Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Mayoral Candidates Scott Stringer, Eric Adams Travel Different Roads On Police Reform, Ryan Songalia

Capstones

Police reform is likely to be among the most consequential issues in the 2021 New York City Mayoral Democratic Primary and general election. Two of the leading candidates, Eric Adams and Scott Stringer, have long records to dissect on the issue.

Karla Arroyo - Deeper Than Hair Social Journalism Practicum, Karla Y. Arroyo

Capstones

This project package is my final project as a Social Journalism student at the Newmark J-School. For 16 months, I engaged with and reported on Black and brown people who are subject to or have lived experiences of hair discrimination in workplaces, schools and society. In my final report, I offer a lengthy summary of my process of engaging with people in my community and how I created an effective medium to serve them: via a newsletter. The Deeper Than Hair Newsletter is a monthly news service in collaboration with the CROWN Campaign where we offer community members resources like …

Meta Analysis Of Rct Interventions, Ayo Ellis

Master's Theses

External validity of an RCT intervention enables understanding of where interventions are successful.

Meta-analysis allows for more generalized statements to be made on the effectiveness of RCTs across countries of different geographic and national income profiles. By comparing the findings from similar studies carried out in different settings I seek to describe whether RCTs in certain sectors are more sensitive to high GDP growth or higher levels of GDP. I consider 402 health, education, and industry development RCT studies done between 1980 and 2015 in 201 countries compiled by development non-profit Aidgrade. I find no significant effect of income level …

The Fear Of Reptiles And How To Change It, Maxwell Lyman

Honors Projects

Reptile fear is prominent across many cultures. Anti-reptilian attitudes can lead to anti-conservation attitudes towards reptiles. Person-animal interaction has been shown to decrease fear desensitization and increase positive attitudes towards "unpopular" animals. My project demonstrates the effectiveness of live animal presentation in dispelling negative attitudes of reptiles. However, due to the sample size of the project, further research is highly suggested.

Trumpism Against The Public Interest: A Political Discourse Analysis, Walter L. Taylor

Public Affairs Dissertations

Trumpism has come to mean different things to different people. This dissertation explores whether Trumpism is an extreme form of New Public Management, privileging values of efficiency and effectiveness, in public policy and public administration, to the exclusion of the value of social equity. Fairclough & Fairclough’s (2012) political discourse analysis method is applied to Trump’s immigration policy to enact merit-based immigration and to his housing policy to eliminate the Community Development Block Grant program. Using Fairclough & Fairclough’s (2012) political discourse analysis method consisting of argumentation theory and critical discourse analysis, along with Frederickson’s “Compound Theory of Social Equity” …

Evolution Of Sustainability And Resilience In Military Master Planning: Examining Planners' Perceptions, Rhonda E. Fields

Public Affairs Dissertations

An increasingly globalized world and mounting threats to our economy, environment, and social structures have brought the concepts of sustainability and resilience into sharp focus. These threats include climate change, rapid urbanization, and loss of biodiversity in an increasing volatile, uncertain, ambiguous, and complex world. Sustainability and resilience have emerged as key concepts in understanding and addressing urban dynamics toward a livable urban future. These concepts are important because resilience typically deals with the short-term issues surrounding predicting and responding to immediate threats, while sustainability looks at the long-term, steady state of the built and natural environment. Focusing on resilience …

An Exploratory Case Study: Analyzing Planning Approaches In Economic Development Through The Institutional Analysis And Development Framework, Priscylla Bento

Public Affairs Dissertations

This exploratory case study examines planning and economic development through the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework in the New Institutional Economic Theory. Two selected case studies highlight economic development orchestrated under two planning approaches, Transactive Planning and Market Oriented Planning. A case study of the Bishop Arts District urban revitalization in Dallas, Texas and the Bexar Street Retail Development Project in Dallas, Texas provides an exploratory analysis of the specified planning methods. This study moves away from previous forms of analysis of economic development planning, highlighting the New Institutional Economic theory through the Institutional Analysis and Development framework as …

