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Only the Young: The Rhetoric of Youth-Led Social Movements In the 21st Century
No full textIn this dissertation, I examine several examples of contemporary youth-led protest in conjunction with some of the specific challenges of organizing in the present day. In each chapter, I pair one circumstance that makes organizing more difficult (e.g. neoliberal corporate power and the attention economy) with a particular youth-led social movement that has taken steps to overcome it. Chapter one studies the survivors of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, as they used social and mass media to organize a massive march and bus tour in the months following the shooting. Chapter two focuses on the successful effort to unionize Amazon warehouse JFK8 in 2021, while chapter three looks at varying approaches within the climate movement including Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for Future organization, disruptors like Just Stop Oil and Climate Defiance, and the plaintiffs in the Held v. Montana court case that took place in summer 2023. By analyzing the tactics that each of these movements use to overcome the challenges facing them, I am able to identify a consistent set of features of youth social movements that young organizers and activists employ across movements. Some of these features are making claims toward the future, mass self-communication, mutualistic outreach, and a focus on issues over institutions. The project ends with a brief examination of Black Lives Matter as a touchstone for seeing all of these features in action and looking forward to future possibilities for further study
PRESERVICE MUSIC TEACHER PERCEPTIONS OF EXPERIENCES AND SELF-EFFICACY WITH MUSIC TECHNOLOGY IN OKLAHOMA
Get PDFThe purpose of this quantitative study was to examine preservice music teachers’ perception of their experiences and self-efficacy with music technology in Oklahoma music teacher preparation programs. Specifically, I aimed to answer (a) what experiences preservice music teachers had with music technology during their undergraduate program, (b) the various ways that preservice music teachers were provided opportunities to explore the implementation of music technology in their coursework, field experiences, and student teaching, and (c) how efficacious preservice music teachers felt about utilizing music technology in their future classrooms. Preservice music teachers (N = 53) across multiple universities in Oklahoma were contacted to complete an online survey regarding music technology preparation, self-efficacy, and preservice music teachers' planned future implementation of music technology.
Results from this study indicated differences among multiple variables regarding preparedness, confidence in future use, and self-efficacy regarding music technology opportunities and integration into their undergraduate coursework. Overall, preservice music teachers felt unprepared to teach using music technology post-graduation and lacked confidence in teaching music technology. However, preservice music teachers agreed their music technology skills increased after gaining professional teaching experience. Implications for music teacher preparation programs, music teacher educators, and inservice music teachers are discussed
An Applied Evaluation of Ecosystem Services Decision-Support Tools
No full textNature's value as an asset is unmistakable, evident through the tangible benefits it provides, such as agricultural yields and tourist attractions. These services, known as ecosystem services (ES), are easy to appreciate due to their direct market connections. However, implicit ES, like climate regulation and flood control, are often overlooked until their absence becomes painfully evident, demonstrated by disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the 2012 Midwest flash drought event, as well as with large development projects, such as the channelization and subsequent re-meandering of the Kissimmee River. While wetlands are recognized to contribute to ecological integrity, human well-being, and national resilience, population growth and economic development have historically led to the transformation of these critical habitats. The rapid conversion of wetland habitat has largely degraded wetland ES, especially affecting inland wetlands. An apparent gap exists between wetland conservation policies and site-level decision-making, often stemming from inadequate documentation of wetland ES costs and benefits at the local and regional levels. This research accepted the hypothesis that ES Decision Support Tools (ES-DSTs) can quantify site-specific freshwater wetland ES. Pilot studies were employed to highlight the potential of ES-DSTs to bridge the gap between high-level wetland conservation policies and on-the-ground implementation by improving ES accounting. These quantitative metrics lay the groundwork for ES valuation, a crucial preparatory phase to conducting a BCA
Minutes of an Organizational Meeting, The University of Oklahoma Board of Regents, March 12, 2024
Get PDFIntercultural Communication Competence Revisited: Reconciling Trait and Relational Perspectives Using Social Network Analysis
