Digital Commons Network^™

"I Thought That We Could Nurture The Nature Out Of Our Son": Making Meaning Of Parenting In The Narratives Of Parents Of Children In Residential Treatment, Jared V. Worwood

Theses and Dissertations

This study implements relational dialectics theory to explore the meaning of parenting from the perspective of parents who had enrolled a child in a residential treatment program. Contrapuntal analysis of six interviews revealed two discourses competing to make meaning of parenting. The Discourse of Demanding Parenting Ideals (DDPI) consisted of two themes: relentless sacrifice and complete responsibility, whereas themes of boundary-setting and acceptance compose the Discourse of Realistic Best Effort (DRBE). Discursive interplay between these discourses occurred in the forms of diachronic separation, synchronic interplay, and discursive transformation to make meaning of parenting and hold theoretical and practical implications.

The Effects Of U.S. Fiscal Policy On Income Inequality ( 1913 – 2013 ), J.D. Lewis

Theses and Dissertations

Income inequality in the United States has reached a level not seen since the Great Depression. Some academics and lawmakers suggest that growing inequality is due to changes in fiscal policy, arguing that cuts in taxes and government spending have reduced the inequality-mitigating effect of fiscal redistribution. While older research provides some support for this argument, newer research suggests otherwise. This disagreement in the literature led me to ask, How has fiscal policy affected income inequality in the United States during the last century? This study seeks to answer this question using data from Piketty et al. (2018), which includes …

Non-Violent Resistance Movements And Substantive Democracy, Jalal Fetrati

Theses and Dissertations

Does the mode of transition to democracy account for the depth of democracy in the post-transition democratic regimes? Whereas previous research has primarily focused on the effects of nonviolent resistance campaigns on improving formal dimensions of democracy, the present study examines whether or not democracies that come into existence as the result of nonviolent resistance campaigns are more successful in deepening democracy than democracies that emerge following violent conflicts or elite-led top-down liberalizations. This paper analyzes all democratic transitions that took place from 1946 to 2010, and relies on V-Dem High-Level Democracy Indices for measuring formal and substantive dimensions of …

Social Media Rumination: The Impact Of Materialistic Value Orientation, Keeley Hynes

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research demonstrates that ruminating on social media content is associated with greater mental distress (Yang, Holden, Carter, & Webb, 2018). However, it is unclear what factors are associated with rumination. Using Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a theoretical framework, this study examined how materialistic value orientation (MVO) predicted social media rumination in a sample of racially and socioeconomically diverse high school students at two waves of time. Those who are more materialistic value the means by which to gain possessions, and extrinsic life-goals associated with MVO are aimed at garnering external reinforcers such as money and social status (Richins & …

Men, Women And Witchcraft: The Feminist Reclamation Of The Witch In The Modern Horror Film, Brian Joseph Hadsell

Theses and Dissertations

The witch as a figure possesses a powerful and enduring legacy in Euro-American culture; she is both a victim of patriarchal persecution and the natural enemy of a deeply-gendered society. Recent horror films that employ the witch, however, have generally done so in the form of reclaimed feminist icon: a violently retributive figure avenging the wrongs done to women both past and present. The purpose of this research is to provide insight about our acutely gendered society and culture in the times during and preceding the #MeToo movement through a semiological analysis of three recent horror films that center on …

The Role Of Microfinance Workers In Financialization: Negotiating The Meaning Of Development In China, Xue Ma

Theses and Dissertations

Microfinance is an attempt to alleviate poverty through offering collateral-free small loans to poor borrowers, especially women in developing countries or rural areas. Though it is indeed an actual economic activity, usually engaged in through some type of bank, there is much that is informal and context-bound in these transactions, making microfinance a kind of “social business.” While the impact of microfinance on women borrowers has been discussed many times, only a few studies have looked at the significance of the other members of the interaction: the microfinance workers, who are instrumental intermediaries between the women-borrowers and the microfinance institutions …

Managing Citizen Engagement: Local Leader Perspectives From A Midwestern Small City, Isabella B. Green

Theses and Dissertations

Small cities, with their mix of urban capacity and small-town charm, are a promising environment for interactive and inclusive citizen engagement. However, small cities have received very limited attention by sociological and planning literature, and even less attention has been paid to the leaders of small city communities. This study contributes to this gap through an analysis of the dynamics of participation between small city leaders and their constituents from the leaders’ perspective. Studying up through interviews with planners and officials of a midwestern small city, this study examines how small city leaders pursue citizen engagement while managing the bureaucratic …

