Digital Commons Network^™

Choosing The Gift Of Down Syndrome: Families' Experiences Internationally Adopting A Child With Down Syndrome, Erika Susan Lazo

Theses Digitization Project

This qualitative study explores the experiences of families who choose to internationally adopt a child with Down syndrome. This study was conducted in order to address the current scarcity of research on this population and their specific needs and strengths in order to equip social work practitioners to more effectively work with these families. Mothers were interviewed about their family's adoption process, the service they utilized, and the process of integrating the newly adopted child into the existing family unit. A sample of nine families who had completed an international adoption of a child with Down syndrome were gathered. These …

Hegemonic Masculinity: Identity Construction And Consequences For Men, Bill Joseph Clemon

Theses Digitization Project

This is an examination of the actual development and role of hegemonic masculinity as it relates to the conditioning of males and the effects on themselves and those with who they are in contact. The historical evolution of hegemonic masculinity is examined as well as its aftermath.

How Do Heteronormative Perspectives Affect Same-Sex Parents?, Michelle Nicole Mcnevin

Theses Digitization Project

This study focused on same-sex couples that are co-parenting children in the United States and the differences in parenting that were elicited when faced with heteronormative perspectives in society. Understanding how these families disclose the nature of their same-sex family provides the social worker with insights on how to work more effectively with these families and create more inclusive space for these families throughout the community.

Hate Crimes Based On Gender Identity And Sexual Orientation, Katie Nicole Williams

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to examine hate crimes based on their gender identity or sexual orientation of the victim through selected variables. The research looked at information collected from a variety of media sources, categorized the information into the existing dataset, and used a chi-square test to prove the significance. The sample analyzed contains 121 cases of individuals that were killed because of their real or perceived gender identity or sexual orientation within a twenty year time frame; Mathew Shepard, a highly publicized hate crime victim, was used as the focal point of this research.

Can Social Workers Recognize Depression In The Elderly?, Teresa Ramon, Monica Maria Wettengel

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study is to explore whether social workers can recognize depression in the elderly. The elderly who are experiencing depression usually do not seek treatment from mental health professionals. Instead they go to primary care personnel in medical settings. Yet, social workers are employed in medical settings and are part of the primary care personnel. But, often the medical and/or mental health communities' lack of recognition of late life depression results from the attitude that old age is innately a downward spiral into limitations, weakness, helplessness, and burdensome existence.

Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program: Toward A Critical Framework Of Community Peacebuilding; Individual And Community Transformation Through Service And Discourse, Benjamin Valentine Leiker

Capstone Collection

In the form of a case study of the training and implementation of the Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program (JYSEP) by the Magdalene Carney Bahá’í Institute (MCBI), this study contributes to the development of critical youth empowerment which emphasizes community building and sociopolitical transformation rooted in a worldview that recognizes the oneness of humanity. The underlying philosophy upon which the JYSEP organizes its structure, action, reflection, and materials is the idea that our view of reality, human nature, human relationships, and purpose of life shape mold individuals’ and humanity’s state of being. This study, therefore, sought to explore: 1) how …

Review: Moral Psychology: Historical And Contemporary Readings, Audrey L. Anton

Philosophy & Religion Faculty Publications

Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary Readings is a much-needed collection of essays on issues of moral psychology. The aim of the book is to present the reader with a comprehensive view of both the history and foundations of moral psychology as well as the discipline's position in academia and its relationship with other disciplines, such as psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, all of which involve empirical investigation of human capabilities and behavior. This collection is well organized into five distinct parts. Each part has a helpful editorial introduction that not only summarizes the main themes of the debate assigned to …

A Preliminary Investigation Of Worry Content In Sexual Minorities, Brandon J. Weiss, Debra A. Hope

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

This preliminary study examined the nature of worry content of lesbians, gay men, and bisexual individuals and the relationship between worry related to sexual orientation and mental health. A community sample of 54 individuals identifying as sexual minorities was recruited from two cities in the Great Plains to complete a packet of questionaires, including a modified Worry Domains Questionnaire (WDQ; Tallis, Eysenck, & Mathews, 1992) with additional items constructed to assess worry over discrimination related to sexual orientation, and participate in a worry induction and verbalization task. The content of self-reported worries was consistent with those reported in prior investigations …

Ua23 Spirit Of Engagement 2011, Aurelia Spaulding, Alive Center, Western Kentucky University

ALIVE Center Publications

No abstract provided.

