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The Intergenerational Effects Of Parental Divorce On Young Adult Relationships, Skyler William Roper

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Due to the current high rates of divorce, many young adults have experienced the effects of parental divorce. Although a variety of research has investigated both the positive and negative implications of divorce for individuals, relatively little research has looked at the relationship effects of parental divorce. Yet divorce likely influences both parent-child relationships (especially with a non-custodial parent) and young adult romantic relationships. The purpose of this study was to explore more fully how parental divorce affects young adult relationships by investigating the relationship between divorce and parent-child relationship quality, perceived comfort within close relationships (i.e., attachment), romantic relationship …

Image, Narrative, & Concept Of Time In Valerie Capers's Song Cycle Song Of The Seasons, Lillian Channelle Roberts

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Once I was a classical pianist, then I was a jazz pianist, but now I’m a pianist – No label. And in my writing, I’m not concerned with any particular style. I’ve found that if you have musical groundwork and some idea of the emotional impact the music should have, the musical style will hang together.

—Valerie Capers

Primarily known as a renowned jazz pianist, Valerie Capers is a blind, African-American woman composer who defied all odds by becoming the first blind graduate of The Juilliard School. Dr. Capers also became valedictorian of the New York Institute for the Education …

Bursting The Backpacker Bubble: Exploring Backpacking Ideology, Practices, And Contradictions, Mark J. Salvaggio

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this dissertation, I discuss the growing development of international backpacking in Central America. I focus on backpackers because they are a significant, yet understudied and undertheorized, part of the newly mobile world. Drawing from more than 12 months of ethnographic data collected in Central America, I explore backpacking as a youth subculture. I used a subcultural framework to explain backpacking ideology, practices, and contradictions. Understanding backpacking as a youth subculture tells us a lot about the myths and realities of 21st century adventure in the context of global mobility, globalization, and economic changes in international tourism that shape what …

A Performance Analysis Of Dorothy Rudd Moore's Sonnets On Love, Rosebuds, And Death, Cordelia Elizabeth Anderson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this document is to evaluate Dorothy Rudd Moore’s Sonnets on Love, Rosebuds, and Death through a performance analysis, and to discuss the significance of the Harlem Renaissance in relation to the song cycle. Moore used seven reputable poets from the Harlem Renaissance to compile this song cycle. The poets are Alice Dunbar Nelson, Clarissa Scott Delany, Gwendolyn Bennett, Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, and Helene Johnson. A few of them were a part of the core group that spurred this powerful movement. The Harlem Renaissance was a flourishing time in American history when African Americans felt …

Schoolgirls: Embodiment Practices Among Current And Former Sex Workers In Academia, Jennifer Heineman

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation looks at how marginalized people experience embodiment in intellectual spaces. By looking at the experiences of twenty current and former sex workers in academia, I find that individual actors practice two kinds of embodiment, what I label 1) fragmented (consciously separating erotic and intellectual work) and 2) confluent embodiment (making erotic and intellectual work more confluent). I find that embodiment practices change depending on the social context in which they occur. My findings expand the literature on embodiment and sociologies of the body for a more robust and fluid definition of the ways individual actors practice and reflect …

Globalization And The Rise Of Militant Islamic Social Movement Organizations: The Case Of Uamsho (Awakening) Group In Zanzibar., Deogratius Mshigeni

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation set out to explore how specific aspects of globalization affect the growth and development of particular militant neo-fundamentalist social movements and in what ways globalization affect the resources and collective identity of these movements. To examine this, I conducted ethnographic and archival research and in-depth interviews with 40 activists in the UAMSHO (AWAKENING) group in Zanzibar, which is associated with the rise of violent activities since the first multiparty elections, held in 1995. Most of these activities have been associated with the UAMSHO (AWAKENING) group, that adheres to strict neo-fundamentalist views of Islam, and which calls for Zanzibar …

