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Articles 1 - 30 of 108
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
One Step At A Time; Union Organizing In The Public Sector South, Daniel Urquieta
One Step At A Time; Union Organizing In The Public Sector South, Daniel Urquieta
Masters Theses
In October of 2000, a coalition of students and workers started a public sector labor union for higher education employees known as United Campus Workers at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. As a public sector union in Tennessee, United Campus Workers lacks the right to collectively bargain. By conducting interviews with union-related personnel and reflecting on my own time as a member, this paper explains the way the labor union has still won campaigns for higher pay and policy changes at UT-Knoxville within its legal context, and what union members and staff organizers make of their experiences. I conclude …
Love On The Spectrum: Djuna Barnes’S Case Against Categorization In Nightwood, Kaitlyn A. Alford
Love On The Spectrum: Djuna Barnes’S Case Against Categorization In Nightwood, Kaitlyn A. Alford
Masters Theses
Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood is a challenging and beautiful text that continues to confound readers almost 100 years after its original publication. Though the text is often read as a “lesbian” novel, I consider the possibilities available when we read this text instead with a more open queerness in mind. By looking at the novel’s treatment of image, time, history, gender, sexuality, and identity, a new way of reading is revealed which rejects moves of taxonomization and categorization. This thesis explores how Barnes challenges dominant modes of representation and understanding, not to be a simple contrarian, but to present a new …
Socially Equal Energy Efficient Development: A Theoretical Reflection On Applied Work, Darcy A. Ayers
Socially Equal Energy Efficient Development: A Theoretical Reflection On Applied Work, Darcy A. Ayers
Masters Theses
This capstone is a “theoretically and experientially informed report” of the work I began as an AmeriCorps VISTA member in August 2021 and now do as Program Director for SEEED (Socially Equal Energy Efficient Development), a small Black-led nonprofit working to address racialized generational poverty in the communities of East Knoxville. The report serves as a record and reflection of my experience doing front-line anti-poverty work, primarily directing the flagship Career Readiness Program (CRP). I begin this report with a short recounting of the history of Knoxville’s urban development through a Black geographies lens and continue with a review of …
Where’S My Favorite Dictator? An Analysis Of The American Empire In Post-Revolution Egypt, Jeremy Alan Brill Booth
Where’S My Favorite Dictator? An Analysis Of The American Empire In Post-Revolution Egypt, Jeremy Alan Brill Booth
Masters Theses
In 2011, Egypt became the epicenter of a regional wave of uprisings demanding an end to corruption, inequality, and undemocratic governance. The Egyptian revolution marked the hopeful beginning of a democratization process. However, in 2013 a military coup by General Abdel Fatah El-Sisi deposed the elected president and ended Egypt’s democratic experiment (DeSmet 2021). Despite the deterioration in U.S.-Egypt relations during the Obama administration and the erosion of political freedoms and economic stability over the last decade, the Trump administration enthusiastically embraced El-Sisi’s regime. Did Trump's claim that El-Sisi was his “favorite dictator” signal a profound shift in American policy? …
Examining Housing Experiences Among International Students At The University Of Tennessee, Knoxville (Utk), Rosemary Achentisa Ayelazuno
Examining Housing Experiences Among International Students At The University Of Tennessee, Knoxville (Utk), Rosemary Achentisa Ayelazuno
Masters Theses
As more students from across the world enrol in higher education to take advantage of the opportunities it offers, schools and universities are starting to address a problem that an increasing number of their students are experiencing, namely housing insecurity. With an increase in the number of students due to growing interest in higher education institutions, student housing has become a significant area of concern. More overseas graduate students are pursuing their degrees without regular access to their housing needs due to a lack of inexpensive and accessible housing, high tuition prices, and insufficient financial help. To better understand the …
Film Women Violence, Madison R. Ross
Film Women Violence, Madison R. Ross
Masters Theses
As a condensed version of social reality, film has become a more common object of modern sociological and criminological investigation. As such, we can explore film to understand taken-for-granted as well as innovative constructions of social phenomena. Among these are gendered violence. We can use film to dig deep into its logics, elaborated in visual and narrative representations. Prior literature has analyzed crime films and the behavioral constructions within them, outlining the representations of serial homicide, rape, mass shootings and revenge. However, few studies have outlined films that do meaningful, non-voyeuristic representational work on the issue of violence against …
Examining The Effects Of Family Stress And Family Strengths On The Quality Of Mother-Child Relationships In Married And Unmarried Black Families, Deonte Hughes
