Examination and Critique of Codebook for Textual Analysis

The researcher presents the details, findings, and critique of a pre-pilot study conducted on a codebook created for a textbook comparison. She used Cohen’s alpha and percent agreement to determine inter-rater reliabilities for coding categories. These values revealed changes needed in the coding scheme and in the coder training process for the future comparison study.

An analysis of completeness and historical accuracy in the most commonly used college jazz history texts

Historical accuracy is only one of the components of a scholarly college textbook used to teach the history of jazz music. Textbooks in this field should include accurate ethnic representation of the most important musical figures as jazz is considered the only original American art form. As college and universities celebrate diversity, it is important that jazz history be accurate and complete. ^ The purpose of this study was to examine the content of the most commonly used jazz history textbooks currently used at American colleges and universities. This qualitative study utilized grounded and textual analysis to explore the existence of ethnic representation in these texts. The methods used were modeled after the work of Kane and Selden each of whom conducted a content analysis focused on a limited field of study. This study is focused on key jazz artists and composers whose work was created in the periods of early jazz (1915-1930), swing (1930-1945) and modern jazz (1945-1960). ^ This study considered jazz notables within the texts in terms of ethnic representation, authors' use of language, contributions to the jazz canon, and place in the standard jazz repertoire. Appropriate historical sections of the selected texts were reviewed and coded using predetermined rubrics. Data were then aggregated into categories and then analyzed according to the character assigned to the key jazz personalities noted in the text as well as the comparative standing afforded each personality. ^ The results of this study demonstrate that particular key African-American jazz artists and composers occupy a significant place in these texts while other significant individuals representing other ethnic groups are consistently overlooked. This finding suggests that while America and the world celebrates the quality of the product of American jazz as great musically and significant socially, many ethnic contributors are not mentioned with the result being a less than complete picture of the evolution of this American art form. ^

Trade, justice, and the politics of difference: Small developing states in the World Trade Organization

The purpose of this research project was to investigate two distinct types of research questions – one theoretical, the other empirical: (1) What would justice mean in the context of the international trade regime? (2.Using the small developing states of the Commonwealth Caribbean as a case study, what do Commonwealth Caribbean trade negotiators mean when they appeal to justice? Regarding the first question, Iris Young's framework which focuses on the achievement of social justice in a domestic context by acknowledging social differences such as those based on race and gender, was adopted and its relevance argued in the international context of interstate trade negotiation so as to validate the notion of (size, location, and governance capacity) difference in this latter context. The point of departure is that while states are typically treated as equals in international law – as are individuals in liberal political theory – there are significant differences between states which warrant different treatment in the international arena. The study found that this re-formulation of justice which takes account of such differences between states, allows for more adequate policy responses than those offered by the presumption of equal treatment. Regarding the second question, this theoretical perspective was used to analyze the understandings of justice from which Commonwealth Caribbean trade negotiators proceed. Interpretive and ethnographic methods, including participant observation, interviews, field notes, and textual analysis, were employed to analyze their understandings of justice. The study found that these negotiators perceive such justice as being justice to difference because of the distinct characteristics of small developing states which combine to constrain their participation in the international trading system; based on this perception, they seek rules and outcomes in the multilateral trade regime which are sensitive to such different characteristics; and while these issues were examined in a specific region, its findings are relevant for other regions consisting of small developing states, such as those in the ACP group.

Dulce Maria Loynaz' Jardin: Subversive tropological discourse

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze how the tropes or figurative discourse in Loynaz’s novel, Jardín, becomes a means by which she involves the reader within a text that subverts socio-cultural conventions. Through textual analysis, it explains how the poet communicates her views of the world as a conflictive space where existence is the will to live, life being a human construction like a garden, and a woman’s decision –often frustrated by men– to seek self-realization.^ By tracing some critical studies focused on polarities allegedly present in Jardín, such as: poetry/prose, lyric poetry/novel, word/silence, life/death, character novel/space novel, civilization/barbarism, posmodernismo/vanguardismo, and femininity/feminism, this essay explores Loynaz’s esthetic and ideological codes to demonstrate how opposition can be seen in her novel as part of her arrangement of an artistic philosophy.^ This research refers to three main sources: the semiotician Umberto Eco’s notion of the text’s indeterminacy as an opera aperta, reception theory, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism. By applying these theories to the analysis of this novel, I seek to show Loynaz’s literary modus (tropological language) and ideological dictum , which correlate oppositions and transform them as a point of departure to reconsider civilized life. The poet is presented as an esthetic force that compels the reader to question some false values, by creating an implicit but intelligent dialogue between him/her and a lyrical text. To describe such literary procedure, I coin in this study the term dialirismo (dialyricism). ^ My essay is centered on the tropes through which Loynaz creates her dialyrical text. By focusing on metaphor, symbol, synecdoche, and metonymy, I examine Jardín as a convergence of the following conceptual aspects: intertextuality, primitivism, and feminist discourse. I argue that Loynaz’s novel is a creative response to the literary tradition, as well as a proposal to understand writing –and reading– as an open, interactive process in search not only of artistic values but also of critical knowledge.^ This exploration shows how the novelist faces a so-called civilized world through the eyes of her fictional character, Bárbara, who confronts patriarchal discourse. It celebrates Loynaz’s poetic representation of this inquisitive woman, in her fenced garden, as a human being who can see, above and beyond an iron curtain, the possibility to overcome an aggressive male-centered civilization.^

