Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Original Free Will Baptist Clergy Role Stress: A Definition And Its Emotional Consequences, Dustin R. Bannister

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The role of a clergyperson is often understood as one that creates a connection between the human and the divine, faith and God. However, such a vast role is typically executed in specific ways, such as leading Bible studies, visiting the sick, leading worship, and the act of preaching. At times, such a role demands even more nuanced behaviors based upon the context, population, and time. As this study posited, the problem is that such a multiplicity of clergy expectations inevitably create role stress, as understood through the constructs of role ambiguity and role conflict. In particular, how one might …

A Qualitative Inquiry Exploring Help-Seeking Behaviors And Resilience Strategies Women With Disabilities Utilize When Experiencing Gender-Based Violence In Rural Communities, Kimberly Ann Aguillard

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Women with disabilities (WWD) are at pronounced risk of experiencing multiple forms of severe and prolonged violence, and they face barriers to accessing help. A multitude of factors associated with disability and rurality may compound the experience of violence, including geographic and social isolation, forcing WWD in rural settings to navigate extremely dangerous situations with limited avenues for accessing help and securing safety. This research explored how women with disabilities experiencing violence while living in rural communities navigate programs and policies, make decisions about seeking and securing help, and build resilience despite experiencing violence. The current study methodology empowers this …

What Are Stakeholders' Perceptions Of Rural School District Needs To Effectively Educate Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Kari Lyn Pugh

Theses and Dissertations

The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has continued to rise each year. This fact has significance in the area of education. The rise in prevalence of autism means an increase of students with autism in schools. Educators have the need to be prepared to provide an appropriate education for these students but may not have training or resources to be effective. Rural communities may have even more concerns about education for students with ASD due to geographic isolation and the lack of available educators in their area trained to support the specific needs of these students. To determine the …

An Evaluation Of Community Based Food Intervention: Cooking Matters In Charleston, Ms, Lindsay Fournier

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of Cooking Matters classes in producing improvement in individuals’ cooking skills and confidence, as well as their eating behaviors, shopping skills, and perceptions of cooking in rural Charleston, MS. These classes have reported great success in more urban areas such as Atlanta, GA; Philadelphia, PA; and Washington, DC; however, different challenges may be faced in rural Mississippi. To study the effectiveness of the interventions in a new context, pre- and post-intervention self-report surveys were performed and evaluated using Wilcoxon statistical analysis as well as paired sample t tests, and bootstrap …

The Feasibility Of Creating And Sustaining Charter Schools In The Rural United States, Mcallister Hall

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Many parents in rural areas desire to make a choice for their child to have an education different from what the local TPS can provide, but the choice is not available (McCarthy, 2016, Bagley, Woods, & Glatter, 2001). Communities play a large role in the success of both TPSs and charter schools, especially in rural areas (Johnson & Howley, 2015, Stuit & Doan, 2012). In many cases, community characteristics impact student performance as much as the school characteristics (Bodine et al., 2008, Reeves, 2012). The research presented in this study acts as a feasibility study of the potential for rural …

Arkansas Aprons: Food Power And Women In Arkansas, 1857 To 1891, Robyn Shahan Spears

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Arkansas foodways in the late nineteenth century were defined by times of plenty and scarcity, need and connection, traditions and innovations. These components created a unique culture in which women through food exchange, were able to improve their standard of living. The years of plenty established in the antebellum era lay in stark contrast to the scarcity during the Civil War. What followed during the Progressive Era are fascinating histories of women employing their agency to empower and improve not only their lives but also future generations. I argue that these women utilized their agency to engage in “food power,” …

Drinking Water Governance For Whom? An Institutional Analysis Of Rural Drinking Water Systems In New Mexico, Tucker Colvin

Geography ETDs

Rural community drinking water systems in New Mexico are facing many challenges, including a lack of personnel, deteriorating infrastructure, lack of funds, overly burdensome and confusing regulation, environmental concerns, and concerns over water rights. Governing agencies are creating vulnerability by making managers prioritize some issues and neglect others. Water systems designated a Mutual Domestic Water Consumers Associations are especially problematic because they are small and managed by volunteers but have as much regulatory burden as larger municipalities. I use the theory of institutional work to explain how an institution that was originally designed to help low-income and rural communities is …

Unique Challenges In Risk Assessment With Rural Domestic Violence Victims: Implications For Practice, Nicole L. Youngson

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Through interviews with violence against women (VAW) workers (n=14), the present study examined workers’ perspectives of risk factors and the challenges in assessing risk for women experiencing domestic violence (DV) in rural locations. The present study also examined what promising practices VAW workers are utilizing when working with women experiencing DV in rural locations. Qualitative analysis indicated several risk factors including the location (i.e., geographic isolation, lack of transportation, and lack of community resources) and cultural factors (i.e., accepted and more available use of firearms, poverty, and no privacy/anonymity). Moreover, qualitative analyses indicated several challenges for VAW workers assessing risk …

