Digital Commons Network^™

Sons Providing Care At End-Of-Life: Common Threads And Nuances, Patricia Ebert

Dissertations and Theses

Family care is common in the majority of families in the United States, the primary care providers for older adult family members most often are wives, daughters or daughters-in-law. As the proportion of the oldest old continues to expand so too will the need for family careproviders. Recent demographic changes have served to deplete the pool of available caregivers. Caregiving research has naturally evolved into investigations into the experiences of women with little attention paid to the care contributions men make.

This investigation examined the perceptions of sons who served as primary caregivers for their dying elderly parents. It was …

Expanding Responsibilities And Shifting Demands: An Analysis Of The Effects Of Migration And Employment On Immigrant Women's Negotiating Power In The Household, Kerry Greer

Dissertations and Theses

This study's objective was to examine the affect that migration and employment have on immigrant women's negotiating position within the household. Depth interviews were conducted with nine women who migrated to Portland, Oregon from Ethiopia or Eritrea. Women were encouraged to share a narrative history of their migration and employment experience. These interviews were analyzed to answer three primary questions: Who are immigrant women supporting through their participation in the paid labor market? How do women utilize gain access to employment opportunities and what strategies do women use once employed to meet competing demands on them at work and in …

Is It Just Me? Felt Hiv -Related Stigma Among Adults With Hiv, Rebecca Gila Block

Dissertations and Theses

HIV carries a significant social stigma in the United States based on the virus being contagious, incurable, visually apparent, and still somewhat mysterious to the public. People who are HIV positive, people who love them and people who work with them may all experience HIV-related stigma. The effects of HIV-related stigma vary from individual to individual; from community to community. The magnitude of feeling stigmatized and experiencing stigmatizing behaviors such as discrimination and exclusion also vary among individuals. Individuals experience stigma differently and respond to the experience in diverse ways.

The objective of this study was to explore felt HIV-related …

Unfinished Journeys: Elder Learners In An Assisted Living Facility, Suzanne RenéE Simon

Dissertations and Theses

While multiple learning opportunities exist as the aging experience unfolds, elders facing some of the most complex physical and emotional challenges are often perceived as "too old to learn." For those living in long-term care facilities (LTC), lack of consideration as learners hinders numerous opportunities for growth. However, within the contexts of aging and learning, an attempt to understand elders as becoming and conceptualize them as learners might better serve their experience in long-term care.

The purpose of this study was to record notions about learning by capturing individual voices and shared meanings of a group of assisted living facility …

Revisiting Invasion-Succession: Social Relations In A Gentrifying Neighborhood, Lynda Franks

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the social relationships of different residents in a gentrifying neighborhood in Northeast Portland, Oregon. It examines theoretical tenants in the social identity tradition to understand social change in terms of the impact of neighborhood change on the day-to-day interactions of individuals in a gentrifying neighborhood by exploring the ways in which different members of that neighborhood define and describe the terms “neighborhood”, “neighbor”, and “neighborly behavior”.

Intergroup neighboring research posits two outcomes of neighborhood change on interactions between old and new neighbors, one of conflict, the other of cooperation. The conflict perspective proposes that, in situations where …

Mathematics, Meaning, And Identity: A Study Of The Practice Of Mathematics Education In A Rural High School, Rick Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

The purposes of this study were (1) to explore the relationship between mathematics education and the rural context and (2) to determine the usefulness of a social theory of learning (Wenger, 1998) to account for students' participation in advanced high school mathematics courses. Qualitative methods were used to gather data in a small, rural high school in the Pacific Northwest. Data gathered included a student survey, interviews with students and mathematics teachers, observations in mathematics classes, and documents related to the curriculum, the school, and the community.

The findings suggest that high school mathematics education is related to the rural …

Evaluating Deliberative Democracy: Comparing Habermas' Discourse Ethic And Evaluations Of Consensus Process In Residential Cooperatives, Katheryn Sutter

Dissertations and Theses

How do deliberators reason together on what is best? Planners, policy analysts and community developers should know how to recognize the validity of participatory deliberations claimed to give groups voice in policy decisions. Policy analyses have lost power in the face of postmodern critiques of objectivity. Practical policy analyses require more than objective validity for they express results of what Jürgen Habermas refers to as normative rationality. This study followed John Forester's recommended research agenda for rigorous empirical analyses of policy process deliberations using Jürgen Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action. Three successful residential communities were identified with organizational and institutional …

The Role Of Parent Coaching By Pediatric Physical Therapists: An Exploration Of Current Practice, Nancy Ann Cicirello

