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Sexual Intercourse : A Feminist Reading Of Strip Joint Discourse, Regina Marie Howard Yaroch

Dissertations and Theses

The discursively-constructed stereotype of stripper plays an important role in the ideology that sustains our system of sexual relations. This construction also interacts with and constrains the lived reality of actual women who earn their living in the stripping industry. This research attempts to examine this interaction by exploring the discourse that is generated by stripping industry participants. A long interview transcript is analyzed as a text to develop a feminist reading that focuses on the socio-cultural forces that make a particular story possible as well as necessary to tell. This story emerges, through the first-person account of a dancer-informant, …

Faith, Hope, And Leverage: Attributes Of Effective Faith-Based Community Organizations, Richard White

Dissertations and Theses

In 1835, Alexis deTocqueville acknowledged in Democracy in America that the "intellectual and moral associations" of the United States were vital to its social, economic, and political health. Citizen voluntarism in the United States begins with the neighborliness of its early history and branches out through a bewildering variety of nonprofit organizations and voluntary associations. Throughout the history of the United States churches have played a vital role in civic volunteerism and politics. In the inner-urban core of America's largest cities, churches are frequently the last institution to leave, long after other social and economic institutions have fled. The call …

Undergraduate Student Satisfaction With The Sociology Program At Portland State University, Katherine Sullivan

Dissertations and Theses

An examination of sociology student satisfaction levels is performed and an attempt is made to explain variations in degree program satisfaction. A comparison is made between current student and alumni regarding the coursework and experiences they feel should be offered in the undergraduate degree program in sociology at Portland State University (PSU). The study population consists of all PSU students who have obtained an undergraduate degree in sociology since the program's inception and all students currently attending PSU and majoring in sociology. The typical respondent is female (the ratio of females to males being higher for current students than for …

Liang Qichao, Hu Shi, And Democracy In China, Leslie Ann Burgoine

Dissertations and Theses

Democracy was one of the many Western ideas that began to be discussed among the Chinese intellectual elite in the last decades of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Liang Qichao (1873-1929), a leader of the 1895-98 Reform Movement, and Hu Shi (1891-1962), a central figure of the 1915-27 New Culture Movement, were two of the most influential proponents of democracy in modern Chinese history. Liang and Hu linked their meanings of democracy with the highest goals for China, national strength and modernity.

Liang Qichao was a revolutionary in advocating the opening of participation in politics to people outside the official government …

The Leadership Of African American Women Constructing Realities, Shifting Paradigms, Gloria Murphy Gostnell

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this qualitative study was to learn more about leadership from the perspectives, norms, and values of a selected group of African American women leaders. I sought to develop a more inclusive view of the realities of leadership, and a better understanding of the impact of the interlocking status of race, gender, and social class on the practice, pursuit, and perceptions of leadership by these women.

This study is grounded in a Black women's standpoint, and places Black women's experiences at the center of analysis. In answer to the question "How do we know the world?," the standpoint …

The Demographics, Motivations, And Role Conceptions Of Student Nurses, Steven C. Von Flue

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis investigates the following factors concerning student nurses: (1) demographic background and life experiences; (2) motivations to enter and commitment to nursing school; (3) students' conceptions of the role of a nurse; (4) comparison of students' expectations with their ideals and with the realities of nursing.

A questionnaire was administered to first year nursing students at three institutions; a four-year baccalaureate degree program and two community college associate degree programs. The two types of institutions were chosen to allow comparison between students on two different career tracks.

The findings indicate that contemporary student nurses are older than typical college …

What In God's Name: The Ordination Of Women And The Inclusive Language Liturgy Movement, Marylee L. Prince

Dissertations and Theses

In the years since World War II, increasing numbers of women have been ordained as clergy in mainstream Protestant denominations. During this period there has also been a movement to use inclusive language for God. This study examines the possibility that use of inclusive language for God in communal prayer by congregations in specific denominations (United Methodist Church, United Presbyterian Church USA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Church of Christ, and the Episcopal Church USA) is related to experience with women clergy. Interviews, based on a questionnaire developed for this study, were held with the pastors of six Portland …

Where The Extreme Right Took Root: A Comparison Of Midwestern Counties In The 1980s, Joseph B. Allen

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis evaluates two theories purporting to explain the rise of right-wing extremism in the Midwest during the farm crisis of the 1980s. The pluralist argument suggests that Midwestern right-wing extremism was rooted in previous episodes of agrarian radicalism. The political tradition perspective, on the other hand, claims that right-wing extremism in the Midwest was rooted in traditional conservatism. To evaluate these theories, an analysis of ten counties was performed. Particular attention was paid to seven variables which theorists argue point agriculturally based communities down political paths of radicalism or conservatism. Regional analyses were also performed on those counties which …

