Digital Commons Network^™

Educational Attainment In The Rio Grande Valley, Denise Molina Castro

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Student Loans And Their Effect On Parental Views Of Education Financing, Jose Angel Nunez

Honors Theses

Using the 2012 wave National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, this study examines the effect that parents' student debt have on their decision to use tax advantage education vehicles to save for their children's college. We also examine parental decisions on obtaining student loans on behalf of their children. The results show that parents who report having student loans are 61% less likely than those that report no student loan debt to use tax-advantaged education saving vehicles. However, we find no difference in the effect of having student loans on the decision to obtain debt to fund their children's college …

The Promise Of Justice: Are Public And Private Defense Equal?, Alicia Linzmeier

Honors Theses

This thesis attempts to uncover whether or not differences in unclassified felony and first-degree felony case outcomes arise as a result of the type of counsel representing the defendant. The types of defense counsel addressed in this project include public defenders, appointed counsel, and private counsel. This research project specifically focuses on Butler, Greene, and Montgomery Counties in Ohio, in order to cultivate large enough samples for statistical testing. The felony cases that were examined include aggravated murder, murder, rape, voluntary manslaughter, and kidnapping. Existing research (Cohen, 2014; Levine, 1975; Hartley, Miller, and Spohn, 2010; and Williams, 2002) largely shows …

The Possibility Of Communal Biases In Alibi Evaluation: The University Of Dayton, Norbert Wessels

Honors Theses

Considering the lack of data surrounding its influences, the current study aims to investigate the influence of identification with a geographic community on the alibi generation process. It does this by examining three questions:

• Do geographic cues allow you to identify with an alibi generator, and therefore have bearing on the evaluation of said alibi?
• Does identification with the alibi generator lead to stronger alibi evaluations?
• Do the answers to the previous two questions indicate bias?

To do this, 104 students at the University of Dayton were asked to engage in an alibi evaluation scenario that judged their opinion on …

Why Isn’T There A Garden At School? Assessing Five River Metro Parks’ Green Schoolyards Program, Kaleigh Jurcisek

Honors Theses

School gardens have been shown to have positive effects on children’s academic performance and personal lives. Five Rivers’ Metro Parks has a program in place to encourage and assist schools, within the Dayton region, to implement school gardens and/or habitats. This research examines the efficacy of the Green Schoolyards program through surveys and interviews with teachers and staff of 15 schools where the program has made at least one contact. This research will help inform the Five Rivers staff by identifying perceived benefits and constraints related to implementing school gardens, and may facilitate the expansion of the Green Schoolyards program. …

Women, War, And Social Memory In Peru: The Posthumous Careers Of Edith Lagos And María Elena Moyano, Meghan Kelly

Honors Theses

During the internal armed conflict between the Shining Path and the Peruvian state, women participated in important ways that are under-recognized in the scholarly literature. In this thesis, I examine the lives, deaths, and hero cults surrounding Edith Lagos and María Elena Moyano, two of the best-known women from this period. Edith Lagos, a young, white militant recruited by Sendero, was killed by the Peruvian police in 1982, while Moyano, an Afro-Peruvian activist from a low-income district of Lima, was assassinated by the Shining Path in 1992. I argue that the shifting narratives surrounding Lagos’s and Moyano’s lives and deaths …

Dear Reader, How Do We Go On? Letters Of Reflection On Community Care In Climate Activism In Maine, Ester Topolarova

Honors Theses

Climate activist groups in Maine often see their members become too tired to continue organizing. Thus, I decided to explore how these activists enact community care. I conducted my fieldwork with 350 Maine and its local nodes. I explore community care as a practice and as an aspiration. Community care is practiced through the acts of people taking care of each other. Aspiration, therefore, is a way of living and seeing the self as striving to replicate the world activists are fighting for. I conceptualize care as racialized, gendered, classed, and embedded in neoliberal capitalism. In activist meetings, care is …

The Process Of Reclaiming Tribal Sovereignty Through Healthcare Autonomy, Karolina A. Serhan

Honors Theses

This honors thesis explores the complex interplay between health status, healthcare, and tribal sovereignty among native communities in the United States. These relationships are explored through analyzing the paradoxical and condescending nature of the Federal Trust Responsibility in relation to government-organized healthcare programs for natives. In establishing this relationship, the thesis goes on to illustrate how native communities have effectively fought to regain sovereignty through reclaiming autonomy of their healthcare systems through the use of the 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act. The impact of tribal-led healthcare systems is further explored through an in-depth case study conducted regarding the …

