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Disability and College Choice: A Narrative Inquiry into the College Application Experiences of Students with Disabilities
Get PDFThesis advisor: Heather Rowan-KenyonAlthough a college degree is an increasingly important gateway to economic advancement in the United States, high school students with disabilities enroll in postsecondary education at lower rates than nondisabled students. The disparities in college access for these students indicate that there may be differences in how they are navigating the college choice process, or the process of deciding whether and where to go to college, in comparison to their nondisabled peers. In order to better understand how students with disabilities make college-related decisions, this narrative inquiry examined the college choice experiences of three high school students with disabilities. Using a disability studies lens and a conceptualization of college choice that combines models proposed by Perna (2006) and Webb (2000), I studied both how students navigated the pre-matriculation stages of college choice as well as how their understanding of disability and their experiences with special education impacted their choice processes. This narrative inquiry is presented as three stories of college choice, one for each participant, and is based on semi-structured conversations and observations with participants as they worked on their college applications over the course of the 2022-2023 academic year. The narrative themes from participants’ stories suggest that students’ understanding of disability and their academic experiences in school, including experiences with receiving special education services, shaped their student identities and influenced their processes for deciding to pursue postsecondary education, exploring and selecting college options, and completing college applications. Factors such as parental involvement, career aspirations, and school resources, which are traditionally thought to be important in the college choice process, were also important for my participants. Implications from this research include finding ways to build accessible college-related supports into the secondary school curriculum, normalizing special education in school communities, and identifying places where application forms and admissions processes are impeding students’ success.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education
Understanding Values & Ideas of the University in International Organisational Policy Discourse:
No full textThesis advisor: Hans de WitThesis advisor: Ana M. Martínez AlemánThis project aimed to understand the relationship between theoretical interpretations of multiple values and ideas of the universities from within and across different disciplines and their influence on higher education and its internationalisation within the real international organisation (IO) policy context. With this foundation, I derived a theoretical construct to gauge the often implicit presence of values and ideas of the university in policy. The theoretical construct consisted of: (i) an academic idea of the university from philosophy of higher education literature; (ii) a globalised idea of the university from international higher education literature; and (iii) a developmental idea of the university from international development higher education literature. To apply the theoretical construct using theory-testing via critical discourse analysis of IO policy, I framed IOs as leaders in the global governance of HE, possessing significant linguistic capital (Bourdieu, 1991) in international development higher education. I used the concept of elite capture to describe the phenomenon of IO power over knowledge and values via policy channels enabling them to “describe, define, and create political realities (Táíwò, 2022, p. 32). The theoretical claim I tested, via the two theory-testing cases of UNESCO and the World Bank, was that the values held by IOs with regards to HE and its internationalisation practically shape IO structures and policy processes. I focused on internationalisation of higher education and academic research collaboration as specific policy areas for theory-testing.
