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The Spiritual World Of A Hakka Village, Sharon A. Carstens

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper examines spiritual beliefs and practices in the Hakka Malaysian community of Pulai, focusing on the pantheon of deities and spirits worshipped and propitiated; the system of local beliefs in the power and efficacy of these deities; and the manner in which individuals and families have reproduced and altered these spiritual beliefs over time. Unlike my previous writings about religion in Pulai, which have emphasized the sociological components of local religion practices, my goal here is to explore the cosmological system, world view, and system of meanings conveyed through religious practices in this Hakka village.

As with many Chinese …

An Examination Of The Chinese Immigrant Social Movements During The Chinese Exclusion Era, Alexander Lu

LSU Master's Theses

This paper further develops a law-centered “political process” model of social movements by analyzing historical changes in American immigration law and the collective behavior of Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans during the Chinese Exclusion Era. I present an interactive political process framework that considers not only how the broader political environment enables and constrains a movement, but also how challengers respond by actively reshaping the environment. I revisit the political process model’s core concept of “political opportunity structure” by examining legal rules and institutions, generally, and the indeterminacy of law, specifically. I apply this framework to the Chinese community’s initial …

How The Internet Is Shaping The Chilean Scientific Community: Globalization And Dependency, Richard B. Duque

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The Internet has emerged as a catalyst for global knowledge production. This is supported by its positive impacts in the First World. A progressive assessment argues that the Internet will be the "elixir" that brings immediate visibility and relevance to scientific communities in the periphery. Yet, Internet diffusion is often framed by past technology failures that further widen global divides. This characterizes an "affliction" argument. The "teething argument" suggests that adoption within the Third World is tentative at best with benefits unfolding over time in some regions but not others. This dissertation is a qualitative and quantitative study that tests …

Security And Human Rights, Liora Lazarus, Benjamin J. Goold

All Faculty Publications

In the wake of the events of September 11th, the task of reconciling issues of security with a respect for fundamental human rights has emerged as one of the key challenges facing governments throughout the world. Although the issues raised by the rise of security have been the subject of considerable academic interest, to date much of the debate surrounding the impact of security on human rights has taken place within particular disciplinary confines. In contrast, this collection of essays from leading academics and practitioners in the fields of criminal justice, public law, international law, international relations and legal philosophy …

Determinants Of The Onset Of Disability In Old Age, Kayla Fontenot

LSU Master's Theses

With a rapidly aging population, maximizing independent living among the elderly is a growing concern. The inability to perform normal basic care activities interferes with an older individual's ability to live independently. In this study, I examine the onset of disability among elderly Americans using the 2002 and 2004 waves of the Health and Retirement Survey (HRS). In examining the explanatory power of both the life course perspective and the medical model, I find that the medical model is better able to explain onset of disability for males while the life course perspective prevails when explaining onset of disability among …

Revelations From "Cheesecake Manor": Agatha Christie, Detective Fiction, And Interwar England, Carron Stewart Fillingim

LSU Master's Theses

For too long standard interwar histories have portrayed the interwar years as a period marked by failure, instability, depression, and volatility. Instead, rising living standards, the narrowing of socioeconomic disparities, expanded avenues of social welfare, increased leisure time, and mass consumerism resulted in an altogether peaceful, healthier, stable, and increasingly affluent England. Out of these rising economic improvements emerged forms of mass entertainment, including popular fiction. Cheaper paper and printing methods, rising literacy, faster distribution methods, new forms of advertising, and the expansion of public libraries led to the creation of a mass readership across England. For the first time, …

A Proposed Solution To The Scholarly Communication Crisis, Chad J. Schatzle

Scholarly Works

After reviewing the history and parameters of the scholarly communications crisis, particularly in regard to skyrocketing prices for journals in the natural sciences, the author reviews and rejects previously attempted solutions. He then employs the principles of game theory in proposing a new solution to the crisis.