Social Class Identity Development And Elite Schools, Sarah Peck

Honors Theses

This project explores the ways in which students’ identities are shaped and created at an elite school in a large metropolitan city in Chile, called Croft School. The project focuses on the ways in which privilege is reproduced at this elite institution and how the school inadvertently and purposefully teaches its students lessons about social class. In order to examine these lessons, interviews with students, alumni, teachers, and administrators as well as a site visit to Croft’s campus were conducted. These methods were used to analyze the students’ understandings of themselves and the ways that the school attempted to shape …

Small Town, Big Future: Preparing Rural Maine Students For College, Elizabeth C. Huber

Honors Theses

While the need for a college degree has increased in the knowledge economy era, acquisition of this degree has remained difficult for low-income and first-generation students. At the same time, college preparatory programs designed for this demographic of student tend to be clustered in urban centers while very little focus is given to disadvantaged students in rural communities. The academic prospects of rural students in regards to higher education are the focus of this project. More specifically, this project explores the ways in which college-cultured programs may address the educational needs of students living in rural communities. By doing in-depth …

Visions For Waterville's Future: Perceptions Of Its Residents, Alex Wolansky

Honors Theses

Mills and factories in the United States have steadily been closing down as industry is outsourced in the globalized economy. Cities that were once prosperous face decay and often have no hopeful future outlook. Post-industrial towns face major unemployment and poverty and are not typically places for re-investment. But Rust Belt cities like Baltimore, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee and St. Louis are not the only post- industrial hubs that are struggling. Many small towns in rural areas once thrived from manufacturing and are becoming forgotten. Local governments, policy makers, urban planners, developers and scholars are working to figure …

Cicig In Guatemala: The Institutionalization Of An Anti-Corruption Body, Greg M. Morano

Honors Theses

When is the institutionalization of anti-corruption bodies possible in Latin America? Central America’s Cold War era internal conflicts destabilized the Northern Triangle’s governments and greatly weakened judicial institutions. The legacy of these conflicts led to the creation of parallel corrupt networks that infiltrated state institutions and perpetuated impunity and violence. However, in Guatemala, the institutionalization of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (Comisión Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala, CICIG) has improved the country’s ability to prosecute high-level corruption against the threat of powerful and corrupt state actors. A comparative analysis of the tenures of CICIG’s three commissioners reveals …

Gender Perception Of The Rationales Behind Vegetarianism, Nicholas Tallant

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Violence And Edification In 19th Century Fiction: An Analysis Of The Novels Of Charles Dickens And Leo Tolstoy, Caroline Fassett

Honors Theses

This Thesis argues that violence is essential to the structures and plots of Charles Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge and A Tale of Two Cities and of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karenina, and is particularly essential to the edification, or the moral and intellectual improvement, of principal characters in these four novels. Additionally, this Thesis contends that this edification is both anticipated and reinforced by the novelists’ incorporation of counterparts whose demeanor and/or narrative overtly mirror that of the principal characters.

To support this argument, I bring the theory of Thomas Carlyle into conversation with the novels of Dickens …

Nature And Human Flourishing In The Laws Of Manu And The Daodejing, Qijing Zheng

Honors Theses

By comparing the interpretation of dharma in the ancient Indian Laws of Manu (Manusmṛti) with the concepts of dao in the Chinese classic, Daodejing, this thesis discusses that, despite the plausible perception that the former represents despotic, hierarchical governance while the latter promotes freedom (and even anarchy), the two texts in fact share a similar envision of human flourishing through the following of one's nature, as well as a foundational belief that both laws and political ideals emerge from nature.

