Digital Commons Network^™

An Intersectional Examination Of The Portrayal Of Native American Women In Wisconsin Museum Exhibits, Erica Rodenbeck

Theses and Dissertations

This project examines how White curators at four museums in Wisconsin portray Native American women based on a number of institutional and individual curatorial choices. Intersectional Theory is used to explore how museums and museum professionals navigate questions of representation of a traditionally marginalized group. It places specific emphasis on the relationship between Community Curation and Intersectional Theory and explores whether or not the involvement of Native groups noticeably impacts representation of Native American women.

The study examines the exhibits of four museums: The Abel Public Museum, The New Canton College of Anthropology, The Pineville Public Museum, and The Wisconsin …

Does A Criminal Justice Degree Produce Law Enforcement Officers?, Bryan Keith Murray

Theses and Dissertations

Police departments are being asked to diversify their ranks in a job field dominated by White males. Hispanics are predicted to be the majority-minority by 2043, few studies were conducted to explore whether Hispanic students majoring in criminal justice will pursue a career in law enforcement agencies upon graduation. Therefore, it is necessary and important to investigate the willingness of Hispanic students perusing a career in law enforcement agencies and what kind of factors behind this pursuit. This research anonymously surveyed 203 students currently enrolled in a four-year Hispanic university. Gender and the liberalizing effect served as the independent variables. …

Clashing Ideals Of Citizenship: Norms Of Inclusion And The Middle East, David J. Wolover

Theses and Dissertations

Modern conceptions of citizenship are in a state of flux, and, as such, so are our ideas about belonging. Ascriptive norms of membership based on the location of one’s birth—jus soli—or familial lineage—jus sanguinis—have provided the groundwork for membership where being designated a “citizen” can provide significant legal, economic, and social advantages over those outside the status. Naturalization, dual citizenships, and citizenship-by-investment programs (CIPs) have made citizenship more inclusive, less tied to a specific group, and more responsive to the needs of the individual. Further, instead of a citizen’s rights stopping at the border of the nation-state, liberal citizenship norms …

"Speak Up!" An Examination Of The Language Abilities Of Children Displaying Various Forms Of Social Withdrawal And Aggression, Brandon Neil Clifford

Theses and Dissertations

Language serves as a mechanism through which children are able to interact and communicate with their others. Thus, when children do not produce language at a typical pace, there may be cause for concern. The primary purpose of the current study was to examine the language abilities of children displaying various forms of social withdrawal and children engaging in subtypes of aggression. Participants came from the Brigham Young University Child Laboratory (N = 141; Mage = 4.57; 53% female) and were observed and teachers and parents completed reports on children's behaviors and demographics. Results revealed reticent and solitary-passive children to …

Association Between Latent Toxoplasma Gondii Infection And Alzheimer's Disease, Cynthia Elizabeth Wyman

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Many studies have found an association between Toxoplasma gondii seropositivity and behavioral and cognitive changes in animal models and in humans. In addition, early findings have suggested an association between T. gondii seropositivity and Alzheimer's disease (AD). We sought to determine whether there is an association between T. gondii seropositivity and AD as well as cognitive functioning (including memory, working memory, processing speed, language functioning, executive functioning) in a large, well-characterized sample of subjects with AD and matched controls without dementia. Method: Using ELISA assays, we determined anti-T. gondii IgG antibody titers in 114 control subjects and in 105 …

Moving Toward And Away From Others: A Person-Centered Analysis Of Social Orientations In Emerging Adulthood, Nathan A. Jorgensen

Theses and Dissertations

Emerging adulthood is a time rife with transitions, and is thus an important time period to study the various ways in which people both connect with and move away from others, or how they are socially oriented. Previous research has suggested a number of factors that contribute to social orientations, including social motivations, the self in relation to others, other-directed emotions and cognitions, and actual social behaviors. The current study examined what types of social orientations exist and how they relate to indices of relational and individual well-being in a sample of US emerging adults (N = 787). Using latent …

