DOCSLIB.ORG

Visual Culture in the Context of Turkey: Perceptions of Visual

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Visual Culture in the Context of Turkey: Perceptions of Visual VISUAL CULTURE IN THE CONTEXT OF TURKEY: PERCEPTIONS OF VISUAL CULTURE IN TURKISH PRE-SERVICE ART TEACHER PREPARATION Nur Balkir, B.A, M.F.A. Dissertation Prepared for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2009 APPROVED: Jacqueline Chanda, Major Professor and the Associate Dean for the College of Art at the University of Arizona Jack Davis, Co-Major Professor and NTIEVA Director Christina Bain, Committee Member Kelly Donahue-Wallace, Chair of the Department of Art Education/Art History Robert Milnes, Dean of the School of Visual Arts Michael Monticino, Interim Dean of the Robert B. Toulouse School of Graduate Studies Balkir, Nur, Visual Culture in the Context of Turkey: Perceptions of Visual Culture in Turkish Pre-Service Art Teacher Preparation. Doctor of Philosophy (Art Education), May 2009, 207 pages, 1 table, references, 168 titles. This study explored the state of art education in Turkey as revealed by pre-service art education university instructors, and the potential of incorporating visual culture studies in pre- service art education in Turkey. The instructors’ ideas about visual culture, and popular culture, the impact it might have, the content (objects), and the practices within the context of Turkey were examined. Visual culture was examined from an art education perspective that focuses on a pedagogical approach that emphasizes the perception and critique of popular culture and everyday cultural experiences, and the analysis of media including television programs, computer games, Internet sites, and advertisements. A phenomenological human science approach was employed in order to develop a description of the perception of visual culture in pre-service art education in Turkey as lived by the participants. In-person interviews were used to collect the data from a purposive sample of 8 faculty members who offered undergraduate and graduate art education pedagogy, art history, and studio courses within four-year public universities. This empirical approach sought to obtain comprehensive descriptions of an experience through semi-structural interviews. These interviews employed open-ended questions to gather information about the following: their educational and professional background; their definitions of art education and art teacher education and what it means for them to teach pre-service art education; critical reflections on the educational system of Turkey; perceptions of visual and popular culture; and finally individual approaches to teaching art education. This study was conducted for the purpose of benefiting pre-service art teacher education in general and specifically in Turkey. It provided the rationale, the nature, and pedagogy of visual culture as well as the why and how of visual culture art education in the context of Turkey. Furthermore, it provided insights into the potential contribution of the concept of visual culture to the understanding of art and improvement of art teacher training in the context of Turkey. Copyright 2009 by Nur Balkir ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank the members of the committee for their support and guidance. Thank you to my committee chair, Dr. Jacqueline Chanda for helping me focus on the problem to be examined and for guiding me through this phenomenological study. She was always encouraging, while also helping me to conceptualize the findings. The journey would not have been as pleasant without her as the guide. Thank you to my co-chair Dr. Jack Davis who helped me to improve the quality of the research by asking tough questions which made me rethink the important points in the research. Thank you to Dr. Christina Bain for her great insights, her support and encouragement throughout my studies and through the research. Thank you to my husband, Ali Kuru, who had to share the sacrifices with me, who supported and encouraged me all those years in the program, and who was always there when I felt discouraged, reminding me that I could do this. He was right. Thank you to my brother, Sedat Balkir, for his support and for reminding me of the importance of what I was doing. To my daughter, Selen Balkir Kuru, thank you for helping me keep in focus what is really important in life. I am especially grateful to my friend, Dr. Ruth Aspy, who patiently proof-read my dissertation, and provided me the strength and stamina to endure the journey. She always took the time to listen, and laugh as well as counsel and comfort. Many thanks you to my friend, my colleague, Lori Santos, who shared treats, ideas, sympathy and empathy. Thank you to the eight Turkish art teacher education instructors who agreed to participate in the study by sharing their thoughts and experiences. I have earnestly tried to represent your truths and I acknowledge the stories of your experiences as the heart of the study. iii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Background of the Problem This study grew out of a both personal and a larger concern about the state of art teacher education in Turkey and the potential of visual culture to produce a change in the way art is taught. There is a need for extensive reflection on and debate about the meaning of art teacher education and its expected outcomes in contemporary Turkish society. Thus, it is important to identify best practices as they relate to visual culture to move toward change at a national level. The literature defines visual culture as a field of study that involves a combination of art history, cultural studies, art education, anthropology, and critical theory. From an art historical perspective, for example, the visual culture movement “raises questions about art itself, its definition, genres, forms, history, criticism, and theoretical ruminations” (Camp, 2004). It considers gaining more in-depth knowledge about the lives; social history of artists that help us to identify and better understand the content of their art; focuses on the cultural meaning of a work of art. From an art educational perspective, visual culture is concerned with popular culture and everyday experiences, and, as Tavin (2005) expresses, visual culture represents