Digital Commons Network^™

Whose Voices Count In Biodiversity Conservation? Ecological Democracy In Biodiversity Offsetting, Redd , And Rewilding, David Takacs

Faculty Scholarship

Ecological democracy seeks environmentally sustainable ends through broad, active democratic participation. What happens when laws fostering participation in environmental decision-making and biodiversity preservation lead to differing results? What is best for biodiversity may not be what for local citizens believe is best. I examine conflicts and congruencies in the context of Biodiversity Offsetting, REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), and the Rewilding movement. I ask questions that are legal (Who has what legal rights to speak for or against programs that enhance biodiversity?), epistemological (Whose expertise and knowledge matters when scientists and non-scientists don’t agree?), axiological (Are some …

Evidence On Fire, Jennifer D. Oliva, Valena E. Beety

Faculty Scholarship

Fire science, a field largely developed by lay “arson investigators,” police officers, or similar first responders untrained in chemistry and physics, has been historically dominated by unreliable methodology, demonstrably false conclusions, and concomitant miscarriages of justice. Fire investigators are neither subject to proficiency testing nor required to obtain more than a high school education. Perhaps surprisingly, courts have largely spared many of the now- debunked tenets of fire investigation any serious scientific scrutiny in criminal arson cases. This Article contrasts the courts’ ongoing lax admissibility of unreliable fire-science evidence in criminal cases with their strict exclusion of the same flimsy …

Teaching Race, Racism, And Racial Justice: Pedagogical Principles And Classroom Strategies For Course Instructors, M. Brielle Harbin, Amie Thurber, Joe Bandy

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Teaching on topics of race and racism presents unique challenges to leaders in the university classroom setting. Despite an increasing number of instructors bringing a critical analysis of racial in/justice to their curriculum, many report challenges in teaching this content effectively. In this article, we address these challenges. We define common challenges in teaching racial content and articulate four principles for course planning around topics of race, racism, and racial justice. Then, drawing on a systematic review of scholarship examining issues of difference within a diverse range of disciplinary settings, we introduce a set of five pedagogical strategies, and supporting …

Editorial: We Can Do Better Than "Adolescence", Ben Anderson-Nathe, Grant Charles

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Editorial. The author discusses the concept of adolescence and its acceptance as a biological imperative, a developmental mandate, and an explanation for young people's behavior. Topics discussed include the shift of the fundamentals of labor from largely agrarian to predominantly industrial forms, the 1904 naming of adolescence as a distinct life stage in the human experience, and adolescence as the default starting point for most adult interactions with youth in the academic and practice literatures.

High School Completion In Context: Student- And School-Level Factors Related To On-Time Graduation, Mathew C. Uretsky

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background/Context: There is an expansive body of research concerning high school graduation; however, most studies omit students who persist through four years of high school without earning a diploma. In addition, there is scant research exploring longer-term outcomes among students whose academic trajectories do not fit within the traditional four-year model of high school graduation, including eventual graduation, post-secondary enrollment, or engagement in the workforce.

Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The current study addresses the substantive gaps in research regarding high school non-completion by examining the college and workforce outcomes of persisters—defined here as students who do not formally …

Quality Of Life And Stigma Among People Living With Hiv/Aids In Iran, Mohammad Ebrahimi Kalan, Jian Han, Ziyad Ben Taleb, Kristopher P. Fennie, Mohammad Asghari Jafarabadi, Maryam Dastoorpoor, Nima Hajhashemi, Mitra Naseh, Shahnaz Rimaz

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Stigma against HIV profoundly affects the quality of life (QOL) of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). We aimed to assess the factors associated with QOL in PLWHA in Iran, specifically HIV-related stigma, sociodemographic and clinical characteristics.

Methods: Two hundred PLWHA participated in this cross-sectional study. Data were collected using sociodemographic, stigma, and WHO-QOL-BREF questionnaires. Correlations, ANOVAs, and Student’s t-distribution tests were performed as bivariate analyses. We employed stepwise multiple linear regression analysis to explore the main factors associated with QOL domains.

