Albion Through Malleable Eyes: The Great Migration, Urban Renewal And Missed Opportunities, Demetrius R. Goodale

Masters Theses

Albion, Michigan’s African American community built a robust, diverse, and thriving city in the early 20th century. Jobs were plentiful and wages allowed for healthy communities to sprout up across the city’s landscape. During this period Albion’s overall population more than doubled, and its African American community grew exponentially over the course of six decades. However, for many in the African American community, societal and economic gains were overshadowed by a crippling shortage in viable housing options. Albion’s African American community experienced limited options to help remedy the community’s housing challenges. These limitations were due to discriminatory housing norms and …

A Study Of Social And Cultural Capital In Graduation For African American Students In Four-Year Colleges, Andrew Oni

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The prevalence of the persistent low graduation rate among African American students in four-year colleges gave rise to the examination of the role of social and cultural capital in improving graduation for African American students. This study examines the role played by the relationship between social and cultural capital and other factors for African American students’ graduation. Guided by social and cultural capital as the theoretical framework which presents social and cultural capital as acquired by parents’ and students' social networks and cultural endowment and tenets. These two levels of social and cultural capital are available for students to utilize …

A Qualitative Evaluation Of The Phoenix Project: A Strengths-Based, Trauma-Informed Care Intervention For African American, Transitional Age, Young Adults Living In San Francisco’S Public Housing Community, Lena Miller

Doctoral Dissertations

A QUALITATIVE EVALUATION OF THE PHOENIX PROJECT: A STRENGTHS-BASED, TRAUMA-INFORMED CARE INTERVENTION FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN, TRANSITIONAL AGE, YOUNG ADULTS LIVING IN SAN FRANCISCO’S PUBLIC HOUSING COMMUNITY

Abstract

Persistent community violence has had a profound and destructive impact on many urban communities throughout the country. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) resulting from community violence is becoming an increasingly frequent diagnosis of African American youth and young adults residing in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point (BVHP) community (San Francisco Department of Public Health, 2012). The Phoenix Project was designed to specifically address and heal symptoms of trauma and facilitate resilience among youth and young …

A Phenomenological Investigation Of African American Male Veterans’ Experience Of Social Connection, Brian Coleman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research project examines the experience of African American male veterans’ social connections with other veterans. Social connection has been found to be a key factor in promoting positive health outcomes and overall well-being. In addition, social connection involves not only a sense of being connected to others but can also include feelings of exclusion. Given the increasing health disparities of between African American and White men, and of our nation’s veteran population, greater attention to factors that promote well-being are essential. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the lived experiences of social connection of African American …

Community Violence, Protective Factors, And Resilience: Gender Differences In African American Youth, Kimberly Nelson-Arrington

Dissertations

African American youth are exposed to community violence in varying degrees. Over the last few decades, much research has focused on the negative implications of such exposure. While it is helpful to explore the detrimental effects of community violence on this population, the factors that promote resilience, leading to favorable outcomes, should be explored with just as much fervency. The present study sought to explore the protective factors that contribute to resilience in African American youth exposed to community violence. While resilience is a multidimensional construct, this study focused on the participants’ psychological outlook, namely their sense of hopefulness and …

The Impacts Of Incarceration On The Wellbeing Of Family Members Of African American Males Who Experience The U.S Prison System: A Phenomenological Study, Tremaine N. Leslie

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

African Americans encounter a high rate of imprisonment, and the social, economic, mental and other effects of imprisonment are extended to their families and communities (Roberts, 2004). In addition to separating individuals from their families and communities, incarceration maximizes the probability for fractured relationships, fragmented communities, and encumbers the public service systems (DeHart, Shapiro & Clone, 2018).Therefore, the purpose of this phenomenological inquiry was to explore the mental health effects of incarceration on the family members of African American males who experience the U.S prison system.

The theoretical framework utilized for this study was the critical race theory (CRT) immersed …

What Role Does The African American Church Play When Meeting The Mental Health Needs Of Its African American Parishioners?, Lisa Sutton

Dissertations

Abstract

This study will focus on understanding the role played by the church in meeting the mental health needs of its African American parishioners. The goal is to understand the ways that African American communities hold faith, position themselves within the church, and the outside world, with a specific focus on issues of trust, which have emerged based on historical and structural violence that has debilitated the health of our community. The study examines attitudes and perceptions of church leadership and members around their caring for parishioners with mental health issues. The hope is that the data will help construct …

What Affects Adult African American Males’ Use Of Mental Health Services?, Nicole Reyes

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This research project examined barriers that affect adult African American males’ use of mental health services because existing research suggests that they frequently experience barriers to obtaining mental health services. Data were gathered through interviews with ten adult African American males on their perspective about their barriers to mental health service use such as socioeconomic disparities, misunderstanding of mental health services due to stigma, a religious or spiritual aspect, inability to access the proper professional services, and overall cultural competence in comparison to other non-African American counterparts who have obtained mental health services.