As Good As Niu: Food Sovereignty In Samoa, Emily Gove

Honors Theses

Samoa’s history as an island nation, with its cultural heritage of migratory peoples, followed by settler colonialism and missionaries, has resulted in its uniquely amalgamated food system. Cuisine varies from traditional crops and recipes to imported canned goods, although dependence on the latter has led to wide-ranging health problems. A way to confront these problems is through reclaiming local cuisine, renewing its popularity and promoting the concept of food sovereignty. Through fieldwork based on surveys, interviews, and participant observation in Apia, complemented with a study of activist Robert Oliver’s new cookbooks on Pacific cuisine, this project examines current themes …

Political Communication In The Online Era: Moral Psychology Of News Media Consumption, New Forms Of News Media, And Political Communication, J. L. Watts

Honors Theses

Drawing on data from the moral psychology of political communication and literature on news media consumption, this thesis explores the relationships between new forms of news media and longstanding trends in the moral psychology of political communication. By discussing dynamic changes in the form and content of news media, as well as the new venues through which it is experienced, this thesis highlights three areas in which new forms of media place pressure on existing literature. Namely, it holds that the ways in which individuals experience new forms of news media place pressure on existing literature centering around the homogeneity …

Loneliness, Meaning In Life, And Depressive Symptomology In College Students, Abigail Oehler

Honors Theses

The present study aimed to better understand the relationship between loneliness, meaning in life, and depressive symptoms in college students. Two-hundred and forty-seven participants, ages 18-37, completed self-report measures about their experience with depressive symptoms (Depression Anxiety Stress Scale), loneliness (UCLA Loneliness Scale- Version 3), and meaning in life (Meaning in Life Questionnaire). The following was hypothesized: 1) symptoms of depression, loneliness, and meaning in life will be significantly related; 2) meaning in life will mediate the relation between loneliness and depressive symptoms. Results demonstrated all constructs were associated as expected (ps<.001). Contrary to hypothesis, meaning in life did not mediate the relation between loneliness and depressive symptomatology. However, post hoc regression analysis illustrated that loneliness was the only unique predictor of depressive symptoms. This study suggests more research is warranted on understanding specific mechanisms relating loneliness to depressive symptoms in college students.

(N)Ostalgic Consumption And The Former German Democratic Republic, Savannah Coleman

Honors Theses

This study examines the consumer psychology of nostalgia. It specifies, focusing on consumer products that are associated with the former German Democratic Republic. My research studies the Ostalgie phenomenon through the lens of nostalgic consumption. The study is focused on understanding the relationship between the consumer psychology of nostalgia and the theory of 'Ostalgie' and what implications such a relationship could have. I took previously discussed concepts and theories of nostalgic consumption and observed if they played a role in the consumption of East German goods. I conducted and distributed surveys to eighty-eight Germans above the age of twenty-eight. Both …

Eta In Spain: Explaining Basque Violence, Jenny Kern

Honors Theses

My thesis focuses on Euskadi ta Auskatasuna (ETA), a terrorist group in País Vasco, Spain and attempts to determine the causes behind ETA's violence. I focus on three areas of study: the political situation of País Vasco, the public opinion, and the economic situation of País Vasco. Data is collected from the Basque government, the EuskoBarómetro, and World Bank, and showed in correlation with ETA attacks to discern patterns. Due to limited data, my area of study focuses mainly on ETA's later years, when they were less active. This allows me to focus on the periods of the ceasefires in …

Re Magazine And The Politics Of The Little Magazine, Jesse Webb

Honors Theses

The little magazine played a widely significant role in the political and cultural history of Western civilization. Literary and ephemeral in nature, the little magazine gave birth to Modernism in the early 20th century by publishing the works of little known authors such as William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot to name a few. Later, the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States of America recognized the influential role of the little magazine and began funding magazines that spoke to the anti- communist left in Europe and in the Americas at the beginning of the Cold War. While …

Water Policy In Chile And Bolivia: A Comparative Case Study, Margaret Cartner

Honors Theses

This thesis addresses three questions: why has universal potable water access not been achieved with the water policy changes made in Bolivia between 1990 and 2000? What can be learned from the water policy changes implemented in Chile between 1980 and 1999? Finally, what changes can be made to both countries' water policies to ensure the sustainable use of water resources? To answer these questions, this thesis reviews water policy changes in Chile as a result of World Bank loans before privatization in the 1980s and compare them to the water policy changes in Bolivia as a result of World …

History And Heritage Made Accessible: The Lee County, Virginia Story, Martha Grace Mize

Honors Theses

This thesis creates a digital space to preserve the heritage of Lee County, Virginia through community input of stories, values, and beliefs, loosely based on the concept of an eco-museum as described by Corsane, Davis, and Murtas (2009). The virtual museum space includes a history of Lee County, Virginia, and the community's heritage ideals, as identified through local interviews, research, and stories. The results of the research created www.theleecountystory.com, a community-based website centered on heritage preservation that incorporates regional values identified through ethnographic research and educational information from local organizations and the University of Mississippi. The digital community space includes …

