Digital Commons Network^™

“I’M Now Always Thinking About Math”: Exploring Mathematics Identities, Beliefs, And Lived Experiences Through Ypar, Maya A. Severns

Theses and Dissertations

This youth participatory action research (YPAR) study employing survey and case study design sought to explore and document the influence of YPAR participation on Black and Latine high school students’ perceptions of their mathematics identity development, what they learned about their peers’ and their own mathematics perceptions and lived experiences, and their recommendations for change in their own school and mathematics education in general. Eight high school participants were invited to engage in 12 YPAR study sessions that drew on the literature of mathematics identity, equity in mathematics education, and YPAR and were grounded in a theoretical framework including culturally …

Exploring Motivational Factors Related To Teachers’ Retention And Attrition In Urban Schools, Andrew Wintner

Theses and Dissertations

Retention of educators within urban settings is an essential consideration. More specifically, the retention of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) educators within urban schools is of great importance as the demographic of students grows increasingly multicultural due to shifting demographic patterns within large urban cities. I explored educator perceptions of motivational factors associated with retention and attrition through the theoretical lens of Situated Expectancy Value Theory (SEVT). A convergent parallel mixed methods design was utilized. Semi-structured interviews (N = 18) occurred simultaneously to quantitative data collection using a 44-item survey (N = 53). Analyses of the …

The Connective Tissue Of Well-Developed Interests: A Case Study Of A Science Research Classroom, Deborah M. Brand

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine ways that long-term interests in high school students could be inspired and facilitated in educational contexts. In particular, it explored how a high school Science Research (SR) program cultivated belonging and supported autonomy in ways that inspired and promoted well-developed individual interests. This type of interest is characterized by an enduring desire to pursue learning out of an intellectual and emotional need to gain understanding; it drives behavior, motivation, and cognition toward particular activities and ideas. Classroom belonging is derived from this sense of connection and purpose a student feels from the …

Obesity Risk And Comorbidities Among Colombians In New York City And In Colombia, Carlos A. Devia

Dissertations and Theses

Introduction: The prevalence of obesity and overweight in adults and children continues to increase worldwide, accounting for the mortality and morbidity from several diseases. Obesity disproportionally impacts Latinos in the United States (U.S.), and despite their diversity in origins, ancestry, and culture, it is still unclear the burden of obesity by specific Latino groups. For example, little information is available about how obesity impacts Colombians in the U.S. (the largest South American population). New evidence also indicates that Latino immigrants may no longer be arriving with healthy weight status to the U.S. because Latin American countries are undergoing epidemiologic and …

Investigating And Mitigating The Harmful Impact Of Precarious Employment On The Health And Well-Being Of New York City Food Workers, Emilia F. Vignola

Dissertations and Theses

Much of the United States (US) food chain – from production to processing, wholesale, retail, and services – is characterized by precarious employment, defined as work with little employment security, inadequate income, and limited rights and protections. Studies show that precarious employment is associated with adverse mental and physical health and well-being outcomes. Separate research indicates numerous health issues in certain segments of the food workforce; little scholarly work has explored the contribution of precarious employment as an upstream driver of these health issues. Gaps remain in our understanding of 1) the health needs and status of workers across the …

Inequalities In Infant Birthweight By Social Position And Residential Neighborhood Characteristics In New York City, 2012-2018, Christina I. Nieves

Dissertations and Theses

BACKGROUND: Birthweight is an important indicator of health for infants, as low birthweight is associated with adverse health outcomes for infants and children. In the United States (U.S.), there are significant birthweight inequities by several maternal characteristics including maternal race/ethnicity, age, education, and nativity status. For example, the prevalence of low birthweight among Black infants is double the prevalence among white infants (14% vs. 6.9%, respectively). These health inequities are caused, in part, by unjust systems, policies, and practices rooted in interlocking systems of oppression, like racism. These systems of oppression affect individuals directly as well as the contexts in …

Mental Illness And Ethnic Identity And Their Relationship With Internalized Stigma Among Individuals Identifying As Latinx And Diagnosed With A Mental Illness, Melissa V. Martinez

Student Theses

Identity plays a key role in all matters regarding mental health, especially in experiences of stigma. Stigma, a term used to describe the processes of labeling and stereotyping of particular groups, has been shown to be a major contributor to mental health outcomes. Internalization of stigma, is an emotional and behavioral response that further affects an individual’s functioning beyond the effects of a mental disorder. The relationship between stigma and certain identities, such as gender, have been clearly demonstrated in prior research. However, identity is a complex concept that varies in meaning between individuals. The significance of a particular identity …