This research study used a qualitative research …

The Space Between Black & White: Examining The Lived Experiences Of African American Supervisees In Cross-Racial Supervisory Relationships, Brittany A. Williams

Dissertations, 2020-current

There is a growing trend in the counseling research that addresses the importance of multicultural counseling and specifically the need for effective work with African American clients (Chang, Hays, & Shoffner, 2004). More specifically, attention should be given to African American supervisees in cross-racial supervisory relationships who experience complex forms of discrimination due to the differing cultural identities within the supervisory relationship. While also meeting the needs of the African American clients, increased representation in the field could also be beneficial for the counseling profession and support the growth and development of same race clinicians. This influx of African American …

Restraints In Massachusetts Public Schools, Elyce Hall

Master’s Theses and Projects

The purpose of this research study was to investigate the moral and legal issues around physically restraining students in Massachusetts public schools. As Massachusetts law is written, the use of restraints on a student should be the last possible resort. However, this thesis used data on restraint use from the Massachusetts Department of Education and a survey of school administrators to gain a better understanding of the 38,994 student restraints that were used in 2016-2017 school year. Findings of this study include that Hispanic and African-American students were more likely to attend schools that used restraints than those that did …

The Lived Experience Of African American Juvenile Parole And Probation Officers In The Pacific Northwest, Andre J. Lockett

CUP Ed.D. Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and better understand the lived experiences of African American juvenile parole and probation officers in the Pacific Northwest. I conducted semistructured interviews with four African American juvenile parole and probation officers using a transcendental phenomenological framework. This framework was further supported and guided by social identity theory, critical race theory, and person‒organization fit theory. Through detailed semistructured interviews, field notes, and artifacts; honest and thought-provoking insight was gathered about the experiences of African American juvenile parole and probation officers. Furthermore, interview data was coded and analyzed using ATLAS.ti (2020) and during …

The Effect Of Acute Interpersonal Racial Discrimination On Smoking Motivation And Behavior Among Black Smokers, Patricia F. Calixte-Civil

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In comparison to White smokers, Black smokers are more likely to report both discrimination and less success in smoking cessation. No previous study has tested the causal relationship between actual experienced racial discrimination and smoking variables associated with cessation. The goal of this study was to test the casual influence of interpersonal racial discrimination on smoking motivation (i.e., the urge to smoke cigarettes, cessation self-efficacy, and smoking behavior) using a controlled experimental design. We used a virtual ball-playing game to create a laboratory model of racial discrimination. A 2x2 between-subjects factorial design (inclusion/exclusion vs. ingroup/outgroup) was used to randomly assign …

Expressions Of Sexual Deviance In Black Serial Killers, Lucia J. Weatherall

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The number of Black serial killers (BSKs) has increased, but empirical studies have not focused on this unique population, including their expressions of sexual deviance. The purpose of this case study was to understand the common socialization experiences and the expressions of sexual deviance in BSKs. Two conceptual frameworks were used to identify the concepts to explore: Bandura’s social learning theory of aggression and Agnew’s general strain theory. Data collected came from archival court and police records in Texas. A content-analysis approach was used to analyze the archival data, organized by criminal background, sexual deviance, familial data, and social development. …

Faith, Medication Adherence, And Cardiovascular Disease Among African American Churchgoers, Linett Lorain Brice

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Getting African Americans to adhere to medical management strategies to reduce negative health outcomes of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and CVD risk factors may be challenging. The purpose of this cross-sectional quantitative study was to examine whether levels of faith in God's healing, when it comes to taking medications, was associated with medication adherence to hypertension and/or diabetes mellitus type 2 (DMII) medications, and whether those factors were associated with prevalence of CVD and uncontrolled symptoms of CVD risk factors, namely hypertension and DMII. Social cognitive theory provided the framework for the study. Data were collected from surveys completed by 102 …

Victimized And Criminalized Black Women’S Experiences With The Police In The Context Of Intimate Partner Violence, Patrina Duhaney

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This qualitative, multi-manuscript dissertation examines the experiences of Black women who live in the Greater Toronto Area and other southwestern Ontario regions who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV), some of whom were also charged with an IPV-related offence. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 Black women to better understand the meanings they attach to their experiences. Critical race feminism (CRF) was employed to help conceptualize women’s narratives. In addition, the dissertation includes a review of the relevant literature, the methodology that was utilized for the study followed by three self-contained manuscripts. The purpose of the first manuscript is to …

Double Jeopardy: African American Women And The Counselor Education And Supervision Dissertation, Beverly Lee Townsend

