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Empowering Lifelong Choice: Supporting Older Individuals With Idd To Thrive At Work, Transition To Retirement With Dignity, And Maintain Community Connections, Leslie Quarles

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

This synthesis addresses the need to support older individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in their engagement in continued work. The project traces the journey from an initial focus on supporting older individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to work as long as they wish to an eventual shift toward a phased retirement approach. It considers issues such as a reimagined visualization of the support team structure, integration of tailored job supports and Community Life Engagement (CLE). The author's familial history sparked a sense of injustice that would not stay buried, shaping a career path in disability services and access. …

Intergenerational Climate Stories Of South Carolina, Christine Sorrell Dinkins, Laura Barbas Rhoden, Samuel Stuckey, Hayden Jones

Community Based Research

Intergenerational Climate Stories

In this volume, you will hear from South Carolina residents age 45+ who generously agreed to speak with student researchers at Wofford College. In these intergenerational conversations, participants shared how they have experienced and perceived climate change over the course of their lives. Some stories have been anonymized through the use of pseudonyms, while others include participants’ names with permission. In some cases, researcher comments and questions are included for context. The stories have been lightly edited for clarity and concision while preserving the participants’ voices.

All conversations were facilitated in Summer 2023 by Wofford students Hayden …

On The Brink Of Silence: Ethnographic Perspectives On Hunting And Forest Life Among The Awa Guajá In Eastern Amazonia, Uirá Garcia

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

The central theme of this article basically resides in the relationship established by indigenous peoples between their hunting practices and the forest. Indigenous ways of connecting ‘hunting’ and ‘forest’ necessarily pass through other modes of knowing, only marginally – if it all – dependent on vision. On the contrary, sounds, smells and even dreams are, for many South American indigenous collectives, more trustworthy indices than what the eye sees. This article divides into two parts. In the first, I set out the main ideas related to the anthropological study of hunting in Amazonia at a conceptual level. In the second, …

Examination Of Factors To Male Offender Recidivism In Western Missouri, Daryl Long

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Law Enforcement Active Shooter Preparedness Grading System: A Campus Police Officer’S Perspective, Sean Patrick Gilligan

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Prostitution And Opioid-Related Death Rates In A North Carolina City After The Implementation Of The Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion Program, Tomeka Scarboro-Hedrick

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Examining The Impact Of A Self-Employment Vocational Program In Texas On Black Men And Their Recidivism Rates, Alain Marie Matigi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Hidden Behind Happiness: Bhutan’S Global Image And Ethnic Exclusion, Deepesh Das Shrestha

Master's Theses

Bhutan has gained international recognition for its philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH), which promotes holistic development through principles of well-being, environmental sustainability, cultural preservation, and good governance. Yet this celebrated image conceals a darker history: the systematic expulsion of the Lhotsampa, the Nepali-speaking ethnic minority of southern Bhutan. This study critically explores the contradiction between Bhutan's international image as a model of happiness and the lived experiences of Lhotsampa refugees who were displaced during the early 1990s.

Using a qualitative phenomenological research design, the study draws upon in-depth semi-structured interviews with six resettled Bhutanese Lhotsampa refugees living in the …

Tùn-Scene And A-Futurism: Biomythography, Opacity, And Posthuman Imagination, Minglu Du

Masters Theses

Grounded in the author’s position as a Chinese feminist, this thesis examines how East Asian women, as well as East Asian-coded femininity more broadly, are objectified and othered within futurist visual culture in the age of artificial intelligence. Through an engagement with ornamentalism, techno-Orientalism, and posthumanism1 , it argues that the persistent figure of the feminized humanoid cyborg continues to reproduce colonial and patriarchal structures of desire, rendering marginalized bodies as fetishized and violable surfaces. In response, the thesis develops Tùn-Scene, a biomythographic artistic framework and the first experiment in what the author provisionally names A-Futurism. Drawing on Donna Haraway’s …

Numb., Anna Rapson

Masters Theses

Social media platforms, from their conception, posed a break in the lived experience of the average human being’s day to day routines. Although access to information has always been shaped by portals into other lived realities—through photojournalism, print legacy media, news broadcasts both on radio and television—social media has posited a novel phenomenological architecture where borders between embodied reality and perception of lived experience are simultaneously blurred and reinforced. This morphed duality of consciousness positions the body and mind in tension, deconstructing pre-social media conceptions of the ontology of lived experience. In a digital world shaped by limitless input by …

Psychosocial Risk Factors And Recidivism Among Violent Offenders, Abbey Elizabeth Burgess

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined whether changes in LS/CMI domain scores between prison intake and release were associated with three-year recidivism among violent offenders following their release from custody. While the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) framework emphasizes the importance of targeting dynamic criminogenic needs to reduce reoffending, relatively little research has assessed whether changes in domain-level risk factors translate into improved outcomes over time. Using administrative data from a state correctional system, this study analyzed domain-level changes in LS/CMI scores and their relationship to rearrest, while controlling for demographic characteristics, criminal history, and institutional factors. Results indicated that changes in most LS/CMI domains were …

Flowing Borders: U.S. Border Externalization In Latin America And The Los Angeles Declaration On Migration And Protection, Magdalena Olvera Hernandez

Master's Theses

In recent years, Latin America has emerged as a central transit region for extracontinental migrants originating from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East who seek to reach North America through alternative routes. This thesis examines the Los Angeles Declaration on Migration and Protection, among other regional migration governance frameworks that have reshaped migratory flows, state responsibilities, and protection outcomes in the Western Hemisphere. Focusing on the Darién Gap as a strategic chokepoint, the study analyzes the effects of coordinated migration policies, border externalization, and differentiated state roles on extracontinental mobility.

