Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Review Of Terms Related To Race In School Psychology Journals, Malyra Bendson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Black Lives Matter movement has been an increasing movement since the death of Trayvon Martin in 2012. Over the next decade there has been an increase in the movement due to Black lives continuing to be lost at the hands of police. School psychologists play a key role in supporting the mental health of students within schools. It is essential that research discuss how to best support students who have been affected by this movement as children have witnessed, so much on television and social media over the years. The current review explores whether these sociopolitical issues have also …

The Role Of Leaders In Implementing Effective Leadership Strategies Towards The Educational Barriers Of Us-Based Refugee Students: A Qualitative Case Study Of Congolese Refugee Students, Faustin Busane

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This qualitative research study explored the experiences of three families of refugee school students, two school officials (a Superintendent and a Principal), three teachers, and one humanitarian agent all living in a Southeastern U.S. city. The results of the study revealed that the language barrier is the main academic challenge that refugee students encounter when they enroll in U.S. schools. The study also found that educators conceptualize their responsibilities toward refugee children by emphasizing the importance of high-quality teaching, and establishing through establishing strong relationships between parents, school officials, and exercising patience in the process. This study poses important implications …

How Gender Roles Impact The Social Perceptions Of Sexual Assault, Autumn Zwakenberg

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study set out to examine how different factors such as the gender of the victim, the gender of the perpetrator, and the scenario of sexual assault, can influence an outsider’s opinion of the sexual assault. There were two main hypotheses: the first is male and female participants would perceive the push-away scenario as sexual assault at equal rates, but significantly more female participants would perceive the victim allowing the perpetrator to unbuckle their pants scenario as sexual assault. The second is male and female participants would view the male perpetrator scenarios as sexual assault equally, but significantly more female …

Sexism's Effect On Female Suicide Ideation & Non-Suicidal Self-Injury Through Body Surveillance & Self-Esteem, Caitlin Gregory

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Research has shown that women face an average of three sexist events per week (Fischer & Holz, 2010). These sexist experiences can present within domains of daily living, social media usage, workplace discrimination, psychological distress, and sexual objectification (Baires & Koch, 2020; Duggan, 2014; Oswald, et al. 2019; Perez, 2019; Rollero, 2013). Additionally, the literature has shown that types of sexist experiences can determine the severity of the impact on mental health outcomes, as benevolent sexism has showcased significant consequences on females’ self-esteem and body objectification and hostile sexism has been shown to impact selfevaluation and self-worth (Calogero & Jost, …

Poverty, Flooding & Grassroots Organizing: An Analysis Of The War On Poverty & The 1977 Flood In Central Appalachia, Brooklyn Lile

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

There is a long history of environmental exploitation and disastrous flooding in Central Appalachia. The region has long been plagued by exploitative practices such as strip mining and mountaintop removal which have stripped vegetation from land, leading to more disastrous floods and more frequent floods. With repeated floods comes a vicious cycle of substantial damage and destruction, as well as inadequate time and resources for full recovery before the next flood strikes. Consequently, floods and poverty have been cyclical, interlinked, and inseparable. Thus, this paper explores the relationship between poverty, flooding, and relief by analyzing the connections between the War …

When Russia Gets Tired Of Them, They Sell Them To Us: The Russian Five, Us Russophobia, & Cold War Rhetoric After 1991, John Elam

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Through a case study of the Russian Five, the five Soviet-born hockey players who joined the Detroit Red Wings in the 1990s, this thesis offers insights into Russophobic beliefs and sentiment based upon historical memory of the Cold War. Through a loose chronological framework, this thesis considers the background of the Soviet hockey system for contextualization, and looks at the experiences of former Soviet hockey players from their arrival in north America in 1989 through the end of the twentieth century. An analysis of television broadcasts, newspapers, magazines, documentaries, and interviews, demonstrates that American citizens continued to promote Russophobic sentiment …

The 1985 Move Bombing: A Study In Perspectives, Kaci Delisle

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police dropped a military grade bomb on 6221 Osage Avenue, a row house in a Black neighborhood in West Philadelphia. This home was occupied by a revolutionary group called MOVE. The bomb started a fire that the police and firefighters decided to “contain” rather than put out, resulting in the deaths of eleven people and the destruction of sixty-one homes. Only two MOVE members survived the fire. Using court records, documents from the investigation conducted by the Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (PSIC), and other interviews regarding MOVE and the bombing, this paper reconstructs different perspectives …

Leaders' Virtual & In-Person Communication: The Impact Of Employee Preference On Job Satisfaction, Adalin Mcdaniel

