Digital Commons Network^™

Deepwater, Deep Ties, Deep Trouble: A State-Corporate Environmental Crime Analysis Of The 2010 Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill, Elizabeth A. Bradshaw

Dissertations

The 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was one of the worst environmental disasters of all time. Using the concept of state-corporate environmental crime, this project applies a case study analysis of secondary data sources including publicly available government reports, corporate documents, academic sources and journalistic accounts to examine the causes of the blowout and the response to the spill. Building on Michalowski and Kramer’s Integrated Theoretical Model of State-Corporate Crime, this study introduces an additional level of analysis- that of the industry- between the organizational and institutional levels.

The causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion are rooted both in …

First-Generation, African American Students' Experiences Of Persisting At A Predominantly White Liberal Arts College, Candy S. Mccorkle

Dissertations

Generational status of students is one of the variables that colleges and universities are starting to track and study in order to gain a better understanding of its impact on retention and persistence of students. This phenomenological study provides narrative from five first-generation, African American students who attend a predominantly White liberal arts college in the Midwest; their stories provide a snapshot of how they experienced college, made meaning of those experiences and the impact of these experiences and meaning-making on their motivation to persist in college. These five students participated in individual audio-taped interviews that were analyzed and coded. …

Social Justice, White Racial Identity, And Multicultural Competency Among White Master Level Trainees In Counselor Education And Counseling Psychology, Sara Rebecca Streufert

Dissertations

In recent years, scholars have become more vocal regarding counselors and counseling psychologists’ responsibilities to advance efforts for social change (Goodman et al., 2004; Speight & Vera, 2004; Vera & Speight, 2004). As a result, empirical investigations have started to evaluate variables that may contribute to trainees and mental health professionals’ desire to participate in social justice advocacy (Beer, 2008; Caldwell, 2008; Landreman et al., 2007; Nilsson & Schmidt, 2005). However, most of these studies do not focus on trainees and mental health professionals who identify as White. The present study used quantitative analyses to explore nine hypotheses regarding the …

Describing The Apprenticeship Of Chemists Through The Language Of Faculty Scientists, Brandy Ann Skjold

Dissertations

Attempts to bring authentic science into the K-16 classroom have led to the use of sociocultural theories of learning, particularly apprenticeship, to frame science education research. Science educators have brought apprenticeship to science classrooms and have brought students to research laboratories in order to gauge its benefits. The assumption is that these learning opportunities are representative of the actual apprenticeship of scientists. However, there have been no attempts in the literature to describe the apprenticeship of scientists using apprenticeship theory. Understanding what science apprenticeship looks like is a critical component of translating this experience into the classroom. This study sought …

Retirement Ready Or Not: Psychosocial Factors That Influence The Decision To Delay Retirement Among Workers 60 And Older In Westchester County, Dozene Z. Guishard

Education Doctoral

The purpose of this sequential explanatory mixed methods study was to examine psychosocial factors such as meaning of work, work-role attachment, activities in retirement, and retirement planning, education programs, and retirement attitudes that influence the decision to delay retirement among workers 60 and older in Westchester County. A 36 item web-based Delayed Retirement Questionnaire (DRQ) collected quantitative data from a sample of (N=53) respondents and qualitative data was collected through two focus groups with (N=15) participants. The findings helped to determine whether non-health and financial factors influence the decision to delay retirement. The findings indicated that finances were a key …

A Quasi-Experimental Study On The Effect Of The Medgar Evers College Black Male Initiative Program On African American Males, Johana I. Rivera

Education Doctoral

The disappearance of African American males on college campuses has become a nationwide concern. This epidemic has resulted in the establishment of a variety of intervention programs to assist in closing this gap. This study investigated the Black Male Initiative (BMI) program at Medgar Evers College (MEC). Using a quasi-experimental design, it examined how this program addresses the dearth of African American males on college campuses. The study compared the success of African American males who participated in the BMI program with those who did not. In the context of this study, success was defined as persistence towards graduation, as …

Simulating Real Lives: Promoting Global Empathy And Interest In Learning Through Simulation Games, Christine Bachen, Pedro F. Hernández-Ramos, Chad Raphael

Communication

In response to an increasingly interdependent world, educators are demonstrating a growing interest in educating for global citizenship. Many definitions of the “good global citizen” value empathy as an especially important disposition for understanding others across national borders and cultural divides. Yet it may be difficult for people to achieve empathy with others who are perceived as psychologically and geographically distant. Can computerized simulation games help foster global empathy and interest in global civic learning? This quasiexperimental classroom study of 301 Northern California high school students in three schools examined the effects of playing REAL LIVES, a simulation game that …

Transnational Organized Crime, Terrorism, And Criminalized States In Latin America: An Emerging Tier-One National Security Priority, Douglas Farah Mr.

