Young Adult Literature and Censorship: A Content Analysis of Seventy-Eight Young Adult Books (open access)

Young Adult Literature and Censorship: A Content Analysis of Seventy-Eight Young Adult Books

The purpose of this study was to analyze a representative seventy-eight current young adult books to determine the extent to which they contain items which are objectionable to would-be censors. Seventy-eight books were identified which fit the criteria of popularity and literary quality. Content analysis was selected as the quantitative method of research. Each of the seventy-eight young adult books was analyzed for the six categories which were established through prior research. The six categories include profanity, sex, violence, parent conflict, drugs, and condoned bad behavior. These categories were tallied each time they occurred in the books. Reliability was assured with a rating of .98 by a committee of six professionals. The data reveal that profanity occurred more times in the seventy-eight books than the other five categories with a total of 5,616. The category of drugs was noted 4,171 times. References to sex followed in number with 3,174. The categories which occurred the least were violence with 1,849 occurrences and condoned bad behavior with only 489 occurrences. By applying a frequency index formula to determine the number of objections in each book in relation to the number of pages, a comparison among the books could be made. The analysis, …
Date: December 1986
Creator: Horton, Nancy Spence
System: The UNT Digital Library
Relationships Between Student Alienation in the Secondary School and Student Attitudes Toward Selected Factors in the School Environment: An Exploratory Correlational Study (open access)

Relationships Between Student Alienation in the Secondary School and Student Attitudes Toward Selected Factors in the School Environment: An Exploratory Correlational Study

The problem of this study was to identify relationships which might exist between variables measuring alienation feelings in high school students and variables measuring attitudes exhibited by those students toward the school environment. Mackey's Adolescent Alienation Scale was used to obtain student scores on three dimensions of alienation—Personal Incapacity, Cultural Estrangement, and Guidelessness. The Minnesota School Attitude Survey (MSAS) was used to obtain scores on attitudes toward factors in the school environment: School Curriculum, Self at School, Others at School, Support Received at School, Pressure at School, and Personal Development at School. Pearson Product moment correlations were computed for each dimension of alienation and the attitude clusters. Correlations were computed for each of nine statistical subgroups which comprised the sample group of 294 students— ninth-, tenth-, eleventh-, and twelfth-grade subgroups, male and female subgroups, and Anglo, Black, and Hispanic subgroups. Students in the population for the study were enrolled in a traditionally-organized, comprehensive curriculum, racially-integrated urban high school in a large-city public school district. Findings revealed that the single most influential environmental factor related to student alienation in this study was a feeling of pressure in the school setting. Pressure was related directly both to feelings of Personal Incapacity and …
Date: May 1986
Creator: MacQuigg, Georganna
System: The UNT Digital Library
Ideas About Adult Learning in Fifth and Fourth Century B.C. Athens (open access)

Ideas About Adult Learning in Fifth and Fourth Century B.C. Athens

The problem of this study was to determine to what extent contemporary adult education theory has similarities to and origins in ancient Athenian ideas about education. The methodology used in the study combined hermeneutics and the critical theory of Jurgen Habermas. Primary sources incuded Aristotle, Plato, Aristophanes, and Diogenes Laertius; secondary sources included Jaeger, Marrou, Dover, and Kennedy. In the analysis of Athenian adult education, three groups of adult educators were identified—the poets the sophists, and the philosophers. The poets were the traditional educators of the Greek people; their shared interest or way of perceiving the world emphasized the importance of community cohesion and health. In Athens in the mid-fifth century B.C., a new group of educators, the sophists, arose to fill a demand of adults for higher and adult education in the skills necessary to participate in the assembly and courts. The sophists emphasized a pragmatic human interest and taught the skill of rhetoric. Socrates and Plato created a new school of educators, the philosophers, who became vigorous ideological opponents of both the poets and the sophists. The philosophers exhibited a transcendental interest or approach to knowledge; the purpose of life was to improve the soul, and the preferred …
Date: December 1986
Creator: Hancock, Donald H. (Donald Hugh)
System: The UNT Digital Library
American Women Artists and the Female Nude Image (1969-1983) (open access)