"Urban" Dengue? An Examination Of Perceived Dengue Risk And Notions Of The Urban In Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador, Charlotte Robbins

Senior Theses and Projects

Is dengue fever an urban disease as public health literature suggests? And what does this literature mean by urban? To answer these questions, I compare perceptions of the urban and dengue risk from residents who I interviewed across different sites in Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador. I ground my analysis in four urban frameworks: the bounded city theory, postcolonial theory, assemblage urbanism, and urban political ecology. I find that residents in Esmeraldas Province think about urban spaces very differently from how the Ecuadorian government defines what is urban. In particular, residents discuss government investment in infrastructure and services as an important dimension …

Long-Term Impact Of Welfare Reform: Biopsychosocial Barriers To Successful Transition Away From Welfare Reliance Among Rural Women In Louisiana, Jake Jerome Guidry

LSU Master's Theses

The discussion regarding government benefits and reliance on welfare benefits is one that takes place in arenas of policymaking and academia alike. These discussions often focus on poverty that exists in densely populated metropolitan areas, resulting in a scarcity of research regarding unique characteristics of rural poverty. Eighty-four rural Louisiana women participated in a longitudinal study of the impacts of welfare reform in their lives. Twenty years later, two (N = 2) rural Louisiana women, each former welfare recipients, participated in an in-depth qualitative case study examining their transition away from welfare programs. Data show that neither woman was …

Examining The Environmental Influences On Physical Activity Among Children In Rural Northern Ontario, Brenton L G Button

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Low levels of physical activity (PA) among children in Canada have been a primary health concern over the last decade. Higher levels of PA are associated with numerous social, physical, and mental health benefits, and research has also shown that different social, built, and natural elements of local environments are associated with varying levels of PA. Despite growing evidence around the connection between a child’s environment and PA, little research has examined the influence of the environment on the PA of rural Canadian children.

Broadly based on the ecological systems theory, this dissertation used data from the Spatial Temporal Environment …

Small-Town Living: Do Illinois Universities Understand The Rural College Student?, Erik Andrew Dalmasso

Theses and Dissertations

Rural students are confronted with unique challenges when considering postsecondary choices. According to McShane and Smarick (2018), scholarship on this overarching issue is limited, as it is “often shunted to specialized journals that have not been able to integrate findings into the broader education policy conversation” (p. 1). Rural students, and to a broader extent, rural education have little voice in the postsecondary pathways that have been created within higher education (Goldman, 2019). Recruitment of rural students, financial aid policy, remediation/developmental programming, state and federal postsecondary legislation have largely treated rural students in tandem with their urban and suburban peers, …

Urban And Rural Alaskan Physicians’ Knowledge, Attitudes, And Behaviors Regarding Palliative Care, Mary Bernadette Cavalier

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Palliative care provides multidisciplinary treatment of the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual needs of patients and families with serious illnesses. Alaska has the highest per capita rates of serious illnesses in the United States, but many Alaskans lack access to palliative care. Using Engel’s biopsychosocial model of care, Saunders’ total pain theory, and Bandura’s theory of self-efficacy, the purpose of this study was to assess the role of physicians regarding palliative care access in Alaska. This quantitative multivariable regression analysis examined the relationship between 133 Alaskan physicians’ knowledge and attitudes (independent variables) and their behaviors (dependent variable) regarding palliative care; …

Patterns Of Victimization Of School-Aged Children With Autism In The Rural Southern United States, Megan Rae Marie Thornton

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Individuals with disabilities experience victimization at rates higher than their typically-functioning peers. Because they are often perceived as unreliable reporters, the likelihood that victimizations of individuals with disabilities are reported is low. Data regarding the lived victimization experiences of individuals with specific disabilities are scant. Grounded in the rational choice theory and Cohen and Felson’s routine activity theory, this qualitative study investigated the victimization experiences of school-aged children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the rural Southern US. This study involved 21 public school students between the ages of 12 and 17 who were interviewed using the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire, …

The Lived Experiences Of Rural Clinical Social Workers In North Carolina, Sarah Horne

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Rural clinical social workers face unique challenges when providing services to members of rural communities. To face these challenges and deliver culturally competent services, clinical social workers in rural communities must be specifically prepared for rural clinical social work. This study addressed issues of preparedness for rural clinical social work centered around rural clinical social work supervision in the context of the systems theory. The phenomenological design allowed for the exploration of the lived experiences of rural clinical social workers. Study participants who volunteered for study after being contacted via information provided to the North Carolina Social Work Board were …

Rural Counselors’ Use Of Technology To Address Professional Isolation, Jacqueline Dale Grantland

