Factors Influencing Sectarian Conflict and Peace through Education in Lebanon: An Ethnographic Analysis of Equal Access, Social Inclusion, and Social Contract

This is an ethnographic study with the purpose of spotlighting factors related to K-12 education in Lebanon that tend to reduce or exacerbate sources of sectarian conflict. The following research questions guided my research: (1) How do education stakeholders operationalize equal access, social inclusion, and social contract through education? (2) What features in K-12 education contexts exacerbate sectarian conflict in Lebanon? (3) What features in K-12 education contexts contribute to conflict-reduction in Lebanon? Data sources include interviews with education stakeholders and school visits I conducted throughout Lebanon, curriculum documents and documents outlining education purposes and policies in Lebanon that I analyzed. I present a model for examining factors that precipitate and exacerbate sectarian conflict in Lebanon that contributes to theory-building related to equal access, social inclusion, and social contract. Findings pointed to the following seven factors to intensify sectarian conflict: related to unequal access to education were (1) the sectarian structure of the school system and (2) the inadequate access to free and compulsory education in the country; related to social exclusion in education were (3) policies that prohibit dialogue about religion and politics in school that are nonetheless relevant to students’ everyday lives and (4) minimum power-sharing and multi-stakeholder engagement in education decision-making; factors that exacerbate conflict by weakening social contract in Lebanon included (5) the misuse of political power among elites to benefit themselves and members of their affiliated sect, (6) a contradiction between curriculum content and reality, and (7) a lack of autonomy for students and teachers. All of the seven major structures, trends, and inadequacies in education that I found to exacerbate sectarian conflict originate from the national level and stem from Lebanon’s modern interpretation of its consociational system of government. On the other hand, seven out of eight major factors that I found contribute to reducing sectarian conflict through education originate from the school and classroom levels, primarily from teachers and principals of varying religious sects. This highlights how model educators and school administrators already play a critical role in contributing to conflict-reduction through education in Lebanon. The eight factors that contribute to conflict reduction were the following: related to equal access are (1) the government’s stated commitment to free compulsory education and (2) a rise in nonsectarian private school options; related to social inclusion were (3) linguistic inclusion and (4) the prevalence of teaching approaches centered on common threads that bind students across sectarian differences; related to social contract included (5) teacher protections, (6) opportunities among educators and students in some schools to exercise choice and influence, (7) opportunities for reconciliation in some after-school NGO-facilitated programs, and (8) capacity-building. The study concludes with pragmatic recommendations for practitioners (government, Ministry of Education, school directors, and teachers) in Lebanon to address factors that contribute to sectarian conflict and to enhance those factors that make a difference in reducing conflict

The Genesis of Typhoon Chanchu (2006)

The phenomenon of tropical cyclogenesis (TCG), defined as the processes by which common tropical convection organizes into a coherent, self-sustaining, rapidly-rotating, and potentially destructive tropical cyclone (TC), consistently headlines research efforts but still remains largely mysterious. TCG has been described by a leading TC scientist as "one of the great remaining mysteries of the tropical atmosphere." This dissertation was motivated by a specific case of TCG: the near-equatorial formation of a well-organized synoptic cyclonic disturbance during the active West Pacific Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO). At very high resolution, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale atmospheric model proves capable of reproducing the multiscale interactions that comprise the TCG of Typhoon Chanchu. In the first part of the dissertation, the synoptic observations of the incipient disturbance (i.e., weak cyclonic vortex) are compared with the results from the WRF simulation. It is found that the disturbance tilts westward with height, and as a consequence of the vertical tilt, large-scale ascent (and thus precipitation) is dynamically favored on the downtilt-right side of the vortex. A major result is that the precipitation to the north of the tilted vortex serves as an attractor to the vortex through its generation of vorticity, thereby serving to dually diminish the vertical tilt of the vortex and deflect the incipient storm northward. Observations and the model simulation both indicate that TCG commences when the storm becomes vertically upright. In the second part of the dissertation, it is shown that the simulated downtilt-right precipitation takes the form of several mesoscale convective systems (MCSs), which spawn midlevel vortices that merge with and intensify the midlevel vortex. The precipitation during the several days prior to TCG generally serves to precondition the near-vortex environment by raising the low- and midlevel humidity. Apparently, the onset of TCG can be characterized as the transition of a tilted cold-core vortex into a vertically-erect warm-core vortex. The final part of the dissertation addresses the storm-scale processes during the day of TCG. The primary point of emphasis is the vertical wind shear, which is often dismissed as detrimental to the prospect of TCG. On the contrary, it is found that the inherent vertical shear of the tilted vortex is actually the critical variable in understanding the TCG of Chanchu through its role in the vorticity tilting term. More specifically, the clockwise turning (i.e., veering) of the shear vector with height suggests a new mechanism for the rapid generation of system-scale vorticity, which current hypotheses posit as simply a stochastic amalgamation of vorticity sufficient to trigger self-intensification. The near-surface spin-up mechanism is analogous to that which occurs in supercell thunderstorms. The missing link in TCG understanding may be the dynamic implications of the veering wind profile in which the convection develops

