Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“Holla If You Hear Me”: A Conversation With Black, Inner-City Youth On Career Preparedness Programs, Theressa N. Cooper

Doctoral Dissertations

This research study specifically addressed; how vocational preparedness programs effect the career aspirations of Black youth, within the context of the Middle Tennessee Council Boy Scouts of America’s Exploring program. The goal of this research is to represent Black youth participating in a vocational preparedness program. Interviews, journals, and rich, thick descriptions are utilized in this work.

Using the lens of narrative inquiry and cultural studies, I hoped to further the field of career development through the experiences of some of its key players, African American youth. Within the context of their stories five major themes surfaced around the ideas: …

Adolescent Female Substance Use: An Examination Of Male Peer Influences And Parental Control, Sarah Gwynne Whiteford

Doctoral Dissertations

Central to many theories of deviance and delinquency (differential association, social learning, and social bond) are peer and familial influences on deviant behavior. A conceptual framework that incorporated both peer and familial influence to address the role of cross-sex peers on female deviance was built based on a review of the literature. Using substance use as an indicator of deviance, the effects of having three forms of male associates (male friends, romantic partners, and sexual partners) on female substance use were examined. Focus was on the effects of different types of male peer relationships, how those effects differed from the …

Evaluation Of And Behavior Toward The Visual Retail Environment: Function Of Consumers’ Visual Aesthetic Sensitivity, Sarah Eubanks Wilhoit

Doctoral Dissertations

The primary goal of retail environments is to stimulate positive behavior from consumers viewing the fulfilled plan of the designer or architect. This study explores the influence of the consumer trait, visual aesthetic sensitivity, upon the visual aesthetic design features of the store environment and consumer behavior. Treatment of the visual aesthetic design features of the retail environment as an integrated, holistic arrangement demonstrate the dynamic interrelation of the environment and perception as explained by Gestalt theory. Data was collected through traditional survey techniques. Statistical analyses using exploratory factor analysis, ANCOVA, and MANCOVA reveal distinct differences between consumers with high …

Exploring And Explaining Consumer Competition: A Mixed-Methods Approach To Understanding The Phenomenon, Bridget M Satinover Nichols

Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the phenomenon of “consumer competition.” The overarching objective is to help researchers and marketing practitioners understand how the phenomenon is created, how consumers experience competition, and to begin to inspect its effects. Consumer competition is defined as the active processes of striving against others for the acquisition of a consumption object. To date, this phenomenon has been under-researched, despite its prevalence in many marketing and consumer-related domains.

An extensive literature synthesis provides the foundation for understanding competition and competitiveness in general from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Based on the synthesis of literature and …

I Am Not My Hair...Or Am I?: Exploring The Minority Swimming Gap, Dawn M. Norwood

Doctoral Dissertations

A review of literature has revealed a dearth of research on leisure swimming patterns of Black females. Black youth, both male and female, have a higher rate of drowning than any other racial/ethnic group in the United States (“Water‐related injuries: Fact sheet”, 2005). Two known studies produced by (Irwin et al., 2009; 2010) examining hair as a constraint to swimming for African American youth produced conflicting results. In order to comprehensively examine hair as a constraint to African American female participation in swimming, the current study adopted a qualitative approach which allowed exploration of the cultural background and experiences of …

The Assumption Of Non-Coerciveness And The Total Food Market, Harwood Schaffer

Doctoral Dissertations

For the last 46 years, the countries of the world have tried to reduce the number of chronically hungry people. Despite all the efforts, the numbers have barely budged from the over 850 million people who were chronically hungry in 1974 until the 2007-2009 food price crisis, when the numbers increased to over 1.02 billion. The blame for this situation has variously been put on bad governance, the lack of adequate market reforms, the market reforms that were imposed on developing nations, and globalization. Food, like other products in this globalized world, is allocated using the market system. One likely …

Interstitial Copresence: Experiencing Self With And Within Everyday Forms Of Electronically Mediated Communication, Steven J. Seiler

Doctoral Dissertations

Cell phones and the Internet have become cornerstones in the daily lives of most Americans. Researchers have rigorously studied numerous dimensions of electronically mediated communication (EMC). Yet, very little research has explored the context and consequences of negotiating multiple forms of EMC within everyday life. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of everyday forms of electronically mediated communication (EvEMC) – cell phone talk, text messages, instant messages, and email – on self-work, particularly within personal relationships. Results of OLS regression analyses of survey data collected from 617 college students and qualitative data analysis of three subsequent …

Systems, Social Order, And The Global Debt Crisis, John Hamilton Bradford

Doctoral Dissertations

Part I examines the global rise of both public and private debt and its recent manifestations in the US housing bubble and the financial panic of 2007-8. A review of the most popular theories of the debt crisis is provided, including an explication of securitized banking and economic theory. The underlying condition of increasing ecological and energetic scarcity is accorded central significance in the broad trajectory of world growth and debt, Part II explicates systems theories of social order and the social significance of markets. The theories of Niklas Luhmann, Talcott Parsons, Mario Bunge, Anthony Giddens, and Jürgen Habermas are …

Using Critical Race Theory To Read Fantasy Football, Stephanie Rene Hill

Doctoral Dissertations

Fantasy sports are the latest addition to the sports industry. Fantasy sports (FS) participants compete against one another by using players from the “real” world to create a virtual team. FS simulates the structures of the real sporting world. The most popular FS is football, due to the success of the National Football League (NFL) (World Fantasy Games, 2009). Black males represent a vast majority of the athletes in the NFL and are often bought and sold by white participants who represent a critical mass of FS players. The purpose of this dissertation is to read fantasy football participation and …

An Investigation Of Time Management And Organization In Head Start Families, Heather Sedges Wallace

Doctoral Dissertations

Parents are often advised to increase the amount of time spent with their preschool-age children because of the beneficial outcomes associated with positive parent-child interactions, and numerous programs exist to encourage and support this type of parent involvement. However, there is a paucity of information about whether and how parents manage and organize their time in a manner that facilitates parents’ interactions with children. Increasing home-based parent involvement is a federal mandate and central tenet of the Head Start program for low-income parents. One of the ways in which a local Head Start program encourages parent involvement is to offer …

"Rapping About Authenticity": Exploring The Differences In Perceptions Of "Authenticity" In Rap Music By Consumers.", James L. Wright

Doctoral Dissertations

Historically, social scientists have not only marginalized rap music as a viable unit of scholarly analysis, but failed at attempts to understand the thoughts and actions of rap music consumers. This study analyzes the connection between rap music’s (and the artists’) authenticity and how those perceptions of authenticity affect music consumers’ decision making process, thus providing a possible explanation as to why music fans purchase rap music. The goal of this research was to see if the reasons rap music fans provide explaining the rationale behind their purchases match the images and perceptions presumably held by the general public about …