Digital Commons Network^™

Populism In The Technospheric, Jamie Ranger

Fast Capitalism

I argue that the technospheric condition - a socio-technical reality shaped by social acceleration, the industrialization of memory, and mediatization - serves as a structural catalyst for the repoliticisation of the status quo, necessitating a rethinking of Ernesto Laclau’s discursive approach to populism. Drawing on insights from Bernard Stiegler, Hartmut Rosa, and others, I characterize contemporary social life as deeply entangled with technospheric forces, which exacerbate social problems and provoke counterhegemonic responses. These responses, politically solidified in both emancipatory and reactionary populisms, are not only shaped by populist strategy but also increasingly influenced by algorithmic steering on social media. Thus, …

Trump Redux: Immigration, Indigeneity, And America, Nancy S. Love

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

Still Making It Up As He Goes: Revisiting The Hyper-Rhetorical Presidency In Trump’S Second Term, Richard Holtzman

Fast Capitalism

No abstract provided.

From Red To Green: Using Gis To Examine Colorado’S Inequitable Housing Patterns In Urban Greenspace Accessibility, Jessica Howard Karr

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

Urban greenspaces provide numerous benefits to the mental and physical health of nearby people who access these locations for physical recreation, social interaction, and contemplation. Discriminatory urban planning policies from the past, such as redlining, have ensured that greenspace access is not always equitable for communities with diverse racial and socioeconomic compositions. This project utilizes Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to determine relationships between tree cover canopy, greenspace percentage within a census tract, and greenspace accessibility within a graded census tract system based on demographics and historic redlining locations in the Colorado cities of Denver, Colorado Springs, and Pueblo. The results …

Box Elder County Tourism Adventure Passport: Pilot Program Geospatial Analysis, Evaluation, And Next Steps., Janessa Knotts

Geography and the Environment: Graduate Student Capstones

The Box Elder County Tourism Office created the Tourism Adventure Passport Program and launched a pilot program in July 2025. GIS was used to engage and encourage visitors and locals to visit some or all sites listed and submit information, including GPS points, to participate in the program. To promote tourism in Box Elder County, the program highlights well known sites like the Golden Spike National Historic Park, along with other, less-known sites. The pilot program data was used to create a geospatial analysis and an analysis of the number of visits each site received and number of visitors were …

Scrupulosity Ocd And How It Can Affect Our Clients’ Relationship With God, Annabella Hagen

Issues in Religion and Psychotherapy

This article explores various aspects of scrupulosity OCD, starting with the misconceptions about OCD that persist in society and their impact on treatment, along with a discussion of the disorder’s prevalence. It examines common OCD themes, provides a deeper understanding of religious scrupulosity, and clarifies how individuals become trapped in the scrupulosity OCD cycle. Specific triggers within the LDS Church are highlighted, alongside religious considerations such as distinguishing scrupulosity from genuine religiosity and discerning between spiritual promptings and OCD-driven thoughts. The article also addresses barriers to care unique to the LDS community and offers clinician recommendations, including an overview of …

"We Blink With One Eye Open. They Sleep With One Eye Close": A Qualitative Analysis Of Conflict And Resolution From The Perspective Of Correctional Staff, Staci M. Richardson

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the Caudill College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Staci M. Richardson on November 17, 2025.

Force And Fallout: Experimental Evidence From A National Test Of The Community Expectations Standard, Christopher J. Marier, Conor Goodwin

Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

A persistent ``reasonableness divide'' exists between the legal standards governing police use of force and the public’s expectations, producing ``lawful but awful'' uses of force. This study empirically tests the ``Community Expectations Standard'' (CES), a model that identifies five criteria the public uses to evaluate force: underlying governmental interest, avoidability, officer motivation, subject resistance, and the presence of a ``highly dangerous'' environment. Using a factorial survey experiment with a national sample of nearly 2,000 U.S. adults, we analyzed responses to a hypothetical vignette depicting non-lethal force using t-tests and Bayesian linear regression models. The results show that underlying governmental interest …

At The Crossroads: Ryan Coogler’S Metaphysical Meditation On Blues Music’S Power Of Salvation And The Terror Of Racial Predation In “Sinners”, Terri Bowles