Application Of The Critical Race And Latino Critical Theories To Explore Social Innovation In Nonprofit Services Addressing Hiv/Aids Issues In Texas, Jack Brandon Philips

Public Affairs Dissertations

The nonprofit sector is an essential and valuable resource in the United States for aiding marginalized populations. This study focuses on how nonprofit health organizations provide and innovate HIV services, and how they can overcome barriers in delivering quality services for HIV/AIDS education, prevention, and treatment to Latinos in Texas. Nonprofit organizations are on the front lines of the HIV/AIDS fight, through their outreach in the areas of education, prevention, and testing. Nonprofit organizations are examined for barriers and innovations in service delivery as it applies to the Latino community. This study also examines how the integration of Critical Race …

Paid Family Leave & The Media: A Narrative Policy Framework, Nichole Angelic Horn

Public Affairs Dissertations

This study seeks to understand how paid family leave laws influence traditional gender roles and stereotypes. The mother homemaker/father breadwinner narrative, a prominent concept within feminist circles, assumes particular gendered roles that include women’s responsibility for unpaid labor within the home. The implications of these gendered roles leave women in an economically disadvantaged position. Given the media’s influence in policy making and function to echo current social values, this study utilizes the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) to investigate how the media frames these policies, and whether that framing helps to dismantle traditional gender narratives. This study finds that as these …

The Impact Of Perceived Organizational Support On Member Satisfaction With Community Health Worker Organizations, Denise Adame Hernandez

Public Affairs Dissertations

Community Health Workers (CHWs) organizations are professional associations that support the growing CHW workforce and advocate for the unique needs of CHWs. CHWs have successfully improved health outcomes of vulnerable populations and helped alleviate the burden of high healthcare costs. The professional support provided by CHW organizations can play a significant role in addressing the downward trend in the number of CHWs and certification renewals. However, there is little research on the effectiveness of the professional support provided by CHW organizations. This interdisciplinary study applied principles from public administration and behavioral sciences research to apply organizational performance measures to CHW …

Why People Remain In Socially Disorganized Communities: A Critique Of Social Disorganization Theory, Lasheyla Kajuan Jones

Public Affairs Dissertations

The literature surrounding social disorganization has typically focused on crime and a communities inability to influence existing social rules of behavior upon individuals (Paulsen & Robinson, 2004). This qualitative study examines twenty-one tenure tract residents, business owners, and/or leader’s motivation for remaining in areas deemed socially disorganized under the HUD R/ECAP standards. Utilizing interviews and surveys to understand how individual participants experience living, working, and/or advocating in communities classified as socially inadequate, allowed patterns to emerge that pinpointed why people chose to remain in these communities. Leaders, business owners, and residents alike, offered an array of information supporting their position …

The Charismatic Dog And Public Space: Are Dog Parks A Third Place?, Lori Dynette Lee

Public Affairs Dissertations

Exiting research supports dog parks as a third place based on the ability of dog-supportive public space to bring people together informally outside home and work (Graham and Glover, 2014), yet offers little clarity in terms of strength of interaction. Ray Oldenburg (1989), the originator of the notion of third place, stresses the importance of certain contexts in supporting repeat encounters, which he explains are of crucial importance to effective third places, while lamenting their absence in suburban America. A careful review of his work in this dissertation raises the question, is a dog park within a suburban Dallas context …

Spatial And Dwelling Determinants Of Adult Asthma Exacerbations In The North Central Texas Region, Jinat Jahan

Public Affairs Dissertations

Asthma is an important public health concern as it is one of the major chronic diseases and is influenced by both environmental and genetic factors. The asthma situation is deteriorating in the North Central Texas. In such degrading condition of asthma, this research is one of the first attempts to investigate both indoor and outdoor environment quality and their relationships with adult asthma exacerbation i.e. adult asthma hospital admission rate in this region. To investigate this, I analyzed the geographical variation of about 12,000 adult patients hospitalized for asthma in the North Central Texas (NCT) Region and their association with …

