Digital Commons Network^™

Association Between Anxiety And Rrbs In Autistic Youth: Role Of Ethnicity, Catherine Rita Callaci

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Autistic youth are at elevated risk for developing co-occurring anxiety symptoms (Zaboski & Storch, 2018), which are shown to be related to restricted, repetitive behaviors (RRBs; Rogers et al., 2012). Despite similar rates of autism in Latinx as in non-Latinx White youth, limited research has been conducted in the Latinx population. Participants were autistic youth and youth with developmental delays (DD; N = 199, Mage = 4.98 years, Latinx = 66.3%, Male = 66.3%) from two larger randomized controlled trials investigating parenting stress. Child anxiety was measured via the Spence Anxiety Scales total anxiety T-scores. RRBs were measured via Repetitive …

Familismo: Exploring A Culturally Sensitive Correlation Between Parentification And Relationship Satisfaction Amongst First Generation Mexican-American Adults Through An Attachment Theory Lens, Ana K. Perez

Dissertations

Parentification refers to the role reversal of children who take on adult responsibility to care for family members. This role is often filled by Mexican-American children as a result of immigration and assimilation. This study explored the relationship between parentification and adult romantic relationship satisfaction among first-generation Mexican-American adults, with particular attention to the moderating roles of attachment styles and perceived unfairness. While earlier research has linked parentification to mental health challenges, few studies have examined its long-term impact on intimate relationships, including relationship satisfaction and experiences of intimate partner violence. A total of 132 participants completed an online survey …

Analyzing Environmental Education In Northern Mississippi And Its Impact On Student Outcomes, Vishnu S. Gadepalli

Honors Theses

This thesis examines environmental education in public high schools in northern Mississippi, investigating how educators describe its presence, delivery, and institutional support in communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harm. Seven semi-structured interviews were conducted with high school teachers across four northern Mississippi schools, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed through iterative thematic coding under Institutional Review Board approval. Five themes emerged: opportunistic curricular integration, time and standards as overriding structural constraints, passive institutional support, student receptivity tempered by limited awareness, and significant variation across school contexts with one magnet school as a clear outlier. The study concludes that environmental education in these …

Sanctuary: Counter-Oppressive Relationships With Farmed Animals As An Ecopsychological Imperative, Kelsey Bomboy

The International Journal of Ecopsychology (IJE)

Consumers are intentionally shielded from and often misled about the process of breeding, raising, and slaughtering animals for consumption. By confining most farmed animals to warehouses in rural areas while the majority of humans are sequestered in urban areas, we have effectively created a world where humans do not have to contend with the sense of interconnectedness that arises when witnessing and being witnessed by a farmed animal. Within industrial slaughterhouses, the physical act of killing is minimized to just a fraction of the workers, so that even those who are responsible for rendering a once living being will never …

How Does Foreign Direct Investment (Fdi) Impacts Egypt Economic Stability From The Specific Focus Of Exchange Rate And Economic Growth, Mohamed Medhat Merdan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic dependency in Egypt, focusing on two channels through which such dependency may manifest: exchange rate volatility and economic growth. FDI has historically financed a disproportionately large share of Egypt's gross fixed capital formation relative to comparable regions, yet rigorous empirical research on its macroeconomic consequences within the Egyptian economy remains limited. Drawing on Dunning's eclectic (OLI) paradigm and Porter's diamond model, this study develops three hypotheses and tests them using an ARDL bounds testing approach applied to fifty-five years of annual data spanning 1970 to 2025.

