Theses and Dissertations

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2022/3086

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GOVERNANCE FOR CULTURALLY RESPONSIVE SCHOOLING IN INDIGENOUS AND ETHNIC COMMUNITIES: THE CASE OF THE AFRO-COLOMBIAN STUDIES PROGRAM AND THE RAIZAL PEOPLE
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-05) Mclean Bent, Shelly S.; Kubow, Patricia K.
This study examines the implementation of the Afro-Colombian Studies Program (CEA) on San Andrés Island, focusing on how local stakeholders—including teachers, school administrators, and people leaders—perceive and engage with the policy in the context of the Raizal people's distinct cultural, historical, and socio-political circumstances. Drawing on the Culturally Responsive Schooling and Leadership (CRS/L) framework and Indigenous governance principles, the research employs a bottom-up approach, specifically backward mapping, to collect data from those directly involved in the policy’s execution. The findings highlight several key challenges in the policy’s implementation, including significant disparities between public and private schools in leadership, resource availability, and policy interpretation. Additionally, gaps in teacher training and ongoing intergroup conflict pose substantial barriers to effective engagement with the policy’s objectives. The study argues that a more effective implementation of the CEA requires a shift toward a collaborative, networked governance model that includes local communities and integrates Indigenous knowledge into the decision-making process. The research further emphasizes the need for clearer guidelines, improved communication, and the integration of culturally responsive teaching practices, as well as the development of peacebuilding education as a complementary component of CRS/L, tailored to the island's specific cultural context. Finally, the study offers practical recommendations for enhancing the CEA’s effectiveness and contributes to the broader academic discourse on the development and implementation of educational policies for culturally diverse and historically marginalized communities through Culturally Responsive policies
EVALUATING PHOSPHATIDYLINOSITIDE AS LIPID BIOMARKERS FOR HYPERGLYCEMIA-RELATED TRIPLE-NEGATIVE BREAST CANCER AGGRESSIVENESS
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-10) Kile, Aaron; Wells, Clark
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive breast cancer subtype, marked by limited treatment options and poor patient outcomes. Clinical and epidemiological studies suggest that systemic metabolic conditions, particularly high blood glucose associated with Type 2 Diabetes, may worsen TNBC progression. However, there are no current biomarker for detecting TNBC, especially in hyperglycemic patients. This thesis investigates how elevated glucose levels influence TNBC behavior and whether lipid signaling molecules at the cell membrane, known as phosphatidylinositol lipids (PIs), can serve as biomarkers of disease progression. To address this, we combined functional assays that measure key cancer traits, including cell migration, attachment to the extracellular matrix (ECM), and cell accumulation, with lipidomic analyses of cell membranes under normal and high-glucose conditions. Our findings demonstrate that hyperglycemia enhances aggressive traits in TNBC cells, promoting increased movement and growth, but no effect on ECM attachment. In parallel, lipid profiling revealed alterations in PI molecules that regulate growth and survival pathways, with differences observed across cell models. These results highlight a direct connection between metabolic stress and cancer progression. By linking systemic metabolic dysregulation to cell signaling in TNBC, this work identifies PI4P, PI(4,5)P2 and PIP3 lipids as potential biomarkers and points toward new strategies for risk stratification and therapeutic intervention.
THE CRISIS OF LOCAL JOURNALISM: DEATH BY A THOUSAND PAPER CUTS
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-10) Paladhi, Arijit; Peifer, Jason
The decline of local journalism in the United States represents a critical threat to democratic governance. Nearly one-fifth of Americans live in news deserts – which are communities with limited or no access to reliable local news. Predicated on this threat, we draw upon the political economy of media, public goods theory, and media pluralism frameworks to establish journalism as a public good characterized by positive externalities. However, the market mechanisms in place today have either consistently failed to adequately provide these externalities or been superseded by neoliberal capitalism's thirst for pillaging profit at any cost. To that end, this dissertation’s empirical analysis proceeds through two major studies. First, the theoretical analysis demonstrates how the confluence of technological disruption from digital platforms and these neoliberal deregulatory policies created conditions enabling aggressive financialized ownership – which we call greedy money models – to extract value from struggling newspapers while undermining their democratic functions. Using a stacked difference-in-differences design, we examine how private-equity-and-hedge-fund acquisitions of local newspapers affect electoral competitiveness in affected communities. Contrary to expectations of simple democratic decline, the findings reveal a surprising pattern: elections become substantially less competitive while simultaneously experiencing increases in voter turnout, declines in incumbent win rates, and increased candidate entry. These effects peak one year after acquisition before partially dissipating, suggesting immediate disruption to local political equilibrium followed by a degree of gradual adjustment. Second, we incorporate machine learning algorithms to identify counties that share similar socioeconomic profiles to news deserts. Addressing significant class imbalance in the data through various resampling techniques, the analysis finds that Random Forest combined with SMOTEENN is the strongest performer. The most significant predictor is the interaction between population density and GDP, highlighting how economic vulnerability intersects with demographic factors. Crucially, we incorporated neighboring counties' socioeconomic characteristics, which can help tease out how the formation of news deserts operates as a regional contagion rather than isolated local failures. These findings challenge conventional narratives about media ownership and democratic health. Rather than straightforward erosion, private equity acquisition triggers complex political reorganization in local communities. The temporal dynamics and spatial dependencies suggest specific intervention windows and the need for regional rather than purely local policy responses. Ultimately, this work demonstrates that the crisis of local journalism operates through patterns that, once understood, offer opportunities for intervention.