I found that idealised theoretical ideas of the university are useful for this analytic approach and play a part in shaping IO structures and processes, but in complex ways not neatly represented by disciplinary-bounded theoretical categories. Further, the discursive function of IO strategic priorities shapes discursive construction of higher education policy, how higher education is broadly treated, and the bounds within which internationalisation of higher education is approached. I recommend a richer and more complex theorisation of the university to account for rationales of different stakeholders, including academic, developmental, and globalised ideas of the university, to support policy-makers in international development higher education.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education.Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education
Three Essays in Entrepreneurial Finance and Innovation:
Get PDFThesis advisor: Thomas ChemmanurMy doctoral dissertation consists of three chapters focused on topics in entrepreneurial finance and corporate innovation. In the first chapter, I analyze secondary market patent transactions from public assignors (seller firms) to assignees (buyer firms). I show that firms with higher innovation productivity (more able to innovate) but with lower production efficiency (less able to commercialize) are more likely to sell patents distant from their operations. Using a linked assignor-assignee dataset, I find that patents technologically closer to buyer than to seller firms are more likely to be sold in a patent transaction, implying gains from trading patents. I document that, in the three years following patent transactions, seller firms experience a positive and statistically significant improvement in their ROA and operating profitability. I find that the improvement in ROA and operating profitability is concentrated in seller firms which increase their R&D focus after patent transactions, suggesting that an increase in innovation focus is one of the channels driving these results. Consistent with this channel, I find that inventors who are either newly hired by or remaining in assignor firms over the three years subsequent to patent transactions have technological expertise more similar to those of assignor firms. In the second chapter, co-authored with Xi Chen, we study how venture capitalists (VCs) create value in the product market for the entrepreneurial firms backed by them. By constructing a novel dataset based on Nielsen Retail Scanner and VentureXpert, we document that, compared to non-VC-backed firms, VC-backed startups have more than doubled their sales and seized more nationwide market share in the five years following the first VC investment. A further decomposition indicates that VC-backed firms achieve the growth in sales and market share by lowering their product prices. In addition, subsequent to the first VC investment, VC-backed firms enlarge their product portfolios by introducing new products and establishing new product lines, and they expand their products to more stores and geographic locations. Using the limited partner return as an instrument for the supply of VC financing, we show that the above effects are causal. We document heterogeneous value creation effects of VC financing for firms with different market share and for firms with different geographic proximity to the lead VC investors. This suggests that, apart from providing capital, VCs also add value to startups by directing their marketing strategy and monitoring their operations.
In the third chapter, co-authored with Thomas Chemmanur, Jiajie Xu, and Xiang Zheng, we analyze the effect of the composition of venture capital (VC) syndicates on value creation to the entrepreneurial firms they invest in. We hypothesize that VCs may learn about each other’s skills at value creation when they co-invest together in entrepreneurial firms, allowing for more efficient value creation when they co-invest in subsequent syndicates. Further, if VCs view syndication as a repeated game, this may generate incentives to co-operate to a greater extent with each other when investing together in a syndicate, reducing the probability of conflicts among VCs. We empirically analyze the implications of these hypotheses and find the following. First, prior collaboration between a lead VC and any of the VCs in a syndicate leads to greater short-term value creation, as evidenced by greater sales growth, employment growth, probability of patented innovation, and the quality of innovations generated during the three years subsequent to VC syndicate investment. Second, prior collaboration between the lead VC and at least one of the syndicate members leads to greater long-term value creation, as evidenced by the higher probability of a successful exit (IPO or acquisition). Third, if the prior collaboration is very successful (leading to an IPO exit resulting from the previous collaboration), then there is even greater value creation by the VC syndicate compared to the case where the prior collaboration was less successful. Finally, consistent with prior collaboration allowing VCs to learn about each other’s value creation skills and reducing potential conflicts among the VCs forming a syndicate, syndicates with prior collaboration between the lead VC and at least one syndicate member are characterized by more uniform syndicate compositions across financing rounds.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management.Discipline: Finance
How Do School Leaders Influence Workers' Stress?: Evidence from a School District in Chile
