Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Social consciousness'

Не дивлячись на великий інтерес науковців до особи Євгена Ерліха, варто все ж таки віддати належне вченому, який працював на теренах Буковини і черпав натхнення для своєї наукової діяльності саме із цього мальовничого краю. Відомий на увесь світ правознавець Євген Ерліх розробив правову концепцію, яка отримала назву «вільного права». Будучи основоположником соціології права, він закликав шукати його витоки в соціальних асоціаціях і існуючому в них порядку: «Щоб зрозуміти витоки, розвиток і сутність права, слід перш за все вивчити порядок, який існує в громадських спілках. Причина невдач всіх попередніх спроб пояснити право полягала в тому, що вони виходили від правових приписів, а не з цього порядку». Ерліх вважав, що успіх права залежить виключно від тих соціальних відносин, які існують у державі. Суспільство існує в асоціаціях, або союзах, які Ерліх поділяє на два великі класи - «самобутні» і «нові». До самобутніх спілок він відносить усі соціальні асоціації, утворені природнім шляхом: сім’ю, рід, сімейну громаду. Нові союзи - це асоціації, що утворилися в ході цілеспрямованої діяльності людей: держави, політичні партії, профспілки, виробничі об’єднання і т.д.

This study explores how young people's engagement with history outside of the classroom shapes the development of their historical consciousness. Drawing on public discourses around the First World War (WW1), I address the implications of this engagement for history teachers and young peoples' learning. Recognising the active and dynamic construction of memory and meaning by young people, I develop the concept of social remembering. Building on socio-cultural perspectives, I examine the 'lived experience' of young people's memory work. Using WW1 as a context, and adopting an innovative mixed methods approach, the research was conducted over two stages. The first stage of the research used a quiz and survey to explore the extent and nature of young people's social remembering. In the second stage of the study I examined young people's memory work outside the classroom. I worked with several small groups of students to construct their own ethnographic accounts of societal and familial remembering and their emerging historical consciousness, fashioning these into ethnographic portraits. The research highlights the role that social remembering plays in young people's identities, including the ways in which they value and use history, attribute historical significance to events and orientate themselves in time. It shows how different forms of social remembering can both include or exclude young people and impact positively or negatively on young people's historical consciousness. An understanding of social remembering outside the classroom can support history teachers in the development of pedagogies that build on students' meaning making associated with public events such as commemorations. I argue that teachers can use the intersections between social remembering and disciplinary history to engage and support students in their study of history. Although the study originated within the context of history education, it has wider value, offering a ground breaking methodological approach to exploring young people's understandings of the past and in contributing to the historiography of historical memory.

The primary objective of this thesis project is to investigate Woolf's narrative construction of consciousness and its enactment of resistance against the clinical model of cognitive normativity, using Mrs. Dalloway. This objective is part of an effort to identify the ways in which Woolf's writing can be used, foundationally, to challenge the contemporary language of clinical diagnosis, as it functions to maintain power imbalances and serves as a mechanism of the rigid policing of normativity. It is also intended to support the suggestion that Woolf's novels and essays make a valuable contribution, when advanced by theory—including disability theory, to scientific conversations on the mind. One major benefit is that doing so encourages border-crossing between disciplines and views. More specifically, this project examines the ways in which Mrs. Dalloway resists the compulsory practice of categorizing and dividing the mind. The novel, I assert, supports an alternative narrative treatment, not of the mind but, of the normative social forces that police it. It allows and encourages readers to reframe stigmatizing, divisive, and power-based categories of cognitive difference and to resist the scientific tendency to dismiss pertinent philosophical and theoretical treatments of consciousness that are viable in literature. The critical portion of the project is concerned with the way in which Mrs. Dalloway addresses consciousness and challenges medical authority. Its implications urge the formation of an investigative alliance between Woolf's work and psychology that will undermine the power differential, call attention to and dismantle the stigma of "mental illness," and propel clinical treatment into new diagnostic practices.

