Digital Commons Network^™

Black-White, Black-Nonblack, And White-Nonwhite Residential Segregation In U.S. Metropolitan And Nonmetropolitan Areas, 1990-2010, Jed Raney Pressgrove

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this study is to examine racial residential segregation in U.S. metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas. The study uses 1990-2010 decennial census data to answer a broad theoretical question: is the historical black-white color line being replaced by a black-nonblack or white-nonwhite color line? The results show that blackwhite segregation is higher than black-nonblack and white-nonwhite segregation in metropolitan areas, nonmetropolitan areas, and the United States as a whole. A multivariate analysis reveals that population size tends to be associated with higher segregation in metropolitan areas and lower segregation in nonmetropolitan areas. As a control variable, diversity seems to …

Race, Social Disorganization And Delinquency, Alina Bazyler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities in crime has been an issue of debate. Some evidence, however, has shown that racial differences in offending are largely accounted for by economic disadvantage. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 4,290), the relationship between race and delinquency was examined looking at social disorganization factors. It was hypothesized that there would be racial and ethnic differences in delinquency and that these differences would be accounted for by social disorganization factors, specifically collective efficacy and economic disadvantage. The results show that compared to White adolescents Hispanic adolescents …

Racial Differences In Self-Efficacy Expectations For Exercise, Selena P. Smith

Honors Theses

This project examined the link between race and self-efficacy. Self-efficacy pertains to an individual’s confidence in ability to complete or engage in a particular task or activity (Bandura, 1986). Prior research shows that self-efficacy has a great influence on exercise initiation and adherence (Bandura, 1986; Dishman, 1982; Rodgers and Sullivan, 2001). Research also supports that Caucasians are more likely to participate in exercise than African Americans (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2000).

Participants included 51 females, 31 Caucasians and 20 African Americans, between the ages of 18 and 50 years old. The women were recruited from local fitness gyms, …

Occupying The Pedestal: Gender Issues In Ellen Gilchrist, Karon Reese

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Ellen Gilchrist's works shows the struggles of women living in a postmodern South. This dissertation explores Gilchrist's representations of southern women as they transition from the old South to modernity. Gilchrist's work depicts women who attempt to break off the pedestal of white Southern womanhood, but never quite do, often simultaneously disrupting and confirming traditional notions of a "good Southern lady." Gilchrist shows how women occupy the pedestal as a form of refuge and also as a form of protest. These are women who, as they navigate the transition to a new South, are reluctant to surrender the privilege of …

Who Supports Labor? The Intersection Of Race And Skill In Union Campaigns, Zachary Joseph Mckenney

Masters Theses

In the past half century, there has been an unprecedented decline in labor union membership, organizing ability, political effectiveness and strike activity in the United States. As a result, the ability of labor unions to influence the debate on labor standards and social reforms has experienced a significant decline. Using a mixed method approach, this research explores differences in attitudes and orientations towards labor unions across racial groups in the United States as well as organizational strategies and capacities of a labor union in a right-to-work state. Although African Americans and Latinos have been discriminated against at the hands of …

The Perspectives Of Asian Therapists On The Impacts Of Race And Ethnicity With Asian Clients And Non-Asian Clients Of Color, Andrea R. Yoshida

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This qualitative study explores the perspectives of Asian therapists on how issues of race and ethnicity impact their clinical work with Asian clients and other clients of color. Ten Asian therapists from varying educational and professional backgrounds were interviewed about how the elements of racial similarity, racial difference, ethnic similarity, and ethnic difference may have influence on the relationships between them and their clients. Findings from this study confirmed previous studies regarding the positive impacts of racial and ethnic match on the therapeutic relationship between Asian therapists and Asian clients. As a small number of previous studies had indicated, this …

How Do Mental Health Clincians Using Feedback Informed Treatment Methods Create A "Cultural Of Feedback" With Clients?, Alexander H. Tew

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This study was undertaken to explore how mental health clinicians using feedback informed treatment (FIT) interventions attempt to increase the likelihood of receiving genuine feedback from their clients. Furthermore, the study explores clinicians' perceptions about the ways in which interpersonal power dynamics, including race/ethnicity dynamics, influence the feedback process. An anonymous online survey was posted on two Internet forums for FIT practitioners. A final sample of thirty licensed mental health clinicians completed the mixed methods survey, answering five demographics questions (age, gender, race/ethnicity, years using FIT methods, and nationality) and three open-ended questions. The open-ended questions asked respondents to discuss …

Clinicians Behind The Curtain : Are White Smith Students Addressing Race And Racism, Why Or Why Not? If So, How?, Malcolm R. Pradia