Masters Theses
Mother-child relationships are complex, diverse, and change in response to internal and external factors that affect families and family life. For instance, Black children are more likely to live in households with unmarried parents. Even more, Black families are disproportionately more likely to be in poverty than the general population. Research on Black families tends to center association between family structure and poverty as mechanisms affecting mother-child relationships. There is little research on the role of economic hardship on familial relationships in Black families. Additionally, there is little research on the role of family strengths on familial relationships in Black …
University Statements On The Murder Of George Floyd: A Critical Discourse Analysis, Alexandria M. Brown
University Statements On The Murder Of George Floyd: A Critical Discourse Analysis, Alexandria M. Brown
Masters Theses
Minneapolis police office, Derek Chauvin, murdered George Floyd on May 25, 2020. After this killing, many universities throughout the United States, including all the institutions in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), released public statements about the murder. Over the last few decades, cuts in funding to institutes of higher education have resulted in colleges and universities adopting the managerial and revenue-generating practices of corporations. With corporations as their example, they have also taken to releasing statements about socio-political events, rather than just about incidents pertaining to their immediate stakeholders. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper examines those statements and discusses the …
Choice-Based Games And Resilience Building Of Gender Non-Conforming Individuals: An Exploratory Study, Yuri M. Cantrell
Choice-Based Games And Resilience Building Of Gender Non-Conforming Individuals: An Exploratory Study, Yuri M. Cantrell
Masters Theses
Research on gaming and user experience of the general population has been abundant, but gender non-conforming (GNC) individuals’ experiences had been largely overlooked until recent years. Using a phenomenological approach, the goal of this study is to find deeper understanding of this phenomenon by exploring what gaming experiences shape the identity of the participants. The exploration of gaming and gender non-conforming experiences through interviews can fill a gap in the current literature on gaming culture regarding this specific population. By taking a closer look at this topic, patterns and themes within games may provide insight to potential resilience building activities …
Putting The Meat In Meat-Less?: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Corporate Marketing Of Plant-Based Products, Samantha A. Mcintyre
Putting The Meat In Meat-Less?: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Corporate Marketing Of Plant-Based Products, Samantha A. Mcintyre
Masters Theses
The plant-based industry has sustained rapid growth within recent years due to awareness surrounding environmental harms. Due to the rise in profitability of plant-based products in the consumer market, multiple corporations have either acquired or created plant-based brands. The corporations that have done so (Tyson, Smithfield, Kellogg’s, Nestlé, and Conagra Foods) are the subjects of study for this project. These major corporations are also part of the industrial animal agriculture system, and garner profit from meat and dairy businesses. This study explores the way the marketing is embedded in ideologies of Western capitalism and patriarchy. I use critical discourse analysis …
Political Exclusion: Examining Anti-Lgbt+ Movement Results In Tennessee, Symantha K. Gregorash
Political Exclusion: Examining Anti-Lgbt+ Movement Results In Tennessee, Symantha K. Gregorash
Masters Theses
Social movement theory and research has produced ample works on national movements and progressive movements, but gaps persist in our understanding of conservative advocacy as social movements and the ways in which groups which hold power organize to identify and address challenges to their positions. Through analyzing state-level conservative social movements, we can examine the marginalizing legislation which continues to be passed at the cost of LGBT+ groups and the ways in which conservative social movements form coalitions and support action on conservative issues. While national-level funding analyses have called attention to the ways class connections maintain power, there is …
“And They Wrote It All Down As The Progress Of Man”: Relationships Between Environment, Extractive Industries, And Appalachian Agency, Emma V. Kelly
“And They Wrote It All Down As The Progress Of Man”: Relationships Between Environment, Extractive Industries, And Appalachian Agency, Emma V. Kelly
Masters Theses
The landscape of Central Appalachia has shaped and been shaped by its residents for thousands of years. The advent of industrialized extractive industries greatly shifted the nature and the extent of these processes, with capitalistic domination being asserted over the environment. While this shift towards industrialization was a widespread phenomenon, it undertook a unique trajectory within Appalachia, a region which occupies a distinct position within the national perspective. Although geographically established by the Appalachian Regional Commission, Appalachia is more than a politically defined set of counties: It is an incredibly diverse sociocultural region that exists on varying planes of marginalization …
