Digital Commons Network^™

The Role Of Differentiation Of Self And Self-Construal On Satisfaction With Life And Psychological Well-Being In A Brazilian Sample, Kavya Dhaipulle

Theses and Dissertations

The present study intended to confirm the self-construal dimensional model and to examine the cross-cultural applicability of Bowen’s Family Systems theory in the Brazilian context. Bowen’s concept of Differentiation of Self (DoS) has gathered substantial empirical evidence for its association with well-being; however, only a few studies have examined these constructs within Latin American cultures, including Brazil. Recent studies have indicated that independent and interdependent self-construal coexist in many Latin American cultures, such as Brazil. Therefore, the current study examined how the unique blend of independent and interdependent values in Brazilian culture relates to their DoS, overall psychological well-being, and …

The Processing Of Emotional Prosody And Semantics In Native And Non-Native Chinese Speakers, Cheng Xiao

Theses and Dissertations

Emotional information in spoken language is conveyed through both semantic and prosodic cues. While listeners interpret the meaning of utterances (what is said), they also detect the speaker’s emotional prosody (how it is said). For non-native speakers, processing these two types of information simultaneously can be challenging, particularly in a tonal language such as Mandarin Chinese, where the same acoustic feature (i.e., pitch) encodes both lexical semantics and emotional prosody. This dissertation reports a series of behavioral and fMRI experiments investigating how native and non-native Chinese speakers perceive and process emotional prosody and semantics in words and sentences. Behaviorally, results …

Reflections Of Linguistic Experiences In A Borderland: Influences On Cultural Identity And Teacher Praxis, Iliana Cantu

Theses and Dissertations

This Autoethnographic dissertation uses autohistoria-teoria to critically analyze my lived curriculum as a Mexican-born raised in the borderland of the Rio Grande Valley. This research aims to understand the influence of my linguistic experiences on my cultural identity and teaching praxis within the same context. Drawing from Anzaldua’s (1987) concept of Borderlands as a contextual lens and Raciolinguistics as a theoretical framework, I examine and reflect on key linguistic experiences that have perpetuated colonizing linguistic practices rather than fostered linguistic diversity. Additionally, Culturally Linguistic Sustaining Pedagogy serves as a framework to critically analyze my teaching praxis in relation to my …

Varieties And Domains: A Syncretic Synthesis Of Law And Justice In India ( Including A Special Emphasis On Alternate Dispute Resolution), Amrith Bhargav B

Theses and Dissertations

From the abstract idea of Dharma that enabled the practice and sustenance of local custom and usage, law was defined without verbiage but in meanings and understandings. In the colonial age, law was constantly being defined and codified not just textually, but through projects of economies of politics, knowledge and power in a way that their transactional metrics produced social and cultural genres that changed India forever. In that state of play, lawyers and their associated players contributed to the emerging culture of power and dominance with their tool of making the law through cases and mainstreamed the colonial legal …

Action Research To Explore The Use Of Augmented Reality To Support High School Students In Understanding And Creating Art Work In A Drawing Course, Alicia Joanne Cobler

Theses and Dissertations

High school students in Drawing 1 at a high school in South Carolina struggle to understand meaning or make personal connections to their own artwork. The purpose of this action research was to evaluate the implementation of immersive reality technology, specifically augmented reality (AR), in art for high school Drawing 1 students to help them understand meaning in art and create their own meaningful artwork. Creating personally meaningful symbolic works of art is one of the first Visual Art National Core Standards (National Core Visual Art Standards, 2014). Creating meaning in artwork allows students to understand society, provide an opportunity …

The Mystery Of Narrative Structure: How Scooby-Doo Challenges Episodic Conventions, Evrie Joy Pruitt

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how the Scooby-Doo franchise employs narrative complexity within an episodic formula, balancing accessibility with layered storytelling. Analyzing two pivotal iterations, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! (1969) and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010), the research challenges the perception that episodic animation is inherently simplistic.

While the original series established a consistent mystery-of-the-week format, characterized by predictable structures and comedic relief, it also demonstrated narrative ingenuity through character dynamics and tonal balance. Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! navigated the industrial constraints of Saturday morning cartoons, designed for syndication and commercial viability, by embedding recurring character dynamics, atmospheric tension, and iterative mystery tropes …

Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos: Hip-Hop And The Carceral State In The East San Francisco Bay Area, William Maclane Hull

Theses and Dissertations

“Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos: Hip-Hop and the Carceral State in the East San Francisco Bay Area” explores the histories of urban redevelopment and deindustrialization, racialized poverty, police and the carceral system, and hip-hop culture in Oakland and other parts of the eastern San Francisco Bay Area. It explores East Bay politics and urban development in the 1900s, which resulted in the flight of industries and wealthy white residents to the suburbs and the erosion of public services. Black community organizations and funk music alike articulated the damages done by these processes in the 1960s. Subsequently, politicians and …