"Speak Up!" An Examination Of The Language Abilities Of Children Displaying Various Forms Of Social Withdrawal And Aggression, Brandon Neil Clifford

Theses and Dissertations

Language serves as a mechanism through which children are able to interact and communicate with their others. Thus, when children do not produce language at a typical pace, there may be cause for concern. The primary purpose of the current study was to examine the language abilities of children displaying various forms of social withdrawal and children engaging in subtypes of aggression. Participants came from the Brigham Young University Child Laboratory (N = 141; Mage = 4.57; 53% female) and were observed and teachers and parents completed reports on children's behaviors and demographics. Results revealed reticent and solitary-passive children …

Association Between Latent Toxoplasma Gondii Infection And Alzheimer's Disease, Cynthia Elizabeth Wyman

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: Many studies have found an association between Toxoplasma gondii seropositivity and behavioral and cognitive changes in animal models and in humans. In addition, early findings have suggested an association between T. gondii seropositivity and Alzheimer's disease (AD). We sought to determine whether there is an association between T. gondii seropositivity and AD as well as cognitive functioning (including memory, working memory, processing speed, language functioning, executive functioning) in a large, well-characterized sample of subjects with AD and matched controls without dementia. Method: Using ELISA assays, we determined anti-T. gondii IgG antibody titers in 114 control subjects and in …

Moving Toward And Away From Others: A Person-Centered Analysis Of Social Orientations In Emerging Adulthood, Nathan A. Jorgensen

Theses and Dissertations

Emerging adulthood is a time rife with transitions, and is thus an important time period to study the various ways in which people both connect with and move away from others, or how they are socially oriented. Previous research has suggested a number of factors that contribute to social orientations, including social motivations, the self in relation to others, other-directed emotions and cognitions, and actual social behaviors. The current study examined what types of social orientations exist and how they relate to indices of relational and individual well-being in a sample of US emerging adults (N = 787). Using latent …

An Exploratory Study Of Formal And Informal Help-Seeking Behavior Among Married Individuals Who Are Thinking About Divorce, David Michael Simpson

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research on marital help-seeking has often focused on formal approaches such as marital therapy or relationship education and there is a greater need to understand married individual's informal help-seeking behaviors. This study explores both formal and informal help-seeking behavior using a national sample of 745 participants who have thought about divorce within the past 6-months. Findings indicate these participants more often engaged in informal help-seeking approaches to repair their marriage. Of those sampled, only 25% engaged in marital therapy together and only 9% engaged in a marriage strengthening class while over 30% read a relationship themed self-help book or …

Harriet Jacobs And Toni Morrison: A Tradition Of Narrative Resistance, Allyson L. Molloy

Theses and Dissertations

This article considers historical constructions of power and the narrative as a mode of resistance. Working in different centuries, under extremely disparate circumstances, Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Toni Morrison in her novel The Bluest Eye, utilize specific narrative strategies to challenge and question institutionalized power which is evidenced through their deliberate employment of narrative strategies not only to challenge the institution of slavery or the hegemonic ideal, but also to question the racial and gender oppression systemic to those institutions of power.

Enacting The Semantic Web: Ontological Orderings, Negotiated Standards, And Human-Machine Translations, Matthew Mccarthy

Theses and Dissertations

Artificial intelligence (AI) that is based upon semantic search has become one of the dominant means for accessing information in recent years. This is particularly the case in mobile contexts, as search based AI are embedded in each of the major mobile operating systems. The implications are such that information is becoming less a matter of choosing between different sets of results, and more of a presentation of a single answer, limiting both the availability of, and exposure to, alternate sources of information. Thus, it is essential to understand how that information comes to be structured and how deterministic systems …

"Don't Be Such A Girl, I'M Only Joking!" Post-Alternative Comedy, British Panel Shows, And Masculine Spaces, Lindsay Anne Weber

