Digital Commons Network^™

Voters Reframe The Abortion Policy Debate: A Theoretical Analysis Of Abortion Attitudes In South Dakota, Pamela Carriveau, Linda Colmenero-Chilberg

Great Plains Sociologist

Since the Supreme Court’s announced its decision in Roe v. Wade (1973), individuals and groups opposed to legalized abortion in the United States have battled to reverse the ruling. Using established political processes, incremental steps such as parental consent requirements and/or twenty-four hour waiting periods have been strategically advanced as they charted the path to their real goal – an all-out abortion ban. Contemporary South Dakota Pro-Life activists abandoned this incremental approach in 2006, in the belief that the time was ripe for a voter-supported broadbased abortion ban that could be used to challenge the Supreme Court decision. They failed, …

Understanding Workday Housework Participation: Testing Three Theories, Krista Lynn Minnotte, Matti Grotte

Great Plains Sociologist

In this study we examine the usefulness of three theories (time availability theory, gender ideology theory, and relative resources) in predicting workday housework performance among partnered and married mothers and fathers. In doing so, we incorporate an extended version of time availability theory that considers the use of flexible scheduling and the presence of nonstandard work hours in addition to number of hours worked. Our hypotheses are addressed with data from a nationally representative sample of employed adults. Our results show that none of the theories are useful in predicting fathers’ workday housework performance; however, two theories are beneficial for …

Structural Conditions And Migration In The Dakotas, Joshua J. Turner, W. Trevor Brooks, Donald E. Arwood

Great Plains Sociologist

This study examines the influence of selected structural conditions on the county-level net-migration trends of North Dakota and South Dakota. Key principles from Lee’s Theory of Migration (1966) and Wallerstein’s World Systems model (1974) were integrated to explain how geographic context, economic dependency, and pace of economic development combine to serve as the main catalysts behind the migration patterns in these two states. Results indicate that commuting patterns, the percentage of workers employed in extractive industries, the percentage of workers employed in manufacturing, and job change rates were significant predictors of county migration patterns.

Book Review: School Of Dreams: Making The Grade At A Top American High School By Edward Humes, Jake Thomas

Great Plains Sociologist

Humes, Edward. School of Dreams: Making the Grade at a Top American High School. Orlando: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003. 400 pp. $14.00 paperback.

An Exploratory Study Of Job Satisfaction Among Mail Handlers And Sorters In A Package-Delivery Organization, A. Olu Oyinlade, Carla Garay

Great Plains Sociologist

This is an exploratory study of the correlates and predictors of job satisfaction among mail handlers and sorters, in a package-delivery organization, used as case study. Job satisfaction has been widely studied, but most studies have largely neglected manual laborers. This study is a shift from traditional research participants (health care providers, the military, scientists) of job satisfaction studies to manual workers. A research framework consisting of a theoretical and a demographic model was used to establish correlates and predictors of job satisfaction. Findings of correlation analyses and three regression models (used for triangulation) showed that ten variables were correlated …

A Test Of Social Disorganization On Juvenile Property And Violent Crime Rates By Zip Codes Within Two Nonmetropolitan Counties, Mario T. Hesse, Susan M. Hilal

Great Plains Sociologist

This study tests the effects of social disorganization on juvenile crimes rates by zip code within two nonmetropolitan counties. It does so by examining the relationships between the selected social disorganization indicators of nontraditional family, residential mobility, and socioeconomic status (poverty) and violent and property crime among juveniles through the use of ANOVA testing. Secondary data obtained from the South Dakota Department of Corrections on adjudicated juveniles and their associated crime and residential location, as well as data from the United States Census Bureau is used and analyzed to test three main hypotheses. Findings indicate that areas characterized by poverty …

Historical Perspectives On Affirmative Action, Diversity And Multiculturalism In United States Higher Education, Kebba Darboe

Great Plains Sociologist

This paper examines the historical perspectives on affirmative action, diversity and multiculturalism in United States Higher Education. Affirmative action is a legal program that ensures that qualified and historically underrepresented groups, especially African Americans and women, are given preference in the hiring, promotion, and admission in colleges and universities. By contrast, diversity and multiculturalism are social constructions of reality. Diversity is an inclusion process designed to foster an environment where talents, uniqueness and differences of all people are respected and valued in schools or workplace situations. Multiculturalism is a movement that insists that American society has never been white, but …

God, Me, And Thee: Associations Between Religion, Sexuality, And Marital Connection, Rebecca Walker Clarke

