Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Anthropology - General'

This qualitative study not only describes the intercultural capacities of 20 high-achieving, homeschooled, evangelical university students from diverse backgrounds, but also far surpasses this original aim by generating a new model that critiques and complements cultural intelligence theory (CQ). Debate regarding tolerance among homeschoolers has lacked adequate study because the right questions have been obscured by terminology too broad (socialization) and impossibly loaded (tolerance). This constructivist, grounded-theory study thus addresses the question through intercultural lenses.

Chapter 2 reviews literature to propose a Process-Outcome Model of Socialization, a 10-pair categorization of critics' concerns, and introduces a reconceptualization of Perry's (1970) scheme of epistemological development for a faith-based university. Chapter 3 describes data-collection. In Southern California, strategies include participant observation, interview, focus-group, narrative, written reflection about Emerson & Smith's (2000) Divided by Faith, and case study response. In metropolitan DC, shorter measures confirm theoretical saturation. Chapter 4 presents 20 participants' intercultural journeys. Chapter 5 traces cognition. Chapter 6 outlines motivation, describing intercultural self-efficacy, initiative, and perceived value. Chapter 7 offers evidence of metacognition. Chapter 8 provides the missing piece—concern—as the connector of knowledge and desire, showing that the most intense reflection and regulation operate based on higher commitments (metaphysical, existential, and ethical).

Chapter 9 integrates core categories to present two new models. One shows the complementarity of CQ and concern. The other unites them as Sustainable Cultural Concern (SCC), a model explaining why some people grow in intercultural capacities while others do not. Three assertions underlie these models: a) concern is a meta-commitment that differs from motivation; b) CQ and border-crossing concern cooperate to sustain growth; c) a culturally-concerned person seeks to wed knowledge and desire according to concern. Though most participants display sustainable cultural concern, unconcerned outliers strongly suggest that homeschoolers and organizations should intentionally cultivate it.

Methodologically, the models correct inconsistencies regarding homeschooling socialization and challenge the prevalence of quantitative studies. Theoretically, they highlight ambiguity and overlap in CQ domains and the disproportionate scope of metacognition. Practically, they guide personal evaluation of intercultural engagement and growth in perception (honor), understanding (humility), regulation (integrity), and volition (faithfulness).

This study explores the attractions that make for a successful ministry among Jews, and the hindrances that have impeded, and continue to impede, that mission. It begins with an overview of the theological, historical and missiological frameworks of this ministry, and then introduces the results of fieldwork done in Israel through interviews, case studies, observations, focus groups, and surveys, supplemented by other relevant literature that, altogether, forms a data base for strategizing future missionary work.

Non-believing Jews and Jews who had accepted Yeshua—so called Messianic Jews were asked what motivated them to either accept Yeshua as the Messiah or to reject him. From their responses the researcher has established a list of eighty-seven attractions. Among the most important inducements to conversion are: reading the New Testament, discovering Yeshua the Jew, and a witnessing friend or family member. Parallel with this list of attractions, the researcher has compiled a list of forty-five hindrances (theological, historical and sociological), among which are, most importantly: family opposition, fear of giving up one's Jewish identity, Christian doctrines (trinity, supersessionism…) and the Church's traditional anti-Judaism.

A second focus is on leadership. Here the researcher explores the differences between a secular and religious leader; the necessity of an effective training; and the need for contextual preparation, in which the Mission to the Jews is undertaken by persons who are equipped to effectively lead in a cross-cultural ministry and contextualized congregations.

\This leads us to our third focus, on contextual issues. A ministry among Jews must be a contextualized ministry. It is supported in this study by a presentation of a positive view of Jews and a friendly Christian theology based on the awareness of the Jewishness of Yeshua, which is one of the first attractions for Jews.

This study concludes with recommendations and applications to leaders of the World Jewish Adventist Friendship Center, which minister to Jews. Jews don't lose their own Jewish identity in accepting Jesus but fulfill themselves in the Messiah, which, pragmatically, means retaining Jewish rituals that are compatible with Yeshua's message.

