Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Yak Is Back: Creating Community On The Digital Bathroom Stall Wall, Georgia Bates

Scripps Senior Theses

Offering access to an expanded world of contacts, activities, and self-expression, the internet has been changing the traditional landscape of the college experience for nearly two decades. The manner in which students interact with the world around them is augmented and transformed by the affordances of digital social networks like Yik Yak, an anonymous, hyperlocal networking app that has found its main market on college campuses. A hybrid ethnographic approach to Yik Yak based on participant observation and in-depth interviews spanned from Fall 2021 to Spring 2023, engaging with concepts of place and affect as they were intertwined with student …

Reframing Type One Diabetes Care: Everyday Rituals At Bearskin Meadow Camp, Emily Radner

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis focuses on how counselors at Bearskin Meadow Camp approach care as medical and social caregivers to campers with Type One Diabetes (T1D). T1D is a chronic illness that involves constant self-regulation. The counselors, many of whom are past campers and live with T1D themselves, are personally invested in providing care and support to the campers. Their personal motivations as well as the intentional approach to care of Bearskin Meadow shapes camp as a unique space of diabetes care. The care they practice works against some aspects of mainstream biomedical care of T1D, such as the tendency to classify …

Desalination And Development: Locating The Missing Masses In Dakar’S Water Network, Marina Riad

Scripps Senior Theses

The introduction of desalination technology to the water network in Dakar, Senegal marks a monumental change in how state and commercial interests aim to solve systemic problems using novel technologies. Desalination aims to transform the ocean surrounding Dakar into potable water, a vital resource in the growing metropolis. However, this desalination project must integrate itself within a network of social, historical, political, commercial, and ecological influences shaping the role of desalination in urban Dakar. With millions of dollars and an entire ocean mobilized towards solving Dakar’s water problems, it may come as a surprise that this project will only provide …

Detangling Black Hair: Hair Journeys, Discrimination, And Reconciliations Of Cultural Appropriation Among Claremont College Students, Amalia Raquel Barrett

Scripps Senior Theses

This ethnography details the experiences of discrimination and reconciliations of cultural appropriation among Black women and those perceived as Black women at the Claremont Colleges. 26 semi-structured ethnographic interviews were conducted over Zoom video conferencing to collect responses to questions including: How do my participants wear and describe their hair, and what experiences in their life do they relate to their hair? What challenges related to hair do my interviewees perceive in life outside college? How do my participants actively reconcile and critically rationalize the dynamic between Black hair being worn by Black women and by non-Black women? What patterns …

America's Best Idea: Settler Colonialism And Recognition In The United States National Park Service Website, Madison Gates

Scripps Senior Theses

By examining closely how the National Park Service misrepresents their history and current relationships with Indigenous communities I work to demonstrate the depths of this misrepresentation and the impacts it has on various Indigenous communities and nations. In the first chapter, I explain how the history of national parks is founded on fundamentally opposed conceptions of land between Indigenous people and settlers and how this difference was used as justification for settler violence. In chapter two I explore the ways in which the National Park Service uses cultural collaboration to further tourist experience at the expense of respecting and properly …

Summer Treatment Programs: Counselors And Care Practices, Christina X. You

Scripps Senior Theses

Employing a mixed psychosocial and pharmacological approach, STPs offer six to nine weeks of intensive treatment for children deemed to have social and behavioral difficulties. One major asset STPs claim is their natural, fun setting—a true summer camp space for activities and open peer interaction—in which children learn positive behaviors that they can generalize into external social settings. Yet STPs are also highly structured. Staff, who are often undergraduate and graduate students, are trained in operant learning strategies to promote “positive” and suppress “maladaptive” behaviors, strict activity guidelines, and evaluations for procedural adherence. The program was developed based on the …

College Students "Coupling Up" With Reality Dating Shows: The Interpersonal Relationships Fostered By Reality Dating Show Viewership, Juliana Romeo

Scripps Senior Theses

On college campuses across the US on Monday evenings, groups of college students cluster around laptops and dorm lounge TVs to watch The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. Viewership of reality dating shows is clearly a popular social activity among students, but why? What needs are college students fulfilling with their viewership of this genre? This thesis explores college students’ relationship with reality dating shows and specifically how college students connect the realities of the contestants, the media space, and their everyday lives. Over nine months, I conducted ethnographic interviews and focus groups with twenty-one college students at residential colleges …

