This dissertation investigated the development of stereotypes surrounding public school children in Brazil, primarily focusing on poor students of Afro descent. It explored how these stereotypes have influenced education policymaking and examined the efforts of Darcy Ribeiro and Paulo Freire to challenge these prevailing notions. Employing…

Much has been written on the topic of critical pedagogy since the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire brought his critical approach and theory of knowledge to the world stage in "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" in 1968. As a self-reflexive pedagogy, it is in a near constant state of shaping and re-shaping. Through all of this, critical pedagogy…

As online learning platforms and computerized testing become more common, an increasing amount of data are collected about users. These data include, but are not limited to, response time, keystroke logs, and raw text. The desire to observe these features of the response process reflect an underlying interest in the cognitive processes and…

This research is a qualitative case study of global and national (Brazilian) Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE) policies in historical perspectives. My overall objectives are two-fold: First, to understand how global ESE policy frameworks have evolved ideologically over time--a concept I refer to as ESE policy trajectories; and…

Across the centuries, the question of the origin of language has captivated the human imagination. Many theories have been proposed to address fundamental questions such as: Where do languages come from? How do they evolve? What are the societal drivers of this change? Historically, one of the biggest challenges in addressing these questions has…

With a focus on Brazilian theological seminaries that self-identify as evangelical and which emphasize teaching, learning, and doing a contextually Latin American theology, this research inquiries into related theoretical fields in order to establish a framework from which these schools may further develop educational approaches more adequate to…

Information technology (IT) outsourcing, including foreign or offshore outsourcing, has been steadily growing over the last two decades. This growth in IT outsourcing has led to the development of different hubs of services across nations, and has resulted in increased competition among service providers. Firms have been using IT outsourcing to…

The primary goal of this dissertation is to investigate the relationship between Universal Grammar and the properties that Universal Grammar constrains, by investigating how language is created/acquired. The framework proposed in this dissertation provides us with tools for predicting what will and will not appear in linguistic systems of…

Ecopedagogy is defined in this research as transformative environmental education which critically and dialectically deconstructs how social conflicts and environmental (socio-environmental) devastation are connected. Understanding these connections is necessary because environmental destructive actions are inherently political--benefiting some…

Language acquisition research frequently concerns itself with linguistic development and result of the acquisition process with respect to a first or subsequent language. For some, it seems tacitly assumed that a first language, once acquired, remains stable, regardless of exposure to and the acquisition of additional language(s) beyond the first…

This qualitative, grounded theory study focuses on global leadership and global leadership development strategies from the perspective of people from three developing countries, Brazil, India, and Nigeria. The study explores conceptualizations of global leadership, the skills required to lead effectively in global contexts, and recommended…