Browsing by Subject "representation"
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Item Considering representational choices of fourth graders when solving division problems(Texas A&M University, 2007-09-17) Gilbert, Mary ChilesStudents need to build on their own understanding when problem solving. Mathematics reform is moving away from skill and drill types of activities and encouraging students to develop their own approaches to problem solving. The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics emphasizes the importance of representation by including it as a process standard in Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000) as a means for students to develop mathematically powerful conceptualization. Students use representation to make sense of and communicate mathematical concepts. This study considers the way fourth grade students view and solve division problems and whether problem type affected the choice of strategy. This study also looked at factors that affect students' score performance. Students in extant classrooms were observed in their regular mathematics instructional settings. Data were collected and quantified from pretests and posttests using questions formatted like students see on the state assessment. The results indicate that students moved from pre-algorithmic strategies to algorithmic strategies between pretest and posttest administration. The results also indicate that problem type did not predict students' choice of strategy and did not have an affect on the students' ability to arrive at a correct solution to the problem. This study found that the students' choice of strategy did play a significant role in their quest for correct solutions. The implication is that when students are able to make sense of the problem and choose an appropriate strategy, they are able to successfully solve division problems.Item Crossdressing Cinema: An Analysis of Transgender Representation in Film(2012-10-19) Miller, Jeremy RussellTransgender representations generally distance the transgender characters from the audience as objects of ridicule, fear, and sympathy. This distancing is accomplished through the use of specific narrative conventions and visual codes. In this dissertation, I analyze representations of transgender individuals in popular film comedies, thrillers, and independent dramas. Through a textual analysis of 24 films, I argue that the narrative conventions and visual codes of the films work to prevent identification or connection between the transgender characters and the audience. The purpose of this distancing is to privilege the heteronormative identities of the characters over their transgender identities. This dissertation is grounded in a cultural studies approach to representation as constitutive and constraining and a positional approach to gender that views gender identity as a position taken in a specific social context. Contributions are made to the fields of communication, film studies, and gender studies through the methodological approach to textual analysis of categories of films over individual case studies and the idea that individuals can be positioned in identities they do not actively claim for themselves. This dissertation also makes a significant contribution to conceptions of the gaze through the development of three transgender gazes that focus on the ways the characters are visually constructed rather than the viewpoints taken by audience members. In the end, transgender representations work to support heteronormativity by constructing the transgender characters in specific ways to prevent audience members from developing deeper connections with them.Item From woman to chick: the rhetorical evolution of women in american film(2009-05-15) Day, Danya RhaeThroughout its history, the American film industry has produced films about women and for women, and three distinct phases may be identified within it: the ?woman?s film,? the ?new? woman?s film, and the ?chick flick.? I assert that the recurring themes and images within the films operate as a mythic framework that intuitively resonates with audiences. In this thesis, I argue that despite seeming progress, women in film remain constrained by traditional mythic archetypes. As mediated images influence the culture, archetypal images of women in film potentially further constrain women?s social progress. This study explores feminine mythic archetypes in films from each phase and demonstrates that first, the era of the woman?s film presents traditional archetypes such as the Mother and the Wife; second, representation becomes more progressive in the new woman?s film of the 1970s through the influence of the women?s movement; third, representations regressed in the chick flick with the onset of postfeminism in the late 1980s; and finally, through the rhetorical function of myth, the films serve a persuasive and explanatory function for audiences.Item Improving the Educational Outcomes for Minorities: A Study of the Interactive Effects of Personnel Stability and Representative Bureacracy(2013-08-06) Morton, Tabitha Susan MarieThe goal of this dissertation is to determine how to create more equal public policy outcomes within the realm of public education. It is a well known fact that despite the passage of legal decisions such as Brown (1954) and federal policies like No Child Left Behind (2001), Latino and African American students still perform at lower rates than Anglo students. This poor academic performance results in lower graduation rates, lower college attendance, and a lower socioeconomic status than Anglos. This dissertation therefore sought to determine if two common bureaucratic theories, representative bureaucracy and personnel stability, could be used in combination with one another in order to improve the educational policy outcomes for African American and Latino students. Using data from Texas school districts from 1994-2010 and a cross-sectional longitudinal research design, I find that while each theory on its own improved the outcomes for these groups, the two did not have a significant combined effect on every indicator. Instead I find evidence of a substitution effect which allows one strategy to be used in place of the other in order to improve the academic performance of minority students. This creates a unique situation as this analysis suggests that there are other bureaucratic factors working to prevent an interactive effect from occurring on a consistent basis. Thus the next steps are to apply the same theories to other public organizations in order to determine if my findings are unique to public education and to determine if other public administration theories can be used to improve the outcomes for African American and