Digital Commons Network^™

A Qualitative Study Of The Lao American College Experience, Jerry Sithiphone

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

The majority of the Lao American population arrived in the United States after the end of the “American War in Southeast Asia” in 1975 as political refugees. Nevertheless, as Asian Americans, Lao Americans are also stereotyped to be the “model minority” and therefore do not face the same educational and socioeconomical challenges like other communities of color. However, Lao Americans are not the model minority and face numerous obstacles as the community is overlooked and history is forgotten by mainstream America. The lack of scholarly literature on Lao Americans highlights not only the general misunderstanding of the community, but also …

From Bornholm To Jamestown: C. C. Beck And The Settlement Of Danish Immigrants In Chautauqua County, New York And Warren County, Pennsylvania, John Everett Jones

The Bridge

One of the earliest Danish immigrant settlements in North America was a community in western New York and northwestern Pennsylvania called Jamestown. Marcus P. Jacobsen has been recognized as the first person from Bornholm to settle in the Jamestown area1 in 1855 or 1856, and early on, members of this community came almost exclusively from Bornholm. However, histories have not recognized the importance of Charles C. Beck in the origin of this community. Emigration from Bornholm has been written about by Henning Bender2 this article adds to that research by situating Beck within the larger community of Danish immigrants who …

Pride, Shame And Tv Dinners, Edward Brennan

Conference papers

This paper critiques a dominant narrative in the history of Irish television, which typically equate television’s arrival with the launch of RTÉ in 1961 and interpret its development through a state-centred, modernisation framework. Drawing on life-story interviews with people who experienced television in Ireland during the 1950s and 1960s, the research challenges methodological nationalism by foregrounding memory as a source. It reveals how television was an uncertain status object that carried meanings of pride, shame, discipline, and cultural value. Theoretically informed by Bourdieu, Halbwachs, and Inglis, the paper analyses recollection as practical social action. Early television consumption was mediated by …

A Laboratory Of Common Interest: Contesting The Economisation Of Space In Limerick City Through The Practice Of Aesthetic Work, Fiona Woods

Doctoral

This arts practice-based research [APBR] addresses a political and ethical problem, namely how a creative practice can operate contrary to the destructive, predatory forces of extractive capitalism. The research took the systemic, socio-spatial violence of enclosure and economisation as a starting point, anchored in the concrete conditions of Limerick city, to test the critical, political possibilities of collaborative, cultural work. From an examination of the ways in which lived space is subsumed under the abstractive logic of ‘the Economy’, two processes of abstraction and enclosure are isolated and examined: i) a hollowing out of publicness, captured by the lexigraph public …

Human Capital Formation And Return Migration Within Mong Communities In Rural/Semi-Rural Northern California, Chong Yang

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

This research uses computational grounded theory to explore the human capital formation and stay/return migration experiences of well-educated Mong adults living in various rural/semi-rural Northern California localities within Butte, Yuba, and Sutter Counties. Rural vitality is dependent on the return of these well-educated rural-raised adults. Out-migration of rurality’s best and brightest contributes towards a brain drain and the hallowing out of rurality’s human capital. Findings of this research is conveyed using two research articles examining two different points on the continuum of rural vitality. The first article examines 19 Mong adults’ educational experiences within their rural communities and college education. …

The Use Of Vocational Services By Formerly Incarcerated Citizens Who Obtained Employment, Marianne Gonta

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Almost 2.3 million people are incarcerated in correctional facilities across the United States. More than 95% of this population will be released to return to society at some time. People returning from prison can be at a disadvantage as they compete for work. They might be challenged by known barriers to employment, like restrictions on work opportunities and powerful stigma, resulting in a social problem. While some correctional facilities provide vocational services, 75% or more of citizens returning to U.S. communities from prison cannot obtain sustainable wage employment. Yet, it appears there is little research illuminating the pathways used by …

The Fringe Or The Heart Of Things? Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander Musics In Australian Music Institutions, Clint Bracknell, Linda Barwick

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Teetering on the fringe of Australian music scholarship and knowledge institutions, research and teaching of local Indigenous musics hold a marginal place, belying the positioning of Indigenous music-makers at the centre of international representations of Australian culture, and the dynamic local connections of Indigenous music-making to Australian landscapes and social realities. Music’s ubiquity and diversity worldwide show its potential as a tool to manage the changing world in societies of the past and present, yet this potential is largely neglected in contemporary Australia, and our theories and evidence base are limited by the narrow western focus within our knowledge institutions. …

Re-Spatializing Gangs: An Exponential Random Graph Model Of Twitter Data To Analyze The Geospatial Distribution Of Gang Member Connections, Ryan J. Roberts