Thesis advisor: Thanh V. Tran
Suicide is an escalating public health crisis for Black people in the United States, yet the majority of the suicide research in the United States is based on the European American population. The psychological impact of the centuries of persistent stress and pain Black Americans have endured in the U.S., fueled by racism since the tragic period of slavery, is well-documented. However, despite the unrelenting historical and contemporary manifestations of racism and other systems of oppression in U.S. society, Black Americans have chosen death by suicide at rates lower than White Americans. Previous research has established the complexity of suicide and revealed that there are multiple personal and societal stress factors that contribute to creating risk factors for Black suicide. Research has also established that Black Americans historically have cultivated a resistance to the desire to take their own lives, seemingly linked to religious/spiritual and cultural coping resources that have served as a protective factor against suicidal behavior. Yet, there is a lack of scholarship that explores the impact of these resources on suicide in this population. Suicidologists are calling for suicide to be examined within a multidimensional contextual framework and for there to be a shift from a deficit approach to a strengths-based approach. There is a need for greater research focus on the factors that influence suicidal behavior in Black Americans, as well as the factors that are associated with creating a shield of protection against this self-destructive behavior. Through a convergent mixed-method approach, and guided by a robust cluster of theories, with Critical Race Theory and the Afrocentric Worldview as the overarching theoretical and philosophical approaches, this dissertation aims to address the gaps in the literature by examining several research questions. The following questions are examined through quantitative research: (1) Do racial discrimination and personal stress influence suicide attempts among Black people in the U.S., and does religion/spirituality serve as a protective factor and moderate the relationship between attempted suicide and racial discrimination and personal stress?; (2) Do post-incarceration status and personal stress influence suicide attempts among Black people in the U.S., and does religion/spirituality serve as a protective factor and moderate the relationship between attempted suicide and post-incarceration and personal stress?; (3) Do veteran status and personal stress influence suicide attempts among Black people in the U.S., and does religion/spirituality serve as a protective factor and moderate the relationship between attempted suicide and veteran status and personal stress? The data for this study were drawn from the cross-sectional National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) III which covers April 2012-June 2013. Logistic regression was employed to analyze the data. The quantitative research explores the impact of personal and societal stressors on the mental health of Black people and the role of religion/spirituality in cultivating a healthy emotional and mental environment that insulates them from suicide. The qualitative data include interviews with three adult Black men from the researcher’s family across three generations. Through three generations of Black men from one family, this dissertation further aims to examine whether religion/spirituality is a protective factor insulating Black people in the U.S. from developing suicidal behavior as they navigate societal stress factors including racial discrimination, post-incarceration status, and veteran status and whether religion/spirituality as a protective factor is passed down intergenerationally. If so, it aims to explore whether there are any intergenerational patterns and/or differences in the utilization of religion/spirituality as a source of protection against developing suicidal behavior. Assessed together, the findings from the quantitative and the qualitative research underscore the potential impact of stress and societal stress factors on suicidal behavior among Black people. Specifically, the quantitative research shows an association between personal stress and societal stress factors including racial discrimination, post-incarceration status, veteran status, and suicide attempts. The quantitative research also underscores the complexity of the role of religion/spirituality as a protective factor, as the findings from the quantitative research show that religion/spirituality was not a buffer against suicide attempts for the participants in that study. The findings from the qualitative research reveal that religion/spirituality can serve as a buffer and illustrates religion/spirituality functioning as an extension of Afrocentric culture and serving as a protective shield enabling some Black people to resist the full psychological impact of personal and societal stressors. This dissertation provides the foundation for the broader work highlighted through this study encapsulated in the Ubuntu Relational Framework for the Study of Black Suicide, an Afrocentric framework I developed that emerged as a guide for exploring the risks and protective factors of Black suicide. The constructs of death consciousness and Divine consciousness emerged during the analysis of the qualitative research as a way of conceptualizing the influence of societal stressors and protective factors on suicidal behavior, and they are an expression of Afrocentric culture. This framework highlights the need to equally prioritize the concern of what animates Black people’s desire to live, which was illuminated through the qualitative research, along with the question of what factors make them at risk for cultivating a desire to die. It further attends to the need for social workers to address the conditions of the racist U.S. environment these factors are assessed within. This dissertation also includes my autoethnography which serves as an analytic review and critical analysis of key concepts related to the study of Black suicide. It is a resource for further grounding in the historical and contemporary context of the Black experience and the Afrocentric worldview incorporated in this work. Autoethnography is an epistemological site for exploring Divine consciousness and the role of religion/spirituality and culture passed down intergenerationally as a protective factor against suicidal behavior. It further outlines a methodology for employing spiritual and cultural resources and operationalizing spiritual resistance. Finally, this dissertation goes beyond identifying risk and protective factors for suicidal behavior in Black people. It outlines a structure for training social work clinicians and researchers in this Afrocentric framework that would expand social workers’ knowledge of African-centered social work, and a method appropriate for responding to this multidimensional mental health problem that requires a creative, culturally rich approach. The training includes a methodology for employing religious/spiritual and cultural resources that operationalizes spiritual resistance that will equip social workers for supporting Black people in developing a healthy holistic mental and social environment within an oppressive racist environment
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work
Discipline: Social work

The purpose of this research was to investigate how knowledge of biological ecosystems affects individual recognition of humanity as part of and subject to the laws of nature. This dissertation interrogated the question of how awareness of the impact of human overpopulation on the environment was perceived by research participants. That expanding human population growth, and its inherent consumption patterns, is a root cause of virtually every human-related environmental threat is documented in the existing literature but awareness and accountability for this remain limited. Using ecopsychology and analytical psychology as a theoretical framework, this multiple case study investigated how and whether environmental awareness might be impacted by personal knowledge of how ecosystems function in nature.

A multiple case study design was used to interview 10 adults on their perspectives of the environmental impact of human population growth. The participants were purposefully selected creating two five-person groups. Group S had life-science academic training and work experience; Group NS had none. A researcher-generated instrument of 30 open-ended questions, with recorded interviews were used to ascertain participant understanding of ecological laws and population biology concepts and how they might relate to personal worldviews on the cause(s) of environmental issues.

Thematic analysis was used to code data and identify response patterns. Findings suggested participants with working knowledge of ecosystems demonstrated more extensive understanding of the impact of human actions, including population growth, on the environment. Although widespread awareness existed in both groups that human alienation from nature is prevalent and is having environmental consequences, Group S subjects more often recognized the systemic environmental effects of human activity. They were inclined to advocate for individual responsibility and consciousness-raising.

Support for core concepts of ecopsychology is suggested by the findings. Strengthening the human-nature bond to one of inclusiveness using experiential education is a viable option to promote greater ecological awareness and personal accountability. Additional data-driven research is needed to investigate the effects of life science literacy and holistic systems thinking on pro-environmental awareness.

