(Ref)Using Human Rights: Indigenous Activism and the Politics of Refusal in Settler Colonial Contexts

This thesis is a critical history of ideas—or a history of repressed and repressive ideas (and histories)—that analyses how liberal internationalism, in the form of human rights, presses upon, covers over, brushes against, interacts with, or is used instrumentally by Indigenous activism and political life. By situating these interactions between human rights and Indigenous political life in the context of settler colonialism, it aims to bring out the complexity of a politics of (ref)usal that permeates this relationship, in this context. First, the thesis reads critiques of human rights against emerging literature in settler colonial studies, showing how the irreducible element of an eliminatory drive for land, which characterizes settler colonialism, is not accounted for in the existing critical literature on human rights. Second, it presents a critical history of the normative evolution of the right to self-determination in both law and discourse as these relate to Indigenous peoples, showing how the norm is constructed both to make illegible other forms of Indigenous political life and to reify anthropological tropes about Indigenous culture. Third, it tests proposals for ‘saving’ human rights from its colonial-hegemonic past—by repoliticizing it—against writing on settler decolonization, to ask about the role of human rights in/as decolonial politics. The thesis, finally, considers how the normative and historical terrain it has mapped might help us think through the politics of human rights and Indigenous activism (namely, the Idle No More movement) in Canada in light of Justin Trudeau’s election as Prime Minister in October, 2015. Ultimately, the aim of this work is to interrogate the normative political optics of the settler state—what it can and cannot make legible—as it makes use of liberal internationalist discourse to make illegible (to eliminate from view) other, Indigenous, modes of political life which stubbornly (politically) refuse this imposition

STANDARDS-BASED GRADING AT THE SECONDARY LEVEL: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF DISTRICT LEVEL ADMINISTRATORS AND THEIR PERCEPTIONS OF TRANSITIONING FROM A TRADITIONAL GRADING SYSTEM

Traditional grading practices have been in place for well over a hundred years and grades received served to identify in which subjects a student is “smart” or in which ones they are not (Dewitt, 2017). The problem with traditional grading is that it does not provide qualitative information on the difference between an A, B, C, D, or F (Scriffiny, 2008). Standards-based grading allows the communication of where a student is in relation to well-defined standards. The problem is that many schools do not implement a standards-based grading and reporting system at the secondary level. This is in light of our nation and New York State having made considerable efforts and changes to establish well-defined standards. Although there is a misalignment in our grading practices, an overwhelming majority of our schools continue to use a traditional grading and reporting system to communicate student learning at the secondary level. As movement to a standards-based model has been noted at the primary grades, the purpose of this study is to identify the extent to which district level administrators are willing to change from a traditional grading system to a standards-based grading and reporting method at the secondary level. More specifically, this research attempted to discover the views of superintendents and assistant superintendents in changing from a traditional grading and reporting system to a standards based grading model at the secondary level. Unveiling the perceived impediments to implementing a SBG system at the secondary level was done by focusing on districts that have not implemented SBG at the secondary level and currently have a traditional grading model. To conduct this study, the researcher used a qualitative approach by conducting semi-structured exploratory interviews. Participants in the study were certified public school superintendents and assistant superintendents currently employed in a New York public high school (non-charter) in two suburban New York State counties. The selected population was presented with interview questions aimed at determining general background information as it relates to grading, if it is believed that standards-based grading is important at the secondary level, how district level administrators would make a change from a traditional model to a standards-based model, and what, if any, barriers and challenges exist in making such a change

Learning lessons from the Ringaskiddy incineration story

The inclusion of incineration in waste management policies has proven very contentious in the Republic of Ireland. Even though the Cork Region Waste Management Strategy (1995-2020) acknowledged the role of incineration it came as no surprise that a planning application in May 2001 by Indaver Ireland for two incinerators in Cork Harbour was met with fierce local opposition. This paper tells the story which unfolded from May 2001 to May 2007 and examines the roles played by public bodies such as Cork County Council, An Bord Pleanála, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Health and Safety Authority. The Indaver case reveals flaws in the planning process and highlights the need for a more coordinated approach which fosters trust, credibility and legitimacy

Structural Design Optimisation Using Genetic Algorithms and Neural Networks

This paper relates to the optimisation of structural design using Genetic Algorithms (GAs) and presents an improved method for determining the fitness of genetic codes that represent possible design solutions. Two significant problems that often hinder design optimisation using genetic algorithms are expensive fitness evaluation and high epistasis. Expensive fitness evaluation results in slow evolution and occurs when it is computationally expensive to test the effectiveness of possible design solutions using an objective function. High epistasis occurs when certain genes lose their significance or value when other genes change. Consequently, when a fit genetic code has an important gene changed this can have a dramatic effect on the fitness of that genetic code. Often the reduction in fitness results in failure of the genetic code being selected for reproduction and inclusion in the next generation. This loss of evolved genetic information can result in the solution taking considerable time to discover