An Archival Exploration Of Lineup Fairness In Eyewitness Research, Phoebe Kane

Student Theses

In this study, we were interested in investigating if the Betaface facial analysis program reliably predicts eyewitness lineup choosing behavior. If face analysis programs are as good or better than human judgements, using them could be a reliably more efficient, reproducible, and equitable basis for choosing fillers and evaluating lineup fairness. We collected 27 datasets from eyewitness researchers and analyzed them to produce Betaface similarity values, which measured the similarity between all the photos in each array. We compared these Betaface data to the identification data from the original studies. Our analysis of the arrays via Betaface yielded data with …

The Switch: Understanding The Perception Of African American Linguistic Repertoires, Alyssa Powell

Student Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study is to conduct research to gain knowledge of the perception of African American adults who use standard English and African American Vernacular English or feel that they must code-switch between the two "languages. “The goal is to investigate the attitudes and ideologies that African American Adults have toward AAVE and what role the two "languages" play in their personal identity. This research will obtain a better understanding of how our use of language can influence our self-concept and identity. Cultural influences can influence our language and how we conceptualize who we are and where …

Millenial & Gen Z Experience- A Meta-Analysis, Karrine S. Rahman

Student Theses and Dissertations

This meta-analysis highlights five subtopics that are imperative to understanding Millennials and Gen Z. The five topics include characteristics, Millennials becoming managers, the Digital Revolution, mental health, and finally a phenomenon pioneered by the two younger generations, quiet quitting. The aim of this research is to find what characteristics motivate professional Millennials and Gen Z. After learning the main attributes that define these two generations, it is crucial to understand the expectations they have and how employers should accommodate them based on their unique work ethic. This study analyzes the work of multiple authors and scholars who assert that embracing …

Reclaiming Narratives Of Sexual Assault: An Examination Of The #Metoo Movement And Social Media, Katherine V. Marano

Student Theses and Dissertations

Untruths depicted by American media has shaped narratives about sexual assault and negatively affected the credibility of female sexual assault victims. Since women began the viral #MeToo movement in 2017, there is a need for research about the shifting sexual assault narratives in the United States. My project examines how this movement and use of social media has allowed women to reclaim narratives about sexual assault, spanning from October 2017 to April 2023. Specifically, my project analyzes ways in which the media responded to the #MeToo movement and how female created social media videos amplify sexual assault stories. I argue …

Reproduction: The Ultimate Enemy Of Racial Passing In Harlem Renaissance Literature, Veronica Kordmany

Student Theses

"In this essay, I examine three texts that consider the repercussions of passing for Black Americans. Nella Larsen’s Passing (1929) serves as a namesake for this general idea, as two light-skinned African American women represent the divisionary approach to racial passing. In George S. Schuyler’s Black No More (1931) we see a passing Black man’s virility being tested as he enters an ‘alternate universe’, in which a scientific invention grants him full access to the wondrous white world he’d always dreamed of entering. Finally, in the middle of this textual spectrum is Angelina W. Grimké’s 1919 short story, “The Closing …

‘Welcoming’ Guests: The Role Of Ideational And Contextual Factors In Public Perceptions About Refugees And Attitudes About Their Integration, H. Ege Ozen, Aysenur Dal, Efe Tokdemir

Publications and Research

In this study, we aim to explore the ideational and contextual sources of perceptions about refugees. Contrary to many studies focusing on the interaction with and integration of refugees in developed countries, we examine the effect of social identity and refugee exposure on the perception of refugees in Turkey, which pose a substantive case with a background of ethnic conflict and scarce resources. We contend that social identities provide individuals with cues; however, we argue that identity type and its salience are key to understanding in-group vs. out-group formation processes, hence the perceptions about refugees. Moreover, we argue that socioeconomic …

Do Ask, Do Tell: Lessons Learned From Marginalized Gay Or Bisexual Males In Male-Dominated Organizations, Charles Tienken

Student Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this research paper is to consider the experiences of gay or bisexual males in male-dominated organizations and apply the lessons learned to help facilitate meaningful culture change in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. This paper examines the dynamics of hegemonic masculinity, marginalization and hypervisibility as they relate to the perception of professionalism and leadership capabilities of gay or bisexual males in organizational cultures including the military as well as other male-dominated organizations.

