Digital Commons Network^™

Songs From The Willow Tree: Staging Collective Inspiration For Creative Songwriting, Aubrey W. Carpenter

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The songwriting process, inspiration to song, can take many forms. This project explores a highly structured approach, using themes derived from reported individual experience to direct the creation of musical ends addressing common experience.

Masculinity Matters: Perceptions Of One’S Own Gender Status And The Effects On Psychosocial Well Being Among Gay Men, Dane Robert Whicker

Dissertations (1934 -)

Gay men have a unique relationship with masculinity. The manner in which gay men view their gender in a heterosexist context (i.e., Perceptions of One’s Own Gender Status, “POOGS”) may explain individual differences found in psychological health among both feminine and masculine gay men. In this study, four factors that make up POOGS are 1) connection to the gay community, 2) perceived negative attitudes toward effeminacy, 3) exposure to heterosexist discrimination, and 4) one’s own masculinity. The purpose of this study is to investigate the hypotheses that 1) POOGS will predict symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and satisfaction with life, …

Uncharted Territory: Critical Social Artistic Practices In The 21st Century, Kyra M. Detone

Honors Theses

Since the early 1990s, the American art world has witnessed the rise of critical social artistic practices that are largely collaborative projects driven by participatory experiences between artists and community. With its roots in the activist, protest, and public art movements beginning in the late 60s, socially engaged art steps out of traditional viewing spaces like the museum and directly confronts society’s object-based and monetary understanding of art. Driven by process and dependent on coalition building, creative problem solving, and public service rather than profit, socially engaged critical practice is complex and demands a new vocabulary through which to critique …

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 …

A Study Of The Effects Of County Characteristics On College Enrollment, Patrick La Mar

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

For the past 100 years, policy analysts studied college enrollment at the individual level. Yet little research has been performed on whether the surrounding community characteristics contribute to enrollment rates. This is in part due to seeing college attendance as an individual choice whereas K-12 enrollment is typically predetermined by place of residence. However, this ignores the potential impact economic and social characteristics a community has on students while growing up. This paper attempts to add to the literature by testing county level variables with a panel regression with high school fixed effects.

The results show higher averages of KEES …

East African Perspectives Of Family And Community, And How They Can Inform Western Ecclesiology, Ben Strait

M.A. in Family Ministry

East African families and communities function day-to-day as a single living organism. As one participant said, “Life is common.”[1] What he meant by that was that life is shared among the members of a community, whether biologically related relatives or those who live in close proximity with others. Throughout this research, close interaction with several native East Africans took place, and insights were made into how this view of communal living works itself out in daily life.

[1]. Yusufo, interview by author, Grand Rapids, March 31, 2014.

Impact Of A Rural Public School District On Community Culture, Lynnwood Michael Baade

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Individuals and families often migrate to rural areas anticipating a utopian environment and a school system that supports their beliefs and values. Little qualitative research, however, has been conducted about the impact of rural public school districts on their local communities. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative study, as reflected in the central research question, was to explore how a rural public school district contributed to community culture. Maslow's motivational theory related to a hierarchy of human needs formed the conceptual framework for this study. A single case study was executed as the method of inquiry. Participants included 6 residents …

Measuring A Big Bold Goal, Jonathan Kohn

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

No executive summary.