Digital Commons Network^™

Women's Health And Abortion Culture In China: Policy, Perception And Practice , Naomi Bouchard

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Since China’s implementation of the Family Planning Policy in 1973, much research has been dedicated to analyzing the effects of a policy that strictly controls the reproductive lives of a population now comprisedof 1.35 billion people. Analyses focus on the rise of abortions in China, now at an annual rate of at least 13 million, but offer little insight into the perceptions of the population in regard to China’s new abortion culture. This study aims to shed light on current perceptions through a range of in-person, qualitative interviews conducted in Kunming, China. The study is limited to a sample size …

Creation As An Ecumenical Problem: Renewed Belief Through Green Experience, Thomas Hughson

Theology Faculty Research and Publications

Loss of a sense of creaturehood and of members has occurred across the lines of divided churches in a secular context. The author explores the question whether green experience of nature can be a path toward a renewed sense of creaturehood. Bernard Lonergan’s distinction between faith and belief allows for identifying a primordial faith that interprets the cosmos as numinous. Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises interprets primordial faith with the biblical word of God as Creator. Why not develop local ecumenical experiments in reevangelization that address green experience?

Sociology & Anthropology News, Georgia Southern University

Sociology & Anthropology News (2012-2020)

• Sociology Undergrads Present Research

Biko Agozino And Justice For All, Joey Lywak

African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies

This paper takes its reader on the shared sociological journey of Virginia Tech professor Biko Agozino and University of Winnipeg graduate Joey Lywak. It outlines their by chance encounter and subsequent correspondence which has led to extensive benefits for both parties. A snapshot of Agozino’s liberating sociology (academic activism) was sought out by Lywak for a class project. This request was received and fulfilled graciously. Subsequently, their joint efforts have produced an assignment that highlights both of their talents and expertise. Agozino’s noble endeavours gain the recognition they deserve while Lywak is able to supplement this biographical tale with a …

Sociology Discipline 3-Year Assessment Plan 2014-2017, Sociology Discipline

Assessment of Student Learning Reports

No abstract provided.

Hoping For Help: The Organizational Response To Street Children In Tangier, Stefanie Cruz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Although the exact number is impossible to obtain, there are an estimated 30,000 street children living in Morocco. There are many different profiles of street children, but they are categorized mainly as children in the street and children of the street. Children in the street leave home due to poverty and precarious family situations but still return home from time to time if not every night. Children of the street have no homes to go to; they live, sleep and struggle to survive on the streets. In the city of Tangier where this study takes place, most of the children …

"Till Death Us Do Part: The Evolution Of Monogamy, Kirsten Glaeser

Oglethorpe Journal of Undergraduate Research

With statistics indicating that one out of every two marriages in the United States ends in a divorce, the validity of monogamous marriages has come under fire. Are humans truly capable of maintaining monogamous marriages or are they constraining their sexuality by doing so? The research entails two different perspectives while analyzing human monogamy; monogamy as a mating pattern and monogamy as a marriage pattern. The reason being that monogamy is solely not an evolved phenomenon but also a socialized one throughout most cultures. While analyzing monogamy as a mating pattern, several occurrences throughout our evolution allowed humans the ability …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Understanding Homelessness, Mental Health And Substance Abuse Through A Mixed Methods Longitudinal Approach, Rachel Rayburn

Rachel L Rayburn

This manuscript outlines the multiple methods utilized in a long-term follow-up of a non-traditional population: Homeless substance abusers in New Orleans. This article addresses qualitative mental health research by outlining steps taken to explore both qualitative and quantitative data sources. By way of qualitative and quantitative methods, this research examines the life course of a sample of New Orleans homeless substance abusers from the time they entered into treatment (1991) until the present and observes the quality of their social bonds and their long-term outcomes. By making use of mixed methods, this research gives a more thorough understanding of mental …

Understanding Visual Inquiry: A Review Of Researching The Visual (2nd Ed.), Oksana Parylo

The Qualitative Report

The growing popularity of visual research in social sciences along with the new possibilities offered by the developments in technology necessitate including visual inquiry in research methodology classes. Researching the Visual by Emmison, Smith, and Mayal (2012) offers a good introduction to visual research and can be used as a textbook for beginners in social inquiry. In this book, Emmison et al. carefully combine the history, examples, explanations, and new trends in visual research. Careful consideration is given to new approaches emerging within visual inquiry. In summary, while this book may be too basic for the experts in this field, …

The Emergence Of Constitutionalism As An Evolutionary Adaptation, Fabio P L Almeida

Fabio P L Almeida

The emergence of modern societies is an evolutionary puzzle. Homo sapiens is the only animal species capable of cooperating in large-scale societies consisting of genetically unrelated individuals. From a biological point of view, this feature leads to enormous questions. Social scientists typically assume that human life is lived in large-scale societies as a result of cultural, social and institutional history. In this perspective, social institutions such as law, economy and religion enhance cooperation to higher levels. Gene-culture coevolutionary theories have studied this issue in an integrated framework that accounts for social and biological theories of cooperation. These theoretical approaches have …