Ni De Aquí, Ni De Allá: Constructing National Identity In The Case Of Jonathan González, Arturo Jaime Morales Jr
Ni De Aquí, Ni De Allá: Constructing National Identity In The Case Of Jonathan González, Arturo Jaime Morales Jr
Masters Theses
First-generation Mexican-Americans who are born in the US to immigrant parents often find themselves at a crossroad constantly negotiating their ethnic identity. One of those junctions where Mexican-Americans often have to navigate their identity is in the world of soccer, in particular when it comes to rooting for the US national team or the Mexican national team. Scholars call this transnational concept Entre Dos Mundos–Between Two Worlds (Bacallao and Smokowski 2005; Campbell 2005; Gutierrez 1996; Menjivar 2002). Jonathan González is one of those Mexican-Americans, who in 2018 announced his decision to play for the Mexican national team instead of …
“There Shall Be Made No Differentiation:” The Maintenance Of Stratification In The State Of Kuwait Through The 1959 Nationality And Aliens Residence Laws, Alzaina Shams Aldeen
“There Shall Be Made No Differentiation:” The Maintenance Of Stratification In The State Of Kuwait Through The 1959 Nationality And Aliens Residence Laws, Alzaina Shams Aldeen
Masters Theses
Article 29 of the Kuwaiti constitution states that “The people are peers in human dignity and have, in the eyes of the Law, equal public rights and obligations. There shall be made no differentiation among them because of gender, origin, language or religion.” If I were to say that the 17, 818 km ² that make up the State of Kuwait is home to 4.2 million people, it would be a misrepresentation. While 4.2 million people do live in Kuwait, citizenship and immigration laws restrict 70% of its population, to varying degrees, from making their country of residence a home. …
Debt Delivered: The Predatory Inclusion Of A Rent-To-Own Chain In The Treasure Valley, Jeff Cates
Debt Delivered: The Predatory Inclusion Of A Rent-To-Own Chain In The Treasure Valley, Jeff Cates
Masters Theses
This thesis is a study of customers at a rent-to-own (RTO) firm in Boise, Idaho, where I worked and collected data for nearly three years. RTOs are companies that offer higher-end electronics, appliances, and furniture to customers on a contract where the consumer receives the product immediately and pays a (usually highly marked-up) price over time by making small weekly or monthly payments. While predatory lending practices have long been studied by scholars from various fields, very little work has focused on the rent-to-own industry, which may have unique differences from payday lending and other similar businesses. This thesis centers …
Black Men’S Intimate Partner Violence Victimization, Help-Seeking, And Barriers To Help-Seeking, Meagan A. Stewart
Black Men’S Intimate Partner Violence Victimization, Help-Seeking, And Barriers To Help-Seeking, Meagan A. Stewart
Masters Theses
Guided by hegemonic masculinity and intersectionality theories, this descriptive, exploratory thesis examined Black men’s intimate partner violence (IPV) victimization experiences, subsequent help-seeking decisions, and barriers to help-seeking. Even though IPV is generally associated with women, it has been documented that men also experience sexual, physical, and/or psychological abuse. The experiences of Black men as victims has been overlooked within the IPV literature, and less is known about their help-seeking decision making, as well as the barriers they face if and when they do seek help. Whether Black men are more or less likely to seek informal (e.g., friends), formal (e.g., …
Contemporary Black Civil Rights Activism Strategies In East Tennessee: Gaining Economic And Political Power In The Black Community, Lily Joy Crosby
Contemporary Black Civil Rights Activism Strategies In East Tennessee: Gaining Economic And Political Power In The Black Community, Lily Joy Crosby
Masters Theses
The purpose of this thesis is to explore the contemporary Black civil rights movement in East Tennessee to gain a better understanding of the strategies being employed to mobilize publics. Though an important aspect of the public relations field, in public relations academia there is a lack of research centering on activism. Little has been explored outside of organizational settings, especially since the rise of technology and increased interconnectedness of the world. To learn more about the movement in East Tennessee, the researcher interviewed eight leaders of the contemporary Black civil rights movement across the East Tennessee region. The researcher …
Temembe And Sven: The Ethics Of Racist Mirth, Stephen Wilke
Temembe And Sven: The Ethics Of Racist Mirth, Stephen Wilke
Masters Theses
You walk past a crowd of people at a bar, grouped around one person. He’s in the middle of telling a joke, the kind you wouldn’t tell your parents but is often told in the amenable company of close friends. You realize that the butt of the joke, the punchline, assumes that people of color are lazy and entitled. This is not an assumption you agree wit, but you find yourself with a feeling of mirth while scoffing at the comedian. His timing is well executed, and the turn of phrase is witty. The joke was racist, and yet emotionally …
Meet The Duggars: The Reproduction Of Gender Privilege In The Popular Construction Of Sibling Sexual Abuse, Jessica Reené West
