Digital Commons Network^™

Professional Shame As Experienced By Pre-Professional Accountants, Grant R. Countess

Honors Theses

While the role of shame in professions is an emerging area of research, it has not been thoroughly studied in accounting’s professional or educational settings. Shame has been explored in engineering and nursing education with powerful implications regarding well-being and learning. This study is primarily driven by the research question, “How do pre-professional accountants experience professional shame?” Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), I interviewed three pre-professional accountants to further understand the lived experiences of shame as accounting interns. I demonstrate the insights from the analysis of these transcripts, which characterize the experience of locating identity as pre-professionals, navigating expectations, experiencing …

Social Connectedness As Experienced By Black Christian Women At A Predominantly White University, Halle Christina Miller

Honors Theses

This study examines the lived experiences of Black women attending a predominantly white Christian university and explores how they navigate social connection and belonging in this context, highlighting identity relevant experiences and intersectionality in layered identities. Literature demonstrates, social connection and belonging is an important aspect of well-being. This study serves to advance or extend theories relating to social connection and belonging by examining in particular the role that identity plays in belonging, specifically considering intersectionality and layered identities. Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), the researcher conducted in-depth interviews with three Black women who were currently enrolled in the university. …

Black Male Educator Shortage In The Mississippi Public School System: Impact, Challenges, And Intervention Strategies, Jilkiah Bryant

Honors Theses

The shortage of Black male educators in Mississippi's public school systems is a critical issue with far-reaching implications for the state's education system. Despite the state's sizable Black population, the percentage of Black male teachers remains disproportionately low, and there is little evidence of progress being made to address this issue. This paper examines the impact of the Black male educator shortage on Mississippi's education system, the challenges faced by Black male educators, and related intervention strategies to increase the number of Black male teachers in Mississippi's public school systems. Through a comprehensive literature review and interviews with Black male …

The Measurement And Treatment Of Overt Stuttering In Handwriting, Preston Dubberly

Honors Theses

While stuttering continues to be considered a speech disorder, other linguistic expressive modalities are reported as having stuttering-like disfluencies (SLD) as well. With research now defining the stuttering phenomenon as a medical disease, the modern stuttering research paradigm is now better equipped to account for SLDs in multiple expressive modalities, including handwriting. As our appreciation of stuttering crosses expressive modalities, the purpose of this manuscript is to document, describe, and define SLDs in handwriting, as well as to investigate fluency enhancement strategies for those who stutter in handwriting. The participant in this case study self-referred himself for an evaluation and …

¿Cómo Se Dice...? The Spanish Use Of Hispanic College Students, Christopher Castaneda

Honors Theses

The Spanish language is very prominent in the United States. Millions of Spanishspeakers live there, and the use of the language in their day to day lives has augmented the presence of it in an otherwise Anglophone country. However, there are certain factors that may influence how often Spanish speakers actually use their language in this country. This study sought to analyze two: the existing anti-Hispanic attitudes in the United States and the parental/caretaker level of education of Spanish-speaking people. This study aimed to conduct an analysis of college-aged Hispanic students in order to conclude the extent to which those …

The Meaning Of The Mask: Darth Vader On The Screen And The Page, Brenna Renfroe

Honors Theses

Masks can be found throughout popular culture, and their roots trace back through history. Whether on the screen, the page of a comic book, the stage, or in the halls of a Comic-Con, masked faces are intriguing. Among the numerous masked faces that populate our imagination, few are as iconic and instantly recognizable as Darth Vader from Star Wars. Despite his popularity, most of the research devoted to masked characters has been interested in why heroes such as Batman wear masks. There is little research on why a tragic hero turned villain does so, since the connotation of masks seems …

Language Experience: The Perception Of Foreign Language Acquisition Among University Adults, Lileth A. Stricklin

Honors Theses

While bilingualism has always existed within the history of the U.S. and is the global norm, mainstream approaches to learning have traditionally been monolingually centered and fail to employ approaches that produce sustainable motivation towards foreign language acquisition in students. This study sought to investigate the perceptions adult individuals display towards acquiring foreign language skills, emphasizing distinctions exhibited between monolinguals and their multilingual counterparts. A mixed-method approach in the analysis of 506 survey responses yielded results that suggest that university adults generally display positive perceptions towards foreign language learning. Distinctions in perception between monolinguals and multilinguals were very few with …

