Digital Commons Network^™

The Trialectics Of Transnational Migrant Women’S Literature In The Writing Of Edwidge Danticat And Julia Alvarez, Jennifer Lynn Karash-Eastman

Theses and Dissertations

While a considerable critical field has developed around US Latino writing, due to the historical, cultural and sociolinguistic barriers between the two nations of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, critical investigations of these migrant literatures are often not bridged, but rather isolated into respective Haitian-American and Dominican-American designations. My comparative, critical framework defines the interactions between gender, culture and the diverse spatial coordinates from the island of Hispaniola, the Atlantic and the United States. The carefully differentiated objects of study that I articulate in each chapter offer a desirable interdisciplinary orientation inclusive of gender theory as well as cultural studies. …

Beyond Grades: The Impact Of Race And Academic Disidentification On Social Functioning And Academic Outcomes Among At-Risk High School Students, Brian K. Colar

Theses and Dissertations

An extant literature has supported the notion that black students perform poorly in comparison to white students on frequently used indicators of academic functioning, known as the academic gap between races. Although previous studies have identified this academic inequity between White and Black high school students, there is a dearth of literature examining the context and processes which may contribute to this gap. The current study further examines this educational disparity by evaluating the role of students’ social functioning, the impact of race, and academic outcomes among at-risk high school students. Although analytical evidence reports a positive correlation between social …

Unacknowledged Victims: Love Between Women In The Narrative Of The Holocaust. An Analysis Of Memoirs, Novels, Film And Public Memorials, Isabel Meusen

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation combines cultural theory and gender theory with literary criticism to evaluate the treatment of lesbians during the Holocaust and in narratives about the Holocaust. Responding to the kissing-scene controversy of the Berlin memorial for the homosexual victims of the Holocaust I claim that lesbian women’s experience of suffering is downplayed and disappears under the umbrella term ‘homosexuals.’ Employing a critical historical conceptualization of “lesbian love,” I consider examples from Claudia Schoppmann’s Days of Masquerade and Verbotene Verhältnisse as well as the personal estate of political activist Hilde Radusch to trace the personal view lesbians have of themselves. Shifting …

Making The Irrational Rational: Nietzsche And The Problem Of Knowledge In Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master And Margarita, Brendan Mooney

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is twofold: first, to explore the influence of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche on the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, and second, to use Nietzsche’s unpublished essay “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense” (written 1873) to examine the problem of knowledge in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita (written 1928-1940).

In existing scholarship on Bulgakov’s masterpiece The Master and Margarita, the novel’s epistemological underpinnings are a topic that remains relatively unacknowledged. The “supernatural” element presents an opportunity to examine the manner in which man interacts with unprecedented phenomena, that is, phenomena that do not …

U.S. Collegiate Athletics: International Student Athletes Recruiting Process, Evelyn S. Jara

Theses and Dissertations

The pressure to win has grown as a result of the billions of dollars invested in collegiate athletics and the increasing national media attention, and coaches and administrators are searching for an athletic edge (Wieberg, 2008). There are a limited number of American athletes that have the skills to impact the collegiate level. Competition to attract the top domestic players is high, so coaches turn to larger, international recruiting arenas with less competition (Riley, 1997). The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) regulates collegiate Sports in the United States, which is the only place in the world that provides the opportunity …

Pathways Thinking As A Mediator Between Positive Emotions And General Life Satisfaction In Middle School Students, Kathleen B. Franke

Theses and Dissertations

Informed by the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, we tested a model of the origins of life satisfaction with a sample of 567 middle school students from the Southeastern United States. The pathways thinking domain of hope was proposed to mediate the relation between positive emotions and general life satisfaction at a single time point, as well as over one year. At Time 1, pathways thinking was a significant mediator of positive emotions and life satisfaction. In the longitudinal model, pathways thinking did not significantly mediate this relation between positive emotions and later life satisfaction. These findings have implications for …

