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Navigating Cultural Complexity: The Influence of Self and Organizational Support on Global Work Environment Outcomes
No full textStudies in social psychology and organizational psychology have incorporated social identity theory but have not specifically examined the effects of self-construal, self-uncertainty, and perceived organizational support on an individual’s organizational outcomes. Past studies have found that people are motivated to reduce their uncertainty by validating their identities through group membership. In addition, the literature on perceived organizational support has suggested that elevated self-esteem in individuals with high perceived organizational support helps to satisfy their need for social identity validation. The present research advances the literature by examining the effects of self-uncertain individuals’ self-construal, self-uncertainty, organizational culture (Study 1) and perceived organizational support (Study 2) on organizational identification, commitment, extra-role behaviors, and leader evaluations. Study 1 ( N = 307) showed that individuals with an interdependent self-construal and greater self-uncertainty rated their leader more favorably when in a relational (as opposed to non-relational) organization. Additionally, a significant three-way interaction between the predictors was explored. Study 2 ( N = 240) showed that those with higher perceived organizational support had greater identification with and commitment to the organization. In addition, these individuals were also more likely to go the extra mile within their organization and rate their leader more favorably. Implications for strengthening employee identification and leader evaluations in an organization and future directions are discussed
Excellence and Performance Improvement: The Goals and Standards Guiding Skill Development in USA Curling
Get PDFExcellence can be found in every goal-directed pursuit aiming to improve abilities. The present dissertation integrates goal setting theory, achievement goal theory, and deliberate practice into a conceptual model describing how excellence is achieved. It is argued that future research using this model for excellence should operationalize excellence as the process of surpassing a standard that had been previously inaccessible. These standards can refer to one’s previous performance, another’s performance, or performance against an objective standard of the task; the excellence for one may not be excellence for another. The stated definition is aspirational, goal-directed, process-oriented, and grounded in empirical literature. Researchers should define performance standards, set goals beyond current abilities, and measure performance longitudinally to build a robust body of knowledge. This research explores excellence among elite adult curlers in the United States. Curling teams compete internationally, aiming to enhance skills, win prize money, and qualify for events like the World Curling Championships and Winter Olympics. The study involved 28 elite curlers (female n = 14) from the US National and Junior National teams during the 2019-2020 season who participated in an intensive longitudinal study. Participants completed twice daily surveys in which they reported their general mental and physical wellness, and their training activities for the day. These training activities were matched with tournament game outcomes from each team to understand the relationship between practice and performance through the season. Skill development was assessed using Elo ratings, with excellence being operationally defined as a team surpassing their previous highest Elo rating for the season. This procedure resulted in 69 total season best Elo scores across 454 games (15% of total games) with each team averaging 8.6 games demonstrating performance improvement ( SD = 6.1 games) with a range from 0-19 game instances of demonstrated improvement across the season. The first set of analyses explored predictors of team performance. There was no demonstrated relationship between excellence and achievement goals, nor was there a meaningful relationship between training activities and excellence. The next set of analyses sought to understand predictors of skill development activities in athletes. Athletes with higher levels of obsessive passion, where the activity overwhelmingly influences their psyche, reported slightly more frequent ( b = 0.26, p = .009) and marginally longer practice sessions ( b = 4.80, p = .091) compared to their less obsessively passionate peers. Supplemental analyses further investigated the role performance plays on future training for athletes. Winning resulted in a significantly more positive affect ( b = 0.26, p \u3c .001) and an increase in athletes’ motivation to train the following day ( b = .28, p \u3c .001), but lower cumulative practice time the following week ( b = -3.86, p = .017). Interestingly, both positive affect ( b = 46.51, p \u3c .001) and motivation to train ( b = 55.41, p \u3c .001) were found to be positively associated with total training times across the following 7 days. These two constructs were found to represent a fully mediated relationship such that an increase in positive affect can increase one’s motivation to train, and this motivation to train results in more training hours being logged. While initial expectations linking excellence to a blend of training and psychological factors were not fully supported, the study introduced the idea of excellence as a recursive process influenced by competitive outcomes. The current research supports the process model of excellence to some extent but suggests future studies may be needed to refine the model, as the researcher-defined performance metrics might not fully capture athlete-driven standards; allowing individuals to set their own benchmarks could better reflect their pursuit of excellence. The study\u27s findings suggest that while winning boosts motivation and positive affect, it paradoxically reduces subsequent practice duration and frequency. This practice paradox underscores the intricate relationship between positive affect, motivation, and training activities post-competition. It aligns with theories like Broaden-and-Build, suggesting that winning broadens training activities while losing narrows them to skill-specific drills. The dissertation contributes to understanding how elite athletes navigate the complexities of skill development and performance improvement in competitive contexts