The Grove: Stories Of Cultivating Connections, Mitchell A. Dowden

Honors Theses

This thesis studies the University of Mississippi's tailgating area known as the Grove. While it explores the logistics and preparation for home game activities, this thesis looks beyond the image and into aspects not so obvious to the weekend visitor: its history, its environmental impact, the economics, and even its reflection of the progress and challenges surrounding race. This is not intended to be a supreme authority or academic analysis of the Grove, but instead a journalistic piece reflecting the stories and personal anecdotes I encountered. To gather information, I conducted live interviews with people familiar to the Grove in …

Psychosocial Care In The Syrian Refugee Crisis, Miller Richmond

Honors Theses

The Syrian civil war created millions of refugees who are internally displaced across Syria and in surrounding host countries. The use of violence and forms of warfare against the Geneva Convention make this crisis particularly traumatic for civilians, leading to high rates of PTSD and depression among the refugee population. Relying on concepts of structural violence and the ecology of health, I justify the use of a psychosocial framework to build refugee crisis response in Jordan. I performed ethnographic fieldwork to collect data in the form of stakeholder and care provider interviews and training manuals, and I analyzed and critiqued …

Cross-Cultural Comparison Of Cosmetic Procedures In Latin America And East Asia, Rebecca Vorisek

Honors Theses

This paper explores the factors that influence women's decisions to undergo cosmetic procedures, including: globalization, westernization, patriarchy, empowerment, and endogenous factors. It specifically focuses on East Asia and Latin America focusing on South Korea, China, Brazil, and Argentina and offers a cross-cultural comparison between these regions and countries as well as between the world and the West. I compiled and analyzed data from the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) 2011 annual report to create profiles of the most common cosmetic procedures performed for each region and country, and these profiles were then compared to one another. Through my …

Comparative Analysis Of Hong Kong And Taiwan's Independence Movements: A Case Study Of Identity And Politics Using Social Movement Theory, Sarah A. Hasselle

Honors Theses

This thesis is a comparative study on the Taiwanese and Hong Kongese independence movements. Structured by social movement theory, this study focuses on how each movement evolved after a central cause and focuses on the different components of the social movements. This paper also includes an analysis on national pride in Taiwan and Hong Kong, tested by using SPSS and data from Asian Barometer. The two independence movements can both be understood through its supporters' concerns, and in both cases, identity is described as something culturally distinct from the mainland. As for determining national pride, my analysis indicates that, in …

Acceptance Of Marginalized Couples, Shaquela Hargrove

Honors Theses

Marginalized couples (i.e., those seen as dissimilar from the socialized standard) are still not completely accepted (Lehmiller & Agnew, 2006). Almost 50% of Americans still disapprove of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual (LGB) couples (Changing Attitudes on Gay Marriage, 2015) and almost 13% disapprove of interracial/interethnic couples (Newport, 2013). When these couples perceive stigma due to their relationships, negative outcomes such as higher levels of depression, can occur (LeBlanc, Frost, & Wight, 2015). Previous research has identified personal factors that are similar for the acceptance of both types of marginalized couples: non-White, Republican, politically conservative, men, less educated, more religious, and …

Community Engagement Strategies For Civic Participation In Youth Development: The University Of Mississippi's Fight Against Poverty, Henry Lang-Vanderlaan

Honors Theses

This thesis examined civic participation and community engagement strategies by the University of Mississippi to fight poverty through education in Mississippi. In 2014 the McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement started an innovative approach to fight poverty through education in Mississippi. The center began a Catalyzing Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (CEED) program to establish community-university partnerships for university students to engage in communities beyond campus. I served in the program as a CEED scholar from 2015-2017. In this thesis I explored the state of an afterschool program to determine its success, and to evaluate the community engagement strategy …

Heritage, Not Hate: The Mississippi State Flag As A Conduit Of Colorblind Racism, Jenna Bailey

Honors Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine the ways in which students at the University of Mississippi employ colorblind racism in their justifications for keeping Mississippi state flag. Arguments have been made that the state flag is about history and heritage, not hate. It is this history that has led to two different meanings being associated with the flag: one about heritage and one about hate. Through an online, self-administered survey, the goal is to assess students' levels of colorblind racism and observe the arguments used in an open-ended question about their attitudes on the flag. This qualitative data …