The Social Determinants Of Success: The Effect Of Status, Framing, And Group Membership On Test Scores, Jennifer L. Mcleer

Theses and Dissertations

Previous findings have shown that intelligence test scores of members of disadvantaged groups are negatively affected by their relative status in test situations. We explain this by assuming that lower-status actors forego benefits that normally follow from successful performance of a task if they anticipate that there are also costs associated with success. We use an integration of Status Characteristics Theory, Rational Choice Theory, Prospect Theory, and Self-Categorization Theory to argue that compared to high status individuals, those of lower status should be particularly affected by costs associated with high performance. We ran an experiment that manipulated factors such as …

Patterns Of Sedentary Behavior And Association With Health Risks Among African American Adults, Tatiana Y. Warren-Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction: There is growing and compelling evidence suggesting time spent in sedentary behaviors (SB) is a unique contributor to health risk that appears to be independent of time spent in moderate- and/or vigorous-intensity physical activity (PA). However, few studies have examined these associations in women and even fewer studies have included ethnic minority populations.

Purpose: The major objectives of this study were to: (1) describe patterns of objectively measured sedentary and PA behaviors and variation in these behaviors in African American (AA) adults; (2) assess the association between bouts of and breaks in SB and waist circumference risk, body mass …

The Influence Of Self-Reported Degree Of Masculinity/Femininity On Condom Use Among Black Men Who Have Sex With Men In The Deep South, Elizabeth D. Peeler

Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, 50,000 Americans are diagnosed with HIV each year (CDCa, 2014). The HIV/AIDS epidemic has had a particularly devastating impact on the southern U.S., especially the Deep South – Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina (Reif, Whetten, Wilson, McAllaster, Pence, Legrand, & Gong, 2014). The Deep South, while only composing of 36% of the national population, accounts for 50% of all people living with HIV/AIDS in the nation (Human Rights Watch, 2010). No other population has been hit harder than men who have sex with men (MSM; Prejean, Tang, & hall, 2013). Black MSM …

Eugene Debs And The Politics Of Parrhesia, James P. Flynn

Theses and Dissertations

The general public often views the practice of politics to be incompatible with truth telling. Despite this perspective, I argue these two concepts coexisted in the 1912 campaign of Eugene V. Debs. Using Michel Foucault‟s unfinished work on parrhesia, or frank speaking, I argue that Debs functioned as a parrhesiast. To make this argument, I analyze Debs‟s discourse against what Foucault‟s work suggests are the three essential elements of parrhesia: compulsion, risk, and authenticity. Because Debs‟s parrhesiastic sensibilities become more obvious when compared with his opponents in the 1912 election, I analyze Debs‟s discourse in relation to William Howard Taft, …

Antecedents Of Adolescents' Hope: Personality, Parental Attachment, And Stressful Life Events, Kristin L. Otis

Theses and Dissertations

In the past decade, psychology has concentrated on the importance of identifying psychological qualities in individuals that indicate positive mental health and flourishing. Hope has been proposed to be one of these qualities (Day, Hanson, Maltby, Proctor, & Wood, 2010; Marques, & Lopez, 2014). This study examined the relations among parental attachment, stressful life events, personality variables, and hope in a sample of 647 middle school students from one middle school in a Southeastern US state. The results showed statistically significant correlations between hope and all four predictor variables as well as students’ grade levels and socioeconomic status (SES). The …

Mourning, Melancholia, And The Need For Grace In Sherwood Anderson's "Godliness", Victoria Chandler

Theses and Dissertations

Published in 1919, Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio engages in the modernist project of collective grieving for social losses. This thesis looks specifically to Seth Moglen’s Mourning Modernity, in which he articulates the various grieving strategies, mourning and melancholia, employed by modernists in order to process their rapidly changing world. I explore the various ways that “Godliness,” one of Anderson’s stories in Winesburg, engages in both mourning and melancholia, and I draw on Ruth Levitas’ notion of secular grace, from her book Utopia as Method, in order to suggest that modernist subjects need a form of secular grace in …