Design/methodology/approach: This research uses thematic meta-analysis of recurring themes including numerous peer-reviewed journal articles to assess the current data on the LGBTQ+ …

The Relationship Between Corporate Social Responsibility And Organizational Citizenship Behaviors During The Covid-19 Pandemic, E. Paisley Shultz

Student Theses and Dissertations

COVID-19 has brought dramatic changes to how organizations operate and employees behave, prompting both parties to engage in additional efforts and cope with these stark adjustments. Organizations, for example, might engage in more COVID-specific corporate social responsibility (CSR), while employees might engage in more COVID-related organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). However, it is unclear whether and how employees’ COVID-related OCBs can be triggered by their organizations’ COVID-specific CSR. Building on existing research on the relationship between CSR and OCBs, this study examined the effects of internal and external COVID-specific CSR on employees’ COVID-related OCBs toward their coworkers (OCB-Is) and organizations (OCB-Os). …

Woman Flytrap, Brianna Jo Hobson

Student Theses and Dissertations

Woman FlyTrap is a short story zine collection that explores the topic of sexual violence through the perpetrator and victim relationship with an explicit lens. Replete with cultural and entomological themes and motifs, Woman Flytrap seeks to remind survivors that we are not alone. In our bodies or in our lives. Neither in the world. There are over a million insects to every human, proving that there is strength in numbers. All five stories in the collection present different abstracts: revenge, transformation, justice, healing, body image, self-harm, mourning, etc. There is also a playlist and a section about the author. …

The Association Between Rape Myths And Continued Contact With The Perpetrator Following Sexual Abuse, Jainee Smith

Student Theses

Sexual violence is a widespread phenomenon. The term rape myth was first coined in 1980 by Martha Burt, and she defined it as “prejudicial, stereotyped, or false beliefs about rape, rape victims, and rapists” (Burt, 1980 p. 217). These myths, as well as any continued contact after a sexual assault, often lead to victim blaming, making it more difficult for victims to report any sexual assault. While rape myths were developed based on adult sexual assault, some research suggests that they also applied to child sexual abuse. This study will explore and expand the literature on rape myth acceptance and …

Nothing About Youth Without Youth: Involving Youth In Participatory Action Research Conducted With Health Departments, Vivian Cortes

Dissertations and Theses

Background: Health departments are vital to community-partnered public health efforts and research and are positioned to influence community or policy level systems that impact population health. However, while some health departments partner with community members in their programming, not much is known about health departments partnering with community youth. From 2018-2019 the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH) implemented a youth participatory action research (YPAR) project to develop a public awareness campaign in partnership with youth and adult community stakeholders for a federally funded program. It was the first participatory research conducted by the agency …

Metaperceptions Of Interactions Between Asian And African American Adults, Ariana Schlegel

Student Theses

In recent years, there has been a drastic increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in the United States, as well as news stories highlighting African Americans as perpetrators of anti-Asian hate crimes. As such, the paper focuses on how Asian Americans expect to be perceived by others, and how those expectations may change depending on the race (African American or White) and gender (male or female) of the conversation partner. A survey was created, which employed deception to have participants believe that they would have a short video conversation with somebody else about a political topic, and which randomly assigned each …

Juror's Perceptions Of Evidence-Based Suspicion, Nicholas Welter

Student Theses

Eyewitness misidentification is a leading cause of wrongful conviction. Although the prior probability of guilt (i.e., pre-identification evidence strength) is the most important factor for predicting a defendant’s actual guilt status and the accuracy of any subsequent eyewitness identification, no study has examined whether it affects juror decisions. This oversight is problematic because when officers place suspects in lineups when there is little evidence connecting them to the crime, it falls on jurors to examine the probative value of identification evidence. Participants (N = 357) watched a mock trial depicting an armed robbery that varied pre-identification evidence (strong vs. …

Exposing The Governmental Amnesia Of The Human Rights Violations That Occurred In The Magdalene Laundries, Sarah G. Gallagher

Student Theses

Throughout history, Ireland is not regarded as a champion in the area of human rights discourse, but in recent years it has found itself present in it. Pre-secularized Ireland violated human and women’s rights in institutions such as the Magdalene Laundries. Within these institutions, girls and women were subjected to various types of abuse (e.g., sexual, physical, emotional, and mental). After their time in the Laundries, they faced a life of silence and shame due to the stigma of being incarcerated in a Laundry. Due to the stigma, survivors were unable to discuss their experiences in the Laundries as they …

The Role Of Developmental Stage, Compensatory Support, And Coping In The Relationship Among Adverse Childhood Experiences, Mental Health, And Resilience In Emerging Adults, Melanie Abbondola

