The Political Economy of St. Catharines' Illicit Taxi Trade

The global restructuring of production has led to increasingly precarious working conditions around the world. Post-industrial work is characterized by poor working conditions, low wages, a lack of social protection and political representation and little job security. Unregulated forms of work that are defined as “irregular” or “illegal”, or in some cases “criminal,” are connected to sweeping transformations within the broader regulated (formal) economy. The connection between the formal and informal sectors can more accurately be described as co-optation and, as a subordinate integration of the informal to the formal. The city of St. Catharines within Niagara, along with much of Ontario’s industrial heartland, has been hard hit by deindustrialization. The rise of this illegal service is thus viewed against the backdrop of heavy economic restructuring, as opportunities for work in the manufacturing sector have become sparse. In addition, this research also explores the paradoxical co-optation of the growing illicit taxi economy and consequences for racialized and foreign credentialed labour in the taxi industry. The overall objective of this research is to explore the illicit cab industry as not only inseparable from the formal economy, but dialectically, how it is as an integrated and productive element of the public and private transportation industry. Furthermore the research examines what this co-optation means in the context of a labour market that is split by race.

Enhancing Student Learning: Study of a Motivational Resource for Educators

This study surveyed practicing classroom teacher’s perceptions of a proposed educational resource “Avatar Academy” designed to enhance students’, particularly young boys, motivation and general attitude towards learning. The Avatar Academy resource is an instructional guide for implementing a classroom reward system based on common game mechanics. The resource emphasizes the modification of current pedagogies to exploit the use of game design to engage boys. A survey of recent literature indicated an opportunity to study teachers’ perceptions of the possible applications of game design mechanics to support the enhancement of student motivation and learning in the classroom. As a result the Avatar Academy handbook and blog resource were developed to assist teachers with the integration and administration of a program designed to enhance student motivation, especially boys, using avatars and a point based reward system. The resources were initially distributed to several practicing teachers for their review, and their feedback formed the basis for revisions of the Avatar Academy resource. After implementing changes to the resource based on initial teacher feedback, an updated Avatar Academy was redistributed and teacher opinions and perceptions of the tool’s possible impacts on classroom learning were collected.

Geographical Applications for Sound Walks

Geography has long been a predominantly visual discipline, but recent work in geography has sought to explore the multisensory, embodied, emotional and affective dimensions of people’s relations with places. One way to engage this type of exploration is through the use of sound walks: walks along a specified route accompanied by a soundtrack (on headphones or stationary speakers) that conveys information, enacts a story, produces an ambience or atmosphere, or illuminates certain aspects of the environment through which the listener is walking. This thesis aims to show how geographers can benefit from using sound walks as thinking tools, representational tools and teaching tools. Drawing on my own experiences producing sound walks, I first examine the ways that sound walk production processes help generate productive geographical thinking for those producing sound walks (Chapter Two). The various stages of producing a sound walk require different skill sets, pose different challenges, and require different sorts of environmental awareness, and therefore present novel opportunities for developing geographical insights about specific places or spatial relations. Second, I focus on four experientially-oriented aspects of sound walks – using multiple senses, walking, contingency, and moments of interaction – to argue that sound walks can be useful representational tools for geographers, whether those creating sound walks subscribe to a representational or non-representational theory of knowledge (Chapter Three). The value of sound walks as representational tools is in the experience of ‘doing’ them. That is, audiences discover for themselves through interaction what is being represented, rather than having it delivered to them. The experiential elements of ‘doing’ sound walks recommend them as potentially helpful representational tools for geographers. Third, by examining the work of a small sample of fourth year “Advanced Geography of Music” students, I develop the argument that sound walks can be effective tools for teaching students and for creating circumstances for students to learn independently (Chapter Four). Sound walks have potential to be effective pedagogical tools because they are commensurate with several key pedagogical schools of thought that emphasise the importance of requiring students to engage actively with their environment using a combination of senses. The thesis demonstrates that sound walks are a worthwhile resource for geographers to use theoretically, representationally and pedagogically in their work. The next step is for geographers to put them into practice and realize this potential.