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the gender disparity in British panel shows. In February 2014 the BBC’s Director of Television enforced a quota stating panel shows needed to include one woman per episode. This quota did not fully address the ways in which the gender imbalance was created. This thesis argues that the gender imbalance stems from post-feminist sensibilities and masculine-centric trends in British comedy and culture. This work demonstrates this through a discourse analysis of the opinions expressed about panel shows by the British popular press and media personalities from 2002 to 2017. The discourse analysis exposes patterns where British producers …

The Feasibility Of Assessing Parent And Child Letter Knowledge In At-Rrisk Families Within A Museum Enrichment Setting, Jeny Sara Thomas

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

THE FEASIBILITY OF ASSESSING PARENT AND CHILD LETTER KNOWLEDGE IN AT-RISK FAMILIES WITHIN A MUSEUM ENRICHMENT SETTING

by

Jeny Sara Thomas

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2017

Under the Supervision of Professor John Heilmann

Purpose. This study addressed alphabet knowledge with children/parents who may be at-risk using a museum environment. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the parent- and child-level assessments developed were appropriate to measure letter knowledge and children’s home literacy environment (HLE) from at-risk families and implement a museum enrichment program for the children/parents within a museum experience.

Methods. Fourteen parent-child dyads from the Family …

Three Essays On Human Capital And Wages Of Refugees And Other Immigrants In The U.S., Abdihafit Shaeye

Theses and Dissertations

Human capital is an important mechanism that influences both the migration decisions of immigrants and the rate at which immigrants assimilate in the host country. Returns to human capital could be correlated with difficult-to-observe factors such as self-selection, and legal status, and these unobservables can affect the economic assimilation of immigrants into the host country differently. The objective of this dissertation is to investigate the returns to human capital for refugees and other immigrants during the first two decades after they come to the U.S. Refugees are a subset of immigrants who have different characteristics and face different constraints than …

Physical Environment And Crime In Milwaukee Neighborhoods, Jenna Nitkowski

Theses and Dissertations

Neighborhood physical condition and crime is a topic that has been heavily debated since Wilson and Kelling’s (1982) famous broken windows theory article. While previous research has identified a positive link between disorder, certain land uses, and crime, the direction and magnitude of the effect may vary depending on neighborhood characteristics such as socioeconomic status (Teh, 2008; Greenberg et al., 1982) or ability of residents to exert informal social control (Gault & Silver, 2008; Sampson & Raudenbush, 1999). The following study uses data from Milwaukee census tracts (N=210) and maximum likelihood estimation to test the effect of neighborhood physical condition …

The Role Of The Therapeutic Alliance On The Successful Outcome Of Transfers In Marriage And Family Therapy Cases, Melanie Louise Cox

Theses and Dissertations

The transfer of cases is common in the practice of Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT). This is especially true in training clinics, where student interns regularly graduate and transfer their cases to students still in the program. Although some research has examined the effect of transferring cases of individual psychotherapy on the success of therapy outcome, little research has examined transfer cases in MFT settings. The transfer process can be conceptualized as a rupture in the therapeutic alliance. From this perspective, a strong therapeutic alliance may mitigate the negative impact of the rupture. Consequently, it was hypothesized that a strong …

When To Wed? A Closer Examination Of The Association Between Age Of Marriage And Marital Quality, Kaylee Shron Corbridge

Theses and Dissertations

With the rising age of marriage and previous research failing to address a more detailed look at more descriptive measures of satisfaction, the current study examined the association between age of first marriage and marital stability, satisfaction, sexual satisfaction and frequency, effective communication, conflict, and problem areas. Results from a sample of 470 participants who completed the RELATE Questionnaire indicated that across the board, those who married from ages 20-24 had better marital outcomes than those who delayed marriage until their thirties and beyond. These results fit a possible theory of explanation that when it comes to age of marriage, …

