Digital Commons Network^™

Participation In Medical Research: Reasons Provided In Cognitive Interviews Of A Diverse Sample, Silvia Valadez

Master's Theses

Racial and ethnic minority groups are underrepresented in medical and health-related survey research, with implications for the generalizability across diverse populations of evidence gleaned from these studies. However, there is little known about the respondents’ reasons for participating—or not—in medical research studies, and how these reasons might vary across race/ethnicity, age, gender and education. In this thesis, I extend previous research by looking at data collected from cognitive interviewing techniques to examine 1) participants’ reported likelihood of participating in five increasingly invasive types of data collection, including research studies that ask participants to answer questions about themselves or provide samples …

The Power Of A Stereotype: American Depictions Of The Black Woman In Film Media, Brittany Terry

Master's Theses

How are black women depicted in popular films? The significance of this study is that it sheds new light on the ways in which black women are depicted in film, and exemplifies some means to deconstruct dehumanizing representations of ourselves. This work advances the goal of institutionalizing more accurate visual accounts of black femaleness thereby exposing the inaccuracies of the dominant gaze. This study also transparently marks my intersectional positionality as a black feminist spectator-- simultaneously privileged and marginalized. I identify as a heterosexual woman of color, raised in an upper-middle class American community. As such, I benefit from classism …

International Student Intersectionality In The Trump Era, Sarah Tolman

Master's Theses

This study examines the impact of the current U.S. presidential administration's policies and rhetoric on international student experiences and identities. The researcher approaches this question through the theoretical lens of intersectionality, with the goal of highlighting the complexity and diversity of international student identities in this unique historical moment. Through in-depth narratives collected from interviews with 8 diverse international students, it becomes clear that the 2016 presidential election and the administration's rhetoric and policies have influenced international student experiences and identities in significant ways. Students perceive the statements and actions of the current government to have shifted their perspectives and …

Language Abilities In Single- And Dual- Language Learners With Autism Or Other Developmental Disorders, Yael Dai

Master's Theses

Parents and providers worry that exposure to two languages will impair language acquisition in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or other developmental delays (DD). However, limited research to date suggests that language milestones and abilities are unaffected. The current study explored language abilities in toddlers with ASD or DD exposed to one versus multiple languages, prior to any intervention. Results showed slower language acquisition in ASD than DD but no main effect of language exposure group or interaction of language group by diagnosis. This study suggests that bilingual parents can communicate with their children in both languages without harm …

Factors Associated With Violence Against Women In Rural India, Jennifer Lardner

Master's Theses

No abstract provided.

Youth Sport Development Pathways And Experiences Of Ncaa Division I Women's College Soccer Players, Emily Hardell

Master's Theses

As youth sport has become increasingly professionalized, many believe that the route to elite level play is through early specialization. Early specialization is a contentious issue, and many risk factors have been associated with high levels and intensities of training in youth. Youth today participate in highly competitive sport in pursuit of elite levels of play, recognition, and financial gain. Early specialization is thought to be a requirement for advancement, yet little is known about the early experiences of team sport athletes who grew up in the US. This is the story of 15 elite female athletes who “made it” …

Urbanization, Land Rights And Development: A Case Study Of Waterfront Communities In Lagos, Nigeria., Gideon Olaniyi Omoniyi

Master's Theses

The aim of this study is to examine the root causes of forced evictions and displacement through the current urbanization process in Lagos, Nigeria. My particular attention is devoted to the legal complexities and how ethnolinguistic identities shape land laws, influence land tenure, and construct urban citizenship. Through this process, competing claims to land ownership provide fertile ground for forced evictions and displacement. Existing scholars suggest that poor urban residents lack rights to stay in their neighborhoods, while a powerful capitalist class has emerged and dispossessed the poor from their lands. Yet these existing approaches derived from the neoclassical and …

Exploring Employment Equity: Diversity & Inclusion In Canada’S Legislation & Policy, Vanessa Toussaint Miller

Master's Theses

Multiculturalism is considered very much a part of Canada’s national heritage and identity, becoming the first nation to adopt multiculturalism as an official policy in 1971. Over the last 40 years, the Canadian population has undergone significant changes bringing in immigrants with different cultures, ideologies, religions and ways of life. Despite the various changes in society, the multiculturalism policies have remained the same. This thesis examines Canada’s Employment Equity-a policy intended to eliminate systemic discrimination in the workplace-and its effectivity at creating a diverse and inclusive workforce. The main research question is, in the past five years, has Employment Equity …

How Patriotic Are Albanians? The Comparative Study Of Patriotic Attitudes In Albania And The Albanian Diaspora, Anxhela Spahiu

