Social Work Commons^™

Parent Perspectives On Preparing Students With Intellectual Disabilities For Inclusive Postsecondary Education, Jefferson Clark Sheen, Ty Aller, Robert L. Morgan, Kayla Currier Kipping

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Using a three-round Delphi survey, researchers explored parent perspectives regarding the personal competencies students with intellectual disabilities (ID) needed to be better prepared for participation in an Inclusive Postsecondary Education program (IPSE). An expert panel comprised of parents of students with ID in IPSE programs participated. Three Delphi rounds consisted of open-ended questions and cycles of subsequent rating scales on identified perspectives to establish a quantitative basis for consensus. The parent panel reached consensus on a list of 30 personal competencies that support student preparation for IPSE. A description of the methodology, results, and implications for practice are discussed.

Covid-19, Politics, And Science In Utah: Executive Summary Of Research Findings, Jessica Ulrich-Schad, Jennifer E. Givens

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Daily life in the United States and Utah has changed considerably since the global outbreak of the COVID-19 novel coronavirus. On March 6th, 2020, Gary R. Herbert, Governor of the State of Utah, declared a “State of Emergency” in response to pandemic. On March 27th the Governor then issued the “Stay Safe, Stay Home” Directive, which was much less strict than the shelter in place orders seen in other states as it simply urged residents to leave home infrequently, stay 6 feet away from others outside the home, and banned private gatherings larger than 20. At the end of April, …

An Examination Of Best Practices For Survey Research With Agricultural Producers, Edem Avemegah, Wei Gu, Abdelrahim Abulbasher, Kristen Koci, Ayorinde Ogunyiola, Joyce Edful, Shuang Li, Kylie Barington, Tong Wang, Deepthi Kolady, Lora Perkins, A. Joshua Leffler, Péter Kovács, Jason D. Clark, David E. Clay, Jessica Ulrich-Schad

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

To improve the economic and environmental sustainability of agriculture, information is needed on how to target research, teaching, and outreach programs. However, conducting survey research in general, and with agricultural producers specifically, is increasingly challenging given issues such as declining response rates and limited resources. While studies examining the best practices for promoting higher response rates exist, few focus explicitly on agricultural producers. In three separate surveys conducted with agricultural producers in South Dakota in 2018 and 2019, we included experiments testing how token pre-incentives, a research partnership, and response mode options impacted response rates. We also examined how sample …

A Landscape Perspective On Climate-Driven Risks To Food Security: Exploring The Relationship Between Climate And Social Transformation In The Prehispanic U.S. Southwest, Colleen Strawhacker, Grant Snitker, Matthew A. Peeples, Ann P. Kinzig, Keith W. Kintigh, Kyle Bocinsky, Brad Butterfield, Jacob Freeman, Sarah Oas, Margaret C. Nelson, Jonathan A. Sandor, Katherine A. Spielmann

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Spatially and temporally unpredictable rainfall patterns presented food production challenges to small-scale agricultural communities, requiring multiple risk-mitigating strategies to increase food security. Although site-based investigations of the relationship between climate and agricultural production offer insights into how individual communities may have created long-term adaptations to manage risk, the inherent spatial variability of climate-driven risk makes a landscape-scale perspective valuable. In this article, we model risk by evaluating how the spatial structure of ancient climate conditions may have affected the reliability of three major strategies used to reduce risk: drawing upon social networks in time of need, hunting and gathering of …

The Plurality Of Farmers’ Views On Soil Management Calls For A Policy Mix, Michael Braito, Heidi Leonhardt, Marianne Penker, Elisabeth Schauppenlehner-Kloyber, Georg Thaler, Courtney G. Flint

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

While soil degradation is continuing to threaten the global agricultural production system, a common understanding of how to encourage sustainable soil management is missing. With this study, we aim to provide new insights on targeted policies that address the heterogeneity of farmers. We scrutinized the plurality of views on soil management among arable farmers in the Austrian (and European) policy context. To do so, we applied Q methodology, a method that identifies different perspectives on a topic present in a population and analyzes this subjectivity statistically. We interviewed 34 arable land farmers who varied in their farming backgrounds. The results …

Prehistoric Irrigation In Central Utah: Chronology, Agricultural Economics, And Implications, Steven R. Simms, Tammy M. Rittenour, Chimalis Kuehn, Molly Boeka Cannon

