Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Encouraging Activism In Secondary English: Reading And Writing For Social Justice, Elisabeth Spinner

Dissertations

This dissertation presents researched backed, social justice oriented teaching strategies secondary English teachers can implement to encourage their students to think critically and take action on issues that matter to them. Foundational to this research is critical inquiry which encourages students to not read or listen to information passively, but rather to investigate, critique, explore, and ask questions of what they are reading. This approach is necessary when encouraging students to dispel myths and stereotypes, understand questions of rights and justice, and find the right way to be involved. The English classroom is an ideal place for students to do …

Healthcare Access Barriers And Proposed Solutions For Limited English-Proficient (Lep) Latinx Patients In Southwest Michigan, Carmen Vinkemulder

Honors Theses

This research study explores the circumstances and experiences of LatinX patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) when seeking treatment in the healthcare system of Southwest Michigan, in addition to proposing solutions to better facilitate this population’s access. The terminology used in this research, LatinX, is an American English neologism used as a genderinclusive term used interchangeably with Latino/a and/or Hispanic. This research provides an overview of the current socio-political legislature and climate of the American healthcare system as it pertains to the LatinX population to spread awareness and identify the barriers existing in our current healthcare model. This study will …

Xenophobia In The Covid-19 Era, Joanne Jeya

Honors Theses

COVID-19 has altered people's daily lives across the globe and heightened tensions in response to changing economic, social, and political conditions. In the United States, xenophobia has seemingly escalated in the COVID-19 era, particularly towards Asians and people of Asian descent. The assumed reasoning for this rise in anti-Asian sentiment is tied to the presumed origins of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome‐Coronavirus‐2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, first detected in Wuhan, China, prompting some to initially call the disease the Wuhan or Chinese virus, among other racialized terms like the "Kung-flu." It remains to be seen if xenophobic acts have increased throughout the …

“Space For All?”: An Analysis Of Race, Gender, And Society In The Cult Classic Doctor Who., Liron Sussman

Honors Theses

Much like the Doctor, people are constantly growing and evolving, and it is out of a desire for human connection that people strive, always, to improve and as a long-running television program, Doctor Who reflects that desire for connection. This analysis explores race, gender, and society as portrayed in the modern series of Doctor Who (2005-).

Constructing And Experiencing The Medieval Waddenland, Hugh R. Milner

Masters Theses

Part of the intertidal zone along the southeast portion of the North Sea, the Wadden Sea Coast runs from modern Friesland and Groningen in the Netherlands, through Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, and up the west coast of Jutland to just past Ribe. This project seeks to understand medieval responses to an environment in constant contact with the sea via documentary and historical sources. The people of the Wadden Sea Coast defined their landscape and their history in part with earthworks and water infrastructure, negotiating control of both anthropogenic and natural environments.

The Color Line In Communism: The East German Ministry Of Culture’S Portrayal Of Paul Robeson’S State Visit, Colin J. Rensch

Masters Theses

During the 1950s and 1960s, the Cold War, the American Civil Rights movement, and anticolonialism combined to create a complex political, social, and economic landscape and a division of the globe into the so-called first, second, and third worlds. It is within this context that African American performer and activist Paul Robeson traveled to the GDR for an official visit in October 1960.

This visit was highly significant in light of the oppression Robeson had experienced at the hands of the US State Department. In response to Robeson’s communist sympathy, the State Department had revoked Robeson’s passport in 1950, and …

International News From Differing National Perspectives: Spanish-Speaking Newspaper Coverage Of The 2019 Venezuelan Presidential Crisis Protests, Lauren Lalonde

Honors Theses

On January 23, 2019, the streets of Venezuela became flooded with protests in response to the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, announcing his claim to the Venezuelan presidency. The protests were largely in support of his announcement, though some supported Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela since 2013. This day marked the beginning of the Venezuelan presidential crisis, which left Venezuela, and the world, debating the legitimacy of each leader. This investigation focuses on how Spanish-language news sources from three different countries reported on the protests surrounding the Venezuelan presidential crisis on January 23, 2019, and how the …

Singing In Synchrony: A Feasibility Study Of Interpersonal Familiarity And Movement Synchrony In Group Singing, Sheridan Rockwell Brown