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

In Sinners (2025), written and directed by Ryan Coogler, intercultural histories of music, religion and oral tradition inform a modern and complex horror tale confronting the terror of Jim Crow in the post–World War I Mississippi Delta. The film, starring frequent Coogler collaborator and muse Michael B. Jordan as twin war veterans out to reestablish their lives as juke joint owners, coalesces themes of economic repression, racial voyeurism, and secular and religious entanglements with cinematic horror allegories of objectification, consumption and possession. This review explores the film’s tense and violent examination of these themes and the lived and imagined spaces …

Editorial: Migration And Health: A Human Rights Perspective - Conference Insights And Beyond, Noemi Rodriguez, Mira Goral, Justine Mcgovern, Allison Squires, María Isabel Roldos

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Life After Prison: Exploring Gendered Differences In The Impact Of Social Support On The Ease Of Reintegration For Previously Incarcerated Men And Women, Joy Ferdinand

Theses and Dissertations

Successful reintegration into society remains a significant challenge for formerly incarcerated individuals, particularly in securing stable housing and employment. This study examines the gendered impact of social support on reintegration outcomes, specifically assessing how peer instrumental support, familial instrumental support, and familial emotional support influence housing stability and employment within three months of release. Using data from the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI), this study employs logistic regression models to explore whether gender moderates the relationship between social support and reentry success. Findings indicate that peer instrumental support significantly affects housing stability, but its impact varies by gender. …

The Impact Of Access To Mental Health Services For Minority Offenders From The Perspective Of Mental Health Professionals, Quentin Eugne Mills

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Many reintegrating offenders residing in northwest Florida’s rural areas are negatively impacted by a lack of access to mental health professionals. Inaccessibility to treatment service providers impacts the offender’s physical, mental and economic well-being. While research studies focus on examining access barriers in metropolitan jurisdictions, a gap remains in understanding how this issue adversely impacts offenders in rural communities. This qualitative research study examined the impact of inaccessibility to treatment services related to minority offenders in rural jurisdictions. Grounded by the intersectional theory and the general strain theory, this study utilized interviews with six mental health professionals who counseled offenders …

Retrospective Adult Bullying Role Trend Analysis With Correlational Investigation Between The Victim Role And Stigma-Based Demographic Information, Shilowe A. Ensminger

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

A longstanding social construct that has negatively impacted large numbers of individuals throughout generations is bullying. Despite anti-bullying programs and policies, current literature indicates that bullying is an ongoing concern throughout schools and in the workplace. The consequences of bullying have been shown to impact the mental and physical health of those involved with potentially severe outcomes. Current literature focuses on analysis of childhood bullying experiences, leaving a gap in the research investigating adult reflective bullying trends. The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental survey, and causal-comparative study was to address this gap by recruiting adult participants for a reflective analysis …

Grief Disrupted: A Phenomenological Study Of How African Americans Experienced Grief Without Traditional Rituals During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Jacqueline Williamson-Webb

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

In recent times, the dominant psychological understanding of grief is as an emotion (Gravesen & Birkelund, 2021; Meiselman, 2021). However, grief is also socially constructed, meaning that the emotions and behaviors labeled as grief have their beginning in the social space. Grief, then, is a performative act shaped by cultural traditions and public rituals (Murrell et al., 2023). Consequently, the purpose of this interpretative phenomenological study is to understand the lived grief experiences of African Americans (AAs) living in New Jersey who experienced a personal loss through the death of another person during the COVID-19 pandemic. Erving Goffman’s dramaturgy guides …

[Reev] Describing Social Movement Evolutionary Pathways Through The Conviction-Moderated Adaptive Voter Model, Arturo F. Serrano Borrero, Dylan Green, Olivia J. Chu

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

[Project Insight] Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Domestic Violence In Puerto Rico, Phyllis Muniu

Annual Symposium on Biomathematics and Ecology Education and Research

No abstract provided.

Why The Irish Don’T Eat Offal, Niall Toner

European Journal of Food Drink and Society

In the past fifty years or so, the diverse and colourful displays of animal offal and organ meats that used to be seen in butchers’ shop windows in Ireland, as well as in the UK and America, have all but disappeared. In Ireland, which has seen a gastronomic renaissance in more recent times, these traditional foodstuffs appear to have been slow to return to our plates. But have offal and organ meats a place in the future of the cuisine, and can the increased consumption of offal and organ meats, produced locally, contribute towards a more sustainable food production system, …

Food Traditions In The Folklore Of Oíche Shamhna (Halloween): An Exploratory Study Of Food In The Schools’ Collection 1937–39, Caitríona Nic Philibín

