Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Motivational Factors And Opportunities To Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics (Stem) Majors Among Native Hawaiian And Other Pacific Islanders (Nhpi), Shanthia Espinosa, Alma M. O. Trinidad

McNair Symposium

Higher education is a contentious space that poses challenges and barriers to the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. This study explores the motivational factors and opportunities to STEM fields among Native Hawaiian Pacific Islanders (NHPI). A qualitative method was used in this study, examining public archival data (e.g., videos, recordings, digital information, etc.) of self-identified NHPI scientists, scholar-activists, leaders, and their narratives of entering the STEM fields. Specifically, the portrayal of needs and promotion of NHPI representation and access were examined, including messages that inspire and encourage STEM interest among NHPI youth. This study explores motivation, opportunities, and …

A Cyber-Anthropological Interrogation Of East Asian Parenting Styles And Kinship Systems, Catherine Lefevre, Charles H. Klein

McNair Symposium

Cyber-anthropology is a crucial, and perhaps underexplored, aspect of contemporary anthropological research. Cyber-anthropologists seek to analyze and comprehend the seemingly complex reciprocal relations that exist between humans and computer driven realities. Cyber-anthropology is certainly applicable to ethnographic research and analysis. Dr. Amy Chua dissects the East-Asian cultural phenomenon of the “Tiger Mom” and the relatively strict parenting style often associated with Tiger Mothers and East-Asian cultural communities. This research paper examines East-Asian parenting styles, specifically the concept of the “Tiger Mom” and the correlatives that exist regarding academic performance, mental health and the disparities that often present themselves when examined …

Exploring How Gentrification-Related Effects Impact The Health Of Older Black Adults, Ann Wachana, Holly Hinson

McNair Symposium

Black adults living in gentrifying neighborhoods experience cultural incongruence with new, often younger, high SES and White residents. In addition, older Black adults are losing deep ties to their neighborhood. This is a major loss to their social network and their sense of belonging within their own neighborhoods. Disruption of long-standing social ties can cause changes in mental health and raises concerns about gentrification’s potentially disruptive impact on cognitive health and the brain aging process. In order to learn more about the experience of older Black adults within a rapidly changing city, focus group discussions from the Sharing History through …

Perceptual Mismatch Between Meso And Macro Policy At Tokyo International University, Brianna Ross, Kimberly Brown

McNair Symposium

Previous studies have aimed at looking at meso and micro policy levels of Japanese educational institutions and their English language teaching programs. Through conducting surveys and interviews, researchers gained knowledge of how, or if, institutions portray their standards to students and staff and how those goals are displayed through curriculum. This research shows a disconnect between the stated goals and in class instruction. While the researchers looked at overall disconnects, none looked at specific universities and their programs. My study aims to fill that gap, focusing on a university known for its English teaching and production skills. The intention is …

Comparing Heavy Metal Content Found In Spinach (Spinacia Oleracea) Grown On The Roof And Ground Sites At Portland State University, Tyler Robin, Gwynn R. Johnson, Olyssa Starry

McNair Symposium

As a result of urbanization, fresh, healthy food can be expensive and easily contaminated but space for local farming is limited. Roofs can be underutilized in densely populated cities and can offer a space for local fresh farming. The purpose of this study is to find if growing leafy vegetables on the roof can limit heavy metal exposure from air pollutants. By growing Spinach on five roofs and five ground locations around the Portland State University campus, at varying heights, we can extract the heavy metals found in these greens and compare them to each other. The expected results show …

Liberalism, Settlement, Sacrifice: Towards A Genealogy Of Sacrificial Politics, Marshall Scheider, Adam Culver

McNair Symposium

In recent years, political theorists have begun to explore the sacrificial dimensions of liberalism and neoliberalism in the global North. Little of this work, however, grapples with the ways settler colonialism informs contemporary political sacrifice or conceptions of the sacrificial. This paper traces a genealogy of contemporary political sacrifice through the archive of early British colonialism in North America. When theorists ignore this archive, they do more than render colonization mute: they also fail to apprehend what I term political sacrifice’s differential function—the mechanism by which sacrifice’s burdens fall on subordinated groups while its benefits accrue to the socially, politically, …

Ronald E. Mcnair Scholars Program Profiles And Abstracts 2021, Mcnair Scholars Program

McNair Symposium

This is the complete event program and provides presentation abstracts and biographies of McNair scholars and their mentors.