Since WWII, the United States has experienced unprecedented economic growth and global expansion through the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Today, STEM technological innovations permeate many aspects of the social experience, from education to career to home-life, contributing to a pervasive technocratic ideology emphasizing global U.S. economic and political superiority. Many sectors of American society now tout STEM initiatives as a premium for U.S. education, contributing to the neoliberal model of producing effective, efficient, and skilled laborers. But, does STEM necessarily contribute to those social forces that routinely devalue the principles of a liberal, democratic educational ideal?

In 2014, I investigated new forms of collaboration between the commercial sector and education system in Flagstaff, AZ. The STEM City Center is a non-profit organization that seeks to bridge the gap between community and schools by identifying local assets and sponsoring integrated STEM experiences for students. Using STEM as a conceptual tool to support interdisciplinary approaches to education, participants of this project revealed the core values that motivate social transformation in a town that borders multiple ethnic and cultural realities recognized as under assault by increasingly globalized markets. STEM City's model emphasizes increased critical thinking, collaborative learning, creativity, and effective communication and supports an implicit goal of encouraging a critically engaged, politically aware, and socially conscious society.

A great deal has been written about the activity we know as Art; its role within the larger community, its relationship to the general mode of production within a given society, as well as its potential as a force for social change. Theorists in this area have bequeathed to us, tome upon tome in their efforts to better understand how we perceive Art, its objects and processes. Within the discipline of Aesthetics, definitions of the ”beautiful" and the ”good" and explorations of the relationship of one to the other, which have been with us since Plato's time, have been continually scrutinized, and in the Complex societies of Modern Capitalism, the perennial question, what is Art? persists, begging an answer. As Donald Brook remarks: It has been intuited for millenia that people can not make real art intentionally, on demand, because there is a significant sense or respect in which nobody knows even what it is; much less do they know how to set out to make it.

Even though there are many views on consciousness theory in the pertinent literature, there remains a need for a unifying framework for specifying the features of specific states of consciousness. In order to know what kinds of experiences conscious states have in common, researchers need to elicit testimony that is more direct and finer-grained than has been previously available. This dissertation endeavors to fill a gap in current research by addressing concepts and methods for making requisite distinctions. This research illuminates the question of whether specific states of consciousness can be reliably and validly distinguished from each other. In order to do this, 41 individuals, who had experienced significant peak or ecstatic states from a variety of induction methods (most prominently by ingestion of psychedelic substances), were invited to be interviewed. The interview was designed as a conversational-type synthesis of 5 well-known questionnaires pertinent to states of consciousness, but without their explicit and implicit assumptions; that is, the volunteers' responses would not conform to predetermined questions. Encoding their responses allowed me to develop a model that helped to answer the research question ("Are there identifiable features that can reliably and validly distinguish among states of consciousness thought to be distinct from each other?") by formulating a model in which any given conscious state can be catalogued in terms of its component factors (background, resistances, setting, induction, tradition, energies, and breakthrough events). The results of this study provide much-needed insights into people's internal experiences of their various states, thus forming a basis for improved treatments and analyses. Better understanding of these states can be an impetus for social change by allowing for more incisive analyses and treatments, and also enabling more understanding of other people's inner perspectives.

This thesis explores the dynamics of economic relations and distributive outcomes according to displaced steelworkers' own accountings of deindustrialization and job loss. Whereas class analyses tend to investigate consciousness according to “true” versus “false” preferences and “post-class” scholars assert that “post-materialism” is replacing “materialist” social concerns, the author abandons these dualisms to demonstrate that workers use cultural codes of “purity” and “pollution” to represent and evaluate individuals, interests, and relations. The findings buttress the continuing relevance of social class for explaining social identity, consciousness, and antagonism.