Political Science & Geography Faculty Publications

Gang studies often use location-based approaches to explain gang members’ interconnectedness. Although this perspective remains consistent with the proximity principle that the smaller the geographic space, the greater the likelihood of observing connections between individuals, location-based studies limit our understanding of gang member connections to narrowly defined geographic spaces at specific points in time. The advent of social media has re-spatialized gang member interconnectedness to unbounded geographic spaces, where the preservation of online activity can extend indefinitely. Despite having an online presence, most research examining the digital footprint of gangs tends to be descriptive. This study collects Twitter data to …

Attuning To Need: Reconceptualizing “Help” In Poor Rural Areas, Jennifer M. Frank, Laura Brierton Granruth, Brittany Leffler, Rachel Preibisch, Dawn Watson, Heather Girvin, Mary Glazier

Contemporary Rural Social Work Journal

Social isolation is closely linked to overall health and well-being and is a serious concern for those in rural areas. Our research seeks insights into the needs experienced in poor rural areas by utilizing letter writing between students and community agency participants as a research methodology. In the letters, we observed that community participants relied upon friend and family style relationships and even viewed their agency relationships as such. This suggests that transforming "professional helping relationships" into alliances that are less impersonal might be in order. Such relationships and connections seemed conducive to the development of empowering self-efficacy. This finding …

2021 Service Speaks Annual Conference Chapbook, 2021 Service Speaks Committee

Other Research and Reports

Service Speaks is an annual conference that demonstrates the multitude of ways DePaul students work with community partners to advance social justice causes in Chicago communities. Each academic year, over 200 courses and programs send students into the community to lift up the assets of our community partners through community-based service learning (CbSL) and project-based classes, community internships and community-based research. These connections result in mutually beneficial outcomes for the community organization and provide transformational experiences for our students.

Service Speaks 2021, Service Speaks Committee, Depaul University

Service Speaks

Service Speaks is an annual conference that demonstrates the multitude of ways DePaul students work with community partners to advance social justice causes in Chicago communities. Each academic year, over 200 courses and programs send students into the community to lift up the assets of our community partners through community-based service learning (CbSL) and project-based classes, community internships and community-based research. These connections result in mutually beneficial outcomes for the community organization and provide transformational experiences for our students.

"Its Own Little City": Service Work In Truck Stops, Michelle Elizabeth Williams

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Montana truck stops act as a meeting place for long-haul truckers, vacationers, local commuters, and the workers simply trying to earn a living. The employees at such truck stops must navigate working-class customer service norms while interacting with a unique and diverse set of customers. The ethnographic and interview data that I collected during the 2020 offers a unique view of how customer service employees fared during political unrest, global health concerns, and financial struggle. Additionally, this study highlights the power dynamics that exist in the service industry by examining how such dynamics manifest in the interactions surrounding face masks, …

The Perceptions, Practices, And Policies That Govern Food, Energy, And Water Consumption In The U.S. Suburban Home: “More Than My Fair Share”, William Lytle

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation addresses household consumption by advancing understandings of complex material, social, and regulatory structures that have a bearing on the future of sustainable and resilient practices at the residential scale in the United States. Interviews with 44 households in the U.S. were conducted to learn about perceptions of food, energy, and water consumption. Chapters two, three, and four utilize grounded theory and theories of practice. This inquiry yielded insights into social dynamics of household consumption, how human and more-than-human actors influence each other’s consumption, and how infrastructure and social class are interrelated. Chapter five is a policy maker’s guidebook, …

The Limits Of Equity, Michael Lewyn

Scholarly Works

"Equity" is a common buzzword in urban planning circles. However, nearly any land use decision can be justified as more equitable than the alternatives.

Alone On The Range? Rangeland Stakeholder Perceptions Of Public Lands, Community Change And Maintaining Rural Livelihoods, Hailee Rose Nolte

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Ranchers are a part of a rapidly changing rural western American landscape, and they play a special role in protecting and stewarding working landscapes. Rural communities in Eastern Oregon and Northeastern California have deeply rooted identities and economies connected to ranching and a high percentage of federal lands. The aim of this research is to: 1) document how ties to ranching are changing in communities undergoing social and economic change; 2) analyze the relationships and interactions between ranchers and federal management agency representatives; and 3) to identify how ranchers are maintaining their lifestyle under these circumstances. I interviewed representatives of …

Assessing California Commercial Fishing Community Well-Being In The Context Of Marine Protected Area (Mpa) Formation, Samantha Cook