"New" Social Movements: Alternative Modernities, (Trans)local Nationalisms, and Solidarity Economies

My dissertation is the first project on the Haitian Platform for Advocacy for an Alternative Development- PAPDA, a nation-building coalition founded by activists from varying sectors to coordinate one comprehensive nationalist movement against what they are calling an Occupation. My work not only provides information on this under-theorized popular movement but also situates it within the broader literature on the postcolonial nation-state as well as Latin American and Caribbean social movements. The dissertation analyzes the contentious relationship between local and global discourses and practices of citizenship. Furthermore, the research draws on transnational feminist theory to underline the scattered hegemonies that intersect to produce varied spaces and practices of sovereignty within the Haitian postcolonial nation-state. The dissertation highlights how race and class, gender and sexuality, education and language, and religion have been imagined and co-constituted by Haitian social movements in constructing ‘new’ collective identities that collapse the private and the public, the rural and the urban, the traditional and the modern. My project complements the scholarship on social movements and the postcolonial nation-state and pushes it forward by emphasizing its spatial dimensions. Moreover, the dissertation de-centers the state to underline the movement of capital, goods, resources, and populations that shape the postcolonial experience. I re-define the postcolonial nation-state as a network of local, regional, international, and transnational arrangements between different political agents, including social movement actors. To conduct this interdisciplinary research project, I employed ethnographic methods, discourse and textual analysis, as well as basic mapping and statistical descriptions in order to present a historically-rooted interpretation of individual and organizational negotiations for community-based autonomy and regional development.

Comparison of Linear Functions in Middle Grades Textbooks from Singapore and the United States

Many U.S. students do not perform well on mathematics assessments with respect to algebra topics such as linear functions, a building-block for other functions. Poor achievement of U.S. middle school students in this topic is a problem. U.S. eighth graders have had average mathematics scores on international comparison tests such as Third International Mathematics Science Study, later known as Trends in Mathematics and Science Study, (TIMSS)-1995, -99, -03, while Singapore students have had highest average scores. U.S. eighth grade average mathematics scores improved on TIMMS-2007 and held steady onTIMMS-2011. Results from national assessments, PISA 2009 and 2012 and National Assessment of Educational Progress of 2007, 2009, and 2013, showed a lack of proficiency in algebra. Results of curriculum studies involving nations in TIMSS suggest that elementary textbooks in high-scoring countries were different than elementary textbooks and middle grades texts were different with respect to general features in the U.S. The purpose of this study was to compare treatments of linear functions in Singapore and U.S. middle grades mathematics textbooks. Results revealed features currently in textbooks. Findings should be valuable to constituencies who wish to improve U.S. mathematics achievement. Portions of eight Singapore and nine U.S. middle school student texts pertaining to linear functions were compared with respect to 22 features in three categories: (a) background features, (b) general features of problems, and (c) specific characterizations of problem practices, problem-solving competency types, and transfer of representation. Features were coded using a codebook developed by the researcher. Tallies and percentages were reported. Welch's t-tests and chi-square tests were used, respectively, to determine whether texts differed significantly for the features and if codes were independent of country. U.S. and Singapore textbooks differed in page appearance and number of pages, problems, and images. Texts were similar in problem appearance. Differences in problems related to assessment of conceptual learning. U.S. texts contained more problems requiring (a) use of definitions, (b) single computation, (c) interpreting, and (d) multiple responses. These differences may stem from cultural differences seen in attitudes toward education. Future studies should focus on density of page, spiral approach, and multiple response problems.