Nasalization and Nasal Vowels in the Swabian Dialect of Horb: A Phonological Analysis of Kauffmann 1890
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-08) Kniess, Tyler Bedell; Hall, Tracy Alan
Though phonemic nasal vowels are rare in Germanic languages, Swabian, a dialect spoken in southwestern Germany, exhibits nasal and oral vowel contrasts shaped by complex diachronic and synchronic processes. This work examines the phonemic system of Horb Swabian, based on a late-nineteenth-century grammar (Kauffmann 1890), tracing the inception of nasal vowels from Middle High German to the present through processes of Progressive Nasalization, Nasal-Fricative Avoidance, and Spontaneous Nasalization. The synchronic grammar of Horb Swabian is riddled with phonological opacity due to the interaction of Regressive Nasalization, Linking-n, and n-Deletion, and is characterized by height neutralization of nasalized vowels: Out of a four-height oral vowel system, a two-height nasal vowel system emerges. Rejecting underspecification and binary height features, I analyze these patterns using a classical optimality-theoretic framework, employing the Contrastive Hierarchy (Dresher 2009) and hierarchical vowel height (Clements 1991) while giving faithfulness constraints scope over features in line with an orthodox understanding of correspondence (McCarthy & Prince 1995). Not only does this work contribute to the field of German dialectology in illustrating the Swabian vowel system, it also enriches our understanding of opacity within Optimality Theory.
SEXUAL PLEASURE EXPERIENCES OF SOUTH ASIAN IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-08) Khan, Shahzarin; Walsh-Buhi, Eric
Background: South Asians (SA) are one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations in the United States, yet SA women are often overlooked in sexual health research. Further, existing sexual health studies focus largely on risk and prevention, neglecting feminist and sex-positive perspectives. In this qualitative study, I examine the sexual pleasure experiences of SA immigrant young women in the United States both individually and with partner. Methods: I conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews with 38 SA immigrant women aged 18–30 in February-March 2025. I recruited participants through purposive and referral sampling around a university campus via word-of-mouth, social media, and SA cultural centers. I conducted interviews in English, Hindi, Urdu, and Marathi, then translated, transcribed, coded, and analyzed them using reflexive thematic analysis (TA). I used Black Feminist Thought and Intimate Justice Framework to guide the data collection and analysis, examining how interlocking social identities affect sexual pleasure experiences of the participants. Results: I captured the participants’ experiences with: (1) body dissatisfaction and sexual pleasure (2) unwanted sex with their partner. I found that SA immigrant women’s sexual pleasure is shaped by intersecting systems of oppression, including colorism, cultural surveillance, Western beauty standards, and patriarchal norms. These forces led to participants’ body dissatisfaction, low genital self-image, and self-consciousness during sex, leading some participants to avoid masturbation and oral sex. Gendered expectations positioned sex as a duty and stigmatized participants’ desire, resulting in unwanted sexual experiences. Many participants internalized feelings of un-deservingness and suppressed their sexual needs to maintain relationship harmony. While some found temporary relief through migration and supportive relationships, the root causes of these struggles were structural, not individual. Conclusion: These findings highlight how structural inequities rooted in gendered, racialized, and cultural norms undermine SA women’s sexual agency and pleasure. I call for culturally grounded interventions, including pleasure-based sex education, women’s peer support groups, and legal reforms that affirm women’s desires, challenge stigma, and recognize the emotional and embodied dimensions of consent.