As Good As Woke? : Mutuality And Third Spaces In A Guatemalan Volunteer Tourism Organization, Hannah Gdalman

Theses and Dissertations

It is estimated that as many as 10 million individuals participate in international volunteering projects annually (McGehee, 2014). Since its rise in the late nineties and early aughts, voluntourism has drawn the attention of academic and non-academic audiences alike, who have warned of the perils of exploitation, commodification, and white saviorism. This study conducts an issue-focused analysis to examine the extent to which the voluntourism experience has evolved into one of mutuality rather than cultural hegemony. Sixteen semi-structured interviews and participant observation were conducted at a longstanding Guatemalan voluntourism site. Wearing & Wearing’s (2006) Third Space interactive cultural tourism framework …

Perceptions Of A Small Midwestern Food Cooperative: A Case Study, Rebecca Forsythe

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to illuminate how individuals form perceptions of cooperatives, specifically of Green Top Grocery, a cooperative located in Bloomington Illinois, using the Bourdieu-sian habitus and notions of capital as a frame. Green Top Grocery suffers from fiscal instability since they opened in 2017. They also struggle to gain support of lower income individuals, a key demographic they sought to help since their inception based on their stated values. By conducting qualitative interviews of three sample groups: Green Top Grocery board members and leadership, local food access experts, and West Bloomington residents, and non-participant observations, this …

Experiences From City Year: A Glimpse Into The Complex Roles Of Racially Diverse Americorps Members And What That Means For The Nonprofit Field, Orsolya Ficsor

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I explore the lived experiences of alumni from City Year, an AmeriCorps education nonprofit dedicated to providing academic and social-emotional interventions to address social inequity in education in disadvantaged schools throughout the U.S. and abroad. Their thoughts and ideas reflect the complexities of working on a diverse team, serving students of color in a nonprofit organization that is limited in its ability to create structural change. Guided by an analysis of historic systems of oppression, whiteness, white saviorism, and the nonprofit industrial complex, I examine how the nonprofit sector operates as a shadow state that is restricted …

Human Social Services In Central Illinois: Making Sense Of State Divestment And The State Budget Impasse, Erik William Zdansky

Theses and Dissertations

The state of Illinois underwent an historic budget impasse that lasted 793 days from July 1, 2015 to August 31, 2017. By not signing the budget, the former Governor Bruce Rauner used a form of shock therapy at the state level to implement his reform agenda. The human social service sector was particularly hit hard. I wanted to investigate how an ecology of homeless service agencies in the central Illinois area strategized and prioritized their decision-making in response to an active crisis. During semi-structured interviews of agency executives and program managers, more was revealed about how they responded to state …

The Relationship Between Sense Of Community And Job Satisfaction Among Employees In Campus Recreation Center, Mina Woo

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between Sense of Community (SOC) and job satisfaction of employees in Campus Recreation Center (CRC), and the impact of demographic information, including gender, job position, and job tenure, on the extent of their SOC and job satisfaction. This study utilized quantitative method and developed a questionnaire with two scales: Spector’s (1985) Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS), and Sense of Community Index 2 (SCI-2) created by Chavis, Lee, and Acosta (2008). The results indicate positive correlation between SOC and job satisfaction among the employees in CRCs. On the other hand, the results …

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, …

Exploring The Relationship Between Members Of Lifelong Learning Institutes And Host Institutions, Jon Charles Neidy

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between an individual’s involvement in Lifelong Learning Institutes (LLIs) and his or her propensity for philanthropic giving to the institute or its hosting college or university. The dataset was acquired through a survey administered to eleven Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (OLLIs) in the United States. Data analysis was conducted on seven research questions which explored how the length, type, and frequency of participation, as well as the level satisfaction, commitment, and feelings of community may relate to an LLI participant’s inclination to donate. The findings of this study reveal these …

Need Fulfillment And Happiness In Botswana, Carolyn Moe

Theses and Dissertations

Happiness has been an important aspect of people’s lives spanning centuries and continents; as such, it is a widely researched area. A current prominent theory in happiness research is Needs Theory which has the premise that there are universal human needs and having these needs met would lead to a person’s happiness. Most often, the needs referenced are those presented by Abraham Maslow including needs of physiology, safety and security, love and belonging, esteem, knowing and understanding, aesthetics, self-actualization and transcendence. However, some studies have found that there are individuals who do not fit this theory either through having their …

An Intersectional Examination Of Criminally Involved Women Of Color With Mental Illness, Cailin Rosemary Mcdermott