Emotional Landscapes: St. Teresa Of Avila And The Spiritual Journey, Jillian Louise Breeden

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the writings of St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) through the methodological lens of the history of emotions, arguing that her mystical accounts represent a crucial yet understudied contribution to our understanding of early modern emotional frameworks. Through close textual analysis of Teresa's major works, this study demonstrates how her detailed articulations of spiritual ecstasy, divine love, and religious melancholy offer unique insights into both the religious and secular emotional landscapes of Counter-Reformation Spain. Teresa's innovative emotional vocabulary, which combined traditional Catholic devotional language with embodied metaphors and spatial conceptualizations, allowed her to navigate the complex ecclesiastical politics …

The Penn Center’S Impact On Rural Health Through Midwife Programming In 20Th Century South Carolina, Kathryn Addison Greenberg

Theses and Dissertations

The Penn School of the Sea Islands provided an education to thousands of rural, Black South Carolinians over the twentieth century. Northern missionaries including the founders of the Penn School, Laura M. Towne and Ellen Murray, taught and provided healthcare to the residents of the Port Royal Experiment through the Civil War and into Reconstruction. With the arrival of Rossa Cooley and Grace House, the Penn School put emphasis on auxiliary programing including midwifery training institutes held in conjunction with Dr. Hilla Sheriff and the South Carolina Department of Public Health’s Division for Maternal and Child Health. With the goal …

Development Of Biodegradable Mg-1zn-0.5sc Alloy & Surface Treatment Through Laser Shock Peening And Evaluation Of Microstructure & Property Correlation For Orthopedic Implants, Parameshwari R

Theses and Dissertations

Magnesium (Mg) and its alloys are of much interest as promising third-generation bio-materials for bone implant applications; however, challenges remain for the alloy's mechanical integrity and bio-corrosion behaviour. Therefore, appropriate alloying elements and surface-modification techniques are required to overcome these limitations. Zinc (Zn) and Scandium (Sc) elements were found to have good biocompatibility and biodegradability; hence, they were selected as suitable alloying elements for magnesium.

This research work aims to enhance the mechanical integrity and bio-corrosion resistance behaviour of a novel Mg-1wt% Zn-0.5wt% Sc cast alloy by laser shock peening surface treatment with multiple passes (LSP-2 Pass and LSP-3 Pass). …

Videos As Video Game Preservation, Scott Tyler Bradshaw

Theses and Dissertations

Video games have become culturally significant in society and are deserving of being preserved. There are many ways to preserve video games such as emulation, migration, and reissue. But recordings of video games have the special designation of being able to faithfully depict a game, which is an advantage it has over other preservation methods. This paper explores the advantages and disadvantages of various preservation methods while putting recordings forward as an equal method that can assist in its own way. Furthermore the concept of documentary style videos for video games is explored with input by archivists as well as …

Who's At Home?: Individual-And Family-Level Sociodemographic Characteristics Associated With Stay-At-Home Motherhood, Deegan Minchey

Theses and Dissertations

In this study, I assess the relationship between various types of demographic variables, including individual, partner, and family-level information, and the likelihood of mothers staying at home. Using nationally representative data from the 2019,2021, and 2023 waves of the Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) to the Current Population Survey to account for differences across the COVID-19 pandemic, this analysis examines the likelihood of becoming a stay-at-home mother (SAHM) across three separate regression models. From the variables analyzed, I find that various individual, family, and partner demographic characteristics are significantly associated with the likelihood of becoming a SAHM. These results …

The Influence Of Father Involvement On Early Childhood Outcome In China, Shuiyan Guo

Theses and Dissertations

Using a sample from China, this study examined the influence of father involvement on child outcome in early childhood in areas of internalizing problems, externalizing problems and prosocial behaviors. The participants were drawn from the larger PACIFIC project, a cross-cultural study of family processes in Asia. 479 families with a preschool or kindergarten child living in Beijing and Dalian, China were included in this study. Using multiple regression analysis, result indicated that father involvement was not significantly associated with child’s internalizing problems, externalizing problems, and prosocial behaviors. Moderation analysis was also conducted and found that the effect of father involvement …

“Sometimes The World Don’T Give You What You Need”: Black Motherhood And Kinship As Resistance To Necropolitics In Jesmyn Ward’S Bois Sauvage, Hailey N. Reeder

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how Black motherhood and kinship serve as subversive forces within necropolitical landscapes in Jesmyn Ward’s Where the Line Bleeds, Salvage the Bones, and Sing, Unburied, Sing. Drawing on Achille Mbembe’s theory of necropolitics, this study examines how the economic and social constraints of these environments disrupt Black family structures, emphasizing the necessity of kinship for survival. In Where the Line Bleeds, Cille’s absence disrupts traditional family roles, yet kinship networks allow the family to endure. In Salvage the Bones, Esch’s journey redefines the “bad” Black teen mother stereotype, highlighting how kinship offers support amidst stigma. In Sing, …