a “paradigm shift…advocating for the study of an expansive range of objects and images including popular culture” (p. 111). While the two may have different general definitions, they converge on what it studies. Some proponents of visual culture tie visual culture art education to the concept of social reconstruction due to the social, economic, and political embeddedness of artifacts and performances. “Visual culture art education considers how different societies create identity through visual culture” (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2004, p.53) and so creates a social 1 reconstruction through deconstructing “assumptions, values, and mores”, and ultimately finding “contradictions, disjunctions, and dysfunctions”; thereby moving them out of their positions of power (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2004, p.53). In visual culture art education (VCAE), meaning lies not only in the qualities of the visual object itself and not only in the observer’s response, but in the relationship of the object and viewer in their authentic social context (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2004). Paul Duncum (2001), one of the major proponents of visual culture art education, uses visual culture as an umbrella term to incorporate all visual artifacts (high art to low art, fine art to popular and the folk art) through which we make meaning. The focus to the beliefs, values, and attitudes imbued in those artifacts, thus socially grounding in the context of making and viewing as being as important as the artifacts and performances themselves (Anderson, 2003). Furthermore, as Kerry Freedman (2001) and Duncum (1999, 2001, 2002) suggested, the field of art education should promote critical inquiry using critical pedagogy as a key concept to analyze and interpret images within students’ lives. In this study, visual culture primarily serves as a means of examining the perception and critical analysis of popular culture, everyday cultural experiences (Duncum, 1999, 2001, 2002; Freedman, 2003; Tavin, 2000), and media including television programs, computer games, Internet, and advertisements with an art education focus, it is important to examine the concept of visual culture – ideas that teachers have about it, the impact it might have, the content (objects), and the practices within the context of Turkey. Furthermore, the study strives to investigate visual culture as the reflection of culture because visual culture is embedded in local culture and it deals with socio-economic and political ties of artifacts and performances (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2004). Thus, the study examines the 2 variations in the understanding of the social and ritual meanings of visual forms in the context of Turkey. Anderson & Milbrandt (2004) point out that societies create their identities through the creation, understanding, and interpretation of visual culture. Likewise, those identities are created through the combination of internal and external influences. Because visual culture reflected in visual objects bear implications of definition of the specific culture, the researcher feels the tendency to occasionally change the focus from objects to the concept of visual culture. This fact holds significance in this study. Before discussing the problem and the purpose of the study, it is my attempt to examine the history of the art education and art teacher education in Turkey should be discussed. One cannot understand teacher education in modern Turkey without reference to its historical background, starting with how teaching and learning were defined and the content of education during the Ottoman period. Each must be considered in order to understand the current issues in teacher education in Turkey. Historical Overview of Education During the Ottoman reign (1299-1923)1, the state was primarily interested in educating the military and administrative staff and therefore opened Palace Schools to serve that purpose. Palace Schools only trained the ablest children for leadership positions in the Ottoman body politic, either as military leaders or as high administrators in the provinces of the empire (Kazamias, 1966).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Blackwhite Performance Differences on Measures of Performance on Tests-Based Uponand Validated by Themajority Culture Reproducti
    J' DOCUMENT RESUME 4 . /7 LS ' ED 240 192 UD 023' 329 AUTHOR Grubb, Henry Jefferson TITLE The Cultural - Distance Approach:.A Model for Analyzing BlackWhite Performance Differences on Measures of IQ. % PUB DATE t83] NOTE 33p.; Document contains light print and may,te marginally -legible. PUB .TYPE Information Analyses (070) -- Viewpoints (120) EDRS PRICE AF01 Plus Postage. PC Not Available from EDRS. DESCRIPTORS *Blacks;,Chpnge Strategies; Children; Cro'ss Cultural Studies;, *Cultural Differences; *Cultural Isolation;. *Intelligence Differences; *Intelligence Tests; Minorify Groups; Nature Nurture Contreiversy; Racial Differences; Standardized Tests; Subcultures; *Test Bias; Testing Problems;'Test F-terpretation; Whites . o ABSTRACT . % The basic tenet of this paper is that the difference betweeti black and white children on IQ measures is not due to genetics but describes the cultural- distanCe,between- the two grbups. The cultural distance approach is descrjbe'd as an Amalgam of the environmental and social psychology points of view. It holds that any subcultUre operating according to principles not present or equally operatiye in the majority culture processes functional information differently from the majority culture. Therefore, minority performance on tests-based uponand validated by themajority culture will show response patterns different from the norm. These patterns are indicators of what is present in the tests that is salient to each subculture and to the majority culture. The tests, however, are not responsive to what is salient to the specific minority subbultures but absent in the.majority culture. Thus, bias is assumed to be present in all standardized IQ tests. Evidence from the United States and around the world shows that multicultural societies must, and.for'the most part do, interpret standardized IQ scores of minority individuals in a different light from those of majority individuals.