Opting Out: Procedural Fair Use, Michael Mattioli

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article explores the advantages of opt-out plans, and identifies a critical shortcoming in Copyright's doctrine of Fair Use. The discussion is fueled by a current controversy: In December of 2004, Google, Inc. announced its plan to digitally scan thousands of copyrighted books as part of a massive new digital indexing service. Hedging against possible litigation, Google provided a free and easy opt-out procedure for authors who didn't want their books scanned. Despite this measure, two major authors' groups have sued Google, claiming the opt-out plan imposes an unfair burden. This article explores the fairness of established opt-outs in contract …

Hi-Tech Cheating: A Study Of Student Attitudes On Academic Dishonesty Involving The Use Of Information Technology, Michael P. Smith

LSU Master's Theses

Despite the fact that research into cheating has continued for several decades, cheating in higher education appears to be widespread and endemic. This may be particularly troublesome for business school students, who, according to some research, appear to cheat more than students in other curriculums. Technology is giving students new opportunities to cheat. Companies are developing products specifically designed to help students cheat. Although there are some resources and tools to help faculty monitor things such as plagiarism, technology is providing a continuous stream of new opportunities for students to cheat, oftentimes without a high likelihood of being caught. Beliefs …

"Yes They're Out There": A Qualitative Study On Strong African American Marriages, Katrina D. Hopkins-Williams

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Much of the research that exists on Black marriage is usually from a deficit perspective and focuses on the decline of marriages among Black Americans. Even so, many Black families are marriage based and it is unfortunate that little research exists that focuses on understanding these families from a strength-based approach. It is important that we learn what constitutes the characteristics of strong Black marriages and families and learn how Black U.S. families differ from and are similar to Euro U.S. families. This study looked at the hows, whys, and processes of enduring and sustaining marriages in Black families. Black …

The Black Church And Political Mobilization Of African Americans, Misty Noel Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

This study investigates the political and social activities of black church congregations within a southern community by assessing the effectiveness of three churches in mobilizing their congregations and serving as channels for political communication. The study pays particular attention to the differences between affiliations within the black church, the influence of religious leaders on political involvement, attitudes regarding political involvement and political influences outside of the church. The thesis begins by placing the black church in its historical context —as a giver of spiritual and community orientation as well as a social and political mobilization agent. Using survey results from …

The Implantation Of Western Theatre In Korea: Hong Hae-Sǒng (1894-1957), Korea's First Director, Saejoon Oh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

While Korea experienced the threats of imperialist powers in the 19th century, and Japanese colonial rule in the early part of the 20th century, many Korean intellectuals expressed their nationalism through efforts to implant Western culture for the modernization of the Korean nation. They believed such activities would help to realize enlightenment and industrial development, the major conditions for assuring the independence of Korea and the survival of the nation. This attitude became known as Cultural Nationalism. The establishment of modern Korean theatre participated in the movement of Cultural Nationalism. Many leaders of Korean theatre tried to implant Western modern …

Family Resiliency Among Hurricane Survivors: Resource Loss, Prior Traumatic Events, And Cumulative Stress, Robin Michelle Knowles

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of the study was to assess predictors of family resiliency following a disaster and the relationships among them in an exploratory manner. Predictors that were assessed in the study were resource loss, prior traumatic events, cumulative stress and selected demographic characteristics. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) by combining Census data with storm damage estimates and purposive sampling, 50 participants affected by Hurricane Katrina from a single suburban community in Southern Louisiana in early spring 2006 were recruited and interviewed. In late spring and summer, data collection was continued in Southwestern Louisiana and 32 rural respondents affected by Hurricane …

Technology Adoption Of Indian Garment Manufacturing Firms, Venu Varukolu

LSU Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to investigate the status and the effect of organizational factors on the level of technology adoption within the context of the Indian garment industry. Specifically, this study focuses on the effect of firm size, export orientation, top management’s commitment, cost of capital, technical skills, and competitive advantage. An online survey using a structured questionnaire was prepared through an online research service. A multiple regression analysis (MRA) was used to test the hypotheses. The results revealed that firm size positively influences and export orientation negatively influences the technology adoption level of a firm. The effect …

Political Reason, Leslie C. Griffin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Towards And Explicit Balancing Inquiry - R.A.V. And Black Through The Lens Of Foreign Freedom Of Expression Jurisprudence, Matthew S. Melamed

UC Law Journal

In this Note, the author considers the Supreme Court's recent First Amendment jurisprudence-in particular R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul and Virginia v. Black, two cases concerning legislative attempts to criminalize cross-burning-through the eyes of foreign freedom of speech jurisprudence. He argues that the freedom of speech adjudicative models provided by the European Court of Human Rights and the Canadian Constitutional Court not only suggest a clearer mode of First Amendment adjudication, but may also enable us to more clearly understand the nature of the emergent case-by-case balancing jurisprudence implicitly present in both R.A.V. and Black.

