Theses and Dissertations

Beautiful and rich in history, the Arabic language is spoken by over 422 million people. The language has significant social and political importance, and it is increasingly taught in universities around the United States. When languages are taught their aim should be not only to teach learners to communicate effectively, but also to gain a deep understanding and respect of culture, people, and history. The Al-Kitaab textbook series by Georgetown University Press is utilized as the main learning material in most universities in the United States to teach Arabic language. The highly political and negative nature of the series limits students’ comprehension to a political perspective influenced by the conflicts in the Middle East and has a severe impact on not only students’ learning ability but also their perception of the Arabic language and culture. While the series sufficiently provides the political vocabulary necessary for roles in government, it overlooks the importance of a full understanding of the cultural richness and nuances of the Arabic language necessary for an appreciation of history, arts, and literature of the region. The overarching objective of this project is to analyze the Georgetown University Press Al-Kitaab textbook series for Arabic language instruction and compare it to the Vista Higher Learning Sentieri textbook for Italian language instruction to plan a new Arabic curriculum to increase student enrollment. This comparison will explore recurring themes present in each textbook series and display the detrimental and outdated depictions of Arab culture presented throughout the Al-Kitaab series. Different aspects of the textbooks will be discussed including vocabulary and vocabulary progression, biographies of important figures, in-text activities, reading passages, and recurrent themes. Through revamping the learning materials used to teach Arabic, Arizona State University (ASU) and the School of International Letters and Cultures (SILC) can become innovative leaders in the instruction of university-level Arabic language.

Transgender and gender-nonconforming assigned female at birth (AFAB) individuals are consistently excluded when discussing sexual health and contraceptive methods and face unique challenges in accessing sexual healthcare as gender dysphoria heavily influences their decision-making process as well as fear of discrimination from healthcare providers and settings. The research aim of this project is to develop an online contraceptive decision aid tailored to transgender and gender-nonconforming AFAB individuals. MyChoiceForAll is built using the gaps identified in healthcare research and existing resources provided by Planned Parenthood and Bedsider, alongside feedback from a development focus group. The tool is a four-paged quiz that returns two pages of information and resources for a variety of different contraceptive methods for transgender and gender-nonconforming AFAB individuals as well as connecting them to trans-friendly providers. The evaluation phase includes simulated test cases, a survey, and a second focus group to assess for accuracy, usefulness, usability, and general impressions of the tool. 94.3% of the 105 test cases resulted in an accurate recommendation that aligns with user input. Over 75.00% of survey participants overwhelmingly believed the MyChoiceForAll tool to be beneficial in providing appropriate and inclusive educational material about contraceptives, prompting users for relevant lifestyle, preferences, and gender identity decision factors, and being overall inclusive of users’ gender identity. Evaluation focus group participants believe that MyChoiceForAll performs better overall compared to the Planned Parenthood quiz, Bedsider matrix, and MyContraceptiveChoice in general impressions and inclusivity of transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals and their preferences. In conclusion, MyChoiceForAll accomplishes its goal of developing an accessible and inclusive resource for transgender and gender-nonconforming AFAB individuals in assisting with the birth control selection process.

Many recent hot topic news headlines claim that attacks are being made on the separation of Church and state in the United States. These articles specifically list the Catholic Church as a chief culprit due to the religious beliefs of the governmental officials in question. An in-depth understanding of each institution's position on the doctrine of separation of Church and state is developed along with the foundational motivations of each position to better understand the general subject matter, where afterwards the validity of the claims can be determined. The historical American perspective on Church-state separation is developed from the combined thought of James Madison, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, where their thoughts are shown to have originated from John Locke. Next, the viewpoint of the Catholic Church is developed from a brief summary of historical Church-state relations and topical Papal encyclicals. Finally, each institutions’ position is motivated by their respective underlying foundations in the nature of man.