Get PDFWhat it takes for communicators to interact competently with intercultural others remains a contested conceptual site. This dissertation addresses the debate between the individual and relational perspectives regarding the origins or location of intercultural communication competence (ICC). The individual approach to ICC equates this concept with a set of individual attributes located within the communicator. The relational perspective conceives of this competence as a social judgment that communicators can make about each other in relationships. The dissertation brings together these two seemingly competing paradigms regarding intercultural communication competence research by combining the individual perspective (based on predictions from the trait perspective) and the relational perspective (based on social network theory). Through a social network analysis design, living-abroad individuals’ ego networks and multicultural personality traits were examined in relation to ICC, independently and collectively. Results revealed that multicultural personality traits were strong predictors of ICC. Specifically, when the traits were evaluated separately from or together with network variables, open-mindedness, cultural empathy, and social initiative positively, and flexibility and emotional stability negatively related to ICC. Ego network characteristics also had relationships with ICC, but they were weaker predictors than personality traits. In particular, when the ego network variables were examined independently, separately from traits, strong intercultural network size negatively, whereas heterophily and diversity positively, related to ICC. When the network variables were examined together with traits, the effect of network diversity disappeared. In addition, the trait of open-mindedness was found to mediate the associations between network diversity and several competence dimensions. These results offer some support for a cross-paradigmatically theoretical framework explaining what it takes to become interculturally competent, with antecedents at the individual and relational levels. The findings also have theoretical implications for the study of ICC as well as practical implications for living-abroad individuals, intercultural educators, and trainers
Archaeoastronomy: Comparing Astronomic Traditions of Torres Strait Islanders with Quantitative Evidence
Get PDFLocated north of Cape York in Australia lies the Torres Strait and the indigenous people who call it home. Torres Strait Islanders have a rich culture including song, dance, folk tales, and other traditions. Western ethnographers have diligently sought to record this culture. Imbedded in these traditions are generations of astronomic observations that correlate the motions of celestial objects with animal migrations, times of cultivation, and seasonal weather changes. Records gathered from modern Torres Strait Islander elders and artists come together with published Western ethnographic resources (such as the journals from A. C. Haddon) and published indigenous resources (like Eseli’s Notebook) to be able to piece together a more complete record of astronomic traditions. This ethnographic evidence when combined with modeled celestial motion, patterns of animal migration and behavior, and documented weather patterns allows for quantitative data analysis and further correlation of Western star identities with the celestial objects in Torres Strait astronomy. In turn these studies help archaeoastronomers better understand the reasons for the traditions that describe the patterns of sky motion that have been understood by Torres Strait Islanders for generations
A STYLISTIC AND PEDAGOGICAL ANALYSIS OF KAREN TANAKA’S INTERMEDIATE PIANO COLLECTION “CHILDREN OF LIGHT”
Get PDFKaren Tanaka (b. 1961) is a Japanese composer based in Los Angeles, California. Highly versatile, Tanaka has composed in a wide variety of musical genres, including works for orchestra, piano and orchestra, solo piano, solo harpsichord, solo instruments, chamber music, choir, electroacoustics, and film music. She also served as the lead orchestrator in 2016 for the BBC television series Planet Earth II. Tanaka has received numerous awards for her compositions, including three Japanese prizes: the Muramatsu Prize, Keizo Saji Prize, and Bekku Prize, as well as the international Gaudeamus Prize that recognizes the excellence of young emerging composers. Tanaka’s exceptional merit allowed her to receive scholarships from the Japanese government, French government, and Nadia Boulanger Foundation to study with the composers Tristan Murail in Paris and Luciano Berio in Florence during the 1980s and 1990s. One of her most prolific compositional genres is her works for solo piano.
This document examines the stylistic features and pedagogical applications of Karen Tanaka’s intermediate piano collection Children of Light (1999). Containing twenty-five pieces, this collection emphasizes themes of nature, the environment, and endangered animals. Tanaka selected twenty animals from the 1996 IUCN Red List of Threatened Animals to designate as piece titles, with the remaining five pieces inspired by various environments around the world. Children of Light is comprised of early to late intermediate piano pieces, ranging from Levels 3 through 8 in reference to Jane Magrath’s leveling system. A variety of musical styles are incorporated throughout the collection, including modernism, minimalism, neo-romanticism, French impressionism, and Japanese aesthetic influences.