Evaluating A Chinese Adult Attachment Questionnaire Using A Taiwanese Sample, Hsin-Yao Chiu

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers have taken the adult attachment instruments established in the western countries into other cultural settings. Taiwan is one of the many countries to which cross-cultural adult attachment research has been extended to, and where translated attachment survey instruments were applied. The problem with these translated measurements in Taiwan, however, is that the commonly-used instruments were not peer-reviewed, and often no reliability tests were even done, and the cultural appropriateness of these translated measurements was not evaluated. The usage and results of these instruments may therefore be questionable. The purpose of this current study is to present a Mandarin Chinese …

Chiapa De Corzo Mound 3 Revisited: Burials, Caches, And Architecture, Michaela Ann Ostler

Theses and Dissertations

Chiapa de Corzo Mound 3 was excavated by Tim Tucker under the direction of the New World Archaeological Foundation in July 1965. Mound 3 is located in the ritual center of Chiapa de Corzo, the southwest quadrant. Significant Preclassic and Protoclassic architecture, burials, and caches were discovered there but were never fully analyzed or published. A complete analysis of this mound is necessary to better understand the role of Chiapa de Corzo as a whole and as a regional power. This thesis completes the analysis and accomplishes the following goals: (1) completes the ceramic analysis and classification started by Tucker, …

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall: An Experimental Study Examining The Relationship Between Music Lyrics And Body Satisfaction In Emerging Adult Women, Emilie Jill Davis

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past decade, there has been an increase in academic research on media and its influences on body satisfaction. To date, the majority of body image literature focuses on low body satisfaction. While low body satisfaction leads to negative outcomes, high body satisfaction leads to a host of positive outcomes. Further, in a non-academic domain, it would seem that even some media icons are starting to take part in the effort to try to promote positive appearance messages. Singers like Christina Aguilera, Colbie Caillat, and Alessia Cara have begun writing songs like Beautiful, Try, and Scars To …

Examining The Effect Of Friends' Drug Treatment On One's Drug Use: Investigating Positive Peer Influence In The National Longitudinal Study Of Adolescent To Adult Health, Dallin C. Everett

Theses and Dissertations

Peer influence is a well-studied and established phenomenon in the social sciences with much research focusing on peers influencing one another in negative ways. However, peers have also been shown to provide a positive influence. Research on substance treatment programs indicates that one's social network can influence one to enter treatment as well as help maintain abstinence following the completion of the program. However, little is known about the influence that peer's drug treatment can have on the substance levels of an individual. I use the peer nomination data and Waves 1 and 2 of the National Longitudinal Study of …

Does Marijuana Decriminalization Make The Roads More Dangerous?, Daehyeon Kim

Theses and Dissertations

As the movement to decriminalize marijuana has gained more support throughout the United States, as of early 2017, 21 states have decriminalized the possession of a small amount of marijuana for personal recreational use, and more states are expected to decriminalize marijuana (GOVERNING 2017). Despite this strong move toward decriminalizing marijuana, however, the consequences of implementing such a policy are still very much unknown. One of the concerns regarding this movement to decriminalize marijuana is its potential impact on road safety (Schrader 2015; Roberts 2017; Halsey 2015). Although there are a few studies that have examined the association between marijuana …

Early Trauma Exposure And Marijuana Use As Well As Dependence From Adolescence To Emerging Adulthood, Ian Andru Marsee

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the impact of two types of trauma exposure, mistreatment by an adult as a child and exposure to stressful life events as an adolescent, and their impact on marijuana use as an adolescent and emerging adult and marijuana dependence as an adult. This study also investigates the mediating role of depressive symptoms on the relationship between trauma exposure and marijuana use and dependence. The AddHealth dataset, a nationally representative and longitudinal dataset, was used to assess these relationships. Results show that both types of trauma predict marijuana use and dependence. Results also show that there are indirect …