2013 Dewey Lecture: College—What Is It Good For?, David F. Labaree

Education and Culture

In this 2013 John Dewey Society Lecture I examine the history and the structure of the American system of higher education. I argue that the true hero of the story is the evolved form of the American university and that all the things we love about it, like free speech, are the side effects of a structure that arose for other purposes. I tell this story in three parts. First I explore how the American system of higher education emerged in the nineteenth century, without a plan and without any apparent promise that it would turn out well. Then I …

Community Structures In Bipartite Networks: A Dual-Projection Approach, David Melamed

Faculty Publications

Identifying communities or clusters in networked systems has received much attention across the physical and social sciences. Most of this work focuses on single layer or one-mode networks, including social networks between people or hyperlinks between websites. Multilayer or multi-mode networks, such as affiliation networks linking people to organizations, receive much less attention in this literature. Common strategies for discovering the community structure of multi-mode networks identify the communities of each mode simultaneously. Here I show that this combined approach is ineffective at discovering community structures when there are an unequal number of communities between the modes of a multi-mode …

Jon Springer, Amber N. Brooks

The Stories of Greater Yellowstone

No abstract provided.

Enabling Music And Journalism Students To Respond Positively To Adversity In Work After Graduation: A Reconsideration Of Conventional Pedagogies, Lotte Latukefu, Shawn Burns, Marcus O'Donnell, Andrew Whelan

Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice

Elite classical music programs continue to focus teaching in Western Classical traditions where the emphasis is on technical virtuosity in instrumental or vocal performance. In this paper we discuss group activities and assessments used in two Creative Arts disciplines (Performance and Journalism), at an Australian regional university, as examples of subjects which provide ‘real world’ experience in order to promote resilience and tenacity in students. We incorporate narratives collected from students in performance and journalism to illustrate the value of recreating the complex division of labour of real world art practice, famously described by Becker (1982), as part of the …

Leadership In Food Policy: Raising A Foodie, Shelby Margaret Held

General Human Environmental Sciences Undergraduate Honors Theses

The target of this study was obesity’s problematic rise in America. It was noted in the research that children developed habits that would potentially last a lifetime and which also dictated their medical fate. The focus of this study was to identify and decrease the factors of childhood obesity through education, healthy eating, and changes in food choices through student-planned, model menus that would target nutrition and healthy choices. Research linked obesity to the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and chronic diseases in children through decreased physical activity and poor diet due to the lack of essential nutritional knowledge. Other …

Shopprofiler: Profiling Shops With Crowdsourcing Data, Xiaonan Guo, Eddie C. L. Chan, Ce Liu, Kaishun Wu, Siyuan Liu, Lionel Ni

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Sensing data from mobile phones provide us exciting and profitable applications. Recent research focuses on sensing indoor environment, but suffers from inaccuracy because of the limited reachability of human traces or requires human intervention to perform sophisticated tasks. In this paper, we present ShopProfiler, a shop profiling system on crowdsourcing data. First, we extract customer movement patterns from traces. Second, we improve accuracy of building floor plan by adopting a gradient-based approach and then localize shops through WiFi heat map. Third, we categorize shops by designing an SVM classifier in shop space to support multi-label classification. Finally, we infer brand …

Normal Violence: The Case Of Fighting On A College Campus, Brent Boyd

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Researchers have proposed a number of theories to explain how violence becomes normalized and thereby increases the incidence of violent acts. This study explores these theories using the case of interpersonal violence on the campus of a large, Mid-Atlantic university. During the 2012-2013 academic school year, undergraduate participant observers witnessed 150 altercations, and gave detailed descriptions of when and where each altercation occurred, who was involved in them, and what consequences resulted. They also described their thoughts and feelings as they witnessed the physical altercation. Some witnesses reported experiencing fear, distress and sorrow, others experienced no adverse cognitions or emotions, …

Socioeconomic Status And Weight Loss Behaviors, Hannah Seward

Theses and Dissertations

In the United States and many other countries, obesity is viewed as a public health crisis that must be handled. Many social and individual solutions to the problem are proposed in research and policy. On an individual level, many Americans try to get rid of their fat with a multitude of weight loss practices as part of a healthy lifestyle. Obesity rates, feelings towards fatness, and weight control behaviors are significantly affected by a number of sociocultural factors. In this project I explore the relationship between the desire to lose weight and weight control practices with income. Using data from …

Sociology & Anthropology News, Georgia Southern University

Sociology & Anthropology News (2012-2020)

• Annual Persico Bear Roast 5/3 3-7PM
• Sociological Society End of the Year Celebration
• Honors Day 2014

The Sociological And Cognitive Dimensions Of Policy-Based Persuasion, Michael R. Smith

Faculty Articles

Experts in legal advocacy have long recognized the importance of policy arguments in legal persuasion Despite the prevalence of policy arguments as tools in legal advocacy very little scholarship has been produced instructing legal advocates on how to write effective policy arguments in their briefs Professor Ellie Margolis addressed this oversight in modern advocacy pedagogy in her 2001 article Closing the Floodgates Making Persuasive Policy Arguments in Appellate BriefsProfessor Margolis' article brought muchneeded attention to the lack of adequate training in policybased persuasion and offered the first formalized instruction in that area This article builds on Professor Margolis' work by …

Middle Class, Middle Class Women And The Meaning Of Consumption In Urban China, Dorcas Chang Ping

Dorcas Chang Ping

No abstract provided.