Orientalism In Arthur Golden’S Memoirs Of A Geisha, Britany Castilaw

Honors Theses

Memoirs of a Geisha is a 1997 historical fiction novel by Arthur Golden. It is told as the fictional memoirs of the late Sayuri Nitta, a famous former geisha who worked in Gion in the 1930s as one of the most successful geisha in history. Since its publication, Memoirs has been criticized for an Orientalist and historically inaccurate depiction of geisha—particularly by Mineko Iwasaki, a real former geisha whom Golden interviewed when writing the novel. The first chapter of this thesis is dedicated to an explanation of Orientalism as the problematic, stereotype-driven depictions of the East made by the West, …

Survey Of Models For "Computer Music", Gabriel Pell

Honors Theses

The introduction of digital computers to the world of music composition provided a medium from which to write far more efficiently than the traditional means of transcription. Of course, this applies to modern notation software, but it is the way in which computers have granted the composer the ability to utilize stochastic generation, algorithmic reasoning, and later, artificial intelligence that was especially groundbreaking. To be sure, there are countless models created by composers and computer scientists that utilized every aspect of the abilities granted by the technology at the time of their creation. However, there are those few models that …

Can Uruguay Have Its Steak And Eat It Too? "Greening" A Red Meat Economy, Michael Chepolis

Honors Theses

The methane emissions produced by Uruguay’s 12 million cattle drive the largest share of the country’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock farming is a driver of Uruguay’s economy and an important part of their national identity and culture. Previous researchers have suggested that drastic changes to beef production and consumption habits are necessary to reduce the ecological impact of cattle ranching. This thesis investigates how Uruguay plans to deal with its reliance on beef production as it seeks to reduce its carbon emissions output. An analysis of Uruguay’s development strategy plans reveals that while the country aims to reduce the …

Ethnicity, Nationalism, And Football: Exploring The Construction Of Ethnic Identities And Their Manifestations For Athletic Club Bilbao And Celtic Football Club, Kelly Wetherton

Honors Theses

This thesis centers on the construction of ethnic identities for fans of Athletic Club and Celtic F.C. and the two clubs’ roles in evincing nationalism. Utilizing survey data from an online, anonymous survey posted to fan forums, the research aimed to determine which of the three leading theories of ethnicity—primordialism, instrumentalism, or social constructivism—was most applicable to the formation of identities for Basque Athletic Club fans and Irish Celtic fans. The results demonstrated that the theory of social constructivism most closely aligns with the case of Basque Athletic Club fans while the identities of Irish Celtic fans can best be …

Dungeons & Dragons: Fractals Of The Human Self, Katie Anderson

Honors Theses

Dungeons & Dragons at its core is roleplay based storytelling, which implies the idea that the game is a work of fiction. While the world of Iad and the Free States of Tarvan does not exist on planet earth, the experiences and emotions felt by the players and their characters within the world are very much real. Players use extensions of themselves, their characters, to interact with the world around them, forging relationships and new lines of fate and destiny. Characters are fractals of their out of game personas, attached to one’s base personality and expanding outwards. The development of …

The Project That Claire, Uh I Mean The Student Completed: Relative Clauses And Repair Disfluencies, Claire O’Shaughnessy

Honors Theses

Several areas of psycholinguistics focus on the role of memory in language processing. Two of these areas are repair disfluencies and complex syntactic structures; however, these two topics have traditionally been investigated completely separately from one another. The current experiment combines these two topics by presenting listeners with spoken sentences containing subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs) and object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) in which the semantic similarity between the critical noun phrases (NPs) was manipulated. In addition, the sentences could be spoken fluently, or there could be a repair disfluency in which the reparandum contained information that would be potentially helpful in …

Socialist Legality On Trial: The Purge Of The Ukrainian Nkvd, 1938-1943, Reide Petty

Honors Theses

In the winter of 1938, Grigorii Iufa was put on trial in a Soviet court for the violation of socialist legality, a charge alleging that he had manipulated Soviet legal processes and undermined the rule of law during his work. Prior to his arrest, Iufa had worked in the Moldavian division of the NKVD, the Soviet Union’s state security agency. In that capacity, he had played a significant role in the Great Terror, which was a highly concentrated campaign of mass violence conducted by the Soviet Union between 1937-1938 against perceived enemies among its own citizenry. This campaign primarily consisted …

Capturing The Racial Identities Of Latiné Students At A Mid-Size Texas University, Marlena Sandoval

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

The Life Of Una Estudiante Americana: Here Y Allí, Madeline Kastel

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to analyze the differences between studying Spanish at an American university, Western Michigan University, in Kalamazoo, Michigan to that of a study abroad program at La Universidad de Burgos, in Burgos, Spain in three main areas: teaching styles in classes, extracurricular activities and student experiences.