Tracing Biometric Assemblages In India’S Surveillance State: Reproducing Colonial Logics, Reifying Caste Purity, And Quelling Dissent Through Aadhaar, Priya Prabhakar

Scripps Senior Theses

Tracing Biometric Assemblages in India’s Surveillance State seeks to understand the historical conditions that rendered the nation-state of India as having the world’s largest biometric surveillance system: Aadhaar. Surveillance practices used by the British Raj mirrors the current social order of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as they use surveillance to similar ends in today’s political economy, through the intersecting forces of neoliberalism and ethnonationalism. This thesis is an exploration into how India’s current surveillance regimes cultivate biometric surveillant assemblages through Aadhaar. Contrary to claims that Aadhaar was created to empower the poor, I argue that these surveillance regimes …

Migration And Women’S Relationships To The Land And Food In Myanmar, Allison Joseph

Scripps Senior Theses

Abstract

In the 21st century, Myanmar has become the largest migration source country in the Greater Mekong Sub-region. To achieve its economic and political goals, the government has conducted extensive confiscation and reallocation of communal lands, which has resulted in a growing class of landless and dispossessed citizens. Under the new laws, rural women are disproportionately impacted and more vulnerable to the processes of dispossession, often lacking the rights or resources of their male counterparts to fight for the land of their ancestors. This has resulted in the wide-scale disinheritance of Myanmar’s rural women from their land and food, as …

'If I Don't Have That, No Learning": Significance Of Student-Centered Affective Labor Among Public High School Teachers In Tacoma, Wa, Delaney Dawson

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how public high school teachers in Tacoma, WA, USA conceptualize the values and rewards of their career through their professional interactions at various levels of the educational institution. By analyzing teachers’ career motivations, goals, and definitions of success, it becomes clear that these teachers most highly prioritize their affective labor and the relationships they build with their students. Teachers consistently emphasize the non-financial, student-centered elements of the compensation they receive for their work, and their grievances about the structure of the school system primarily center around the constraints placed upon their performance of student-centered affective labor by …

La Modernité Tunisienne Dévoilée : Une Étude Autour De La Femme Célibataire, Madison Wagner

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explains recent accounts of discrimination and cutbacks in reproductive health spaces in Tunisia. Complicating dominant analyses, which attribute these events to the post-revolution political atmosphere which has allowed the proliferation of islamic extremism, I interpret these instances as a manifestation of a deeply rooted stigma against sexually active single women. I trace this stigma’s inception to the contradictory way that Habib Bourguiba conceptualized modernity after independence, and the responsibility he assigned to Tunisian women to embody that modernity. This responsibility remains salient today, and is putting Tunisian women in an increasingly untenable and vulnerable position.

After independence, Bourguiba …

Labor Experiences Of Public High School Counselors: Neoliberalism, Productivity, And Care, Avery Harwood

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the day-to-day realities for public high school counselors inside their schools. The national average student-to-counselor ratio in public high schools in the U.S. is 482:1. This is almost double the recommended counselor caseload by the American School Counselor Association, which recommends 250 students per counselor. However, counselors’ inflated caseloads are not the only reason why counselors are overworked. Using a year’s worth of ethnographic research, I analyze the bureaucratic and care labor practices of counselors and the ways in which their labor exploitation reflects years of neoliberal discourse influencing the functioning of public education. This neoliberalization of …

Too Much Of A Good Thing: A Look Into The Educational Climate Of Port Townsend Washington, Rebecca Stewart

Scripps Senior Theses

The concept of choice as it applies to the American educational system has been a topic of intense discussion in recent years. Since the development of this central institution, the freedom of scholastic choice has been an intricate part of the United States’ academic landscape. However, scholars have noted a recent shift as the country has started to take a more neoliberal approach to schooling. In order to better understanding of the concept of choice on a more individualistic level, I conducted a number of personal interviews with parents raising their children in the small rural town of Port Townsend, …

Fear Of Change: Autonomous Vehicle Technology And The Automobile As A Cultural Artifact, Alexis Shoemaker

Scripps Senior Theses

The automobile is a cultural artifact embedded in our lives and imbued with meaning. Autonomous vehicle technology stands to alter not just the way we drive or whether we drive, it also has the power to fundamentally change the way we live. The development of driverless cars enables the examination of the complex relationships that individuals have with the automobile and reveals the fears associated with this technological change.