Publicly Supported Rental Housing And Affordability For Very Low-Income Suburbanites: A Study Of Metropolitan America, Eric Varela

Public Affairs Dissertations

This dissertation is about subsidized housing and its provision in the contemporary metropolis, with particular focus on suburbs. Subsidized housing has typically been conceived as fundamentally an urban issue given its historical roots largely centered on addressing destitute slums and inner-city poverty (Stoloff, 2004). Yet today’s American metropolis is fundamentally different from that which existed one hundred, fifty, or even twenty-five years ago. Suburbs are more prominent now than ever before, both as economic centers and diverse cultural mosaics in metropolitan America (Zhang & Logan, 2017). In fact, suburbs are now home to more impoverished Americans than principal cities (Kneebone, …

Effects Of Ethnic Neighborhood Socioeconomic-Physical Characteristics And Individual Attributes On Immigrants’ Travel Mode Choice In North Texas, Kukhyoung Kim

Public Affairs Dissertations

Previous studies of immigrants’ travel behavior have been conducted mostly in California and the United States as a whole. Even though immigrant population and the share of immigrants have rapidly increased in Texas, only limited studies have been conducted for travel behavior of Hispanic immigrants. No study has examined the effects of attributes at multiple geographic levels on travel behavior. This study intends to fill the void. It examines the effects of ethnic neighborhoods’ social, economic, and physical characteristics on residents’ travel mode choice, with a focus on immigrants in North Texas using the 2017 National Household Travel Survey, the …

Analysis Of Homeownership Outcomes In The Dallas-Fort Worth Region And Growing Disparities An African American Perspective, Gwendolyn Isokpan

Public Affairs Dissertations

Since the housing bust and Great Recession, in the United States, the homeownership gap between black and white households has widened to its largest levels in 50 years (Choi, McCargo, Neal, Goodman & Young, 2019). With overall inequality continuing to grow, policy decisions must be implemented to begin to mitigate the decreasing levels of homeownership. I argue decreased levels of homeownership are one contributing factor to inequality. More specifically, for African Americans, the homeownership rates have decreased back to the levels during the Civil Rights Era. Within the United States, owning a home is considered an important social and economic …

Assessing Community Mediated Settlements: Enugu, Nigeria's Neo-Customary Approach To Land Delivery And Development At The Peri-Urban Interface, Emma Chetuya

Public Affairs Dissertations

Like most states in Nigeria, the Enugu state government is unable to meet the high demand of land for housing development in Enugu and as a result, the vast majority of land available for purchase is through customary sources. Rapid urbanization is expanding and the urban population is seeking relatively affordable land for development. This is happening predominantly in the peri-urban areas of Enugu. It is in this area where community-mediated settlements (CMS) are developing. CMSs are joint ventures between local communities and the government that provide subdivided land for development. These initiatives are neo-customary in nature as they have …

Assessment Of Mass Transit In Medellin Colombia - A Case Study, Francisco Wilfred Kessler

Public Affairs Dissertations

In Latin America, the rapid growth of large cities due to a rise of population along with increased urbanization has posed serious challenges in developing adequate infrastructure for mass transit. In these cities the demand for travel has risen sharply exceeding the supply. This case study intends to track the historical development of the City of Medellin, Colombia’s transportation system, to assess the success level of the system and how the unique concept of “social urbanism” that centered on inclusive regional mobility and accessibility was instrumental in the development of its transportation system. Medellín, a city of over 2.5 million …

“Moderated”; How Facebook And Youtube Recreate The Meaning Of The Societal Public Square, Dylan John Kreisman

Journalism

This study investigates the prevalence of content moderation systems on digital intermediaries and the influence those systems have on the spread of information. It primarily analyzes the content moderation systems of Facebook and YouTube. Since Facebook and YouTube are two of the most used online platforms in the world, the way content is shared and viewed can have implications towards a person’s perspective on a subject. Social media and online intermediaries are growing as people’s source of news, so the primary way people view news in the near future will most likely be from intermediaries such as Facebook or YouTube. …

