GSE Student Papers

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/11512821

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    Detecting Differential Score Inflation in Charter Schools
    (2016-01-04) Mantil, Ann; Koretz, Daniel; Mehta, Jal; Miratrix, Luke W.
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    Gender, Sexuality, and Cosplay: A Case Study of Male-to-Female Crossplay
    (2014-12-09) Leng, Rachel
    In recent years, cosplay fans gathering at anime conventions and events all over North America have attracted much public attention and media coverage. These fans, who often refer to themselves as otaku, 1 wear elaborate costumes and makeup to embody various anime, manga, and related video game characters (Cooper-Chen, 2010; Eng, 2012a). The essence of cosplay, or costume-play, involves affective labor where fans transform themselves into chosen anime characters by constructing and wearing costumes, learning signature character poses or dialogue, and masquerading at conventions and events (Okabe, 2012). Crossplay is a subset of cosplay; crossplayers similarly participate in costume-play, except they dress up in costumes modeled after characters of the opposite gender. This paper addresses male-to-female (“M2F”) crossplay where, as the name suggests, male cosplayers costume themselves as female anime characters. I contend that M2F crossplay exemplifies the performance of gender and sexuality in cosplay that challenges hegemonic norms, providing insight into an increasingly visible phenomenon in contemporary North American popular culture. When men crossplay as women, they are not merely donning femininity, but hyper-femininity, revealing the socially constructed nature of gender roles yet concomitantly reinforcing them. Yet, despite apparent similarities between crossplay and drag performances, they are fundamentally distinct. Drag Queens in Western culture typically connotes men cross-dressing as an exhibition of self-identity, whereas M2F crossplayers costume as female anime characters to partake in an aesthetic transformation that goes beyond mere self-expression. Thus, this paper aims to provide a preliminary exploration of M2F crossplay through a case study, investigating the motivations behind and process of crossplay performance, its status within the cosplay community, and the implications for broader society in relation to hegemonic gender norms.
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    Defending “Something Special”: A Portrait of One School’s Response to Instability
    (2014-11-06) Theisen-Homer, Victoria Marie
    Drawing primarily on interviews with a variety of teachers and other staff at a large urban Title-1 public school in California, Victoria Theisen-Homer paints an ethnographic portrait of how school personnel respond to undesirable changes. Although the school in this study, Skyline High School, had begun to thrive and most of the staff felt their school was “special,” the changes - including increased accountability in preparation for the school’s accreditation audit, turnover and conflicts among school leaders, and crippling budget cuts that removed staff and resources – threatened to compromise the school’s nascent success. While most of the participants in this study complained of the school’s declining culture and attributed this to similar issues, their responses to these factors differed significantly; their differing attempts to improve the situation ultimately served to further divide teachers and leaders in consequential ways. The author concludes with recommendations for educational leaders, policymakers, and teachers who intend to shepherd schools through similar times of change.
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    Chasing Personal Meaning: Pedagogical Lessons through Always Running
    (2014-11-06) Theisen-Homer, Victoria Marie
    In this autobiographical narrative, the author recounts her experiences teaching the novel Always Running with her English classes at a high school in a gang heavy area. When she first started teaching, this teacher struggled to engage students. One particularly disruptive student requested to read Always Running, but the teacher initially resisted teaching the text. However, student interest in the novel endured, and the teacher finally decided to take a risk and teach it. She used the novel in both her freshmen “intervention” and junior English classes. Throughout the resulting lessons, the teacher formed meaningful relationships with her students and both she and they learned valuable lessons about academic content, themselves and humanity. Amidst the unit’s success, the teacher wrote a grant to bring the book’s author, Luis Rodriguez, to speak to the campus. His visit served to deepen the novel’s impact and emphasize the importance of finding personal meaning.