MFA, Kent State University, 2018, College of Communication and Information / School of Visual Communication Design

Though there has been increased discourse on non-Latin type design practice within the type design community in recent years, there still exists a need for many more high-quality digital typefaces in most of the world's written languages—societies, who, without these resources, are less able to contribute to global discussions. As a result, this thesis uses a number of different methods to analyze the pathways in multi-script type design research, examine the expansive relationship between typography and culture, and investigate the relationship between anthropological methods and the type design process. The questions posed include: how does one become prepared to design an effective and well-researched typeface in a new script? How does one research a new script? Does the use of anthropological research methodologies increase a type designer's understanding of a script's cultural context, and therefore increase the success of their design practice? If so, to what extent, and in particular, which aspects of the contextual typographic culture should the designer investigate? How does an understanding of the relationship between type and design affect this research process? As a catalyst for further practice and discussion of these topics, a comprehensive research framework outlines best practices when pursuing type design research in a non-native script. By utilizing anthropological and human-centered design research methods in the process of creating multilingual type systems, as well as examining culture, a non-speaking designer can begin to gain a wider, more global sense of typography, as well as better understanding for the needs of the global community for whom they are designing.

Committee: Aoife Mooney (Advisor); Ken Visocky-O'Grady (Committee Member); Sanda Katila (Committee Member) Subjects: Design

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2015, Anthropology

This dissertation examines and explores the popular health landscape, or lay health beliefs and models, held by Maasai people in the Siana Plains of Southern Narok. Specifically it is an investigation of the most common illnesses identified by community members and how these illnesses and the accompanying practices and beliefs reflect and illustrate the community's perspectives on hygiene, or the practice of being and staying healthy. Local hygienic ideas of illness prevention and avoidance, represented in the way Maasai talk about common and significant health problems, are found to be shaped by the cosmological underpinnings of Maasai society through superficially inchoate “common sense” perspectives that embody the foundational premises shared across much of Maasai society. This dissertation employs ethnographic methods of participant observation and semi-structured, open-ended questions, agreement surveys, and free listing in four series of interviews. These interviews were conducted with 107 people in 76 interviews. Response frequency tables were generated from the 27 interviews with Maasai in the series that employed free listing. Findings demonstrate that the relationship the Maasai have with Enkai, the creator god, is both represented and reified in the language of the popular health sector through the metonymic symbols of olari, the rainy season, enkijebe, the cold wind, and with the specific disavowal of metaphysical presumption, which I refer to as “etiological agnosticism”. The explanatory model that emerges from this analysis is not merely descriptive, but represents a significant re-presentation of Maasai understandings of health and illness. This dissertation contributes to our understanding of the influence cosmological premises have on everyday perspectives that form a community's shared “common sense”, particularly in the sector of popular health. It contributes more broadly to development studies, African studies, and the ethnog (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Atwood Gaines PhD, MPH (Committee Chair); Lee Hoffer PhD (Committee Member); Vanessa Hildebrand PhD (Committee Member); Jonathan Sadowsky PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: African Studies; Health; Public Health; Religion; Sanitation

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2006, Anthropology

Settlers of the Midwestern United States brought with them perceptions and attitudes towards natural resources, farming, and land tenure that influenced settlement patterns and the development of rural communities. Additionally, land is a necessity in farming and access to land allows for the reproduction of the social unit, the agrifamily household system, and the spatial and temporal continuity of ethnic communities built on aggregates of these smaller systems. These cultural forms persist in the Sugar Creek Watershed in the forms of community involvement and organization, land tenure and farm enterprise type and succession, and management styles. As such, local social organization and land tenure play important roles in farm management strategies that affect land tenure and adoption of conservation measures. Conservation adoption research and community watershed initiatives are difficult endeavors for which anthropologists have called for the inclusion of ethnographic methods, local indicators, and perspectives from ecological anthropology in the development and implementation of such projects in developing and post-industrial capitalist states. Rural Sociologists recently expressed the need for ethnographic investigations in answering questions related to rural community relationships. In this dissertation research, three research objectives were tested to assess magnitude and intensity of the relationships between these variables in the Sugar Creek Watershed. The first question asks how ethnicity, social relationships, and attitudes toward farming condition contemporary land tenure arrangements. The second question was posed in order to ascertain if ethnicity and level of socio-cultural integration of the farm household can be used as independent variables in understanding relationships among farm size, land use and tenure, and use and preference for conservation. The third research question was posited in order to understand the degree to which farm size, farm (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Richard Moore (Advisor) Subjects: Anthropology, Cultural