The Lived Experiences Of Women In The Information Technology Field As They Transition From One Leadership Level To The Next: A Phenomenological Study, Marilyn Delmont

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

There is an increasing disparity of women in the IT field, when compared to men, specifically within IT executive leadership roles. The number of women in IT executive leadership lags drastically behind men IT executives and has gone down by five percent since 2008. Despite significant growth in the IT field women are not growing with it. IT jobs are expected to increase by 1.5 million in the next decade. The purpose and central question of this qualitative phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of women and how they develop as IT leaders. Beginning with 19 broad questions, …

Family, Housing, And The Political Geography Of Gay Liberation In Los Angeles County, 1960-1986, Ian M. Baldwin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examines the gay liberation movement in Los Angeles County through the lens of housing rights. It illustrates how sexual justice activism evolved in tandem with the fates of the welfare state and urban politics. Like racial minorities, queers have been stymied by economic barriers. Beginning in the 1930s, federal housing agencies established “family” requirements to housing subsidies, which the state defined through biology or marriage. In L.A. County, activists worked to overcome this heteronormative barrier at the grassroots and within the political establishment. Binding gay liberation to economic and family justice, queers opened housing shelters and social service …

Judicial Differences In Protective Orders Issuance Rates: An Examination Of Courtroom Actors, Case Aspects, And Individual Characteristics, Elena Alexandra Bejinariu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Using a mixed methods approach, this study examines whether: (1) courtroom actors (i.e., presence of legal counsel, translator, victim advocate, or informal support person; and presiding judge), (2) case aspects (i.e., abuse mentioned, type of abuse mentioned; weapon mentioned; children mentioned; and session time), and (3) individual characteristics (i.e., presence of applicant and/or adverse party; and race and gender of applicant and adverse party) influence an applicant’s likelihood of being granted a civil protective order and the length of time it is granted for. Several types of analytic methods were conducted (i.e., bivariate analyses, logistic regression analyses, and sets of …

Working As Civic And Patriotic Duty For Consumption: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of American Presidential Inaugural Speeches Since World War Ii, Michelle Leigh Casey

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Presidential speeches recycle and reify power to construct notions of citizenship, civic duty, and patriotism (Bostdorff 2003, Bostdorff and O’Rourke 1997, Loseke 2009, Murphy 2003). Previous research shows that Presidents use patriotism and civic duty to promote particular policies (Bostdorff and O’Rourke 1997, Coe et al. 2004) and war (Altheide 2004, Ivie 2005, Bostdorff 2003, Loseke 2009, Murphy 2003). Research also looks at how post-World War II (WWII) political culture and campaigning reflect a consumer society, either through how Presidents use consumption to promote a specific value (Altheide 2004, Bostdorff 2003) or how Presidents themselves symbolize branded commodities (Miller and …

Growing Together? Community, Culture, And Gardening In Downtown Las Vegas, Tyler S. Schafer

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this manuscript I explore the issue of how groups appropriate broad cultural trends in local contexts. Using the case of a community garden in Las Vegas I examine how social space is imbued with meaning and how those meanings come to shape the subsequent interactions that take place in the meaningful place. This research draws from four years of participant observation at Vegas Roots Community Garden (VRCG), 20 in-depth interviews, hundreds of informal interviews, and content analysis of documents produced by others about the garden and by the garden organization about itself.

I expand on Howard Becker’s (1974) work …

Understanding Contingent Faculty: A Quantitative Study Of Engagement, Satisfaction, Commitment, And Mentoring Needs, Heidi Batiste

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The representation of contingent faculty in higher education is prevalent, as a result of changes in the staffing practices in academia. The American higher education system currently employs roughly 4 contingent faculty members for every one, which is tenured or on the tenure-track. As a result of an extensive study on part-time academic faculty, Gappa and Leslie (1993) developed a typology as a way to categorize them. The typology consisted of four employment profiles based primarily on academic background, employment history, and career motivations: career-enders, specialists/experts/professionals, aspiring academics, and freelancers (Gappa & Leslie, 1993). This quantitative study used survey research …