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

In 1928, Noel Morss was shown “irrigation ditches” along Pleasant Creek on the Dixie National Forest near Capitol Reef National Park, Utah, by a local guide who contended they were ancient. We relocated the site and mapped the route of an unusual mountain irrigation canal. We conducted excavations and employed OSL and AMS 14C showing historic irrigation, and an earlier event between AD 1460 and 1636. Geomorphic evidence indicates that the canal existed prior to this time, but we cannot date its original construction. The canal is 7.2 km long, originating at 2,450 m asl and terminating at 2,170 m …

The Two Types Of Society: Computationally Revealing Recurrent Social Formations And Their Evolutionary Trajectories, Lux Miranda, Jacob Freeman

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Comparative social science has a long history of attempts to classify societies and cultures in terms of shared characteristics. However, only recently has it become feasible to conduct quantitative analysis of large historical datasets to mathematically approach the study of social complexity and classify shared societal characteristics. Such methods have the potential to identify recurrent social formations in human societies and contribute to social evolutionary theory. However, in order to achieve this potential, repeated studies are needed to assess the robustness of results to changing methods and data sets. Using an improved derivative of the Seshat: Global History Databank, …

Whose Data Is It Anyway? Lessons In Data Management And Sharing From Resurrecting And Repurposing Lidar Data For Archaeology Research In Honduras, Juan C. Fernandez-Diaz, Anna S. Cohen

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

As a response to Hurricane Mitch and the resulting widespread loss of life and destruction of Honduran infrastructure in 1998, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) conducted the first wide-area airborne lidar topographic mapping project in Central America. The survey was executed by the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin (BEG) in 2000, and it was intended to cover 240 square kilometers distributed among 15 flood-prone communities throughout Honduras. The original data processing produced basic digital elevation models at 1.5-meter grid spacing which were used as inputs for hydrological modeling. The USGS published the results …

Ethics In Archaeological Lidar, Anna S. Cohen, Sarah Klassen, Damian Evans

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Airborne laser scanning or lidar has now been used by archaeologists for twenty years, with many of the first applications relying on data acquired by public agencies seeking to establish baseline elevation maps, mainly in Europe and North America. More recently, several wide-area acquisitions have been designed and commissioned by archaeologists, the most extensive of which cover tropical forest environments in the Americas and Southeast Asia. In these regions, the ability of lidar to map microtopographic relief and reveal anthropogenic traces on the Earth’s surface, even beneath dense vegetation, has been welcomed by many as a transformational breakthrough in our …

Socio-Psychological Impacts Of Hydraulic Fracturing On Community Health And Well-Being, Mehmet Soyer, Kylen Kaminski, Sebahattin Ziyanak

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

At the core of the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) debate is the level of perceived risk involved with extractive industries, such as the release of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals, increased population growth, and truck traffic. However, industry supporters of fracking acclaim the benefits of oil and gas drilling, such as energy independence and economic gains. In this study, we examine the perceived impacts of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on community health and well-being based on interviews with anti-fracking activists in Denton, Texas who were active in the “anti-fracking” community organization, Frack Free Denton (FFD). Emergent from the interviews, we discuss the socio-psychological …

Power, Proximity, And Physiology: Does Income Inequality And Racial Composition Amplify The Impacts Of Air Pollution On Life Expectancy In The United States?, Andrew K. Jorgenson, Terrence D. Hill, Brett Clark, Ryan P. Thombs, Peter Ore, Kelly S. Balistreri, Jennifer E. Givens

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This study advances research at the intersection of environmental degradation, social stratification, and population health in the United States. Expanding the theoretical principles of power, proximity, and physiology, we hypothesize that the harmful effect of fine particulate matter on life expectancy is greater in states with higher levels of income inequality and larger black populations. To test our hypothesis, we use two-way fixed effects regression analysis to estimate the effect of a three-way interaction between fine particulate matter, income share of the top ten percent, and the percent of the population that is black on state-level average life expectancy for …

Community, Natural Resources, And Sustainability: Overview Of An Interdisciplinary And International Literature, Hua Qin, Martha Bass, Jessica Ulrich-Schad, David Matarrita-Casante, Christine Sanders, Barituka Bekee