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2018, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

The importance of culture as a reference point in clinical practices such as forensic psychology has been considerably valued yet poorly understood, especially in an age where precision and sophistication outlast cultural authenticity and patient-clinician relationship. This paper looks at the gaps and inconsistencies that exist in current forensic psychology research. The topic is introduced by delving into the understanding of the phenomenon of culture and its influences on our everyday conditioning. Aspects such as language, biological development, traditions, rituals, and narratives are emphasized as potent tools that drive individuals to create and mold culture according to needs and requirements of the moment. These elements are then used for signifying the inherent ways in which culture can result in both despair as well as positive enforcement, thereby being a powerful element of consideration in forensic assessment practice. The essential concept explored in this paper involves the clinicians' perspectives on the meaning of cultural values, norms and beliefs that shape the behavior of the patient. Through this exploration I attempted to understand how the clinical practice of forensic psychology can be made more authentic and less cold and calculated by consideration of cultural malleability. By using thematic analysis, I reviewed a large collection of the relevant literature in an attempt to understand the core concepts that drive clinicians in their cultural considerations. I emphasized attention to the malleable nature of culture and the intricate ways in which culture is related to biological, psychological, anthropological, and legal aspects of forensic psychology. The conclusions of the paper include specific considerations for creating a well-structured cultural consultation model, which emphasizes attention to aspects like clinical approach, patient's family of origin, current community, as well as biological and psychological conditions of the pati (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: William Heusler PsyD (Committee Chair); Tedd Judd PhD, ABPP (Committee Member); Maile Bay JD, PsyD (Committee Member) Subjects: Clinical Psychology; Comparative; Criminology; Cultural Anthropology; Ethics; Forensic Anthropology; Law; Legal Studies; Mental Health; Multicultural Education; Psychology; Social Psychology

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the process by which the American Yazidi ethno-religious community of Lincoln, Nebraska preserves and transmits its culture and identity in a diasporic setting. This research seeks to contribute to new knowledge on how ethnic and religious immigrant communities negotiate questions of identity and cultural preservation, particularly in the context of historical or ongoing persecution in their native homelands. Utilizing ethnography, participant observation, and unstructured interviews, this research examines the mutually supporting individual and collective efforts to preserve Yazidi identity and cultural attributes, including heritage language instruction, civil society participation, artistic expression, trauma processing, and both local and transnational social relations. The research also canvasses the attitudes of Yazidis to better understand the centrality of inter-generational cultural transmission and the challenges of maintaining a distinct ethno-religious identity while integrating into a new society.

Committee: Morgan Liu (Advisor); Johanna Sellman (Committee Member); Jeffrey Cohen (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Ethnic Studies; Language; Middle Eastern Studies

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2021, Anthropology

There is a plethora of evidence in the literature demonstrating a significant disproportionate burden of illness on American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN) populations regarding diabetes. AI/AN populations also have a unique history in the United States and Canada, and new and emerging research on historical trauma has revealed how the suffering from years past coupled with ongoing oppression and discrimination impact people. Furthermore, historical trauma has been implicated in a variety of poor health outcomes. The research described herein explores participant understandings of diabetes, health, self, identity, and historical trauma. The 49 interviews from 13 participants contain over 1100 stories, which participants used to help the researcher see how they experience the world and the concepts above. The data demonstrate how participants understand the concepts of diabetes, health, self, identity, and historical trauma in a way that is similar to Firstness, as put forth by C.S. Peirce. This quality of experience is both experienced and communicated through storied experience. Storied experience creates an understanding of self/other whereby the self and the other don't exist as separate entities but instead exist as a unique instantiation of self/other. This research contributes to the larger discussion on self, identity, and historical trauma through the analysis of storied experience. Using storied experience, participants were able to show how the “content” of historical trauma not only happened in the past but continues to cohabitate with individuals and communities in the present.

