Anthropology Commons^™

The Altered Mobile Home: A Stationary Image Of Work And Value, Gregory Kendall Jenkins

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

As the medium cost of conventional housing rises, many people unable to incur such an expense look for alternative forms of adequate housing. In rural areas surrounding Bowling Green, Kentucky, several families have utilized the mobile home as a base to expand, embellish, and personalize, creating a larger more conventional-looking home. Many of these altered homes possess gabled roofs, rock exterior walls, and expansive interior space. Of primary concern is: why have these families undertaken a project of this nature?

As material culture scholars and folklorists examine our built environment, they find relationship between construction and the builders. What can …

A Study Of The Relationship Of Socioeconomic Status & Student Perceptions Of School Effectiveness To Academic Achievement Of Engineering Students, Geronimo Mendoza Meraz

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine the relative contribution of socioeconomic status and student perceptions of school effectiveness to academic achievement in engineering students. The variables representing the general factor of socioeconomic status were 1) father’s occupation, 2) father’s schooling, 3) mother’s schooling, 4) family income, and 5) family’s community population. The variables representing student perceptions of school effectiveness were: 1) help seeking factor, 2) professional preparation factor, 3) experience factor, 4) outside classroom activity factor, 5) personal encouragement factor, and 6) delivery factor.

A question was developed for this specific study and was completed by 110 senior …

A Comparative Study Of Academic Achievement Of Students From Phased-Elective Social Studies Curriculum With Students From A Traditional Social Studies Curriculum, Dennis Minnix

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this study, the academic achievement of two groups of University students was compared. The control group consisted of 15 students who had attended a traditional high school. The experimental group consisted of 25 students who had attended a high school which utilized a phased-elective curriculum design.

The students were observed at three points in their schooling. First, students were compared at the end of the eighth grade to determine if any significant difference existed prior to their exposure to the two high school programs. Next, students were observed at the end of their high school education by comparing scores …

The Lark On The Strand: A Study Of A Traditional Irish Flute Player And His Music, Lori Jane Kaplan

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis provides an in-depth study of a traditional Irish flute player, Jack Coen. Jack, raised in the village of Woodford in County Galway, immigrated to America in 1949 at the age of twenty-four. With his large repertoire of Irish traditional dance tunes, Jack has played music at parties, dances, with the New York Ceilidhe Band, and at festivals such as the 1976 Festival of American Folklife in Washington, D.C. Jack teaches the flute and the tin whistle and is recognized both as a teacher and as a player.

By examining Jack Coen’s music we learn about the style, technique, …

“They Made Us Dance In The Pig Trough!” Mrs. Blanche Story’S Oral Accounts Of Dating, Courtship, Marriage And Sexual Attitudes In Northcentral Nebraska, 1885-1910, Gayle Waggoner

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Oral recollections concerning dating, courtship, marriage and related attitudes were collected from a single informant, Mrs. Blanche Story of Butte, Nebraska. Through in-depth questioning during twelve tape-recorded interview sessions, value- and attitude-oriented accounts were secured for the years 1885 to 1910, the late frontier period in northcentral Nebraska. These detailed reminiscences focus on common life experiences related to interpersonal relationships and the institutions related to them, resulting in a personal or folk history. The single greatest problem in research was the lack of documentation for the attitudinal content of the texts. Corroboration of both specific information and broad patterns of …

Fandom Is A Way Of Life: A Folkloristic Ethnography Of Science Fiction Fandom, David Axler

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A science fiction (“sf”) fan is an individual whose interest in this literary genre has extended past reading into involvement in such things as local science fiction clubs, fan magazines (“fanzines”), and sf conventions (“cons”). Science fiction fandom is the loosely-structured, geographically-dispersed organization of these fans. Drawing on both written sources and field interviews with eight informants, the history, composition and structure of sf fandom is examined from a folkloristic viewpoint. The forms of folklore which serve to bind the individual fan to the larger social entity of fandom are detailed.

Despite its literary orientation, fandom is primarily a social …

The Cedar Grove Community In Oral Folk History, Ada Parker

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The thesis was originally done for the Center for Intercultural & Folk Studies which no longer exists.

Premarital Sex Norms: A Test Of A Conceptual Model, Jerry Asselin

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this investigation is to further improve and re-test the validity of the conceptual model, constructed by Gipson Wells (to be explained in Chapter III) and to increase understanding and knowledge in respect to premarital sexual norms. Stated in another way, verification of the model will more accurately reflect the manner in which young people perceive, and apply these norms.