Masters Theses

In a time when social isolation and decreased in-person interactions pose increasing risks for physical, emotional, and mental well-being, it is more important than ever to find ways to combat the negative consequences of social isolation. Moving in synchrony with others and singing with others have both been identified as social activities through which social bonding may occur, yet little is known about the role of natural movement synchrony in group singing. This study sought to explore the feasibility of using motion capture technology to examine the natural head movements of groups of four participants singing together. The study consisted …

The Portrayal Of The Woman’S Suffrage Movement In High School History Textbooks, Michelle A. Devries

Masters Theses

The narrative of the woman’s suffrage movement in high school history textbooks varies from textbook to textbook and over time. Textbooks include different information, people, events, and interpretations of events. They employ different word choices and pictures. By using comparative analyzation of numerous popular high school textbooks, the pressure exerted by external economic, social, and political forces on the historical narrative can be seen. Studying the historical narrative in this way trains students to be discerning learners of history and equips them not only to recognize the bias in any historical narrative, but also to be able to analyze how …

The Effects Of Involvement In Religious Practices On Recovering Substance Users., Taylor Currier

Honors Theses

This paper reviews empirical studies focused on spirituality and its effects on those in the recovery process from substance abuse. This paper will look at qualitative studies as well as quantitative research to see which form has derived the best results on how spirituality has affected substance abuse recovery. Prolonged recovery is the goal for those that struggle with substance use. Behavior change is an important in sustaining sobriety with those dealing with addiction. It is predicted that those who engage in spiritual growth within their community have a higher likelihood of prolonged recovery than those that do not believe …

Monkey Mind: Everyday Observations Of Mental Illness, Mikhayla Dunaj

Honors Theses

When I first was able to identify that I dealt with anxiety, I was 18 years old. At the time, I didn’t know how to explain it, and assumed it was only because I was in an unhealthy relationship, after already having been in an abusive one. At the end of my third year at Western Michigan University, I suffered a mental breakdown and started counseling.

The process of counseling was difficult, because as I opened up more, I realized that I had spent a majority of my life stuffing down things that were actually anxiety symptoms, assuming that it …

Stigma Mitigation Through Fine Arts, Kendall Owens

Honors Theses

Social stigma has plagued our society for centuries. It isolates groups of people based on erroneously defined characteristics causing stigmatized persons to be viewed as socially “abnormal”. This debarment from full social acceptance results in poor population health and well-being. Fine arts have been an integral component of society since the beginning of civilization; current and past research have found involvement in fine arts to improve health and well-being in many ways. In this project, relevant studies related to stigma, fine arts, and population health will be reviewed to support the argument that “fine arts combat and mitigate the …

Three Essays On The Impacts Of China’S Monetary Policy, Shen Chen

Dissertations

China has experienced high speed of economic growth, trying to catch up with the developed countries. Monetary policy has played a more and more important role in China. This dissertation studies the impacts of China's monetary policy on China's housing market, stock market, and China's economic growth.

The first essay examines macroeconomic determinants of China's housing price by constructing a VAR model. Granger Causality tests, impulse response functions and variance decompositions are used to analyze the impacts of macroeconomic factors on the housing price. By using the monthly data from 2005 to 2015, the results show that a contractionary monetary …

Black Graduate Students’ Experiences Of Stress And Coping, Shealyn J. Blanchard

Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the experiences of Black graduate students related to stress and coping. Specifically, this study seeks to further examine the concept of cognitive appraisal and help-seeking intentions among Black graduate students. Research has indicated that Black graduate students face unique stressors related to race, in addition to general stress demands that can be experienced in graduate education programs. Regarding help-seeking, the literature has tended to focus on psychological help-seeking attitudes with African American populations and undergraduate students. This present study utilizes theories from stress and coping, as well as help-seeking and planned behavior, …

The Effects Of Decoding Instruction On Oral Reading Fluency For Older Students With Reading Delays, Gaige J. Johnson

Dissertations

Struggling older readers often have difficulty with early decoding skills (Tolman, 2005; Toste, Williams, & Capin, 2017). If they are unable to master decoding, they may have difficulty with more complex skills, such as passage reading fluency. The current study extends research on reading fluency for older students by evaluating the combined effects of a phonics procedure and a fluency-building strategy on their reading fluency. Participants were older students with below grade level reading performance who had deficits in oral reading fluency and decoding. Dependent variables were the number of correctly sorted word patterns and the number of correct words …

The Catholic Church And Its Impact On Public Policy In Contemporary Democracies, Dawid Tatarczyk

Dissertations

The overarching aim of this dissertation was to examine the extent to which the Catholic Church is still a significant public policy actor in 35 economically developed democracies. The research design used in this project draws on three distinct approaches, each addressing a different puzzle but when integrated together they provide an answer to the main question. Taken together these three approaches show that the Catholic Church continues to be an important political institution with considerable influence even in economically developed democracies.