Dissertations and Theses

Children with disabilities are not the sole clients of the pediatric physical therapy practitioner. However, research, best practice, and federal mandated legislation oblige therapists to transition from a traditional medical child-centered model of intervention to a family-centered model. This model places an emphasis on instructing parents, guiding their development as the dominant change agent for their children. Viewing parents as the predominant learner during intervention sessions is hampered by the paucity of family-related and adult-learning content in the professional preparation programs in higher education. It is further inhibited by professional attitudinal beliefs that continue to place a higher value on …

Actor And Partner Effects Among Marital Dyads In Retirement Adjustment And Well-Being, Julie Guenette Howard

Dissertations and Theses

Our understanding of and interest in how retirement impacts the lives of individuals have grown over the past 20 years. Studies to date have ranged from small, convenience samples composed primarily of men to large, national longitudinal samples of men and women from different professional and socioeconomic backgrounds. There is consensus in the literature that older adults generally function better with a partner; however, gaps remain. We know little about the impact of retirement beyond the individual, although research in other areas on couples has produced evidence of crossover and contagion effects relative to depression and other outcomes, including absenteeism, …

"Alberta Arts District" : Boundaries And Belonging Among Long-Time Residents In A Culturally Changing Neighborhood, Sammy Shaw

Dissertations and Theses

This study takes a cultural perspective in studying the "Alberta Arts District," a gentrifying neighborhood in Northeast Portland in which bohemian cultural production/consumption has become the dominant and commodified vision of the community. Survey data demonstrates residents' general opinions and levels of participation in the changing neighborhood. Forty long-time residents, black and white, homeowners and renters, are interviewed in-depth regarding their perceptions of change. Long-time residents of gentrifying neighborhoods are often overlooked as a less powerful group that only has to negotiate rising rents and property values. This study approaches the meaning of neighborhood changes for long-time residents who have …

Comparing Twenty-Four Years Of Forest Change In Two Communities Of Mexico's Meseta PuréPecha Using Multi-Spectral Satellite Imagery, Kevin Scott Martin

Dissertations and Theses

The Meseta Purépecha, a volcanic plateau in the Mexican state of Michoacan, is home to one of the most species-rich pine forests in the world. Recent increases in demand for forest products has put added pressure on these resources. Though existing research has suggested significant deforestation in the Meseta, there is little information identifying specific areas of decline. This study focuses on two indigenous communities in the Meseta--Pichátaro and Sevina. Both communities have long relied on wood as an economic resource. However, the two communities have reacted differently to increased demand for forest resources. The purpose of this study is …

Technology Forecasting Using Data Envelopment Analysis, Oliver Lane Inman

Dissertations and Theses

The ability to anticipate future capabilities of technology products has broad implications for organizations. Technological forecasting allows management to improve resource allocation, make better staffing decisions, and more confidently plan facilities and capital expenditures. Technology forecasting may also identify potential new markets and opportunities, such as finding ways to exploit current technology beyond its originally intended purposes.

Modern technology forecasters use an array of forecasting methods to predict the future performance of a technology, such as time-series analysis, regression, stochastic methods, and simulation. These quantitative methods rely on the assumption that past behavior will continue. Shortcomings include their lack of …

Socratic Pedagogy, Critical Thinking, Moral Reasoning And Inmate Education: An Exploratory Study, Peter Boghossian

Dissertations and Theses

This exploratory study examines the hypothesis that Socratic pedagogy is a useful tool for imparting critical thinking and moral reasoning skills to inmates. The study explores the effectiveness of a new curriculum, Introducing Socrates, which relies on Socratic pedagogy to achieve its objectives. The curriculum draws from the effective criminal justice research on cognitive education to determine its objectives, and then looks to the Platonic dialogues to find broad philosophical questions that tie into those objectives. The program also evaluates salient criticisms of Socratic pedagogy that are found in the educational and philosophical literature, and then isolates and evaluates constructs …

The Effects Of Subsidized Childcare On Student Parents' Access To Higher Education At Portland State University, Elizabeth Dawn Creach

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this study was to identify critical childcare resources that student parents utilize that allow them to access higher education at varying levels, but also to make assumptions about parents unable to enroll due to barriers and/or lack of resources. This study sought to answer the following questions: 1) To what extent does subsidized childcare facilitate student parents' access to higher education? Is subsidized childcare a more important resource for some groups of students than for others?, and 2) Are student parents making childcare-enrollment trade-offs in order to pursue higher education? Are certain groups of students more vulnerable …

La Chanson D'Yde Et Olive: A Parable Of A Medieval Self-Made Man, NoéMie Young-Studer

Dissertations and Theses

La chanson d'Yde et Olive, an early fourteenth-century epic poem from the Picard region, exemplifies the medieval custom of text renewal that seeks to adapt pagan materials to fit Christian doctrine. Largely based on the plot of the Ovidian fable Iphis and Ianthe from The Metamorphoses, its main character Yde undergoes a metaphorical transformation from a woman into a man. Moreover, much like the Ovide moralisé, a Christianized adaptation of the Latin original, Yde et Olive's message can be understood as a Christian parable for the purging of the sinful soul. To set up the poem's didactic message, the poet …