Meet The Duggars: The Reproduction Of Gender Privilege In The Popular Construction Of Sibling Sexual Abuse, Jessica Reené West
Masters Theses
Sibling sexual abuse a nefarious harm that researchers suspect occurs for often than any other form of child sexual abuse, and is very rarely reported to authorities. On May 19th 2015, allegations of sexual abuse by Joshua Duggar against four of his younger sisters and a female babysitter during 2002 and 2003, were made public knowledge by the tabloid InTouch. In response to the public outcry, parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar sat for an interview on June 3rd 2015, in their family home with Fox News moderator Megyn Kelly. Statements made by The Duggars about sibling sexual abuse …
"Only The Intervenor Cared": A Critical Juncture In The Rise Of Dairy Cafos And Neoliberal Environmental Policy In Wisconsin, Sarah Emily D'Onofrio
"Only The Intervenor Cared": A Critical Juncture In The Rise Of Dairy Cafos And Neoliberal Environmental Policy In Wisconsin, Sarah Emily D'Onofrio
Masters Theses
Building on scholarship regarding the rise of neoliberalism since the late 1970s and using a comparative-historical methodology, this thesis examines a case study regarding how state governments in the United States have succumbed to neoliberal pressures over time. Specifically, this thesis examines the rapid expansion of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in Wisconsin since 1995. As these large CAFOs have grown in size, so have the social and environmental problems related to their use, including pollution of drinking water sources for rural communities. Based on analysis of hundreds of newspaper articles, this thesis finds that that a critical juncture occurred …
Automation, Work, And Ideology: The Next Industrial Revolution And The Transformation Of "Labor", Anthony Jack Knowles Ii
Automation, Work, And Ideology: The Next Industrial Revolution And The Transformation Of "Labor", Anthony Jack Knowles Ii
Masters Theses
Over the last several decades, scholars and commentators from a variety of different fields, expertise, and ideological positions have written on automation technologies and their potential to cause technological unemployment. As a sociological analysis and critical examination of how experts ideologically frame these issues, this thesis demonstrates that ideology plays a crucial role in the revived debate over automation and technological displacement. Weberian ideal types are developed to demonstrate how three major ideological positions—liberal, conservative, and radical—approach and frame the link between automation, technological displacement, and the potential for technological unemployment. The qualitative tools of ideal type construction and theme …
A Case Study Of A Mature Appalachian Hiv Negative Homosexual Man On Hiv Positive Homosexual Men, Jacob Lee Nelson
A Case Study Of A Mature Appalachian Hiv Negative Homosexual Man On Hiv Positive Homosexual Men, Jacob Lee Nelson
Masters Theses
Because of the lack of study, little is known about how members of the gay community immersed in rural areas relate to one another especially relative to the AIDS Crisis and those gay men living with HIV (Eldridge, Mack, & Swank, 2008). The purpose of this study was to investigate features of attitude (fears, threats, preconceived notions, and convictions) of a mature HIV negative homosexual man from rural Appalachia on HIV positive homosexual men (Thurstone, 1928). The central research question asked was, “How do you relate to HIV positive gay men as a HIV negative gay man having been raised …
Operational Jakarta: The Problem Of Representation, Kevin Patrick Jeffers
Operational Jakarta: The Problem Of Representation, Kevin Patrick Jeffers
Masters Theses
As the twenty-first century unfolds with newly formed degrees of hypercomplex interactions and reactions amongst space, time, economy, politics, social dynamics, and cultural paradigms, we are observing new typologies of urbanism that are different in kind, rather than degree, from the previous “urban” upon which the vast majority of present theoretical and practical discourse has been based. The techniques, strategies, and methodologies of the twentieth-century no longer serve to adequately represent or to explain the phenomena of today’s incipient mega-cities. A new vocabulary must be developed. A new way of seeing is required in order to understand and therefor to …
Food Justice And Practices In The Five Points Community Of Knoxville, Tennessee: A Survey Of Residents Living In An Urban Food Desert, Sylvia Isabel Duluc-Silva
Food Justice And Practices In The Five Points Community Of Knoxville, Tennessee: A Survey Of Residents Living In An Urban Food Desert, Sylvia Isabel Duluc-Silva
Masters Theses
This thesis identifies the views related to traditional and alternative food systems and practices among residents living in East Knoxville, Tennessee, which has been designated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) as a food desert. These views were obtained from a mail survey sent out to adult residents living in the community who were responsible for obtaining food for their household. Its foundation is based on general place-based theory and findings associated with environmental and food justice literature. It builds upon this work by identifying and describing key variables and how they may be related via a theoretical …