Embodied Knowing: How Trans Critique Creates Liberatory Pedagogical Possibilities
No full textThis dissertation engages in a cultural analysis of how systems of power can be created, reinforced, and transformed in learning environments in ways that create liberatory praxis by bringing Critical Pedagogy, Cultural Studies, and Trans Pedagogy into conversation with one another. In this work, Cultural Studies offers a framework to analyze how power and culture shape classrooms. Critical Pedagogy advances this aim to analyze and propose re-structurings of the classroom that center critical engagement and lateral learning structures. Through my engagements with Critical Pedagogy and Trans Pedagogy, hierarchical learning models and binaries of “inside” and “outside” of the classroom are collapsed. To contextualize my contributions, I present the first comprehensive genealogy of the nascent field of Trans Pedagogy published to date. As an offering to the growth of the field of Trans Pedagogy, this genealogy covers the intervening texts of the field between 2008-2024. Through my research of Trans Pedagogy, I present the emerging themes and questions of this field in this genealogy. The second half of this dissertation details my contribution to Trans Pedagogy. Through an autoethnographic approach, I also develop a “Liberatory Trans Pedagogy” as my contribution to the growth of the field of Trans Pedagogy. A Liberatory Trans Pedagogy offers an “educator’s toolkit” in which I detail nine elements as to what engaging in this pedagogical praxis can entail. As evidenced by my dialectical and student-forward approaches in the classroom, education through a Liberatory Trans Pedagogy becomes a praxis that is critical, meaningful, and generative for both instructors and students. Together, my students and I pedagogically collapse hierarchical structurings of the classroom to instead be rooted in lateral frameworks of engagement. By inviting my students into the process of the co-construction of understandings and class engagement, students become active agents in our course, their educations, and beyond. A Liberatory Trans Pedagogy attends to students’ needs and interests while simultaneously preparing them to be critically engaged citizens beyond the classroom. Liberatory in this work is a critical pedagogical praxis in which students are invited to foster their understandings of power, norms, and strengthen their community collaboration, advocacy, and intellectual interdependence. In this work, “trans” embodies multiplicity as a crossing between disciplines, transformation of classroom dynamics, and transcendence from traditional academic norms and pedagogical hierarchies through engagements with a Liberatory Trans Pedagogy
(Re)Imagining Linguistic Justice Through Pláticas: Dual Language Educators’ Perspectives on Restorative Practices
No full textThis dissertation examines the pervasive impacts of linguistic imperialism in U.S. dual language classrooms, focusing on restorative language justice practices designed to address the harm caused by manifestations of linguistic oppression, including language policing, linguistic surveillance, and language discrimination (Cameron, 2014; Tuck & Yang, 2012). Grounded in LangCrit (Crump, 2014) and Raciolinguistics (Flores & Rosa, 2015), this study centers the voices and lived experiences of minoritized bilingual educators in Central Washington and Southern California, highlighting their insights and calls for transformation within bilingual education. Through pláticas en grupo (Fierros & Delgado Bernal, 2016), dual language educators co-created restorative practices that challenge entrenched linguistic hierarchies while empowering multilingual students and families. By analyzing educators\u27 reflections, this dissertation offers co-constructed, actionable solutions for disrupting the oppressive structures that persist in dual language programs (García, 2009; Paris, 2012). Ultimately, this work envisions dual language classrooms as spaces of linguistic freedom, inclusion, and multilingual empowerment. This dissertation contributes to the ongoing mission of linguistic reparations and challenges the monolingual ideologies, norms, and expectations that have long subordinated multilingualism (Baker-Bell, 2020; Phillipson, 1992)
Rwanda\u27s Natural Remedies: A Fresh Look at the Fight Against Malaria
Get PDFMalaria remains one of the most devastating parasitic diseases globally, disproportionately affecting sub-Saharan Africa, where Rwanda continues to face high transmission rates and rising resistance to conventional interventions. Despite decades of control efforts, the emergence of drug-resistant Plasmodium falciparum and insecticide-resistant Anopheles mosquitoes threatens to reverse recent gains. This research responds to the urgent need for sustainable and culturally relevant alternatives by exploring the therapeutic potential of Rwandan traditional medicinal plants. These indigenous remedies, long used by local healers, offer an underexplored reservoir of bioactive compounds that may provide the basis for novel antimalarial drugs.
The central hypothesis of this thesis is that Rwandan ethnobotanical knowledge, when combined with modern pharmacological and analytical methods, can yield effective, low-cost antimalarial agents. To test this, the study will begin with in vitro screening of traditionally used plant extracts using the SYBR Green I fluorescence assay to evaluate their inhibitory effects on P. falciparum. Extracts meeting potency thresholds (IC with ₅₀ \u3c 50 µg/mL) will advance to secondary validation, and extraction techniques will ensure the efficient and selective isolation of active phytochemicals.