Taking Root In The Silicon Forest: The Role Of High Technology Firms As Surrogate Universities In Portland, Oregon, Heike Mayer

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation examines the evolution of the high technology industry in the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region. The research explains how and why the region was able to grow a high technology industry cluster in the absence of a major world-class engineering and computer science research university. The research challenges the conventional assumption that a research university must be in place to create a high technology center. It was hypothesized that high technology firms functioned as surrogate research universities by attracting and developing labor, creating knowledge, and functioning as incubators for startup companies. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that a regional innovation milieu …

Women Adrift, Sporting Girls And The Unfortunate Poor: A Gendered History Of Homelessness In Portland 1900-1929, Leanne Claire Serbulo

Dissertations and Theses

This purpose of this study is to incorporate women into the history of homelessness. Women's experience is missing from the narrative of industrial era homelessness, which causes researchers to make a distinction between the modem day homeless population and its predecessors. This distinction prevents researchers from examining the long term structural causes of homelessness and analyzing the role homelessness plays in U.S. society. This study explores the population characteristics and living conditions of three groups of women who were considered homeless during the early decades of the twentieth century in Portland. These groups include single working women who lived away …

The Role Of Trust, Leader-Member Exchange, And Organizational Justice In Employee Attitudes And Behaviors: A Laboratory And Field Investigation, Rudolph Joseph Sanchez

Dissertations and Theses

The study of interpersonal relationships continues to be a major focus of theory and research in a wide array of disciplines. The present research examined one of the most prevalent and significant interpersonal relationships in the workplace context—the dyadic relationship between a supervisor and a subordinate. This research examined the relationships between trust, quality of the leader-member exchange relationship (LMX; a measure of the quality of the dyadic relationship), perceived organizational justice, and several employee attitudes and behaviors that are important to individual workers and the organizations in which they work.

Data were collected in both laboratory and field settings. …

The Effects Of Parent Care And Child Care Role Quality On Work Outcomes Among Dual-Earner Couples In The Sandwiched Generation, Angela Rickard

Dissertations and Theses

Research has shown that more men and women are occupying multiple roles as employees and caregivers to a child or an elder. The proliferation of women in the U.S. workforce since the 1960's has resulted in a “typical” American family that no longer consists of an employed father and stay-at-home mother, but rather one in which the father and mother both work outside the home. Indeed, the “dual-earner” family is the dominant family form in the U.S. today and into the foreseeable future. The aging and increased longevity of the American population, coupled with changes in the level and timing …

A Dissertation On African American Male Youth Violence: "Trying To Kill The Part Of You That Isn’T Loved", Joy Degruy Leary

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation is based on Sociocultural Theory, Social Learning Theory and Trauma Theory, as well as a new theoretical framework (Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome) which takes into account multigenerational trauma. Five research questions involving independent variables believed to predict violent behavior in African American male youth were investigated. The first three questions addressed stressors experienced by African Americans: violence witnessing, violence victimization, and daily urban hassles. The fourth and fifth questions concerned the sociocultural characteristics of racial socialization and prosocial attitudes toward respect. Participants were 200 African American male youth residing in inner Northeast Portland, Oregon who were recruited from …

Trends In Women's Sex-Role Attitudes Concerning Work And Familial Roles, 1977-1996, Andria F. Howell

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines changes in women's sex-role attitudes concerning work and familial roles during the years of 1977 to 1996. Using a secondary data analysis of a General Social Survey data set, the attitudes of 3302 women during the years 1977, 1985 and 1996 are examined.

One area of focus of this research is the relationship between work force participation and women's sex-role attitudes. Demographic variables relating to family status and socio-economic status are also examined, as well as the effects of mother's out-of-home experiences on daughter's sex-role attitudes. Finally, this thesis identifies the rate of attitude change in the …

Water Rights As Contested Terrain: The Case Of Tenmile Creek, Oregon, Marcie L. Allen

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the complex conflict over water rights at Tenmile Creek, located along the south central Oregon Coast. The research is an exploratory case study identifying the main motivations of actors, the constraints they faced, and the conditions that encouraged or dissuaded collaborative behavior.

The main objectives are (1) to refine the understanding of the relationship between societies and their physical environment in market societies that are both motivated to exploit and preserve natural resources and, (2) to explore the kinds of institutional arrangements that may be required to manage the water supply in a collaborative and sustainable manner. …

Effects Of Professional Interpreter Services On The Utilization Of Health Care Services Of Different Language/Cultural Groups, Amanda Fleming Petrik

Dissertations and Theses

Immigration has affected the number of U.S. residents who speak little or no English. These residents have limited English proficiency. Research studies have indicated discrepancies in medical interpretation and medical care. However, differences in health care between the language/ cultural groups are rarely recognized as health discrepancies.