To begin this study, it is important to note the differences in demographics and available public transportation where each study took place: Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA and Burgos, Spain. In Kalamazoo, students have the option to use the city bus system, the Metro, for free, but tend to use their …

Sociological Viewpoint Of Intersectionality: A Focus On Class, Identity And Sexual Orientation, Sue Jiun Yap

Honors Theses

This thesis by Sue Jiun Yap examines the intersectional themes of class, identity, and sexual orientation in the films Saving Face, Crazy Rich Asians, and Everything Everywhere All At Once. The thesis paper will utilize content analysis methodology to explore the concepts listed. The analysis of these films highlights their groundbreaking works that challenge heteronormative and racial narratives in the film industry. In addition to these observations, the paper highlights Asian individuals and communities facing significant complications as a result of various intersecting identities - specifically class, identity, and sexual orientation. Furthermore, it highlights how such struggles contribute significantly …

Entre Multilinguisme Et Multiculturalisme : Une Nouvelle Traduction D’Incendies De Wajdi Mouawad, Natalie Larson

Honors Theses

Incendies de Wajdi Mouawad, écrite en 2003, est la deuxième pièce de la tétralogie intitulée « Le sang des promesses ». Les quatre pièces racontent des histoires différentes mais ont des thèmes similaires. Incendies est l'histoire de jumeaux, Jeanne et Simon, qui découvrent après la mort de leur mère que leur père, qu'ils n'ont jamais connu, est vivant et qu'ils ont peut-être un frère. Ils se lancent alors dans une quête de sens et d'identité, entrecoupée de flashbacks sur le passé de leur mère dans un Liban déchiré par la guerre. Avec son langage poétique qui évoque une tragédie grecque, …

Communication Theory Analysis Of Coda Movie, Lindsay Casey

Honors Theses

This undergraduate honors thesis addresses how the hearing community views and treats the d/Deaf community. The contents of this thesis include a literature review, communication theory, and qualitative analysis of the film, CODA (2021). Findings leave the hearing community with three main suggestions to implement when interacting with the d/Deaf community. These suggestions include acknowledging the daily communication struggle amongst members of the d/Deaf community, maintenance in a conversation may lead to exploitation and finally, due to different speech codes we should enact cultural respect towards others.

The literature review consists of an overview of the d/Deaf community’s history including …

Does Culture Impact Academic Anxiety In University Students?, Angie J. Marroquin

Honors Theses

University students may experience academic anxiety when attending an institution of higher education. For this study we recruited a diverse population of college students with different cultural backgrounds to investigate if specific groups are more impacted by these experiences. The purpose of this study is to determine whether cultural factors (cultural inclusion, country of origin, language) influence academic anxiety in college students. A survey was distributed to Eastern Kentucky University students. The results indicated that cultural inclusion had the greatest impact on academic anxiety. Country of origin and language did not influence academic anxiety according to results.

Exploring Portrayals Of Cults In News Media: Establishing A Continuum, Ashley M. Reynolds

Honors Theses

This thesis examines and analyzes the way cults are portrayed by various news media outlets. The intention of this thesis and my research in general is to convey the power of media influence in forming an individual’s perspective on cults. Each news media outlet (for purposes of this thesis, this includes Fox News, CNN, and the Associated Press) has their own definition of what a cult is, and this determines how they present those “cults” to the public. To understand how individuals form their opinions about cults and what exactly cults are via the media, it is necessary to investigate …

Hollers, Hillbillies, And Higher Education: The Influence Of Dialect And Negative Stereotypes On The Academic Experiences Of Rural Appalachian College Students, Jessica D. Boggs

Honors Theses

Rural Appalachia is presented in popular culture as a region lacking in resources, morals, education, and more. Consequently, Appalachians who speak in the nonstandard language variety representative of the region are often subject to harmful stereotypes. This work examines the impact of negative stereotypes on dialectal Appalachian college students during their pursuit of higher education. This research was conducted via an anonymous survey investigating how students from specified rural Appalachian counties in Kentucky perceived their academic experiences regarding stereotypes, speaking a stigmatized Appalachian dialect, and how these influence others’ perceptions of them when attending any college or university. Hypotheses included …

