Digital media is becoming increasingly important to learning in today's changing times. At the same time, digital technologies and related digital skills are unevenly distributed. Further, deficit-based notions of this digital divide define the public's educational paradigm. Against this backdrop, I forayed into the social reality of one rural…

I examine the formation of power as it relates to canonicity through online delivery systems, Amazon and Goodreads, and the academic sector in the contemporary period. The digital age has radically changed literature by providing for a textuality of literature that is multi-channeled, and this project responds by engaging new critical lenses for…

This dissertation aims to understand the apparent failure of speech in post-Mao literature to fulfill its conventional functions of representation and communication. In order to understand this pattern, I begin by looking back on the utility of speech for nation-building in modern China. In addition to literary analysis of key authors and works,…

The following study is an extended ethnographic case study of a "black intellectual insurgency" within the predominantly white space of the U.S. intercollegiate policy debate activity. A growing number of black students are entering the debate activity and insisting that "whiteness" be confronted and interrogated and that…

The dissertation critically analyzes the response of a major research public university to the attacks of 9/11 in order to gain a deeper understanding of public universities' stance on the relevance of Middle East studies, particularly in the context of the serious and far-reaching impact of 9/11. The absence of an articulated position of the…

This study focused on terms anchored in special education and associated stigma of disability in schools. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ensured the right to education in US public school systems for students with disabilities. An associated term asserted that children with disabilities must be educated in the least restrictive…

Ethnolinguistic vitality, communication accommodation, and markedness model frameworks guided research assessing language ideologies, practices, and criticism among multi-ethnic Locals in the Hawaiian Islands. Results from Study 1 indicated that respondents draw from widespread ideologies that influence them to employ Standard English in…