Oregon's Carry Concealed Weapon Laws: A Historical Review Of The Right To Personal Protection, Richard Meek Bash

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis reviews many of the historical, constitutional and legal factors behind today's gun control policy and how they relate to the laws governing the carrying of concealed firearms within the state of Oregon. Many legal cases are explored for their impact on the carriage of concealed weapons. A thorough examination was made of the Oregon legislative history behind HB 3470, sponsored by then-House Speaker Vera Katz, which was enacted in July 1989, was effective January 1, 1990, and became the kernel of the snowball passage of CCW (carry concealed weapon) laws within the United States. Statistical tests were conducted …

Violent Youth Gangs In Portland: A Study Of The City's Response, Debra Lynn Lindberg

Dissertations and Theses

Youth gangs infiltrated Portland's illegal drug trade in the early 1980s. By the mid-1980s, entire neighborhoods in some parts of the city were affected. Residents expressed fear that their children would be drawn into gangs. Violence between rival gangs was frightening. Citizens, law enforcement and social services personnel organized to defend themselves and adjust programs to manage the problem. City officials denied a problem existed until a gang style shooting death forced recognition. The shooting death was catalytic in that it launched an effort to respond with a continuum of services. The House of Umoja was one of the services. …

Connection, Service And Community: An Examination Of Factors That Contribute To Student And Staff Success, Robert Vieira

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the general hypothesis that student interactions with front line staff members in higher education settings have a positive impact upon student experiences, and ultimately, their persistence in colleges and universities. This study also examined the reciprocal hypothesis that this same interaction has a positive impact upon staff job satisfaction and service quality. Several bodies of literature were reviewed as a framework for the examination of these questions, including student persistence and related factors, job satisfaction, total quality management and service quality. A quasi- experimental research design was employed to examine an intervention linking new freshmen with individual …

Institutionalized Discrimination: Three Cases In The United States Military, Sarah H. Frost

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores institutionalized discrimination in the United States Military by examining the rationales given for policies that exclude, or limit the military service of racial minorities, women and homosexuals, and the rationales given for altering such policies.

Outgroups such as racial minorities, women and homosexuals are presumed to be a threat to the white male heterosexual majority within the military services. The presence of these outgroups in the military has been officially characterized as threatening to small-unit cohesion, and therefore threatening to military readiness.

This thesis was first based upon the assumption that the rationales favoring discriminatory policies, and …

The Health Belief Model As A Predictor Of Gynecological Exams: Does Sexual Orientation Matter?, Lynn Elizabeth Kunkel

Dissertations and Theses

Screening and early detection are essential for the management and control of most diseases. It is important for women to practice routine health care that includes both clinical and self examinations. Today, many women go without health care due to barriers which prevent them from obtaining adequate care. The present study was designed to investigate, using the Health Belief Model, whether there is a difference between heterosexual and lesbian women in obtaining gynecological exams. Responses from 238 participants, 70 heterosexuals and 168 lesbians, indicated that the Health Belief Model was a significant predictor of whether women complied with recommended guidelines …

School Attendance And Achievement In A Population Of Ecuadorian Underage Street Workers, Rossana Viteri

Dissertations and Theses

Underage street work is a social problem that is on the increase in Ecuador. Children, ages 5 to 17, wander through the streets in an attempt to make some money for their own survival or to help their families survive. The literature on underage street workers (USWs) reports that the working activities of these children impact their health and education. This study examined school attendance and achievement of USWs who are affiliated with an underage workers program in Ecuador. Using a quantitative methodology, the study looked at variations by location and age, with a special focus on gender issues, as …

Economic Development And Income Inequality: The Taiwan Case, Ju-Kuang Chang

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines income inequality in Taiwan from three perspectives: economic development, political democracy, and world-system/dependence. Education, population growth, population structure, unemployment, savings, and export growth are treated as variables. Below are the important conclusions.

Economic development has an effect on income inequality. The level of development is crucial. In the 1950s and 1960s, the relationship was significant, but in the next two decades economic development did not further decrease income inequality. Sector dualism was not a good predictor.