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractRural counselors experience high levels of stress and burnout because of increased job demands, a lack of professional resources, and professional isolation in rural community practice. Technology can be a useful tool for counselors to maintain connectivity and access resources not readily available. However, a gap in the literature exists on rural counselors’ experience with technology to remediate professional isolation. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological framework with an interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) was to explore licensed professional counselors’ experiences with using technology to address professional isolation in rural community practice. The inclusion criteria included the counselors having 2 years …

Enabling And Threatening Factors Affecting Persistence. A Qualitative And Quantitative Study On Rural First-Generation Stem Students’ And Stem Faculty's Perspectives., Travis A. Miller

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

This study focuses on the factors that enable and threaten rural first-generation STEM students’ persistence. Limited empirical studies are available that focus on rural first-generation STEM majors’ persistence. Quantitative analysis was conducted using Kruskal Wallis H and Mann-Whitney U tests to determine any significant differences with the survey results. Content and thematic analysis was conducted on the student and faculty interviews to determine themes of enabling and threatening factors affecting persistence.

Enabling factors affecting persistence were found to be: Drive or Motivation, Experiences and skills, and Support. These were both faculty and student interview themes whereas a …

Battered Women's Help-Seeking In The Rural Southwestern United States, Celina Gerese Bryant

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many victims of domestic violence who seek help are never able to break the cycle of abuse. Many studies address the stages and types of domestic violence, but few focus on successful recovery from abuse. The purpose of this study was to fill the gap in the literature concerning battered women's help-seeking processes in rural southwestern United States. The specific focus was on how victims and survivors of intimate partner violence seek help for domestic violence issues and whether their help-seeking processes determine successful recovery from domestic violence situations. This study was a qualitative case study based on symbolic interactionism …

Policies And Politics Of Reform : The Governmentality Of Structural Adjustment In Urban And Rural Egypt, Gabriel Gluskin-Braun

CMC Senior Theses

This analysis explores the unique and tumultuous approach to reform in Egypt and addresses

the effects of the implementation of neoliberal policy tools. These tools included privatization, price

liberalization, deregulation, and land reform in both urban and rural areas. Based on these effects, this

analysis will argue that the benefits accrued by the political-economic elite created opportunities for

new patronage networks that upheld elite economic privilege through the process of liberalization

while a wide swath of Egyptians suffered the loss of limited privileges and protections from the state

established by Nasr and upheld by his successors. Consequently, the socialist-statist ‘social …

Impact Of Coaching By Extension Professionals On Rural Wellness Coalition Success, Taylor Willhite

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Objective: To quantitatively assess coaches perceived confidence in coaching rural wellness coalitions and to qualitatively determine barriers and facilitators to success in coaching rural wellness coalitions.
Design: A mixed methods design was utilized with quantitative (scorecard) and qualitative (key informant interviews) methodologies.
Setting: Six rural South Dakota wellness coalitions.
Participants: Extension wellness coalition coaches (n=7), one previous and six current.
Intervention: A component of the broader SDSU Extension 1416 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) intervention.
Analysis: STATA was utilized for the quantitative scorecard data by running paired ttests. NVivo was utilized in the …

Using Community Cultural Wealth Narratives Of Low-Income High School Students In A Rural Northern California Community, Rene Rodriguez Malamed

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the experiences of white, low-income high school students completing their senior year in a rural community and earning their diplomas. The purpose of the study was to examine participants’ stories during high school using a community cultural wealth framework and narrative methodological approach. Results showed that students utilized capitals such as social, moral, familial and resistant in their small communities. Multiple capitals interacted and influenced each other as rural youth draw on these for support.

A Comparative Study Of The Influence Of Credential Attainment On Employment Outcomes In Rural And Urban Localities, Carrie S. Douglas

Theses and Dissertations

The significance of credentials has heightened considerably in recent decades with numerous federal and state policy initiatives aimed at increasing credential attainment. Various public workforce programs support these efforts, including the federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA), which provided training to job-seekers from 1998 through 2015. Scholars point to human capital theory to explain how education investments yield economic gains. Screening, signaling, and credentialist theories provide a framework for examining the ways that credentials are used in labor markets. The literature on rural labor markets suggests that conditions are very different from their urban counterparts, with significant challenges existing in terms …

Rural Veterans Of Texas And Their Accessibility To Mental Health Care Services, Jeremy Buchanan

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

After their service commitment has concluded, United States servicemembers are evaluated to what medical ailments and afflictions, both mental and physical, are attributed to their military service. The Department of Veterans Affairs is the government agency that is specifically tasked with the treatment and care of that exam and continuously works on this overwhelming endeavor as military members transfer out from their respective branch of service. One area that is outside of the VA’s control is where veterans will reside upon their separation from the military. When it comes to rural areas, the access to resources, primarily for this study, …