Committee: Atwood Gaines (Committee Chair); Lee Hoffer (Committee Member); Hildebrand Vanessa (Committee Member); Eileen Anderson-Fye (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Behaviorial Sciences; Cultural Anthropology; Health; Health Care; Native Americans

BA, Oberlin College, 2020, Anthropology

This thesis explores the "life history" of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). It chronicles NAGPRA's story beginning with what created the perceived need for such an act, the work and the groups of people that went into its ultimate advent in 1990, the "nitty-gritty" details/language of the policy itself, and its various successes and failures throughout the years. With research conducted through the lens of legal anthropology, this paper focuses on the certain "requirements" (education, class, race, ethnicity, tribal affiliation, etc.) that have allowed people(s) to actively participate in the formation/policy-building of NAGPRA, become NAGPRA representatives, and benefit from the policy.The primary focus of this thesis is on the question "What is the legal culture of NAGPRA?" It examines NAGPRA's legal culture by utilizing American sociologists Patricia Ewick and Susan S. Silbey's legal consciousnesses of before, with, and against the law. It then goes on to show that a fourth, new consciousness --beyond the law -- presents itself in the legal culture of NAGPRA. This fourth consciousness is developed in this thesis and necessary to more fully address the spirit of the law -- a key force in building and sustaining the legal culture of NAGPRA.

Committee: Amy Vlassia Margaris (Advisor); Greggor Mattson (Advisor) Subjects: Archaeology; Law; Museum Studies; Museums; Native American Studies; Native Americans; Public Policy

MA, Kent State University, 2019, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Anthropology

An examination of the importance of balladry and storytelling in the formation of personal and regional identity in the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains

Committee: Evgenia Fotiou Ph.D (Committee Chair); Richard Feinberg Ph.D (Committee Member); Jennifer Johnstone Ph.D (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Folklore; Music

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2018, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

The unprecedented transformation of petromodernity in the Arabian Gulf's landscape and culture during the twentieth century coincided with the formation of the Arabian Gulf nation states. As such, the Arabian Gulf's oil economy is considered as an important factor in the stability and prosperity of these countries. This oil transformation has generated a modern lifestyle, denoted by petromodernity, which hinges on petroleum as its mode of energy. Petromodernity and its subsequent petroleum culture, or petroculture, serve as the framework for this research analysis of the Arabian Gulf's contemporary art. The project focuses on how the works of art reflect the manifestation of petroculture on: 1) urban landscape; 2) social behaviors; and 3) environmental issues of the region. Navigating contemporary art in the Arabian Gulf through manifestations of petroculture attest to a new regional field in art history. This dissertation aims to lay out art as a mode of civic engagement and critical space regarding the discourse around the inevitable ramifications of energy transition by opening the possibility for the advocacy and the discussion of this topic within and beyond the region.

Committee: Andrea Frohne (Committee Chair); Marina Peterson (Committee Member); Jennie Klein (Committee Member); Steve Howard (Committee Member) Subjects: Art Criticism; Art History; Energy; Environmental Studies; Fine Arts; Middle Eastern Studies; Urban Planning

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, Slavic and East European Languages and Literatures

This dissertation is an examination of how St. Petersburg punks create and sustain their culture through social practice and talk-in-interaction. This study examines how punks in the scene build (both literally and metaphorically) communities of svoi [one's own] that support positive ideologies like mutual-support, mutual-respect and openness. Yet, while this dissertation discusses the positive ways that the community impacts those within the scene, this work also brings to the fore practices of gender inequality within the scene that perpetuate patriarchal social norms. As such, this dissertation represents the first detailed, long-term examination of punk in Russia. Punk in Russia gained international notoriety with Pussy Riot's rise to prominence in 2009; however, their ascendance also exposed our limited understanding of what punk is and is not in the Russian scene. This dissertation aims to address this gap and explore precisely what Russian punk is and is not from the vantage point of Russian punks themselves. In order to do so, I conducted nearly two years of fieldwork, interviewed 32 punks and analyzed over 6 hours of spontaneously occurring talk-in-interaction. This holistic approach helped facilitate a description and analysis of punk culture in Russia that presents a detailed account of my informants' full lives. My findings show that the primary punk ideologies operating within the St. Petersburg punk scene are: mutual-respect, mutual-help and a focus on action and agency through Do-It-Yourself (DIY) enterprises. Yet at the same time as I draw on interview data for explicit characterizations of punk ideology, I also examine and analyze punk practice and discourse. This approach helps to elucidate not only the `point of punk', but also helps to connect interview data to actual discursive practices. Exploring the connection between interview data and real-life practice reveals a contradiction between explicit ideologies of equality within the punk scene (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Jennifer Suchland Dr. (Advisor); Gabriella Modan Dr. (Advisor); Galina Bolden Dr. (Committee Member); Yana Hashamova Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Gender Studies; Linguistics; Russian History; Slavic Studies; Social Research