When Malbec Became Argentine: An Analysis Of The Quality Wine Revolution In Mendoza, Dominique Lee

Scripps Senior Theses

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Argentine wine industry experienced a shift from quantity to quality production which occurred while economic policies in Argentina opened economic opportunities for investment in the country. With these new opportunities, the industry began to focus on producing quality wine because of the desire to export and compete in the international market. As foreign investment entered Mendoza, the heart of Argentine wine country, new ideas and knowledge about wine production began to disseminate into the region and everyday practices. The shift from quantity to quality production was a paradigm shift in that it ushered …

Menageries Multiple: An Introduction To Zoological Multiplicity In The Modern American Zoo, Emily D. Gratke

Scripps Senior Theses

American zoological parks have been sites of intense consumer and scholar interest since their origination in the 20th century. Today, zoos reside at a tenacious hub of ideologies, practices, and priorities contributed to by various stakeholder groups. I propose that the foundational cause of this tension is zoological multiplicity: the theory that through human practices and perceptions, animals can embody multiple identities. Via an exploration of zoological multiplicity in American zoos with specific focus on zoo management, zoogoer, and animal activist stakeholder groups, this project proposes the widespread acknowledgment and understanding of zoological multiplicity as a method to improve animal …

Computer Science Education At The Claremont Colleges: The Building Of An Intuition, Lauren Burke

Scripps Senior Theses

In this thesis, I discuss how the undergraduate computer scientist is trained, and how they learn what I am calling computational intuition. Computational intuition describes the methodology in which computer scientists approach their problems and solve them through the use of computers. Computational intuition is a series of skills and a way of thinking or approaching problems that students learn throughout their education. The main way that computational intuition is taught to students is through the experience they gain as they work on homework and classwork problems. To develop computational intuition, students learn explicit knowledge and techniques as well as …

Domestic Violence Advocacy In California: Social Influences, Legal Limitations, And Client-Centered Practice, Claire Shum

Scripps Senior Theses

This project explores domestic violence advocacy in California by tracing historical, social, and cultural influences; examining the limit of the law and bias of those who uphold it; and analyzing a local domestic violence agency that provides services to survivors. Through the frameworks of anti-essentialization, and intersectionality I analyze gender roles and stereotypes ingrained in our culture. The essentialization of what it is to be a women renders women’s differences invisible, making it difficult for law and policy to address. By looking at domestic violence through an intersectional lens, the multi-layered nature women’s experiences can be revealed. However, not all …

Mexican Masculinities: Migration And Experiences Of Contemporary Mexican American Men, Zandalee Springs

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examined how four Male Mexican American post-undergraduate college students constructed their views on what it means “to be a man”. The method of oral histories not only for it’s power but also for its ability to offer a different perspective than that given by theory. Oral histories offer a rich perspective that has the power to challenge dominant narratives. The thesis was set up to reflect the way that the past informs the future. Through beginning with the history of U.S.-Mexico border relations via NAFTA, the Bracero Program, and the Border Patrol, one grasps the contentious relationship between …

An Ethnographic Inquiry: Contemporary Language Ideologies Of American Sign Language, Anya A. Leyhe

Scripps Senior Theses

Historically, American Sign Language (an aspect of Deaf culture) has been rendered invisible in mainstream hearing society. Today, ASL’s popularity is evidenced in an ethnolinguistic renaissance; more second language learners pursue an interest in ASL than ever before. Nonetheless, Deaf and hearing people alike express concern about ASL’s place in hearing culture. This qualitative study engages ethnographic methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviewing as well as popular media analysis to understand language ideologies (ideas and objectives concerning roles of language in society) hearing and Deaf Signers hold about motivations and practices of other hearing Signers. Although most hearing ASLers …

