Dakramanji, Sarah Mohammad(Notre Dame University-Louaize, 2015)
This study investigates the infidelity behaviors resulting from the excessive use of Facebook. Research has been conducted on online infidelity, these studies, however, have been limited to the use of pornography, chat rooms, and emailing. Moreover, recent press stories have reported that Facebook is involved in one out of five divorce cases (Luscombe, 2009). In fact, 81% of America’s tip divorce attorneys have seen an increase in the number of cases citing evidence from social networking sites in the last five years, and Facebook continues to be a top culprit (AAML, 2010). These figures suggest ...
This study examines how the male gaze and gender performativity operate within the Arab reality dating show Love Is Blind: Habibi (2024), with particular attention to visual framing, gender roles, and collectivist cultural values. While existing studies on dating reality television have largely focused on Western contexts, limited research has explored how global dating formats are culturally adapted within Arab societies, particularly through the lens of visual representation and gendered power. This study addresses that gap by examining whether Laura Mulvey’s (1975) concept of the male gaze ...
Cyberpunk fiction is considered as a representation of the postmodern condition; therefore, the fluid identities of posthumans and transhumans elicit distrust in institutionalized religions, seen as oppressive grand narratives. This thesis, in an attempt to investigate postmodern spirituality, presents a sketch of a new belief system through the exploration of postmodern spirituality and culture in cyberpunk literature and film, starting from post-dual techno-genesis, moving onto posthuman ontology and ending with techno-eschatology. Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash and the movie Blade Runner are ...
This thesis investigates the transformative experiences of Lebanese Christian young viewers following exposure to the faith-based film God’s Not Dead. Grounded in media psychology, the study employs the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) and Narrative Transportation Theory to examine how cinematic storytelling influences pre-existing beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Using an empirical approach with a sample of 102 participants, the research analyzes the cognitive and affective processes that occur during film viewing. Central to this inquiry is the concept of perception, defined as the process ...
This thesis explores the role of translation within military strategic communication through a comparative study of the Italian Ministry of Defense and the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL, focusing on their official social media posts. To conduct this research, I collected 13 posts from official social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, and X, between September and December 2025, focusing on verified institutional accounts with multilingual content and geopolitical relevance. The analysis was built on three theoretical frameworks: Skopos theory, Baker's narrative theory, and ...
This thesis examines how Chinua Achebe theorizes culture, power, and anticolonial agency through ritual and excess in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. Framing precolonial Igbo society as an intricately ordered moral and cosmological system, it argues that ritual practices, feasting, sacrifice, masquerade, proverbs, and festivals, operate as social infrastructure that forges cohesion, adjudicates conflict, and encodes authority. Bringing Georges Bataille’s notion of excess into dialogue with Michel Foucault’s disciplinary power, Frantz Fanon’s decolonial praxis, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s ...
Language is more than just a means to communicate; it is a manifestation of culture, history, and beliefs. However, language is sometimes gendered by default and reinforces the biases it appears to describe. In gendered languages such as Arabic, grammatical gender shapes how speakers create meaning, navigate social contexts, and perceive the world around them. This thesis therefore explores obstacles to the application of gender-inclusive language in Arabic, with a particular focus on translation practices within the United Nations (UN).
The study examines how ideals of inclusivity are represented, ...
The present study is devoted to the translation from Arabic into English of “Dayem… Dayem…”, one of the novels that constitute the book “Woujouh wa Hikayat” (Faces and Stories) that Maroun Abboud wrote in 1945. The thesis claims that the nuances of the Lebanese/Arabic rural language used in the original text of “Dayem… Dayem…” are better seized by a translator who is a native speaker of the Lebanese dialect and who is, at the same time, in total possession of the target language and culture, in this case the American language. Thus, the research methodology was explained and how it used all major ...
This study was set to explore the leadership styles among school principals as measured by the Leadership Orientations Questionnaire (LOQ) developed by Bolman and Deal (1991). The LOQ has two forms: one is self-rated by principals, and the other is addressed to schoolteachers to rate their principals on two dimensions: behavior and leadership. Under these two dimensions there are four subscales called frames. These are: the structural frame, human resource frame, political frame and symbolic frame. The subjects involved in the study were 8 school principals and 158 schoolteachers drawn from four ...
Jabbour, Vera Gerges(Notre Dame University-Louaize, 2010)
"All humans possess musical abilities": with these words Anderson and Laurence expressed their ideas in their book entitled Integrating Music into the Elementary Classroom (Anderson & Laurence, 2007, p.3). Since all human beings possess musical ability and have the right to learn music, students with visual impairment have also this right and the potential to learn music. When there was no Lebanese music curriculum for G1 students with visual impairment, developing new G1 music curriculum for these students became imperative to cater to their needs. The proposed curriculum was based on the ...