Master of Environmental Science, Miami University, 2016, Environmental Sciences

Place names are vital to orienting ourselves in the world. In ancient times, people must have had names for places like hunting grounds or berry groves. This act of naming roughly delineates geographic features which can be revisited and described to others, affixing an added cultural meaning to that place. Place naming has since come a long way. Official place names for the United States and its territories are managed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), National Geospatial Technical Operations Center (NGTOC). This report details my experience working in the Geographic Names Unit. As a Pathways Career Intern, my main duties were to manage the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), a database containing official place names for features outlined on federal topographic maps. Most of the work involved duplicate names; an issue where there are two name records for one feature, often indicating that one record is a copy and should be deleted. Sometimes the two records were not copies, and the correct locations were identified by visually analyzing historic and recent maps. The coordinates were then updated respectively in the GNIS. I gained valuable experience reading topographic maps, identifying features and managing a large database of geographic names.

Committee: Robbyn Abbitt MS (Committee Chair); Suzanne Zazycki JD (Committee Member); Mark Allen Peterson PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Cartography; Computer Science; Cultural Anthropology; Earth; Environmental Science; Geographic Information Science; Geography; History; Information Science; Information Technology; Language; Native American Studies

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2015, Interdisciplinary Arts (Fine Arts)

This study explores the dance characteristics and aesthetics likely employed in Venid, venid deydades, a performance piece from mid-eighteenth-century Cusco, Peru. This seminary opera by Fray Esteban Ponce de Leon was composed and performed in the Seminary of San Antonio Abad to honor its rector, who was named Bishop of Paraguay. The music and libretto for the work are extant in the Seminary's archive, yet its choreography is unknown--a common condition that impedes the understanding of dance in its historical context. This study unites diverse textual and embodied resources to re-create dances consistent with the opera's style. Theoretically, this study analyzes the task of early dance reconstruction using Diana Taylor's conception of the archive--historical textual material--and of the repertoire--unwritten embodied information that societies pass down over time. The methodological aim of the study is to provide an explained model for the process of historically informed early dance reconstruction; thus, a minuet and contradanza are reconstructed in Chapter Five. Such reconstructions inform historical performance and provide a way to investigate dance history. This understudied opera emanates from a vibrant era of varied performance genres in Peru's culturally diverse colonial period. It reflects the powerful, official world of elite Spanish and criollo ecclesiastical circles. This investigation thus examines European Baroque dance and its archive and repertoire, as Bourbon-era tastes in Peru reflected the Spanish and continental affinity for Italian music and French dance. The research considers the roles of archive and repertoire in this dance style's preservation and in its loss from practice, both in Europe and in Peru. This study makes use of a historical and ethnographic methodology to guide the researcher in re-animating dances of the past. As such, it connects and interprets remains through historical and aesthetic analysis (includin (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Marina Peterson PhD (Committee Co-Chair); Tresa Randall PhD (Committee Co-Chair) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Dance; Fine Arts; Folklore; History; Latin American History; Music; Performing Arts; Theater History

MA, Kent State University, 2015, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Anthropology