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The Special Issue Community, Natural Resources, and Sustainability seeks to engage in an interdisciplinary and international dialogue on the interrelationships of society, natural resources, and sustainability at the community level. In addition to introducing the twelve research articles published in this collection, we provide an overview of the existing literature on community and natural resource management, mainly through a review of previous reviews and a bibliometric analysis. While this literature is dominated by studies on various aspects of community-based natural resource management, the present Special Issue showcases multiple thematic areas of research that collectively contribute to a more complete understanding …

Child Helpers: A Multidisciplinary Perspective, David F. Lancy

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This essay was greatly inspired by a 15" film titled Tiny Katerina, which shows glimpses of Katerina from two- to four-and-a-half years of age. She lives with her parents and older brother in Northwestern Siberia in the taiga. The Khanty-speaking people live by foraging (berries, for example), fishing and herding reindeer; they are semi-nomadic. In their camp and the vicinity, there is no evidence of electricity or any other public service. These people are very much “off the grid.” From the first, as a wobbly toddler, Katerina is shown being helpful. She carries (and drops and picks up) firewood …

Show Me, Don’T Tell Me: A Picturesque View Of Perceptions Of Police, Nancy Marion, Jason Twede

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

A positive relationship between law enforcement and the public is critical for the effective operation of the agency and continued safety of the community. The public’s perception of law enforcement officers is one indication of the nature of that relationship. Past research on perception of the police has used questionnaires to untangle how the public views officers. This research uses an alternative method to measure the public’s perceptions of the police by asking respondents to draw a picture of a police officer. By analyzing the drawings, it can be seen what characteristics people identify with law enforcement. This study analyzed …

Accounting For Biases In Survey-Based Estimates Of Population Attributable Fractions, Ryan Masters, Eric N. Reither

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Background: This paper discusses best practices for estimating fractions of mortality attributable to health exposures in survey data that are biased by observed confounders and unobserved endogenous selection. Extant research has shown that estimates of population attributable fractions (PAF) from the formula using the proportion of deceased that is exposed (PAF_pd) can attend to confounders, whereas the formula using the proportion of the entire sample exposed (PAF_pe) is biased by confounders. Research has not explored how PAF_pd and PAF_pe equations perform when both confounding and selection bias are present.

Methods: We review equations for …

Gender, Family, And Community Attachment In A New Destination, Erin Trouth Hofmann, Claudia Méndez Wright, Emma Meade Earl

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

As new immigrant destinations in the USA have become home to more settled immigrant populations, they are also becoming less male-dominated and attracting more women and families. But this process is occurring unevenly, with some new destinations much more attractive to women than others. The factors that might lead a destination to attract or retain women are not well understood. We draw on interviews with long-time Latin American residents in a non-metropolitan community in Utah with a fairly high proportion of women immigrants to analyze the ways in which gender and other factors relate to community attachment in this specific …

Racial Stratification In Self-Rated Health Among Black Mexicans And White Mexicans, Guadalupe Marquez-Velarde, Nicole E. Jones, Verna M. Keith

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

How do Mexicans of distinct racial backgrounds fit into the recognized patterns of racial health disparities? We conduct regression analyses using data from the 2000-2017 National Health Interview Survey to determine if Mexicans who self-identify as White or Black have a relative advantage or disadvantage in self-rated health in relation to Non-Hispanic (NH) Whites and Blacks in the U.S. Our results indicate that both Black Mexicans and White Mexicans have a significant disadvantage in relation to NH-Whites while White Mexicans have a slight advantage in relation to both NH-Blacks and Black Mexicans. Overall, our results suggest that studying health outcomes …

Multidecadal Climate Variability And The Florescence Of Fremont Societies In Eastern Utah, Judson Byrd Finley, Erick Robinson, R. Justin Derose, Elizabeth Hora

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Fremont societies of the Uinta Basin incorporated domesticates into a foraging lifeway over a 1,000-year period from AD 300 to 1300. Fremont research provides a unique opportunity to critically examine the social and ecological processes behind the adoption and abandonment of domesticates by hunter-gatherers. We develop and integrate a 2,115-year precipitation reconstruction with a Bayesian chronological model for the growth of Fremont societies in the Cub Creek reach of Dinosaur National Monument. Comparison of the archaeological chronology with the precipitation record suggests that the florescence of Fremont societies was an adaptation to multidecadal precipitation variability with an approximately 30-plus-year periodicity …