Urban.Boston (Urban Research-Based Action Network): Creating Meaningful Connections Between Community & Academia, Mark Warren

Office of Community Partnerships Posters

The Urban Research-Based Action Network (URBAN) is a national platform that facilitates community-based research, teaching, and learning for action across disciplinary lines, connecting scholars and community activists within and across cities. It was started in 2011 to honor the memory of activist scholar Marylin Gitell, and has received generous support from SAGE Publications. URBAN currently has 5 local nodes: Boston, Los Angeles, New York City, Northern California, and Philadelphia; as well as 3 discipline nodes: Education, Sociology, and Urban Planning. More nodes will be established in the future. In the meantime, efforts are focused on connecting academics and community partners …

Raskolnikov: Not The Typical Criminal Man, Mary C. Noonan

Spring 2014, Dostoevsky

Criminologists in the nineteenth century gave much effort to identify, classify, and understand the physical, social, and psychological characteristics of the world’s criminals. Using the lens of these early criminological theories and the scholarly interpretations of Dostoevsky’s Raskolnikov, this paper explores the dimensions of Raskolnikov as a criminal character. Ultimately, these developing psychological and criminal anthropological theories are not successful in explaining the character of Raskolnikov. This exploration sheds light on a fundamental characteristic of human nature that Dostoevsky understands. Just as Raskolnikov is unable to be fully characterized by his utilitarian social theories, and by the theories of early …

Sexuality In Music: Gender & Audience Response, Jennifer Wright

Jennifer Wright Joe

No abstract provided.

Cosaan To Tostan: The Evolution Of Wolof Women’S Verbal Art As A Means For Social Empowerment, Iana Robitaille

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

For Wolof women, verbal art has always been an important tool for negotiating power. In a public context, griottes have lent their voices to traditional ceremonies such as marriages and baptisms; in a private context, all women have used songs as accompaniment to daily tasks and as an informal way to comment on the society in which they live. This paper explores the way that certain Wolof songs, sung by and for women, simultaneously challenge and adhere to traditional Wolof culture—that is, the way their texts and performances both contradict and perpetuate traditionally mandated gender codes. In order to achieve …

Framing Sex Work Activism: A Sociological View, Nancy Kannampuzha

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

This presentation is based on a book project providing an interdisciplinary introduction to the topic of prostitution. Nancy Kannampuzha will review the sociological literature at the intersection of social movements and prostitution. She will report on ethnographic and interview data to reveal the most commonly used rhetorical frames pro- and anti-sex work activists use when recruiting and retaining members. She will describe the assumptions and taken-for-granted moral and ethical aspects of these claims. The literature suggests that pro- and anti-sex work activists draw upon strikingly similar notions of body ownership and empowerment.

Late Night At Lds, Mary E. Maloney

SURGE

As I am giving my full attention to the Western omelet, home fries, and rye toast on my plate, I do not notice what is going on around me. I’m not drunk, but I’m not sober either. I’m with some friends I know well and some people I barely know, but they all seem nice enough to share a late night meal. I’m starving.

I start to realize that more and more non-college students enter LDs, presumably local Gettysburg residents. Some are being loud and boisterous, not unlike many of the people sitting at my very own table, and someone …

An Invitation To Debate: Envisioning An Africa-Centered Perspective, Engaging Sociological Endeavor, Nikitah O. Imani

Black Studies Faculty Publications

This article frames the focus of this special Africana studies issue of Critical Sociology, discussing its theoretical and epistemological necessity for the discipline, its potential for critical informing inquiry within the discipline with respect to Africana social phenomena as well the human experience, the challenges it poses for the traditional conduct of sociological inquiry and what the particular pieces selected for this issue contribute to each of these.

Pay Inequity: A Comparative Analysis Of Pay Inequality In The United States By Selected Correlates, Roger Klomegah, Nikelle Fleming

The Journal of Public and Professional Sociology

This study examined the socio-demographic associates of income inequality within the context of human capital and wage discrimination theories. General Social Survey (GSS) data set (2010), comprising a sample size of 2044 respondents were utilized in analysis. Income categories (low and high) were regressed on predictive variables: gender, racial categories (White, Black, and Other), education, type of occupation, U.S. citizenship status, age, and work experience. The results show that gender, education, U.S. citizenship status, age, and work experience were significant predictors of the likelihood of a respondent belonging to a low or high income group. It is suggested that future …