Using Geographical Information Systems To Investigate Access To School Mental Heath Services, Heather L. Mcdaniel

Theses and Dissertations

Many youth present emotional or behavioral difficulties at levels that necessitate mental health services, yet few receive these needed services. However, school mental health services are thought to improve access to mental health services for youth and families over and above traditional community mental health centers. The purpose of the current study was to expand on existing research by examining community-level and geographic predictors of the utilization of school mental health or community mental health services. Within the context of a large, federally funded trial, I examined how community rurality, ethnic/racial makeup and drive time predicted the use of either …

Of Wilderness, Forest, And Garden: An Eco-Theory Of Genre In Middle English Literature, Barbara L. Bolt

Theses and Dissertations

“Of Wilderness, Forest, and Garden: An Eco-Theory of Genre in Middle English Literature” proposes a new theory of genre that considers the material elements of the natural environment in Middle English literature composed between 1300-1450 CE. Instead of treating the setting as just a backdrop for human activity, I posit that the components of the environment play a role in the deployment of the narrative by shaping the characters and influencing the action. More than an acknowledgement of the particular natural features, this study explores the role that these components play and how they give us a deeper understanding of …

Behavioral And Heart-Defined Attention In Infants At High Genetic Risk For Autism, Bridgette L. Tonnsen

Theses and Dissertations

Characterizing early predictors of autism facilitates earlier identification, diagnosis and treatment. Although aberrant visual attention is one of the earliest identified predictors of autism and may play an integral role in developmental cascades that contribute to associated impairments, the emergence of atypical attention in infancy is poorly understood. The present dissertation includes three related manuscripts examining early patterns of visual attention in two infant samples at elevated risk for autism: infant siblings of children with autism (ASIBs) and infants with fragile X syndrome (FXS). Together, these manuscripts identify patterns of abnormal heart defined attention among ASIBs (Study 1), investigate the …

Self-Determination Theory And Wellness Tourism: How Do Wellness Facilities Contribute To Wellbeing?, Karen I. Thal

Theses and Dissertations

Wellness tourism as a subsector is differentiated in terms of the pursuit and enhancement of wellbeing. Wellness itself is defined as holistic wellbeing and optimal psychological states. Enhanced wellbeing is cited as the motivation and outcome of travel and in terms of dedicated infrastructure, services, and amenities at destinations. Yet enhanced wellbeing following a wellness vacation is typically assumed rather than assessed. While tourism studies have focused on wellbeing as the outcome of leisure travel, a theoretical framework that might be adapted to assess wellbeing following a stay at a wellness facility was not apparent. The majority of tourism studies …

The Influence Of Academic And Social Self-Concept On College Student Withdrawal, Elizabeth Orehovec

Theses and Dissertations

This quantitative study explored students’ self-reported, pre-college academic self-concept and students’ self-reported, pre-college social self-concept and the likelihood of student withdrawal prior to their second year. Additionally, the interaction between academic self-concept and social self-concept and first-year academic performance were examined. Using data from the University of South Carolina, three binary logistic regression models were run to determine whether academic self-concept and social self-concept were significant predictors of student withdrawal and/or whether or not the self-concept variables moderated the relationship between students’ first-year academic performance and student withdrawal. Additional academic, financial, and demographic pre-college attributes were selected as control variables …

Processing Of Garden-Path Sentences Containing Silent And Filled Pauses In Stuttered Speech: Evidence From A Comprehensive Study, Elena Galkina

Theses and Dissertations

Disfluency is common in spontaneous speech. Self-correction is a type of disfluency that consists of reparandum, filler, and repair (Levelt, 1989). Little is known about the processing of self-corrections in a normally disfluent speech, and even less is known about its processing in atypically disfluent speech (e.g. speech in patients with autism spectrum disorder, hearing impaired, patients with brain damage, and stuttered speech; see: Lake, Humphreys, & Cardy, 2011; Lind, Hickson, & Erber, 2004; Plexico et al., 2010; Rossi et al., 2011; Yairi, Gintautas, & Avent, 1981). This study focuses on self-correction disfluencies in garden-path sentences and employs a behavioral …