Parametric Modeling of Intrinsic Structure Covariance Functions for Non-Homogeneous and Non-Stationary Spatio-Temporal Random Processes on the Sphere
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-07) Kim, Jongwook; Huang, Chunfeng
Identifying appropriate models for random processes and their associated covariance functions is one of the primary goals in spatial and spatio-temporal statistics, as it enables researchers to analyze the dependence structure within the data. For this purpose, assumptions of spatial homogeneity and temporal stationarity are commonly used, and many models have been developed under these conditions. However, these assumptions are often overly strong and unrealistic in practical applications. Moreover, when working on the sphere, standard approaches from Euclidean space may not be appropriate due to the unique geometric and topological properties of the spherical domain. Despite this, relatively fewer studies have addressed random process modeling and covariance function development specifically for the sphere. In this research, we introduce a parametric modeling framework for intrinsic structure covariance functions (ISCFs), designed to address non-homogeneous and non-stationary spatio-temporal random processes and their covariance functions on the sphere. To alleviate the assumption of spatial homogeneity while accounting for the spherical domain, we apply the theory of intrinsic random functions (IRFs) on the sphere. Similarly, to address temporal non-stationarity, we use the concept of random processes with stationary increments, exploring their relationship with intrinsic random functions on the real line. We also provide a methodology for estimating the parameters associated with the ISCF model. This is demonstrated through a simulation study and an application to a real-world dataset, highlighting the advantage of the model’s interpretable parameters.
ASIAN AMERICAN STUDIES IN THE MIDWEST: AN ORGANIZATIONAL HISTORY OF PROGRAM BUILDING, 1970–2010
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-07) Nguyễn, Stephanie Thanh Xuân; Walton, Andrea
This dissertation examines how students, faculty, and staff members (whom I call advocates), justified and established distinct Asian American Studies (AAS) programs at the Big Ten research universities and colleges in the Committee for Institutional Cooperation for Asian American Studies Consortium between 1970 to 2010. I am inspired by Fabio Rojas’s sociological study on how the Black Studies movement became a stable academic discipline at postsecondary organizations. I use his conceptual framework to understand how Midwestern advocates organized their programs based on changes that occurred at the national, regional, and field levels. Using a blend of archival resources and oral history interviews, I trace the debates, arguments, and actions of Midwestern advocates in their efforts to strengthen program building and promote AAS as a rigorous academic discipline at Big Ten universities and colleges. I argue that these advocates pushed the field of AAS in new directions by decentering it from dominant ideas of West Coast program building and intellectual history. They reimagined AAS teaching and scholarship around Midwestern Asian American communities, perspectives, and experiences. Through this reimagination, they promoted the Midwest as a “regional center,” a hub of knowledge and teaching to compete with AAS programs that were created in California during the 1960s social movements. Yet, in their efforts to strengthen Midwestern AAS programs, they pushed the field further away from its core values, created during the 1960s social movements, of challenging inequitable practices in higher education while advocating for marginalized communities. Called deradicalization, Midwestern advocates minimized arguments that were deemed too political and reframed AAS as a teaching and research contribution to the academy.
Morally Fraught Identities: How Multiracial Individuals Navigate Race and Whiteness
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-06) Heilman, Monica; Okamoto, Dina G.
Multiracial identities and experiences cannot be fully understood through monoracial categories, yet multiracial individuals must contend with monoracial structures. Through 55 in-depth interviews and photo elicitation with multiracial young adults (18-24) in the Midwest, I examine how multiracial individuals navigate and contend with race, racism, and identity in the context of Whiteness, family, and education. First, I find that multiracial individuals who can be seen as White, at least some of the time, experience Whiteness as a wage (benefit) that is tempered in part by a “tax” on the benefits of Whiteness. This tax stems in part from experiences of Whiteness as a “contingent status,” in which interpretation as White by others is not a guarantee. Second, I examine bidirectional ethnic-racial socialization within multiracial families to show that children engage in the socialization of their parents around matters related to race and racism. In particular, children drew on knowledge of social movements like Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate, exercising agency, conducting hidden labor, and operating as one potential force for generational social change. Third, I analyzed experiences with racial socialization and racialization within school settings, finding that multiracial students contend with a contradiction: schools routinely dismiss race and racism as legitimate topics of study, yet it is within schools that multiracial students are starkly racialized. Multiracial students respond to a lack of instruction on race and racist interactions with peers by conducting their “own research” with respect to racial identity, drawing moral boundaries as they develop racial and political consciousness. In each of these social realms (experiences with Whiteness, family, and education), multiracial individuals navigate race and racism on monoracial terms. This study suggests the need for a “multiracial paradigm” of race, which can account for the totality of multiracial experiences with race and multiraciality.
