Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Holding the Center: How One Jewish Day School Negotiates Differences in a Pluralistic Community(2010) Selis, Allen H.; Selden, Steven; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study centers on the experiences of students and religious study faculty in the high school division of "CDS," a successful Kindergarten through Twelfth grade Jewish day school that defines itself as a "community" institution. The school affirms a high-profile commitment to including "the widest spectrum of Jewish practice and belief" in its recruiting materials. While the student body comprises individuals who are diverse in their affiliations and beliefs, the school employs a religious studies faculty that overwhelmingly draws from the most theologically conservative subset of the larger community. Almost none of these instructors share the same orientation with respect to religious practice, beliefs or general cultural frames of reference as the students they educate. Nonetheless, the school's administrative leaders claim a high degree of success at creating an embracing community, where individual differences are honored and respected. The purpose of this study was to examine and critically evaluate this claim. By employing a range of classical ethnographic research strategies, including participant observation and individual interviews, this study explores the following question: How does a culturally heterogeneous group of religious studies faculty and students negotiate the challenge of communal participation in the high school division of one Jewish day school? While the results of field work were analyzed using a range of classical anthropological methods, this study makes special use of the communities of practice literature to create an interpretive schema for understanding the cultural life and experiences of this school community. Coding and analysis of field data suggest that a commitment to defer engagement around significant areas of ritual practice as well as the construction of a value system which reinforces the merits of coexistence create a loose framework for the notion of "community" at CDS. These findings expand an emerging literature on pluralism within Jewish institutions and suggest new interpretive tools for understanding the meaning of community within the growing field of pluralistic Jewish community day schools.Item Teaching The Sacred: A Phenomenological Study of Synagogue-School Teachers(2009) Nagel, Louis Alan; Hultgren, Francine; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation is a hermeneutic phenomenological study of synagogue-school teachers of Jewish sacred text. The phenomenological question that orients this study asks, What is the lived experience of teaching sacred text in a Conservative synagogue-school? This study takes place in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. The writings of Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Max van Manen, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Emmanuel Levinas, among others, orient the study philosophically and methodologically. This investigation of the challenge of making relevant to 21st century American youth an ancient tradition is grounded in sacred texts as well as the author's life experiences, and is metaphorically explored in the encounter with natural landscapes. Eight third through seventh grade synagogue-school teachers of Torah and Hebrew prayer are engaged in individual and group conversations to explore the personal meaning they make of their engagement in this service to the Jewish community. The review of recorded conversations, verbatim transcripts, essays, and notes taken during classroom observations reveal existential philosophic themes that are brought forward in the writings of Heidegger, Sartre, and Levinas. In particular, the existentials of being present, relationship, discourse, and the Other, emerge as powerful openings of the phenomenon in question. The narrative of this lived experience is the exercise of Buber's I-Thou relationship, one of profound moments of encounter with the sacredness of the text and of the student; time and timelessness; and boundaries to be respected, tested, and breached. At essence the synagogue-school teacher is seen as taking on the responsibility of perpetuating connection to a sacred community, acting in the role of both the prophet as teacher, best represented by Moses, and in maintaining connections that link to Biblical accounts of encounter with God and with divine messengers. Synagogue-school teachers are seen to demonstrate independence, genius, responsibility, and deep spirituality in a unique educational landscape. These teachers reveal the nature of the synagogue-school as an island of Jewish time, a period rich in engagement with community and sacred text, set in the synagogue environment. A challenge is for the learnings that take place in the synagogue-school to be extended to Being beyond the boundaries of that sacred space.Item Ad/ministering Education: Gender, Colonialism, and Christianity in Belize and the Anglophone Caribbean(2008-01-28) Rellihan, Heather; Bolles, Augusta L; Women's Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation looks at the relationship between educational achievement and power in the Anglophone Caribbean, with particular emphasis on Belize. Girls are outperforming boys at every level of education, but women still have higher unemployment rates and hold the lowest paying jobs, while men are in more decision-making positions in every sector of the economy. This project considers one major question: Why do women remain in less powerful positions even when they are better educated? To explore this question I look at the role that missionary groups played in administering education under British colonialism. I focus on Belize where religious groups maintain a high level of control over education in the postcolonial era. I use twentieth-century Caribbean literature to suggest the effects of Christian ideology on the hidden curriculum and on women's social, economic, and political power. The literature I discuss includes George Lamming's In the Castle of my Skin (Barbados), Austin Clarke's Growing Up Stupid under the Union Jack (Barbados), Merle Hodge's Crick Crack, Monkey (Trinidad), Merle Collins's Angel (Grenada), Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John and Lucy (Antigua), and Zee Edgell's Beka Lamb (Belize).Item An Exploration of Counselors' Perceptions of Spirituality(2004-11-23) Smith, Rita Pearl; Hershenson, David B; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: AN EXPLORATION OF COUNSELORS' PERCEPTIONS OF SPIRITUALITY Rita P. Smith, Doctor of Philosophy, 2004 Dissertation directed by: Dr. David Hershenson, Professor Emeritus, Department of Counseling and Personnel Services, University of Maryland, College Park This purpose of this study is to examine counselors' age, gender, years of training, and level of spiritual well-being as related to their (1) attitude about the importance of spiritual issues, (2) comfort with addressing spiritual issues, (3) frequency of use of spiritual interventions in the treatment process, and (4) attitude toward the use of spiritual interventions in the treatment process with individuals from different ethnicities and serious and persistent mental illness diagnoses. Researchers suggest that attending to clients' spiritual issues is an important multicultural competency that has vital implications for the ethical delivery of mental health services, especially to those of different ethnicities and mental illness diagnoses. Research confirms that environment, family structure, and belief systems (political and spiritual) impact treatment issues. Historically, the under-representation of spiritual issues in counselor training programs has resulted in a lack of sensitivity about these issues that has been passed from generation to generation of counselors. Two hundred counselors from the American Rehabilitation Counselor Association and American Mental Health Counselor Association completed the General Attitude Scale (GAS), the Intervention Scale (IS), the Spiritual Well Being Scale (SWBS), and the Smith's Importance of Spirituality Scale (SISS). A short qualitative section consisting of open-ended phone interviews was conducted with five counselors asking them to speak about their feelings regarding the use of spirituality in the therapeutic process. Results indicated that older counselors who had higher levels of spiritual well- being tended to have more positive general attitudes about the importance of using spirituality in the treatment process with clients diagnosed with serious and persistent mental illness. Older counselors with higher levels of spiritual well-being and less experience in counseling delivery tended to be more comfortable with addressing spiritual issues, as well as had a higher frequency of use of religious and spiritual interventions in the treatment process. A difference was found in the importance counselors attached to the use of spiritual interventions in the treatment process with clients from different ethnicities and severe and persistent mental illness diagnoses. This study discusses implications of the results in relationship to prior research, future research, training, and practice.