The empirical …

Digital Maturity In The Administrative Prosecution In Egypt, Asmaa A. Hassan

Theses and Dissertations

The growing deployment of information and communication technologies in public service delivery, in general, and in the judiciary in particular, underscores the need for an assessment tool to evaluate digital maturity. Understanding digital maturity, a state in which an organization has completed digital development, helps diagnose the status quo, identify enablers, and address challenges, and consequently provide a roadmap for efficient improvements. This study aims to examine key factors affecting digital maturity within the Administrative Prosecution (AP) in Egypt, a pillar of the judicial authority and mandated to investigate financial and administrative violations committed by public servants. A mixed-methods approach …

Organizational Planning Practices Under Uncertainty: The Case Of Ngos In Hadhramaut, Yemen, Khulood Taleb Alamodi

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Hadhramaut, Yemen plan and operate under conditions of fragility and uncertainty. Although strategic planning is often presented as a formal and structured process, NGOs in fragile settings face ongoing disruption, unstable funding, and weak institutions. This study asks how planning takes place in practice under these conditions. The study uses qualitative data from 22 semi-structured interviews with NGO leaders, staff, and external actors. A conceptual framework combining contextual fragility, resource dependence, organizational capacity and resilience, and legitimacy and networks was used to examine how these factors shape organizational planning. The findings …

Palestinian Motherhood In Lebanon: An Analysis Of The Legal And Humanitarian Systems, Enje Matar

Theses and Dissertations

The lives of Palestinians in Lebanon are shaped by a diversity of factors that are exogenous and endogenous. The aim of this thesis is to analyze the impact of existing institutional, legal, and societal structures on Palestinian refugee mothers. It answers the following main question: how do the legal and humanitarian systems in Lebanon impact Palestinian mothers? It specifically scrutinizes 1) How do these systems shape family dynamics, maternal relations with children, and mothers’ daily lives? 2) How are these systems gendered in ways that represent broader questions of power and control? 3) How do mothers respond to these systems …

Beyond The Legal Black Hole: Hyper-Legality, Deferral, And Detention In Northeast Syria, Grace T. Harmon

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the detention of suspected ISIS affiliates and their family members held in facilities administered by the Kurdish-led authorities in North-East Syria. Thousands of foreign nationals remain detained without trial, without repatriation, and in conditions widely criticized as inhumane. Existing scholarship and political discourse often describe these facilities as legal voids, limbo, or black holes where law has broken down or ceased to apply. This thesis challenges that characterization. Rather than existing outside the law, the facilities are governed through overlapping frameworks of international humanitarian law, international human rights law, counterterrorism security resolutions, and domestic laws. I argue …

The Smuggled Body: Embodied Experiences Of Sudanese Displacement Along The Sudan–Egypt Corridor, Marielys Padua Soto

Theses and Dissertations

The outbreak of conflict in Sudan in April 2023 triggered one of the world's largest displacement crises, forcing millions of Sudanese civilians to flee toward neighboring countries, particularly Egypt. As legal pathways became increasingly restricted following Egypt's tightening of visa policies, many asylum seekers relied on migrant smuggling networks to reach safety. This thesis examines how restrictive mobility regimes are materially experienced through the body by introducing the concept of the smuggled body, defined as the body through which the physical, emotional, and social consequences of border control, irregular mobility, and forced displacement are lived. Drawing on embodiment theory, border …

How Can Egypt’S Technical And Vocational Education System Be Adapted To Improve The Employability Of Autistic Youth And Adults?, Miriam A. Menkarious

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides original qualitative evidence on autism, employability, and TVET in an LMIC context, focusing on Egypt’s ongoing TVET reforms. The research investigated barriers and facilitators to employment for autistic youth and adults in Egypt, with a particular focus on technical and vocational education and training (TVET) as a potential pathway into work, and explored stakeholder perspectives on the potential, barriers, and conditions for adapting the Egyptian TVET system to improve their employability. Using the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) framework, this qualitative study relied on 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews with autistic youth and adults, parents …

Circulating Futures: Infrastructure, Value, And The Making Of Contemporary Egypt, Yasmine Abdeldayem

Theses and Dissertations

Since 2014, Egypt has undertaken an unprecedented expansion of its road network as part of a broader project of territorial development and national renewal. Roads are presented in this project as the connective infrastructure through which new cities, investment zones, and desert territories are brought into circulation. Yet their developmental effects are often difficult to discern: infrastructure is rapidly built but unevenly maintained, while projects justified in terms of mobility, growth, and public benefit can produce dispossession, exclusion, and new forms of risk. This thesis argues that roads cannot be understood solely through the developmental outcomes they are intended to …