Results: Six domains of QOL were negatively correlated with three domains of stigma (p < 0.001 for all). Stepwise multiple linear regression revealed that, after adjusting for con-founders, lack of healthcare insurance, having no basic knowledge of HIV/AIDs prior to diagnosis, low monthly income of participants and family, and stigma (blaming and distancing, discrimination, and fear) were associated with low mean score of different domains of QOL.

Conclusion …

Protocol For A Longitudinal Study To Evaluate The Use Of Tenofovir-Based Prep For Safer Conception And Pregnancy Among Women In South Africa, Lynn T. Matthews, Manjeetha Jaggernath, Yolandie Kriel, Patricia Smith, Kasey O’Neil, David Bangsberg, Multiple Additional Authors

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Introduction Women who choose to conceive a baby with a partner living with HIV or a partner whose HIV serostatus is unknown in HIV-endemic settings need prevention strategies to mitigate HIV acquisition during conception and pregnancy.

Methods and analysis We are conducting a single-arm longitudinal study offering oral tenofovirdisoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine (TDF/FTC) as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for periconception use to 350 HIV-uninfected women in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. PrEP is offered as part of woman-centred safer conception programme that promotes couples-based HIV counselling and testing, antiretroviral therapy for partners who are HIV-infected, treatment for sexually transmitted infections and safer conception strategies, such …

Focal Point, Special Compilation Issue 2007–2019, Portland State University. Regional Research Institute

Research and Training Center - Focal Point

For this special compilation, we have included a variety of contributions by youth and young adults that originally appeared in Focal Point issues from 2007 to 2019. These first-hand narratives of recovery personalize what might otherwise be seen only in clinical terms, or represented by a mere statistic. By sharing their stories, these young people also offer hope to other young people experiencing similar problems, and their families. This collection portrays the wide range of individual experiences of youth and young adults and highlights common themes.

A Systems Thinking Approach For Eliciting Mental Models From Visual Boundary Objects In Hydropolitical Contexts: A Case Study From The Pilcomayo River Basin, Riveraine S. Walters, Erin S. Kenzie, Alexander E. Metzger, William Jesse Baltutis, Kakali B. Chakrabarti, Shana Lee Hirsch, Bethany Laursen

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Transboundary collaborations related to international freshwater are critical for ensuring equitable, efficient, and sustainable shared access to our planet’s most fundamental resources. Visual artifacts, such as knowledge maps, functioning as boundary objects, are used in hydropolitical contexts to convey understandings and facilitate discussion across scales about challenges and opportunities from multiple perspectives. Such focal points for discussion are valuable in creating shared, socially negotiated priorities and integrating diverse and often disparate cultural perspectives that naturally exist in the context of international transboundary water resources. Visual boundary objects can also represent the collective mental models of the actor countries and transboundary …

A Profile Of Freshman Inquiry Students Fall 2019, Portland State University. University Studies Program, Rowanna L. Carpenter

University Studies Assessment Research

In order to better understand the students who enroll in Freshman Inquiry (FRINQ) courses and identify areas where they may need support, University Studies (UNST) began collecting and compiling data on these students. This report presents a profile of FRINQ students from Fall 2019. It presents an overview of all students enrolled in FRINQ during Fall 2019 and then summarizes information from the Prior Learning Survey. It is organized around three areas that contribute to student success: academic preparation and concern; financial and physical wellbeing; and connectedness to campus.

Adapting An Elementary School Nutrition Context Assessment For High School Settings And Students, Deborah H. John, Beret Halverson, Tia H. Ho

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The school nutrition context is comprised of supportive environmental features, programs, policies, and social relationships that shape students’ healthy dietary choices and patterns. When engaging students as change agents, advocates, and partners in making healthy nutrition choices easier, environmental assessment tools developed for adults may be too complex or inappropriately tailored for youth. Adolescents need practical, user-tailored tools that reliably measure the food and beverage environments they encounter in school to inform youth-led changes to the school nutrition context. To meet this need, an evidence-based school environmental assessment was adapted for use in high schools by students as evaluators. Cooperative …