Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring And Understanding The Culture Of Young Adults Who Vape: A Focused Ethnography, Beth Tremblay

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Vaping, the act of inhaling an aerosolized liquid, is associated with health risks. The 18- to 25-year-old age group has the highest rate of vaping among adults. Understanding culturally held values, beliefs, and experiences associated with the behavior of vaping in young adults may uncover the social mechanisms that underpin vaping initiation and influence continued use. The purpose of this study was to explore and understand the cultural values and beliefs about vaping among young adults. Method: The method used for this study was a focused ethnography. Young adults who currently vape nicotine (N=24) were recruited via snowball method …

The Cultural Worldview Of Women Trafficked For Sex In The U.S: An Ethnonursing Study Exploring Health And Well-Being Beliefs, Values And Practices From An Emic Perspective, Christine Lepianka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Women who have been trafficked for sex in the United State report that the health care they receive is not consistently helpful or tailored to their unique needs. The purpose and domain of inquiry (DOI) for this study was to discover, understand, and describe health and well-being beliefs, values, and practices of U.S. born women who have been trafficked for sex in the United States, in order to provide culturally congruent nursing care. Method: Leininger’s Culture Care Theory (CCT), ethnonursing research method (ERM), and enablers guided the researcher as she explored the DOI. Interviews were conducted with 11 key …

Cultural Aspects Of End Of Life Advance Care Planning For African Americans: An Ethnonursing Study, John Collins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Advance directive completion rates among the general population are low. Studies report even lower completion rates among African Americans are impacted by demographic variables, cultural distinctives related to patient autonomy, mistrust of the healthcare system, low health literacy, strong spiritual beliefs, desire for aggressive interventions, importance of family-communal decision making, and presence of comorbidities. End of Life (EOL) advance care planning (ACP) promotes patient and family centered care. The purpose of this study was to identify culturally based meanings, expressions, and traditions of EOL ACP and decision making among African Americans, to better understand and provide culturally congruent nursing …

The Utility Of A Theoretical Framework Of A Culture Of Leadership, James E. Wortman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to determine the utility of a Culture of Leadership Framework for both evaluating and contributing to the formation of a dynamic school culture that infuses leadership up, down, and throughout the membership of the school learning community with students as a central figure. The Culture of Leadership Framework emerged from an extensive review of the literature and includes four distinct dimensions (indicators) that become critical to analyzing the data: Leadership Orientation, Leveraging Leadership, Leadership for Learning, and Leadership Growth. The researcher used a general interpretive process of close reading to develop themes from extant …

Truth Telling Beyond Borders: An African Perspective, John Twinomujuni

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation focuses on answering the question of how can patient’s autonomy, privacy and liberty be safeguarded especially within cultures that do not regard them as primordial principles? In some communities, truth-telling is one of the moral principles unquestioningly inherited from the West. The dissertation will try to compare African and Western perspectives. The African perspective has been chosen to explore through this search hoping that such venture would help in showing how the issue of truth-telling may be approached from such perspective. For instance in the African communalism based on the cardinal point that “I am because we are; …

A Psychometric Examination Of Prosocial Behavior Across Cultural Contexts, Thomas Knight

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Acts of aggression and violence within the school setting have compelled researchers and professionals to develop and implement interventions designed to cultivate student safety. Recently, the focus of these interventions has been on prosocial behaviors, which are broadly defined as acts intended to benefit others above oneself and can include actions such as helping and cooperating (Batson & Powell, 2003). From a theoretical perspective, previous researchers (Piaget, 1932; Kohlberg, 1984) have generally postulated that moral reasoning and its corollaries (e.g., prosocial behavior) generally develop according to a prescribed trajectory. Yet, additional research in this area has supported the notion that …

The Gamer Culture: An Exploration Of Gamer Archetypes And Their Relationship With Coping Strengths, Stephen Frank Kuniak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between gamer personality types, preferred coping strategies, and levels of resiliency as a means of beginning to understand the psychological factors making up the gamer culture. This study used a demographic questionnaire, the BrainHex Gamer Personality Test, the Coping Strategies Inventory Short Form, and the ER-89 Ego Resiliency Scale to assess participants. Chi Square analyses were used to explore gamer personality types relationship with coping strategies, a Median Test was used to compare personality types to resiliency levels, and Multiple Regressions were used to explore whether a person's coping style …

University Education In A Postmodern Era: Building A Narrative Ethic Of Civil Communication In The Classroom, Jill Dishart Leontiadis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project responds to the question: How can educators quell communicative classroom incivilities (CI) that are currently harming teaching and learning? Sources of CI in a postmodern United States university classroom involve: student entitlement, lack of institutional support for a growing contingent faculty, and incongruent values about appropriate classroom communication. Unlike preceding historical time periods that maintained a shared communicative ethic stemming from antiquity to modernity, postmodernity presents an unprecedented challenge to teaching and learning where there can be no assumed shared ethic of appropriate communicative classroom communication. Postmodernity as an age of coexisting and contentious narratives, this project argues …

The Contribution Of African Traditional Medicine For A Model Of Relational Autonomy In Informed Consent, Peter Ikechukwu Osuji

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Western liberal approach to informed consent defines autonomy as an independent choice or decision made by an individual as the final authority in medical decision-making. This approach is so dominant that one can fail to see the merits of other traditional and cultural perspectives. In this dissertation, another approach to informed consent is considered -that of communal culture of Africa, a process used in African traditional medicine (ATM) wherein patients make medical decisions and give consent in consultation with the members of their community and the ATM doctor. Often, but not necessarily, the final consent rests on the consensus …

Nurse Educators' Perceptions About The Culture Of Nursing And Their Role In Bringing Students Into That Culture: A Focused Ethnography, Susan Maria Strouse

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to discover nurse educators' perceptions about the culture of nursing and how they bring students into that culture.

