Digital Commons Network^™

The Effects Of Construal Level On Stigmatizing Attitudes Toward An Individual With Mental Illness, Jeremy Glenn Gay

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

People with mental illness often face stigmatization by society. However, little research has examined cognitive factors that may activate or dissipate stigmatizing attitudes toward those with mental illness. Construal level, or the extent that people focus on abstract generalizations versus concrete details of events, may be one such cognitive factor. Two contradictory hypotheses emerged concerning how construal may affect stigmatizing attitudes. One hypothesis suggests that abstract construals will decrease stigmatization because abstract construals tend to increase the activation of similar goals, thus leading to a similarity focus. In contrast, another hypothesis suggests that abstract construals will increase stigmatization because abstract …

Synchronization Techniques In Multilingual Fiction: Voiced-Over Films In Poland, Katarzyna Sepielak

Sociology Faculty Publications

This descriptive analysis of four multilingual fiction films voiced-over into Polish—Nine, Avatar, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, and Inglourious Basterds—provides insight into the application of different types of synchrony and their function in multilingual movies as well as the relation between synchronization and translation techniques. The results raise important questions about the main assumptions of voice-over translation, such as the illusion of authenticity, voice-over isochrony, and the reasoning behind literal synchrony.

Human Trafficking: The Health Of Men Forced Into Labor Trafficking In The United States, Christina Omole

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Human trafficking is a criminal act that occurs globally. It affects both women and men, but most studies have focused on female victims; few have explored trafficked men or their related health issues. Though there are many forms of trafficking, it is believed that most male victims are trafficked as forced labor. Using gender schema theory as a framework, this quantitative study examined archival data to identify the types of trafficking men are subjected to, their health ailments, and how these differ from the health ailments of trafficked women. Archival data from 124 individuals subjected to human trafficking in Florida …

Decoding Metacommunication Patterns From African American Single Mothers To Sons, Michael-Kamau Henderson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

With a significant number of African American single-parent families responsible for raising a generation of male children, the focus of this qualitative case study was on exploring the African American single mother-son dyad to identify metacommunicative signals delivered from mothers to sons. This study was grounded in a theoretical framework combining attachment theory and social learning theory. The research questions focused on identifying metacommunication messages passed from mothers to sons and how metacommunication patterns influence the youth's social identity. Four single mothers with adolescent sons and 4 unrelated adult sons of single mothers participated in semistructured interviews. Data were collected …

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 …

No Taxation Without Discrimination: The Racial Politics Of American Property Taxes, Kasey Henricks

Dissertations

No longer is it acceptable to rationalize racial hierarchy in explicit terms. Today’s ideology substitutes these explanations for cultural ones that diminish racial oppression. Though recent studies uncover the slippery, covert, and seemingly nonracial discourse of colorblindness, claims of ideological progression are offered without empirical verification. Examining debate surrounding the three-fifths clause of the U.S Constitution, I complete a “historical ethnographic content analysis” that transplants colorblind ideology into historical soil some presume it does not belong. The data derive from “A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation” and consist of 1,493 pages of congressional record. My findings reveal how …

Phenomenological Study Of Career Advancement Experiences Of Ethnic Female Migrant, Evelyn Oghogho Brisibe

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

In the 2006 census, Statistics Canada recorded that 23% of immigrant women aged 15 and over had a university degree at the bachelor's level or above. These women could help sustain an organization's competitive advantage and respond to labor shortages posed by an aging population. This phenomenological study highlighted self-initiated migration journey and career advancement experiences of migrant women. Through LinkedIn and referrals from non-profit organizations, a sample of 20 women was recruited. All women had migrated to Canada between the ages 32 to 50, all had 5 to 10 years of residence in Canada and all had college degrees …

An Exploration Of Exposure To Music In High School Males In Appalachian Ohio, Cassandra Mcdonald

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Even with increasing availability of alternative educational systems, individual learning plans, and vocational schools, the high school dropout rate among males is still rising. High school dropouts have a negative effect on a community because their chances of being employed and contributing to the community are reduced. The theoretical frameworks of multiple intelligences, self-efficacy, and developmental constructivism were used to conduct a hermeneutical phenomenological study of the lived experiences of a specific population of male youth in rural Ohio who decided to return to school and complete the requirements for a high school diploma or GED after being exposed to …

