Matching Items (34)
Description
Waggle Ballet explores the possibility of increasing access to ballet for blind audience members by using a combination of live music, accessible choreography, a sensory based workshop, and wearable sonification technology. Waggle Ballet is a classical ballet excerpt that addresses the limitations presented by audio descriptions. Where audio descriptions serve to describe exactly what can be seen on stage for audience members with blindness or vision impairments, Waggle Ballet uses other sensory elements to trigger the imagination and create a sound environment that is generated through ballet movements with the help of motion capturing sensors and thematic sound outputs. The piece was performed in front of a live audience of varying sight abilities with the live musical accompaniment of the bass clarinet. A mini workshop was given that incorporated storytelling and touch to help audience members become familiar with the environment created in the piece. With all the elements coming together, Waggle Ballet hopes to evoke a unique experience that draws from the aspects of ballet performance beyond purely visual aesthetics.
ContributorsFelder, Kiara (Author) / Cechanowicz, Laura (Thesis director) / Puruhito, Krista (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / School of Human Evolution & Social Change (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor)
Created2024-05
Communicatively Co-Constituting Pathways of an Inclusive Workplace: A Participant-Driven Methodology
Description
In this study, I explore how employees with a diverse range of standpoints co-constitute pathways for creating an inclusive workplace. I use a participant-driven methodology to understand how employees with diverse social identities envision characteristics of an inclusive workplace. I then use Interpretive Structural Modeling (Warfield, 1976) to understand how participants perceive the relationship among the key characteristics. The results and analysis suggest one particular pathway for creating an inclusive workplace. First, having a diverse workforce across all levels of the organization and an environment of psychological safety increase the likelihood employees would then commit to inclusion. After establishing a genuine commitment, employees would more likely enact intercultural empathy and advocate for an inclusive organizational infrastructure. Based on these findings, I offer metatheoretical, theoretical, and methodological contributions that, when taken together, work to reimagine how people can organize around diversity and inclusion. More specifically, I add to the conversation of engaged scholarship, communication as constitutive of organizations and diversity management studies, and Interactive Management. I then offer three practical implications organizational leaders can use to inform future organizing efforts: intentional hiring practices, creating an environment of psychological safety, and educational programming. I conclude by offering limitations and future directions for researchers and practitioners.
ContributorsRazzante, Robert John (Author) / Tracy, Sarah J. (Thesis advisor) / Broome, Benjamin J. (Thesis advisor) / Chawla, Devika (Committee member) / Hogan, Michael (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Institutions, including collegiate schools of music, tell stories about the ways in which they have transformed to include and support diverse students, but what do students say about their institution? Collegiate music students possess powerful and intimate knowledge, and their stories can reveal the lived reality of their experiences of equity and justice within the institution. The purpose of this study was to gain understanding of the ways in which music students experience equity and inequity within their school of music and to learn from them how their institution as a system impacts their experiences. The research puzzle comprised, in part, the following questions: In what ways do music students experience equity and inequity?; What institutionalized systems facilitate or hinder their sense of inclusion?; How do their stories bump up against the stories the institution tells itself about equity?To explore these questions, I engaged in a qualitative study grounded in narrative inquiry that placed the counterstories of music students in dialogue with the story of diversity and inclusion as told by their collegiate institution. Eight university music students who each self-identify as being from a marginalized group participated in conversations and ongoing dialogue with me. As this study was premised on promoting equity, participants collaborated in the writing and selection of their narratives.
Placing the students’ stories and the institution’s story of equity side by side highlighted the misalignment between the institution’s espoused values and the students’ experiences. The stories raised further questions, such as: How and when do students feel silenced or empowered to speak? What makes it possible for them to challenge an institution (or not)? How do students want faculty and administrators to engage with them? In what ways does their engagement in issues of equity and justice make them susceptible to risk, and what is the risk? Through narrative inquiry, I contribute a complex and nuanced understanding of how one institution, including its school of music, perpetuates oppressive practices, opening space for students who live these experiences to lead the interrogation of—and resistance within—this and similar places.