Decision-Making Processes Of Judges In Family Court: An Investigation Of Salient Features Relating To Termination Of Parental Rights Hearings, Jennifer G. May

Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative study uses Corbin and Strauss’ approach to the Grounded Theory method of analysis to determine the salient features of decision-making in termination of parental rights (TPR) hearings. Specifically this study addresses: what information is used to make decisions in a TPR case; what training or systemic improvements are needed; the role of intuition, prior experience or other stores of knowledge; how judges prioritize sources of information; and how “best interest of the child” is interpreted by family court judges. A theory of judicial decision-making relating specifically to TPR hearings is proposed.

Academic/Success Coaching: A Description Of An Emerging Field In Higher Education, Claire E. Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

Designed as exploratory and descriptive research, this study aims to understand the purpose, content, and the perceived effectiveness of academic/success coaching programs in higher education. The research provides a quantitative analysis of 160 coaching programs from 39 states designed to assist undergraduate students in their academic and collegiate success. Because “academic coaching” or “success coaching” is a relatively new concept on college campuses, little empirical evidence exists to support this role and differentiate it from other campus services such as academic advising, counseling, mentoring, and tutoring. In order to capture the current roles and responsibilities of coaches, a survey was …

Low-Dose Stimulant Treatment During Periadolescence In A Fasd Model: Interactions Among The Catecholamines, Victoria Macht

Theses and Dissertations

One of the most common of deficits observed in Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) is difficulties with attention. Because attention deficits are commonly treated with stimulants, the impact of d-amphetamine (AMPH) treatment during the juvenile period in an animal model of FASD was examined. A dose-response study first assessed the appropriate dose of AMPH to use. In the dose-response study, therapeutic doses of 0.5, 1.0, and 2.0 mg/kg/day of AMPH were chronically administered to female rats between postnatal days (PD) 26-40. Rats were subjected to an open field test on the first and last day of treatment. The dose of …

H.P. Lovecraft & The French Connection: Translation, Pulps And Literary History, Todd David Spaulding

Theses and Dissertations

Weird fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft captured the zeitgeist of the modernist movement, despite his association with popular fiction. Lovecraft’s post-mortem climb from the margins of the American literary system to its center is indicative of his influence on “mass” and “elite” cultures alike in the second half of the twentieth century and onward. Lovecraft’s influence is not restricted to American culture, but it spread like an airborne virus to other cultures, and to France in particular. His imaginative weird fiction, a unique combination of horror and science fiction, has been translated into more than 25 languages from Bengali to …

Women In Hypermasculine Environments: An Analysis Of Gender Dynamics In The Heavy Metal Subculture, Anna Sheree Rogers

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes gender dynamics in the heavy metal subculture by means of interviews with fans of this musical genre. Based on research that shows that (male) homosocial environments, denoting non-romantic social bonds among people of the same (male) sex, lead to hegemonic masculinity and the possibility of violence against women, this study focused on the heavy metal subculture from the point of view of its members’ experiences related to gender. The theoretical framework of this thesis is based on feminist theories of gender difference and its relevance for the sociology of gender. Specifically, I rely on theories of othering, …

Reliability Of Subjective Well-Being Measures In Middle School Students, Hannah Reckhart

Theses and Dissertations

A rise in the emphasis of positive aspects of functioning has led to increased attention paid to the field of positive psychology. Encompassed in this field is the recognition of subjective well-being (SWB) as an important factor in developing a holistic understanding of students. Established significant positive relations between SWB and academic engagement suggest that incorporating positive psychology variables, such as SWB, into assessment may be a useful and feasible tool to develop a comprehensive understanding of student strengths and difficulties. In this study, we investigated the reliability of three promising SWB measures for use within the school context. Results …