Haitian Adult Immigrants As Learners And Parents, Dayana Octavien Philippi

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Haitian immigrant parents often face challenges to visibly engage in their children's education in the United States due to social, cultural, and economic factors. This study addressed parent involvement (PI) among Haitian immigrant parents of adolescents in a Florida community. The purpose of this exploratory, multiple-case study was to better understand connections between immigrant Haitian parents' beliefs and learning experiences and their experiences supporting their adolescents' learning. Three research questions were developed to explore Haitian adults' lived experiences and perceptions of themselves as keepers of knowledge and as learners, their experiences and perceived roles as parents, and the resources they …

Social Justice And Worker Cooperatives, Gurveer Shaan Dhillon

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Social Justice (SJ) is an organizing principle of contemporary community psychology (CP); however, the concept and understanding of social justice in community psychology is undertheorized and narrow. Specifically, the concept of distributive justice, which has been a popular notion of social justice in community psychology discourse, does not translate well into transformative action. In order to address this issue, the research uses a qualitative approach to explore the understanding of social justice from the perspectives of worker-members of 5 worker cooperatives in Ontario, with the aim to contribute to an understanding of SJ that has transformative implications. A worker cooperative …

An Environmental Justice Examination Of Hispanic Immigrants' Flood Hazard Exposure And Vulnerability In The Miami And Houston Metro Areas, Alejandra Maldonado

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Research reveals that disasters are particularly debilitating for racial/ethnic minorities. However, prior studies of racial/ethnic dimensions of disaster vulnerability have lumped people together in broad categories (e.g. Hispanic) without regard for substantial within-group heterogeneity. As a result, aspects of disaster vulnerability experienced by Hispanic immigrants (distinguished from US-born Hispanics) have been concealed. Using survey data from 1,283 adult householders in the Houston and Miami Metropolitan Statistical Areas and follow-up interview data from a subset of survey respondents, this Thesis addresses that limitation by examining whether Hispanic immigrants experience heightened flood risk relative to other social groups. The Thesis is comprised …

Happily Ever After And Other Lies My Childhood Told Me, Rachel Anna Neff

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A manuscript-length book of poetry with a critical preface centered on the idea of mythology, nursery rhymes, and foundational (Western) fictions and how the cultural norms and expectations that those texts create influence an individual, particularly with respect to gender and gender identity.

The Effect Of A Fluent Signing Narrator On Children's Behavior During Technology-Enhanced Shared Reading With Children With Hearing Loss And Their Parents, Gabriela Itzel Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Shared reading plays an essential role in the language and literacy development of children who are at risk of future problems in those areas. Children with hearing loss (CHL) are a group who usually experience limited and poor quality activities that foster literacy development such as shared reading (SR). Researchers examining high quality interactions have rated child behaviors, primarily attention and initiation, during shared reading and play based activities finding positive correlations between these behaviors and the overall development in typically developing children as well as in children with other impairments such as Autism Spectrum Disorder and Down syndrome (Kim …

The Hidden Epidemic: Mental Health Epidemiology In Post-Conflict Populations And Implications For Conflict Transformation Practices, Jennifer Sato

Capstone Collection

This capstone explores the ramifications of unmitigated mental health illness in conflict populations, paying special attention to refugees and migrants. The intersection between conflict and mental health is explored and analyzed in order to highlight the implications of the findings and to make recommendations to both metal health and conflict transformation practitioners. This capstone depends predominately on secondary resources and personal interviews and is informed by my own practicum experience at a refugee health center. The need to improve mental health outcomes in order to pursue conflict transformation and peace building is a key focus and is supported by the …

Exploring The Professional Beliefs Of An Efl Teacher: A Narrative Inquiry, Seyyed Ali Ostovar-Namaghi, Shabnam Norouzi, Mobina Hosseini

The Qualitative Report

The applied science model of teacher education implies that the relationship between theory and practice is unidirectional. In this study, however, the researchers make a case in the opposite direction, i.e., they believe that professional practice can also shed some light on theories of language teaching. Since narrative inquiry is best for capturing the detailed stories or life experiences of a single life, the researchers took it as a legitimate mode of research to uncover and make sense of the professional experience of an experienced and professionally popular language teacher. Analysis revealed six themes, which reflect the participant’s professional beliefs. …

Holding Death At Bay Vs. Prolonging Life: Indexing Fatalism And Optimism In The Ideology Of Health, Genetics, And Family History In The U. S. And South Korean Media, Soo Jung Hong, Susan Strauss