Chapter One provides a biographical sketch of the composer, a brief overview of her compositional style and output, the purpose, need, procedures, and limitations of the study, and a review of related literature. Chapter Two presents a detailed discussion of Tanaka’s compositional style, influences, and output, surveys her standard and pedagogical piano works, and offers an introduction to Children of Light (1999). Chapters Three through Six offer compositional and pedagogical analyses for each of the twenty-five pieces in this collection, which are presented in increasing order of difficulty. The analysis of each piece begins with a compositional overview that addresses the musical elements of form, meter, rhythm, melody, harmony, and texture. A discussion of pedagogical applications follows, including guidance for introducing pieces, approaching musical and technical challenges, and suggestions for fingering, pedaling, and performance. Chapter Eight offers a summary of the study and recommendations for further research. By closely examining the intermediate piano collection Children of Light, the author seeks to advance the visibility and knowledge of Tanaka and her piano works so that her music can be more accessible to teach, study, and perform
Impact of Assimilating Lower Atmospheric Boundary Layer Observations from Uncrewed Aerial Systems on Short-Term Probabilistic Predictions of a Tornadic Supercell Event
No full textOne limitation of convective-scale NWP ensemble modeling systems is the inadequate representation of the pre-convective and near-convective environment in the model, particularly in the lower level (0–2 km) of the atmospheric boundary layer (BL). This limitation is largely due to the unavailability of thermodynamic and kinematic BL observations with high spatial and temporal resolutions. This study aims to assess the impact of assimilating the emerging Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS) lower atmospheric BL measurements in convective-scale ensemble modeling systems. The case used to conduct the study is the violent EF4 24–25 March 2023 Rolling Fork tornado event. The event was sampled using various instrumentation during the PERiLS 2023 field campaign, including three CopterSonde UAS instruments located at three separate, stationary profiling sites near the Arkansas/Louisiana/Mississippi border. The CopterSondes collected lower atmospheric BL observations every 15–30 minutes, with cadence depending on storm motion and other environmental factors. Several retrospective experiments are conducted using the National Severe Storm Laboratory’s Warn-on-Forecast (WoFS) data assimilation and modeling system to assimilate temperature, dewpoint temperature, u-, and v-wind components from the CopterSonde in addition to all other routinely available observations in the baseline WoFS.
Results indicate that assimilating the CopterSonde observations more accurately predict the evolution of the Rolling Fork tornadic supercell and its shape, intensity, location, and associated low-level updraft helicity (UH). Assimilating those observations more realistically represented the extent of low-level moisture advection and the strength of horizontal winds as they evolve throughout the observation period, thus limiting northward and westward displacement and better locating the most intense parts of the supercell. Even with the limited dataset, the CopterSonde UAS observations show promise in analyzing the storm environment and predicting the probability of severe thunderstorms with higher accuracy in the model. However, while the results from this single case study with only three profiling sites give us glimmers of hope, the results cannot be generalized. More studies need to be performed to assess the robustness of these results by assimilating a network of UAS BL measurements over a diverse set of cases in a convective-scale ensemble DA and prediction system
What happens when a net operating loss carryforward is exhausted?
No full textI study how firm behavior changes after the firm exhausts its NOLC. Prior literature has provided evidence that NOLCs affect firm behavior. Firms that exhaust their NOLC are losing a tax shield and experience a significant change in tax status. Theoretically, firms should change behavior when their NOLC exhausts. However, it appears that not all firm behaviors change when the NOLC is exhausted. I examine firm investment, debt financing, and cash holdings decisions using a six-year window surrounding the NOLC exhaustion to understand the timing and extent of behavior changes. Consistent with my expectations, I provide evidence that investment increases when the firm no longer has an NOLC. However, I fail to find strong evidence that firms change their debt financing or cash holdings decisions in the predicted direction after the NOLC exhaustion. Overall, these findings indicate potential variations in behavior changes. It appears that firms change investment behavior immediately after the NOLC is exhausted, whereas the absence of discernible changes in debt financing and cash holding decisions implies that, if there are changes in behavior in response to the NOLC exhaustion, they are not statistically significant within the observed timeframe. This suggests potential challenges for managers in adapting to full taxation and incorporating muti-year tax benefits
Bonnie Gray, the King Tut cowgirl: pioneering stunts and paving the way for women to stunt double in Western film
Get PDFThis thesis focuses on the life and career of Verna Smith, better known as Bonnie Gray, during the Golden Age of Rodeo and her career defining contributions that challenged social norms. The period lasted from the early 1920s to the 1930s and Gray's career spanned the majority of the time when women competed in male dominated events in rodeo like bronc busting and bull dogging. I argue Gray's contributions to the development of stunts and stunt doubling in films created a new space for rodeo women in the early twentieth century. Verna Smith, born in 1891 in Iowa, moved with her family to Kettle Falls, Washington early in her childhood. She received a horse as a child and was a gifted rider. She attended college at the University of Idaho and received a degree before returning to Washington. She began teaching music and later married a doctor. After moving several times with her husband, they settled in Burbank, California, and her transformation as Bonnie Gray began. She eventually appeared under her stage name Bonnie Gray and cultivated stunts that would open up other revenue opportunities. Despite the media attention she garnered and relationships she developed, Gray is only referenced briefly in research in comparison to other rodeo stars of the day like Bonnie McCarroll and Mabel Strickland. This project focuses on the development of Gray as a rodeo star, her career, and the contributions she made to rodeo during the golden age of the sport