No full textThesis advisor: Shanta PandeyThesis advisor: Eduardo AbarzuaStress among school workers and teachers is a growing global concern, specifically in Chile. This has worsened in post-pandemic times. School leadership can be a key factor for school performance and employee well-being. In Chile, although research in this area is still limited, it has suggested the importance of the role of school leaders in the work environment. The local context seems to affect the school leaders’ capacity to promote well-being. While the leaders’ influence on workers’ work stress and well-being is well established, we don’t know its mechanisms. It is not clear how personal and local contextual factors that influence school leaders' ability to manage work psychological risks are associated with work stress. Informed by conceptual frameworks of risk management, this dissertation helps to address current gaps in knowledge by probing the impact that leaders have on work stressors in a school setting within a school district in Chile. The author used mixed methods to accomplish this study’s objectives. Quantitative data were obtained from the Questionnaire of Psychosocial Risk Surveillance in the Workplace collected from 1,194 school workers of Talcahuano School District (DAEM) in 2018. The Qualitative data was obtained by conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with principals and pedagogical heads of the Talcahuano School District in 2022.Four key findings from this study will advance empirical knowledge of School leaders' abilities to manage and change the work environment: (1) The extent of school leaders’ influence on job stress is significant and relative. This influence is not the same for all psychosocial risks; for some, the leaders had no impact. Also, leaders’ capacity to influence the work environment varied by the school setting's meso and macro level factors that constrain leaders' abilities to mitigate these risks. (2) In addition to contextual constraints, School leadership substantially influences some risk factors compared to other predictors related to the school context and school leader characteristics. In the quantitative analysis, Quality of Leadership is a significant predictor of some stress-related risks and alone explains 8% of the variance in Psychological Demand and 23% of the variance in Meaningful Work. Qualitative results also suggest some possible ways for leaders’ practices and behaviors to influence other risks. (3) Leaders' general approach to work stress is characterized by their idea that work stress is a reaction to the whole environment of the educational system (micro, meso) and that they can manage stress among staff by focusing primarily on the socio-emotional aspect of the school and its environment. (4) School leaders implied that they can better reduce the stress level of workers with support at the meso and macro levels of management. The results also shed light on trends in pandemic and post-pandemic Schools’ work-stress.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work.Discipline: Social Work
From Religious Cosmology to Environmental Praxis: Empowering Agency for Sustainable Social Change
No full textThesis advisor: Kristin E. HeyerDiscourse about climate change has the potential to empower moral agency toward sustainable praxis or arrest action by furthering moral oblivion. This dissertation analyzes sources for moral narratives about climate change—in theology and ethics, in public discourse and the news media, and in social movements—to determine their relative influence on agency. Because climate change and environmental degradation are wicked problems, there are always multiple ways to understand the problems and propose solutions that influence agential action. This dissertation promotes a pragmatic approach to environmental ethics, which analyzes the particularities of each problem to mediate the interconnected impact of historic injustice, social sin, and lived experiences of harm. Social movements provide new moral visions for enacting social change opposing structural injustice. The environmental justice movement, generated from experiences of environmental racism in the disposal of toxic waste, provides both a corrective moral vision and normative metrics by which sustainable action can be measured: recognition, participation, and distributive justice. Application of these normative principles makes it possible to analyze the extent to which environmental action pursues redress for structural injustice or continues to perpetuate social and environmental harm. Rooted in a social praxis of Christian hope, environmental ethics ought to stimulate the moral imagination to sustain action pursuant to tangible and lasting social change.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Theology
Conversion in a World of Violence: James Alison, Thomas Merton, and the Stories That Change Us