American Women Artists and the Female Nude Image (1969-1983)

This research surveys ideology and iconology in the presentation of the autobiographical and biographical female nude as envisioned by American women artists in the painting, drawing and printmaking media from 1969 to 1983. Contemporary dialogue by critics, artists and feminists on the definition of feminine content led to the articulation of the undraped nude torso as the central icon of the study. This static icon was pushed through a variety of styles into multi subtleties of iconology. The female nude by women artists is autobiographical even in biography emphasizing self-identification and authenticity. General constraints were placed on the survey the definability or explicit articulation of the female torso as opposed to suggestive imagery, the time frame in which the nude was created, and the chosen media for study. Art historical methodology was employed to descriptively examine image and intent of the nude presentations in references through time as well as visual traditions of symbology. This survey began at the turn of the century for historical background to emphasize the greater proliferation of the nude from 1969 to 1983. There were limitations specifically associated with the earlier time frame (1900-1969)--the lack of art educational opportunities for the female student, the socio-political …
Date: August 1986
Creator: McEwin, Florence Rebecca
System: The UNT Digital Library
A Study of the Cultural Interaction Between Thai Students and North Texas State University (open access)

A Study of the Cultural Interaction Between Thai Students and North Texas State University

Because international students are an increasingly significant aspect in American colleges and universities and on the North Texas State University campus in particular, this study was undertaken to explore the intercultural clash which Thai students at North Texas State University experience. Twenty-two Thai students were interviewed in depth using the oral history method. Ten faculty and administrators who work with international students were interviewed concerning their observations of Thai students. The information gleaned from these thirty-two interviews and from an examination of the basic socio-cultural differences between Thailand and the United States resulted in the isolation of the following basic difficulties. 1. Thais do not have command of written and oral English. 2. Americans do not have an appreciation of foreigners and lack tolerance in everyday exchanges with them. 3. Thais avoid becoming involved in American society. 4. Thais are not efficiently prepared for the American classroom. 5. American instructors do not appear prepared to handle the problems of Thai students. The study also developed a number of suggested solutions: 1. Raise the consciousness of Americans concerning Thai students; 2. Provide more effective ways of improving oral and listening skills in the English proficiency of Thai students beginning with American-directed …
Date: December 1986
Creator: Bohlcke, Diane
System: The UNT Digital Library
English Devotional Song of the Seventeenth Century in Printed Collections from 1638 to 1693: A Study of Music and Culture (open access)

English Devotional Song of the Seventeenth Century in Printed Collections from 1638 to 1693: A Study of Music and Culture

Seventeenth-century England witnessed profound historical, theological, and musical changes. A king was overthrown and executed; religion was practiced fervently and disputed hotly; and English musicians fell under the influence of the Italian stile nuovo. Many devotional songs were printed, among them those which reveal influences of this style. These English-texted sacred songs for one to three solo voices with continuo--not based upon a previously- composed hymn or psalm tune—are emphasized in this dissertation. Chapter One treats definitions, past neglect of the genre by scholars, and the problem of ambiguous terminology. Chapter Two is an examination of how religion and politics affected musical life, the hiatus from liturgical music from 1644 to 1660 causing composers to contribute to the flourishing of devotional music for home worship and recreation. Different modes of seventeenth-century devotional life are discussed in Chapter Three. Chapter Four provides documentation for use of devotional music, diaries and memoirs of the period revealing the use of several publications considered in this study. Baroque musical aesthetics applied to devotional song and its raising of the affections towards God are discussed in Chapter Five. Chapter Six traces the influence of Italian monody and sacred concerto on English devotional song. The earliest …
Date: May 1986
Creator: Treacy, Susan
System: The UNT Digital Library