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Half of all doctoral students do not graduate, with attrition occurring because of the dissertation process. Outcomes for women and minorities are even worse. This study is an interpretive phenomenological analysis of the lived experiences of African American women working on their dissertation for a counselor education and supervision (CES) doctoral program. This study was guided by Flynn et al.’s emergent theory of the initiation, management, and completion of the dissertation, which highlights 6 themes important to successful completion of the dissertation in CES programs. Though the theory was originally applied to a largely White and Midwestern sample, this study …

Relationship Between Parental Involvement And 4th-5th Grade Students’ Academic Motivation, Charla Williams

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The achievement gap between African American and White students has been well documented. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine whether parental involvement in academics predicted academic motivation of fourth- and fifth-grade African American students in the Southwest United States. Social development theory provided the framework for the study. Survey data were collected from 43 students and 43 parents using the Parental Involvement Scale and the Children’s Academic Intrinsic Motivation Inventory. A t test, linear regression, and multiple regression were used to analyze the data. Findings indicated no significant difference between how parents and students perceived parental involvement …

Understanding The Young Adult African American Male's Perceptions Of Civic Engagement, Carl Lee Jackson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractCivic engagement and political involvement of the greater portion of the population of democratic societies are important to the maintenance of the quality of life of all members. Although 100% participation in these activities is rare, higher levels of involvement across all affected demographic groups will support a more equitable political environment in urban communities. In the midwestern metropolitan community that is the focus of this study, young adult African American males were found to participate in all forms of civic engagement at lower rates than any other demographic group. Using a critical race theory foundation, the purpose of the …

The Executive Director Experiences Of African American Women In Mainstream Nonprofit Performing Arts Organizations, Davida S. Gobin

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

African American women are presently underrepresented in mainstream nonprofit performing arts organizations (PAOs) throughout the United States. Despite this inequality, a small number of African American women have overcome the odds and have productively earned senior leadership roles as executive directors in mainstream nonprofit PAOs. Using the conceptual frameworks of intersectionality and critical race feminism, the purpose of this study was to explore the shared lived experiences of African American women in executive director positions and the impact of race and gender on their leadership development and training for advancement in a mainstream nonprofit PAO. Four research questions explored the …

An Integrated Exploration Of The Contextual, Relational, And Individual Factors That Impact High School Completion Among African Americans, Lesley B. Winchester

Theses and Dissertations

African American students are consistently reported as having among the lowest high school graduation rates when compared to other races (U.S. Department of Education, 2018). While many studies have sought to explore the potential risks of high school dropout, the intention of this study is to examine the factors that support the exemplary resilience of those students who do complete high school. The present study adopts the framework of García Coll et al.’s, (1996) integrative model of developmental competencies in minority children, as it seeks to identity whether and how contextual (spiritual, educational, cultural); relational (caregiver psychological and physical …

Comorbidity In Context: Identifying Patterns Of Depressive And Anxiety Symptoms In African American Early Adolescents, Kathryn Behrhorst

Theses and Dissertations

Depression and anxiety during adolescence includes symptoms of irritability, sleeplessness, feelings of guilt or worthlessness, worry, avoidance, and/or restlessness. Anxiety and depressive symptoms are often comorbid and are associated with impairments across academic, social, and emotional areas of functioning. No studies to date have examined patterns of depressive and anxiety symptoms together for African American adolescents using person-centered analyses. The current study examined patterns of symptoms and domains of anxiety and depression during early adolescence using latent profile analyses (LPA). A sample of 196 African American early adolescents in grades six through eight (M_age = 12.6; 50% female) were …

“In My Feelings”: Millennial African Americans’ Perception, Understanding, And Experience Of Healthy Romantic Relationships, Chelsea-Alexis Jackson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

The purpose of this research is to assess how millennials experience romantic relationships since they are at the prime age and technological advancement of dating. How African American partners in particular, develop concepts of healthy romantic relationships before or negating to say, “I Do”, is still an underexplored area. Using semi-structured interviews, ten respondents who self-identify as predominately dating a different sex, provided narratives exploring the impacts of gendered racialized inequalities. Feelings of having a healthy self, increased discussion about relationship flexibility, and the negotiation of heteronormative gender performances and expectations were overarching themes that emerged from these narratives. My …

Credit The Parents? The Impact Of Racial Socialization On African American Students’ Stress-Related Coping And College Adjustment, Briana Bouldin

Theses and Dissertations

Many new stressors emerge in college and have a significant impact on college adjustment. However, little is known about common stressors, their causes, and impact on college adjustment for students attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). This project investigated the extent to which different college stressors impact sleep-related college adjustment, and whether racial socialization and emotion regulation strategies serve as coping strategies that moderate this relationship for HBCU students. The theoretical framework for the study was an adapted version of the Integrative Conceptual Model of Adaptive Socialization (ICMAS; Dunbar et al., 2017). Data were collected via an online survey …