Theses and Dissertations

There is a well-established and positive association between religiosity and marital satisfaction. What is less clear is the effect of religiosity on marital sexual outcomes, with research findings that have run the gamut from negative to positive. Given that most religions teach that marriage is the divinely appointed context for a sexual relationship, religious persons who are married and in sexual relationships could have a different experience with sex than those who are not in a marital sexual relationship. Although the majority of the population in the United States is religious, sex in religious marriages has received scant research attention. …

Demographic Predictors Of Body Image Satisfaction: The Us Body Project I, David A. Frederick, Canice E. Crerand, Tiffany A. Brown, Marisol Perez, Cassidy R. Best, Catherine P. Cook-Cottone, Emilio J. Compte, Lexie Convertino, Allegra R. Gordon, Vanessa L. Malcarne, Jason M. Nagata, Michael C. Parent, Jamie-Lee Pennesi, Eva Pila, Rachel F. Rodgers, Lauren M. Schaefer, J. Kevin Thompson, Tracy L. Tylka, Stuart B. Murray

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

We examined how gender, body mass, race, age, and sexual orientation were linked to appearance evaluation, overweight preoccupation, and body image-related quality of life among 11,620 adults recruited via Mechanical Turk. Men were less likely than women to report low appearance evaluation, high overweight preoccupation, negative effects of body image on their quality of life, being on a weight-loss diet, and trying to lose weight with crash diets/fasting. Racial differences were generally small, but greater appearance evaluation was reported by Black men versus other groups and Black women versus White women. Across all measures, gay and bisexual men reported poorer …

Book Review: Men On A Mission: Valuing Youth Work In Our Communities By William Marsiglio, Kristi D. Treviño

Great Plains Sociologist

Book Review: Men on a Mission: Valuing Youth Work in Our Communities by William Marsiglio

Future Population Shifts In The Great Plains And Their Implications, Richard Rathge

Great Plains Sociologist

The dynamics of population change in the Great Plains are complex and largely hidden. From a regional or even state perspective, one is left with the impression that the area has enjoyed sustained population growth. All 12 states in the region (i.e., Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wyoming, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas) increased their population from 1990 to 2000, and the region as a whole expanded by 6.7 million people or 17 percent (Rathge, 2005). In fact, the region’s population has doubled since 1950. However, these aggregate statistics mask a very different reality. Population …

Revisiting The Overurbanization Theses: A Test Of A Theoretically Inclusive Model Using Path Modeling With Lisrel, Luis Posas

Great Plains Sociologist

This study tests the structural linkages of well-known theoretical determinants of overurbanization in low-income nations. It represents a general call to advance theoretically inclusive analysis using standard methodological tools in the current literature. The proposed theoretically inclusive model tests the effects of international and intra-national forces on overurbanization. Using data from low income countries for the period late-1960s-to-mid-1980s, the study presents the results of path models estimated by Generalized Least Square (GLS) with LISREL. The results show that foreign investment exacerbates overurbanization through its short-term positive effect on economic development, confirming assumptions of World Systems and Modernization theories. In addition, …

Accessing Food In Rural Food Deserts In Iowa And Minnesota, Lois Wright Morton, Chery Smith

Great Plains Sociologist

The purpose of this research is to examine the food infrastructure (grocery stores and food safety net services) available to meet the food needs of people living in high poverty rural places. Random mail surveys (n=1,516), purposeful in-person surveys (n=665), and market basket food price surveys of 130 USDA Thrifty Food Plan items in 16 grocery stores in six rural counties in Iowa and Minnesota provide data for this analysis. We find that Iowa rural users of food safety net services are more likely to depend on others to get to the grocery store (5.6-6.2%) compared to similar population in …

Church Satisfaction Among Rural Minnesota Protestant Lay Leaders, Terry E. Huffman

Great Plains Sociologist

This paper reports on general church satisfaction among a sample of rural Minnesota Protestant lay leaders. The author examined the relationship between the dependent variable general church satisfaction with eight independent variables divided into three dimensions of church life. Prominent findings indicate that the vitality of churches is associated with higher levels of church satisfaction among the lay leaders. Additionally, older lay leaders reported greater general satisfaction with their church than did younger lay leaders. However, church contentment is not significantly connected to the mere size of the congregation, type of denomination, gender of the lay leader, or status of …

Gender In Pop Fiction: “Reading” Gender Power In Popular Fiction, Linda Colmenero-Chilberg

Great Plains Sociologist

This article investigates changes in the levels of women’s power in the American publishing industry in the period between 1985 and 2004. Four areas are analyzed including the representation of women at the executive levels of publishing divisions and international media conglomerates, the gender of the most powerful mass market authors of popular fiction, the gender focus of those genres that are most popular with the buying public and the representation of male and female characters in that mass-market genre fiction.