Master's Theses

In today’s post-modern digital world, patriotism may not be as prevalent as in the past. In this thesis, my principal aim is to investigate to what extent Albanians, a nationality to which I belong, identify with a patriotic attitude toward Albania. I chose to focus not only on Albanians who live in the diaspora, like myself, but also on Albanians who live in Albania. I believe that to understand national pride to its fullest, you must study the attitudes of those who live in the country of origin as well as of those who live in the diaspora. Many people …

The Chinese Cultural Influence On Filipino Cuisine, Brandon Chase Lantrip

Master's Theses

This paper illustrates the impact of the Chinese cultural influence upon the Philippines with the primary focus being on Filipino cuisine. It examines how the Chinese cultural influence not only contributed to the development of Filipino cuisine, but how Chinese culture has also influenced the everyday life and culture of the Philippines through language and customary practices for over a millennium. The first section of the paper analyzes the cultural connection between China and the Philippines. The second section illustrates the Chinese language influence and it’s effect upon Filipino cuisine and culture. The third section explores the contested origins of …

Migrant Ridesharing Drivers In San Francisco: A Case Of Blocked Mobility?, Shireen Tofig

Master's Theses

Migrants have long turned to self-employment in host country labor markets due to not only racial and ethnic prejudices, but also issues of local language proficiency and lack of recognition of the academic degree from the sending country. The taxi industry, one particular occupational niche dominated by migrants, has long been studied by scholars. However, the industry has evolved into a newer and understudied form of transportation: ridesharing. This study argues that in the case of the ridesharing industry, drivers did indeed turn to the occupation because of factors such as insufficient English language level and foreign academic degrees, but …

Life Being An International Student In The United States: Acculturation, Culture Shock, And Identity Transformation, Lai Yan Vivyan Lam

Master's Theses

The population of international students at community colleges in the United States has increased significantly over the past decade. International students play a big role in building the cultural diversity on campus by bringing over different cultures and sharing their global perspective to the local community. However, they often face challenges adapting into American culture due to cultural differences in education system, language, lifestyle, etc. By looking into the acculturation process of international students to analyze the culture shock and cultural identity changes they experienced, this paper intends to seek ways to help this group of students to ease their …

Afro-Latinx Transnational Identities: Adults In The San Francisco Bay And Los Angeles Area, Koby Heramil

Master's Theses

This paper examines the identity construction of Afro-Latinas/os/x in the San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles Area. Marginalized communities predominately Black and Latina/ o/x concentrated are at the epicenter of disenfranchisement caused by the globalization of neoliberalism. Neoliberal reforms to education restrain the various nuances of pluralistic teaching, focusing only on the performance of standardized tests thus pressuring schools to center their interest in securing funding. This has greater implications for low-income communities of color where multicultural pedagogy is limited. More importantly, this association of neoliberalism reforms to education affects Afro-Latinx individuals, because they are maligned in the conversation about …

Rethinking Civil Wars: An Overview Of Literature And The Syrian Conflict Towards A Structural Definition Of Civil War, Mphatso Kaufulu

Master's Theses

Civil War is a term often used to classify a type of conflict which arises within states. This being so, the exact criteria upon which such a classification of conflict is arrived remains unclear. Additionally, political, dispensational and ideological currents have influenced the classification of conflicts within states by different scholars, so that the determination of conflicts as being civil wars rather than some other kind of intra-state conflict can seem arbitrary. Beyond just the academic implications of this arbitrariness are policy impacts as well. This is because the term civil war carries with it certain implications about the nature …

Lois Lenski, A Friend To Children: An Interdisciplinary Analysis Of A Children's Book Author, Stephanie Evans Thomas

Master's Theses

In her lifetime, Lois Lenski wrote, illustrated, and otherwise contributed to more than one hundred books for children and preteens. This study focuses on Lenski’s regional books for preteens, novels that Lenski claimed were written from real life. Using interpretive narrative analysis, this study evaluates two of Lenski’s regional novels: Strawberry Girl (1945), the 1946 Newbery award-winner and second installment in the American Regional series, and High-Rise Secret (1966), the eleventh installment in the Roundabout America series, focusing specifically on Lenski’s creative process. The analysis of Lenski’s works was contextualized using literature focusing on the concepts of character representation, authority, …

Women In Wartime Shipyards: Operating A Drill Press Was Like Using An Egg Beater, Carol A. Strohmetz