New Haitian social movements: Alternative modernities, (trans)local nationalisms, and solidarity economies

My dissertation is the first project on the Haitian Platform for Advocacy for an Alternative Development- PAPDA, a nation-building coalition founded by activists from varying sectors to coordinate one comprehensive nationalist movement against what they are calling an Occupation. My work not only provides information on this under-theorized popular movement but also situates it within the broader literature on the postcolonial nation-state as well as Latin American and Caribbean social movements. The dissertation analyzes the contentious relationship between local and global discourses and practices of citizenship. Furthermore, the research draws on transnational feminist theory to underline the scattered hegemonies that intersect to produce varied spaces and practices of sovereignty within the Haitian postcolonial nation-state. The dissertation highlights how race and class, gender and sexuality, education and language, and religion have been imagined and co-constituted by Haitian social movements in constructing ‘new’ collective identities that collapse the private and the public, the rural and the urban, the traditional and the modern. My project complements the scholarship on social movements and the postcolonial nation-state and pushes it forward by emphasizing its spatial dimensions. Moreover, the dissertation de-centers the state to underline the movement of capital, goods, resources, and populations that shape the postcolonial experience. I re-define the postcolonial nation-state as a network of local, regional, international, and transnational arrangements between different political agents, including social movement actors. To conduct this interdisciplinary research project, I employed ethnographic methods, discourse and textual analysis, as well as basic mapping and statistical descriptions in order to present a historically-rooted interpretation of individual and organizational negotiations for community-based autonomy and regional development. ^

The discursive construction of Japanese identity and its haunting others

This dissertation examined the formation of Japanese identity politics after World War II. Since World War II, Japan has had to deal with a contradictory image of its national self. On the one hand, as a nation responsible for colonizing fellow Asian countries in the 1930s and 1940s, Japan has struggled with an image/identity as a regional aggressor. On the other hand, having faced the harsh realities of defeat after the war, Japan has seen itself depicted as a victim. By employing the technique of discourse analysis as a way to study identity formation through official foreign policy documents and news media narratives, this study reconceptualized Japanese foreign policy as a set of discursive practices that attempt to produce renewed images of Japan's national self. The dissertation employed case studies to analyze two key sites of Japanese postwar identity formation: (1) the case of Okinawa, an island/territory integral to postwar relations between Japan and the United States and marked by a series of US military rapes of native Okinawan girls; and (2) the case of comfort women in Japan and East Asia, which has led to Japan being blamed for its wartime sexual enslavement of Asian women. These case studies found that it was through coping with the haunting ghost of its wartime past that Japan sought to produce "postwar Japan" as an identity distinct from "wartime imperial Japan" or from "defeated, emasculated Japan" and, thus, hoped to emerge as a "reborn" moral and pacifist nation. The research showed that Japan struggled to invent a new self in a way that mobilized gendered dichotomies and, furthermore, created "others" who were not just spatially located (the United States, Asian neighboring nations) but also temporally marked ("old Japan"). The dissertation concluded that Japanese foreign policy is an ongoing struggle to define the Japanese national self vis-à-vis both spatial and historical "others," and that, consequently, postwar Japan has always been haunted by its past self, no matter how much Japan's foreign policy discourses were trying to make this past self into a distant or forgotten other.

The Discursive Construction of Japanese Identity and its Haunting Others

This dissertation examined the formation of Japanese identity politics after World War II. Since World War II, Japan has had to deal with a contradictory image of its national self. On the one hand, as a nation responsible for colonizing fellow Asian countries in the 1930s and 1940s, Japan has struggled with an image/identity as a regional aggressor. On the other hand, having faced the harsh realities of defeat after the war, Japan has seen itself depicted as a victim. By employing the technique of discourse analysis as a way to study identity formation through official foreign policy documents and news media narratives, this study reconceptualized Japanese foreign policy as a set of discursive practices that attempt to produce renewed images of Japan’s national self. The dissertation employed case studies to analyze two key sites of Japanese postwar identity formation: (1) the case of Okinawa, an island/territory integral to postwar relations between Japan and the United States and marked by a series of US military rapes of native Okinawan girls; and (2) the case of comfort women in Japan and East Asia, which has led to Japan being blamed for its wartime sexual enslavement of Asian women. These case studies found that it was through coping with the haunting ghost of its wartime past that Japan sought to produce “postwar Japan” as an identity distinct from “wartime imperial Japan” or from “defeated, emasculated Japan” and, thus, hoped to emerge as a “reborn” moral and pacifist nation. The research showed that Japan struggled to invent a new self in a way that mobilized gendered dichotomies and, furthermore, created “others” who were not just spatially located (the United States, Asian neighboring nations) but also temporally marked (“old Japan”). The dissertation concluded that Japanese foreign policy is an ongoing struggle to define the Japanese national self vis-à-vis both spatial and historical “others,” and that, consequently, postwar Japan has always been haunted by its past self, no matter how much Japan’s foreign policy discourses were trying to make this past self into a distant or forgotten other.