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 The racial grammar of South-South cooperation: Vietnamese development experts in Mozambique(2022) Le, Hang Minh; Klees, Steven J.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In recent years, mounting criticisms of international development aid to education have led many policymakers, practitioners, and scholars to look to South-South cooperation (SSC) as an alternative. This study problematizes the current fascination with SSC through a critical narrative inquiry of six Vietnamese education and health development specialists in Mozambique. Since the 1980s, hundreds of Vietnamese teachers, policymakers, and education experts have been sent to Mozambique to support educational policy and practice, rooted in the spirit of Third World socialist solidarity. Yet these Vietnamese development experts have been largely invisible in normative accounts of international development and education aid. This study examines whether and how the Vietnamese-Mozambican program of expert cooperation recognizes, reproduces, and/or resists the typical racial hierarchies in international development, and whether their experience suggests more ethical forms of engaging in international aid and cooperation. On the one hand, as a bilateral governmental exchange, the Vietnamese-Mozambican case of SSC has a more balanced structure that is significantly different from traditional Western aid, and the Vietnamese experts enter the field with complex motivations focusing on themselves and their families rather than on the need to help strangers abroad. On the other hand, the experts’ stories reveal how this is also an Asian-Black encounter underwritten by the global racial grammar of development which continues to govern who can count as developed and who continue to be the ‘backward Other’. Through centering issues of racialization and racism in education and international development, with an explicit focus on de-romanticizing SSC, this study provides an important contribution to our understanding of international education development policy and practice as well as attempts to strive for a better world.Item THE DEVELOPMENT EFFECTIVENESS OF INTERNATIONAL WATER AND SANITATION INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS: DEFINING “QUALITY AT ENTRY” OF WORLD BANK PROJECTS.(2016) Kfouri, Claire A.; Baecher, Gregory; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Over the past 15 years, the number of international development projects aimed at combating global poverty has increased significantly. Within the water and sanitation sector however, and despite heightened global attention and an increase in the number of infrastructure projects, over 800 million people remain without access to appropriate water and sanitation facilities. The majority of donor aid in the water supply and sanitation sector of developing countries is delivered through standalone projects. The quality of projects at the design and preparation stage is a critical determinant in meeting project objectives. The quality of projects at early stage of design, widely referred to as quality at entry (QAE), however remains unquantified and largely subjective. This research argues that water and sanitation infrastructure projects in the developing world tend to be designed in the absence of a specific set of actions that ensure high QAE, and consequently have relatively high rates of failure. This research analyzes 32 cases of water and sanitation infrastructure projects implemented with partial or full World Bank financing globally from 2000 – 2010. The research uses categorical data analysis, regression analysis and descriptive analysis to examine perceived linkages between project QAE and project development outcomes and determines which upstream project design factors are likely to impact the QAE of international development projects in water supply and sanitation. The research proposes a number of specific design stage actions that can be incorporated into the formal review process of water and sanitation projects financed by the World Bank or other international development partners.Item World Music and International Development: Ethnography of Globalization(2006-05-11) Morgan, Melanie Josephine; Dueck, Jonathan; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)How are theories of globalization understood and employed by individuals working in world music and international development? Using a world music CD and concert project created by a Washington D.C.-based non-profit, this paper explores power relationships in world music and international development through aesthetics, authenticity, and hegemony. An ethnographic approach emphasizes the roles of individuals, providing a "bottom-up" approach to studying globalization. The non-profit Sustainable Environments for Health and Shelter (SEH+S) combines recording industry concepts for world music with organizational goals to achieve a distinct and practical organizational identity. Power relationships with musicians are also determined through a combination of organizational goals and individual musicians' motivation and knowledge. SEH+S administrators, producers and musicians both challenge and validate theories of globalization in their interpretations of world music and international development.