This research project is a quasi-experimental design, testing differences between the four major language groups in the greater Portland, Oregon area. These four major language/cultural groups speak Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish and Russian.

A secondary data analysis was used to compare the differences in utilization of emergency room services, routine services, and urgent care …

Traditional And Non-Traditional Dispute Settlement In The Federated States Of Micronesia, Kris Tina Yurgin Cummings

Dissertations and Theses

The current U.S. mediation system is founded on a paradigm of individual focus and Western values. This model may fail to represent the various cultural components disputants from more collective cultures may bring to the mediation process. In addition, the U.S. mediation system relies on the collaboration of two or more disputants to confront the issues between them. Again, this model presupposes that confrontation is an appropriate means of conflict resolution.

The purpose of this study is to offer a different perspective of dispute settlement as practiced in the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Cultural values that emphasize the social …

An Analysis Of Sex Trafficking In The Asian Region In An Era Of Globalization, Corie J. Hammers

Dissertations and Theses

Globalization, spurred on by capitalist principles, seeks the integration of countries and their economies into a single global market. Global integration has impacted countries in many ways, often negatively. Phenomena such as the illicit trade in weapons, drugs, and people for their sexual and/or physical labor, have also been facilitated by globalization. Specifically examined in this study were a) patterns of sex trafficking of women and girls in four countries: India, Nepal, the Philippines, and Thailand, and b) the various ways globalization has both impacted women's status within these countries and facilitated the sex trade.

One manifestation of globalization has …

An Analysis Of The Changing Forces Behind Health Insurance Coverage Of Homebirth, Christina Anne Gasbarro

Dissertations and Theses

The expansion of managed care, which is premised on containing costs while maintaining market share, represents a radical transformation of the U.S. health care system. A central question for medical sociologists is to determine how the changes brought by managed care influence health insurance and health care options. In evaluating the impacts of managed care, obstetrics is a particularly important site of study. Part of this agenda involves gathering baseline data on a specific transformation in obstetrics practice new to the managed care scene: the emergence of health insurance coverage for the option of home birth. The research project detailed …

Who's In The Pew? A Study Of Religious Disengagement Among Young Adults, Jodi Brekhus

Dissertations and Theses

This investigation sought to understand religious disengagement among young adults in the U.S. Specifically, it addressed the following questions: How can the trend toward religious disengagement among young adults in the 1990s be explained?

In an attempt to answer these questions, several existing models and perspectives which attempt to explain the social causes of religious disengagement among young adults were presented. These are the following: age-based, social learning, traditional beliefs, the family-life cycle, religious innovation, localism and deprivation.

These models and perspectives were combined to create several hypotheses, which were then tested with data collected from General Social Survey (GSS). …

Attitudes At The Bank : A Survey Of Reactions To Different Varieties Of English, Sean Wilcox

Dissertations and Theses

In the modem world of international communication, it is more common for speakers of different varieties of English to come into contact with each other on a daily basis. This can occur not only in face to face communication, but in telephone communication as well.

This study investigates the attitudes towards a non-native or Expanding Circle (ECE) variety of English held by telephone customer service representatives at a large American financial institution. The central question of this study asks whether or not these telephone representatives will rate a speaker of a Korean-accented variety of English higher or lower than a …

Black Women's Health: A Content Analysis Of The Journal Of The American Medical Association, The American Journal Of Public Health, And The New England Journal Of Medicine (1989-1998), Tonia Marie Burkett

Dissertations and Theses

According to the National Vital Statistics Report (1998), Black women age 45-64 are ten times more likely than white women of the same age to die from diseases of the heart. They are five times more likely to die from diabetes. The goal of this study was to examine how articles published in leading medical journals between 1989 and 1998 accounted for such differences in health outcomes among Black and white women.

The explanatory content of the articles was analyzed and coded according to four types of attributions: genetic/biological, cultural/behavioral, structural/socioeconomic and alternative. Each type of explanation derives from different …

The Early Years In African American Education: A Life History Approach To Evaluating Control Theory, Beverly Diane Logan

Dissertations and Theses

The concern of this study is educational achievement, disproportionately low among inner-city African-American students. Because education is so highly valued, particularly among African-Americans, underachievement is considered deviation from cultural norms.

Social control theory attempts to explain why people conform to social norms in spite of pressures toward deviance. Many adverse pressures encountered in inner-city environments and persistent features of institutional racism toward blacks in school make underachievement understandable. Hirschi's (1969) control model, therefore, seemed most appropriate for examining black student achievement.

Control theory holds that individuals conform to cultural norms when their behavior is controlled through established social bonds, which …