Background: Although the extant literature addresses the process of socialization to the profession, literature exploring socialization as enculturation is scant. Nurse educators' perspectives on the culture of nursing needed further exploration, as their voice on this topic is relatively silent and they provide the first formal enculturation to the profession. Viewing nursing as a professional culture may more effectively enable faculty to clarify and explicate for students the values, behaviors, symbols, and beliefs inherent in …

Cultural Expressions, Meanings, Beliefs, And Practices Of Mexican American Women During The Postpartum Period: An Ethnonursing Study, Valera Hascup

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this ethnonursing study was to discover, understand, describe, and explicate the emic expressions, meanings, beliefs, practices, and experiences of postpartum Mexican American women living in a Passaic, New Jersey, community and to gain an understanding of any phenomena in the postpartum period. Leininger's culture care diversity and universality theory was utilized as the undergirding framework for this study. Eight key and 15 general informants participated in this study. The ethnodemographic interview guide, a qualitative enabler, was used to assist with the collection and analysis of data. NVivo 8.0, a qualitative software program, was used to assist with …

Food And Social Life In Puglia: A Comparison Family Food Worlds In Northern And Southern Italy, Jennifer Lawer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the role of food in northern and southern Italian culture. My goal is to point out the cultural differences between northern and southern Italy through the lens of food. This thesis also explains the geographical, historical and economic factors that have shaped modern Italian family food worlds. Finally, the research examines the effect of European Union food policy in Italy. It specifically focuses on whether or not the traditions of food production and consumption habits in northern and southern Italy are altered by European Union policies.

Aesthetics In The Ecotheology Of Sallie Mcfague: A Critique And A Proposal For A Theological Aesthetics Of Nature, Mary-Paula Cancienne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the ecological theology of Sallie McFague, who, as part of her work, employs the use of aesthetics. This study recognizes her contribution and then seeks to build upon it.
In aim of this goal, a limited history of aesthetics in the Western tradition is surveyed and attention is given to three significant contemporary scholars in the field of aesthetics and nature/environment (Emily Brady, Allen Carlson, and Arnold Berleant). While this work intended to propose the rudiments of a Theological Aesthetics of Nature, we find that nature and culture are so intertwined that what is initially called …

Culture Care Beliefs, Meanings And Practices Related To Health And Well-Being Of South Sudanese "Lost Boy And Lost Girl" Refugees, Margaret Bowles

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this ethnonursing study was to describe, analyze and interpret the culture care beliefs, meanings and practices related to health and well-being of South Sudanese "Lost Boy and Lost Girls" following resettlement in the United States. Leininger's theory of culture care diversity and universality and the ethnonursing method provided the organizing framework for studying the domain of inquiry. Interviews were conducted with nineteen general informants and ten key informants, all who lived in the Midwest United States. Extensive analysis of digitally recorded interviews together with the researcher's participant observations and field notes revealed nine data categories and five …

Smoke And Mirrors: A Cultural-Psychological Analysis Of Tobacco Use, Michael Melczak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This theoretical dissertation explores tobacco use from the perspectives of social constructivism and phenomenological depth psychology. In Part I, tobacco use is described as a cultural artifact, and transformations in tobacco use are traced through three different cultural contexts or "worlds": the indigenous or aboriginal worldview, the European and American worldview of the 17th through mid-19th centuries, and the modern American worldview (or "modernity"). In each of these worldviews, the cultural context informed and influenced (or reflected and reproduced) understandings of tobacco use. One notices the transformation of tobacco use, for example, from a god to a commodity and from …

Culture Care Meanings, Beliefs And Practices Of Rural Dominicans In A Rural Village Of The Dominican Republic: An Ethnonursing Study Conceptualized Within The Culture Care Theory, Gretchen Schumacher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this ethnonursing study was to discover, describe and analyze the meanings, beliefs and practices of care for Dominican people living in a rural village of the Dominican Republic. Leininger's Culture Care Diversity and Universality Theory and ethnonursing method was utilized as an organizing framework for studying the domain of inquiry. Interviews were conducted with nineteen general informants and ten key informants, all of whom were rural Dominicans living in the village of Villegas 60 miles northwest of Santo Domingo. Exhaustive analysis of audio-taped interviews revealed eighteen categories and nine patterns from which three main themes emerged. The …

Growing Old On The Farm: An Ethnonursing Examination Of Aging And Health Within The Agrarian Rural Subculture, Diane Witt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this Ethnonursing study was to discover and explore the elder agrarian rural subculture in regard to well-being, health beliefs, values and practices. In depth interviews utilizing a semi-structured interview guide were carried out with eleven key and 23 general informants in a rural county in south-central Minnesota. A snowball method was utilized to recruit informants. Concurrent analysis was carried out utilizing Leininger's phases of Ethnonursing analysis for qualitative data.

Data management and analysis was facilitated through the use of QSR NVivo software for qualitative data analysis version 6. Sixteen categories, ten patterns and three themes emerged from …

Learning To Be Free: The Print Media Of Cotonou, Benin, Stephen Urbanski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Benin, a West African republic of six million people, has had multiple influences shape its cultural and historical landscape, including the French colonization, a multiplicity of dictators, and a 17-year period of Marxism. During the early years of the colonization, the print media was particularly dissident, always advocating an end to the colonization, which greatly disrupted the regions core pan-African values. In 1990, the National Conference heralded a conversion to democracy as well as a boom in the number of privately owned newspapers.

This dissertation addresses at the concept of freedom and how it is defined from both a Western …