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Marine protected areas (MPAs)—defined geographic areas where fishing and harvesting activity is limited or restricted—have emerged as a popular marine biodiversity and climate resilience strategy worldwide. MPA monitoring efforts often follow MPA designation to help inform the adaptive management of MPAs and MPA networks. In 2012, California completed the largest statewide system of MPAs to date, consisting of 124 MPAs covering 16% of state waters. Following MPA implementation, the state initiated a long-term monitoring program (2019-2022) to help inform the 10-year MPA management review. This two-chapter thesis presents findings from a state-funded project to conduct long-term socioeconomic monitoring for human …

Directions For Research Practice In Decolonising Methodologies: Contending With Paradox, Tamara A. Lipscombe, Antonia Hendrick, Peta L. Dzidic, Darren C. Garvey, Brian Bishop

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

The complex nature of colonisation presents with the potential for paradoxes in decolonising approaches, hence, fixed conventions and methods are discouraged. In this way, decolonising methodologies concerns interrogating dominant conventions in research that have typically excluded alternative ways of knowing from academia. This raises concern about the issue of breaking conventions, when it is potentially difficult to realise that one is depending upon them. An incremental approach to the research process and subsequent knowledge generated provides opportunity to challenge the conventions that typically dictate research praxis. In addition, fostering epistemological transformation and pluralism presents a solution to problems derived from …

Weather Bodies: Experimenting With Dance Improvisation In Environmental Education In The Early Years, Jo Pollitt, Mindy Blaise, Tonya Rooney

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

This paper reports on insights gained from incorporating dance improvisation into a broader early years environmental education ethnographic research project. Findings are reported from a two-day workshop where a dancer was invited to work with young children to attune to the weather through their bodies. In these workshops, the practice of dance improvisation was used as a deliberate interference to disrupt the disconnected and disembodied ways in which weather is often taught to young children. The paper argues that when children attune with weather through the embodied and relational practice of dance improvisation, this challenges the common practice of learning …

Supporting User Interaction And Social Relationship Formation In A Collaborative Online Shopping Context, Yu Xu

Dissertations

The combination of online shopping and social media allow people with similar shopping interests and experiences to share, comment, and discuss about shopping from anywhere and at any time, which also leads to the emergence of online shopping communities. Today, more people turn to online platforms to share their opinions about products, solicit various opinions from their friends, family members, and other customers, and have fun through interactions with others with similar interests. This dissertation explores how collaborative online shopping presents itself as a context and platform for users' interpersonal interactions and social relationship formation through a series of studies. …

An Examination Of The Sociocultural, Religious, And Racial Adjustment Experiences Of Jamaican Professionals In South Florida, Sharon R. Ritchie-Brown

Theses and Dissertations

An Examination of the Sociocultural, Religious, and Racial Adjustment Experiences of Jamaican Professionals in South Florida. Sharon Ritchie-Brown, 2020: Applied Dissertation, Nova Southeastern University, Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice. Keywords: immigrants, professional occupations, ethnic groups, culture, social adjustment

This transcendental phenomenological research was designed to advance an understanding of the adjustment experiences of Jamaican immigrant professionals in South Florida, United States. While the majority of present literature examines acculturation and adjustment experiences of other immigrant groups, there is not enough literature regarding the adjustment experiences of Jamaican immigrant professionals who have made significant contributions …

Super-Diversity Inside And Outside Of Congregations In Elmhurst, Queens, Richard Cimino, Hans Tokke

Publications and Research

This chapter looks at the role congregations play in a “superdiverse” neighborhood, characterized by recent immigration and strong ethic and religious pluralism. We are particularly interested in how diversity shapes a neighborhood’s religious ecology and how congregations and other groups relate to their neighborhood; how do they respond to this diversity in their ministries to their own congregants and to those outside their walls, and how do they interact with other faith communities? Further, to what degree do individuals follow the ideal of pluralism as they live their lives within their own enclave? We find that bonding rather than bridging …

A Phenomenological Study On The Impact Of Servant Leadership For Establishing A Culture Of High Performance As Perceived By High School Principals, Darrick Rice

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and describe the perceived impact of Patterson’s (2003) 7 servant leadership constructs on high school principals in establishing a culture of high performance.