It is essential for individuals’ well-being and relationships that they have the ability to consciously experience, express and respond to their own and others’ affects. The validity of a new conception of affect consciousness (AC), incorporating consciousness of both own and others’ affects, was investigated in this thesis. The clinical usefulness of the new conception was explored and an interview (affect consciousness interview – self/other; ACI-S/O) intended to capture this new definition was validated. In study I the interrater reliability and the concurrent validity of the ACI-S/O were assessed and found to be acceptable. There were significant differences in all variables of ACI-S/O between the four groups that participated in the study. Joy and interest had the highest ratings in all groups and guilt and shame had the lowest. By means of a factor analysis, two factors, labeled “general affect consciousness” and “consciousness about shame and guilt,” were obtained. General affect consciousness was related to different aspects of relational and emotional problems and possibly protection against them. In study II the clinical implications of AC were further explored in relation to eating disorders (ED). The level of AC in the ED group was compared with a comparable non-clinical group. The relation between AC and aspects of ED pathology were explored, as well as whether AC should be seen as a state or trait in patients diagnosed with ED. ACI-S/O was not significantly related to ED pathology or general psychological distress. There were no significant differences in AC between the different sub-diagnoses of ED but there were between the ED group and the non-clinical group. Significant pre-post correlations for both factors of ACI-S/O were found, indicating that AC could be seen as a stable dimension that might be important for ED pathology but is unrelated to ED symptoms. In study III the relationship between AC and self-reported attachment style (ASQ) was explored in a non-clinical group and three patient groups. There were significant correlations between all scores on ACI- S/O and the ASQ, with the exception of consciousness about guilt. Multiple regression analyses showed that AC, and especially others’ affects, contributed significantly to the ASQ subscales. AC and in particular own joy and others’ guilt and anger seem to be of importance for attachment style. In study IV the importance of AC for the treatment process was explored. Patients’ AC before therapy was significantly correlated with patients’ positive feelings towards their therapists but not with their alliance ratings. Patients’ warm and positive feelings were related to pre-therapy AC, whereas negative feelings were related to low alliance ratings in the previous sessions.
Det är viktigt för människans relationer och välbefinnande att ha en förmåga att medvetet uppleva, uttrycka egna samt svara på andras affekter. I denna avhandling studerades användbarheten av en ny definition av Affektmedvetenhet (AM), omfattande medvetande om egna och andras affekter samt validiteten i en intervju (affektmedvetenhetsintervjun-själv/andra; AMI-S/A) som avser att fånga den nya definitionen. I studie I undersöktes interbedömarreliabilitet och den samtidiga validiteten hos AMI-S/A. De befanns vara godtagbara. Det fanns signifikanta skillnader på alla delsskalor i AMI-S/A mellan de fyra grupper som deltog i studien. Affekterna glädje och intresse hade de högsta skattningarna i alla grupper och skuld och skam hade de lägsta. En faktoranalys genomfördes där två faktorer föll ut. De beskrevs som "Generell affektmedvetenhet" och "Medvetenhet om skam och skuld". Generell affektmedvetenhet visade sig vara relaterad till olika aspekter av relationella och känslomässiga problem och antogs skydda mot dessa. I studie II genomfördes vidare undersökning av den kliniska betydelsen av AM för ätstörningar. Nivån av AM hos patienter med ätstörningar jämfördes med en demografiskt jämförbar icke-klinisk grupp. Förhållandet mellan AM och ätstörningspatologi undersöktes. Någon signifikant relation mellan AMI-S/A och ätstörningssymtom eller allmän psykisk ohälsa hos ätstörningspatienterna hittades inte. Det fanns heller inga signifikanta skillnader i AM mellan olika undergrupper av ätstörning men däremot mellan hela ätstörningsgruppen och den icke-kliniska gruppen. Frågan om AM kan betraktas mer som ett drag eller tillstånd hos patienter med ätstörning utforskades. Det fanns signifikanta korrelationer mellan före och eftermätning på båda faktorerna på AMI-S/A. Resultaten tyder på att AM kan ses som en stabil dimension i sig själv som tycks vara viktig för ätstörningar, men som inte har samband med ätstörningssymtom. I studie III undersöktes förhållandet mellan AM och självrapporterad anknytningsstil (ASQ) i en icke-klinisk grupp och tre patientgrupper. Det fanns signifikanta korrelationer mellan alla skattningar på AMI-S/A och ASQ, med undantag av medvetenhet om skuld. Regressionsanalyser visade att AM, och speciellt medvetenhet om andras affekter, bidrog signifikant till anknytningsstilen. AM och i synnerhet egen glädje och andras skuld och ilska verkar vara av betydelse för anknytningsstil. I studie IV undersöktes betydelse av AM för behandlingsprocessen i olika former av samtalsbehandling. Patienternas AM före behandlingen var signifikant korrelerad med deras positiva känslor gentemot sina terapeuter vid det tredje samtalet, men inte med deras alliansskattning vid detta samtal. Patienternas negativa känslor var inte relaterade till deras AM före behandlingen men däremot till låg alliansskattning vid de tidigare samtalen.

Cabala is a small, rural village of mestizo and indigena people in the Ecuadorian Andes. Since the local haciendas were disbanded in 1962 the economy and population of the village have both declined and the remaining villagers have increased their engagement in the money economy. Nevertheless most contemporary villagers were suspicious of urban Ecuador which they perceived as being organised exclusively according to trade transactions and saw themselves as belonging to a distinct moral community characterised by participation in exchange relations. Cabalano society was largely ordered according to the logic of a 'good faith economy' and any breach of the obligations inherent in exchange relations threatened not just the relationships between participants but the social order of the whole village. Transgressions of the social order were minimised by the stress most villagers placed on the correct performance of social roles and the maintenance of personal reputations. Thus the social and political order of the village was weighted towards conservatism and I describe how awareness of public scrutiny of their behaviour influenced how most villagers behaved towards members of their own household, managed their responses to the world and treated illness. At the same time, however, many villagers were able to manipulate public opinion, at least sometimes, and were able to both initiate, and adapt to, changes in the social order. Furthermore increased engagement in the money economy suggests that villagers were aware they could choose to order their social relations according to a different logic but chose not to. In the conclusion to the work, therefore, I argue that most villagers made an active choice to stress the importance of exchange relations in order to resist the perceived anomie of the modern, Ecuadorian state.

This dissertation explores how the heroines in Hayao Miyazaki animations subvert the antiquated, patriarchal models of the conquering hero that predominate Western literature and cinema. As unifying agents of change, such heroines use communal solutions to conflict by rejecting militarism, refuting stereotypical gender roles and reversing environmental destruction. Five Miyazaki animations are reviewed: My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. The protagonists in these films undertake a voyage of balance inspired by Shinto animism and Japanese mythological traditions that reflect the heroine's journey schema and the individuation process that is the zenith of depth psychology. I argue that Miyazaki heroines are not solely aligned with Jungian theories of the anima as a contrasexual projection of a male, but rather as the spark of life that ignites the storyline.