Part I of the …

Identifying Effective And Ineffective Schools For Accountability Purposes: A Comparison Of Four Generic Types Of Accountability Models, Fen Yu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The stakes associated with student performance have been raised to new highs under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, 2001). Many people are concerned with the adequacy and appropriateness of the statistical models used in identifying low-performing schools for educational accountability. The purpose of this study was to compare four generic types of accountability models (i.e., status models, improvement models, growth models, and value-added models) and see if they reach consistent/inconsistent conclusions regarding the effectiveness of the same set of schools. Further, the four models were also compared in terms of “fairness”. A fair model is defined as one …

The Influence Of Values And Other Social And Psychological Factors On The Dress And Appearance Of African American College Students, Devona Linette Dixon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to investigate values and other social and psychological factors influence on dress and appearance of African American college students (AACS). The dependent variable was dress and appearance. Independent variables consisted of external values (being well-respected, security, warm relationships with others, and sense of belonging) and internal values (self-respect, sense of accomplishment, fun and enjoyment, self-fulfillment, and excitement). Included in the independent variables were social factors (media and referents' influence (peers and family)) and psychological factors (self-consciousness, self-confidence, fashion leadership, and shopping enjoyment). Social adaptation theory provided the theoretical framework. The theory encompasses the social …

School Readiness And Preschoolers' Attachment Representations: Possible Connections, Katherine A. Darbonne

LSU Master's Theses

The current study examined the possible relationship between preschooler's school readiness and their attachment representations. More specifically, the study examined preschooler's performances on standardized tests and their perceptions of close relationships. The possible connection between school readiness and attachment representations was through children's experiences of stress during standardized testing situations (Fleege, Charlesworth, Burts, & Hart, 1992) and children's stress invoking the use of their internal working models (Bowlby, 1969/1982). The children were administered the Brigance CIBS-R (Glascoe, 1999), a standardized test that was most often used in the local schools to assess school readiness. The children were also videotaped while …

The Individual And Customary International Law Formation, Christiana Ochoa

Articles by Maurer Faculty

A state monopoly on customary international law formation was once required and acceptable, given the status states enjoyed as the sole subjects of international law. Since the drafting of the most commonly cited doctrinal sources of customary international law, legal personhood has been extended to individuals. During this same time period, individuals have come to participate in treaty-making in some key areas of international law, including human rights. The customary international law of human rights, no less than treaty law, has direct effects on individuals. It sees them as the subjects protected by those provisions that have attained the status …

Soliciting Desire: The Ad-Man As Narrative Negotiation Between Art, Desire, And Consumer Capitalism In Twentieth-Century Novels, Jessica Mckelvie Kemp

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

My dissertation identifies ways in which novelists have used an ad-man protagonist as means to investigate the social and psychological implications of advertising in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Soliciting Desire takes as its primary subjects H.G. Wells’s Tono-Bungay, Theodore Dresier’s The “Genius,” Frederick Wakeman’s The Hucksters, Jonathan Dee’s Palladio, and William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition and demonstrates that the ad-man character’s particular constellation of traits provides a rich vehicle for fictional explorations of desire and subjectivity as they are formed in relation to ideologies of consumer capitalism and art. Guided by Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin’s theories of cultural/ capitalist …

"But Seriously, Folks...": Understanding The Political Effects Of Late Night Television Comedy, Danielle Lynn Sarver

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The potential political effects of late night comedy programs have been a subject of much debate and concern, particularly since the 2000 Presidential election. Research into this area has been characterized by inconsistency in operationalizations of audiences and an almost exclusive focus on quantitative research. This project was designed to address key concerns that are central to this burgeoning literature by examining “heavy” viewers of late night talk shows (including audiences of Leno, Letterman, and Conan O’Brien) and “heavy” viewers of “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” A combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used to understand the relationships …

The Relationship Between Premarital Sexual Behaviors And The State Of The Marriage, Allison Claire Rayburn

LSU Master's Theses

The current study examined the possible relationship between premarital sexual behaviors and the state of the marriage as reported by women. Participants were recruited from local Southern Baptist churches and were sent an anonymous mail-out questionnaire; 36 women returned questionnaires that were usable for analyses. Bivariate correlations for the variables that were considered demonstrated that the number of premarital sexual intercourse partners for the participant and her husband were strongly and negatively correlated to marital satisfaction, marital stability, low divorce thoughts, and feelings about the marriage. An analysis of variance showed that the women who experienced premarital sex (intercourse or …