European Journal of Food Drink and Society

Oíche Shamhna or Halloween marks the end of the harvest, the beginning of winter and the last of the four Quarter Days of the Irish calendar year. While food is plentiful at this time of year, food specific studies of this feast day are few. Through archival research this paper explores food traditions at Oíche Shamhna found in the Schools’ Collection 1937–’39 (folklore collected from more than 50,000 schoolchildren in Ireland). Analysis of a sample taken from the Collection reveals four main themes: ‘Games,’ ‘Games with Divinations,’ ‘Supernatural,’ and ‘Cakes and dishes in general.’ Within these themes the significance of …

Feasts Of Prestige: Political Hospitality In The Early Irish Sagas Through The Framework Of Dietler’S Commensal Politics, Elizabeth Waters, Elaine Mahon

European Journal of Food Drink and Society

This exploratory article appliesMichael Dietler’s framework of commensal politics to representations of feasting in the early Irish sagas preserved in Irish medieval literature. Although set in a mythic past, the sagas reflect the social and political structures of early medieval Ireland, where feasting was a ritualised means by which social hierarchies were expressed, and political relationships were defined. Dietler’s model centres on three types of feasts: empowering feasts, patron-role feasts, and diacritical feasts, each with defining characteristics that contribute in distinct ways to the social order. Viewed through the interpretive lens of this framework, this study reveals that, similar to …

Healing Through Acknowledgment: The Role Of Naturalistic Restorative Justice And Twentieth Century Genocide Recovery, Julia R. Swirbalus

The Graduate Review

This article defines and explores the application of restorative justice principles in the context of twentieth century genocide acknowledgments. The genocides used as case studies in this article include the Holocaust, Cambodian genocide, and Rwandan genocide. This article examines how survivors have utilized restorative practices to facilitate healing, the importance of historical site preservation, and governments acknowledging their wrongdoings. The importance of acknowledgment and making amends to facilitate healing is highlighted throughout the article. The findings underscore the complexity of applying restorative justice to genocide and the necessity of proper acknowledgment for true reconciliation and healing to occur. This article …

Public School Districts Should Close Their “Alternative” And “Continuation” High Schools, Sean J. Drake

Center for Policy Research

Public school districts across the country funnel academically struggling students into "alternative" or "continuation" high schools designed to help them catch up on credits and graduate on time. However, these schools often reproduce more inequality than they alleviate. This brief summarizes findings from a two-year ethnographic case study of an alternative high school in suburban Los Angeles, California. The author finds that these schools offer limited curricula and no extracurricular opportunities, while Black, Latino, and low-income students are vastly overrepresented compared to district averages. Students transferred to alternative schools are also more likely to drop out than low-performing peers who …

From Past Pain To Present Unity The Role Of Trauma In Shaping Collective Identity Within Refugee Communities, Shahd Alasaly

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I explore the social dimensions of trauma and resilience among Syrian refugees resettled in the United States. Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus group data collected at a resettlement center in Tampa, Florida, I aim to understand how displacement reshapes identity, disrupts traditional gender roles, changes social bonds, and how healing occurs within one’s community. I frame my work within Social Identity Theory, Identity Theory, and the sociology of trauma. My research highlights the gendered expressions of trauma, the transformation of masculinity under forced migration, and the role of spirituality in community healing.

This project includes three …

Advancing Children's Mental Health In Nevada, Kelliann Beavers, Christopher Kearney

Lincy Institute Events

Nevada ranks 51st nationally in youth mental health access and services, underscoring persistent shortages and disparities across the state. Nearly one in four youths aged 12–17 (23.5%) experienced a major depressive episode in the past year, and 73% did not receive treatment. Approximately 34,000 Nevada youths have reported suicidal thoughts—an urgent call for prevention and coordinated support.

During the 2024–2025 school year, 31.3% of Clark County School District students were chronically absent (missing 10% or more of school days), a challenge closely linked to mental health struggles and socioeconomic barriers.