Master's Theses

This research examines the duality of the roles of American women during World War II. The research draws upon oral histories, newspaper accounts and advertisements, music and films of the time, letters and family scrapbooks, and primary and secondary sources. Most prior research focuses on either women in the workforce or women in the home. This research synthesizes all aspects of the lives of women as they navigated the hostile terrain of the male workforce and continued to perform the duties assigned to them by society. This research highlights the multiple roles that women successfully executed as they cared for …

Reassessment Of The Red Drum Stock In Mississippi Coastal Waters: The Role Of Ages 3-5 Year-Class Fish, Emily Satterfield

Master's Theses

Red Drum, Sciaenops ocellatus, are highly sought after by sport fishermen in Mississippi coastal waters. In 2016, Mississippi anglers made over 180,000 fishing trips targeting Red Drum, making it the second most targeted marine species. The current Fishery Management Plan of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, prohibits harvest of Red Drum in federal waters. Monitoring of the stock in Mississippi state waters occurs at sites that are almost exclusively estuarine, using gear types selective for juvenile fish. Additional samples come from the for-hire-industry that typically targets larger Red Drum. This project’s goal was to target age three …

A Microdebitage Analysis Of The Winterville Mounds Site (22ws500), Stephanie Leigh-Ann Guest

Master's Theses

The Winterville Mounds site (22WS500) was a civic ceremonial center of 23 mounds and is located near Greenville in northwest Mississippi. Winterville excavations as field schools are ongoing since 2005 under the direction of Dr. H. Edwin Jackson of The University of Southern Mississippi. Examination of the >1/4" (6.35 mm) mesh screened lithic material provided mixed results of reduction stages and lacked variety of non-local materials (Guest 2006, Winter 2009, McClendon 2012). Authors of these analyses called for the examination of the 1/16” (1.58 mm) water-screened lithic material to identify reduction stages and traces of non-local materials to provide evidence …

#Sayhername: Negotiating Issues Of Victimhood, Violence, And Visibility, Carol Ann Jackson

Master's Theses

This thesis analyses both news articles and tweets discussing #SayHerName and both implicit and explicit discussions of race, gender, and sexuality. Prior research on media representations of race, gender and violence has found that black women have been denied visibility as victims in unilateral media portrayals of gendered violence, which has contributed to the social problem of black women’s marginalization as their experiences of injustice become invalidated. This denial is not directly stated, rather it functions through a use of controlling images which reproduce racist, sexist, and heteronormative media messages by naturalizing black women as devious, promiscuous, and aggressive. This …

How Did We Get Here? An Inquiry Into Pop Culture, Pop Culture Icons, And America's Support Of The Degradation Of Humanity Through Mass Media Consumption, Thomas Steele

Master's Theses

This thesis focuses on the contemporary human condition associated with the consumption of current entertainment media. Sampling on modes of thought from anthropological, biological, psychological, sociological, and biographical points of view I sought to define what it means to be uniquely human. Furthermore, I sought to compare and contrast contemporary human interactions as described through research studies associated with tabloid news sources, and the entertainment industry. The results of this study were then articulated through four works of art that visually describe that which was found amongst a variety of resources. They describe the rise and fall of the careers …

Austin (22tu549): Mississippian Emergence In The Northern Yazoo Basin, Elizabeth Kay Hunt

Master's Theses

The Austin Site (22TU549) is a known transitional Late Woodland to early Mississippian village located in Tunica County, Mississippi. Compared with the cultural phases that have been developed in other regions the northern Yazoo Basin lacks a clearly defined “Emergent Mississippian” phase. This study examined the ceramic assemblage (n=30,567) from a 25% random sample of pit features to measure transitional change as a way to define an early Mississippian phase. It also explored the ways in which this site experiences the Mississippian transition and how it fits into the larger trajectory of the Mississippian phenomenon in the Southeastern United States …

Born To Run: A Grounded Theory Study Of Cheating In The Online Speedrunning Community, Christopher G. Brewer

Master's Theses

Video games represent a growing genre of media quickly becoming one of the leading forms of entertainment (Jordan, 2014). This popularity has allowed new playstyles to emerge across the video game genre, such as e-Sports and speedrunning. In particular, the speedrunning community has somewhat redefined what it means to “cheat” in a video game by accepting the use certain software and hardware violations that could be seen as “cheating” to the general gaming community. This paper examined the social construction of cheating in this digital community through the use of grounded theory methods.

When We Were Monsters: Ethnogenesis In Medieval Ireland 800-1366, Dawn Adelaide Seymour Klos

Master's Theses

Ethnogenesis, or the process of identity construction occurred in medieval Ireland as a reaction to laws passed by the first centralized government on the island. This thesis tracks ethnogenesis through documents relating to change in language, custom, and law. This argument provides insight into how a new political identity was rendered necessary by the Anglo-Irish. Victor Turner’s model of Communitas structures the argument as each stage of liminality represents a turning point in the process of ethnogenesis.