Population Change And Social Vulnerability In The Wake Of Disaster: The Case Of Hurricanes Katrina And Rita, Candice A. Myers

LSU Master's Theses

Previous sociological research on natural disasters has highlighted how various dimensions of social vulnerability influence the impact of, and recovery from, such disasters. This research contributes to the literature by examining population change in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, with an explicit focus on how social vulnerability moderates this relationship. Using data from the U.S. Census Bureau, I construct a macro-level Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) for the impacted region and then use regression analysis to explore how various dimensions of social vulnerability are related to population change in the six months following the storms. The results reveal a …

The Urban Development Of Spanish Colonial Pensacola, 1781-1821, Harry James Wilson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Pensacola evolved through the second Spanish period (1781-1821) from a fledgling military outpost to an increasingly complex urban center. Local and regional demographic trends and environmental conditions prompted Pensacola to grow in a manner that differed from other Spanish colonial urban centers and created in Pensacola an unusual class structure and residential patterning. The primary goal of this dissertation is to show that Pensacola’s residential and landowning patterns never experienced the degree of socioeconomic residential clustering noted in other Spanish colonial urban centers. Social residential clustering was unusual in Spanish Pensacola, and socioeconomic classes and land values varied from lot …

Korean Hurricane Media Discourse Analysis, Youngae Lee

LSU Master's Theses

Presented within this thesis, I have analyzed a particular TV broadcast news discourse called Korean Hurricane Media Discourse (KHMD), which was presented online from YTN, a Korean cable TV news station. The data presents the topic of the Korean refugees who were forced to evacuate to Baton Rouge from New Orleans, after facing the destructions of Hurricane Katrina on August 2005. The methods are Ron Scollon’s TV news frames (1998), van Dijk’s superstructure (1988a and 1988b) and macrostructure (1980), Allan Bell’s news structure (1991), Dell Hymes’s SPEAKING model (1974), and Erving Goffman’s frameworks (1986). Since KHMD is a spoken, plannable …

The Role Of The Merchant In Bertolt Brecht's The Exception And The Rule: A Production Thesis In Acting, Mark Jaynes

LSU Master's Theses

The role of the Merchant in Bertolt Brecht’s The Exception and the Rule was selected as the topic of this production thesis in acting to be submitted unto the Graduate School of Louisiana State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with the Master of Fine Arts degree in Theatre. The thesis includes an introduction, a chapter on preparation for the role, a chapter on implementation of the role, a physical score and a conclusion. It details the author’s approach to the role of the Merchant in performance, as well as to the performance theories of Bertolt Brecht …

The Sociomoral Atmosphere Rating Template (Smart): An Investigation Of Reliability And Validity, Richard Sean Durham

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

This study describes the development of the Sociomoral Atmosphere Rating Template (SMART), an instrument designed to rate the sociomoral atmosphere in early childhood classrooms, and an investigation of the instrument's reliability and validity. Results indicate that individuals can be trained to reliably use the SMART and that the measure is internally consistent. In addition to its face validity, results indicate that the SMART has convergent validity when compared to the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale - Revised (Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 1998) and the Teacher Interaction Scale (Arnett, 1989). Comparisons at the subscale level suggest discriminant validity. Implications and plans …

The Relationship Between Participation In Professional Development And Level Of Social Capital, Sylvia Caillier Melancon

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between level of social capital and the extent of participation in professional development activities for professional employees of a profit-based organization located in the Southeastern United States. The researcher used survey methodology to determine the extent of participation in professional development activities within a 12 month period and the level of social capital within an organizational setting. Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine if a model exists to explain a significant portion of the variance in the extent of participation in professional development activities from selected demographic …

Parenting Experiences Of Eastern European Immigrant Professionals In The U.S.: A Qualitative Study, Olena Nesteruk

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In 2004, the nation’s foreign-born population numbered approximately 35 million comprising about 12% of the total U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). Most studies of immigrants primarily research the two largest immigrant groups, those from Latin America and Asia, while little has been done with the less visible population of immigrants from Eastern Europe. Also, we know much about the experiences of low-income immigrants of color, but little about the experiences of white immigrant families in the professional ranks. A qualitative study was conducted with immigrant professionals from Eastern Europe to explore their experiences with raising children in a new …