The Qualitative Report

Media discourse creates and shapes views of personhood, of possibilities, of wellness, and at the same time, these views and beliefs, in their turn, shape media discourse. Broadcasts of health-related edutainment programs and advertisements are rich sources for the discovery of stances concerning health and illness. We examine media discourse in the United States and South Korea, and uncover consistent indexical patterns pointing to overall ideologies of fatalism in the U.S. and optimism in South Korea. Specifically, from an indexicality-based perspective, we identify the patterned ways in which the ideologies of fatalism and optimism are indexed with regard to agency …

Adherence And Dosage Contributions To Parenting Program Quality, Thomas J. Gross, W. Alex Mason, Gilbert R. Parra, Robert Oats, Jay Ringle, Kevin P. Haggerty

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Objective—The 3 most frequently examined elements of treatment fidelity are adherence, dosage, and quality. The relationships between these fidelity elements are complex, and additional research is needed to provide clarity. Improving clarity may be especially relevant to parenting programs, which tend to include direct explicit instruction (DEI) elements (i.e., instruction, modeling, and practice). The adherence to and dosage of these DEI elements are frequently assumed to improve program quality; however, little information is available to determine if such adherence and dosage affect program quality. This study examines whether adherence to and dosage of DEI elements predict quality ratings for …

Racial Experience As An Alternative Operationalization Of Race, Jada Benn Torres, Gabriel A. Torres Colón

Human Biology Open Access Pre-Prints

The study of human variation is central to both social and biomedical sciences; however, despite agreeing that variation is integral to the human experience, social and biomedical scientists diverge in how variation is theorized and operationalized. Race becomes especially problematic because it is a cultural concept that contains implicit and explicit understandings of how collective bodies differ. In this paper, we propose an operationalization of race that is attentive to both racial experience and human biological diversity—placing them within the same ontological sphere. Furthermore, we argue that this approach can more effectively advance antiracist pedagogy and politics.

We argue that …

“We Stick Out Like A Sore Thumb . . .”: Underground White Rappers’ Hegemonic Masculinity And Racial Evasion, Matthew Oware

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Employing the concept of racial evasion—a derivation of Bonilla-Silva’s colorblind ideology theory—the author analyzes 237 songs of underground white and nonwhite rappers from 2006 to 2010. Performing a content analysis on their lyrics, the author finds that white artists make fewer references to racially political and social themes (e.g., racial profiling, police brutality, racist policies) than nonwhite artists—what the author terms racial evasion. The author speculates that white rappers, understanding that they operate in a specifically racialized black and brown cultural art form, deemphasize or mask their racial identity in their lyrics. This tactic is achieved through lyrically referencing hypermasculine …

Assessing The Sociocultural Impact Of Special Events In The Context Of Germanfest In Nebraska, Usa, Yanli Wang

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The present study examined the sociocultural impact of special events based on the cultural festival of GermanFest in Syracuse, Nebraska. A total of 143 (71.5%) local residents responded to the self-administered survey. The dimensions of the sociocultural impact, the important reasons for celebrating the festival, the relationship among festival stakeholders, the levels of community involvement, and the improvement of the quality of life in the community as impacts of the festival and demographic information were investigated separately.

The Festival Social Impact Attitude Scale (FSIAS) was utilized to identify the dimensions of the sociocultural impact of GermanFest. Three dimensions were identified …

Consumer Assessment Of New Creative Products Across China And The United States, Eva Teruzzi

Creative Studies Graduate Student Master's Theses

This cross-cultural research investigates how consumers assess creativity in new products and if their assessment impacts desire to own. Implicit and explicit scale-based measures were tested in China and the U.S. in online consumer samples and were positively correlated. Novelty, affect and importance dimensions of creative products were tested through Horn and Salvendy’s (2006, 2009) Product Creativity Measurement (PCM) scale. Findings point to a different role of novelty in determining desirability of creative new products across-cultures.In fact, novelty and affect are key to explain desire to own in China, while affect and importance are the drivers in the U.S. Affect, …

Postcolonialism And The Marshallese Diaspora: Structural Violence And Health In The Marshallese Community In Springdale, Arkansas, Alexander J. Hirata

Master's Theses

Despite moving to the United States for better healthcare, among other benefits, Marshallese Compact of Free Association (COFA) migrants residing in Springdale, Arkansas continue to face similar acute health problems as Marshallese living in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and often without access to health services. These problems include high rates of noncommunicable diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and thyroid cancer, as well as rare conditions such as Hansen’s Disease.

To research this, I studied the limited texts surrounding the Marshallese diaspora, as well as relevant bodies of literature: postcolonialism, Pacific migration theory, and global health and …

Editor's Introduction, Jr. Aguilar

Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints

No abstract provided.