Ua19/16/1 Volleyball Media Information Guide, Wku Athletic Media Relations

WKU Administration Documents

Athletic media guide for volleyball team.

Environmental Challenge And Animal Agency, Marek Špinka, Françoise Wemelsfelder

Sentience Collection

Challenges are there to be overcome – seen usually as problems to avoid rather than as opportunities to enjoy. However, for humans a life without challenge would be likely to be dull and boring, lacking the enthusiasm and satisfaction that come with individual development. Could this also be true for animals? This chapter looks at the positive value of engaging with environmental challenges for animal welfare, proposing that this value lies in an animal’s expression of agency and the enhanced functional competence that it gains through this. It explores the different facets of agency, and provides more detailed discussion of …

Ua1c11/27 Alpha Phi Omega Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photographs created by members of Alpha Phi Omega removed from various scrapbooks.

Social Equity In The New 21st America: A Case For Transgender Competence Within Public Affairs Graduate Programs, Richard Greggory Johnson

Public and Nonprofit Administration

This paper focuses on the importance of transgender education in public affairs programs, particularly as its students prepare to enter an increasingly diverse workforce in the 21st century. The paper first connects transgender awareness and education to the social equity literature. To date, attention within the social equity literature has primarily focused on race/ethnicity and, to a lesser extent, on women. However, issues of gender identity and sexual orientation have largely been missing from the social equity dialogue. This paper aims to fill the void. Next, the paper examines the transgender movement as a means to eliminate transgender oppression from …

A Comparative Analysis Of Genocidal Rape In Rwanda And The Former Yugoslavia: Implications For The Future, Jessica Kruger

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This work examines the genocidal rape policies that occurred in the Rwandan and former Yugoslavian conflicts. Traditionally, rape has been considered an unfortunate yet inescapable consequence of war. In the early 1990s, the Hutu and Serbian regimes developed a new tactic and utilized rape as a genocidal weapon. Following a comparative analysis framework, the present study will examine the similarities and differences of the genocidal rape in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Five points of comparison were established: perpetrators, victims, global economics, social disorder, and militias. Results of this analysis show that Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia possessed common pre-genocidal …

An Analysis Of The Structure And Evolution Of Networks, Guangying Hua

2011

As network research receives more and more attention from both academic researchers and practitioners, network analysis has become a fast growing field attracting many researchers from diverse fields such as physics, computer science, and sociology. This dissertation provides a review of theory and research on different real data sets from the network perspective. The focus is primarily on the structure and dynamics of social networks.

This dissertation is divided into three essays. The first essay examines a professional online community, and to the best of our knowledge, it is the first paper to address the social network of physicians. The …

Transmen: The Hiv Risk Of Gay Identity, Stefan Rowniak, C Chesla, C D. Rose, W L. Holzemer

Nursing and Health Professions Faculty Research and Publications

Many female-to-male transgender individuals, or transmen, are situated within the gay community, one of the highest risk communities for HIV, yet there has been little research regarding the experience of risk for these transmen. Seventeen transmen were interviewed regarding their sexuality and HIV risk behavior. Fourteen of the 17 reported having non-trans gay men as sexual partners. Risk behaviors included not using condoms with multiple partners who were HIV-positive, or of unknown HIV status. Aspects of risk included the unfamiliarity of the gay community and the lack of safe sex negotiating skills. The dynamics of acceptance and rejection between transmen …

Foster Parent Perspective On Infant And Young Child Multiple Placement, Ana Luisa Guardado, Shannon Marie Owens

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study is to explore foster parents' perspectives' on factors contributing to multiple placements of young children with a special emphasis on infants ages 0-1 year. This study hopes to identify systemic problems within child welfare services that hinder permanency and to provide useful information to determine if current services and interventions are effective in meeting the agency's responsibility of providing safe and permanent homes for foster children.