Feedback Timing: Relationship To Student Success In Online Education, Emaleia J. Anton, Nicholas A. Smith

Student Research Symposium

It’s important that researchers identify factors that support student success in online education because utilization of remote learning has increased over the years. Feedback timing is a vital factor contributing to student success in online educational environments. The purpose of this research is to experimentally examine effects of feedback timing on online student success, which this study operationalizes as student perception of self-efficacy. Conducting a between-subjects experimental design, 100 undergraduate students will participate in an online synchronous crash course and will be randomly assigned to different conditions of the independent variable where they will receive either prompt or delayed feedback …

The Impact Of Professors’ Heterosexual Identity In Higher Education Classrooms, Sam Barr

Student Research Symposium

This proposed study is concerned with lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) student’s perceptions of classroom climate, and the potential negative impacts of these perceptions. A poor classroom climate can decrease student participation and contribute to minority stress, which can be a barrier to successful higher education. In this study, we plan to inspect the impact of professors’ heterosexual identities on their scores of Classroom Diversity Climate (CDC). We hope to recruit heterosexual Portland State University professors and their students for our study. After randomly assigning professors to either an intervention on integrative heterosexuality or to a waitlist (control) group, we …

The Amungme And The Environment: Environmental Justice History And Consumerism, Kole A. Dawson

Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Regional Conference

The Amungme are one of hundreds of Papuan people groups who lived in the Indonesian province in New Guinea for thousands of years. This group subsisted in their environment by hunting, cultivation of small crops, and practicing pig husbandry. In the late 1960s, seeking foreign capital to boost the nation’s economy, the president of Indonesia signed a contract with Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold. Freeport began mining in the early 1970s, eventually opening one of the world’s largest gold mines. Excavating sacred Amungme sites, Freeport’s massive pollution to the land and water destroyed the indigenous people’s environment both spiritually and …

Born And Bred In Blood: The Fall Of The Aztec Empire, Melina Arciniega

Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Regional Conference

The fall of the Aztec Empire in 1521 was a surprising feat given the well-known, vast power, and fighting capabilities of the Aztec people. Many questions since then have arisen as to how such a mighty empire had so rapidly fallen. These theories hold implications that the Aztecs were victims to the incoming disease, famine, and domination inflicted by the Spanish conquistador, Hernan Cortes. Alongside these proposals I suggest that by examining archaeological and historical evidence, the Aztec traditional practices were also responsible for its society’s collapse. By identifying the significance of the human sacrifices, the cultural, political, and economical …

The Sun Only Sets On Black Britons: Sexuality And The Notting Hill Riots, Victor Curiel

Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Regional Conference

Late into August 1958, a gang of white youth unleashed a catastrophic wave of targeted violence against Black migrants in the areas around Notting Hill and Nottingham. The event came to be known as the Notting Hill and Nottingham riots. The riots served as a watershed moment, allowing government members to capitalize on race as a problem and eventually limit Black entry into the country and validate unequal access to opportunities and support. However, the riots merely served as kindling to a destructive discourse of race relations already taking place, constructing a narrative that saw Black individuals as foreign, dangerous, …

'They’Re Building A Wall': The Separation Barrier In Palestine/Israel, Tyler Durbin

Phi Alpha Theta Pacific Northwest Regional Conference

Despite international legal consensus declaring the separation wall in Palestine/Israel as illegal, Israel has continued this geopolitical project unchallenged. Examining the judicial decisions of the International Court of Justice and Israel’s High Court of Justice on the wall reveals that Israel’s project, which began in 2002, was motivated by a political desire to protect illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories, confiscate Palestinian land, and constrict their movement and space. Analyzing the entirety of the wall through the lens of containment illuminates how the wall’s fracturing of Palestinian land created the material conditions, or the ‘facts on the ground’, for Israel’s …

An Intervention To Increase Detection Of Developmental Delays In Wic Programs, Mohadeseh Solgi, Julie A. Reeder, Sherri Alderman, Katharine E. Zuckerman

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

Background: Low-income children are at risk for under-detection of developmental disabilities DD. WIC clinics see low-income children regularly in early childhood and could be an important source of referrals to developmental services.

Objectives: To increase the number of referrals to EI/ECSE from non-primary care settings such as WIC.

Methods: This was a site-randomized trial of an intervention to train WIC staff in early identification of DD’s, using CDC’s LTSAE developmental monitoring materials. 7 county WIC agencies in Oregon enrolled; 4 intervention agencies and 3 control agencies. The intervention consisted of an on-site, half-day training regarding signs of developmental delays, use …

Urbanization And Mental Health: The Power Of Green Space, Emma Rosenthal

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

In this presentation, I will review the negative impacts of urbanization on mental health and the positive role of green space on mental well-being. Moreover, I will provide examples of projects being conducted to increase the amount of green space in urban communities.

Quarantine Ethics: From Past To Covid-19, Chrystal Barnes

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Annual Conference

Quarantines have been a preventative measure for reducing communicable disease spread for centuries. The method of implementation can vary widely and to some extent requires some level of judgement from enforcing powers, often state police power. As such, historically, some quarantines have been unfairly enforced based on discriminatory practices. COVID-19 has brought about the most widespread and extended quarantine in U.S. history, which makes evaluating the ethics all the more critical. In addition, it is well established that COVID-19 impacts have disproportionately caused harm to populations, such as those who are of a low socioeconomic status and people of color. …