Finding God On The Indian Road: Exploring The Intersectionality Between Native American And Christian Spiritual Living, Chad Johnson

Doctor of Ministry Projects and Theses

Drawing on the long and arduous history between the Indigenous people of the United States and the Christian church that colonists brought to them, this project works to address the harmful relationship of the past to establish a foundation for moving forward in a spirit of respect and reverence for Native American spiritual practices that have much to offer the Christian world of spiritual living. For centuries these two deeply spiritual worlds were told that they could not and would not co-exist. This project then draws deep attention to ways Native American spiritual practices have been misappropriated and trivialized over …

Showing Up “More As My True Self”: Gender And Mushing In The United States, Cynthia Caron, Victoria Beyer

Sustainability and Social Justice

Mushing exists in several forms: short and long-distance races, adventure tourism, recreation, and sport. While some scholars assert that gender does not influence a musher’s experience, this research, based on interviews with mushers, broadens understanding of how gender influences mushing and a musher’s sense of self. Nearly all research participants initially stated that gender is irrelevant in mushing; for example, in competitions, people of all genders compete directly against one another. As interviews unfolded, participants spoke about how gender norms and stereotypes complicated their experiences and how non-mushers perceive them. Despite depictions of mushing as masculine, participants stated that mushing …

Keeping Girls In Schools To Reduce Child Marriage In Rural Bangladesh: Endline Assessment, Sigma Ainul, Forhana Rahman Noor, Md. Irfan Hossain, Iqbal Ehsan, Mehnaz Manzur, Ubaidur Rob, Sajeda Amin

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This report describes findings of changes over time attributable to the “Keeping Girls in Schools” study in Bangladesh that implemented skill-building activities for a two-year period in the districts of Chapainawabganj, Kushtia, and Sherpur. The project sought to bring about change in child marriage norms prevalent in the area by offering young girls a safe place to meet after school hours with mentors and teachers and to offer girls tutoring support and life-skills. The project was implemented by the Population Council with the cooperation of secondary schools in the community and was supported by UNICEF under the aegis of the …

Bias In The Stacks: Seeking Justice On The Shelves, Liz Kielley, Sarah Myers

Library Exhibits & Events

Words matter. To make materials findable, libraries have relied on subject headings and classification numbers to organize their resources. Have you ever wondered how these subjects or classification numbers were developed? Both the Dewey Decimal Classification and Library of Congress Classification were developed with a Western-centric, white, Christian, male perspective. How does the language we use in our subject headings reinforce marginalization? In what ways can libraries reconcile the inequalities found in these standardized policies to be inclusive of diverse and multicultural perspectives? What are Messiah’s Murray Library and other institutions doing to create balance?

Speakers:

• Elizabeth Kielley (Discovery and …

Women In Stem Fellowship: An Intersectional And Interdisciplinary Approach To Advancing Inclusion In The Sciences, Ina C. Seethaler, Gabriela Perez-Alvarado

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

At our university, women-identified individuals make up 23% of students in STEM fields; less than 15% of them graduate with a STEM degree. Nationally, more than 40% of women who enter a STEM job leave it within fewer than ten years. Gendered issues within STEM industries have been identified, yet we are far from equal opportunities for all genders. In 2018, we—the director of Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) with colleagues in Math, Computing Sciences, and Chemistry—received a $45,000 grant to create a “Women in STEM Fellowship.” The inclusion of WGS made the fellowship interdisciplinary, intersectional, and informed our decision-making …

Aging And Disability Services Are Unequally Distributed Across The United States, Claire Pendergrast, Danielle Rhubart

Population Health Research Brief Series

As the U.S. population ages, demand for aging and disability services will increase, but 15% of U.S. counties have no aging and disability services organizations. This brief shows that rural counties and counties with the highest rates of poverty, highest shares of older adults, and highest shares of non-Hispanic Blacks are most likely to be aging and disability services deserts. To support healthy aging across the country, policymakers should invest in aging services infrastructure and should prioritize resources for places that are aging and disability services deserts.