This thesis discusses some of the main factors that have hindered Australian Aboriginal people in their efforts to use their art as a catalyst for stronger political standing and an improved standard of living. Accordingly, based on my interviews and surveys at the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, it appears that the patrons appreciate the art but do not recognize the art's inward significance and its messages about Aboriginal political struggles. This thesis focuses on a few of the main factors that affect Western (including American) interpretations of Aboriginal art. Some of these factors are: hegemonic influences and Western categorizations; visual similarities to Modern art styles; and Western thirst for “primitivism.” There were correlations in the data between understanding of the art and education, travel, and “Entering Identity.” Data also reveal crucial omissions from patrons' comments, such as the idea of corporate identity, diffusion, syncretism, haptic touch, and the impact of commercialization. I address how these exclusions are related to patron misconceptions about the art. The latter part of the thesis analyzes American characteristics including: White Privilege; class ideologies; consumerism; “polite society;” and geographical tendencies, and how these characteristics reflect patrons' responses. Finally this thesis grapples with inherent paradoxes when Aboriginal art is reviewed on the world art market, and how anthropologists can help to resolve these issues.

Committee: Richard Feinberg PhD (Advisor); Linda Spurlock PhD (Committee Member); Evgenia Fotiou PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: American Studies; Art Education; Cultural Anthropology; History of Oceania; Intellectual Property; International Relations; Minority and Ethnic Groups; Museum Studies; Native Studies; Pacific Rim Studies; Social Research; Social Studies Education; Sociology

MA, University of Cincinnati, 2014, Arts and Sciences: Anthropology

This study explores relationships between a 17th century ethnohistorical text, traditional botanical knowledge (TBK), and contemporary educational resource development within the contexts of Native American ethnoecological language reclamation and cultural revitalization. Community-based participatory research (CBPR), as well as a diversity of applied and engaged anthropological, ethnobotanical, and linguistic approaches were implemented throughout the course of the research program. The research approach is grounded in the idea that a community should have both control of its own resources and the ability to provide input on the research needs of their own community. Data collection and analysis focused on exploring the traditional myaamiaki (Miami community) food system, historical and contemporary community-based ethnoecological relationships, and botanical use categories as guided by the linguistic and ethnoecological needs of the community. This study focuses particular attention on traditional food plants. The specific research goals of the study were (1) to use a 17th century ethnohistorical text to reclaim myaamiaki ethnoecological terms and phrases; (2) to apply ethnographic methods to assess modern myaamiaki traditional botanical knowledge (TBK); and (3) to combine ethnohistorical research findings with the ethnographic study to contribute to myaamiaki ethnobotanical educational resource development and the revitalization of Miami Ecological Knowledge (MEK). To further validate the agency and voices of a small sample of Miami community members, an inventory of contemporary TBK was collected and a needs-assessment was conducted to gauge the community's interest and insights on educational resource development on the topics of garden cultivation and the harvest and use of wild food plants. The myaamiaki are an ecologically-based cultural group whose language had previously moved through a state of dormancy between 1963 through 1995. Initiatives associ (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Susan Allen Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Clement Jeffrey Jacobson Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2007, East Asian Languages and Literatures

This dissertation is an historical ethnographic study of the Shandong kuaishu (E½¶«¿iEe) storytelling tradition and an ethnographic account of the folk pedagogy of Wu Yanguo, one professional practitioner of the tradition. At times, the intention is to record, describe and analyze the oral tradition of Shandong kuaishu, which has not been recorded in detail in English language scholarly literature. At other times, the purpose is to develop a pedagogical model informed by the experiences and transmission techniques of the community of study. The ultimate goal is to use the knowledge and experience gained in this study to advance our understanding of and ability to achieve advanced levels of Chinese language proficiency and cultural competence. Through a combination of the knowledge gained from written sources, participant observation, and first-hand performance of Shandong kuaishu, this dissertation shows that complex performances of segments of Chinese culture drawn from everyday life can be constructed through a regimen of performance based training. It is intended to serve as one training model that leads to the development of sophisticated cultural competence.