ContributorsAlekna, Mallory A (Author) / Schmidt, Margaret (Thesis advisor) / Stauffer, Sandra (Thesis advisor) / Lerman, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Thompson, Jason (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2021
Description
The goal of this study was to gain insights from adults on the autism spectrum regarding their recommendations for improving the accessibility of stores and restaurants. Four adults who indicated that they had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder or Asperger’s Syndrome volunteered to participate in a qualitative interview. The questions that participants were asked centered around their experiences in stores and restaurants, current accessibility guidelines, the impact of COVID-19 on their experiences, and their recommendations for increased accessibility. Recommendations fell into two main categories: changes to the environment and accommodations that could be provided. Participants suggested multiple ways to reduce their sensitivities to noise in stores and restaurants like lowering the music, creating a quiet hour, or providing noise cancelling headphones. Further efforts are needed to fully understand the issue of accessibility for autistic individuals.
ContributorsWall, Charlotte (Author) / Updegraff, Kimberly (Thesis director) / Puruhito, Krista (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / School of Criminology and Criminal Justice (Contributor)
Created2021-12
Description
The term disability inherently suggests a lack of ability that, if corrected or mitigated, can—and should—be turned from a negative into a positive. People with disabilities have embraced the term out of a sense of unity and pride, but we are not willing to embrace the underlying social attitudes that go along with it. Activists in the Disability Rights Movement continue fighting for equal rights, while academics in the field of disability studies produce work that examines and elucidates disability as a complex socio-political category. Still, unlike other social categories, disability remains outside the scope of mainstream consideration beyond cures, accommodations, and inspiration. This paper presents disability from different angles with the goal of expanding the reader’s conception of the topic and encouraging further discussion in mainstream circles. I start with a personal narrative of my life as a disabled person and discuss how I began to see abstract connections between my experiences and those of people in other marginalized social groups. In subsequent sections, I examine the following: theoretical models of disability and their practical implications; some ways in which stigma surrounding disability prevents progress; how the concept of disability has been used against social groups throughout history, causing them to work towards distancing themselves from the danger and unconsciously legitimizing some underlying causes of marginalization, and whether disability should be a part of the future. I close by explaining how general support in the realm of higher education offers people with disabilities the best hope for a path forward. Although this paper is constructed using philosophical insights, the writing style and structure are not representative of the discipline.
ContributorsLeland, Morgan Kay (Author) / Calhoun, Cheshire (Thesis director) / Levit Ades, Rachel (Committee member) / Historical, Philosophical & Religious Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Inclusion of diverse talent in the field of public accounting has been highly prioritized by the profession since the late 1960s. In seeking to acquire racially/ethnically diverse talent in addition to an expanding set of identities (e.g. veterans, people with disabilities, LGTBQ+, and various backgrounds contributing to “diversity of thought”), Big Four Public Accounting firms have taken on more operational ownership of their Diversity and Inclusion programming. We conducted interviews with D&I program facilitators and surveyed Accounting and Finance students at Arizona State University to assess whether these programs align with students’ outlooks and are being properly presented to enhance awareness. The uniformity across the Big Four’s D&I program structures, the persistence in competition among them in relation to talent acquisition and retention, and students’ lack of awareness relating to program timing and existence lead us to conclude that efforts in improving diversity and inclusion in Big Four Public Accounting are most effective when the Big Four act collectively
ContributorsAlaniz, Leslie M (Co-author) / Quintana, Jacob (Co-author) / Samuels, Janet (Thesis director) / Dawson, Gregory (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-05
Description
Employers must go beyond diversifying their workforce and prioritize inclusion in their workplace. This thesis is written to employers to provide a comprehensive, introductory look into why and how an employer could prioritize inclusion in their workplace. In part one, a literature review answers the following questions: What is inclusion? How are diversity and inclusion related? How is the workplace exclusive? What is an inclusive workplace like? and What are the benefits of having an inclusive workplace? Then, in part two, a case study analysis reviews best practices of a company that has been recognized as being inclusive. Through both of these parts, three overacting principles emerge; inclusion should be a widespread value in an organization, new practices must move beyond the superficial to have real impact and all employees in the organization should be engaged in making the workplace more inclusive. Change also must happen in three areas including the climate, leadership and practices of an organization.