Washington Dairy Survey 2020, Jennifer E. Givens, Michael D. Briscoe

Browse all Datasets

These data are part of the dissertation research of Michael D. Briscoe. This research analyzed the association between modernization and farmer alienation from their work and their cows, as well as their overall life satisfaction. The results show that modernization has mixed effects on farmer alienation. This statistical finding was supported by interviews with farmers, who expressed that large farms can make it hard to maintain a relationship with their cows, but that technology actually replaces negative aspects of this relationship and allows for new forms of interaction.

What Knowledge Do Early Childhood Teachers Use During Literacy Instruction? Using Stimulated Recall To Investigate An Unexplored Phenomenon, Rachel E. Schachter

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

This study utilized a novel phenomenological approach with a stimulated recall procedure to understand the pedagogical reasoning of eight early child teachers during the enactment of literacy instruction in whole-group meeting and language arts activities. This approach to investigating knowledge—in contrast to more tra­ditional conceptualizations of knowledge—focused on knowledge use as a process and prioritized teachers’ perspectives on knowledge used to enact literacy instruc­tion in their own classrooms. Additionally, it allowed for a more nuanced investi­gation of the role of setting and teacher characteristics that are often examined in association with literacy instruction (e.g., degree attainment, years of experience, curriculum, …

Umaine Office For Diversity And Inclusion_Happy 2/22/22 On A T(Wo)Uesday!! Email, University Of Maine Office For Diversity And Inclusion, Anila Karunakar

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

Email from the UMaine Office for Diversity and Inclusion with various details of the Office's work and Black History Month.

Rural America Lost Population Over The Past Decade For The First Time In History, Kenneth M. Johnson

The Carsey School of Public Policy at the Scholars' Repository

In this brief Carsey Senior Demographer Kenneth Johnson examines rural demographic trends between 2010 and 2020 using data from the 2020 Census. The economic turbulence beginning with the Great Recession and continuing through the next decade had a significant demographic impact on rural America. Between 2010 and 2020 rural population loss was widespread, with more than two-thirds of all nonmetropolitan counties losing population. With fewer births, more deaths, and more people leaving than moving in, rural America experienced an overall population loss for the first time in history. Population losses were greatest in remote rural counties, but even in rural …

Field Pea Diversity And Its Contribution To Farmers' Livelihoods In Northern Ethiopia, Yirga Gufi, Alemtsehay Tsegay, Morgan Ruelle, Kassa Teka, Sarah Tewolde-Berhan, Alison Power

Sustainability and Social Justice

Field pea is grown by smallholder farmers in Ethiopia as a source of food, fodder, income, and soil fertility. This study explores intraspecific diversity of field pea and its contribution to farmers' livelihoods in two agroecological zones of South Tigray and South Wollo, northeastern Ethiopia. Interviews were conducted with 168 farming households. The number of varieties and the Shannon Diversity Index (SDI) were higher in South Tigray (seven varieties, 0.35 SDI) than South Wollo (two varieties, 0.025 SDI). Farmers in South Tigray plant field pea during two growing seasons, allowing for integration of multiple varieties into their farming systems. The …

Conference Program, 2022, Marquette University

Interdisciplinary Conference on Disabilities at the Intersection

This is the conference program. There are links within the program for online participants.

Perspective On Study Of Urban Science, Guangtao Wang, Fen Li, Nannan Gao, Xiang Liu

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Improving the urbanization strategy and making the city a space for the people's high-quality life is the new requirement put forward by General Secretary Xi Jinping for urban development. To fulfill this requirement, it is needed to study and understand in-depth consideration of urban development issues. This work studies urban issues from the national conditions such as urban morphology, population distribution, population mobility, and flow of peasant workers. Focusing on the overall requirement of respecting regularity, this study considers the connotation of urbanization and socialist modernized cities in the era of ecological civilization. Reviewing the theoretical basis of urban science …

Promoting Development Of Urban-Rural Integration By Urban Agriculture, Qichang Yang

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

How to solve the widening gap between urban and rural areas caused by the rapid development of urbanization and its siphonic effect has become the focus of the whole society. The unique role of urban agriculture in expanding urban agricultural space, enhancing the elasticity of urban food supply, ensuring residents' physical and mental health, improving the ecological environment, and reducing carbon footprint was discussed, from the perspectives of urban agriculture's connotation and denotation, morphological characteristics and functions. Besides, the potential role of urban agriculture in solving the issues of rural and urban development and the method and strategies of integration …

Briefly Noted

Great Plains Sociologist

Short summaries of new books. A book's appearance here does not preclude its being reviewed in a subsequent volume.