Analyzing The Relationship Between Job Demands, Job Resources, And Personal Resources On Employee Engagement And Exhaustion Of Juvenile Probation/Parole Officers, Danilo Estuardo Chavarria

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Organizations should constantly strive to improve their levels of employee engagement, because improving employee engagement influences the well-being of both employees and organizations (Bakker, 2011, p. 268). In today’s workplaces, organizations need employees who are psychologically connected to their work, who are willing and able to invest themselves in their roles, and who are proactive and committed to high quality standards.” (Bakker, Albrecht, & Leiter, 2011, pp. 4-5). This is important; not only for private organizations but for public organizations as well, especially organizations in the criminal justice system who continuously strive to keep the peace, have constant contact with …

How Queer!: Camp Expression In Francis Poulenc's Trio For Oboe, Bassoon, And Piano, Kevin Ryland Eberle

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The music of Francis Poulenc (1899–1963) contains a great deal of humor, irony, and drama. These elements have mostly been attributed to Poulenc’s personal frivolity and associations with over-the-top figures such as Jean Cocteau. Poulenc’s homosexuality, until recently, was marginalized by a discourse shaped by Claude Rostand’s 1950 binary of “monk” (moine) and “bad boy” (voyou). In the early 21st century, Richard Burton notes that this cliché focused the discourse of a sacred/profane binary instead of a heterosexual/homosexual binary. The sacred/profane binary is used by scholars such as H. Wendell Howard to explain the distinction between Les Mamelles de Tirésias …

The Birth Of An Arts Scene, William Goldberg

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Scenes, created and defined by particular social settings offer a central activity that help to focus community interaction, a sense of purpose and of being in the right place. This dissertation is about the grassroots development of an art scene in the most unlikely of places – Las Vegas, a city sociologists have often described as having an isolating character with an outward focus on tourism, a weak civic culture and social fragmentation, resulting in an individually-focused and socially isolated population.

Using the multiple techniques of ethnographic research, this work comes out of: (1) conversations with early visionaries, (2) participant …

"Mother, I Will": Female Subjectivity And Religious Vision In The Brontës Novels, Amanda Scott

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Brontë have long attracted sustained critical attention, in

large part because of their strong female protagonists. These strong-willed women self-assuredly reject oppression and model new paradigms for the Victorian woman to empower her subjectivity. This subjectivity serves, in turn, not only as the ability to form and express views counter to outworn social prescriptions, but it also serves as the centralized interior focus that allows their protagonists to think of themselves as the foremost subjects of their lives, rather than see themselves as pawns to be moved about in the games of patriarchal hierarchy. This study …

#Therighttoremainsilent: Police Department Adoption And Deployment Of Social Media, 2010-~2015, Paul Geary

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Police have a complex myriad of ever-changing responsibilities and fluid expectations from the public, and traditional media has performed a largely ambivalent self-appointed oversight and agenda-setting function vis-à-vis police for decades. But in the last five years, the second wave of the first new mass communications medium since the 1940s, social media, has democratized both that oversight function as well as traditional media's agenda-setting ability. Meanwhile, police have been characterized as slow to adapt to change and to adopt new practices in response to a changing world. This work analyzed police agency social media adoption and explained the rate at …

A Content Analysis Of Gender-Specific Media Coverage Of Sport: Ncaa Athletic Department Home Webpages, Margo R. Malik

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Studies have found that media coverage of women’s sports is inadequate when compared with coverage of men’s sports. The results of these studies have revealed inadequacies in terms of amount of coverage as well as type of coverage. Findings demonstrate that there is a certain way media frame female athletes when they are covered. Female athletes are often portrayed in overly sexualized images, as feminine role models, as passive rather than active, and in sports that are considered gender-appropriate. These types of portrayals can perpetuate gender bias and stereotypes, undermine the true athletic ability of female athletes, and give the …