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

The emergence of new hybrid (state and nonstate) transnational criminal/terrorist franchises in Latin America operating under broad state protection now pose a tier-one security threat for the United States. Similar hybrid franchise models are developing in other parts of the world, which makes the understanding of these new dynamics an important factor in a broader national security context. This threat goes well beyond the traditional nonstate theory of constraints activity, such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and human trafficking, into the potential for trafficking related to weapons of mass destruction by designated terrorist organizations and their sponsors. These activities are …

German Pows, Biopolitics, & The Piney Woods: Using Foucault To Analyze Resistance At Camp Shelby's Pow Camp During World War Ii, Patricia Lynn Miller-Beech

Master's Theses

Few people realize that during World War II, Camp Shelby in south Mississippi was a detention site for German prisoners of war (POWs) where the United States government engaged in reeducation efforts to de-Nazify soldiers in order to create a democratic Germany after the war. The U.S. War Department hoped the success of this program would create allies and prevent another war in the future. Despite the reeducation program being in all POW camps in the U. S., Camp Shelby was distinctive due to the racial politics of Mississippi during the height of the Jim Crow era. It is also …

Ltc Newsletter, University Of Dayton. Ryan C. Harris Learning Teaching Center

LTC Newsletter

Fall 2012

What Incarcerated Women At The Women’S Center Say They Need From The Criminal Justice System, Jillian Foley

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to give a voice to Maine’s incarcerated women and potentially influence the ongoing policy revision process in Maine. The researcher conducted 3 focus groups with 18 residents of the Women’s Center- a gender-responsive facility that houses about 70 to 80 incarcerated women at the Maine Correctional Facility in Windham, ME. The perspectives of the participants varied, however, the findings of the study were largely in line with the literature guidelines for gender-responsive policies and practices.

Law And Justice On The Small Screen, Jessica Silbey

Books

'Law and Justice on the Small Screen' is a wide-ranging collection of essays about law in and on television. In light of the book's innovative taxonomy of the field and its international reach, it will make a novel contribution to the scholarly literature about law and popular culture. Television shows from France, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and the United States are discussed. The essays are organised into three sections: (1) methodological questions regarding the analysis of law and popular culture on television; (2) a focus on genre studies within television programming (including a subsection on reality television), and …

Cracks In The Melting Pot: Immigration, School Choice, And Segregation, Elizabeth U U. Cascio, Ethan G. Lewis

Dartmouth Scholarship

We examine whether low-skilled immigration to the United States has contributed to immigrants' residential isolation by reducing native demand for public schools. We address endogeneity in school demographics using established Mexican settlement patterns in California and use a comparison group to account for immigration's broader effects. We estimate that between 1970 and 2000, the average California school district lost more than 14 non-Hispanic households with children to other districts in its metropolitan area for every 10 additional households enrolling low-English Hispanics in its public schools. By disproportionately isolating children, the native reaction to immigration may have longer-run consequences than previously …

Numeric Estimation And Response Options: An Examination Of The Measurement Properties Of Numeric And Vague Quantifier Responses, Mohammad T. Al Baghal

Survey Research and Methodology Program: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Many survey questions ask respondents to provide responses that contain quantitative information. These questions are often asked requiring open ended numeric responses, while others have been asked using vague quantifier scales. How these questions are asked, particularly in terms of the response format, can have an important impact on the data. Therefore, the response format is of particular importance for ensuring that any use of the data contains the best possible information. Generally, survey researchers have argued against the use of vague quantifier scales. This dissertation compares various measurement properties between numeric open ended and vague quantifier responses, using three …

Social Networking Systems As A Vehicle To Promote Sense Of Community And Performance In Online Classes, Jonathan Mark Woodward

Dissertations

Academicians are navigating through the intersection of information technology and social change. The path that educators choose will help determine the future of higher education in traditional and online settings. The journey of teachers is clouded by the abundance and rapid creation of emerging technologies, but the trends of Net Generation students offer direction. Among Web 2.0 applications, social networking systems (SNSs) offer students a new approach to communicating, learning, and collaborating.