The Ability Of Thaumoctopus Mimicus To Be Operantly Conditioned To A Sound Stimulus, Stephanie Wittman

Honors Projects

This paper focuses on the ability of the mimic octopus Thaumoctopus mimicus to be operantly conditioned to an auditory stimulus. The octopus is known to be the most advanced of the invertebrates and has learning abilities that are comparable to vertebrates in spite of their differences in brain structure. These animals have been shown to react to visual and tactile stimuli and can be operantly conditioned to perform behaviors to obtain a food reward. The goal of this experiment is to determine whether the octopus can be operantly conditioned to swim into a box on the side of its tank …

Designing The Civic Commons: How Design Can Foster Social Capital In Civic Spaces In The Context Of Urban Sprawl, Jennifer Jean Sloan

Public Affairs Dissertations

In modern America, people gather in civic public spaces for many reasons: to celebrate family, gather as a community, engage in commerce, or protest injustices. The design of these spaces is critical to their ability to foster civic participation. Jan Gehl has argued that public spaces should be designed for people and encourage social interactions that build social capital (Gehl, 2006). Social capital is beneficial to individuals and communities in many ways, including political engagement, the economic prosperity of individuals and communities, and the safety and security of the community (Putnam, 1995). It has been said that in public spaces, …

The Effect Of Crime On Ridership, An In-Depth Analysis Of How Transit Station Neighborhood Characteristics Prevent Crime And Encourage Ridership, Sahar Esfandyari

Public Affairs Dissertations

Factors influencing public transit ridership have been widely explored in recent decades. While planners believe that density and mixed land use around transit stations will increase public transit ridership, criminology studies claim that transit stations and their surrounding environments are more prone to criminal activities due to high levels of movement and interaction between unknown persons. This study aims to investigate the impact of crime on Light Rail Transit (LRT) ridership. Using the geo-locating technique, this study analyzes the spatial distribution of crimes in the half- mile buffer around stations in six Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs): Dallas, Miami, Salt Lake …

The Geography Of Creative Clusters And Firm Productivity: Empirical Evidence From 20 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (Msas) In The United States, Tahereh Granpayehvaghei

Public Affairs Dissertations

The burgeoning research on creative clusters and an increased rate of municipal investment in creative policymaking are becoming dominant global trends. Yet, the factors that help foster creative-friendly communities and how much they relate to creative firm productivity remain insufficiently understood. This dissertation is a step forward in our knowledge of the geography and typology of creative clusters and their association with productivity in the United States. In this research, creative clusters refer to meaningful and statistically significant agglomerations of creative firms. This research demonstrates that creative clusters have an “urban nature” in most cases, meaning that there is a …

Exploring The Determinants Behind The Mode Preference For And Frequency Of Use Of App-Based, On-Demand Ride Services And Fixed-Route Transit Services By Transit-Dependent Populations, Farokh Bagheri

Public Affairs Dissertations

In recent decades, the development of diverse types of transportation systems to meet the needs of people in all parts of a country is a trend in urban development that is in line with interest in the sustainable development of communities. This development has prompted transportation policymakers to adopt policies to improve the transportation conditions of the community, while citizens, in the face of these policies, make decisions in choosing the type of transportation system that is possible, and may be different from the policy makers' management programs. Therefore, paying attention to people's views and their awareness of their preferences …

Food Affordability: Sustainable Food Center Increasing Food Access Through Double Dollars Incentive, Codie Freeman

Public Affairs Theses

Food barriers have become a growing problem for many communities due to lower access to healthy foods. Not having access to healthy foods has been linked to health problems rising in communities. There are several food barriers including affordability of food that causes individuals of low-income groups to struggle to gain access to fruits and vegetables. Communities across the world have been creating and implementing new policies and programs in order to reduce the geographic and monetary barriers to increase food access. The Sustainable Food Center has been utilizing their Double Dollars Program to help lower income families who are …