A Typology Of Ancient Purépecha (Tarascan) Architecture From Angamuco, Michoacán, Mexico, Christopher T. Fisher, Anna S. Cohen, Rodrigo Solinis-Casparius, Florencia L. Pezzutti, Jason Bush, Marion Forest, Andrea Torvinen

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The morphological study of architectural features, the building arrangement within urban spaces, and multiscalar variation are critical for understanding urbanism as a process. Building types and architectural typologies form the foundational blocks of urban morphology and are essential for identifying architectural patterning. We use a process-typological approach to present an architectural typology from the ancient Purépecha (Tarascan) city of Angamuco, located in the Lake Pátzcuaro Basin, Michoacán, Mexico. Using archaeological survey, lidar analysis, and excavation, we analyze building foundations from houses and public structures; storage facilities; monumental architecture such as pyramids, altars, and public buildings; and landscape features such as …

The Importance Of Spatial Data To Open - Access National Archaeological Databases And The Development Of Paleodemography Research, Erick Robinson, Christopher Nicholson, Robert L. Kelly

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

With generous support from the National Science Foundation, we have spent the past four years developing an archaeological radiocarbon database for the United States. Here, we highlight the importance of spatial data for open-access, national-scale archaeological databases and the development of paleodemography research. We propose a new method for analyzing radiocarbon time series in the context of paleoclimate models. This method forces us to confront one of the central challenges to realizing the full potential of national-scale databases: the quality of the spatial data accompanying radiocarbon dates. We seek to open a national discussion on the use of spatial data …

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? The Emergence Of Partitioned Land Use Among Human Foragers, Jacob Freeman, John M. Anderies, Raymond P. Mauldin, Robert J. Hard

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Taking inspiration from the archaeology of the Texas Coastal Plain (TCP), we develop an ecological theory of population distribution among mobile hunter-gatherers. This theory proposes that, due to the heterogeneity of resources in space and time, foragers create networks of habitats that they access through residential cycling and shared knowledge. The degree of cycling that individuals exhibit in creating networks of habitats, encoded through social relationships, depends on the relative scarcity of resources and fluctuations in those resources. Using a dynamic model of hunter-gatherer population distribution, we illustrate that increases in population density, coupled with shocks to a biophysical or …

Contributors To Wisconsin’S Persistent Black-White Gap In Life Expectancy, Max T. Roberts, Eric N. Reither, Sojung Lim

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Background

Although the black-white gap in life expectancy has narrowed in the U.S., there is considerable variability across states. In Wisconsin, the black-white gap exceeds 6 years, well above the national average. Reducing this disparity is an urgent public health priority, but there is limited understanding of what contributes to Wisconsin’s racial gap in longevity. Our investigation identifies causes of death that contribute most to Wisconsin’s black-white gap in life expectancy among males and females, and highlights specific ages where each cause of death contributes most to the gap.

Methods

Our study employs 1999–2016 restricted-use mortality data provided by the …

Associations Between Masculine Norms And Health-Care Utilization In Highly Religious, Heterosexual Men, Josh R. Novak, Terry Peak, Julie A. Gast, Melinda Arnell

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to use focus groups to explore married men’s avoidance of health-care utilization. Five focus groups of 8 to 10 married, heterosexual, male participants (N = 44) were conducted and analyzed using grounded theory methods. Several important themes emerged connected to how masculine norms were associated with health-care utilization at several domains including at the organizational level (perceptions of doctors), interpersonal level (past family context and current family context), and individual level (illness severity, money concerns). These themes were all connected with the societal theme of masculine norms …

Cultural Models Of Raça: The Calculus Of Brazilian Racial Identity Revisited, Henri J. François Dengah Ii, Jason A. Gilmore, Marcus Brasileiro, Anna S. Cohen, Elizabeth Bingham Thomas, Jenni Budge Blackburn, Mckayle Law, Jae Swainston, Richard Thomas

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Nearly 50 years ago, Marvin Harris published a seminal paper that examined how Brazilians create taxonomic categories of racial identity. In the intervening decades, new cognitive theories and analytical approaches have enabled researchers to investigate cultural domains with increased sophistication and nuance. In this paper, we revisit, replicate, and extend Harris’s research by utilizing modern cognitive anthropological approaches such as multidimensional scaling and cultural consensus analysis. Utilizing the same facial portraits as in the original study, we ask a contemporary sample of 34 Brazilians to identify and sort these images by racial identity. We then compare Harris’s original data, reanalyzed …