SILENT STRATEGIES: INNER SPEECH AND PROBLEM SOLVING IN APHASIA
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-06) Alexander, Julianne M.; Stark, Brielle C.
Inner speech, the experience of “talking to yourself in your head”, plays a crucial role in cognition, communication, and self-regulation. While inner speech has been studied for nearly two centuries, its significance in clinical populations, particularly individuals with aphasia, is an emerging area of research. This dissertation explores the multifaceted nature of inner speech in both healthy aging and aphasia, examining its role in language processing, problem-solving, and psychosocial health through interdisciplinary methods. Aphasia, a language disorder most often caused by stroke, affects over two million people in the U.S., disrupting various aspects of language production and comprehension. Some individuals with aphasia report experiencing disruptions in their inner speech. This research employs multiple methodologies, including inner rhyme judgments, articulatory suppression, rating scales, questionnaires, and experience sampling, to assess inner speech at the word level, in daily life, during problem-solving tasks, and in relation to psychosocial well-being. Findings reveal that while many individuals with aphasia continue to use inner speech frequently, their inner speech is less varied in content and function compared to their neurologically healthy counterparts. In daily life, people with aphasia most often use inner speech to make decisions about food, plan activities, solve problems, and self-motivate. Experimentally, disrupting inner speech hinders improvement on complex reasoning tasks, underscoring its role in cognitive processing. Objective measures, such as inner rhyme judgment, are associated with aphasia severity and cognitive abilities like inhibition, reasoning, and problem solving, whereas subjective reports of inner speech are not. Additionally, inner speech use is linked to psychosocial health, with certain patterns, such as replaying past conversations, being associated with lower quality of life in individuals with aphasia. Overall, this dissertation provides a comprehensive perspective on inner speech, demonstrating its significance beyond language production. By integrating insights from psychology, neuroscience, linguistics, and speech-language pathology, it advances our understanding of inner speech as a critical component of cognition, communication, and well-being.
DEFENDING AGAINST AUTHORSHIP ATTRIBUTION ATTACKS WITH LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-06) Wang, Haining; Riddell, Allen B.
In today’s digital era, individuals leave significant digital footprints through their writing, whether on social media or on their employer’s devices. These digital footprints pose a serious challenge for identity protection: authorship attribution techniques can identify the author of an unsigned document with high accuracy. This threat is especially acute for those who must speak publicly while safeguarding their anonymity, including whistleblowers, journalists, activists, and individuals living under oppressive regimes. Defenses against authorship attribution attacks rely on altering an individual’s writing style, making it unlinkable to their prior work while maintaining meaning and fluency. Despite extensive efforts at automation, existing techniques rarely match the effectiveness of manual interventions and make significant technical demands of individuals seeking to obfuscate their writing style. This dissertation investigates the use of large language models (LLMs) as an effective defense against authorship attribution attacks. These models are user-friendly and respond directly to natural language prompts, making them particularly accessible for privacy-conscious individuals. Through extensive experiments, this dissertation reproduces both established automated and manual circumvention strategies with LLMs. The results confirm that, with the right prompts, LLMs can offer significant protection from authorship attribution attacks. A simple “write differently” prompt on lightweight LLMs produces semantically faithful, inconspicuous text while driving attribution models’ performance down to near-chance levels. Surprisingly, open-weights models with just 8–9 billion parameters consistently outperform far larger closed-source models. Furthermore, this research overturns assumptions about in-context learning, showing that adding context, such as personas, exemplars, or extended demonstrations, often harms rather than helps defensive performance. These findings advance our understanding of how LLMs can frustrate stylometric fingerprinting while providing actionable guidance for those who need anonymization most, yet may struggle to access its benefits. At the same time, by bridging theory and practice, this dissertation delivers a practical solution to defend against authorship attribution attacks.