Politicized Historiography And The Zionist-Crusader Analogy, Emma Kellman

Scripps Senior Theses

This study offers a look at the ways in which discourse shaped by the contemporary Israel-Palestine conflict serves as a framework for modern historiography on Palestine. It focuses specifically on the variety of historical narratives proffered as to the “truth” of the Crusade period in Palestine, roughly the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, and their mobilization in political agendas through the Zionist-Crusader analogy. This comparison, a historical analogy likening Zionists to Frankish Crusaders or the State of Israel to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, appears frequently in contemporary dialogue on the Israel-Palestine conflict; it comes from a diverse range of …

Discourses Of Menstruation: Public And Private Formations Of Female Identity, Emily G. Matteson

Scripps Senior Theses

Menstruation is a biological process, but it is also laden with cultrual meanings that produce society's understandings of both the body and "womanhood." The experiences of those who menstruate both reveal and inform the ways that culture mediates the relationships between biology, the body, sex, and gender. This study examines the ways that students at Scripps College, a women's college in Claremont, CA, understand and experience menstruation as part of living in an environment where the majority of students identify as female. Through ethnographic interviews, I demonstrate the ways that students use menstruation to re-envision distinctions between public and private …

Growing Together Separately: An Analysis Of The Influence Of Individualism In An Alternative Educational Setting, Jessica L. Warren

Scripps Senior Theses

Alternative educational settings that attempt to challenge Individualism are pervaded by Individualizing influences from the larger school system. This thesis examines the influences of Individualism in a school garden program at a Southern California continuation high school. Program members included high school students, college student interns, and two co-directors. Research was conducted during the spring semester of 2014. By providing an analysis of the Individualizing and non-Individualizing influences present in the program and the ways in which these influences interacted to inform the program structure and program members’ experiences and understandings, my thesis sheds new light on the complex ways …

La Crisis De Salud En Guatemala: La Biomedicina Y La Medicina Maya En Conflicto, Sophia Willis-Conger

Scripps Senior Theses

Éste ensayo se trata de medicina indígena en communidades Mayas, principalmente en Guatemala, y las maneras en que biomedicina ha infiltrado el país. Los sistemas de salud estan analyizado por lentes feministas, antiracistas, anticlassistas.

Woman Into The Wild: Female Thru-Hikers And Pilgrimage On The Appalachian And Pacific Crest Trails, Lucy L. Bosche

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis follows solo women hikers as they embark upon walking either the Pacific Crest Trail or the Appalachian Trail from beginning to end. By witnessing the ways in which the women hikers navigate the counter-culture of the trails, a critique of American society is revealed. This paper focuses on the differences between trail culture and normative culture, the transformations the hikers undergo, and how the hikes have affected the women’s lives.

Delivering Quality Care: The Roles And Future Of Midwives In Southern California, Abigail Jones

Scripps Senior Theses

The United States is ranked 27^th in the world for maternal mortality, yet spends twice as much on maternity care services as countries with better maternal health indicators. Stuck in a technocratic and physician-dominated maternity care system, the U.S. depends on expensive technologies to control birth out of fear of pain and litigation, costing Americans billions of dollars and depriving women of the opportunity to have a transformative birth experience. Through an analysis of the medicalization of birth and the current biomedical model in birth, in conjunction with open-ended interviews with 5 hospital midwives and 3 homebirth midwives, the …

The Hegemony Of English In South African Education, Kelsey E. Figone

Scripps Senior Theses

The South African Constitution recognizes 11 official languages and protects an individual’s right to use their mother-tongue freely. Despite this recognition, the majority of South African schools use English as the language of learning and teaching (LOLT). Learning in English is a struggle for many students who speak indigenous African languages, rather than English, as a mother-tongue, and the educational system is failing its students. This perpetuates inequality between different South African communities in a way that has roots in the divisions of South Africa’s past. An examination of the power of language and South Africa’s experience with colonialism and …

La Sociolinguistique Postcoloniale En Amérique Hispanophone Et En Afrique Francophone : Un Drame Linguistique En Deux Actes, Eva Valenti

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes the sociolinguistic situations in postcolonial Latin America and francophone North Africa (the Maghreb) through a comparative lens. Specifically, it examines the ways in which Spain and France’s differing colonial agendas and language ideologies affected the relationships between colonizer and colonized, and, by extension, the role that Spanish and French play(ed) in these regions after decolonization. Finally, it explores how Spain and France’s contemporary discourses frame colonial participation in the two languages’ development, and the psychological effects these ideologies have had on the formerly colonized.