    [Show full text]
  • Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems
    UC Riverside Cliodynamics Title Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/981121t8 Journal Cliodynamics, 3(1) Authors Richerson, Peter Henrich, Joe Publication Date 2012 DOI 10.21237/C7clio3112453 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Cliodynamics: the Journal of Theoretical and Mathematical History Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems Peter Richerson University of California-Davis Joseph Henrich University of British Columbia Human social life is uniquely complex and diverse. Much of that complexity and diversity arises from culturally transmitted ideas, values and skills that underpin the operation of social norms and institutions that structure our social life. Considerable theoretical and empirical work has been devoted to the role of cultural evolutionary processes in the evolution of social norms and institutions. The most persistent controversy has been over the role of cultural group selection and gene- culture coevolution in early human populations during Pleistocene. We argue that cultural group selection and related cultural evolutionary processes had an important role in shaping the innate components of our social psychology. By the Upper Paleolithic humans seem to have lived in societies structured by institutions, as do modern populations living in small-scale societies. The most ambitious attempts to test these ideas have been the use of experimental games in field settings to document human similarities and differences on theoretically interesting dimensions. These studies have documented a huge range of behavior across populations, although no societies so far examined follow the expectations of selfish rationality.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bird-Nester, the Jaguar and the Fire-Theft: a New Approach to the Culture-Nature Dimension in Amazonian Myth
    Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America ISSN: 2572-3626 (online) Volume 14 | Issue 1 Article 2 4-30-2016 The irB d-Nester, the Jaguar and the Fire-Theft: A New Approach to the Culture-Nature Dimension in Amazonian Myth Deon Liebenberg Cape Peninsula University of Technology Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Liebenberg, Deon (2016). "The irB d-Nester, the Jaguar and the Fire-Theft: A New Approach to the Culture-Nature Dimension in Amazonian Myth," Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America: Vol. 14: Iss. 1, Article 2, 15-29. Available at: http://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol14/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Trinity. It has been accepted for inclusion in Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Trinity. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ARTICLE The Bird-Nester, the Jaguar and the Fire-Theft: A New Approach to the Culture-Nature Dimension in Amazonian Myth Deon Liebenberg Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Town, South Africa Introduction: The Bird-Nester and The Jaguar The relationship between culture and nature in Amerindian myth is a remarkably rich and sophisticated one that sometimes appears paradoxical in character. The last-mentioned feature will be the focus of this article, which will attempt to demonstrate that there is a clear and consistent logic that underlies it.