‘Good Old John Decker’: Confronting Entrepreneurial Challenges In The Mid-Nineteenth Century Rio Grande Borderlands, Grace C. Maciel

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

'Good Old John Decker': Confronting Entrepreneurial Challenges In The Mid-Nineteenth Century Rio Grande Borderlands (May 2025)

Grace C. Maciel, M.A., Texas A&M International University

Chair of Committee: Dr. Jerry Thompson

This thesis presents the first scholarly study of John Decker, a French-born immigrant whose rise as a merchant and civic figure in the 19th-century U.S.–Mexico borderlands offers a compelling case of adaptability, resilience, and immigrant success. Settling in Rio Grande City and Camargo, Tamaulipas, Decker built a lasting presence during a period marked by regional volatility, navigating war, revolution, and economic transformation. His story is explored across five chapters, …

Garden Of Fragments, Justin Muegge

Theses and Dissertations

Justin Muegge's paintings take the aesthetic experience of garden spaces as a vehicle to explore abstraction. Referencing his research in traditional Chinese Scholar's Gardens, Muegge explores the conceptual premises of their design philosophies, raises questions on the history of abstraction and his own work, and expands upon themes in his painting.

Examining Components Of The Interpersonal Psychological Theory Of Suicide In A Clinical Sample Of Children With Suicidal Thoughts And Behaviors, Alana Brixner Nunes

Theses and Dissertations

Suicide is the second leading cause of death among 10- to 14-year-olds. Despite a need to identify risk factors for suicide among children, there is limited research on suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) in childhood. The interpersonal psychological theory of suicide (IPTS) suggests that the desire for suicide emerges from perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness and that the transition from suicide ideation (SI) to a suicide attempt (SA) results from an acquired capability for suicide. However, no research has examined whether the IPTS applies to suicidal thoughts and behaviors among children. The present research examined components of the IPTS in …

The Past In The Present: Photography, Vietnam War, And Memory, Yuya Kawata

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on three contemporary artists—An-My Lê, Dinh Q. Lê, and Harrell Fletcher—who use photography to explore the contentious memory of the war in Vietnam. Addressing different contexts in which the war is remembered, their works invite careful reflection on how to approach the elusive past.

Louis-Léopold Boilly’S Toddler In Mamluk Costume, Circa 1803: Feminism And Orientalism In The Napoléonic Era, Jessie Polk

Theses and Dissertations

Privately held until it came into the Met collection, Toddler in Mamluk Costume by Louis-Léopold Boilly was not widely known and hasn’t been extensively studied. This thesis seeks place it in context and argues that it is likely a portrait of a girl, a niece of Napoléon I, Zénaïde Bonaparte.

The Dinner Table, Eric Juhola

Theses and Dissertations

The Dinner Table is a dual-projection installation exploring familial ritual, memory, and selfhood. Viewers sit at a circular table while projections unfold across the table and a suspended window, prompting reflection on how ritual functions as performance—and what remains of the self when those rituals fade or disappear.

The Tales Of Maruni, Sikuma Rai

Theses and Dissertations

Sikuma Rai journeys into the fading indigenous genre of Maruni—an eastern Nepali song and dance form—narrating letters to her late grandfather. Accompanied by her father, and a devoted folk musician from an upper-caste background, she traces echoes of memory, identity, and the fragile inheritance of indigenous culture.

A Modern Prometheus: Frankenstein's Relevance In Our Modern Society, Amanda C. Partida

Theses and Dissertations

For over two hundred years Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has been in the public consciousness. It took only five years for the first adaptation, Presumption; or the Fate of Frankenstein, to be staged in 1825. Since then, there has been at least one adaptation every decade, with Universal Studios’ 1931 Frankenstein as the most famous adaptation, which shows just how much Shelley’s novel of science and hubris has resonated with audiences for many years.