Committee: Galal Walker (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2003, Anthropology

Economic success for the Amish is due, in part, to labor exchange practices and other similar communal sharing practices. While the topic of labor exchange has been given a fair amount of attention by social scientists in many settings, there have been no labor exchange studies on the Old Order Amish from an anthropological perspective. Specifically, this research project considers aspects of labor exchange and its relationship to farm production from an empirical analysis of two Old Order Amish church districts in Clark Township in the southeast portion of Holmes County, Ohio. The unit of analysis is the Amish farm household consisting of a family of three or four generations engaging in an intensive type of agriculture as defined by Netting (1993:28-29). Although the data collected represents farm labor inputs of individual households within the two separate church districts, the focus of this dissertation is both an examination of how Amish farm families share labor at the household level and an examination of how labor is shared among member households of the community. The latter includes organized and seasonal labor exchange, such as grain threshing or silo-filling; informal and occasional labor exchange, such as frolics or work gatherings by collateral family and neighbors; mutual aid, multi-community labor exchange, such as a barn raising; and labor exchange outside of agriculture yet vital to the farming community, such as schoolhouse cleaning by family members in a parochial district. The main hypothesis of this dissertation proposes that Amish farmers engage in labor exchange activity in order to pool human capital so that the combined work output is greater than the amount of labor that each farmer could accomplish individually. The second hypothesis contends that the traditional dichotomy between labor sharing and commodification of labor in Amish society is moving toward greater commodification of labor along with farm intensification, population press (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Richard Moore (Advisor) Subjects:

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2010, Anthropology

This research is directed at the repeated findings that minority populations suffer disproportionately from the burden of disease in our society, specifically in the development of disease, health outcomes, and access to care. Even as quality improves on specific measures, disparities often persist. A common reason cited for health inequalities is that the U.S. health care system, in its “one-size-fits-all” approach, is inadequate to meet the needs of minority patients. A proposed solution in biomedicine is cultural competence. This dissertation investigates how Anglo-American clinicians and Mexican immigrant patients communicate in a medical setting. Because of the popularity of cultural competence as a panacea to health inequalities, my research focused on the following questions: If the medical encounter provides the space for the intersection of cultural differences, how might patients and clinicians locate such differences, how are they talked about or negotiated between participants, and does there exist a set of strategies that clinicians can adopt to be “culturally competent?” Do cultural differences between patients and clinicians cause barriers to treatment? What other factors create barriers? How do patients communicate their treatment preferences, medical beliefs, and personal information? What is the role of medical interpreters? This research is based on 24 months of ethnographic research at the People's Clinic, a free clinic in a metropolitan area in Texas. I utilized participant observation and interviews as my primary methods for data collection; I observed 120 medical encounters and interviewed 30 patients after their encounter. This research expands the knowledge of the role of language, culture, and cultural difference in medical encounters. I examined how patients communicated information from their lifeworld, and whether “cultural” narratives provided by patients would cause barriers to treatment, as assumed by cultural competence models. In l (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Atwood Gaines (Committee Chair); Charlotte Ikels (Committee Member); Eileen Anderson-Fye (Committee Member); Joseph Sudano (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Health

PHD, Kent State University, 2013, College of Education, Health and Human Services / School of Lifespan Development and Educational Sciences

Within the field of school psychology there exists literature for school psychologists working with specific ethnic and linguistic groups (Frisby & Reynolds, 2005; Tomes, 2011). The Arab American population is estimated to be 3.6 million (Arab American Institute, 2012). However, there is a paucity of school psychology research on Arab American students and families (Goforth, 2011; Haboush, 2007). As active members of the special education process, school psychologists will benefit from information regarding Arab American cultural and religious beliefs about special education and disabilities. Such information will assist them in providing culturally sensitive and appropriate services to students and families. This study utilized a phenomenological qualitative approach to illuminate Arab Americans parents’ experiences with their children’s encounters with the special education process and perceptions of their children’s disabilities. Phenomenological data analysis revealed four core themes. First, parents attached significance to specific steps within the special education process and to cultural stigmas around special education and disabilities. Next, parents reflected on special education services and key relationships. Additionally, parents discussed their children’s abilities, their understandings of special education, and their advocacy work. Finally, parents reported that their goals for their children had not changed as a result of the special education process, although the goals were tailored to their children’s identified disabilities. These findings have significant implications for professionals working with Arab American students and their parents. Recommendations are made for culturally sensitive school psychology practice with Arab Americans. Suggestions are provided for further research on this important yet under-researched topic.

Committee: Karla Anhalt Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Tricia Niesz Ph.D. (Committee Co-Chair); Richard Cowan Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Cultural Anthropology; Educational Psychology; Psychology