The sociocentric view of knowledge and learning and the theories of Vygotsky and Dewey are helping to drive educators to look for a solution to a missing link …

Development Of A Scale To Measure Local Residents' Perceived Social Impacts Of Hosting Large-Scale Sport Events, Wonyoung Kim

Dissertations

Existing studies have indicated that local residents‟ perceptions on both positive and negative social impacts toward hosting large-scale sport events have played as a key role for developing successful sport events based on getting community-wide support and involvement. However, examining local residents‟ perceived social impacts have been limited due to its intangible nature and lack of valid and reliable instrument for the adequate measurement. The purpose of this study was to explore a conceptual framework of social impacts and develop a valid and reliable instrument to measure local residents‟ perceived social impacts of hosting large-scale sport events. A preliminary questionnaire …

Factors Related To Student Performance In Statistics Courses In Lebanon, Hiba Salim Naccache

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to identify factors that may contribute to business students in Lebanese universities having difficulty in introductory and advanced statistics courses. Two statistics courses are required for business majors at Lebanese universities. Students are not obliged to be enrolled in any math courses prior to taking statistics courses. Drawing on recent educational research, this dissertation attempted to identify the relationship between (1) students’ scores on Lebanese university math admissions tests; (2) students’ scores on a test of very basic mathematical concepts; (3) students’ scores on the survey of attitude toward statistics (SATS); (4) course …

Evaluating The Interpersonal Nature Of Humor: Mapping Humor Styles Onto The Interpersonal Circumplex, Jessica Erin Vaughan

Dissertations

The present study examined the interpersonal content of the four humor styles outlined in the Humor Styles Questionnaire in order to gather additional information about the interpersonal content of these humor styles. This was accomplished by projecting each of the humor styles onto the interpersonal circumplex. Each of the humor styles possessed significant interpersonal content and demonstrated interpersonal cohesion such that the maladaptive humor styles were located in the Cold-Hearted region and the adaptive humor styles were located in the adjacent octants of Gregarious- Extroverted and Warm-Agreeable. These findings suggest that the adaptive humor styles and maladaptive humor styles possess …

Improving Ethics Education In Accounting: Lessons From Medicine And Law, Chunhui Liu, Lee J. Yao, Nan Hu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The purpose of this paper is to offer accounting educators additional perspectives for ethics education by considering teaching approaches from medicine and law. It takes the form of literature review and argument. The paper finds that ethics education in accounting shows deficiencies in terms of code-bound content, less systematic formal training, less informal hands-on training, and less usage of partnering in comparison to ethics education in medicine and law, thereby producing students with higher moral cognitive capabilities. Based on these findings, the authors provide some recommendations for improvement.

Rhetoric And Composition Constructs “The Veteran”: An Examination Of The Student Veteran Identity As Found In Ccc And Tetyc Since September 11, 2001, Linda Gail Smith

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Drawing on David L. Wallace’s assertion that the field of rhetoric and composition needs to interpret and present our research into cultural communities in ways that no longer tacitly assume our rhetorical choices are neutral, I present a critique of 19 articles from College Composition and Communication and Teaching English in the Two-Year College that contained one or more instances of five keywords and direct references to student veterans. Using a theoretical framework built from theory by James Berlin, Thomas Huckin, and Marguerite Helmers, I expose various stereotypical and problematic tropes we rely on and re-create in our scholarly writing …

Opportunities To Develop Programs And Engage Amish Youth In Safety Education, S Dee Jepsen, Joseph Donnermeyer

Journal of Youth Development

Understanding and designing appropriate educational youth safety programs for the Amish requires an appreciation of their history, their distinctiveness in an American society built on economic, social and cultural change, and how the Amish themselves have changed over the years. The qualitative research study highlighted in this paper sought to determine culturally and age-appropriate curricula useful to community educators interested in youth safety programs for Amish and other conservative Anabaptist groups. Researchers identified rural safety topics of interest to Amish families to include lawn mowers, string trimmers, chemicals, water, livestock, confined spaces, tractors and skid loaders. Parents regularly involved children …

An Apologetic To Sun Hwan Pyun's Dialogue Theology As A Liberation Theology Of Religions, Youngchan Kim

Masters Theses

Sun Hwan Pyun was a professor at Methodist Theological University. As a theologian, he grappled with two important theological questions: "Is Christianity an exclusive religion?" and "Is Christianity only a religion for the upper class?" Regarding the exclusivism of Christianity, Pyun searched for an answer in ecumenical-religious pluralism. As an answer for "is Christianity for the poor", he accepts Minjung liberation theology. Pyun wanted to combine these two theologies and, subsequently, referred to his dialogue theology as a liberation theology of religions. The purpose of this thesis is to search for the theological and biblical answers to these theological questions …

Daniel Hannan, Thomas Paine, And The Rhetoric Of Outrage, Danae Brack

Masters Theses

The purpose of this rhetorical study is to examine the textual charisma of Thomas Paine's Common Sense and Daniel Hannan's speech "The Devalued Prime Minister of a Devalued Government" and how that charisma made these artifacts successful in spreading outrage surrounding the historical and political events of their respective eras. The author uses Weber's theory of charisma filtered through Rosenberg and Hirschberg's expanded theory identifying lexical charisma, or the charisma of messages. The author analyzes Paine's and Hannan's use of persuasiveness, believability, and powerfulness, translating each of these characteristics into specific cues that can be identified in the individual texts. …

Honorable Shame: The Rhetorical Use Of Didactic Shame Discourse In Ezekiel 36:16-32, Ronald Mudge

Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation

Mudge, Ronald R. "Honorable Shame: The Rhetorical Use of Didactic Shame Discourse in Ezekiel 36:16-36" Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, 2012.328 pp.