VOWEL HARMONY AND RELATED ASSIMILATORY PROCESSES IN UYGHUR: PHONOLOGICAL VARIATIONS BETWEEN THE STANDARD LANGUAGE AND DIALECTAL FORMS
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-05) Li, Gehong; Özçelik, Öner
Modern Uyghur exhibits a complex system of vowel harmony characterized by interactions of backness, height, and rounding. While backness harmony underlies the canonical vowel harmony rules, non-canonical patterns emerge involving the high unrounded vowel /i/—a neutral phoneme that orthographically lacks a [+back] counterpart and consonant triggers. This thesis investigates these processes through a dialect-sensitive approach integrating phonetic and phonological analysis of Uyghur data. The study first examines the historical formation of Modern Standard Uyghur (SU) as an orthographic compilation of multiple subdialects. Although dialectal differences in Uyghur do not cause mutual intelligibility breakdowns, they produce notable phonetic and phonological variation. SU alone fails to capture these divergences, underscoring the importance of dialectology in Uyghur phonological research. Previous analyses have treated non-canonical vowel harmony as lexically conditioned exceptions. In contrast, this thesis adopts a feature-geometric framework (drawing on Halle et al.’s (2000) Revised Articulator Theory) wherein adjacent consonants bear secondary articulations that influence vowel allophony. This approach accounts for harmony processes affecting both vowel phonemes and their allophones. The analysis also addresses coda clusters: it proposes that the phoneme /i/ is specified as [+RTR] in default where the feature [RTR] spreads when [back] does not. This suggests an underlying [RTR] (tongue-root) harmony system operating subordinately when the higher-ranked [back] harmony fails to predict vowel alternations, which could be explained by a revised contrastive feature hierarchy for Uyghur: [low] ≈ [labial] > [back] > [RTR]. The thesis includes a preliminary acoustic analysis of a Yarkand Subdialect speaker’s vowel space, revealing discrepancies between perceptual judgments and instrumental measurements. Fieldwork constraints highlight the influence of orthography on dialectal phonology. These findings reinforce the need for an integrated approach combining phonology, phonetics, and sociolinguistics in future linguistic inquiries of Modern Uyghur. Ultimately, the study challenges the notion of Modern Uyghur as a uniform phonological entity. It demonstrates that Uyghur vowel harmony is an evolving system shaped by dialectal contrasts reflecting both diachronic change and synchronic variation. Bridging theoretical phonology with experimental data, this work contributes to an all-rounded understanding of Uyghur phonology by emphasizing dialectal sensitivity in linguistic analysis
Three Essays in Behavioral Macroeconomics
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-05) Kang, Nayeon; Matthes, Christian
Economic agents make decisions and form forecasts about the future based on their perceptions. However, as human beings, we are subject to psychological and cognitive limitations, which can lead to suboptimal or biased choices. This dissertation investigates how such human traits shape expectations and decision-making and whether they help explain empirical patterns observed in economic data. The first chapter studies the effect of the Federal Reserve’s communication on short-term inflation forecasts. Using micro-level survey data, I show that after the Fed adopted an explicit inflation target in 2012, individuals (1) became more confident in their beliefs with lower subjective uncertainty, and (2) less prone to overreacting to new information, aligning more closely with rational expectations. I develop a parsimonious inflation expectations model featuring smooth diagnostic expectations. The findings suggest that transparent monetary communication not only anchors long-run inflation expectations but also enhances the rationality of short-run forecasting behavior. The second chapter applies a rational inattention model to the pre-Great Moderation era, a period marked by high macroeconomic volatility. I find that during such volatile times, households and firms respond more swiftly in their consumption and pricing decisions. A DSGE model with rational inattention generates sluggish responses to monetary, technology, and firm-specific shocks—even in the absence of Calvo pricing or habit formation. This suggests that slow adjustment dynamics in the data may reflect cognitive constraints rather than structural rigidities. The third chapter, co-authored with Sergii Drobot, examines how political partisanship shapes individuals’ forecasting behavior. To assess the impact of electoral outcomes on expectations, we conducted two waves of surveys, with the second wave administered on the morning of November 6, 2024—immediately after the U.S. presidential election. We find that: (1) Democratic-affiliated households revise their forecasts more pessimistically, while Republican-affiliated households re-vise theirs more optimistically, particularly lowering their unemployment forecasts; (2) Republican households exhibit greater confidence, indicating reduced subjective uncertainty; and (3) despite the public nature of the news—Trump’s victory—forecast disagreement narrows among Republicans but widens among Democrats.
Cooperation Under Changing Conditions: Tests of Mutualism Theory in Legume-Rhizobium Systems
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-04) Caple, Mackenzie Allen; Lau, Jennifer A.