The intention of this work is to examine the role of the anima rich heroine by drawing upon the depth psychological theories of James Hillman, Hayao Kawai, Marie- Louise von Franz, Ginette Paris and Christine Downing. At the same time, Miyazaki heroines are contrasted with the Disney princesses that reinforce traditional heterosexual norms and other pop culture protagonists that support androcentric order.

To attain a holistic vision of the world, the Miyazaki heroine must overcome the patriarchal constructs of her society that would otherwise disempower her. Such heroines exert their strength of character through compassionate understanding of the oppositional characters within the film story rather than viewing them as foes to be destroyed. Miyazaki heroines discover equilibrium of self by meeting their unconscious shadow aspects and positively integrating them instead of projecting them negatively onto others.

The anima rich, complex heroine in Miyazaki animations is a transformative protagonist that represents an emerging heroic and mythic model for a global community in transition. Drawing from soul more than ego, she contributes to an evolving collective psyche that bears the potential to heal and reshape this nascent post-patriarchal world.

This study, Relational Aggression, Middle School Girls, and the Development of Critical Consciousness, engaged both feminist theory and critical pedagogy as a means to deconstruct the issue of relational aggression among adolescent girls. The objective of this research was to contribute to the growing body of literature pertaining to relational aggression and fill some gaps in the literature surrounding preventative programming. This study investigated the experiences of middle school girls engaged in a solution-oriented approach in order to postulate possible program approaches and educational initiatives to decrease the prevalence of relational aggression in middle school girls. The collection and analysis of the data sought to describe a connection between girls’ participation in the program and developing critical consciousness about relational aggression, as well as strategies to address it in their lives. The qualitative data collected in this participatory action research show that relational aggression is much more than a mere “right of passage” or indicate that “mean girls” are a just a normal part of growing up. Relational aggression is harmful, has intense, negative short- and long-term effects, and—in the lives of the girls I have worked closely with—is very real, incredibly painful, and deeply personal. The findings of this study confirmed that girls benefit from the creation of educative environments, or “safe spaces,” where they can dialogue critically with one another about issues that are important to them; this is integral to their socioemotional development in middle school.

Social workers are responsible for providing the majority of mental health and substance abuse services in the United States in the role of direct service. Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LBG) individuals utilize these services at rates that are believed to be higher than other populations. The field of social work embraces social justice as one of its core principles. This cross-sectional survey of 220 BSW and/or MSW social workers investigates two questions: what is the relationship among key aspects of social worker critical consciousness, i.e., attitudes about social justice, change agency, and awareness of heterosexism; and in what ways does critical consciousness influence practice (promising practices) with LGB clients in behavioral health programs. Findings suggest that social workers who have greater critical consciousness have greater self-reported skills and knowledge scores and engage in more LGB promising practices. Specifically, respondents with more consciousness as evidenced by awareness of heterosexism, positive attitudes towards LGB persons, and greater engagement in social justice activity in their personal and professional lives, including their encouragement of client engagement in social justice activity, have higher skills and knowledge scores and utilize more LGB promising practices. Implications for social work practice and education are discussed and areas for future research are presented.

This case study provides an analysis on how working women mothers in Brazil articulate themselves in a feminist network born on social media (Maternativa) to generate collective empowerment, raise awareness about oppression and mobilize around work rights. Using qualitative methods such as insider participant observation, interviews and content analysis, it investigates how participatory-related communicative practices and feminism interplay on digital and interpersonal environments fostering dialogue, conscientization and, potentially, a “political turn” in the collective’s agenda. Theoretical underpinnings include Manuel Castells’ network society, participatory communication and Paulo Freire’s theories on oppressed subjects, as well as insights from matricentric and black feminisms. The validity of (feminist) participatory practices for the strengthening of women mothers’ grass-roots movements and its potential applicability to mitigate the limitations of social media are some of the conclusions offered. Despite challenges typical of social movements and a significant “white woman bias”, participation has been able to produce an expanded awareness of the different systems of oppression. As a result, women’s discourse and engagement inside the network has become increasingly political and critical regarding structural power relations in the Brazilian society.

Thesis (DPsych) -- School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2004.
"... submitted in partial requirement for the degree of the Professional Doctorate in Psychology, School of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Swinburne University of Technology, 2004". Includes bibliographical references (p. 238-274).