Theses and Dissertations

Children and adolescents who experience adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) often must deal with mental and physical effects lasting well into adulthood. However, much research shows ACEs are related to poorer mental and physical health in adulthood. Much less work has focused on the psychological and social resources that can create resilience. This study examined how compensatory social support and coping strategies potentially moderate the relationship between ACEs and mental health outcomes, and if the age/developmental stage at which the ACEs occurred, and the frequency and intensity of the ACEs affected mental health. Self-report data were obtained from 241 emerging adults, …

The Effect Of Word Predictability On Proofreading Accuracy And Reading Time, Sam Prasad

Theses and Dissertations

Proofreading, or reading with the purpose of finding and correcting errors, has been used in psycholinguistic research to study the relationship between bottom-up and top-down cognitive processes. The current study examined the effects of word predictability on reading time using a word-by-word self-paced reading (SPR) task. A sample of 102 native English speakers read sentences containing letter transposition errors in predictable and unpredictable contexts. Half of the sentences were followed by a question asking if there was an error in the sentence they had just read. Participants’ accuracy in detecting the errors and the time they spent reading the error-bearing …

Someone Will Remember Us / I Say / Even In Another Time, Paul Anagnostopoulos

Theses and Dissertations

Paul Anagnostopoulos’s paintings and vases use mythological melodrama in a contemporary context to portray vivid images of queer life in the wake of homophobic erasure and tragic loss. “someone will remember us / I say / even in another time” traces his aggregate interests in Greco-Roman cultures and art history.

Maladaptive Inconsistent Parenting Behavior And Borderline Personality Disorder: The Mediating Effect Of Disturbed Sense Of Self, Mst S. Islam

Theses and Dissertations

We investigated the child’s disturbed sense of self in relation to maladaptive inconsistent parenting behavior and BPD features. 158 participants completed measures assessing emotions and parenting. The mediating effect of disturbance of self was significant as a single mediator, but not when emotional dysregulation and impulsivity were included as mediators.

Queer Mother, Hybrid Monster: Serpentine Hybridity And Monstrous Motherhood In D’Arras And Spenser, Farah R. Paterson-Cisco

Theses and Dissertations

Disparate, deformed, and hybridized bodies of women have appeared in mythology and literature in myriad allegorical incarnations as representations of monstrosity. The monstrous serpent-woman hybrid form can be traced back quite far, though at the point when one reaches antiquity, literary examples meld into the religious, mythological, and folkloric. These hybrid beings also embodied meanings particular to their time and culture that work to distinguish them as literary characters, presenting a compelling case for the consideration of the hybridized and deformed figure as a threat to patriarchal systems. Contemporary readings through the lens of feminist, gender, and disability frameworks offer …

Diasporic Women’S Mutability In South Asian Postcolonial Literature, Tasnim S. Halim

Theses and Dissertations

Though Western scholarship tends to homogenize South Asian experiences, researchers and novelists shed light on different classes of South Asian postcolonial and migratory women who experience mutability, or the internal and external changes as a trauma response after British colonial rule ended and the 1947 Partition abruptly fractured national identity. Though this mutability has positive and negative transformative qualities, it also allows women characters the power to remove themselves from cycles of oppression, work towards healing, and transforming their physical bodies from sites of repressed trauma to sites of expression and agency. What binds them is not only their physical …

Tied Together, Eiko Nishida

Theses and Dissertations

The paper is about a site-specific installation that questions a viewer’s norms and perspectives, through the use of multilingual newspapers as a sculptural material.

Blueprints, Lauryn E. Welch

Theses and Dissertations

“Blueprints” is an open letter on chronic illness and its shaping of the artist’s partnership and painting practice. Through the framework of a house—foyer, kitchen, library, bedroom, garden—put in relation to the body, this paper examines the vibrant matter inside, as an alliance of parts including people, objects, and spaces.

Or Read The Wikipedia Entry For The Parable Of The Tower Of Babel But Imagine It’S 2023 This Time And We’Re Getting So Close Just Give The Artist A Little More Of Your Money, David Thonis

Theses and Dissertations

Systems and their inherent design underlie everything in contemporary life. Design exists to facilitate interaction, to ease workflow, to keep us producing. As such, it exerts its own control.

Through disassembling recurring conventions in design, I look to break with preconceptions of logic. To deny functionality. In doing so, my intention is to dislocate the user from the usual patterns of applicable systems.

The resulting discomfort may feel strange, disembodied, but it should be embraced. Long have capitalism’s solutions created more problems. In the face of this complexity, and beyond it, there can be freedom.