The Tap: An Examination Of The Controversy Of Secret Societies On College Campuses, Mackenzie Crane

Theses and Dissertations

Secret societies on college campuses have enjoyed prestige and influence since the founding of Phi Beta Kappa in 1776. Some, like Skull and Bones at Yale University, appear to do their members a great service by connecting them to a network of successful alumni. Others, like the Machine at the University of Alabama, have been accused of crime and discrimination. This study serves to examine what impact these groups have on their members and the surrounding community. It also explores the concept of formalized secrecy within the democratic realm of higher education. This is achieved through historical study of three …

Criminology On Crimes Against Humanity: A North Korean Case Study, Megan Alyssa Novak

Theses and Dissertations

In the last century, modern technology has significantly increased human interaction across the globe. The growing globalization of our society has created new areas of interest for many academics. This thesis explores the topic of international crime—specifically, state perpetrated crimes against humanity. Criminologists have become increasingly interested in large-scale atrocities and several theories on the topic have been perpetuated in the last few decades. Through a case study, this research determined that current theories are capable of explaining crimes against humanity in North Korea. Additionally, the findings suggest that international institutions should create programs that utilize restorative justice techniques.

What Do We Know About Technical Assistance? Enhancing The Science And Practice Of Technical Assistance Via A Research Synthesis, Jason S. Katz

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction. Each year billions of dollars are spent on providing technical assistance (TA) to build the capacity of host settings (e.g., organizations, communities) to implement innovations, but there is little consensus (or even discussion) about: what the essential features of TA are, how to provide TA with quality, and how a quality-based accountability perspective can help us to enhance the science and practice of TA. To begin to address these needs, a research synthesis methodology was used for conducting a content analysis of the current evidence base for TA using three frames: (1) applying a conceptual and operational model (Getting …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Take Action: Making Goals Happen Curriculum, Kelly Wulf

Theses and Dissertations

As the accountability movement emerged with the passage of No Child Left Behind and the amendments of the Individual with Disabilities Education Act, there was a growing concern regarding how to best provide transition services for youth with disabilities. As Cobb, Lehmann, Newman-Gonchar, and Alwell (2008) have stated, a research base has emerged concerning the role of self-determination and other moderators that impact postschool outcomes. The purpose of this study was to identify if Choicemaker: Take Action: Making Goals Happen curriculum is effective in increasing global self-determination among middle school students with disabilities. Multiple Regression analysis was used with a …

Profiles Of African American College Students’ Risky Behaviors: General And Culturally-Specific Stress And Social Support As Factors Of Risk And Resilience?, Isha Walwina Metzger

Theses and Dissertations

Studies show that, while alcohol use and risky sexual activities increase during emerging adulthood, college students are more likely to engage in these behaviors than their non-student counterparts (Slutske et al., 2004). Researchers should explore risk behavior participation among African American youth, as they often face health disparities and more severe consequences of engaging in these acts than their White American counterparts (Sharma & Atri, 2006; Jackson, Hodge, & Vaughn, 2010). Although epidemiological and variable-centered studies often examine the drinking and sexual behavior of African American college students, there is a need for research utilizing a profile-oriented approach to explore …

Patient And Provider Perceptions Of Weight Gain, Physical Activity, And Nutrition In Pregnancy, Kara M. Whitaker

Theses and Dissertations

Background: The high percentage of women who enter pregnancy overweight or obese and gain excessive weight during pregnancy is a growing public health problem. Health care providers are recommended to counsel women on weight gain, physical activity (PA), and nutrition during pregnancy. However, little is known about patient or provider perceptions of these topics. Purpose: Guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), this study examined women’s and health care providers’ perceptions of weight gain, PA, and nutrition in pregnancy. This study also examined the role of the health care provider in optimizing pregnancy weight gain. Methods: Pregnant women between …