Get PDFThesis advisor: Brian RobinetteWhile violence manifests in many forms, two instantiations of violence are particularly prominent in the U.S. and growing: racial resentment and polarization, both political and ecclesial. Violence emerges from the false and malforming narratives that contribute to our identities and worldviews. Insofar as these narratives contribute to the ongoing malformation of our identities and worldviews, they contribute to a bias in need of conversion; that is, violence as the result of false narratives is in need of a conversion understood as a revision of those formative narratives. In my dissertation, I draw on the work of James Alison and Thomas Merton to offer a spirituality and ecclesiology of humble discovery and prophetic accompaniment that facilitate an openness to a holistic conversion at the personal, communal, and political levels that can counter this violent bias in the transformation of our formative narratives. In chapter one, I evaluate the role narratives play in human identity and worldview formation as well as the possibility for violence to emerge from false and malforming narratives. I focus especially on racial resentment and polarization in the political and ecclesial spheres as instantiations of violence that are uniquely pervasive and growing in the United States. I posit that these false narratives are a bias in need of conversion, and I consider conversion as a transformation of those formative narratives. Chapter two takes up the work of James Alison who, relying on the mimetic theory advanced by René Girard, offers a communal anthropology that reveals original sin to be our participation in a system of mimetic rivalry, scapegoating and exclusionary violence, and death. The experience of the resurrection reveals both our participation in this system and that God has nothing to do with this violence and death. Alison directs us to ecclesial participation in the liturgy, wherein we experience the risen Jesus, as a communal process of conversion in which we relax into being recreated into who God intends for us to be and whose desires are realigned toward God’s. In chapter three, I turn to the complementary, though distinct, work of Thomas Merton. Merton offers a process of personal conversion rooted in a practice of contemplative spirituality. This process initiates in response to the realization of our participation in “mass society,” which uncritically accepts technological progress to the point of rendering us “moral infants” and atomized cogs in the machine of that same progress. This spirituality practice wrests our egos from this false logic and reveals our interconnectedness to and responsibility for our neighbor. In chapter four, I synthesize the thought of Alison and Merton and offer a framework for an ecclesiology and a spirituality of humble discovery and prophetic accompaniment that work to open us to God’s grace and the resulting conversion. I apply this framework to rural, working-class, and White communities—focusing especially on my own hometown—offering a reflection on how the application of these might facilitate a conversion within these communities and counter the racial resentment and polarization that uniquely impacts these communities.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Theology
Securing Status: Why the Gulf Governments Support U.S. Policies in the Middle East
No full textThesis advisor: Peter KrauseWhy do smaller partners differ in the support that they provide to the foreign policy plans of a larger partner? Why have the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) governments differed in supporting the same United States (U.S.) policy plans? I argue that their actions stem from their status-seeking. My theory, deferential status competition, explains outcomes of support—and a lack thereof. I argue that a smaller partner varies in the degree of deference that it shows to a larger partner, owing to the strong-or-strained quality of their bilateral relations and its positive-or-negative assessment of a given policy plan. My theory assumes that deference yields status in the form of recognition from the larger partner; thus, smaller partners have a competitive incentive in their status community to provide support. Those smaller partners that are earlier and fuller supporters often gain reputational rewards that other, initially non-deferential peers may seek to gain by enhancing their levels of support. I evaluate my theory against two alternatives: levels of expectation from the larger partner and forms of societal preferences within the smaller partners. I use the qualitative methods of within-case process-tracing and interviews with numerous analysts, diplomats, and scholars to compare three core cases: Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Kuwait. I show that Qatar and the UAE are more status-oriented, and more competitive in their support to the U.S., than is Kuwait. My dissertation aims to contribute a timely evaluation of U.S.-Gulf relations amid systemic polarity shifts and to design a theory that explains the supportive dynamics of the U.S.’s asymmetric alignments in and beyond the Middle East.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Political Science
Let The Boys Play: Omission Bias in MLB Umpires
Get PDFThesis advisor: Christopher MaxwellThis paper investigates the existence of omission bias in Major League Baseball’s home plate umpires. Omission bias describes the human tendency to prefer harm caused by inaction, or acts of omission, over equal harm caused by action, or acts of commission. For umpires, I define an act of commission as a call made by the umpire that ends the at-bat and an act of omission as a call that does not end the bat. By analyzing over 1.5 million pitches thrown between the years 2018 and 2022, I find that MLB umpires display omission bias by systematically increasing the size of the enforced strike zone on three-ball counts and shrinking the size of the enforced strike zone on two-strike counts. Further, I find that omission bias exists separately from and is not impacted by other biases present in MLB umpiring, such as the biases favoring home batters and star batters.Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Departmental Honors.Discipline: Economics
Aquinas on Motion:
