Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

A Need For Green: An Approach For Motivating Environmentally Sustainable Practices At The University Of Rhode Island, Alyssa Mason, Mary Vidal

Senior Honors Projects

“Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Meade

Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man details his yearlong experiment to live without creating any environmental impact. As sophomores we were inspired by Beavan’s journey but also skeptical of living a completely no-impact lifestyle as college-students. Although we were motivated to try to live sustainably, our efforts were dormant until our junior year. That year we decided that we would attempt to live up to the standards set forth by Beavan--understanding that some practices would be harder …

An Analysis Of White Masculinity In 2013, Edward Pare

Senior Honors Projects

An Analysis of American Masculinity

Edward Pare, History and Mathematics

Faculty Sponsor: Kyle Kusz, Kinesiology

American masculinity, more specifically white masculinity in America, is an ever-evolving subject. In the past two decades, cultural analysts have been writing once again about the idea of the existence of a crisis of white masculinity. This project takes a multi-method approach to analyze the social effects of mass mediated white masculinities on the process of how young white, middle class men construct and perform their white masculinities.

We live in a culture where citizens are inundated with media information and images, some of which …

A College Study On Grief, Depression, And Anxiety, Briana Alexandre Paulo

Senior Honors Projects

Trauma and stress have been commonly studied with the occurrence of anxiety disorders. However, less research has been conducted on the relationship between the experience of loss, the centrality of the loss to a person’s identity and the experience and severity of symptoms of depression and anxiety. Current research has examined the relationship between a significant stressful event and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Symptoms of anxiety and depression are experienced by people during various points in their life, although higher levels of these disorders may be exhibited after having experienced a loss or stressful life event.

Grief can …

Cheaper By The Dozen: Communication In Large Families, Hayley R. Hutchins

Senior Honors Projects

Little research has been devoted to the examination of communicative patterns and behaviors within traditional large nuclear families. In fact, large families themselves have become quite rare in industrialized western society. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, total fertility rate in the United States is at 1.93, and the US Census Bureau reports that the average number of children in a family is less than two. Though the rarity of large families has made them difficult to study, large families are by no means extinct as a demographic.

The research herein seeks to expand current understanding of …

A Need For Green: An Approach For Motivating Environmentally Sustainable Practices At The University Of Rhode Island, Mary Vidal, Alyssa Mason

Senior Honors Projects

“Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Meade

Colin Beavan’s No Impact Man details his yearlong experiment to live without creating any environmental impact. As sophomores we were inspired by Beavan’s journey but also skeptical of living a completely no-impact lifestyle as college-students. Although we were motivated to try to live sustainably, our efforts were dormant until our junior year. That year we decided that we would attempt to live up to the standards set forth by Beavan--understanding that some practices would be harder …

Virginia Woolf & Michel Foucault: Methods Of Justice, Elizabeth K. Doré

Senior Honors Projects

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is primarily known today as a central British modernist novelist. In addition, she was also an important theorist of power, subjectivity, and ethics, especially as she turned her attention in the 1930s--as fascism spread and intensified across Europe--toward the public sphere in which European women were still then more or less without (easy) access. I read her late novels and essays alongside her diary in order to excavate the theoretical/political/ethical premises of her thought. I contend that she shares with the late thought of French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926-1984) an original conception of ethics. Woolf and Foucault’s …

China's 80后 And 90后: The Next Generation Of Leaders In The World's Next Superpower, A Students-Teaching-Students Course, Patrick Slavin

Senior Honors Projects

In light of China’s recent reemergence as a global superpower, it is becoming increasingly important for westerners to understand its history and culture. For current college students, the culture of China’s youth is particularly pertinent.

In this project, a course, HPR 107: Chinese Youth Culture, was designed and taught through the Students-Teaching-Students program, which provides senior Honor’s Program students the opportunity to design and teach their own Honor’s Program course. The HPR 107 course focuses on China’s 80后 and 90后 generations, those born in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively.

This multi-faceted project includes: subject matter research, course development, pedagogy development, …

Marriage Equality: Media Coverage And Public Opinion, Amanda Studley

Senior Honors Projects

The struggle for equality is nothing new in this country. Every minority group has faced it’s own hardships when trying to advocate for the advancement of their people. One of the most recent struggles has involved the LGBT community and their pursuit of equal marriage laws nationally. Currently the campaign for marriage equality has had success in nine states and the District of Columbia, each of which now grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples. However, thirty states have enacted constitutional bans on same-sex marriage (NCLS 2013). Currently 49% of the population endorses full and equal marriage rights for same sex …

Guns Of Fortune: How Guns Move To Fulfill Demand, Michael J. Coates

Senior Honors Projects

Legislators face a compelling dilemma, how can they decrease the prevalence of gun violence? Cities and States around the United States have laws intended to prevent violent criminals from acquiring and using weapons, but it remains debatable whether these laws are effective.

This study posits that guns are subject to the laws of supply and demand and the variable gun laws in states across the country decreases the effectiveness of local and state gun legislation. In short, guns are trafficked across state lines to meet demand in states with stricter gun laws.

Data for the study was collected from the …

Bird Bone Taphonomy In The Tse-Whit-Zen Site, Marielle Lara Orff

Senior Honors Projects

Tse-whit-zen is a large well preserved archaeological site that was discovered in August 2003 in the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. By 2004 an archaeological dig crew was working tirelessly on the site, which turned out to be one of the largest Native American villages ever found in the Pacific Northwest. This village was shown to have been inhabited by the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe, whose descendants still continue to live in the region. The site was occupied for thousands of years, with the oldest material dated at 2,700 years ago and the youngest at 100 years ago when the …

Radical Student Activism In The 1930s And Its Comparison To Student Activism During Occupy Wall Street, Andrew J. Pierce

Senior Honors Projects

In order to understand the present we must first understand the past. The United States may be a country founded on principles of democracy and republicanism, but students in universities across the nation have aligned themselves, historically, with some heterodox philosophies over the years. Whether it was Communism or Socialism in the 1930’s, or left libertarianism and direct democracy during the recent Occupy protests, students have long considered whether the policies of the United States government were really working in their best interests.

On campus in Depression-era America, Leftist student groups began to rise up and attempted to change the …