1169 marked a watershed moment as it began the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. English nobles brought with them ideas of centralized power. In …

The Influence Of Parental Communication About Sexual Health On Quality Of Emerging Adult Romantic Relationships, Jaclyn Denise Powers

Master's Theses

The research on relationships between parent-child communication about sexuality and sexual communication between adult partners is currently lacking. The current study aims to examine the influence of parent-child sexual communication on adult sexual communication when those children reach adulthood and engage in romantic relationships. Parent-child sexual communication, attachment styles, sexual attitudes, and partner sexual communication were examined for influence on the physical and emotional relationship satisfaction of emerging adults. Study 1 included a quantitative analysis with 553 emerging adults participating in an online survey, and study 2 incorporated a qualitative analysis with an additional 7 emerging adults participating in online …

Perceptions Of Hate Crimes: The Importance Of Victim Characteristics, Megan O. Iacocca

Master's Theses

Hate crimes in the United States are a growing problem that communities and affected individuals are struggling to address. Little research has been conducted regarding victim and crime characteristics’ (specifically, the SES of victim and level of bias clearly present in the incident) effects on objective evaluation. This study contains three segments, each building off the last and incorporating additional manipulations to assess non-victim interpretation of possible hate crime events. Across all phases, participants were randomly presented with a fake news story depicting a possible hate crime, in which the victim’s socioeconomic status, race, character, and presence of a racial …

A Geospatial Assessment Of Social Vulnerability To Sea-Level Rise In Coastal San Luis Obispo, Jesse A. Carpentier

Master's Theses

This project is an assessment of social vulnerability to sea-level rise in the unincorporated coastal area of the County of San Luis Obispo (County) using geospatial and statistical analysis. The intention of this assessment is to inform local climate adaptation efforts now required by state legislation. A social vulnerability index was generated at the Census block group level using 32 variables positively correlated with social vulnerability. The social vulnerability score for each block group is the sum of scores generated for the following principle components: (1) race/ethnicity and disability status, (2) social isolation and age, (3) income, and (4) housing …

Drawings From Syria's Lost Generation: Psychological Impacts Of The Refugee Crisis, Rafael Panlilio

Master's Theses

Since the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011, more than 11 million people have been forcibly displaced and exposed to violence. Even if the civil war were to end tomorrow, the refugee crisis will be expected to last for decades more. With nearly half of the refugees being children, the impact of the loss of health, education, social networks, and home environments on children have resulted in what is being called Syria‟s lost generation. A potential solution in mitigating these psychological impacts is the reintegration from refugee camps into non-camp host communities or the resettlement into other countries. …

Agricultural Technology Adoption And Adaptation Under Climate Change: Microevidence From Niger, Berenger Djoumessi Tiague

Master's Theses

Many regions of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are experiencing fast increases in human population pressure and urbanization. By 2050, feeding a planet of 9 billion people will require an estimated 50 percent increase in agricultural production. Farmers in in the Sahel are exposed to a highly variable weather over time, and to their limited adaptive capacity, therefore often use livestock as income generator, export earnings, and as insurance against weather risk. There is an increasing demand for livestock products, which increase pressure on crop residues use on the land. In this study, I use panel socio-economic data combined with village rainfall …

Do Marketing Strategies Impact Condom Sales In Uganda?, Meyhar Mohammed

Master's Theses

What attracts people to buy condoms? HIV/AIDS remain one of the biggest health dangers of the world, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. A lot of efforts have been pursued in the past two decades to drastically reduce prevalence of HIV and increase awareness about preventive mechanisms. In order to prevent relapse of success achieved so far, it is important to recognize transformation of consumer behavior due to growth in social networks, education and awareness over time. There are a lot of behavioral triggers captured by social marketing interventions in the field of public health. In an attempt to investigate the role …

The Rise Of The Maquiladoras And Crimes In Mexico, Christelle K. Bamona

Master's Theses

While it is generally argued that a stronger labor market is negatively associated with crime, there exists a “consensus of doubt” around the relationship between employment and crime. This paper examines the impact of the rise of female labor participation in manufacturing on various types of crimes in Mexico from 1998 to 2012. A fixed effects specification and an instrumental variable approach with regional and time fixed effects are employed to compare the crime rates in municipalities that were heavily exposed to local factory openings to municipalities that did not receive a labor shock of the same magnitude. By introducing …