Dating Violence Victimization And Posttraumatic Stress Outcomes Among Urban Adolescents: The Moderating And Mediating Role Of Positive Outlook, Carine Leslie

Theses and Dissertations

Adolescent dating violence occurs far too frequently in early adolescence and is related to adverse mental health outcomes, including posttraumatic stress symptoms. One focus within this literature has been to determine and better understand how protective processes may function in influencing relations between risk factors and dating violence victimization. A protective factor that has not been explored in the dating literature is positive outlook. The current short-term longitudinal study investigated whether dating violence victimization at Time 1 predicted posttraumatic stress symptoms at Time 2 among African American middle school students and examine whether positive outlook moderated or mediated this relation. …

Mothering On Maple Avenue: An Exploration Of African American Women’S Agency In Nineteenth Century Germantown, New York, Cheyenne R. Cutter

Senior Projects Spring 2020

National discourse on womanhood and mothering in nineteenth century America positioned these fields of women’s practices as sites of privilege for middle-class Anglo-American women, and as inaccessible to their African American contemporaries. After gaining their nominal freedom through New York’s manumission of enslaved individual around 1830, African American families had to confront their new reality to find ways to articulate their position within American society. How then, did the African American women of the Persons family, who occupied the Maple Avenue Parsonage in Germantown, New York during the nineteenth century, confront this new reality? What position within society did they …

“Dialogical Offense:” A Postcolonial Womanist Deconstruction Of The Colonial Experience Of African American Women Through U.S. Institutional Apparatus Known As Criminal Justice Policy, April Michelle Woodson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Black female experience in the United States is a colonized existence. This project’s analysis is specific to the North American U.S. geographic space and is not a diasporic project. Black women suffered from the greatest increase in the percentage of inmates incarcerated for drug offenses in the 1980’s and 1990’s which is the period of criminal justice policy formation and implementation on which this project is focused.

This project is uniquely situated in the overlap between womanist ethics and postcolonial feminist imagination and extends scholarship in both discourses by showing that there is an interwoven line between the colonial-to-contemporary …

Black Minds Matter: A Phenomenological Inquiry Examining The Prevalence Of Racial Trauma Among Black Doctoral Students, Jazmyne Markeeva Peters

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Systemic and institutionalized racism is endemic to life in the United States and contributes to the daily marginalization of Black people. While the negative psychological and physiological effects of racism have been well-documented, the notion that racism can be experienced as a trauma is a newer theory. Racial trauma has been understudied and underappreciated, though it is a theory that clinicians should incorporate when working with Black clients and other clients of color. Exploring the ways in which Black doctoral students attending a predominantly White institution (PWI) have experienced racism is an essential contribution to the existing racial trauma literature. …

An Analysis Of The Representation Of Black Men In Modern U.S. Television Commercials., Jackson Borman

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Throughout the history of media, minority groups have been on the losing end of representation, with racist, stereotypical portrayals, or in many cases, no representation at all. This study analyzes the current representation of black men in modern television commercials. To answer the research questions posed about how black men are represented in commercials, a content analysis was conducted. A systematic sample of television commercials was taken from an online directory of television commercials, and the sample (N = 117) was analyzed using a coding instrument to determine the level of involvement and characterizations of the black male characters featured …

More Than Just A Rapper: Mainstream And Alternative Media’S Depiction Of Nipsey Hussle, Jonathan Hazlewood

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Mainstream and alternative media depict individuals differently from one another. In stories covering African American rappers and homicide victims, mainstream and alternative stories use images, phrases, and people to portray certain ideas to their audience. In terms of mainstream news outlets, stories associate criminality onto African American homicide victims and rappers through labeling them as brutes, focusing on the crimes they commit, and highlighting criminal associations (Aquil, 2018; Cochran, 2015; Dukes & Gaither 2018; Wright & Washington, 2019). While alternative outlets have offered sympathetic and well-rounded representations that depict the life, personal accomplishments, and good deeds of an African American …

The Role Of Racial Discrimination On Parental Emotion And Racial Socialization, Tyia K. Wilson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This study was the first to examine whether African American parents’ past experiences with racism and discrimination influence parents’ emotional and racial socialization practices. Additionally, this study investigated whether parental beliefs about their child’s positive and negative emotions mediated the relationship between racial discrimination and emotion socialization behaviors. Hypotheses were tested in a sample of 406 African American parents recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Using structural equation models, the study found significant association between racial discrimination and parents’ racial and emotion socialization behaviors. Furthermore, significant meditation effects were found such that racial discrimination was associated with emotional beliefs which …