Methodology: The qualitative phenomenological study described the lived experiences of high school principals who lead schools that have implemented Patterson's (2003) 7 servant leadership constructs for establishing a culture of high performance in Los Angeles County, California. The researcher was a part of 8 peer researchers and 2 faculty advisors. The data collection included virtual face-to-face semi structured interviews using a protocol developed by the thematic team. …

The Electronic Hardware Music Subculture In Portland, Oregon, James Andrew Hickey

Dissertations and Theses

Music is relatively understudied as a geographic phenomenon, but recently there has been a shift in academic literature to understand the social, cultural and economic factors that determine music and its development in specific places. The purpose of this study is to examine the Electronic Hardware Music Subculture (EHMS) in Portland, why it thrives, and how it is linked to the local cultural economy. To do this, I used semi-structured, long form interviews with key members of the EHMS. These interviews, and my own observations, gave insight into what factors affect the success of members of the EHMS, and how …

The Bay Area Rail System: A Sustainable Network Or A Social Equity Phenomenon?, Whitney Libunao

Master's Projects and Capstones

Sustainable transportation, as it relates to sustainable development, aims to achieve economic stability, social equity, and environmental preservation via transit projects. However, gentrification processes and transit-oriented developments or TODs have attracted more households inward toward reinvested transit-centric areas. The San Francisco Bay Area, California has continued to see positive economic growth, with that, higher-income households inhabiting more centralized locations. Native low-income residents have started to feel displacement pressures on both a social and economic scale. Over time, displacement risk inevitably leads to residential displacement where low-income families are forced to relocate to distant, more affordable neighborhoods. As more distance separates …

Masculinity Among The Amish: Characteristics, Hegemony, And 'Soft Patriarchy', Robert Strikwerda

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

This article examines both Amish masculine cultural norms and practices and the characteristics of Amish men specifically as men. The first goal is to pull together information from the secondary literature on Amish men and masculinity. Salient characteristics or traits such as egalitarianism, pacifism, and rationality are discussed, and placed in the context of Gelassenheit (yieldedness), of the gender relations within families, and of Raewyn Connell’s notion of “hegemonic masculinity.” The second goal is to assess the appropriateness of general characterizations of the Amish gender regime, such as one with women as second-class citizens to men or as a “soft …

Impact Of Endangered Animal Protection Rights, Policies, And Practices On Zoonotic Disease Spread, Daniella Fedak-Lengel

Honors Projects

Building on field research in Costa Rica and Belize, this honors project analyzes environmental and endangered animal protection policies, rights, and practices in Central America and the Caribbean, and assesses the impact of veterinary science and biological research and practice, particularly conservation biology, on animal welfare concerns. Informed by the recent surge in awareness regarding zoonoses and zoonotic disease transmission, prevention and control, resulting from the current global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2, the project assesses the need for new and innovative types of collaboration, particularly involving conservation biologists, environmental scientists, public health experts, law and policy makers, and global trade and …

Negative Emotions In Fieldwork: A Narrative Inquiry Of Three Efl Researchers’ Lived Experiences, Adilur Rahaman, Shuvo Saha

The Qualitative Report

Through narrative inquiry this research depicts and interprets the negative emotions that three English as Foreign Language (EFL) researchers experienced in different research sites during their fieldwork. Narrative inquiry informs the design of this investigation as the approach is particularly useful for understanding lived experiences. The study draws on autobiographical as well as narrative data to report the negative emotions that evolve during English language education fieldwork, an aspect absent in the existing literature. Findings suggest that the researchers experienced a wide range of negative emotions namely ethical dilemma, anger, anxiety, guilt, and shame. These results carry implications for language …

Test Anxiety Among Foreign Language Learners: A Qualitative Study, Selami Aydin, Ferdane Denkci Akkaş, Tülin Türnük, Asiye Baştürk Beydilli, İlknur Saydam

The Qualitative Report

Test anxiety is a strong predictor of achievement in English as a foreign language (EFL) learning process and has considerable influences on proficiency in the target language. Research also has not reached a consensus on the sources and the effects of test anxiety. This study aims to examine the sources of test anxiety among foreign language learners, to find the effects of test anxiety on EFL learners, and explore the strategies used by learners to overcome test anxiety. The sample group of the study consisted of 57 students studying EFL at a preparatory school of a state university in Turkey. …

Scholarly Pursuits: The Inequality Of Illness

Insights

Multiple LAS faculty received grants from DePaul to pursue different studies that analyze health equity and COVID-19. Part of the research helped map the extent to which race, ethnicity, socioeconomics and previous health conditions explain the disparities in outcomes from COVID-19 in Chicago.

Coming Attractions

Insights

With the pandemic prohibiting in-person learning and campus visits, the college offered an assortment of creative online offerings this summer to give newly admitted DePaul students a taste of the LAS experience. Among the offerings were a mini-course, "Critical Perspectives on Our Current Moment," taught using Zoom, an introduction to the Center for Black Diaspora and the Center for Latino Research, and panel discussions with current students and faculty in the Honors program.