After promising Israel such wonderful gifts as a new heart and a return to the land, Ezek36:16-32 ends with a command for Israel to be ashamed. Biblical scholars have offered a number of different explanations for this unusual order without consensus.

A methodology that employs sociological interpretation and rhetorical analysis covers new ground and resolves the crux of Ezek 36:16-32. A basic word study demonstrates that primary shame lexemes in Ezekiel refer to low status as judged by an …

On The “Border Line Of Tragedy”: White Slavery, Moral Protection, And The Travelers’ Aid Society Of New York, 1885-1917, Eric C. Cimino

Theses & Dissertations: Molloy Faculty

This dissertation examines the travelers’ aid movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through a case study of the Travelers’ Aid Society of New York. Travelers’ aid was part of a larger movement for moral reform that arose as a response to social problems unleashed by industrialization, urban growth, and mass immigration. Moral reformers believed that vices such as prostitution were wreaking havoc on individuals, communities, and, consequently, on the national fabric. To combat prostitution, reformers launched a variety of campaigns in both the United States and Europe, one of which targeted a practice known as “white slavery,” …

Motivation And Attitudes Toward Learning French In The University's Foreign Language Classroom, Brianna Johnson

Theses

In second language research and pedagogy, motivation has been labeled as a key factor for success (Clément, 1980; Dörnyei, 1998; Tremblay & Gardner, 1995; Deci & Ryan, 1985); namely, language learners with high levels of motivation will be more successful than those who exhibit more negative attitudes towards learning the TL. Through classroom observations, student survey responses and personal interviews conducted in a beginner-level university French class, this study attempted to determine broad motivational patterns using Gardner's (1982) binary integrative and instrumental model, and then determine specific origins for these motivations. Four interviewees were selected: two with high instrumental and …

Student Success: An Investigation Of The Role The Pre-Admission Variables Of Academic Preparation, Personal Attributes, And Demographic Characteristics Contribute In Predicting Graduation, Lianne Briggs

Dissertations

Despite retention being a significant focus of higher education research, graduation rates remain of concern. Increased numbers of students are advancing to college bringing with them a wider range of abilities, attributes, and characteristics. There is much we know about what predicts success for these students but our knowledge is far from complete. My study therefore explores to what extent pre-admission variables of academic preparation, personal attributes, and demographic characteristics are predictive of graduation with the goal of identifying students who are more or less likely to do well than their high school academic preparation would suggest.

The study examines …

The Image Of The American Revolutionary Soldier And The Problem Of Historical Memory, Stephanie N. Powelson

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Pubic memories of the American Revolution have played a central role in the creation of an American national identity. As a result of the importance of these military memories in creating a sense of social cohesion, images of the men who fought in the Revolution have often been systematically created and propagated, thus leading to myths and stereotypes in popular culture. Master of Arts (MA), August 2012, 111 pp., 2 tables, 4 figures, 76 references, 8 titles. This thesis analyzes the images of the soldiers of the American Revolution in public memory and in professional historiography. There is a perplexing …

The Influence Of Venture Creation Stage On The Relationship Between Environmental Context And Social Network Orientation Among U.S. Minority Groups, Tammi C. Redd

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The percentage of minorities who have owned successful small businesses in the U.S. has been astonishingly lower than that of Mainstreams. An important underlying challenge for minority entrepreneurs is the ability to development and maintain social network connections. This research investigates the role urban and rural environments play in the new venture creation process among U.S. minority groups. Specifically, this dissertation will focus on issues relating to network scope, networking ability and strength and network relationships at different stages of the venture creation process. The environmental contexts of both the urban entrepreneur and that of the rural American entrepreneur will …

Mental Health Factors That May Contribute To Sexual Functioning, Monique Tenay Cano

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The present study investigated the relationship between mental health factors— depression, dysfunctional eating habits, and sexual abuse trauma—and sexual dysfunction. Sexual dysfunction was measured with The Sexual History Form (Nowinski & LoPiccolo, 1979 as cited in Davis, Yarber, Bauserman, Schreer, & Davis, 1998), a self report questionnaire. Depression was measured with the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D Scale) (Radloff, 1977). Dysfunctional eating habits were measured by the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q 6.0) (Fairburn & Beglin, 2008). Sexual abuse trauma was measured by a subtest—the Sexual Experiences Short Form Version Victimization—of the Sexual Experiences Survey (Koss et al., …