Color-Blind Stancetaking In Racialized Discourse, Abigail Christine Tobias-Lauerman
Color-Blind Stancetaking In Racialized Discourse, Abigail Christine Tobias-Lauerman
Masters Theses
In this thesis, I examine how language constructs and constrains racialized discourse in post-Jim Crow contemporary America. Drawing on rhetorical and sociolinguistic work set forth by Booth, Shotwell, Bonilla-Silva, Omi and Winant, and others, it is apparent that racial organization— and racial identities and categorization— in the US is reliant upon specific markers that signify racial meaning. Such markers are assimilated into wider, unconscious discourse through what Shotwell and Booth describe as seemingly inherent— yet ultimately constructed— matters of “common sense,” and are expressed through evaluative stance acts. I explore the origins and construction of these markers and the relationship …
Keeping Them Close: A Qualitative Examination Of Mothers’ Perceptions, Motivations, And Experiences With Babywearing, Hayley Brooke Moran
Keeping Them Close: A Qualitative Examination Of Mothers’ Perceptions, Motivations, And Experiences With Babywearing, Hayley Brooke Moran
Masters Theses
As American mothers’ responsibilities and lifestyles evolve, parents adapt by changing their parenting practices to meet the needs of their families. Many mothers in the U.S. have begun carrying their infants on their bodies, a practice referred to in the U.S. as “babywearing.” The present study is one of the first studies to explore the practice of babywearing in the US and how babywearing intersects with a mother’s relationship with her infant and her family. Although there has been research examining the connection between babywearing and technology (Russell, 2014; Lupton, 2012), the purpose of the present study is to examine …
A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of The Bonnaroo Music And Arts Festival Website: A Cultural Criminology Of Peace- And Community-Building, Katie Marie Highbaugh
A Multimodal Discourse Analysis Of The Bonnaroo Music And Arts Festival Website: A Cultural Criminology Of Peace- And Community-Building, Katie Marie Highbaugh
Masters Theses
Social settings that are low in interpersonal crime offer an opportunity to understand social control and, moreover, peace-making. Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival held each summer since 2002 in Manchester, Tennessee, is a contemporary example of a peaceable provisional community. To analyze the culture of Bonnaroo, I undertook a multimodal discourse analysis, which is as a systematic analysis of all texts and images (Fairclough 2013; Machin & Mayr 2012). I paid particular attention to how the website was able to foster community via what they communicated and how – through overall website design or visual semiotics, and images, as well …
The Rhetoric Of Perpetual Warfare: A Political Discourse Analysis Of The Obama Administration’S Legitimation Of U.S. Drone Strikes, Douglas Ray Oeser
The Rhetoric Of Perpetual Warfare: A Political Discourse Analysis Of The Obama Administration’S Legitimation Of U.S. Drone Strikes, Douglas Ray Oeser
Masters Theses
Since 2002, the United States has engaged in a new form of warfare that is not fought by armies or navies but by pilotless aircraft able to conduct surveillance and direct missile strikes across the globe. To date, US military drones have launched hundreds of attacks against locations in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen (Bureau of Investigative Journalism 2016). During the Obama presidency, a program that began as a strategic alternative to direct military intervention became the dominant means of confronting imminent threats to national security before they came to fruition. Increased reliance upon this new technology has resulted in international …
Young Adults And The Consequences Of Precarious Work, Aaron Robert Lemelin
Young Adults And The Consequences Of Precarious Work, Aaron Robert Lemelin
Masters Theses
Despite the appearance of affluence attained by the community’s economic growth, the prevalence of service sector jobs have altered the employment structure of South County. Within this thesis, it is my purpose to answer two questions. First, how are young adults limited in their economic security due to precarious work? Second, how has precarious work disempowered young adults and altered their ability to respond to their immiseration? In order to answer these questions I conduct qualitative interviews with young adults within a region of Hillsborough County, Florida. These interviews help me elaborate on young adults and their experiences with precarious …
Academic Choices Matter For Collegiate Student-Athletes, Kendra Arielle Berry
Academic Choices Matter For Collegiate Student-Athletes, Kendra Arielle Berry
Masters Theses
As college athletics has grown during the last two decades, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the governing institution of college athletics in the United States, has renewed its focus on academic reform and the academic performance of student-athletes (Petr & McArdle, 2012). Athletic administrators and academic support units have started to exert a greater amount of control over student-athletes’ academic lives. However, research with general samples of college students has suggested that having some degree of autonomy is important for academic performance. This raises questions about whether increased control (and reduced autonomy) is actually in the best interest of …