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Communication between supervisors and subordinates has consistently been viewed as a primary element of leadership, and a factor that is important in the leader-subordinate relationship via Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory. Recently, with the massive shift to virtual working, leadership communication has gained greater prominence in research and practical settings. Therefore, examining the role that virtual leadership communication plays in employee job satisfaction is an important first step in beginning to understand the shift to predominant work settings from home. I examined the influence of employee perceptions and preferences of leadership communication on job satisfaction via a panel design in which …

A United, Not A Divider: Community, Identity, Performance & The Tomato Krewe Parading Group Of East Nashville's Tomato Art Festival, Allison Cate

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis is an ethnographic study of the “Tomato Krewe,” a social group that participates in the parade of East Nashville’s annual Tomato Art Festival. Drawing on participant-observation, interviews, and my own experiences as a member of the krewe and resident of East Nashville, I examine krewe members’ narratives about the festival, the material culture that they create for the parade, and the levels of performance that they engage in while parading. Central to my analysis is how krewe members understand the Tomato Art Festival as an expression of East Nashville identity.

Autherine Lucy & The University Of Alabama Integration At U Of A 1952-1956, Tamera Lott

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the University of Alabama was chartered in 1820 and is Alabama’s oldest public university. Prior to 1956, the University was segregated; admission was limited to white men and women. On February 3, 1965, Miss Autherine Lucy stepped foot on campus for the first time to attend classes at the University; history was made as she was the first African American present. Lucy’s attendance stirred conflict throughout campus and the state of Alabama. Unbeknownst to many, Lucy’s attendance garnered both national and international attention. The central argument here is that Lucy’s experiences at the University of Alabama …

Shifting Identities: Professorial Identification During Covid-19, Anthony Survance

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Building on existing studies of identification, this paper melds crisis research with studies of identity to understand how crises influence workplace identities. To accomplish this, the study addresses two research questions: (a) How are professors’ identities enacted during the COVID-19 crisis? And, how, if at all, does university rhetoric shape the enactment of identity during the COVID-19 crisis? This paper uses qualitative methods to get rich descriptions of professorial identities allowing research to get at the heart of how changes during the pandemic affected professors’ organizational, personal, professional, and workgroup identities. Overall, this study shows the pandemic encouraged professors to …

"They Will Change The Situation Immediately": Perpetrator Subgroups And Germany's Genocidal Practices In Southwest Africa, James Michael Thaxton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The genocide of the Herero tribe in German Southwest Africa illuminates the horrors of colonialism broadly and of German settler colonialism more specifically. I contend that the perpetrators of this event can be separated into two broad subgroups, the Old Africans and the Metropole Soldiers, distinguished by their intentions, exploitative and exterminatory respectively, concerning the indigenous tribes. Those intentions were formed over varying lengths of time but are the result of either firsthand experience with the racial hierarchy in the colony or relying on information and misinformation relayed to the metropole. Utilizing primarily letters, diaries, journals, and postcards, I argue …

Shame, Perceived Social Support, And Ptsd: Bridging The Gap Between Female And Male Survivors Of Sexual Assault, Kelsey Camille Woodward

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Sexual assault (SA) is prevalent in both females and males, with approximately 25% of females and 10% to 20% of males experiencing SA at some point of their lives. Social support and shame are important factors that are related to PTSD for SA survivors. However, little research has compared female and male SA survivors on these factors. Consequently, the purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of social support on PTSD in female and male SA survivors. Sex of the SA survivor was also examined as a moderator of the relationship between PTSD and social support and …

Ethnography Of Reading Comic Books, Azadeh Najafian

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis explores why adults read comic books. This research used the ethnographic method and interviewing eleven people, four women, seven male, as its primary source. Based on information and common themes gathered from interviews, I built this thesis into one introduction, three body chapters, and a conclusion.

In the first chapter, I argued that comics could function the same as myths and explained this function and related examples under the “mythic effect” name. In the second chapter, I discussed how my informants use reading comics as a means to escape their everyday lives and how sometimes this escapism carries …

La Llorona, Picante Pero Sabroso: The Mexican Horror Legend As A Story Of Survival And A Reclamation Of The Monster, Camille Maria Acosta

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

For centuries, the relationship between Mexico and its infatuation with scary stories has been profoundly complex, but why? Perhaps it is the easiest way to communicate a Mexican culture, although proud and resilient, riddled with haunting narratives. For myself personally, the Mexican horror narrative La Llorona has served as a lens for conversation and communication that is unique and important.