Cooperation between leguminous plants and nitrogen-fixing rhizobium bacteria is a critical component of global nitrogen cycling. However, evolutionary and mutualism theory predict that increased soil nitrogen will disrupt this mutualism. I explored the effects of soil nitrogen on legume-rhizobium mutualism with a combination of greenhouse and field studies. First, I grew field-collected plants and soil microbes from across a natural soil nitrogen gradient with three levels of nitrogen fertilizer to study how soil nitrogen contributes to local adaptation. Although plants from high-nitrogen sites were more plastic in their allocation of resources to rhizobia than plants from low-nitrogen sites, I only found local adaptation of rhizobia to high-nitrogen sites; there was no evidence for plant local adaptation to N. Second, I used a field experiment to study the effects of the 2021 emergence of Brood X cicadas, which should result in a natural nitrogen pulse, on wild legumes through changes in maternal effects and soil microbial communities. I found that decaying cicadas affected multiple generations of plants: seeds from plants amended with cicadas were more likely to germinate, and soil microbial communities from cicada-addition plots accelerated early seedling growth. Finally, I experimentally evolved soil microbial communities in the greenhouse to investigate the direct and indirect (light and host availability) pathways by which nitrogen fertilization of plant communities can lead to a decline in microbial mutualism, and whether the mutualism decline observed in the field can be reversed by ceasing fertilization. I found that no single factor caused strong mutualism decline, but that any combination of two or three factors caused soil microbes to be less beneficial to plant growth. However, soil microbes from nitrogen-addition field plots did not become more beneficial to plants after evolving in low-nitrogen greenhouse conditions. Together, these results demonstrate how the complexities of real-world conditions complicate the predictions of simple theoretical frameworks and highlight the importance of considering the broader biotic community context in studies of evolutionary ecology
FORENSIC FABULAE: STORY STRUCTURES IN ATTIC ORATIONS
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-04) Kochman, Sidney; Christ, Matthew R.
Growing literary interest in the Attic Orators has led to an increasing number of literary analyses of their stories. These literary analyses have assumed that certain groupings of the speeches (e.g., by author, procedure, or position) can be meaningfully used for comparative analysis. In this dissertation, I set out to examine the corpus of Attic forensic oratory through a structural lens to see whether, when you apply different structural readings to the corpus, these or any other distinct categories or genres of narrative emerged. To pursue that goal, in each chapter I applied a different theoretical framework that has been previously productive in generating narrative groupings to the corpus as a whole to see whether any novel or useful categories emerged. I looked at narrative introductions, the chronotope, focalization, and character types. Although there are some commonalities, such as the narratives from inheritance disputes appearing to be meaningfully distinct from the rest of the corpus regardless of the analytic approach taken, each of these theoretical approaches generates different narrative groups. The implications of my findings are, thus, twofold. First, the groupings that my chapters identified should in and of themselves be productive avenues for further comparative studies of narrative in the orators. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly, the variety of potential narrative categories that emerge when applying a theoretical lens to the corpus in a category-agnostic way, demands that future comparative studies of narrative technique in Athenian forensic orations starts by questioning the validity and applicability of the axes along which the corpus is being divided for comparison.
TEACHERS’ REPORTED IMPLEMENTATION OF EFFECTIVE BEHAVIORAL STRATEGIES FOR STUDENTS WITH ATTENTION-DEFICIT/HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-01) Aljumah, Laila Abdulwahab; Brannan, Ana Maria
Teachers play a crucial role in positively influencing the behavior of students with ADHD by implementing recommended behavioral strategies. However, there is limited research on the factors that impact general education teachers' implementation of the recommended behavioral strategies. Guided by an adapted theory of planned behavior, this study examined factors that could predict teachers' implementation of behavioral strategies. I collected and quantitatively analyzed online survey data. The results revealed that general education teachers in my sample employed both effective and ineffective behavioral strategies. The findings suggest that some of the theory's assumptions were supported. The results indicate that teachers’ appraisals of effectiveness of behavioral strategies predicted implementation of behavioral strategies, regardless of whether research evidence supported their effectiveness. This suggests that teachers’ misconceptions about the effectiveness of strategies may lead them to implement strategies with little evidence of effectiveness. Confidence in applying the behavioral strategies and perceiving facilitators could enhance teachers' implementation of behavioral strategies, particularly those with stronger evidence of effectiveness, as it emerged as a significant predictor of implementation across several strategies (e.g., stimulant medication and offering immediate tangible rewards for engaging in positive behavior). Overall, there were differences in the factors that predicted “how often” a strategy was implemented compared to “how well” they were implemented.