This community forum provided an opportunity to generate dialogue and …

Chinese Women’S Rising Refusal Of The Family : The Problems, The Resistance, The Post-Family And Post-Capitalist Work Imaginaries, Peier Chen

Lingnan Theses (MPhil & PhD)

A new generation of Chinese women is questioning the family by examining internal contradictions in parent-child relationships, particularly in how intimacy and care are enacted, while also challenging the legitimacy of the family institution that underpins gendered divisions of labor and hierarchies. Some of them are revealing the problems within the family and refusing patriarchal marriage and family as their daily act of resistance. Their resistance extends beyond the family, into their workplaces, where gender division and hierarchies are also at work. This emerging phenomenon presses us to theorize today’s family problems, especially concerning those related to women’s gendered oppression, …

Moderators Of Peer Influence Effects For Adolescents’ Smoking And Vaping Norms And Outcomes In High And Middle-Income Settings, Jennifer M. Murray, Sharon C. Sánchez-Franco, Olga L. Sarmiento, Erik O. Kimbrough, Christopher Tate, Shannon C. Montgomery, Rajnish Kumar, Laura Dunne, Abhijit Ramalingam, Erin L. Krupka, Felipe Montes, Huiyu Zhou, Laurence Moore, Linda Bauld, Blanca Llorente, Frank Kee, Ruth F. Hunter

Economics Faculty Articles and Research

Background: Peer influence is central to adolescent smoking initiation, yet its impact varies depending on individual and contextual factors. Understanding which moderators (personality, contextual, cultural, and environmental traits) shape these processes can inform more effective prevention strategies. We investigated hypothesized moderators of peer influence for adolescent smoking/vaping norms and other smoking-related outcomes in high and low-middle-income countries (LMICs): Northern Ireland and Bogotá.

Methods: Across 12 schools (n = 1,344, age 12–13 years), participants completed novel behavioral economics experiments measuring social norms, and self-report surveys, before and after school-based prevention interventions (ASSIST and Dead Cool). We examined how peer influence …

Introduction To The Criminal Justice System, Courtney A. Crittenden

Open Textbooks

Introduction to the Criminal Justice System is an open educational resource that explores the history, concepts, and foundational knowledge of the contemporary criminal justice system in the United States. The text includes examinations of current events and includes coverage of some controversial topics that may be commonly excluded from introductory texts. Institutional memory, best practices in public safety, and statistical data are incorporated in ways intended to provide an unbiased viewpoint of the current status of the criminal legal system today in order to provide students with a clear picture of the system.

Wellesley Council On Aging: Planning For The Future, Caitlin E. Coyle, Beth Rouleau

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

Taking a community-engaged approach, this assessment sought to capture the voices, experiences, and aspirations of older adults living in our community. It is designed to support the COA in fulfilling its mission: acting as the community resource for older adults, their families, and caregivers; advocating for their interests; and offering social, educational, physical activity, transportation, and nutrition programs that promote health, independence, and meaningful engagement.

Specifically, this needs assessment aimed to: 1. Describe the demographic and social trends shaping Wellesley’s older adult population. 2. Identify older residents’ priorities, challenges, and unmet needs—spanning health and wellness, housing and mobility, social connection, …

A Cross-National Study Of Female Fertility Intention And Family Welfare Policies In China And South Korea, Jingshuang Gao

SOC 605 Comparative Social Policy Research Project - Student Works

Against the backdrop of chronically low fertility rates in China and South Korea, this study investigates the relationship between female fertility intentions and family welfare policies in these two East Asian societies. It aims to identify the multidimensional challenges women face, analyze the disjuncture between existing fertility support policies and women's fundamental needs, and propose pathways for policy optimization. Employing a mixed-methods approach including online observation, critical discourse analysis of policy texts, and small-scale semi-structured interviews, the research reveals that women's fertility intentions are constrained by physiological risks, economic pressures, the cultural expectations of "motherhood," and conflicts with personal development. …

Living With Purpose, Michelle Dinman, Cal J. Halvorsen, Nancy Morrow-Howell

Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging

Having purpose is good for all of us at any age. Patrick Hill, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at WashU, defines purpose as the “notion that you have daily activities you find meaningful or engaging and that give you direction for your life [and] reasons to continue going.” In a major sense, purpose can be described as the why of living, instead of the how.

Living Longer, Working Longer, Michele Dinman, Cal J. Halvorsen

Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging

According to the Pew Research Center, nearly one-in-five Americans ages 65 and older (19%) were employed in 2023, a rate nearly twice that from 35 years ago. They’re also working more hours, on average, than in the recent past. In fact, more than three-in-five older workers (62%) work full time, an increase from the 47% working full time in 1987. Older workers today are also more educated and are more likely to be receiving employer-sponsored benefits, such as retirement savings plans and health insurance, than in earlier decades. While only 4% of the entire labor force was made up of …