Theses and Dissertations

Women, people of color, and people with mental illness are fast growing populations in the criminal justice system. However, research tends to overlook the women of color with mental illness who exist at the intersection of these statuses. The current thesis attempts to apply an intersectional framework to the analysis of the narratives of these multifaceted women to explore the ways that their varying positions in society interact to shape unique life experiences. I analyzed a secondary data set of semi-structured life-course interviews with 65 women on a Seriously Mentally Ill (SMI) probation caseload. Implementing a grounded-inspired approach, the interviews …

Police Body-Worn Camera Perceptions Pre/Post Deployment, Aaron Veerman

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if officers’ perceptions of Body-Worn Cameras (BWCs) changed over the course of a six-month pilot program. Officers from a Midwest police department were surveyed prior to or shortly after receiving their BWCs (Pre-Test) and again approximately six months later (Post-Test). Once completed, independent samples t-tests, mean comparisons, and Pearson’s correlations were used to analyze the data. This study did not produce many significant differences in officers’ perceptions over the course of the study, according to t-test results. However, several significant differences were found after each shift was analyzed separately. Overall, less than …

Do College Students’ Perceptions Of The Police Differ By Education Level And Major?, Lashanti Wilson Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Little is known about the impact that higher education has on students’ perceptions of the police, especially with respect to justice education. This study examines perceptions of the police among college students at Illinois State University. It questions how differences in education levels, major, race, age, and gender affect student perceptions about the police. A 55-question online survey was administered to 451 students at Illinois State University.

Results revealed that those with more education did not have significantly different contact with police officers than those with less education, however, they were significantly more likely to report negative attitudes towards the …

Relationship Closeness And Joint Action Coordination, Vincent Tyler Cialdella

Theses and Dissertations

Researchers define joint action coordination as “two or more actors [coordinating] their actions under real time constraints with or without the explicit intention to do so” (van der Wel, Knoblich, & Sebanz, 2011, p. 1420). While previous research has investigated how the valence (i.e., the attractiveness or aversiveness) of interpersonal relationships affects interpersonal coordination dynamics (Hommel, Colzato, & van den Wildenberg, 2009), the present experiment examines the effects of relationship closeness on joint action coordination. First, dyads collaboratively completed a stimulus-control task on a computer. This task is used to assess general cooperative performance (Schloesser, Bai, Abney, & Jordan, 2015). …

Is The Montessori Method A Solution To Improve Public Education? Comparing Two Pedagogical Models In Urban Schools, Iwona Beata Franczak

Theses and Dissertations

Education is one of the most important social institutions that can improve quality of life. While our schools, ostensibly, provide for equal education for all, they differ in their curricula and resources that ultimately impact the quality of learning experiences. Distinguished educational organizations emphasize the need to implement our curricula with constructivist pedagogy. Montessori is a holistic educational model that embraces this approach. While studies show that Montessori methods provide positive outcomes for students, these studies are largely limited to performance of students attending private schools. The purpose of this work is to examine the effectiveness of public conventional and …

Assessing The Experiences Of Women Who Have Suffered Intimate Partner Violence Living In Shelters, Queencilla N. Hammond

Theses and Dissertations

According to the Centers for Disease Control on National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence in 2010, more than 1 in 3 women (35.6%) and more than 1 in 4 men (28.5%) in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Throughout history, someone they knew has most often victimized women. Over the past thirty years, feminist organizers of the domestic violence (DV) movement powered public awareness regarding the prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) dominantly. This led to the development of a network of shelters and other support services for victims, …

More Than Just A Job: A Social Enterprise's Response To Homelessness, Molly Cook

Theses and Dissertations

For the first time since 2010, the number of individuals experiencing homelessness increased in the United States in 2017 (HUD 2017). A lack of affiliations with family and friends has been suggested as a cause of homelessness (Burt 1992; Jencks 1995; Lippert and Lee 2015). This study employs affiliation theory, thematic coding, and 21st century coding methods to examine social enterprise employment as a solution to ending homelessness and increasing the number and types of affiliations individuals gain while working at a social enterprise. Seven interviews were conducted at one case study social enterprise with the goal of employing the …

You Have Seventy-Two Hours: How The City Complaint System Enables Criminalization Of The Unsheltered Population, Lindsey Grace Earl