This thesis aims to connect the ever-changing scientific anxieties of society with the most well-known Frankenstein film adaptations. By focusing on four specific films Frankenstein (1931), …

Unveiling Perspectives: Young Adults Banned Books Critical Content Analysis, Tiffany Ladonna Jarebica

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation conducts a critical content analysis of seven banned young adult novels—All Boys Aren’t Blue, All the Things We Do in the Dark, Almost Perfect, Ask the Passengers, The Bluest Eyes, The Hate U Give, and The Kite Runner—within one Texas school district. Using intersectionality theory as a lens, the study explores how intersecting identities such as race, gender, sexuality, and trauma are portrayed in these narratives and examines the role these portrayals play in the censorship process. The analysis investigates the socio-cultural, political, and institutional factors that influenced the removal of these texts, considering how their …

¿Puedo Decirlo En Español?: Teacher Views On Utilizing Translanguaging Pedagogies To Bridge The Language Gap In Secondary Classrooms, Luis Carlos Bocanegra

Theses and Dissertations

Translanguaging disrupts the notion of language as a fixed, separate system, offering a deeper insight into how individuals fluidly navigate and construct meaning across linguistic boundaries. This research study uses narrative research and participatory action research to employ translanguaging as a pedagogical framework to create inclusive spaces where emergent bilinguals could fully utilize their linguistic repertoire in secondary schools in the borderlands of the Rio Grande Vally in deep South Texas.

The findings of this study are organized into two overarching themes: cultural relevance and inclusivity in borderland schools, which brings to light the importance of culture, inclusivity, and supportive …

Gothic Monstrosity And The Historical Context Of Colonial Violence In The Borderlands In Isabel Cañas’ Vampires Of El Norte, Paulina Longoria

Theses and Dissertations

The speculative genre has become a venue for Chicanx cultural producers to narrate their own histories, preserve their cultural identities, and reaffirm their rightful place in the United States. This thesis explores the redefinition of gothic monstrosity in Isabel Cañas’ Vampires of El Norte (2023), a contemporary novel within the Latinx speculative fiction genre. The novel blurs the boundaries between the supernatural threat posed by the vampires and the human threat embodied by the Anglo American settlers as both endanger Mexicans living in the Borderlands during the Texas Revolution and the U.S.-Mexico War. Drawing from L. Heidenreich’s theoretical framework, this …

Emotional Outbursts In Latinx Autistic Youth With Intact Or Non-Intact Families; Frequency, Severity, And Socio-Demographic Correlates, Sandra Lucia Masso Hernandez

Theses and Dissertations

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social interaction, communication, and restricted repetitive behaviors. One of the core difficulties in individuals with ASD is related to emotional outbursts. Emotional outbursts (EO) are behavioral episodes in response to situations, environmental and physiological stimuli that occur in an extreme, unpleasant, sometimes aggressive way, often disproportionate to the context. Considering the impacts that EO’s can cause in populations with neurodevelopmental disorders and on the well-being and mental health of parents/caregivers, the need arises to evaluate these populations. Due to the core characteristics of ASD (such as a rigid mentality, …

Limit Tests: Sociodemographic Representation In Public Organizations, Christopher Dee Eddy

Theses and Dissertations

Bureaucratic institutions are a critical yet often underappreciated nexus of democratic legitimacy. However, public agencies frequently fail to represent key constituencies of the American public, significantly influencing citizens' attitudes toward governing institutions and challenging effective governance. Research suggests that improving sociodemographic representation within political institutions can reinforce institutional support and citizen trust through symbolic processes and promote equitable policy outcomes through actions of bureaucrats from historically excluded groups.

Despite these insights, past research is divided on if, how, and when descriptive or passive representation leads to beneficial symbolic or active effects. While the existing body of representative bureaucracy theory offers …

Exploring Pragmatic Functions And Linguistic Features Analysis For Some Terms Of Endearment In Egyptian Colloquial Arabic As Discourse Markers, Samar Abdeltawab

Theses and Dissertations

In Arabic and many languages, terms of endearment are used as discourse markers to express affection. However, their meanings differ depending on the pragmatic context in which they are said.

Despite the abundance of research on terms of endearment in various languages, there is a noticeable lack of studies examining the pragmatic functions and linguistic features of these terms in Arabic. This research aims to fill this gap by providing a comprehensive exploration of the pragmatic functions and investigating the syntactic and morphological characteristics of selected terms of endearment in Egyptian colloquial Arabic. It offers a detailed analysis of their …

Art As Resistance: Challenging Colonial Legacies Through The Eyes Of South Asian Diasporic Women, Sofina Tanni

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how South Asian diasporic women artists in New York utilize art to resist colonial legacies and express their multifaceted identities. Through ethnographic research, it highlights how themes of nostalgia, preservation, community, and activism shape their work, fostering collective resistance and transformative decolonial pathways.

Self-Awareness And Identity Transformation In The Latinx Experience: A Comparative Analysis Of Gloria Anzaldúa’S Borderlands/La Frontera, Yuri Herrera’S Signs Preceding The End Of The World, And Corrido Music By Los Tigres Del Norte, Kimberly Cruz

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores how literature and music, including titles by Yuri Herrera, Gloria Anzaldúa, and Los Tigres del Norte, reflect evolving Latinx identities amidst socio-political pressures. It emphasizes self-awareness as a tool for change, portraying Latinx identity as dynamic, shaped by history, and continuously negotiated in resistance to marginalization.