The rational choice institutionalism paradigm is used to explain the political behavior of the Catholic Church. The paradigm …

The Effect Of Maternal Employment On Family Well-Being, Bezawit Teshome Agiro

Dissertations

This dissertation is composed of three essays on the effect of maternal employment on family well-being using data from Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: Kindergarten Class of 2010-11 (ECLS-K: 2011). In general, the findings from this study suggest that the effect of maternal employment on children’s weight status and cognitive development is not significant, but it is significant on mothers’ overall health and psychological well-being.

The first essay re-examines the effect of maternal employment on child obesity by taking a sample of grade 2 children who had at least one younger sibling from the spring 2013 cohort. The study makes use …

The Role Of Social Media In Small Museums In Michigan, Kaitlin Mcgrath

Honors Theses

Social media is now firmly ingrained in the daily life of many people. In order for museums to remain relevant in society, institutions like museums need to learn how to integrate this new technology into their practices. Small museums especially may have the most to gain from utilizing this technology in their institutions. These museums usually do not have access to as many resources as their larger counterparts. The challenge for museums is knowing how to use social media effectively. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of social media in museums with a focus on small …

American Muslim Women: Feminism, Equality, And Difference, Amber Coniglio

Honors Theses

American Muslim women face constant surveillance, stress, and pressure to change and adapt to mainstream society. In the United States, Muslim women find ways to negotiate their identities, express their concerns, and learn through their faith by means of Islamic scholarship, Islamic feminism, and reinterpretations of the Quran. They are reconciling their multifaceted identities with better understanding of sacred text as well as solidifying their desired gender roles within their communities. They are challenging norms and creating new spaces for themselves within the ummah as well as the United States. American Muslim women find courage, strength, and autonomy through Islamic …

Guide To Understanding Catalonian Dissent: From Proclamation To Referendum, Andrew Larkin

Honors Theses

"Guide to Understanding Catalonian Independence Efforts: From referendum proclamation to 1-O" explains and chronicles key events from June 9 to October 1, 2017 that have impacted Catalonia's ploy for independence. The northeastern region in Spain is situated on the Mediterranean coast and plays a strong role in the Spanish economy. Although the region is well situated and prosperous, some push for an independent Catalonia. The guide is written with readers from the United States of America in mind and includes excerpts translated into English so that the struggle between Spain and independence-minded Catalans can be easily understood. Official statements, speeches, …

Confidential Publics: Digital Reconciliation And Queer Muslim Identities, Mariam Mustafa

Masters Theses

In this paper, I trouble constructions of community through exploring temporal spatial configurations of support for queer-identified Muslims living in America. I assert that when community is not something one can physically access, use of the internet to create temporary spaces of community is critical in assessing identity reconciliation between intersectional conflicting identity. As it relates to queer Muslims, where there is a distinct lack of public community, the level of crisis some individuals face is explored through their use of online vehicles to establish social support systems that would otherwise not be available. My paper provides a framework in …

Punks In The Church: The Relationship Between The Punk Subculture And Church In East Germany, Ruth A. Aardsma Benton

Masters Theses

A punk subculture emerged in East Germany during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was an expression of their disillusionment with life, their frustrations with the government, and their pessimistic view of a future that seemed pre-planned. The subculture refused to conform, disengaged from the established system, and expressed their views through song lyrics and other acts of defiance. In the eyes of the state, punks were a threat. The subculture turned to the East German Protestant churches for shelter. The churches occupied a unique place within East German society because the government had granted the churches limited free …

Lgbt Microaggressions In Counselor Education Programs, Sarah Bryan

Dissertations

Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people report they experience microaggressions, small daily insults and indignities that affect their well-being. For LGBT students, microaggressions have been shown to affect well-being and academic engagement. In order to serve LGBT students and model affirming behaviors, counselor educators must be able to recognize and address LGBT microaggressions when they occur; however, there is currently a paucity of research on LGBT microaggressions in counselor education programs. Most studies on attitudes toward LGBT people in such programs neglect the experiences of LGBT students. Moreover, the few existing studies of the experiences of LGBT …