No full textThesis advisor: Eileen SweeneyMotion is the central phenomenon that Aristotle's physics endeavors to explain, and the whole superstructure of his natural philosophy is bound to it. This was certainly understood by Thomas Aquinas, who produced a most careful and thorough account of the Aristotelian theory of motion. What is rarely recognized is that in so doing he developed and improved that theory in a number of respects. This dissertation is a study of the theory of physical motion in Aquinas. It has two principal results. The first regards the concept of motion itself. Aquinas accepts Aristotle's definition of motion, but gives his own explanation of it, one which employs non-Aristotelian ideas like participation, and places motion in a more general and cohesive system of relations between non-being and being. The second regards what is called natural motion, i.e., that which inanimate matter exhibits of its own accord. How Aquinas explains this has rarely been understood and has frequently been misunderstood. I provide a thorough, systematic treatment that sets forth the principles underlying Aquinas's theory of natural motion, explains in what sense such motion is said to be caused, and notes – what commentators are prone to overlook – the critical role played by analogy as an aid to grasp the causality of natural motion. Chapter 1 briefly introduces Aquinas as a medieval "physicist", i.e., natural philosopher, specifies the scope of the dissertation, and lays out the path to be followed in the succeeding chapters. Chapter 2 summarizes what Aristotle says about motion in his Physics. His definition of motion is presented, and the terms in which it is given are analyzed. As the definition is famously perplexing, and its meaning a matter of debate, the opinions of a number of modern commentators are reviewed. After having explained the primacy that Aristotle assigns to locomotion and the connection he establishes between motion and time, the chapter concludes with a section on the causes of motion. This covers Aristotle's arguments for the eternity of motion, his denial of pure self-motion, introduces his views on animal, natural, and violent motion, and concludes with the first mover and first motion reached at the end of the Physics. Chapter 3 is a short introduction to the tradition of Aristotelian commentary. It contains brief reviews of some of what Simplicius, John Philoponus, Averroes, and Avicenna say about the Aristotelian theory of motion, with especial attention given to those aspects of it with which they disagree or which they find troublesome. The next three chapters are devoted to Aquinas. Chapter 4 covers how Aquinas interprets Aristotle's definition of motion and how he integrates it into his own metaphysics. The chapter begins with two preparatory notes. First, it introduces Aquinas as a commentator, and stresses the importance of having the context of the commentary tradition in mind when reading Aquinas, because he belongs to it and approached Aristotle in much the same way as earlier commentators. This has the consequence that his own developments are somewhat concealed, since what he says in his commentary on the Physics is presented as straightforward exposition, without any suggestion of originality. Second, modern readers are cautioned not to import modern senses of "motion" unwittingly into Aquinas, as this leads to confusion. The point is made that his Latin usage is regular and well-defined. After this, Aquinas's interpretation of the definition of motion is presented and what he means by calling it "imperfect act" is explained. This involves a sophisticated theory of the order of act to act, and incorporates the Neoplatonic language of participation and perfection. The next section of the chapter presents some of the analyses that Aquinas makes of motion, including its mental character and categorization. It is noteworthy, yet in fact quite unnoticed, that Aquinas provides a subtle and inventive solution to a modern debate over the proper interpretation of the definition of motion (the so-called "process" vs. "non-process" debate) which reconciles the two sides. Finally, I present a visual analogy as an aid for grasping how motion fits into a larger Thomistic metaphysical scheme concerning the relationship between non-being and being. Chapter 5 treats Aquinas's account of natural motion. It begins by noting some of the problems involved with Aristotle's explanation of natural motion, including, critically, that of the cause of such motion. It then highlights the work of James Weisheipl, who rejected a motor coniunctus interpretation of natural motion and offered in its stead his own, one which has since become well-known. But a careful examination of what Aquinas says shows that Weisheipl's interpretation of him is incorrect, and must also be rejected. The chapter then lays out (1) the principles of motion and their schematic organization; (2) Aquinas's theory of efficient causality and how we are to understand his denial of the possibility of action at a distance; (3) his use of analogies to indicate how we are to understand the efficient cause of natural motion; and then finally (4) shows, first, how the multiplicity and variation of the analogies lead commentators to misread Aquinas, and, then, how they illuminate other aspects of his theory of motion. Chapter 6 treats, in turn, the much debated principle that "everything that is moved is moved by another", and then the arguments that Aquinas gives for the existence of an unmoved mover, which he takes to be God. With regard to the first, it is pointed out that the theory of inertia is not nearly so fatal to the principle as many historians of science assume. Indeed, understood in light of what was said about Aquinas's understanding of the