The tawnee family : The life course of Indian value adaptation for Eleazar Wheelock\u27s Indian scholars

This dissertation is a study of value adaptation by the southern New England Indians who attended Moor\u27s Charity School, in Lebanon, Connecticut, between 1743 and 1770. These Indians were part of New Light Minister Eleazar Wheelock\u27s extended household, dubbed by one student, the tawnee family. This designation distinguished these Indian scholars as surrogate members of the Wheelock family. I analyzed how the Indian students adapted to, resisted and reformed the values taught at Moor\u27s as they grew to adulthood. I drew my analysis from letters collected in the Eleazar Wheelock Papers housed at Dartmouth College. My arguments are drawn principally from Indian-authored texts preserved in the Wheelock Papers. Wheelock and the students\u27 correspondence allow one to examine lifelong relationships, particularly with respect to the meaning of family. One of my arguments is that family--as an ideological construct, as the defining places of gender roles and as a defender of rights to the broader society--is essential to understanding racial relations at the time. The easily identifiable and the less recognizable families formed under the auspices of Wheelock functioned within one Anglo-American family. One result of the education Indians received at Moor\u27s was a newly created perception of what constituted appropriate values within those Anglo-American and Indian households that interacted extensively. Some Moor\u27s students became Wheelock\u27s proteges and went on missions to convert the Iroquois to Christianity. They also served as leaders in their own tribes. The correspondence demonstrates that belonging, as a perceived sense of place or comfort whether within a family or faith in colonial southern New England, was a central concern of the correspondents. Importantly, Wheelock and the Indian students debated the conditional and fluid set of circumstances that created an amorphous sense of longing in the Indian students, for community, for a place to belong and for acceptance. My study concludes that following a lifetime of disillusionment the adult proteges found it necessary to create a new, intentional community in upstate New York. They felt physical removal was necessary to preserving their adapted values, and ultimately finding a place to belong

Mathematical Model of Virus Transport and Survival in Groundwater

This project presents a mathematical model for predicting virus transport and survival capabilities in groundwater. The basis for the model is a virus mass balance which results in a nonlinear partial differential equation. Closed form solutions to the general equation have been developed utilizing both the linear and Freundlich isotherms. The solutions formulated for each isotherm have been converted into an interactive FORTRAN computer program. The purpose of the program is to provide easily obtainable predictions of safe distances between home septic tank systems and private drinking water supplies. The model was tested using typical values for soil hydraulic properties and adsorption coefficients. Inactivation rates used in the tests were those previously reported in the literature. The results of the tests were good, and when more specific data is available, the testing should be completed.Chemical Engineerin

Absorber Calculation Using Absorption and Stripping - Factor Functions

Chemical Engineerin