In this thesis I argue that the category Near-Death Experience (NDE) emerged in the late-twentieth century, and is structured by the discourses of 'Medicine' and 'Science', and the wider discursive factors of the 'Spiritual Marketplace'. Within NDE literature, the experiences of people coming out of their bodies in Operating Theatres, and then travelling to other realms, are considered to have parallels in the accounts of mystics, shamans, and religious visionaries of other cultures and other times. Against this, I argue that the category of the NDE does not "articulate the same field of discourse" (Foucault, 1969:24-25) as these other religious accounts. NDE researchers sift through these accounts in search of a common thread, but miss the wider social fabric of the religious narratives they seek to excavate, as well as the discursive location that structures their own research. In order to reposition this debate within its own history of ideas, I argue that the category "NDE" is itself dependent on the Operating Theatre for its emergence and initial appeal, and it is the Operating Theatre that makes the discourse of NDEs possible. Within the last 120 years, there have been many attempts to intersect science with anomalous experiences on the fringes of human consciousness: Psychical Research categorised deathbed visions in a wider schemata that was interested in how the fringes of the subconscious mind might yield evidence of another reality; contemporary Parapsychology looked at third-person accounts of deathbed visions recounted to Nurses and Doctors across the globe. Neither of these iscourses had the crossover into the wider 'public sphere' that Raymond Moody's book Life After Life (1975) did, a book that recounts first-person accounts of normal people, caught in extreme medical emergencies, who come out of their bodies, witness the medical teams' attempt to resuscitate them, visit a heavenly realm, and return to tell people about it. What is unique about the NDE is not the vision of a world after death, but the context in which this vision occurs. In Chapter 2 I explore that context by arguing that Psychical Researchers' investigation of mediums, apparitions, and deathbed visions sought to prove that posthumous existence of the Other (that is, one's relatives or friends who had passed on to the other side), and indirectly the Self. (Conversely, NDE research, seeks to prove the existence of the Self, and indirectly, the Other.) In Chapter 3 I examine how Medicine and the Modern Hospice Movement shaped the conditions of emergence of the category 'NDE'. The removal of 'death' from the public sphere into the private sphere of the West meant that death became something exotic. The idea that death was a defeat for modern medicine lead to the emergence of the modern Hospice movement, which opened up a space for the visions of those close to death to be recounted in the public sphere. The recounting of such experiences encapsulates a narrative that includes the Surgeon's intervention, the technology used in the Operating Theatre, and of the everyday man or woman talking about their visions, all of which gives these experiences a cultural currency that sets them apart from other religious and/or New Age accounts. In chapter 4 I recognise that, for these experiences to have an appeal, they must have a market to appeal to. Thus, I examine the 'Spiritual Marketplace', and argue that the NDE researchers fundamentally misread the appeal of their life after death accounts. NDE researchers felt that they had uncovered publicly verifiable evidence for life after death, which they expected to shake the foundations of Western society. Instead, these accounts were read as a curio in the privacy of the spiritual consumer's home, an interesting account that suggested death might not be the end of existence, but little else. When their vision of a spiritual revolution failed to materialise, the founders of the NDE movement fell into a bitter war about the precise signification of the category NDE, thus giving an indication of the fundamental indeterminacy of the category. In chapter 5 I explore how NDE research intersects with the discourse of "Science". I therefore examine the construction of science, the function of science, and the limits of science in NDE literature. I begin by examining how the narratives of science permeate NDE literature, and how all sides implicitly reinforce a binary of Science/Religion that emphasises the former as objective and neutral, and the latter as irrational belief. I then argue that, ultimately, NDEs happen at the very limits of human experience in a realm far outside of what can be answered by direct scientific observation; the debate tells us more about the different metaphysical presumptions present than it does about whether or not science can answer the question 'is there life after death?" In chapter 6 I argue that, in the discourse surrounding NDEs, death and mysticism become entwined as the 'exotic other'. I therefore examine how the categories 'death' and 'mysticism' are themselves both bound up in a particular web of signification. The NDE secures its own identity against an understanding of death born in clinical medicine and, latterly, Freudian psychoanalysis: death becomes a point, after which there is an unknown. Similarly, the NDE inherits an understanding of Mysticism that can be traced back to William James. Nevertheless, the understanding of 'death' throughout history is not fixed but fluid, depending on a myriad of cultural and social discourses. Similarly, the modern psychological definition of 'mysticism' as an ineffable, subjective experience is extremely narrow in comparison to the accounts of mystics in the Middle Ages. When the understanding of these two categories changes, the emphasis upon securing 'evidence' for life after death evaporates. This point is missed in contemporary NDE research that assumes that its own desire to find evidence of life after death is reflective of a universal need for humans to believe in religion: whilst NDE researchers believe that they have finally uncovered a window on to another world, I have argued that this is, in fact, a mirror of their own particular predilections and desires.

This study investigated the relationship between gender, self-esteem, self-consciousness, social self-efficacy and shyness among 9th, 10th, and 11th grade school students. Participants of the study were 424 high school students (250 female and 174 male) from four high schools in Bursa. Demographic information form, Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale (RCBS) (Cheek &
Buss, 1981), Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) (Rosenberg, 1965), Self-Consciousness Scale (SCS) (Feningstein, Scheier, &
Buss, 1975), and Social Self-Efficacy Scale (Matsushima &
Shiomi, 2002) were used as data collection instruments. The results of multiple regression analysis indicated that self-esteem, self-consciousness, and social self-efficacy were significant predictors of high school students

The changing relationship between community and class has been a subject generally neglected by historians. Marxist social theory provides little framework for the examination of the significance of community in capitalist society. This study of the industrial suburbs of Leeds indicates the importance of community consciousness, both as a force moulding class relations in Victorian society, and as a cognizance itself shaped by class relations. It is argued in chapter two that the relatively monolithic culture of the clothing villages was, by the 1830's, cracking under the pressures of factory capitalism. Suburban attitudes towards community institutions and traditions became permeated and modified by class interests. Chapter three shows how deference and paternalism were fashioned in the factory politics of the 1820's and 1830's, while suburban autonomy came to be threatened by municipal centralization. Chapter five examines the changing role of patronage in suburban religion and education, and analyses petty-bourgeois perceptions of community. However there was much continuity as well as change. Chapter two argues that several characteristics of clothier culture survived industrialization. Chapter three shows how national political divisions were often subsumed by local loyalties. The long tradition of labour radicalism was partly preserved by the mid-Victorian labour aristocracy. It is argued in chapter four that their labour consciousness was firmly rooted in the local community. Petty-bourgeois community sentiment, examined in chapter five, developed from the traditions of sectarianism and localism. Deference and paternalism revived after 1848 and remained important throughout the century. However there was never a factory culture in Leeds suburbs to match that of Lancashire. In chapter six it is argued that few of the institutions of social control, constructed by patronage from the 1830's, ever gained popular acceptance. There were other 'community institutions', from dame schools to friendly societies, which were of greater importance to the fabric of out-township life. It is concluded that community consciousness was preserved by the working class both in the sense of place and of past. As class conflict developed in the industrial suburbs, so the struggle to appropriate local traditions, the sense of history, of 'milieu', and of community itself, became part of this conflict.