efficient causality involved in natural motion in the preceding chapter, it is compatible with inertia. However, a review of the three arguments Aquinas takes from Aristotle purporting to prove the principle are all found to be subject to serious objections. Greatest attention is given to the argument drawn from the claim that a thing cannot simultaneously be in act and in potency in the same respect. With regard to the second, it is shown that what Aquinas has to say about the unmoved mover is perplexed and inconsistent. Aquinas accepts two series of arguments from Aristotle, one from the Physics that concludes to a first moving cause, another from the Metaphysics that concludes to a final cause. From the former, Aquinas constructs his own argument from motion, most famously presented as the prima via, but at times he attempts to combine the two Aristotelian series. It is shown that these attempts at harmonization involve Aquinas in inconsistencies. What the prima via revision concludes to is also discussed. An important observation is that the prima via is manifestly intended by Aquinas to be an argument from physical motion. Yet numerous commentators, perceiving its weakness, attempt to recast it in a non-physical form, such that "motion" no longer signifies what Aquinas intends. The chapter ends with some cautious remarks on the state of these highly controversial topics. Chapter 7 concludes the dissertation, first, with a brief recapitulation of some of its major points, and then with some speculation as to what use its results may have for future scholarship.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Philosophy
Caritaes et Lieberatcione: The virtues of charity and prudence in Gustavo Gutiérrez's Theology of Liberation ; a dialogue of virtue with Aquinas and Liguori
Get PDFThesis advisor: Mary Jo IozzioThe influence of Liberation Theology within the pastoral and moral tradition of the Catholic Church has been formative to the contemporary understanding of Catholic Christianity. As a Redemptorist Missionary, the rich tradition of liberation theology is significant. The Constitution and statutes (CS) of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, the guiding document of our apostolic life, explicitly embrace the concept of liberation and the preferential option for the poor. The description of the Gospel of Salvation in article one of the the CS provides the Redemptorist missionary's understanding of the Gospel of Salvation. Article one defines how the work of evangelization is to be understood. The Constitution states: "The Congregations' mandate to evangelize the poor is directed to the liberation and salvation of the whole human person. The members have a duty to preach the Gospel explicitly and show solidarity with the poor by promoting their fundamental rights to justice and freedom." In chapter one we will examine the theory of Liberation Theology presented by Gutierrez. In that discussion, important concepts, such as theological praxis, virtue ethics and the important influence of Thomism and the legacy of virtue theory in the Catholic tradition will be presented. We will also bring into the dialogical dynamic what contemporary virtue theory brings to the context of liberation idealogy. It is through this dialogue of tradition and contemporary critique and response that we will roughly sketch the context of our theological discourse. Chapter two will engage the virtue of Charity as the foundation virtue of Gutierrez's theology of liberation. Here we will engage how Thomas Aquinas' presentation of the virtue of charity and Alphonsus Liguori's pastorally practical approach to the virtue of charity illuminate how Gutierrez engages the virtue of charity in his theology. This chapter will take these three theological points of reference to present how Gutierrez understands the onnection betwwen the virtue of charity and Christian praxis. Through this necessary connection of charity, Christian praxis we will examine Gutierrez's understanding of political charity, and how Chritistian spirituality is a constituent element of political charity and how political charity becomes an eschatological prophetic witness to the liberation of the whole person. It is through this eschatological spirit of political charity that charity becomes epistemological praxis. Chapter three will follow the structure of chapter two by dialogically engaging Aquinas, Liguori and Gutierrez's praxis of the virtue of prudence. We will also examine how prudence is reflected in scripture and how the formation of conscience in the Alphonsian tradition helps us to understand how Gutierrez's theological perspective uses the virtue of prudence through the relationship between conscientization and prudence in the context of liberation theology. The conscientization of a community is the manifestation of prudence as a social virtue. Thus, we will discuss how this dynamic demonstrates the virtue of prudence as a cultural action and a radical form of Christian praxis, which consequence is a metanoic movement of conscience through prudence. The final chapter will conclude this work by examining the implication of political charity and the heuristic praxis of conscientization of prudence, particularly in the context of the Redemptionist missionary. It is towards this end, the practical application of these theological reflections where the fruit of this theological dialogue will find value and will hopefully be an aide to the movement toward the liberation of the whole person.Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2023.Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry.Discipline: Sacred Theology