Prolonged school disruptions in Lebanon, particularly due to the economic collapse in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic (2020), the Beirut Port Blast in 2020, and the 2023-2024 interstate war, which continues sporadically to the present day, have had detrimental effects on learners’ education and social-emotional learning. Assessment data from the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) and the Early Grade Mathematics Assessment (EGMA) have shown that students' numeracy and literacy performance is low, with scores falling far below international benchmarks (World Bank, 2022; CERD, 2022a ). Moreover, ...
A Notre Dame University Writing Center (NDU WC), tutors are expected to guide students to reach the writing proficiency required in the academic environment. This thesis explored the practices of the NDU WC tutors. It investigated three questions: To what extent the tutors are prepared to give support in English writing, to what extent the tutors deliver sessions in phases, and what kinds of conversations the tutors give during sessions. A review of the literature surrounding the history of writing centers was carried out. The literature provided a framework for looking closer at the physical ...
This study aimed to investigate how the consumption of negative news on onlineplatforms regarding the ongoing crises in Lebanon affects the mental well-being of young adults aged 18 to 35. Previous research has established a link between exposure to news and negative emotions, heightened levels of stress, and irrational beliefs. Therefore, this study focused on examining the relationship between negative news consumption and mental health in young adults, with a particular emphasis on the Cognitive Appraisal theory as a framework to explore the impact of online negative news related to the ...
This study investigated the impact of music-based interventions on reading performance and communication skills among a sample of five students in a Christian school in Tabarja, Lebanon. One student with speech impairment (stuttering) aged ten and four students aged between ten and eleven that might have attention difficulties. Rooted in the belief that music enhanced cognitive and social development, this research explored whether structured musical sessions could support learners with special needs in developing better academic outcomes in reading and interpersonal communication. This case ...
This study examines the evolution of digital storytelling in Lebanon by comparing professional and amateur journalistic narratives and their influence on audience perception. Grounded in Social Cognitive Theory and Narrative Theory, it explores how storytelling techniques shape emotional engagement, persuasion, and perceived credibility. A mixed-method approach was used, combining a qualitative multiple case study of four digital storytellers with a quantitative survey of 120 participants. The findings show that amateur journalistic narratives are more personalized and emotionally expressive, ...
This study investigates the incorporation of artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted editing and production tools into audiovisual education at Notre Dame University–Louaize’s Division of Audio-Visual Arts (NDU DAVA) in Lebanon. Based on the theoretical framework of technological determinism, this research investigates the influence of these technologies on student creativity and educator academic practices, evaluating whether their effects can be seen as independent catalysts for change (strong determinism) or as shaped by social, institutional, and cultural factors (weak determinism). The study ...
This study investigated the role of emotional intelligence on students' mental distress and academic motivation following the challenging circumstances that impacted the country of Lebanon. As the country faced a socio-economic crisis and the safety in the country had been increasing, the study intended to measure the role that emotional intelligence played in influencing psychological distress and promoting students’ academic motivation.
To assess these variables, a quantitative design was used to answer the objectives of the study. A sample of 104 participants (n = 104) from a catholic ...
This study examines the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and human intelligence in translation, focusing on emotional intelligence, cultural competence, and ethical judgment in English–Arabic contexts. While advances in neural machine translation and large language models have improved translation speed and accessibility, these systems remain limited in interpreting emotional nuance, culturally embedded meanings, and ethically sensitive content. Using a qualitative approach supported by survey data and relevant literature, the study explores how human translators use emotional ...
Dagher, Anna Sami(Notre Dame University-Louaize, 2026-04)
The purpose of this study was to suggest a summer program model for special needs children for Evangelical churches in Lebanon by determining the effective characteristics of a church ministry to children with special needs in the U.S.A. Guided by the phenomenological approach, the study examined three research questions: RQ1: What do parents perceive are the characteristics of an effective church program for special needs children? RQ2: What do teachers perceive are the characteristics of an effective church program for special needs children? RQ3: What are the recommendations as seen by parents ...
In recent years, emotional intelligence (EI) gained increasing attention as a critical competency for effective leadership (Goleman, 1995; Salovey & Mayer, 1997). According to Goleman (1995), emotionally intelligent leaders demonstrated self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and strong social skills, all of which were essential for managing interpersonal challenges. In educational settings, these competencies were particularly valuable, as school leaders had to balance leadership demands with the emotional and social needs of their school communities. Conflict resolution was a ...