Democratization did not have an obvious relation with income inequality. But the stable political environment and the endeavors of government to …

Departure And Persistence: Exploring Student Experiences At The Master's Level, Jennifer Lee Zoltanski

Dissertations and Theses

This research explores the events and circumstances that lead to persistence and departure within the sociology master's program at Portland State University. It examines how individual and institutional characteristics interact and influence student decisions to dropout or continue in the master's program. It utilizes Vincent Tinto's (1993) theories of persistence and departure and his concepts of social and academic integration as they apply to sociology master's students. The purpose of the research was to describe how students became socially and academically integrated and how integration influenced patterns of persistence of departure. The aim also was to determine whether background variables …

Selling The Body: Representing The Prostitute In Maggie And Sister Carrie, Debra Zoe Gahlhoff

Dissertations and Theses

Prostitutes have played a significant role in society and literature for many centuries, both as subjects of irresistible desire and repentant shame. Although prostitution plays a role in patriarchy, female prostitutes have often defied the conventions of patriarchal society by supporting themselves outside marriage, outside the reign of religious conviction and, more recently, by seeking to continue their professional work with legal sanction. Other groups of women, such as those active in civic reform interests, have yearned for the reformation of prostitute behaviors, powerfully countering the cry from those who support prostitution and call for their legal right to pursue …

The Effects Of Positive Illusions On Perceived Racism, Miyako Jun-Ko Hayashi

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigated the effects of self-esteem, controllability, and optimism, the constructs inherent in positive illusions, on perceived racism. The perceived racism scale in this study was found to contain two dimensions, Equal Opportunity (EO) racism and Authority (AUT) racism. Thirty-seven African-American, 64 Asian-American and 100 White-American students at Portland States University (101 females, 100 males and mean age of 25 years) served as subjects. The findings revealed that both African- and Asian-American students perceived a racist atmosphere from peer students (EO racism) significantly higher than did the White-American students. However, only African-American students perceived greater racism from faculty members …

Sex-Role Stereotypes: How Far Have We Come?, Erica D. Monte

Dissertations and Theses

Parents are the first source of a child's learning of her or his gender. In fact, sex-role stereotyping of infants by parents may occur within the first 24 hours of birth. This study examined the nature of parental stereotyping on the basis of their infant's sex by obtaining parents' descriptions of their newborn and toy and clothing preferences for their newborn. In 1974, Rubin found that parents responded stereotypically to their infants on the basis of sex. Following Rubin's interview approach, 50 parent pairs from two urban hospitals were asked to participate in a parent-infant study and were subsequently interviewed …

Physical And Environmental Features That Contribute To Satisfaction With Hospice Facilities, Arezu Movahed

Dissertations and Theses

Improving the quality of remaining life for individuals who are terminally ill and their families is an issue that has become increasingly important in recent years. This issue has evolved from perceived deficiencies of conventional health care institutions in meeting the needs of people who are in the final stages of their life, when curative measures are no longer deemed appropriate. In response to deficiencies in care of the terminally ill and their families, there has been a movement toward humanizing conventional health care and making it more holistic. Hospice care, which is consistent with this movement, has evolved as …

Performance Appraisal In Organizational Cultural Context, Unoda C. Moyo

Dissertations and Theses

This study examined the relationship between an organization's culture and its performance appraisal (PA) system and process. The initial phase of this study involved examining an organization's culture and the properties of its performance appraisal system from organizational archival information. Information derived from this phase of the study was later utilized to formulate interview questions, guide the search for the organizational culture survey instrument, and to construct the performance appraisal perceptions measuring instrument. This latter instrument is a quantitative measure that was later employed in testing the primary hypothesis that stated the performance appraisal process had a positive effect on …

A Non-Decision-Reaching Decision-Making Process, Wei Wei Lou

Dissertations and Theses

Decision-making processes are among the most important activities within human organizations. This dissertation is a case study of decision-making in the review of high school graduation standards in an urban school district. The review process lasted three years and was terminated before any decision was reached concerning graduation standards. The purpose of this study is to answer three questions: Why would a decision-making process be terminated before any results are achieved? Under what circumstances do decision makers choose to let the process die? What do such decision making processes reveal about the organization? This case study employs the rational choice …

Social Support In An Urban Moroccan Neighborhood: The Effects Of Social Networks, Mediation And Patronage On The Physical Health And Psychological Adjustment Of Women, Carla Ann Green

Dissertations and Theses

Although there has been a great deal of research in the areas of social networks, social support and well-being over the past two decades, little of that research has been cross-cultural, and virtually none has been carried out in countries outside the West. The present study attempted to describe the structure and functioning of the social networks of a group of relatively modern urban Moroccan women, and the associations among their social networks, social support, physical health and psychological well-being. Extensive interviews were conducted with 108 married or previously-married women who were living in a middle-class neighborhood in Rabat, Morocco. …