Drawing on official migration statistics from Panama, the United States, …

Shoplifting: Analyzing Spatial And Temporal Patterns, Elizabeth Petrenko

Dissertations and Theses

Shoplifting has contributed to significant losses in Oregon, reaching nearly $956 million in 2022. While overall property crime in Portland, Oregon, dropped between 2023 and 2024, reported shoplifting incidents increased by 50.0%. In Oregon, stealing property worth $100 or less is third-degree theft and a Class C misdemeanor. Second-degree theft involving stealing property between $100 and $1,000 is a Class A misdemeanor. Although often classified as petty or minor theft, shoplifting imposes strain on retailers, consumers, and communities, which raises questions about the spatial and temporal distribution of this crime. This study uses Portland Police Bureau (PPB) offense data to …

“Being Comrades And Friends”: Friendship Networks Of Activists In College, Lance Paul L. Sunga

Sociology Undergraduate Senior Theses

Friendship is often thought of as a byproduct of activism. People naturally get close and form bonds as they become involved and participate in collective action with others. While scholars have focused on how social networks influence mobilization, there has been a lack of research on the other direction of this relationship, the already commonly held assumption. Using the case of student networks at a liberal arts college, this leads to the following questions: “To what extent do variations in social movement mobilization explain patterns and outcomes of friendship network types? How does activism impact a respondent’s understanding of friendship …

Functional And Structural Lesion Network Mapping: Insights Into Acquired Brain Injury And Insomnia, Kathleen Erekson Rugh

Theses and Dissertations

Insomnia disorder is the most reported sleep disorder and can negatively affect daily functioning. Acquired brain injuries can lead to insomnia disorder. Limited research has explored a causal link between brain networks and insomnia symptoms in this population. This study replicated a lesion network mapping methodology of an insomnia study (Helquist et al., 2024) and extended it to examine structural networks linked to insomnia symptoms in individuals with acquired brain injuries. Traced lesions (N =44) were used as seed regions to compare against normative functional and structural network data. For functional analyses, we used resting state fMRI scans from a …

Strategic Silence: The Greek Left's Avoidance Of The 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe During The Refugee Crisis, 2015–2019, Harry Courts

College Honors Program

This thesis examines why the Greek political left, and specifically the SYRIZA government under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras during the time period from 2015 to 2019, made near-absent reference to the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe when addressing the refugee crisis of those years. The Catastrophe, in which approximately 1.3 million Orthodox Greeks were displaced from Anatolia, is the foundational trauma of modern Greek nationhood and a living presence in Greek political culture. When hundreds of thousands of Syrian, Afghan, and Iraqi refugees arrived on Greek shores from 2015, the historical parallel was widely noted. That SYRIZA rarely drew it requires …

Guilty Plea Appeals Across Two States: Who Appeals And Who Wins?, Jacqueline G. Lee, Kelsey S. Henderson, Mason Scott

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Though the vast majority of criminal convictions stem from guilty pleas, what occurs after the plea is relatively unknown. Data on appeals of guilty pleas was collected from two states to explore the prevalence and outcomes of guilty plea appeals, in addition to characteristics of those cases. One state produced approximately 5.5 times more plea appeal opinions per month than the other. Interestingly, one state's appeals largely centered around excessive sentencing claims (73.6%), while the other saw a range of grounds (e.g., ineffective assistance of counsel). Appealing defendants in one state almost always lost (only a 2% likelihood of success), …

Sacralized Violence And The Feminized Body In The Book Of Revelation, Caroline Shane

Denison Journal of Religion

No abstract provided.

War Photography & The Limits Of Empathy, Andrea Shi

Student Theses and Dissertations

The proliferation of photography, particularly war and poverty photography, has had massive implications for the level of vividness with which Americans are able to picture suffering beyond their doors. The mass atrocities that have occurred since the advent of photography – that is to say, the last 200 years – are so relentlessly circulated that they feel, sometimes, as an inevitable byproduct of human nature. It’s not surprising, then, that a lot of media theory and analysis reduce the dilemma of atrocity photographs to a psychological level. Do they numb us, or do they incite empathy? Are they a call …

Organizational Justice And Staff Well-Being In Probation And Parole, Deena R. Devore

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study examines how probation and parole (P&P) officers perceive fairness within their organizations and how these perceptions relate to job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and emotional exhaustion. Organizational justice research has been conducted primarily in business and policing contexts, with limited attention to whether established measurement models accurately capture fairness in community corrections. Because P&P officers operate within hybrid roles characterized by discretion, sustained supervisory relationships, and bureaucratic constraint, fairness perceptions in this setting may not align cleanly with existing dimensional frameworks.