The Medicalization Of Sleeplessness: Results Of U.S. Office Visit Outcomes, 2008–2015, Mairead Eastin Moloney, Gabriele Circiurkaite, Robyn Lewis Brown

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Previous analysis of U.S. physician office visits (1993–2007) indicated that the medicalization of sleeplessness was on the rise and had potentially negative implications for population health. Our study asks if the medicalization of sleeplessness at the level of patient-physician interaction has persisted over time. Using the most recent years available (2008–2015) of the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey we calculated nationally representative estimates for four sleeplessness-related outcomes of physician office visits: sleeplessness complaint, insomnia diagnosis, and prescription of benzodiazepine and non-benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotics (NBSH). To test for the significance of the linear trajectory, we ran a series of bivariate linear models. …

The Birch Creek Canids And Dogs As Transport Labor In The Intermountain West, Martin H. Welker, David A. Byers

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Historically, domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have been documented as central features of Intermountain West and Great Plains Native American camps. Some of these dogs were bred specifically for largeness and stamina to haul travois and to carry pannier-style packs. Ethnographic accounts frequently highlight the importance of dogs in moving through the Intermountain West and the plains, reporting loads as heavy as 45 kg (100 lbs). We calculated body mass from skeletal morphometric data and used these to estimate prehistoric and historic dog load capacities for travois and pannier-style packs in the Intermountain West, Great Plains, and Great Basin. Specimens of …

Challenges In Columbia River Fisheries Conservation: A Response To Duda Et Al., Brian K. Hand, Courtney G. Flint, Chris A. Frissell, Clint C. Muhlfeld, Shawn P. Devlin, Brian P. Kennedy, Robert L. Crabtree, W. Arthur Mckee, Gordon Luikart, Jack A. Stanford

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

The salmonid fisheries of the Columbia River Basin (CRB) have enormous socioeconomic, cultural, and ecological importance to numerous diverse stakeholders (eg state, federal, tribal, nonprofit), and there are a wide array of opinions and perspectives on how these fisheries should be managed. Although we appreciate Duda et al.'s commentary, it offers only one perspective of many in this context. The objective of our paper (Hand et al. 2018) was to provide justification for “the importance of social–ecological perspectives when communicating conservation values and goals, and the role of independent science in guiding management policy and practice for …

Geochemical Data From Angamuco, Michoacán, Mexico, Anna S. Cohen, Daniel E. Pierce

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Included here are geochemical concentrations (ppm) of ceramic artifacts and clay samples from the archaeological site of Angamuco, Mexico. Additional data include maps and photographs of the ceramic samples. Concentrations were measured via Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis and are available here asAppendix B. These data complement the discussions and interpretations in “Geochemical Analysis and Spatial Trends of Ceramics and Clay from Angamuco, Michoacán”[1].

Neighborhood Bystander Intervention In Intimate Partner Abuse: The Role Of Social Cohesion, Jessica Lee Lucero, Jennifer Roark, Andrea Patton

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This study examines the relationships among individual beliefs about intimate partner abuse (IPA), attitudes about IPA reporting, social cohesion, and the intention of intervening in neighborhood IPA. Data for this study come from a larger cross‐sectional, community‐based study in which participants (N = 1,626) were surveyed face to face using stratified random sampling in targeted communities in a Mountain West state (i.e., drop‐off, pick‐up method) and online using social media outreach in targeted communities. Linear regression results indicated that participants were less likely to intervene in IPA situations in their neighborhood if they held beliefs about the private nature …

The Battle Over Fracking: The Mobilization Of Local Residents, Mehmet Soyer, Sebahattin Ziyanak

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

In the last decade, the natural gas industry has grown rapidly, and North Texas has become a major shale gas-producing area. This paper studies the power struggle of two rival groups (Frack Free Denton and Denton Tax Payers for a Strong Economy) over fracking in Denton. How did each of these groups challenge the claims-making activities and goals of their adversaries?” We conducted data from ten in-depth interviews from each side to compare concerns about fracking. This study focuses on the campaign of the two groups on each side of the debate. We developed the model of merging the theoretical …