Women Who Select Naturopathic Health Care During The Menopausal Transition: A Study In Grounded Theory, Dorothy S. Tibbetts

Dissertations and Theses

A grounded theory method was used to investigate the experiences of women who use naturopathic medicine, a system of alternative therapy, for health care during the menopausal transition. Transcripts of 16 in-depth interviews with women who received naturopathic health care during the menopausal transition were analyzed with respect to three research questions: (a) Why do women seek naturopathic health care during the menopausal transition? (b) Do women who use naturopathic treatment for menopausal health care share similar experiences of menopause? and ( c) Are women satisfied with the naturopathic treatment they receive for menopausal health care? Conditions leading to informants' …

An Empirical Assessment Of The Gentrification Process In Northwest Portland, Oregon, Sabrina Oesterle

Dissertations and Theses

Since the late 1960s and early 1970s, many American cities experienced the process of gentrification, and there are many studies based on data from this time period. A first purpose of this study was to follow up on the development of gentrification in the 1980s. Northwest Portland, Oregon, is culturally clearly defined as a gentrifying neighborhood and was, therefore, chosen as to empirically assess this process by comparing the 1980 with the 1990 census data.

There is some theoretical confusion about the concept of gentrification. There is, however, general consensus on two aspects. The first is a physical renovation of …

A Cross-National Study Of Attitudes And Group Labeling: Multinational Corporation (Mnc) Workers In Canada, Brazil, And West Germany, Tobias Albert Ten Eyck

Dissertations and Theses

Many studies concerning multinational corporations (MNCs) are replete with theoretical models and case studies that treat MNCs as stand-alone entities. Very little time and effort is given to understanding the context in which MNCs operate. This context includes not only the fact that MNCs transcend national boundaries (political as well as geographical), but also the meaning of work and being part of a multinational work force for those employed within MNCs. This thesis is an effort to elucidate how the political/societal/cultural contexts of different host countries affect the attitudes of those workers most directly involved with foreign-owned MNCs. By shifting …

The Particular Nature Of Long-Term Lesbian Relationships, Karen Marie Freeman

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the characteristics of long-term lesbian relationships (operationally defined as five or more years) and to compare these characteristics with prior findings on short-term or term non-specific lesbian relationships. Several studies that have been done made assumptions about the nature of lesbian relationships based on data gathered from women in brief relationships (Caldwell and Peplau 1984; Elise 1986; Gordon 1980; Krestan and Bepko 1980). This study was designed to examine whether or not lesbians in long-term relationships might have different interpersonal relational dynamics, just as married heterosexual couples have been shown to have …

"I Don't Speak My Own Language": Ethnicity Among The Malayalees Of Singapore, David L. Moore

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis is an ethnographic examination of the significance of Malayalee ethnicity in Singapore. Ethnic identity is important in the daily lives of Singaporeans, due in part to the government-directed public focus in Singapore on the ideal of multiculturalism through which it is asserted that to be Singaporean, one must be, in the main, Chinese, Malay, or Indian. But other identities, such as Malayalee, a subset of the larger category "Indian", have not decreased in importance. They, in fact, remain important in identifying what kind of Chinese, Malay, or Indian a person is, as Chinese, Malay, or Indian identifies what …

Illness And The Treatment Response: The Patient's View, Nina Patricia Van Es

Dissertations and Theses

In American society, where the biomedical profession is institutionalized and its therapies dominate health care, a decision to deviate from prevailing norms can be considered remarkable. Yet research done by Eisenberg et al. (1993) found that unconventional or alternative medicine had an "enormous presence" in U.S. health care and that one in three persons had utilized an unconventional therapy in 1990. The objective of this thesis was to explore this phenomenon.

Individuals who had used alternative and biomedical intervention to treat a disorder were recruited through practitioners of alternative therapies. Through semi-structured interviews, case histories focusing on the illness trajectory …

Culture And Consensus: The Use Of Mathematical Models To Examine A Culture Of Sports In The Portland Metropolitan Area, Phillip M. Crawford

Dissertations and Theses

The question of what constitutes a culture has often been answered in one phrase: shared knowledge. Recent developments in both the theory and mathematics of examining this shared cultural knowledge allow researchers to produce mathematical models of informants' knowledge and perceptions of the culture they belong to. Many studies in cognitive anthropology have utilized these theoretical and mathematical tools: the present research sought to integrate a research design (based on the theory and mathematics mentioned above) with a relatively new cultural domain: the culture of sports.

Three main question pertaining to cultural knowledge were addressed in this research:

1. Did an …