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

The literature confirms the importance of providing cross-cultural education and the development of cross-cultural skills for trainees entering clinical practice. In recognition of this, Smith College School for Social Work has a written commitment to anti-racism and as part of this commitment the college has developed a curriculum that addresses race and racism in clinical practice and the social work profession. Given this commitment, this study surveyed twelve white Smith College School for Social Work students to understand if white Smith students were addressing race and racism with clients of color in clinical practice, why or why not, and if …

A Guest In Someone Else's House : The Construction Of Asian Americans As Foreigners, Deepa Ranganathan

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

Social workers, like many people, wrongly tend to think of Asian Americans as beings exempt from the problems of racism. The social work profession considers "race" to be a property inhering almost solely in African Americans. Meanwhile, the profession assigns the property of foreign "culture" primarily to Asian Americans. This thesis uses the work of Critical Race Theory (CRT) scholars to show that social workers, in presuming that Asian Americans are a class of people who are essentially foreign, are actually reproducing a form of exclusionist racism that Asian Americans have faced for generations. A partial solution to this problem …

An Exploratory Study On White Empathy And Cross-Racial Experiences In The Virtual World, Caitlyn I. Keckeissen

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This mixed-methods, exploratory study was conducted to investigate two areas of inquiry: (1) whether the experience of playing SecondLife™ as an avatar of color had an impact on White-identified Americans' beliefs and values about race and racism; and (2) what participants identified as relevant to their process of developing empathy for people of color and acknowledgment of racism. Seven self-identified White adult Americans completed pre- and post-experiment measures of colorblind and symbolic racism as well as 6 non-consecutive hours over the course of one month, and then participated in a qualitative interview to reflect on the process. The study investigator …

Racially Aware Supervision : Examining How White Mental Health Clinicians Address Cultural Competency With Their White Supervisors, Elizabeth Hammond

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This research examines how multicultural competency and racial difference are addressed in supervision between White mental health clinicians and their White supervisors in mental health settings that serve primarily clients of color. The researcher completed a qualitative case study analysis of five participants who were asked to discuss the content and nature of their supervision with their White supervisors. Three research questions served as the foundation to explore supervisors' and clinicians' attention to cultural competence in the supervisory relationship: (1) How are multicultural issues, race, and racism addressed in supervision? (2) How does attention to clinician-client cultural issues in supervision …

Azúcar Negra: (Re) Envisioning Race, Representation, And Resistance In The Afrofeminista Imaginary, Kiley Jeanelle Guyton Acosta

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

In this dissertation, I locate contemporary articulations of afrofeminismo in manifold modes of cultural production including literature, music, visual displays of the body, and digital media. As a point of departure, I examine the development of afrofeminismo in relation to colonial sexual violence in sugar-based economies to explain how colonial dynamics inflect ideologies of blanqueamiento/embranquecimento (racial whitening) and pseudo-scientific racial determinism. In this context, I address representations of the mujer negra (black woman) and the mulata (mulatto woman) in Caribbean and Brazilian cultural discourse. Specifically, I analyze how the discourses around, as well as by, these figures contribute(d) to the …

Beyond Stacking: An Exploration Of The Impact Of Background On Leadership Recruitment And Positional Segregation In Division-I Womens Basketball, Sonja Robinson

Health, Exercise, and Sports Sciences ETDs

Sports are often is seen as vehicles of social and career mobility, especially at the collegiate levels where full athletics scholarships grant students access to higher education. While sport, on the surface and at its best, espouses the values of equality and merit, studies examining under-representations of minority groups in key roles indicate that more work needs to be done on inclusiveness and equity. Leadership recruitment studies in sport traditionally evaluate the influence that playing positions have on career mobility (Grusky, 1963). Loy and Elvouge (1970) expanded upon that tradition to develop positional segregation (stacking') research, which explores the influence …

Health Safety-Net Crisis: A Case Study Of News Discourse, Cecilia F. Mitchell

Communication Theses

This study is the first to analyze news coverage of a hegemonic struggle over a crisis that threatened to close a Southern safety net hospital. Such closure could have left indigent, African American men and women without health care access. The study utilizes critical discourse analysis to focus on news portrayals of patients and the struggle over whether the hospital would continue to be governed by a majority-Black, public board of directors or a nonprofit, private board recommended by a majority-White civic group. Results indicate that newspaper coverage privileged the elite, White view, while stereotypically representing indigent, Black patients as …

Aiding Africans: West German Perceptions Of Race And Modernity In The 1960s, Lauren W. Nass

History Theses

During the 1960s, decolonization and the Cold War pushed many West Germans to concern themselves with aiding Africans. This aid came in the form of federally funded development aid or Entwicklungshilfe, student activism, and the continuation of missionary work. Utilizing print media, scholarly sources, as well as reports from missionaries and other aid workers, my thesis explores the discourses that surrounded aid work. These discourses reveal a number of ways West Germans conceived of race, modernity, and their role in the world. While acknowledging the multiplicity of views and contest over attitudes, I argue that in general aid to Africa …