Theses and Dissertations

The unsheltered population has been denigrated since the formation of the United States. This is true in a city I call Marinville, Illinois where the privatization paradigm, social stratification, and anti-homeless ordinances have contributed to the shutdown of at least five homeless encampments. Multiple times per week, law enforcement officials interact with the chronically unsheltered population and incarcerate individuals for petty ordinance violations. In our current regulatory system, city officials, police officers, and homeless service organizations (HSOs) all influence the unsheltered population’s lives, including options for social and spatial mobility. This thesis is based on multi-method research from 2016-2017: engaging …

Understanding The Experiences And Perceptions Of Specialty Mental Health Probation Officers, Brice Terpstra

Theses and Dissertations

Over the last two decades, specialty mental health probation caseloads have become increasingly common – focusing on offenders with serious mental illness (SMI). Scholars have examined overall effectiveness, the organization and design of these programs, and the differences between standard probation and specialty probation. Less attention, however, has been placed on examining how the officers supervising these SMI caseloads perceive their roles as specialty mental health probation officers and how discretion impacts their caseload management. In the current study semi-structured interviews were conducted with a complete census of 24 SMI caseload probation officers and supervisors in Maricopa County, Arizona over …

The Perceptions Of Illinois State University Students Regarding Sexual Assault On Campus, Brittany Lee Acquaviva

Theses and Dissertations

The prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses is a continued epidemic within the United States. The increase of literature on this topic highlights the risk factors and perceptions that students hold on sexual assault. Previous findings have been able to aid in the creation of educational programs to be administered by universities to their students on commonly misconstrued topics within sexual assault and consent. This research adds to existing literature with its investigation on perceptions of sexual assault that Illinois State University students old. Specifically, this study looks at the beliefs and values that students hold about sexual assault, …

Media Messages And Same-Sex Sexual Consent, Ryann Rooney

Theses and Dissertations

There is a difference between narrative and the quality of representation when discussing topics in mass media. However, the difference between narrative and the quality of representation is often ignored when same-sex sex is portrayed in media. Missing from a significant amount of the literature on same-sex sexual behavior is how mass media discuss sexual consent. To fill the gap in the literature, I will examine the following: 1) how mainstream media’s discourse on same-sex sexual consent (SSSC) is similar to queer media’s discourse on same-sex sexual consent, and 2) how media messages define sexual consent between same-sex individuals. To …

Children In Trouble With The Law And The United Nations Convention On The Rights Of The Child, Jennifer L. Swick

Theses and Dissertations

Children in trouble with the law are the focus of much research in the US, but when the scope broadens to include these children across the world, few studies can be found. The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) articulates a set of universal rights for children. For children in trouble with the law, there are seven articulated rights across Articles 37 and 40; these are: protection against cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment; the right not to be detained in jails or prisons with adult convicts; the right to maintain contact with family …

Veterinarians And Their Perception Of The Treatment Of Animal Abuse Cases In The Criminal Justice System, Dustin A. Richardson

Theses and Dissertations

Americans love their companion animals. In 2015, nearly two-thirds (65%) of all households in the U.S. housed at least one pet (APPA, n.d.). This love does not translate to policy, however, as many animals are left defenseless. Interestingly, the Animal Legal Defense Fund (2016) has ranked Illinois’ animal protection laws as the strongest in the nation for the last eight years. Extant animal abuse research is almost exclusively concerned with the ramifications that the abuse has for humans, and there is a dearth of social science research that examines veterinarians and the criminal justice system. Extremely limited research on this …

An Examination Of The Evolution Of Racially Biased Pretextual Investigatory Stops And Their Legitimacy In Policing, Brett A. Lacey

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the use of tactics originally purposed as a component of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Operation Pipeline and their evolution since their creation in the 1980’s. The paper provides a history of investigatory policing stops regarding the argument of Epp et al. (2014) that primarily relied on Police Chief magazine and Remsberg’s Street Survival. Epp argues that the methods used in investigatory stops are an invasion of privacy, use racial profiling, and have proliferated from a tactic used in the war on drugs to combat drug trafficking to a routine day-to-day policing tactic. Through the use of a …

The Impact Of Employment On Probationer Recidivism, Clayton T. Cottle

Theses and Dissertations

There is increasing need to understand and improve rates of recidivism in all fields associated with the Criminal Justice system. This research investigated the influence that employment status and job stability have on probationer recidivism. For this project, recidivism is defined as any arrest within four years after the termination of probation. Results from this study indicate that obtaining and sustaining employment can reduce the likelihood of recidivism in probationers. Additionally, the findings suggest that job stability is indicative of increased desistance. Findings from this study lend support to the notion that there is an employment-crime relationship. The findings of …