ContributorsMooney, Samantha Jean (Co-author) / Mooney, Samantha (Co-author) / Smith, Jacqueline (Thesis director) / Sully de Luque, Mary (Committee member) / School of Community Resources and Development (Contributor) / Watts College of Public Service & Community Solut (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Libraries have historical and contemporary importance as public spaces that serve a purpose beyond storing books. In our thesis project, we wanted to ensure that the ASU Library was fulfilling this role for our student community. Based on a survey of 136 members of the Arizona State University community regarding accessibility of the Libraries, the results found that the ASU Library system could benefit from more accessible and digital content and programming. In response to our findings, we created a digital book display which highlighted resources about critical disability studies, the importance of community spaces and libraries in particular, as well as information about universal design. This book display serves as an example of what the future of book displays could be and how to create inclusive spaces in the university Library system. Access the project here: https://libguides.asu.edu/BeyondBooks
ContributorsGolding, Carly A (Co-author) / Juarez, Alexis (Co-author) / Oliverio, Annamarie (Thesis director) / Gohr, Michelle Ashley (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor, Contributor) / Watts College of Public Service & Community Solut (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2020-12
Description
Architecture is known primarily as a physical form, with weight given to material and statics, and in this reductionist process, excludes experientially-based spatial dialogues. Dance and movement are used to reintegrate this embodied practice into architecture and space. There have been many investigations integrating western dance into architecture. Bharatantayam, an ancient South Indian, Hindu dance form, has not been recognized as equal to Ballet and other western art forms beyond labels of cultural dance forms. This thesis experiments with the philosophies and practices of Bharatanatyam to work through the design process of climatory resilient architecture installation. By combining dance movement experiments and community narrative investigations, this project ultimately became a community gathering space in one of the hottest regions of Maryvale, AZ. The illustrated process becomes an example of a generative process integrating and intersecting diverse ethnic philosophies with habitat and community oriented site explorations to promote a pluralistic architectural way of being.
ContributorsUdupa, Ananth (Author) / Kelley, Kristian (Thesis director) / Mandala, Sumana (Thesis director) / Lerman, Liz (Thesis director) / Akinleye, Adesola (Committee member) / Hejduk, Renata (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / The Design School (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
There is increasing interest in understanding how active learning affects students’ mental health as science courses transition from traditional lecture to active learning. Prior research has found that active learning can both alleviate and exacerbate undergraduate mental health problems. Existing studies have only examined the relationship between active learning and anxiety. No studies have examined the relationship between active learning and undergraduate depression. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted hour-long exploratory interviews with 29 students with depression who had taken active learning science courses across six U.S. institutions. We probed what aspects of active learning practices exacerbate or alleviate depressive symptoms and how students’ depression affects their experiences in active learning. We found that aspects of active learning practices exacerbate and alleviate students’ depressive symptoms, and depression negatively impacts students’ experiences in active learning. The underlying aspects of active learning practices that impact students’ depression fall into four overarching categories: inherently social, inherently engaging, opportunities to compare selves to others, and opportunities to validate or invalidate intelligence. We hope that by better understanding the experiences of undergraduates with depression in active learning courses we can create more inclusive learning environments for these students.
ContributorsAraghi, Tala (Author) / Cooper, Katelyn (Thesis director) / Brownell, Sara (Committee member) / Busch, Carly (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Life Sciences (Contributor)
Created2022-05