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.
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Rhetoric
I first establish the historical, social, and political context for the development of DE programs at the University of Connecticut with an overview Brown v. Board of Education, whites’ resistance to integration, and the white complacency of citizens in Connecticut in the 1950s. Using whiteness theory and feminist research methods, archival research conducted at the University of Connecticut focused on the development of DE programs shows an institutional absent presence, that is, there is an absence of reference to Brown, integration, or race of students where it concerns the construction, inception, and operation of the first DE writing courses. And finally, an attempt at a disparate impact analysis of current assessment practices that determine enrollment in DE writing courses highlights access and assessment as a connection between the history and the present state of DE programs and DE composition courses. With the inclusion of DE composition, my dissertation project fills at least some of the identified gap in historical research in Rhetoric and Composition Studies during the 1950s and extends arguments of how white complacency has and continues to influence the field and first-year writing.