Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Invisible Crisis: Framing The Remediation Of Milwaukee's Lead Laterals, Isabella Rieke

Theses and Dissertations

When Milwaukee’s municipal water system was developed in 1874, one-half-inch lead pipes were used to convey water from the mains in the street to a customer’s home; the City has since acknowledged that nearly 100,000 such lead pipes are still in use today, a revelation which has opened for debate whether or not these pipes pose a galvanizing public health risk with far-reaching policy and infrastructure implications. This study explores the community response to Milwaukee’s lead laterals through the efforts of the Freshwater for Life Action Coalition (FLAC). How do Milwaukeeans understand the risks posed by the lead laterals? In …

Project Central Voice: Assessing The Congruency Between African American Perspectives And The City Of Milwaukee's Community Development Block Grant Practices, Deborah Clements Blanks

Theses and Dissertations

Theories of Critical Race provide a foundation on which to analyze racism. Critical Race Theory uses elements such as the ordinariness of racism, convergence of interest, revisionist history, and the voice of the oppressed to identify how systems of oppression function to maintain institutional racism.

This dissertation is a community-based participatory research project that studies a government-funded social welfare system serving the African American community in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The research analyzes how the structure, policies, and practices of this decentralized system, composed of government institutions and community-based organizations, affects the infrastructure of Milwaukee’s African American community. Specifically, the research analyzes …

Measured Expectations: An Examination Of Urban Agriculture Development And Operations In Milwaukee, Wi, Jamison Ellis

Theses and Dissertations

Urban agriculture has begun to shape urban spaces throughout the United States. Building from research on urban agriculture projects in Milwaukee I argue that in order for researchers to better understand urban agriculture, they must more thoroughly examine the various developmental and operational strategies that urban agriculture nonprofit organizations implement. The research questions that guides my thesis are the following: first, how do the developmental and operational strategies of urban agriculture projects differ? Second, how do different stakeholders perceive the implications of these approaches for creating positive and negative effects? To do this, I collected data through interviews and participant …

Masculinity In American Television From Carter To Clinton, Bridget Kies

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines American television during a period I call the long 1980s. I argue that during this period, television became invested in new and provocative images of masculinity on screen and in networks’ attempts to court audiences of men. I have demarcated the beginning and ending of the long 1980s with the declaration of Jimmy Carter as Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1977 and Bill Clinton’s inauguration in 1993. This also correlates with important shifts in the television industry, such as the formation of ESP-TV (later ESPN) in 1979 and the end of Johnny Carson’s tenure as …

Overwhelmed: A Qualitative Study Of The Mental Health Experiences Of Mothers Of Minor Children After Release From Jail And Prison, Ann Elizabeth Stanton

Theses and Dissertations

Mass incarceration in US jails and prisons is a major public health concern. Over one million women are released from US jails and prisons each year. Incarcerated women experience disproportionately high rates of mental health issues and most incarcerated women are mothers of minor children. Mothers of minor children who leave jails and prisons with mental health issues face increased risks of experiencing substance use, risky behaviors, homelessness, and recidivism. Their children are also at increased risk for adverse mental health, behavioral, and social outcomes. The purpose of this study was to explore the mental health experiences of mothers of …

Grooves In The Landscape: Vanished And Persistent Record Stores In The Post-Industrial City., Thomas Anthony Calkins

Theses and Dissertations

Despite digitization, record stores remain an important third place for contemporary urban neighborhoods. As places of cultural consumption, they provide locals a source of music, knowledge, pleasure, distraction, and distinction. Where these places sit in the contemporary city has shifted over time though. This dissertation asks: how has the distribution of record stores changed over time and space when accounting for demographic, economic, and technological factors? Based on original datasets created from city directories and phone books, census-tract data, and record industry sales data, I find that predominantly black neighborhoods were once home to many more record stores than today. …

Experience As Counterpoint: A Qualitative Study Of Home, Happiness & Aging Amongst First-Generation South Asian Migrants In The U.S., Angela Singh

Theses and Dissertations

Susan Stanford Friedman writes that “Home comes into being most powerfully when it is gone, lost, left behind, desired and imagined” (202). My dissertation addresses notions of home, nostalgia, happiness and aging often found in South Asian diasporic fiction, and from the results of a qualitative study I conducted in which I interviewed five migrant couples who moved to the US from India for educational and professional purposes in the 1960s and 1970s. This project draws on and contributes toward the fields of Migration and Diaspora Studies, Transnational Studies and South Asian Studies. My research aims to explore more uncommonly …

The Mothers Of Family Place: The Role Of Trust And Support Among Homeless-Mother Families, Heather L. Duncan

Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the dynamics of network exchange and trust experience in becoming homeless and the influence of these conditions on life in the shelter for women who are homeless with their children. The plight of homeless mothers in twenty-first century Chicago echo those of poor mothers in the eighteenth century, with families and singles alike enduring inadequate affordable housing, both in quantity and quality. So too did the provision of poor relief prove inadequate throughout the past two hundred years. I examined theories of trust and network and exchange theory, challenging the adequacy of their application to homeless families. …