    [Show full text]
  • Foundation Paper: the Australian Consortium on Higher Education
    Higher Education Community Engagement Social Responsibility 1 The views expressed in this Foundation Paper do not reflect any official position on behalf of Australian Consortium members or its auspice body The Joint Committee on Higher Education. This publication may be used in private study, research, criticism and review. The publication is copyright, and may not be reproduced without the prior permission of the authors. February 2004 About the Authors: Naomi Sunderland is a Senior Research Officer at ‘UQ Boilerhouse’ Community Service and Research Centre at The University of Queensland, Australia Email: [email protected] Bruce Muirhead is Director of ‘UQ Boilerhouse’ Community Service and Research Centre at The University of Queensland, Australia Email: [email protected] Richard Parsons is Research Associate (Sustainability and Social Responsibility) with ‘UQ Boilerhouse’ Community Service and Research Centre at The University of Queensland, Australia. Email: [email protected] Duncan Holtom is an International Research Associate of ‘UQ Boilerhouse’ Community Service and Research Centre at The University of Queensland, Australia. Email: [email protected] Higher Education Community Engagement Social Responsibility 2 Contents CONTENTS .............................................................................................................................................2 OVERVIEW.............................................................................................................................................3
    [Show full text]
  • Intercultural Communication: a Multicultural Perspective
    Intercultural Communication: A Multicultural Perspective D. A. Hall University of Western Sydney 2005 A thesis of 85,000 words submitted as re uirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree I confirm that the work contained herein is my own original work and has not been submitted for examination to any other institution or for any other academic program. Douglas Hall 2005 1 CONTENTS Summary 4 1. Introduction 6 1.1 The Theory-building Orientation of the Thesis , 1.2 The Need for Ongoing .evision of Intercultural Communication Theory 21 1.0 The 1ulticultural Conte2t 28 2. Conceptual 3oundations for a 1ulticultural Perspective 0, 2.1 A 4roader Social Perspective 08 2.1.1 Communication and Conte2t in Theory and .esearch 08 2.1.2. 5ey Concepts in 6iddens and Hanner7 44 2.2 Homogeneity and Heterogeneity in Communication 50 2.2.1 Individual Agency 54 2.2.2 The Importance of Negotiation 5, 2.2.0 The Impact of Social Conte2t on Homogeneity and Heterogeneity 58 2.2.4 Analysing the Homogeneity-Heterogeneity .elationship 65 2.0 The Communication-Culture .elationship 68 2.0.1 The Culture Determines Communication 8iew 68 2.0.2 The Communication Determines Culture 8iew ,6 2.0.0 Intercultural Outcomes. 91 2.4 Conclusion 96 0. 6uidelines for Developing a 1ulticultural Perspective 98 0.1 Introduction 98 0.2 Communication As Process 101 0.0 Developing an Analytical Approach 105 0.4 The Conte2t-Episode Connection 108 4. Elaboration of a 1ulticultural Perspective 124 4.1 Introduction 124 4.2 The Structuring Principles of 1ulticultural Societies 124 4.0 3ocus
    [Show full text]
  • Outliers’ Public Administrator of the Week
    PAD6836 Lecture 13 University of North Florida Master of Public Administration program PAD 6836 Comparative public administration Culture, and ‘outliers’ Public administrator of the Week photo credit Taufa'ahau Tupou I First King, modern Tonga That the world is becoming more 'globalized' is something that we all take for granted these days, and as many people point out, the cultural part of this 'globalization' has a strongly European (in which category I include the US) flavour to it. There are no isolated cultural islands in the world today, immune from what I refer to as the 'global Anglophone super culture'. Tonga has been an especially interesting example of the process of incorporation of these non-European societies into this Europe-driven globalization process. The islands were settled by Polynesians a millennium or two ago. They were a world unto themselves for much of this period, with only tenuous links to Samoa and Fiji (the Tongans, indeed, were great imperialists, meddling in the affairs of both societies -- click link). Then came the European explorers, with an impact not unlike what the arrival of intergalactic invaders from the planet Mok would have on the US. These explorers had technologies and weapons that seemed magical, and were so far superior to that of the Tongans that the Europeans could dominate more or less at will.1 To summarize a bit of Tongan history, Taufa'ahau Tupou, one of three 'high chiefs', or 'Tui', in the islands at the time, essentially saw that these European powers were a force not to be fought, and so allied himself to them, adopted their religion, and then used European weapons to conquer the other two high chiefs (as well as a number of other lesser notables).