A Qualitative Case Study On Teachers' Identities, Ideologies, And Commitment To Teach In Urban And Suburban Schools, Talonda Michelle Lipsey

Theses and Dissertations

Using narrative inquiry, this study employed a Critical Race Theory lens to examine the ways in which identity factors such as race, culture, socioeconomic status, and gender work in concession with teachers' ideologies, as demonstrated by their values, beliefs, and perceptions about race, to inform their teaching practices, experiences with students and families of color, and commitment to teach. The main question this research study sought to examine was: How do teachers' identities and ideologies, as demonstrated by their values, beliefs, and perceptions, influence their decisions to remain in or leave urban and suburban classrooms?

The study focused on the …

Vice In The Veil Of Justice: Embedding Race And Gender In Frontier Tourism, Daniel Richard Maher

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes how "frontier" discourses in Fort Smith, Arkansas simultaneously constitute mythological narratives that elide the deleterious effects of imperialism, racism, and sexism, while they operate as marketing schemes in the wager that they will attract cultural heritage tourists. It examines material exhibits and interpretive history programs at locations including the Fort Smith National Historic Site, Fort Smith Museum of History, Miss Laura's Visitor's Center, and the Clayton House; in texts such as the 1898 book by Samuel Harman whose title forever branded Fort Smith as Hell on the Border; in the subsequent branding and marketing derived from the …

Testing Orthodox Utilitarian And Extrajudical Determinants Of Incarceration In The U.S. At The State-Level, 1980-2005, Pavel V. Vasiliev

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project is a theory-driven secondary data analysis of state-level incarceration trends in the U.S. between 1980 and 2005. I replicate and advance Smith's (2004) study of the relationship between the socioeconomic, demographic, political, electoral, and criminal justice factors and incarceration rates at the state level. The purpose of this project is to determine the empirical validity of the major explanations of the incarceration trends in the U.S. I advance Smith's (2004) study using important novel elements. First, I extend the scrutinized historic period by a decade by compiling time-series data for 1980-2005. Second, I employ a more sophisticated analytic …

The Influences Of Race And Gender On The Leadership Of African American Female Principals Of Predominantly White Elementary Schools, Shauna Angelina Carter

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

No abstract provided.

Representations Of Women In Casta Paintings Of Colonial Mexico, Lacie Ellen Glover

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Representations of Women in Casta Paintings of Colonial Mexico explores the power relations between men and women represented in casta paintings of the eighteenth century. I provide an overview of the genre of casta painting and its relation to the sistema de castas, the social arrangement based on lineages intended to sustain the power of the Spanish elite. I examine how casta scenes reinforce the authority of the Spanish male. The social construction of gender, separate spheres of men and women, and the notion of "true womanhood" are recurrent themes. I argue that casta scenes reinforced the expected norms of …

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?: Race, Education And Statusattainment Before The Nba, Christian Evers Yost

Theses and Dissertations

Extracurricular activities have long been recognized as a socializing agent fostering subsequent life achievements and success orientations in the status attainment process. In particular, minorities and disadvantaged high school students who may not succeed in traditional academic classes benefit greatly from extracurricular activities, especially sports. In the case of basketball, young Black males are more likely to both participate in basketball as an extracurricular activity and pursue a career as a professional basketball player than their White peers, even to the detriment of their formal education. This thesis uses the Wisconsin Status-Attainment model as a framework for examining the extent …

Changes In Facial Esthetics And Lower Facial Height With Increases In Occlusal Vertical Dimension In Dentate Models, Noah Philip Orenstein Dmd

Master's Theses

Materials and Methods:

Twenty models with class I occlusion of White, Black, Asian, and Asian-Indian racial background had mandibular overlays of 2mm, 3mm, 4mm, and 5mm thicknesses fabricated.

Each model had clinical measurements made from pro-nasale to soft tissue menton for each of the following OVD above their normal bite 0mm, 2mm, 3mm, 4mm, and 5mm.

