualizations of sustainability and sustainability education. The use of critical pedagogy encouraged teachers to analyze intersectional oppressive systems and fostered a new, critical perspective on sustainability. In their own educational designs, participants demonstrated an intention to model elements of critical pedagogy, such as dialogic action and permeable content. Finally, in alignment with the intended outcomes of CPD, participants developed cooperative space for co-learning, built unity, shared leadership, and felt confident implementing their own professional development to address context-specific concerns. By using critical pedagogy in sustainability education, the workshop participants prioritized deep and caring relationships which fostered empathic engagement with the intersectional and often dehumanizing systems that have led to interconnected global crises. The results indicated that using CPD as a framework could be effective in teacher professional development for sustainability as a design and implementation tool to center critical work that examines systemic issues of injustice and exploitation against both humans and our planet.
ContributorsCashion, Molly Elise (Author) / Judson, Eugene (Thesis advisor) / Casanova, Carlos (Committee member) / Goebel, Janna (Committee member) / Boyce, Ayesha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024