Differences In German Youth Gender Ideologies: The Relationship Between Family Structure And Doing Gender, Alyssa Jane Alexander

Theses and Dissertations

Gender ideologies, which are constantly changing, are important for many outcomes in life, but the majority of gender ideology research focuses mainly on adults. Past research studying adult gender ideologies finds that adults' current relationship status affects their ideologies. For instance, divorced adults hold egalitarian ideologies more than stable married adults do (Davis, Greenstein and Marks 2007). Researchers attribute this finding to the types of gender behaviors adults perform with their partner or alone. What about youth? Understanding how these ideologies develop earlier in life is important, yet research rarely focuses on youth gender ideologies or their development. My research …

Family Environments And Children's Cognitive Skills: Accounting For Heritable Influences Through Comparing Adopted And Biological Children, Shelby Mae Mcneill

Theses and Dissertations

Utilizing ECLS-K:2011 data, this study compares adopted and biological children to account for the role of heritable characteristics in explaining the relationship between family environments and children's cognitive skills. I find that cognitive skills do not differ across adopted and biological children after adjusting for the systematic differences between them. I also find that the relationship between family environment and children's cognitive skills does not differ across adopted and biological children. Taken together, these results suggest that the relationship between family environment and children's cognitive skills is not spurious.

Bidirectional Relations Between Prosocial Behavior And Self-Regulation Across Adolescence, Madison Kate Memmott

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to take a multidimensional perspective to prosocial behavior and self-regulation by analyzing longitudinal, bidirectional relations between prosocial behavior toward strangers, friends, and family members and behavioral, cognitive, and emotional dimensions of self-regulation across adolescence. Participants included reports from 500 adolescents (age Time 1 = 12, Time 2 = 14, Time 3 = 16, Time 4 = 18; 52% female, 77% European American) taking part in the Flourishing Families Project. Nine cross-lagged panel models were conducted analyzing longitudinal associations between each target of prosocial behavior and each dimension of self-regulation. Results revealed that in early …

For The Love Of A Game: The Effects Of Pathological Video Game Use On Romantic Relationship Satisfaction, Hailey Elizabeth Holmgren

Theses and Dissertations

Media use may have the potential to influence romantic relationships, depending on the context of media use. For example, pathological media use, which includes symptoms of addiction such as relapse, withdrawal, and conflict with family and friends over media use, may be particularly damaging to romantic relationships. Additionally, research shows that pathological video game use can negatively influence factors of mental health, including depression. The current study includes 183 heterosexual couples from the Eastern United States. Both members of each couple completed online surveys answering questions regarding pathological media use, depression, and relationship satisfaction. Results showed that male pathological video …

Which Activities Count? Gender And Socioeconomic Differences In The Conceptualization Of Physical Activity: The Role Of Leisure, Housework And Dependent Care, And Paid Work, Rachel N. Cusatis

Theses and Dissertations

Survey research on the overall health and physical activity of the United States has relied on self-reports from questions that ask about leisure-only activity. Leisure activity patterns are known to be plagued by social forces that inhibit access and opportunity for women, compared to men, and for lower-socioeconomic individuals, compared to higher-socioeconomic individuals, making the further unpacking of leisure and other time use patterns imperative. To address this, the objective of this dissertation is to assess the different pathways individuals take to engage in health-benefiting physical activity and investigate the reliability and validity of physical activity survey questions as they …

Hopelessness And Youth Violent Behavior: A Longitudinal Study, Janie Demetropoulos

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how hopelessness impacts youth engagement in violent behavior over time. The data are from waves I and II of The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Poisson regression was used to analyze contributors to violence in just wave I, and then again across time in wave II using explanatory and control variables from wave I. Results indicate that hopelessness is positively associated with violent behavior. Furthermore, while hopelessness and most of the other explanatory variables predicted violent behavior in wave I, almost all the variables became non-significant or negative except hopelessness and a measure of …