MUSIC ON THE MARCH: AMERICANISM, VETERANS’ ORGANIZATIONS, AND DRUM AND BUGLE CORPS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-12) Van Vleet, Matthew; Cohen, Judah
The American Legion and other military veterans’ organizations played a significant role in shaping twentieth-century American politics, civic life, and cultural (including musical) identity in service of Americanism: their conception of the political, social, and cultural values of the United States. Through its deep-rooted association with the Legion and related organizations, drum and bugle corps—a marching arts tradition derived from military music practices— represents a unique intersection of Americanism, veterans’ organizations, and music, serving as an important medium for the cultivation and expression of Americanism. Following World War I, the Legion developed competitive drum and bugle corps as an activity at first for military veterans and later for civilian youth that reflected the political goals of the organization, instilling and promoting the Legion’s ideological values. Drum and bugle corps then spread to other veterans’ and civic organizations that concerned themselves with Americanism, including Veterans of Foreign Wars, Boy Scouts of America, and Catholic Youth Organization, before developing its own sense of community and tradition. As the politics of Americanism evolved over time, especially regarding the role of the military in American society during times of war and peace, the expression of Americanism in drum and bugle corps evolved with them. Major developments in Americanism in drum and bugle corps coalesce around three twentieth-century wars and their aftermaths: World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. The origins of competitive drum and bugle corps are directly tied to the origins of the American Legion, a veteran’s organization founded by and for veterans of World War I. Consequently, the Legion (and to a lesser extent, the VFW) defined the early parameters and aesthetic of the activity in the 1920s and 1930s. Following World War II, drum and bugle corps grew even more popular, with junior drum corps (for participants under 21) becoming a significant branch of the activity. During the 1950s, drum and bugle corps absorbed Cold War attitudes toward Americanism from a new generation of participants looking to expand the activity, and the Legion and VFW maintained a vested interest in its governance. The Vietnam War drastically recontextualized the values of Americanism and militarism in American society. As a result, many drum corps began to downplay the overtly militaristic aspects of the activity in favor of a more outwardly entertaining presentation. In October 1971, thirteen prominent junior drum corps formed Drum Corps International, offering an alternative to the Legion’s regulations and forging a new competitive, educational, and artistic identity for the activity. The militaristic elements of drum and bugle corps were thus tempered, abstracted, and recontextualized, and less polarizing expressions of Americanism were cultivated instead. Americanism remained at the heart of the drum and bugle corps tradition through the end of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first. As the evolving expressions of Americanism in drum and bugle corps demonstrate, military music and the marching arts represent complex and nuanced networks of meanings and associations in the construction of musical Americanism and American cultural identity.
THE POLITICAL DYNAMICS OF THE IRAQI MARJAʿIYYA
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-12) Al Ameri, Mohammed
This dissertation investigates the evolving role of the Shiʿi marjaʿiyya (religious authority) in Iraq’s socio-political landscape, focusing on the intersection of jurisprudence, religious guidance, and political engagement. It explores historical, jurisprudential, and contemporary perspectives on the political involvement of the marajiʿ (Shiʿi scholars) from the Abbasid Empire to post-2003 Iraq. Through a theoretical framework incorporating five models of wilayat al-faqih (guardianship of the jurist), this study examines the factors influencing direct and indirect political actions by the marjaʿiyya, including oppression, foreign intervention, institutional dynamics, political stability, and jurisprudential principles. The research is grounded in historical analysis, primary texts, and interviews with representatives of leading marajiʿ such as Sayyid ‘Ali al-Sistani. Findings reveal a nuanced, adaptive approach by the marjaʿiyya, shaped by context and shifting between activism and quietism. The study highlights the marjaʿiyya’s pivotal role in shaping Iraq’s political trajectory and its broader implications for understanding the compatibility of Islam and democracy. This work provides a framework for predicting the future political roles of Shiʿi jurists and the evolving influence of religious authority in Iraq and beyond.
THE EFFECTS OF NATIVE LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE ON THE PHONOLOGICAL PERCEPTION OF COMPLEX LABIAL-VELAR STOPS
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-10) Ajibade, Matthew Ayobami; Obeng, Samuel Gyasi
This study investigates the effects of native language experience and phonetic properties on the discrimination of labial-velar versus labial and velar contrasts, as well as voicing contrasts in labials, velars, and labial-velars. Research indicates that phonological perceptions are influenced by native language experience and the spe- cific features of sounds, raising the question of how listeners perceive a non-native phonological category that combines two L1 categories, such as labial-velar stops predominantly found in West African languages. Properties of labial-velars raise two main issues: (i) in the place of articulation, labial-velars are characterized by a nearly synchronous combination of labial and velar gestures, potentially being mapped into either category or perceived as distinct; (ii) in the voicing segment, labial-velar voicing distinctions may either resemble voicing in English labials and velars or constitute distinct voicing categories. Added to this perceptual complexity is the notion that heritage language experience confers a phonological advantage over non-native listeners, suggesting a potential perceptual advantage for heritage Yoruba speakers over non-native Yoruba listeners. For this dissertation, 20 native Yoruba, 20 heritage Yoruba, and 20 native English speakers without prior exposure to labial-velars, completed an oddity task. Participants listened to three VCV nonce words embedded in a carrier phrase and identified the odd item or chose whether they were the same. The intervocalic target contrasts were [gb]-[g] and [gb]-[b], [kp]-[k] and [kp]-[p] for place of articulation, and [p]-[b], [k]-[g], and [kp]-[gb] for voicing. Results indicate that (i) the labial feature in labial-velars is more salient than the velar gesture, even in intervocalic positions where cues from both gestures are available; (ii) the discrimination of voicing in labial-velars is more challenging than in labials and velars, particularly for non-native listeners; (iii) contrary to prevailing assumptions in heritage language research, the heritage advantage in phonological perception is not universal but rather contrast-dependent; and (iv) heritage experience may sometimes create a disadvantage in phonological perception.