This dissertation explores the reconfiguration of Syriac Orthodox liturgical tradition among Aramaic-speaking Christian refugees in the Netherlands. Under the pressures of Dutch integration policy and the global politics of secular recognition, the Syriac liturgy is rapidly losing its significance as the central axis of social life and kinship-relations in the Syriac Orthodox diaspora. As such, it has become a site for debate over how to be religiously, culturally, and ethnically distinct despite the narrative binary of Christian Europe and the Muslim Middle East that dominates Dutch multiculturalism discourse. Every week, young Syriac Orthodox women and men congregate at their churches to practice singing the liturgy in classical Syriac. What they sing, and how they decide to sing it, mediates their experiments in religious and ethical reinvention, with implications for their efforts at political representation. Singers contend not only with conditions of inaudibility produced by histories of ethnic cleansing, migration, and assimilation, but also with the fragments of European Christianity that shape the sensory regime of secular modernity. Public debates over the integration of religious minorities illuminate this condition of fragmentation, as well as the contest over competing conceptions of ethical personhood inherent in the politics of pluralism in Europe.

This dissertation sets forth a typology of contemporary collectors of objects of material culture. This study characterizes four types of collectors, identified by separate and unique abilities of inner and outward perception, which resonates in their collections as praxis.

This typology also analyses the degree of both conscious and unconscious meaning in the collection, which, over time and place, becomes a self-referential composition. The meaning of objects as perceived and handled relates to the collector's level of consciousness of this epistemological function. The form or kind of the object, although significant, is not the basis for this ontological study as much as the method of each type of collector in the handling of their collections.

The latent or manifest drive towards degrees of coherence or completion lies in the collection, a visual, relational structure created by the collector. This structure may result in conscious enquiry, realization, and individuation, or may build a material bastion of self-protection, due to unconscious compensation or denial.

The handling of objects is the handling of a personal relationship, as collectors do not simply perceive objects, they perceive with objects, over time, in praxis. This dissertation allows for the great significance of home, within which a collector curates objects.

This dissertation employs a multi-disciplinary and hermeneutical approach as befits each type of collector's idiosyncratic and heterogeneous relationship to lucid materiality. Four types of collectors, the acquirer, the connoisseur, the fetishizer and the hoarder exhibit a neoteric aesthetic of material culture, analyzed individually as types through selected methodologies: the depth psychological perspective, process theory, the mythological approach, and through semiotic structuralism.

This typographical analysis results in the discovery of four unique ways in which collectors create meaning from our material world with approaches to the nature and concept of a "thing."

How a thing becomes visual image, which becomes the structure of a psychic reality fortuitously grasped by a mind and the hand, is a reflection of the importance of objects and of a collector's personal epistemology.

A Production Component, a book called Generosity of Eye: A Seasoned Appraiser Answers Clients' Questions, discusses the evaluation of objects from the perspective of a professional appraiser.

Increased immigration finds children in a quandary to develop an identity consolidating their multiple locales and cultures. Additionally, the internet is highly integrated into children's lives and plays a consequential role in their identity formation processes. "Local culture," as referred to by scholars (e.g. Elias & Lemish 2008, 2009; De Block & Buckingham 2007), is a major influence on diaspora children's identity formation. Unfortunately, "local culture" is not clearly defined in literature thus far; it can refer to any combination of at-home and outside-the-home cultures with which children in a new country interact. This paper delineates parts of local culture in a way prior literature has not and introduces the notion of "new national identity" (NNID) as a component of local culture that immigrant children acquire. NNID is derived from new national culture. It is the culture of the immigrant-receiving nation as commonly available to all immigrants regardless of their ethnic background. The case studies presented here examine NNID acquired through internet usage specifically by Iranian-American and Iranian-Canadian youth. The case studies bring to light the importance of birthplace in how children of the diaspora perceive new national identity. Their perceptions and conceptions of this development can be mitigated by many factors including, but not exclusive to, place of birth, age at which emigration occurs, parental familiarity with new national culture, local social demographics, and local co-ethnic support, to name a few.

One of the most sought after abilities in matriculating engineering students is the ability to negotiate cultural differences and build sustainable partnerships with others. This core attribute of the National Academy of Engineers' Engineer of 2020 is one of the least researched areas in engineering education literature. The ABET Engineering Accreditation Committee requires engineering programs to addresses this need in student outcomes "(g) an ability to communicate effectively, (h) the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context, and (i) a recognition of the need for and an ability to engage in life-long learning". The essential learning outcomes of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU) requires that graduating students be able to use practical and intellectual skills to address contemporary and enduring issues with a core component of this being the ability to communicate with diverse others to negotiate shared meanings. These qualities are foundational requirements for engineers' sustained participation in the diverse, multinational workforce where teaming, design, and innovation are imperative.

