Matching Items (3)
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- All Subjects: Cultural Anthropology
- Creators: Sandlin, Jennifer
Description
The intention of this research is to bring us to Worcester, Massachusetts, New England's second largest city, to critically investigate the punitive patterns that exist in the "second chance" opportunity structure experienced by young people who have been dropped-out of schools. The conceptual framework I've constructed pulls from developed theories on the relationship between structural processes, institutional practices and lived experiences of marginalization. There is a need to understand how the process of school leaving, the label of "dropout," and the pursuit of second-chance opportunity are connected and exercise forms of punishment that have clear messages about the worth of these young men's aspirations and the value in fostering support for their opportunities. This critical ethnography introduces the narratives of four young men, marginalized by race and class, whose pursuits of alternative education pathways in Worcester, MA lead them towards constructing an inclusive opportunity on one's own terms. My assertion here is that the social issue is not exclusively about "dropouts," but about the relationships our schools, neighborhoods and society at large have on creating the enabling conditions of opportunity for our most marginalized students.
ContributorsBegin, Meshia (Author) / Lopez, Vera (Thesis advisor) / Cheng, Wendy (Committee member) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The purpose of this study is to explore the local life stories of five youths in Belize City, Belize as they experience satellite mediated programming from Black Entertainment Television (BET). It illuminates the manner in which social imagination plays a role in the liberatory practices of the Kriol youth in Belize City, Belize by documenting their life histories in relation to their interactions with BET. The study addresses the following: a) the ways that Kriol youth in Belize make sense of international cable programming; b) the degrees to which these negotiations result in liberatory moments. The study investigates the stories the youth in an through narrative inquiry research methods that can expose how, and to what degree local experiences in the Caribbean can help individuals employ their social imagination for personal growth. Readers of this text may become empowered to adopt the identities of others as their own, and may as a result witness the world from a fresh perspective, perhaps even experiencing moments in which their own life stories are altered. The contextualized categories involving popular BET programming emerged based on how power was distributed and organized in the every day lives of the informants. Empirical examples of hegemonic levels of interaction arose from within the stories. An analysis based on the works of Caribbean scholar Rex Nettleford (1978) was used to study relationships between these levels. There emerged from within the narratives four kinds of hegemonic power negotiations based on degrees of social: Dependence, Impulsive Resistance, Conscious Subordination, Leverage, and Creolization.
ContributorsRichards, Calvin Centae (Author) / Barone, Thomas (Thesis advisor) / Fischman, Gustavo (Committee member) / Hinds, David (Committee member) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
ABSTRACT There is a body of literature--albeit largely from the UK and Australia--that examines the ways in which class and gender influence life course, including educational attainment; however, much of this literature offers explanations and analyses for why individuals choose the life course they do. By assuming a cause-effect relationship between class and gender and life course, these studies perpetuate the idea that life can be predicted and controlled. Such an approach implies there is but one way of viewing--or an "official reading" of--the experience of class and gender. This silences other readings. This study goes beneath these "interpretations" and explores the phenomenon of identity and identity making in women who grew up working-class. Included is an investigation into how these women recognize and participate in their own identity making, identifying the interpretations they created and apply to their experience and the ways in which they juxtapose their educative experience. Using semi-structured interview I interviewed 21 women with working-class habitués. The strategy of inquiry that corresponded best to the goal of this project was heuristics, a variant of empathetic phenomenology. Heuristics distinguishes itself by including the life experience of the researcher while still showing how different people may participate in an event in their lives and how these individuals may give it radically different meanings. This has two effects: (1) the researcher recognizes that their own life experience affects their interpretations of these stories and (2) it elucidates the researcher's own life as it relates to identity formation and educational experience. Two, heuristics encourages different ways of presenting findings through a variety of art forms meant to enhance the immediacy and impact of an experience rather than offer any explanation of it. As a result of the research, four themes essential to locating the experience of women who grew up working class were discovered: making, paying attention, taking care, and up. These themes have pedagogic significance as women with working-class habitués navigate from this social space: the downstream effect of which is how and what these women take up as education.
ContributorsDecker, Shannon Irene (Author) / Blumenfeld-Jones, Donald (Thesis advisor) / Richards-Young, Gillian (Committee member) / Sandlin, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011