Assistive And Augmentative Communication: Ethics And Possibilities In Music Therapy With Non-Speaking Clients, Amanda Bursch

Honors Theses

Music therapy is a healthcare field wherein music experiences and the myriad relationships formed between client(s), board-certified music therapist(s), and music activates health-oriented changes (Bruscia, 2014). Within this field there are multiple facets that directly impact the client’s experiences; these include: arrangement of the therapy environment, role and function of music experiences, therapeutic relationships, and communication in verbal and non-verbal forms. However, there is a gap in the education and training of music therapists concerning alternatives to verbal communication, and the use of these alternatives in therapy. Through interviews and analysis, this thesis presents findings regarding the experiences of one …

Pluralistic Ethical Personalism, Qifan Hu

Honors Theses

In the thesis, I sketch out a general outline for a pluralistic, personalist theory of ethics. This theory intends to capture the phenomenon that our life experience is saturated with ethical and other kinds of values; and it also emphasizes the idea that each ethical agent, or human being, has a unique ethical project that is understandable in light of various ethical values.

Map, Census, Museum: Imagining The Malaysian Nation-State And The Malay Identity, Jackson Rockett

Honors Theses

Using historian Benedict Anderson's framework from his seminal text Imagined Communities of examining nation-building and identity construction through colonial artifacts, this thesis turns to maps, censuses, and museums to better understand the colonial and post-colonial imagining of the country that is now known as Malaysia. Reconciling with regional histories that predate the nation-state and defy the contemporary boundaries of territoriality, this thesis largely seeks to elucidate the contestation between colonially-imposed ideas of spatiality, categorization, and the reproduction of history with the modern Malaysian nation-state and the conflation of ethnicity with nationalism from which much of this contestation is derived from.

The Underrepresentation Of Women In Japanese Politics: Through The Lens Of Sekuhara, Sexism, And Media Rhetoric, Elizabeth L. Whitmer

Honors Theses

Despite being a democratic and economically successful country, women in Japanese politics are extremely underrepresented. Since institutional factors do not explicitly prohibit women from holding office, this project turns to cultural factors to analyze this problem. Issues such as strict gender roles, sexual harassment, and rhetoric surrounding women politicians are some factors contextualizing the lives of Japanese women. In order to better understand these cultural barriers, this project turns to content analysis of news media in Japan to consider the ways in which women politicians are framed to the electorate, which may thus explain the low rates of elected women.

The Anti-Racist Pedagogical Approach To Jane Eyre And The Victorian Novel, Jazmine Casas

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Linguistic Imperialism: A Critical Analysis Of English Hegemony And Its Effect On English Language Learners, Linley King

Honors Theses

This study uses previous research and qualitative data to determine how foreign language teachers can present English to learners as an international communicative tool while also preserving their native L1 identity amidst hegemonic cultural influences. Since becoming a lingua franca, the majority of English users are non-native speakers, and the findings of this study explain how English has globally spread to create distinctive linguistic groups among these speakers and the importance of promoting the equality of their English variations against the “standard” dialect used in current monolingual English language teaching (ELT) policies (Canagarajah, 1999; Duff, 2005; Schmitz, 2014). Responses from …

Emotionally Unavailable: A Comparison On The Ability Of Children With Developmental Language Disorders To Interpret Emotions In Humans And Inanimate Objects, Savanna B. Gullett

Honors Theses

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is a neuro-developmental condition that emerges in early childhood and can persist into adulthood, manifesting as a variety of symptoms that can be significantly different in each individual. It has an estimated prevalence of 7.58% and is nearly 7 times more common in children than autism spectrum disorder (McGregor, 2020). As a population, individuals with DLD are at risk of facing significant issues in associating areas of language, including reading comprehension, problem-solving abilities, and social skills. Professionals have noticed emotional disconnect amongst individuals with DLD, leading to the proposition that those with DLD may have a …

Indirectly And Directly Involved Students' Perspectives On Multi-Modal Communication Treatment In Persons With Aphasia, Emily Lewis

Honors Theses

Our study investigated the perspectives of students who were either directly or indirectly involved in the Multi-modal communication treatment (MCT) sessions for persons with aphasia. Two undergraduate and two graduate students were recruited from the University of Mississippi who participated in the MCT sessions. We collected their perspectives through semi-structured interviews and used thematic qualitative analysis to analyze our data. We reported themes from the indirectly involved students and the directly involved students and compared how the themes were similar and different between the indirectly and directly involved students. We discussed that both direct and indirect experience for clinical therapy …