OPTICAL IMPLICATIONS OF MYOPIA CONTROL CONTACT LENSES: ACCOMMODATION, RETINAL DEFOCUS AND THE EFFECTS OF PROLONGED ELECTRONIC DEVICE USE ON CHILDREN'S EYES
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2025-02) Singh, Neeraj Kumar; Kollbaum, Pete S.
This doctoral research advances the field of optical corrections for myopia control by introducing and validating novel optical measurement technologies and evaluating their application in myopia management strategies. Specifically, the dissertation first focuses on the validation of a high-resolution pyramidal wavefront sensing aberrometer, demonstrating its sensitivity (approximately four-times greater than available techniques) when quantifying the complex optics of myopia control lenses, such as dual-focus (DF) contact lenses (CLs). Next, using a novel zone-wise analysis technique, the impact of DF CLs on inducing myopic defocus was examined in a cohort of young adult myopes who habitually had large lags of accommodation compared to those with more accurate accommodation. The study systematically assessed the shift in refractive state introduced by these lenses during accommodation both when viewing on- and off-axis. The results indicate that DF CLs do not significantly affect the individual’s accommodative behavior when compared to single vision CLs. The results also indicated that the treatment zone of DF CLs effectively replaced the hyperopic defocus commonly found in eyes corrected with single vision lenses with myopic defocus. The magnitude of this myopic introduction depended on individuals’ habitual accommodative responses. Specifically, individuals with higher accommodative lags experienced less myopic defocus. The dissertation further extends the investigation to the effects of 1 hour sustained near viewing of electronic devices on accommodative responses and retinal defocus in myopic children wearing DF CLs and emmetropic children wearing no CL correction. A significant increase in hyperopic defocus over time was evident in both groups. The treatment zones of DF CLs lenses provided myopic defocus which reduced in magnitude at later time points. These insights emphasize the need for personalized approaches in myopia management, considering individual accommodative behaviors and visual habits in the digital age.
UNDERSTANDING THE SEXUAL EXPERIENCES OF PEOPLE LIVING WITH SICKLE CELL DISEASE
([Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2024-08) Wright, Brittanni N.; Herbenick, Debby
Background: Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a blood disorder that mostly affects people of African heritage. The most known symptom of SCD is a pain crisis. A pain crisis is when red blood cells sickle in the blood vessels and cause intense, often debilitating pain. Until the late 1990s, SCD was seen as a pediatric health condition as people were not expected to live beyond their childhood. However, due to the advancements in medicine, people living with sickle cell disease (PLWSCD), in economically advanced countries, are living longer into adulthood. Thus, attention has shifted to investigate how SCD affects a person’s sexual health. Methods: 18 PLWSCD, in the United States of America and Canada, participated in in-depth recorded interviews. Using thematic analysis, the interviews were coded, and themes were created. Results: In Manuscript 1, four themes were produced: 1) Pain and Pleasure or Pleasure and Pain; 2) It Happens: Pain in Genitals; 3) Conversations with Partners; and 4) Please Talk to Us. For Manuscript 2, three themes were generated: 1) Let’s Reposition: Navigating Mobility; 2) Not Right Now; and 3) What Will They Think About Me. Conclusion: Overall, PLWSCD experienced a sex-or orgasm induced pain crisis, but little attention is given to this phenomenon by healthcare providers or within the sickle cell community at large. Furthermore, to their displeasure, PLWSCD lamented that sexual partners often questioned their ability to decide if they were fit enough to engage in sexual activities. Finally, due to complications from SCD, many participants have undergone surgeries for joint replacements. However, after undergoing joint replacement surgery, their ability to navigate sexual positions was stymied. Therefore, the Sickle Cell Disease and Sexuality Framework was created to help clinicians and PLWSCD understand how SCD affects a person’s sexual life.

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