The same models described above had frontal and profile facial digital images recorded in maximum intercuspation (MIP) and wearing each of the four mandibular overlays. The digital images of 8 models were selected and displayed to 60 judges (30 laypeople, 15 general dentists, and …

Education And Liberation: A Look At The Early Development And Directions Of The Virginia Public School System (1879-1899), John B. Terzian

Honors Theses

From its founding in 1870 and early development, Virginia’s public school system and its leadership provide a roadmap for many of the factors that have shaped America’s social landscape and racial politics. The onset of a rapidly industrializing Southern economy was instrumental in forming the direction for black education following Reconstruction and embodies the ideological debate regarding the purpose of education as it relates to racial uplift. The emergence of leaders like Booker T. Washington had an enormous impact on reshaping attitudes toward blacks and their potential as citizens. Ultimately, the ideological hegemony which victimized blacks served as a mechanism …

What Types Of Social Integration Matter? Race And Adolescent Suicide Ideation, Tijuana Lashae Jefferson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Adolescent suicide is a major health problem in the U.S. Despite increasing research on this topic, current literature has failed to examine fully the intersection of race and suicide ideation. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examines how various forms of social integration serve to protect black and white adolescents from suicide. Overall, I find that there are important differences and similarities between black and white youth in terms of how social integration works as a protective factor. Family caring protects white youth and black boys from having thoughts of suicide. One major difference between black …

A High School Mathematics Teacher Tacking Through The Middle Way: Toward A Critical Postmodern Autoethnography In Mathematics Education, John O. Wamsted

Middle-Secondary Education and Instructional Technology Dissertations

The “urban” mathematics classroom has become an increasingly polarized site, one where many middle-class White teachers attempt to bridge the divide between themselves and their relatively economically disadvantaged, non-White students. With its mania for high-stakes testing, current education policy has intensified the importance of mathematics in the school curriculum—both drawing attention to and reifying an “achievement gap” between White (and Asian) and non-White students (Martin, 2009c, 2010). Keeping in mind the Mathematics for all rhetoric as it affects the academic and life success of students (Martin, 2003), this cultural polarization in the mathematics classroom provides a rich site for exploring …

Association Between Food Deserts And Diabetes Related Morbidity And Mortality Among Residents Of Fulton County, Georgia, Madhubanti Chatterji

Public Health Theses

Background: Diabetes is one of the leading causes of death and disability among chronic diseases in the United States. Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 90-95% of all diabetes cases, is a preventable form of disease which can be controlled through diet and physical activity. But residents of places such as ‘food deserts’, with no access to fresh food, often bear the burden of chronic diseases such as diabetes. There have been very few studies which have particularly looked at the association between food environment and diabetes prevalence in such deprived areas.

Objective: The study investigated the association …

Beyond "Code-Switching:" The Racial Capital Of Black/White Biracial Americans, Chandra D L Waring

Doctoral Dissertations

Social science has examined the experiences of the burgeoning bi/multiracial population within the scope of three core areas: racial identity (Funderburg 1994; Kilson 2001; Rockquemore and Brunsma 2008; Renn 2004; Root 1996), social psychological well-being (Bracey et al. 2004; Campbell and Eggerling-Boek 2006; Cheng and Lively 2010; Binning et al. 2009) and family racial socialization (DaCosta 2007; Dalmage 2000; Samuels 2009; Socha and Diggs 1999; Twine 2010). In my dissertation, I shift the theoretical focus from identity and well-being to the conceptual development of how race—embedded with assumptions, understandings and histories—shapes bi/multiracial Americans’ everyday social interactions with white and black …

"Who Says Storm Is The Only Black Superheroine?": An Interpretative Textual Analysis Of The Black Superheroine, Grace D. Gipson

Africana Studies Theses

The study examines how race and gender stereotypes in popular culture shape the perception of the Black superheroine. This study also explores stereotypes and gender roles and how they impact Black female and male college students’ ages 18-38 and their imagination of the Black superheroine. As the status of popular culture grows, the generation of today’s college student still remains regular consumers. Thus it was necessary to use a convenience sample of thirty-two African American male and female college-age students from four African American Studies undergraduate courses at Georgia State University that took part in a Superheroine questionnaire, in which …

Associations Of Vigorous Physical Activity With Depression: An Examination Of Nhanes Data 2007-2008, Ugonma U. Emeruem

Public Health Theses

ABSTRACT

Background: Major depressive disorder or depression is a mental illness which affects people of a range of different ages. In terms of years lost due to disability, it is a leader. Physical activity is currently being used as a therapeutic treatment of depression that decreases levels of depression in individuals suffering from it. Physical activity can also be used as a form of prevention against depression. This study examines the association between vigorous physical activity and depression.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study that utilized the secondary data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007-2008. Statistical …

Chinese Whiteness: The Discourse Of Race In Modern And Contemporary Chinese Culture, Kirstin Clouser

Honors Theses

This thesis chronicles the development of western forms of race and racism in China. It then studies contemporary China using theories derived from whiteness studies in order to explain the unique position that whites (Caucasians) have in China today. In Chapter I, I break down the definition of race and introduce a foundation for a whiteness studies approach to research. In Chapter II, I analyze how Chinese classified themselves and other humans prior to the western system of race. In Chapter III, I chronicle the introduction of western forms of race and racism to China, and the appropriation of these …