American Culture’S Impact On Gender And The Perpetuation Of A Gender Binary, Anna Blaho

University Honors Program

This thesis explores the origins of American culture’s fixation on gender being a dichotomous concept. Through the analysis of previous research surrounding the subject of gender roles, expectations, and stereotypes, contributors to this restrictive mind frame as well as reinforcing agents were recognized. Historical trends have demonstrated the assignment of clear and separate tasks to the genders, which in turn created differentiated experiences and opportunities presented to each gender. Facilitated by the historical basis, American culture emulated similar patterns that instilled inflexible conceptions about gender to the point where it has created a discriminate workplace environment. As a consequence of …

Manilaner’S Holocaust Meets Manileños’ Colonisation: Cross-Traumatic Affiliations And Postcolonial Considerations In Trauma Studies, Jocelyn Martin

English Faculty Publications

After interrogating the (non-)referential status of the Holocaust for Asians, this essay examines Frank Ephraim’s Escape to Manila and Juergen Goldhagen’s Manila Memories. In particular, cross-traumatic affiliation is studied between two groups of people: the Manilaner and the Manileños: the former were Europeans who fled Nazism and sought refuge in Manila; the latter were Filipino residents of Manila who, during the Second World War, found themselves under Japanese Occupation. A closer reading of the memoirs, however, also reveals latent orientalism in the portrayal of Filipinos. This essay thus echoes present postcolonial concerns in recent Trauma Studies research which ask the …

Multiculturalism In Secondary Schools – A Linguistic, Socio-Political & Pedagogic Perspective, Maria Kenneally

The ITB Journal

As a modern foreign language lecturer I am fascinated by issues of language, culture and identity. To an extent my interest is compounded by the belief that we Irish are bilingual, English and Gaeilge, - a rich language with a strong oral tradition that has been an integral part of Irish identity. In September 1996 I began work as a secondary teacher in an inner city London school with a high proportion of multilingual and multicultural students. My observations and interactions with pupils at Plumstead Manor proved part of a journey of selfanalysis and self-discovery, and fortified my belief that …

Nonstandard Languages: The Outcasts Of The Language Revitalization Movement, Whitney Snowden

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis compares the failures of the creolization movement with the success of the language revitalization movement and seeks to determine which elements are missing from the former to make it as successful as the latter. Education policy, identity, and language ideology are all examined as contributors to the future success of creole inclusivity in education and society, as well as the potential benefits such a movement would include. Specifically examined are Siegel’s research on creole education and Armstrong’s work on language ideology.

Field Recording Or Field Observation?: Audio Meets Method In Qualitative Research, Sam Smiley

The Qualitative Report

The field observation, an ethnographic practice of collecting data and information about a given social setting and situation is often used in preliminary research to have an understanding of the community one is researching. However, from an artist/musician's perspective, the field observation has many commonalities with techniques used in audio field recording. How can field recording be used in parallel with field observations to explore and understand a community through art? This essay will begin with a comparison of field observations and field recordings as methods in their own disciplines, and continue with the concept of “attention” in art, music, …

Addressing The Past, Embracing The Future: An Analysis Of How Historic Inequality Has Created Current Obstacles To Learning English In Brazil And A Proposal For A New Community-Based Approach, Aja C. Bryant

MA TESOL Collection

This paper contextualizes current challenges to English learning in Brazil within the educational history of the country. It explores the ways in which language, both native literacy and foreign, has been used to set apart and advantage the elite class, while educational policy and approaches have served to pacify and control the majority. This history has left psychological, cultural, and economic legacies which inhibit learning today. Nevertheless, modern globalization is placing increasing pressure on Brazilians to achieve fluency in English and other languages. This paper briefly outlines the new and complex intellectual and social skills needed to participate in a …

Cosmopolitanism And Pancultural Universals: Our Common Denominator And An Anthropologically Based Cosmopolitanism, Christoph Antweiler Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

How can we conceive of global culture as an entity without playing unity and diversity off one another? The diversity of interconnected cultures on a bounded planet requires shared orientations. Thus, the conceptualization of a cosmopolitan humanism is an urgent project for humanity. Particularly, it is of urgent necessity that we determine what a version of cosmopolitan humanism looks like that does not rush to universalize the views and historical experiences of the European or American world? The need for unity is juxtaposed against the ubiquitous tendency to differentiate. All are alike, yet all are different, and above all, everyone …