    [Show full text]
  • Download Article (PDF)
    Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 273 International Conference on Communicative Strategies of Information Society (CSIS 2018) Digital Civilization and Problems of Cultural Diversity Political Actors or Infocommunication Technologies Irina G. Shestakova Semyon D. Polanski Department of Philosophy Oil and Gas Faculty Saint Petersburg Mining University Saint Petersburg Mining University Saint Petersburg, Russia Saint Petersburg, Russia [email protected] [email protected] Abstract—The victorious march of civilization throughout the approximate prognosis for the cultural diversity change in history of mankind is associated with a change in cultural states, regions and superregions. diversity. The leveling of differences is due to both the natural erasure of cultural borders (trade, the progress of Cultural consolidation is inevitable at the creation of even infocommunication technologies with subsequent globalization), the least centralised multicultural states, as the populace isn’t and the direct interest of states in increasing internal stability by keen to trust culturally and religiously alien administration, minimizing intercultural clashes. Observing the available and, therefore, a course of standardizing a multiplicity of historical examples from Antiquity to our time, it becomes cultures to bring them close to the culture of a ruling elite, is possible to identify a close relationship with the actions taken by natural and necessary for large centralized multicultural states political actors, directly or indirectly. to survive and thrive. Scientific and technical progress, especially in the field of infocommunications (so obviously used by political actors for II. CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN THE OPTICS OF THE CULTURE'S their own purposes), brining globalization, undoubtedly caused damage to cultural diversity.
    [Show full text]
  • Gagen, Justin. 2019. Hybrids and Fragments: Music, Genre, Culture and Technology
    Gagen, Justin. 2019. Hybrids and Fragments: Music, Genre, Culture and Technology. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis] https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/28228/ The version presented here may differ from the published, performed or presented work. Please go to the persistent GRO record above for more information. If you believe that any material held in the repository infringes copyright law, please contact the Repository Team at Goldsmiths, University of London via the following email address: [email protected]. The item will be removed from the repository while any claim is being investigated. For more information, please contact the GRO team: [email protected] Hybrids and Fragments Music, Genre, Culture and Technology Author Supervisor Justin Mark GAGEN Dr. Christophe RHODES Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science GOLDSMITHS,UNIVERSITY OF LONDON DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTING November 18, 2019 1 Declaration of Authorship I, Justin Mark Gagen, declare that the work presented in this thesis is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is clearly stated. Signed: Date: November 18, 2019 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors, Dr. Christophe Rhodes and Dr. Dhiraj Murthy. You have both been invaluable! Thanks are due to Prof. Tim Crawford for initiating the Transforming Musicology project, and providing advice at regular intervals. To my Transforming Musicology compatriots, Richard, David, Ben, Gabin, Daniel, Alan, Laurence, Mark, Kevin, Terhi, Carolin, Geraint, Nick, Ken and Frans: my thanks for all of the useful feedback and advice over the course of the project.
    [Show full text]
  • DOCUMENT RESUME SO 008 645 World Cultures. Social
    DOCUMENT RESUME 'ED 113 254 SO 008 645 TITLE World Cultures. Social Studies Grade Nine. ' INSTITUTION Baltimore City Ablic Schools,, PUB DATE 75 NOTE 230p. I EDRS PRICE MP-50.76 HC-$12.05 Plus, Postage DESCRIPTORS *AntEropology; *Cross Cultural Studies; *Cultur al Awareness; Cultural:Context; Cultural Differences; Culture; *Global Approach; Grade 9rInquiry TrOiliing; Secondary Education; Social Studies; *SOcial-Studiee Units; Teaching Guides; World History . ABSTRACT . Tlipurpose of this teaching guidtr-lkanthropology, for. ninth -grade students is to provide them with an 'Opportunity to study perception, disparate societies,. and the. similarities and . dissimilarities that exist among societies. The content material is world history used to'illustrate general historical probleis,and processes and approached from the viewpoint _of cultural. anthropology. As a course of. study, the guide praposeb an inquiry-conceptual approach to the investigation of significant topics. It develops modes and processes of inquiry along with concepts that are useful in reflectively studying issues in the closed, areas of culture. Nine -., units comprise the instructional episodes of this guide: Perception: - To Understand Is to Invent; Origins of Humanness; Emergence of Complex Societies; Rise and Transformation, cil Civilization as a Model of Cultural Change; Medieval Civilizations: Europe, Islam, and Africa; Rise of the West; The Industrial Revo ution as a Strategy of Adaptation; Conflict and Coisensus in Complex Societies; and Impact of Complex Societies at Traditional Ohes. Each unit is ,one- to 11 five -weeks long:(AuthorZED) *********************t**********************.i**************************. Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every effort * * to obtain the best copy available.