Current research efforts in this area use a cacophony of terms to describe these qualities within the engineering education literature. This creates silos of research and inhibits collaborative conversations. This research seeks to negotiate shared meaning through the following two goals to aid in quieting the din. 1) To offer a term with generative promise for the inclusive practice of engineering. 2) To provide a multi-dimensional portrait of the ways first-year engineering students communicate and make meaning around cultural differences. The first goal is considered through the lens of Politically Attentive Relational Constructionism. This research explores terms and associated theories by considering their histories and the opportunities they offer for the inclusive practice of engineering. Generative promise of the terms was considered based upon how they accounted for the communicative nature of understanding of otherness, the relational nature of the negotiation of meaning, the political nature of encounters with cultural others, the historical and socio-cultural context of encounters, and whether these attributes are considered in the context of a bio-psycho-socio-cultural developmental continuum. The term cultural humility defined as "the lifelong, geopolitically situated, developmental process of negotiating cultural difference in the creation of sustainable, mutually beneficial as defined by all participants, partnerships" has the most opportunity for educational practices. The second goal is reached by taking a mixed-methods approach to locate first-year engineering students within the developmental continuum. The quantitative portrait of first-year students used both the Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale - Short (M-GUDS-s) and the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). IDI results revealed that first-year students as a cohort are in polarization. The qualitative montage provides an understanding of how first-year students communicate their experiences with cultural others using polarizing and minimizing language. Collectively these studies establish a starting point from which engineering educators can begin a collaborative effort in creating evidence based practices to engage first-year students in this lifelong process.

This thesis examines a Taiwanese Pentecostal church's engagement with the Chinese restaurant business in southern California and its cultural significance in today's transnational world. This thesis provides insight into how the Taiwanese Pentecostal church creates a transnational imagined community for negotiating religious identity through business practices and constructs a ''third place" among consumers of Chinese food in southern California. This thesis seeks to fill the gap in literature on Pentecostalism by arguing the Taiwanese Pentecostal church's restaurant business can be seen as a new form of Pentecostal expression emerging in the global era of the 21st century. Its flourishing restaurant business facilitates its transnational outreach and networks and thus suggests a new dimension of religious transnationalism. This thesis provides a framework for examining these networks and understanding how indigenized Taiwanese Pentecostal churches engage in business to survive in today's competitive global market of religion.

Archaeologists increasingly recognize the need for public outreach and education, which many archaeological organizations include in principles and guidelines. First, this thesis summarizes my experience with a multicomponent internship, with Archaeology Southwest, the Learning Center of the American Southwest, and the National Park Service. During my internship I focused on providing the public with access to information about archaeological materials through the internet. Finally, this thesis explores the opportunity of providing deeper understandings, while considering potential implications, when working with the digital medium. During my time with Archaeology Southwest I produced three dimensional digital representations, virtual artifacts, of archaeological ceramic vessels. I designed the virtual artifacts for use by Archaeology Southwest's Virtual Southwest website and the Learning Center of the American Southwest (LCAS) Virtual Museum website. I contributed to the digital repositories of the websites, and subsequently reviewed and analyzed my experience to determine the best use of the virtual artifacts. During my time with the National Park Service (NPS) I helped develop lesson plans and activities of the Sinagua archaeological culture of Wupatki and Walnut Canyon National Monuments, designed primarily for third through fifth grade students visiting the monuments during school trips. Digital media provides the opportunity to preserve archaeological resources while educating the public to provide a deeper understanding of the past. I created 28 three dimensional reconstructions, virtual artifacts, of existing archaeological ceramic vessels provided by the Museum of Northern Arizona and Northern Arizona University. I designed the virtual artifacts for multiple online programs and for the lesson plans that I created for the National Park Service. I critically analyze the use of the products of my internship within the open-source movement, detail the current state of intellectual property rights for indigenous communities, and provide recommendations for my internship organizations. This information provides archaeologists with a reflexive analysis of the current use of intangible digital resources and serves as a guide for future projects.