Using survey data collected from P&P officers in a western U.S. state, this study evaluates competing measurement structures …

Protest Policing And Legitimacy: A Comparative Analysis Of Myanmar And The United States, Khaing Sandee Lynn

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Political protests garner immense attention during academic, socio-political, and policy discourse discussions. More specifically, the manner in which government, police, and protestors interact during protest events is heavily observed and debated. Research shows that legitimacy is established when power-holders act in accordance with legal frameworks and various political and institutional norms. With focus on the intersection of legitimacy and protest policing, the current study aims to explore how political, legal, and institutional legitimacy influence police compliance with state and institutional directives, and protestor compliance with police directives in two distinct sociopolitical contexts.

For this purpose, qualitative data was collected through …

Vocational Training, Employment, And Recidivism: Examining Job Satisfaction As A Mediator, Gianni Brianna Lopez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of job satisfaction in mediating the relationship between employment, vocational training, and recidivism. Recidivism remains a major issue in the United States, with a substantial portion of formerly incarcerated individuals returning to criminal behavior and, in many cases, being reincarcerated. The relationship between work and crime has been well established, however not all jobs are equal, and the protective effects of employment can vary across jobs. Employment has been cited as one of the most important factors in reducing recidivism, yet many individuals face barriers to securing stable and quality …

Factors Influencing K-12 School Homicide Casualties, Melvin Alexander Vargas Melgar

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Kindergarten through 12th-grade (K-12) school homicides, defined as homicides that occurred on the property of a school serving kindergarten through 12th-grade students, account for about 2% of all youth homicides, but are still a serious problem in the United States. From 2000 to 2024, 372 K-12 school homicide incidents have occurred, in which 783 victims were killed and injured. However, prior research tends to either generally focus on youth homicides, school violence, or high-profile school shootings with multiple victims. This study aims to add to the literature by examining various incident-level factors of K-12 school homicide incidents that may influence …

Jason Read's The Double Shift: A Double Reading, Tedd Siegel

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Key Themes In Sino-American History, David J. Lorenzo, Ian Murphy

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article examines how historical narratives shape the messaging of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China, particularly regarding Sino-American relations. It identifies three key historical themes—trade, discriminatory policies, and Taiwan—that are frequently invoked in China’s statements and information campaigns. By contextualizing these themes, the article argues that military and national security professionals need a deeper understanding of Sino-American history to interpret China’s messaging correctly and counter its influence effectively. The article advocates for the integration of Sino-American historical content into professional military education curricula to enhance strategic awareness and policy formulation.

Parameters, Usawc Press

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

How Is Going To War Like Buying A Car?: The Bargaining Model Of War, Richard R. Johnson

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

The bargaining model of war, a popular, yet complex international relations theory, emphasizes how nations communicate signals regarding military strength, resolve to fight, and foreign policy goals. Since the military plays a major role in communicating these signals, its leaders should understand this theory, despite its complexities. This article explains the model and its components through the used car sale bargaining process and supplements the analogy with real-world examples of international events. This article will help military and foreign policy professionals easily grasp the concepts of the model.

The Effectiveness Of After Care Substance Abuse Treatment Programs From The Perspective Of Released Female Offenders, Sarah Kay Blankenship

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

No abstract provided.

Understanding Perceived Agency: An Analysis Of Sex Workers’ Lived Experiences, Alyssa King

Undergraduate Research Journal

This study explores the perceived agency of female sex workers through narrative analysis of publicly available YouTube interviews from the Soft White Underbelly series. Using a qualitative design grounded in Modified Grounded Theory, the research employed open, axial, and selective coding to identify key dimensions of agency, including bodily autonomy, workplace control, financial decision-making and coping mechanisms. Findings reveal that sex workers’ agency exists on a spectrum, shaped by intersecting structural constraints such as criminalization, stigma, poverty, and violence. While some interviewees describe empowerment through control over clients and earnings, others report diminished autonomy due to coercion, financial dependency, and …

"I Just Wanted To Help": Certified Recovery Peer Advocates And Disconnected Labor, Rosie Benser

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines the remaking of the recovery industry via the rise of Certified Recovery Peer Advocates (CRPA), or recovery peers, and the conditions that enable and constrain their labor. Peer Based Support Services (PBSS) was professionally recognized in the substance use disorder (SUD) treatment field starting in the early twenty-first century through federal grants for the underinsured and the ability to submit services for Medicaid/Medicare insurance repayments. As a result, CRPAs are especially present in low-income communities, dispatched to serve people seeking recovery from SUD with a mandate to “have conversations about change.” Drawing from in-depth interviews, participant observation …