    [Show full text]
  • Subculture Or the Sickness Unto Death 173
    Subculture or the Sickness Unto Death 173 Subculture or the Sickness unto Death Per Otnes Kierkegaard’s Sickness Unto Death deals with despair of various types, that of wanting or not wanting to be oneself. This paper suggests that subcultures, and subcultural studies, may be seen as cases in point, definitely marked by traces of similar despairs. Changing concepts of culture generally are reviewed, from Tylor (1881) to ‘culture has to go’ Ingold (1993), the conclusions being that culture spells conflict and that a metonymic turn is in order. As for subcultures, a major change in usage is dated to c. 1970. Earlier, subcultures were conceived as local, non-age-specific and relatively closed groups. After, they’re dispersed, highly age-specific, i.e. juvenile, and wide open, notably for media attention (Cohen S. 1972). Simultaneously, a change of method took place, from functionalism to the ‘interpretation of meaning.’ Based mainly on Hebdige’s and Gottdiener’s analysis of punk subculture we endeavour to demonstrate that today, a ‘real’ subculture is indistinguishable from the media image thereof (and vice versa). Hence contingent rather than creative, acted-on rather than acting, ‘done not doing.’ Or in the terms of Willis, ‘all style and taste cultures express something of a general trend to find and make identity outside of work’ (1990). Less variant, less distinctive or deviant movements are suggested for future studies, tentatively called juxta- or intra- cultures, applying interpretative or dialectic approaches. The symbolic creativity, ‘latent resistance’ or subdued grievance in such circles cannot be taken, a priori, to be less vital, less factual, than the hypervisible juvenile effervescent subcultures which have dominated public and professional attention during two decades.
    [Show full text]
  • A Focus on Somali Children As Cultural Brokers, and As Ambassadors of Language and Culture
    THE SOMALI-DIASPORA EXPERIENCE: A FOCUS ON SOMALI CHILDREN AS CULTURAL BROKERS, AND AS AMBASSADORS OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE BY Abdinasir Farah Mohamud, B.A (Honours Criminology) Ryerson University, 2016 A Major Research Paper presented to Ryerson University in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in the program of Immigration and Settlement Studies Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2017 © Abdinasir Farah Mohamud, 2017 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION FOR THE ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS OF A MAJOR RESEARCH PAPER (MRP) I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this Major Research Paper. This is a true copy of the MRP, including any required final revisions. I authorize Ryerson University to land this MRP to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. I further authorize Ryerson University to reproduce this MRP by photocopying or by other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. I understand that my MRP may be made electronically available to the public. Abdinasir Farah Mohamud ii THE SOMALI-DIASPORA EXPERIENCE: A FOCUS ON SOMALI CHILDREN AS CULTURAL BROKERS, AND AS AMBASSADORS OF LANGUAGE AND CULTURE Abdinasir Farah Mohamud Master of Arts, 2017 Immigration and Settlement Studies Ryerson University ABSTRACT This paper examines the Somali-Canadian Diaspora experience, and in particular, focuses on the role children in immigrant families play as cultural brokers and as ambassadors of language and culture. Utilizing the literature on language acquisition, this paper’s aim is to include the Somali-Canadian Diaspora’s voice into the vast literature that exists, which examines the importance of bilingual children, who assist their families in integrating and settling in a host nation.
    [Show full text]
  • I. Historical Background and Theoretical Framework
    I Am a Pilgrim: The Road to Telluride Bluegrass Festival Culture and the Quest for Identity in the New West I. Historical Background and Theoretical Framework Introduction As the title, borrowed from a song with a long history in the canon of bluegrass music, implies, this project has become an exploration of personal identity as well as an examination of the vital and exciting subculture which has grown up around bluegrass music in the American West over the last four decades. Twenty years ago my first exposure to what sociologist Robert O. Gardner now terms “New West Bluegrass Culture” came in the form of a “working vacation” to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival to vend clothing for my employer at the time. That week and the experiences I shared with so many new and old friends changed the direction of my life. Through the ensuing years I watched as other new initiates attended the festival and experienced similar epiphanies. After a few years absence I returned to the Telluride festival this summer as an aspiring scholar, armed with the tools of an ethnographer (notebook, discreet digital recording device), the ethno-musicological theories of Mark Slobin, Gardner’s excellent dissertation, and a naïve belief that a few years of separation and some academic training would allow me to become an impartial and objective observer of a culture in which I have been immersed for two decades.1 This project is an attempt to shed some light on a sub-culture which I believe has developed some unique and effective mechanisms for establishing and maintaining personal and group identity in an increasingly challenging modern/post-modern environment.
    [Show full text]