Latino students.Item Local Representation in the Context of Decentralization: Mayors, Citizens, and Local Governance in Latin America(2014-06-06) Shockley, Bethany LRepresentation is a basic component of democracy and yet scientific understanding of how it works has been limited to the national level of government, especially in the developing world. This research develops and tests theories regarding two key aspects of local representation: government responsiveness and procedural inclusiveness. I examine local representation in the context of decentralization because local officials and citizens interact according to the set of decentralization policies that define the local political sphere. I find that both contextual factors and individual-level factors are important determinants of local representation. This study takes three approaches to studying the relationship between local representation and decentralization. First, it uses formal theory to explore the impact of electoral competition on local representation in the dimensions of sector and scope. Decentralization and local capacity are found to constrain the behavior of the mayor. Next, it takes an in-depth look at the representational orientations of mayors, using data collected during fieldwork in Ecuador. It predicts the emergence of attitudes of political openness and administrative responsibility using both individual-level and county-level covariates. Lastly, I consider representation from the citizen?s point of view. Using data from 18 countries in Latin America and two samples of counties in Ecuador, I test the impact of participation on citizen evaluations of local government. I find that participation in general has a limited impact on citizen evaluations, with the exception of direct contact with government.Item Mechanics of prestressed and inhomogeneous bodies(Texas A&M University, 2006-10-30) Umakanthan, SaravananIn finite elasticity, while developing representation for stress, it is customary to require the reference configuration to be stress free. This study relaxes this requirement and develops representations for stress from a stressed reference configuration. Using the fact that the value of Cauchy stress in the current configuration is independent of the choice of the reference configuration, even though the formula used to compute it depends on the choice of the reference configuration, the sought representation is obtained. It is then assumed that there exists a piecewise smooth mapping between a configuration with prestresses and a configuration that is stress free, and the representation obtained above is used to study the mechanical response of prestressed bodies. The prestress fields are obtained by directly integrating the balance of linear momentum along with the traction free boundary condition. Then, different classes of boundary value problems for the type of inhomogeneous and prestressed bodies of interest are formulated and studied. For the cases studied, it is found that even the global measures like axial-load required to engender a given stretch ratio for a prestressed body vary from the homogeneous stress free bodies, though not significantly. The local measures - stress and deformation - in a prestressed body differ considerably from their homogeneous stress free counterparts. The above gained knowledge is applied to understand the mechanics of circumflex arteries obtained from normotensive and hypertensive micro-mini pigs. It is found that the deformation of these arteries when subjected to inflation and axial extension is not of the form r = r(R), ???? = ????, z = Z. Comparison is also made between the response of an artery at various levels of smooth muscle activation and stretch ratio as well as normotensive and hypertensive specimens, using statistical methods.Item Representation, Structure, and Public Management in School Desegregation: An Examination of Student Outcomes(2013-08-06) Capers, Kaisheka Jur?eAs we near the 60th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, questions still remain about its salience and our ability to provide equal educational opportunities to students of all races and ethnicities. Additionally, scholars and observers alike note the continual shift toward resegregation in American schools, but few have probed exactly why this occurs and the empirical implications of this shift. As such, this dissertation project explores the ?new? political domain of school desegregation policy to understand why some school districts are resegregating while others maintain their racial balance, and the substantive implications of this divide for minority students. The goal of this research is two-fold. First, I investigate the determinants of desegregation policy, arguing that a set of institutional (representation), structural, and management factors best predict a district?s level of racial balance as an indicator of the active pursuit of desegregation. Second, I examine student outcomes and performance under both educational settings?racially balanced and imbalanced?to determine where students fare better and how much the racial context matters to student outcomes. I frame this question theoretically in the organizational theory research on external control, in which I argue that the policy environment, in this case, the racial context as denoted by the level of racial balance, influences the extent to which structure, representation, and management affect outcomes. I compare outcomes under the two policy environments, racially balanced and imbalanced districts, to see their effect on the noted factors and where students fare better. The general results show that the broad assumption and desegregation literature finding that racially balanced schools are better for minority students is not supported. Minority students can also gain the same if not better outcomes in racially imbalanced districts. I also find that while the tested predictors play an important role, the policy environment significantly contributes to their role and outcomes. For policy makers and practitioners this means that one way to gain the equality that the Brown decision sought is to shift the focus on improving board and teacher representation or management strategies and practices. The dissertation challenges assumptions of political decisions and outcomes that fail to consider the external policy environment.Item Session 15A | Making Our Classrooms and Institutions More Open and Equitable(2021-03-12) Daly, UnaThis workshop will allow participants to evaluate their syllabi for inclusivity of non-traditional students, to explore the use of diverse images to enhance student engagement, and to understand how OER and Open Pedagogy support student voices and deeper learning.