Unearthing Potential: Impact Investors’ Perspectives On Egypt’S Social Enterprise Market, Yousef Hesham Shoukry

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines impact investing in Egypt from the vantage point of the impact investors, revealing that Egypt's constraint is not the availability of capital but its direction, as the absence of legal recognition, coordinated intermediaries, and a shared impact-measurement standard keeps capital out of a market otherwise rich in social enterprise potential. The study employed a constructivist grounded theory approach, drawing on eleven semi-structured interviews with impact fund managers, ecosystem enablers, and public-sector policy advisors operating in or considering Egypt's social enterprise market. Data revealed that practitioners converge on the founding principles of impact investment (combined financial and social …

The Functioning Of The Refugee Regime In The Global South, Rihem Sejil

Theses and Dissertations

Why do states continue to sign compacts and reaffirm responsibility-sharing, even as protection burdens fall increasingly on the Global South? This thesis argues that this concentration is a direct result of, rather than an exception to, international cooperation. It introduces the concept of "selective cooperation" to explain how states maintain formal commitments to protection while repurposing cooperation: shifting it from a remedial tool designed to assist burdened hosts to one focused on containment and preventing arrivals. Three mechanisms facilitate this shift: donor retrenchment, resettlement contraction, and externalization, with each mechanism closing gaps left by the others. Analyzing cases spanning resettlement, …

Technology, Power, And Colonial Modernity: The Making Of The Egyptian Railways, Ahmed Mohamed Rahmy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines Egyptian railways as a technology of power through which modern temporal order was gradually formed, reorganized, and contested. Focusing on the period from 1850 to 1920, it argues that railway infrastructure did more than facilitate mobility, economic exchange, and imperial administration: it reorganized the temporal relations through which social life was governed and experienced. Timetables, standardized schedules, fares, penalties, stations, and administrative procedures made punctuality, regularity, and measurable time appear as neutral requirements of life, while positioning existing ecological, agricultural, religious, and communal rhythms as signs of backwardness.

The thesis draws on British official correspondence, parliamentary debates, …

Adjudicating Technology Facilitated Violence Against Women In Egypt: Between The Text And The Application, Eman E. Zidan

Theses and Dissertations

Technology-facilitated violence against women (TFVAW) has surged on digital platforms, leading to a sharp rise in victimization rates among girls and women globally. Egypt’s pioneering cybercrime legislation, though comprehensive, remains gender-neutral and inadequate in judicial application. Community perceptions reveal systemic gaps that erode public trust and fuel demands for specialized protections. This study analyzes Egyptian judicial responses to TFVAW cases through comparative jurisprudence with jurisdictions that feature gender-specific norms. Findings demonstrate that textual provisions alone fail to arrest this escalating phenomenon, underscoring the need for integrated reforms: tailored legislation, heightened awareness campaigns, and collaborative education on rights, duties, and societal …

Telling Her Story, Reclaiming Her Power: A Narrative-Based Group Intervention For Women Impacted By Intimate Partner Violence, Marisa E. Busquets

Psychology Doctoral Specialization Projects

Intimate partner violence (IPV) constitutes a significant public health concern, adversely impacting women’s physical health, psychological functioning, and narrative identity. While existing group interventions, such as The Power to Change manual, provide structured psychoeducational and empowerment-based programming, few adequately address the disruptions to identity and meaning-making processes that often accompany experiences of abuse. The present doctoral specialty project proposes the development of a manualized group intervention for adult women impacted by IPV, grounded in the theoretical and clinical principles of narrative therapy. Narrative therapy conceptualizes identity as an evolving life story shaped by sociocultural and political contexts, and its techniques, …

Embracing Social Media In Identity Exploration And Treatment, Sharon G. Stalions

Psychology Doctoral Specialization Projects

In recent years, Americans are utilizing social media, and particularly video-based social media like TikTok. At the same time, and potentially in response to the ease of access to mental health information online, Americans are increasingly seeking diagnoses. This can be seen not only for mood disorders, but of neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Clinicians are no longer the gatekeepers to information on mental health diagnosis, and some communities question the relevance and validity of a professional diagnosis at all. As digital natives become adult therapy consumers, it is important that clinicians …