Who's Doing The Dirty Work? Development And Preliminary Validation Of A Measure Of Housework, Jocelyn Nicole Petrella

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present study developed a new instrument for measuring couples' attitudes and behaviors regarding housework. This study was conducted in two phases. The first phase focused on developing reliable subscales that would reflect various dimensions of housework. Phase one consisted of 199 individual participants in committed relationships who were working at least 20 hours per week and shared a single home address with their partner. Participants answered questions related to housework through an online survey. An exploratory factors analysis (EFA) revealed eight dominant factors from the housework questionnaire, labeled as: 1) Fairness, 2) Value of Housework, 3) Gender Role Attitudes, …

Acting Virtuous: Chastity, Theatricality, And The Tragedie Of Mariam, Kent Lehnhof

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Given the interrelation of female chastity and female theatricality in early modem discourses, it comes as no surprise that both figure importantly in what is believed to be the first original English drama to be written by a woman. As Elizabeth Cary explores a Jewish queen 's sexual purity in The Tragedie of Mariam, she does so by concentrating on questions of performance. Cary's title character explicitly abjures theatricality even as she embraces chastity, creating a fissure in Renaissance discourses on women that threatens to swallow up the antifeminist idea that female chastity is always an act.

Understanding Health Profile Of The Middle-Aged Residents In Tsuen Wan, Tsuen Wan Safe And Health Community, Tsuen Wan Adventist Hospital, Asia-Pacific Institute Of Ageing Studies, Lingnan University

APIAS Research Report 研究報告

Modernization marked the progress of society and posed various changes to human life as well as the epidemiological transition. Improvements in public health care, living conditions, income and the control of infectious diseases were important factors in the first half of the twentieth century that led to the increases in life expectancy, while in the second half it was improvements in social conditions, health technologies such as antibiotics, and widespread immunization. The existences of advanced medical services effectively get rid of the prevalence of infectious disease that caused immediate human threats such as Measles and Smallpox.

Given that technological advancement …

“Getting Noticed”: Middle Childhood Incross-Cultural Perspective, David F. Lancy, M. Annette Grove

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Although rarely named, the majority of societies in the ethnographic record demarcate a period between early childhood and adolescence. Prominent signs of demarcation are: for the first time, pronounced gender separation in fact and in role definition; increased freedom of movement for boys while girls may be bound more tightly to their mothers; and heightened expectations for socially responsible behavior. But, above all, middle childhood is about coming out of the shadows of community life and assuming a distinct, lifetime character. Naming and other rites of passage sometimes acknowledge this transition, but it is, reliably, marked by the assumption or …

Seeing The Forest For The Trees: Managing Social Conflict And Forest Restoration, Steven E. Daniels, Jens Emborg, Greg B. Walker

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

This paper examines the role that social conflict is likely to play in forest restoration projects. A definition of conflict as “perceived goal interference among interdependent parties” serves as a point of departure for the discussion, and the nature of forest restoration conflict is systematically examined by focusing on each aspect of the definition: perceptions, goal interference, the parties, and their interdependence. Agencies undertaking restoration projects are encouraged to adopt a discourse orientation, wherein they recognize that 1) their public involvement efforts are creating a discourse that can incorporate a wide array of values and voices and 2) groups may …

Reunification Outcomes For Hispanics In The Child Welfare System, Lucia Aguirre Coronel

Theses Digitization Project

The purpose of this study was to identify any contributing factors to the overrepresentation of Hispanic children in the child welfare system. This study used an exploratory design and quantitavie methods to examine reunification oucomes of 100 case files in a county in Southern California.