In this thesis, I explore how Mexicans and Mexican Americans alike use the legend of La Llorona as a unique form of communication through personifying what truly haunts us. From using the narrative as a tool for entertainment, cautionary tales, …

Using Theatre To Teach Social Skills To Students On The Autism Spectrum, Meaghan Nicole Ritchie

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Theatre-based interventions are an emerging field to improve social skills in individuals with autism. This study analyzed 10 different articles using theatre-based interventions, combined with evidence-based practices, to increase social skills deficits in students, ages 8-17, diagnosed with autism. Results indicate improvement in social skills for individuals with autism after participating in theatre-based interventions.

The Language Of Breathing, Brian Wallace Baker

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Language of Breathing is an eclectic collection of 18 creative nonfiction essays that capture moments from the author’s life and attempt to give them meaning through narrative and metaphor. They deal with relationships, nature, faith, and often rely on background research to pair art, mythology, current events, and science with personal experience.

Things Cis People Say: Mechanisms Of Moral Disengagement In The Justification Of Anti-Queer Communication, Jonathan M. Sahlman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Despite advances gained by LGBTQIA+ people the issue of discrimination against the queer population continues. Recent events surrounding comments made by alt-right leaders have continued the conversation regarding homophobia and transphobia. The followed study built on previous understandings of moral disengagement theory and communication. 15 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with queer students were conducted in order to explore the role of self-cognitive mechanisms and their potential justifications for anti-queer communication. Findings suggested that not only were mechanisms of moral disengagement present in incidents surrounding anti-queer communication, but the carried with them a range of personal and societal implications. This study offered …

Mule Nation, Polina Konokh

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis project is a TV pilot and the second episode of the show. There is also a critical essay that serves as an explanation of the creative work.

There are multiple problems addressed in the text, such as growing up, living in the modern world, countries not working properly for their citizens and other important issues of our modern life, with a thorough explanation of some of them in the critical essay.

The screenplays are formatted according to the current industry standards.

The result of this thesis is two first episodes of a potential TV show.

The Impact Of Musical Components On Retrieval Performance, Adkins Franklin Dane

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Many students claim that they can study well while listening to music (Anderson & Fuller, 2010; Patton, Stinard, & Routh, 1983), but how does listening to music affect students’ ability to encode and recall studied information? Previous research on background music and attention has revealed mixed results, with some studies indicating that background music can help reduce inattentional blindness (Beanland, Allen, & Pammer, 2011), while others suggest that music may hinder the attention of the listener (by Shih, Huang, & Chaing, 2012). Additionally, individual differences in working memory capacity impact one’s ability to store and retrieve information, as well as …

Cultural And Narrative Shifts Of Nineteenth Century Children's Literature In Hawthorne's Wonder Book For Girls And Boys, Kristen Clark Brandt

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Both folklorists and literary critics have been drawn to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s body of work because of his distinctive style and incorporation of folk motifs. Such motif-spotting presents no challenge in Hawthorne’s juvenile literature like his retellings from Greek mythology in Wonder Book for Girls and Boys; however, contemporary folklore redirects the focus of this scholarship to “how particular literary uses of folklore fit into a larger, more fundamental concept of what folklore is and how and what folklore communicates” (de Caro & Jordan 2015:15). Hawthorne’s work interacts with other forms of cultural expression in the nineteenth century such as dominant …

On Being Trans: Narrative, Identity, Performance, And Community, Chloe Jo Brown

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis focuses on various topics related to transgender identity and culture. Through a combination of ethnographic and secondary research, I studied transgender coming out narratives, trans media representation, transgender performance and identity, and conceptualizations of group and chosen family in a community of trans students, the WKU Transgender and Non-Binary Student Group.

The three chapters of my thesis address some of the traditional milestones of a trans person’s acculturation: coming out, constructing one’s newly discovered trans identity, and finding community. Chapter 1 explores coming out as transgender, and the way in in which coming out is valued and discussed …

Temporal Context-Specificity In Predictive Learning Produced With Visual, But Not Musical, Primes, Catherine Woosley Luna

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this study we investigated whether a musical prime would produce a contextspecificity effect in predictive learning. Participants were divided into six conditions of a spy-radio predictive learning task. The six conditions were comprised of a combination of three primes (i.e. visual, music, or both) and two learning phase groups (i.e. retrieve, default). The primes indicated the type of stimulus used to prime the temporal context for the test cue-outcome association. The learning phase groups indicated which temporal context would be primed. In the retrieve group, learning Phase 1 was primed; in the default group learning Phase 2 was primed. …