Braiding More Than Sweetgrass: A Proposed Support Group Model For (Non)Tribal Native Americans In Recovery, Sara Cannon

Psychology Doctoral Specialization Projects

Native Americans (also referred to as American Indian/Alaska Natives or Indigenous persons) have too often been neglected in mental health interventions. This is a disservice, as they are disproportionately affected by challenges such as alcohol use disorder (AUD) and substance use disorder (SUD). Interventions directly speaking to AI/AN culture are rare to non-existent (at least in a published form), with the exception of White Bison’s Wellbriety (White Bison, 2002, 2024). It is not all together uncommon for individuals with Native roots to seek to (re)learn these traditions while in recovery from alcoholism and addiction. The aim of this project is …

How Traditional And Social Media Shapes Public Perception Of United States Surpeme Court Decisions On Civil Liberties, Leila P. Martin

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This study examines how traditional and social medai shape public perception of U.S. Supreme Court decisions on Civil liberties, focusing on four landmark cases: Dobbs v. Jackson, District of Columbia v. Heller, Materpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, and Obergfell v. Hodges. Using Entmans framing theory, the research analyzes how tone, language, emphasis, and ideological slant differ across media platofrms and how these frames infleunce public attitudes, insitutional trust, and civic understanding. A mixed-methods design combines archival media analysis, national polling data from Pew Rsearch Center and gallup, and an independent survery to asses how media narratives, rather than …

The Indirect Taxes, Conor Clarke, Ari Glogower

Scholarship@WashULaw

Article I of the Constitution empowers Congress to “lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises.” It is arguably Congress’s most important power. A government’s first task is to fund itself, and the absence of an enforceable funding mechanism under the Articles of Confederation was a primary reason for the Constitution in the first place. Yet scholarly and judicial attention has focused mostly on the term “taxes” (and specifically what constitutes a “direct tax” that must be apportioned) while largely overlooking the three terms that follow—the duties, imposts, and excises that are collectively known as the “indirect taxes.” 

While poorly …

The Relation Between Stress, Self-Esteem, University Belongingness, And Disciplinary History In Undergraduate Students, Emily R. Brown

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

This study examined the relation between student conduct history and psychosocial characteristics, including university belongingness, perceived stress, and self-esteem, among undergraduate students at West Chester University. A total of 392 students ages 18–25 completed self-report measures via Qualtrics, including the University Belongingness Questionnaire (UBQ), the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14), and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). Participants were recruited through the SONA system and in collaboration with the Office of Student Conduct to include students with and without a documented conduct record. Results from independent samples t-tests indicated that students with a conduct record reported significantly higher levels of university belongingness …

Pathways Of Influence: Indigenous Peoples’ Agency And Leadership In Arctic Governance, Justin Barnes

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

For the peoples and communities who have lived in the Arctic since time immemorial, Arctic governance is not only about international cooperation, environmental management, or geopolitical competition. It is also about sustaining and advocating for Indigenous livelihoods, relationships with land and water, rights and responsibilities, and opportunities for future generations – all themes directly affected by political decisions made across local, regional, national, and international levels. This dissertation begins from a central question about how Indigenous Peoples exercise their agency and influence in Arctic governance despite operating within an international system largely organized around states. It examines this phenomenon by …

Self-Reflecting On 30 Years Of Liberational Praxis: A Pluri-Epistemic Journey Embracing The Relational Indigenous Research Paradigm To Expand The Emancipatory Aims Of The Psychology Of Liberation., Adriana Fernand Salazar Ms