Subsequent steps will include chromatographic purification and structural characterization of lead compounds via spectroscopic (NMR, MS) and computational (docking, AlphaFold) methods. These approaches will elucidate the interaction of active molecules with known parasite targets, such as heme detoxification pathways. The research further incorporates ecological and economic assessments to determine the sustainability of plant-based drug development and promote community-based cultivation strategies
Totality Fractal
Get PDFThis fractal was inspired by the Total Solar Eclipse on April 8, 2024. Here, the sun and the moon are represented when in totality
An Understanding of Factors Affecting Latinx Academic Performance in STEM Education at California Community Colleges
No full textLatinx students represent the largest ethnic group at California Community Colleges. California Community Colleges serve as the main entry into higher education for the majority of Latinx students, including those students pursing an undergraduate degree in STEM education (The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, 2023). Although there is current research on their experiences in STEM education, much of the research focuses on four-year universities (Snyder et al., 2017). These studies highlight disproportionate academic outcomes among Latinx students’ in historically challenging majors and the importance of developing healthy self-efficacy (The Pew Research Center, 2025). By concentrating on Latinx community college students in STEM, my study will add to the current literature by exploring strategies that help students integrate and thrive in STEM education. It is undeniable that success in STEM education can help Latinx students obtain high-paying positions in the workforce, and, in turn, achieve economic upward mobility despite often coming from poverty (Ackert et al., 2021). By examining obstacles in STEM and broader educational challenges, I hypothesized that the specific factors reviewed in this dissertation will influence Latinx students’ confidence in their academic abilities. This study examined the extent to which relationships between social support, student engagement, faculty representation, and familial expectations and responsibilities are favorable to perceived self-efficacy among Latinx students in STEM education. This is tremendously important because positive self-efficacy has historically been linked to academic achievement and student success (Owens & Ramsay-Jordan, 2021). Thus, I conducted a quantitative study with questionnaires and a 5-point Likert scale with response options to investigate aspects of student self-efficacy. The data I utilized for my research consisted of students from a Hispanic Serving Institution in Las Abejas, California. These students were over the age of 17, pursued a STEM degree at this California Community College, and had completed at least 12 units of coursework in STEM education. I would like to point out that all college classes and majors categorized as STEM in this study have been recognized as such by the National Science Foundation. My literature review directly aligns with the independent and dependent variables utilized in this dissertation. It describes the experiences of Latinx students at institutions of education, stresses the importance of Latinx faculty representation in higher education, and highlights the influence of familial expectations and responsibilities on their academic journeys, particularly when pursing STEM majors. For that reason, Albert Bandura’s self-efficacy theory was utilized to provided context to the dissertation since this theory has historically had a great influence on the study of higher education. The study results demonstrated that the students’ involvement, family responsibility, and expectations emerged as strong predictors of perceived academic self-efficacy. It was evident that notions of confidence in academic achievement were higher among more engaged students, reinforcing the importance of students’ active participation and involvement in academic activities. Likewise, familial responsibilities are shared responsibilities that positively affected self-efficacy, which implies that family structures and culture could be a source of motivation for Latinx students in STEM fields. In contrast, the support from family and friends was not highly related to perceived academic self-efficacy, suggesting household networks have a weak correlation/effect on the students’ confidence in this aspect. Other variables such as gender and age were also statistically insignificant, indicating that the students’ perceived academic self-efficacy in this study was less a product of these individual characteristics and more influenced by their behavioral and cultural characteristics. Further analyses were conducted to examine whether these relationships differed between male and female students. Among male participants, both student engagement and familial expectations and responsibilities were meaningful predictors of academic self-efficacy. On the other hand, among female students, only student engagement significantly contributed to their sense of academic self-efficacy. Familial expectations and social support did not show a notable influence
Bridging Worlds: Saudi Arabia and Francoist Spain in Cultural Diplomacy and Political Pragmatism (1939–1975)
Get PDFThis dissertation analyzes the political and cultural relationship between Saudi Arabia and Francoist Spain from 1939 to 1975, exploring how both states navigated profound ideological divides through diplomatic pragmatism, economic interest, and symbolic cultural diplomacy. While previous scholarship largely emphasizes Spain’s overtures toward the Arab world, this study foregrounds Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic agency—shaped by religious identity, historical memory, and geopolitical calculation. Drawing on diplomatic archives, United Nations records, Saudi media, and Arab intellectual commentary, the research demonstrates how Saudi Arabia strategically engaged a diplomatically marginalized Spain, calibrating symbols and narratives to serve its Cold War interests. By integrating cultural diplomacy with geopolitical strategy, the dissertation challenges economistic and Eurocentric interpretations, recasting Saudi–Spanish relations as a case study of how non-Western powers actively shaped Cold War diplomatic landscapes
The Price Tag of a 5-Star Culture: Cultural Performance and the Politics of Luxury in Oʻahu’s Hotel Industry
Get PDFThis thesis examines the intersection of cultural tourism and luxury branding with settler colonial dynamics in Oʻahu’s high-end hospitality industry. Focusing on Disney’s Aulani Resort, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, the Sheraton Princess Kaiulani, and the Moana Surf Rider, the study investigates how Hawaiian culture is performed, curated, and commodified as part of a five-star guest experience. Through ethnographic research and interviews with Native Hawaiian performers, artists, and cultural advisors, it traces how Indigenous identity is shaped by the demands of the tourism economy and the aesthetics of authenticity. These hotels function not only as sites of leisure but also as stages of cultural performance where issues of labour, sovereignty, and representation are continuously negotiated. Grounded in Indigenous studies, performance theory, and critical tourism studies, the thesis argues that the politics of luxury in Hawaiʻi are inseparable from the logics of colonial tourism, where Native culture is marketed as experience while underlying structures of settler colonialism persist