I Was Taught To Yell Fire, Marina Gutierrez

Honors Theses

From a very young age my mother always told me to yell, “Fire,” if I was ever in a situation where I needed help from a potential attacker, but I never understood why I couldn’t just yell, “Help.” Her reasoning was that many people will run towards a fire to help put it out or save potential victims, but when someone yells for help others will shy away because they don’t want to get involved. I would just nod and promise to yell fire not really understanding the underlying meaning she had just explained to me.

It wasn’t until I …

The Effectiveness Of Music Therapy To Reduce Agitation Among Persons With Alzheimer’S Disease, Caroline Mazon

Honors Theses

According to the Alzheimer’s Association (2016), Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is diagnosed every 66 seconds resulting in this disease being the 6^th leading cause of death in the United States. Among other signs and symptoms, agitation is one of the most challenging symptoms that patients and caregivers must try to control using nonpharmacological therapies or prescribed pharmacological treatments. Among many professions, music therapy has been used to specifically lower the levels of agitation in AD patients. Live music, “sing a long’s”, using instruments, and listening to a song of the patients’ choice have all been shown to reduce agitation behaviors …

Reifying Digital Histories, Ed Ryan

Honors Theses

The use of sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat is rooted in nowness. Most users rarely think about the long-term aspects of their relationship with the networks to which they belong, instead focusing on an ever-refreshing interface filled with fresh content. But what happens to this content when it is removed from its familiar digital context? Do the archived interactions, updates, tweets, and other pieces of our digital histories take on new meaning when placed onto a physical substrate? Using the form of the book and my personal Twitter archive, I have addressed my own digital history, looking specifically …

From Love Canal To The Flint Water Crisis: Government, Public Opinion, And Environmental Crises, Sarah Hughey

Honors Theses

After the rise of the modern-day environmental movement, environmentalism in the United States focused more and more on issues and crises related to the areas in which people lived and to the aspects that impacted public health. In particular, the crisis at Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York during the late 1970s and early 1980s provided a starting point to the awareness and activism of modern environmental history. Recently, an environmental crisis related to drinking water occurred in Flint, Michigan in the mid-2010s that showcases how various aspects of the environmental movement have developed over time since the Love …

Interaction Between Human Experience, Landscape , And Coffee Production In The Blue Mountain Region Of Jamaica, Shohei Yoshida

Masters Theses

In today's coffee industry, individual farmers’ identities are hardly visible from the products we buy. Each coffee farmer has different lifestyles and methods of coffee farming. Such information about farmers can make each cups of coffee potentially unique in consumers’ experience. However, there are barriers which make consumers blind from the identities of the farmers making their coffee. I will explain about the barriers, and introduce the way to make consumers associate individual farmers' identities with each cup of coffee they drink. This thesis mainly consists of two parts: a theoretical part and a poetry part. There is a small …

Seventh-Day Adventists And ‘Race’ Relations In The U.S.: The Case Of Black-White Structural Segregation, Cleran Hollancid

Dissertations

A worldwide Christian denomination of some eighteen million in global membership, and with a presence in over 200 countries and territories (i.e., in just about every country on the globe), the Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church is one with a distinctive arrangement in the U.S., insofar as it concerns its racial segregation practice. The SDA Church professes and preaches unity in the pulpit, as in all members being equal and one in the faith, yet the actual practice says otherwise. Such is the case since it is officially segregated along black-white lines.

The segregation arrangement, essentially a black-white schism, falls …

The Behavioral Revolution In Contemporary Political Science: Narrative, Identity, Practice, Joshua R. Berkenpas

Dissertations

The behavioral revolution of the 1950s and early 1960s is a foundational moment in the history of political science and is widely considered to be a time in when the discipline shed its traditional roots by embracing its identity as a modern social science. This dissertation examines reference works published between 1980 and 2012 in order to gauge the contemporary significance of the behavioral revolution. The behavioral revolution is discussed in many foundation narratives throughout reference works like dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks. After sixty years, why does the behavioral revolution still figure centrally in the way political scientists remember their …