Although learning experiences may be described in isolation, education for Dewey consisted in the cumulative and unending acquisition, combination, and reordering of such experiences. Just as a tree does not grow by having new branches and leaves wired to it each spring, so educational growth does not consist in mechanically adding information, skills, or even educative experiences to students in grade after grade. Rather, educational growth consists in combining past experiences with present experiences in order to receive and understand future experiences. To grow, the individual must continually reorganize and reformulate past experiences in the light of new experiences in a cohesive fashion. This dissertation has been designed to help create social consciousness in the students' minds and hearts. In my mind, there is only one type of writing, writing to grow.

The purpose of this study was to consider the development of social consciousness in female nonprofit leaders. The problem undergirding the study is that we do not know enough about social consciousness to know how it is learned, if it can be taught, if it is stable over a lifetime, and what factors and life events shape its unique expression. A further concern is understanding how people come to enact caring about social justice causes and why they enacted caring about certain causes but not others. The research investigated learning related to the social consciousness of female nonprofit leaders who work with organizations focused on social justice issues. The research method utilized, life history collage, employed a combination of art and life history to investigate this phenomenon. Once collages were made, participants were interviewed to further explore emergent themes and these themes were analyzed using the learning theory enactivism to understand how learning influenced each woman’s social consciousness. Findings indicate that organizing structures emerged in childhood that both enabled and shaped the potential of each woman’s social consciousness. This “potential” was inherent in the structure of each woman’s world view, but was enacted in the way this structure coupled with opportunities in her environment. In other words, each woman’s social consciousness coemerged within environments that shaped her social consciousness and that were shaped by her social consciousness. Thus, social consciousness and environment are mutually specifying.

Colonial legacies affect neocolonial experiences of conflict in the 20th and 21st centuries. A critical and comprehensive appreciation of the global "war on terror" reveals terrorism "from above'" (state-sponsored terrorism) as a growing issue in the international community. Further, women's varied experiences within communities of resistance are often undermined, ignored, or maligned within formal research on conflict and peace. Liberation psychologists are called to align with oppressed, marginalized, and suffering communities. To this end, this work explores the experience of women political prisoners of the Irish conflict for independence from Great Britain. A qualitative critical psychosocial analysis was used to understand the phenomenology of women's political imprisonment through the firsthand narratives of Republican women imprisoned during the "Troubles" of Northern Ireland. The intention of this study was to 1) provide an analysis of power and its connection to social conditions, 2) to provide a psychological analysis of how oppression may breed resistance in communities struggling for liberation, and 3) to explore the gendered experience of Irish women political prisoners. The results indicated that political imprisonment may be understood as a microcosm of oppression and liberation, and the subjective experience of political prisoners may glean insights into how communities develop critical consciousness, organize politically, resist oppression, and meaningfully participate in recognizing their human rights. Additionally, this research challenged the exclusion of women's voices as members of resistance movements and active agents in both conflict and peace building and challenged the failure to investigate state-sponsored terrorism, or terrorism from above.

Thesis advisor: Maureen E. Kenny
The relationship between race-related stress (RRS) and negative mental health outcomes has been well documented in research (Carter, 2007; Pinterse, Carter, Evans, & Walter, 2010). Emerging adulthood is a pivotal and challenging time when college students of color enrolled in predominantly White institutions (PWI) encounter RRS in college settings that are microcosms of the larger social environment. Despite the risks associated with RRS, students of color demonstrate a multitude of psychological strengths and well-being. The current study applies developmental contextual and strength-based frameworks to better understand the factors that contribute to positive psychological outcomes despite the presence of RRS. More specifically, this study examined the contributions of social support, sense of purpose, and critical consciousness to well-being and the role of these factors in moderating the relationship between race-related stress (RRS) and well-being. A sample of 196 undergraduate students of color attending a PWI in the Northeast participated. Students completed an on-line survey assessing their subjective experiences of RRS, social support, sense of purpose, critical consciousness, depressive symptoms and self-esteem. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that social support moderated the relationship between RRS and psychological well-being, decreasing the strength of the relationship. Lower depression and higher self-esteem were associated with sense of purpose and critical consciousness. The current study confirms the relationship between RRS and negative psychological well-being and identifies individual strengths (e.g., sense of purpose and critical consciousness) that explain well-being beyond the negative effects of RRS. This study adds to existing research with students of color in higher education by utilizing a strengths-based perspective and highlighting the strengths of students of color. Implications for theory, research, and practice in the college setting are explored
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015
Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education
Discipline: Counseling, Developmental and Educational Psychology

This paper is about locating the meaning of a series of games known as the Dark Souls series in relation to contemporary social conditions in Japan. I argue that the game should be thought of as an emblem of the current cultural zeitgeist, in a similar way one might identify something like Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums as an emblem of the counter cultural 60s. I argue that the Dark Souls series expresses in allegorical form an anxiety about living in a time where the meaning of our everyday actions and even society itself has become significantly destabilized. It does this through a fractured approach to story-telling, that is interspersed with Buddhist metaphysics and wrapped up in macabre, gothic aesthetic depicting the last gasping breath of a once great kingdom. This expression of contemporary social anxiety is connected to the discourse of postmodernity in Japan. Through looking at these games as a feedback loop between text, environment and ludic system, I connect the main conceptual motifs that structure the games as a whole with Osawa Masachi's concept of the post-fictional era and Hiroki Azuma's definition of the otaku.