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis asks how embracing Relational Epistemology, through accountable Pluri-Epistemic Dialogue, expands the Emancipatory aims of the Psychology of Liberation and deepens Liberational Praxis. Grounded in thirty years of Liberational Praxis, it brings the Psychology of Liberation into accountable encounter with Indigenous and Postcolonial Relational Epistemologies, without claiming Indigenous identity, authority, ceremony, or ownership. Within this situated encounter, Pensar Bonito (Tidy Thinking) illuminates movements from Martín-Baró’s Historical Memory toward Territorial and Ancestral Memory, from Freirean Dialogue toward walking the Word, from Fals Borda’s sentipensante toward Body-Nature and Body-Us, and from decolonial critique toward practices of Care and Subversion. Through a …

Medical Distrust And Willingness To Engage In Mental Healthcare: The Moderating Roles Of Mental Health Literacy And Stigma Among Rural Populations, Alex Cudd

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Healthcare and mental healthcare disparities among rural communities in the United States remain a persistent and growing public health concern, driven by both structural barriers and sociocultural factors that continue to compromise rural community members’ utilization of healthcare services. Though structural barriers to rural healthcare are well-documented, there are continued gaps in the literature related to the understanding of sociocultural mechanisms contributing to these disparities. The present study investigated the influence of medical distrust, mental health literacy, and perceived public stigma on attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help among rural adults living within the United States. A sample of 240 …

Does The Court Follow The Election Returns?, Thomas Keck

Political Science - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

International Aid And Post-Conflict Recovery In The Western Balkans, R. Mary Wall

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

After violent conflicts end, communities often receive international support to help rebuild their governments and economies. This study asks whether aid targeted toward physical reconstruction and institutional reform produces measurable outcomes in those areas. 

Examining five Western Balkans countries between 2000 and 2021, the study finds that infrastructure aid is associated with improved access to clean water and reductions in displaced populations, while aid directed toward strengthening government institutions shows no measurable association with improvements in government effectiveness within the same period. These findings suggest that in the years immediately following conflict, physical reconstruction produces more observable improvements than institutional …

The Willing And The Compelled: How Power And Place Shape Human-Bison Coexistence In Poland And The United States, Patrick Orville Kelly

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Wildlife recovery programs depend not just on animals, but on how people feel about living with them. The degree to which people accept the disruptions wildlife brings to their lives, known as social tolerance, can determine whether a recovery program succeeds or fails, yet it remains understudied and underapplied in management plans. This dissertation studies how people in Poland and the western United States feel about living with the two living species of bison, the largest land animals in Europe and North America. In Poland, we surveyed 242 residents living at different distances from European bison habitat. Surprisingly, the most …

Providing Effective Student Feedback: Effects Of Sociotropy, Student-Teacher Connectedness, And Expressed Disappointment And Praise On Students' Self-Esteem And Motivation, Emily Davied

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

This study examined how different types of teacher feedback (i.e., expressed pride, expressed disappointment, and near-neutral feedback) impact students’ motivation to learn and self-esteem. It also explored whether such effects vary depending on students' personality and how connected they feel to their teacher. Undergraduate students (N = 221) imagined receiving feedback from a teacher and completed surveys assessing their motivation, self-esteem, sociotropy, and connectedness with the teacher. The results showed that feedback expressing disappointment lowered students' self esteem compared to expressing pride and lowered students' motivation compared to near neutral feedback. Although sociotropy (i.e., dependence on others' approval) and teacher …

Depression, Psychological Distress, And Coping Strategies Among African Migrants In Australia: A Cross-Sectional Web-Based Study, Uchechukwu Levi Osuagwu, Lillian Mwanri, Edith N. Botchway-Commey, David Chisanga, Agness Tembo, Nnaemeka Meribe, Kathomi Gatwiri, Obed Adonteng-Kissi, Kerrie P. Doyle, Frank Darkwa Baffour, Ahmed A. Moustafa

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background: African migrants constitute a significant proportion of the Australian population. While migration and resettlement offer opportunities, the associated stressors may adversely affect the mental health and well-being of African migrants. This study explored, for the first time, the prevalence of depression and psychological distress among African migrants in Australia and the relationship between coping mechanisms and mental health outcomes. Methods: A web-based cross-sectional survey of adult African migrants in Australia was conducted between February and May 2022. Participants (N = 167) who did not have a refugee status who resided in Australia for at least 12 months were recruited …