Control, Discipline, And Punish: Black Masculinity And (In)Visible Whiteness In The Nba, Rachel Alicia Griffin, Bernadette Marie Calafell

Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Faculty Scholarship

This chapter critiques the “allegorical power of sport” in relation to historical and contemporary manifestations of white supremacy. In particular, it argues that media discourse about the NBA commissioner David Stern as well as his public statements demonstrate white paternalism. From the onset of his career as commissioner, Stern normalized whiteness as a nonracialized space by repeating discourse that marked the racialized “other” as criminal. Moreover, in a popular sport in which seventy five percent of the players are black but virtually all of the corporate owners and commissioner are white, Stern's enforcement of extreme penalties and policies affecting primarily …

Demographic And Offense-Related Variables In Pennsylvania Court-Ordered Placements For Juveniles, Kristen N. Asplin, Diane T. Marsh, Adeline Beighley

Contemporary Issues in Juvenile Justice

When making placement decisions for juvenile offenders, court officers often consider the types of charges listed against them. We examined the pattern of offenses charged to residents of 7 types of placements in 1 county in Pennsylvania over a period of 2 years. Consistent, predictable patterns were found across placements, with more restrictive placements assigned to juveniles with more severe offenses, although there remained a considerable degree of variation in offenses represented in each placement type. The pattern of placements was different between genders as well, with female offenders being placed in less restrictive care even more often than their …

Book Review: "Criminology: An Integrated Approach" (Gregg Barak), Joshua Smallridge

Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology

No abstract provided.

Book Review: "A Very Short, Fairly Interesting And Reasonably Cheap Book About Studying Criminology." (Ronnie Lippens), Tyler Wall

Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology

No abstract provided.

Women In Transition: Experiences Of Asian Women International Students On U.S. College Campuses, Siva Jeyabalasingam

Department of Family Therapy Dissertations and Applied Clinical Projects

Often referred to as people in transition, international students usually arrive in the U.S. with a clear sense of their academic goals; however, they often have not considered what their lives will be like or how they may change in non-academic ways. In addition to the typical level of university-related stress, international students face additional problems and difficulties generated in part by the cultural differences between the U.S. and their own countries. This is particularly true for Asian students. Of several studies that have investigated the experiences of international students in the U.S., only a handful have examined Asian students' …

Dressed To Cross: Narratives Of Resistance And Integration In Sei Shônagon's The Pillow Book And Yone Noguchi's The American Diary Of A Japanese Girl, Ina Christiane Seethaler

Ethnic Studies Review

The Pillow Book by Sei Shônagon, Empress Sadako's lady in waiting from about 993-1000, offers rich detail about the meaning and power of dress during the Heian period [794-1185]. Throughout Yone Noguchi's novel The American Diary of a Japanese Girl (1902), Morning Glory, a newly arrived Japanese immigrant to the U.S., experiments with a multitude of different identities through clothes. Both narratives appropriate (cross-) dressing as a means of overcoming gender, cultural, and class borders. Shônagon and Noguchi engage in "authorial crossdressing" to inhabit a social, cultural, and national space onto which they only have a precarious hold. It is …

Smoke Signals: An Investigation Of The Effects Of Eco-Stoves On Community And The Environment, Claire Hennigan, Amy Rogers

VA Engage Journal

The use of solid biomass fuels and the implementation of eco-stoves to mitigate its harmful effects has become a popular topic in discussions on global development. An article published on use of traditional fuels in The New Yorker reports, “A map of the world's poor is easy to make…just follow the smoke.” Eco-stoves are now being constructed in impoverished communities around the world as an alternative to traditional stove models as a means to improve health and overall quality of life. Global Brigades, a sustainable development NGO, has been working in communities in rural Honduras to construct an eco-stove model …