Global consciousness is an important trait for high-school students to exhibit. One way that global consciousness can be incorporated into the curriculum is via an elective International Studies class. The purpose of this study was to determine what effect, if any, taking an International Studies class would have on students’ global awareness. The questions that guided this study were: 1. What aspects of an international studies course resonated most with students? 2. What impact did participation in this course have on student global competence?

In order to research this topic, I conducted a case study in which an International Studies class was studied. The teacher who developed and taught the course was interviewed, in addition to three of her former students. Twenty-three students whom were students currently taking the class also participated in a survey.

The methodology for this study was consistent with the case-study approach. A school was selected that offered International Studies, former students and their teacher was interviewed, and current students volunteered to participate in a survey. The data were recorded and analyzed for possible themes. Three key themes emerged that spoke to the effect the course had upon students. First, the course served as a foundation of information the students were able to draw on and apply later in life. Second, the course served as an opportunity for students to increase their international literacy. Third, the course provided an opportunity for the students to become more globally aware citizens. These results were analyzed and interpreted through two theoretical lenses: John Dewey’s Theory of Experience and James Banks’ Theory of the Cosmopolitan Citizen.

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The theme of this dissertation is the concept of social consciousness in the philosophy of the North American thinker Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). We propose in this work to make a cut, through the study of various writings of Peirce and the experts of his work, which leads us to a concept of social consciousness. We assume, as justification for this research, to make a contribution and the translation to Portuguese of the text Immortality in the Light of Synechism, through a selection of articles translated and commented, contemplating the development ontological, logical and phenomenological of his doctrine of continuity and semiotics
O tema desta dissertação é o conceito de consciência social, na filosofia do pensador norte americano Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). Propomo-nos, neste trabalho fazer um recorte, através do estudo de diversos textos de Peirce e seus comentadores, que nos leve a um conceito de consciência social. Supomos, como justificativa para esta pesquisa, trazer uma contribuição, além da tradução para o português do texto Imortalidade à luz do Sinequismo1, por meio de uma seleção de artigos traduzidos e comentados, contemplando o desenvolvimento ontológico, lógico e fenomenológico de sua doutrina da continuidade e da semiótica

This paper examines the National Child Labor Movement in America at the turn of the 20th century and how it affected collective American social consciousness and civic engagement. One of the first and most important social movements of the Progressive Era led by the National Child Labor Committee, reformers sought to use multiple focal points to unite the American public around the issue of children and the greater good of the nation’s future. In doing so, the movement embedded a new urban social awareness in which Americans finally caught a glimpse into the lives of their fellow citizens, of all classes and backgrounds, and began to develop empathetic practices to initiate social change. Ultimately, this had a significant effect on the future of urban social reform.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, School of Education, 2008.
Title from home page (viewed on May 12, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-08, Section: A, page: 3014. Advisers: Mary B. McMullen; Christine I. Bennett.

This thesis explores the complexities of an emergent feminist consciousness among Maharashtrian women in the context of the socio-religious reform movements in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century India. It analyses how self- assertion was articulated through a gendered critique of Hindu religion and society. In constant interaction and at times in tension with the text-based colonial and indigenous discourses, their ideology it is argued was informed by experience. Critical of Eurocentric models of feminism, this study adopts alternative methods of reading and defining colonial women's perceptions and protests. Thus, the study takes as its starting- point the view of the Maharashtrian woman herself as she engages with the state and Indian men. In the first chapter the attempts of female converts to Christianity in negotiating with the changing world around them is studied. Christian women's pioneering welfare schemes are studied in detail showing how their feminist critiques and alternative lifestyles provided inspiration to women of their time. It is argued that their feminism was a result of their analysis of Hinduism and ultimate rejection of it. How Hindu women gained partial autonomy is studied through their separate female institution building programmes. However, it is argued that Hindu women's critique of Indian society and Hinduism and their action was constrained by their decision to stay within the Hindu structures. In the third and fourth chapters on women's resistance various individual and collective forms of dissent by women against the state and Indian males are outlined which primarily point to survival issues being the core of resistance. A case-study of infanticide in chapter four shows women resisting cultural practices like the ban on widow-remarriage. In the last two chapters, a study of the movement for higher education of females, legislation on restitution of conjugal rights, divorce and the age of consent is undertaken. While it demonstrates the participation of women in popular protest movements of the nineteenth century it also reveals a great divergence in the precepts and practices of the state and Indian men highlighting their unwillingness to hand over decision-making processes to women over gender-related issues. The thesis concludes by attributing the fruition in feminist consciousness of women to a selective appropriation of dominant discourses of the time, namely those of the missionary, religious revivalist, orientalist and reformist. Finally, it is suggested that women themselves chose to join the nationalist politics of early twentieth century rather than being led into it by influential leaders like Gandhi.