An Adventure Concerning Identity: The Use Of Folklore And The Folkloresque In Murakami’S Hitsuji Wo Meguru Bōken (A Wild Sheep Chase) To Construct A Post-Colonial Identity, Jessica Alice Krawec

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis examines the use of folklore and the folkloresque in Haruki Murakami’s novel Hitsuji wo meguru bōken, or, as it is translated by Alfred Birnbaum, A Wild Sheep Chase. Murakami blends together Japanese and Western folklore to present a Japan that has been colonized by a post-national, global capitalistic force. At the same time, Murakami presents a strategy to resist this colonizing force by placing agency onto the individual and suggesting that it is still possible to craft a meaningful identity within the Japanese/Western blended, globalized society in which these individuals now exist.

Alongside examining the use of folklore …

Personality Factors, Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior, And Sexual Fantasy As Predictors Of Paraphilic Disorder Intensity, Ethan Jack Edwards

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Researchers vary on their definitions of paraphilia. A difference exists between an individual possessing a paraphilia versus an individual possessing a paraphilic disorder. Hanson (2010) proposed a dimensional model of sexual deviance that includes a measure of intensity. However, research on sexual intensity has been lacking. A majority of existing research focuses on the potential risk factors of possessing a paraphilia or paraphilic disorder (e.g., criminality). There is less focus on whom in the population has the potential to develop a paraphilia; or which factors predict paraphilic behavior.

The Big Five personality factors (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and …

Senior Woman Administrator: The Definition, Challenges, Influence, And Perceptions, Jacqueline Michelle Mcgill

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Diversity efforts implemented by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) hope to improve the Association through the addition of multiple voices in athletics. Notably, the Senior Woman Administrator (SWA) designation is intended to encourage and promote the involvement of female administrators in meaningful ways in the decision-making process in intercollegiate athletics. This role, created under Article 4.02.4 of the NCAA constitution, is to be filled by the highest ranking female in each NCAA athletic department or member conference (Levick, 2002; Raphaely, 2003). Given the evolving definition and nature of the SWA designation and of female managerial roles (Eagly & Karau, …

Inexhaustible Magic: Folklore As World Building In Harry Potter, Samantha G. Castleman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The practice of secondary world building, the creation of a fantasy realm with its own unique laws and systems has long been a tradition within the genre of fantasy writing. In many notable cases, such as those publications by J.R.R. Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft, folklore exhibited in the world of the reader has been specifically used not only to construct these fantasy realms, but to add depth and believability to their presentation. The universe of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series demonstrates this same practice of folklore-as-world-building, yet her construction does much more than just create a fantasy realm. By using …

Nightmares In The Kitchen: Personal Experience Narratives About Cooking And Food, Sarah T. Shultz

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis explores personal experience narratives about making mistakes in the preparation and serving of food. In order to understand when these narratives, referred to in the text as “kitchen nightmares,” are told, to whom, in what form, and why, one-onone and group ethnographic interviews were conducted. In total, 13 interviews were conducted with 25 individuals (men and women) ranging in age from 19 to 70. Six major themes of kitchen nightmare narratives are identified in Chapter One. Chapter Two explores one of these themes, resistance, in the context of the kitchen nightmare stories of heterosexual married women. Chapter Three …

The Healing Power Of Music And Chants Amongst The Ahl-E Haqq People, Azadeh Vatanpour

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis examines current practices of music and prayers in the context of Jam ritual among the Ahl-e Haqq, a vernacular religion group in Iranian Kurdistan. I examine the construction and sacralization of the sacred instrument of the Ahl-e Haqq, tanbūr. I also explore the sacred prayer, kalām, and the association of prayer and music. Through the ethnographic method, participant observations, and interviewing religious figures and master musicians during the fieldwork in Sahneh, Iran, I investigate the relation of the Ahl-e Haqq prayers and music, and their effect on healing during their sacred ritual performance. Drawing primarily on scholarship from …

Push To Pray: A Conceptual Framework For Significant Change In Prayer Frequency In One Church, Charles Alexander Elliott

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In recent years, an increasing amount of research has been conducted on the topic of personal spiritual practices, such as prayer. Fewer studies have been conducted on reasons for changes in the frequency of such practices within the church. Those that have addressed church behavior have most often measured attendance and membership. It is the goal of this study to conceptualize potential causes for changes in personal prayer practice at one church. A yearlong marketing campaign was used to help increase church attenders’ frequency of the personal spiritual practice of prayer. Two cross-sectional studies were conducted one-year apart and revealed …