Digital Commons Network^™

Cyberbullying: Media Construction And Framing Tactics In Pakistan, Asma Jamal

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This thesis critically examines the portrayal of cyberbullying within Pakistan's top three newspapers, focusing on how these media outlets shape public discourse over the past five years. Employing an integrated approach using framing analysis and Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model, my research deconstructs how these newspapers utilize specific framing strategies to construct a narrative that not only informs but also subtly influences public perception and policy responses. The findings show that while the media highlights the roles of parents, educators, and law enforcement in combating cyberbullying, it also tends to reinforce traditional gender roles and overlook systemic solutions. I argue that the …

The Torch: College Of Arts & Sciences Program Newsletter, Spring 2024, College Of Arts & Sciences Honors Program

Torch Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Collateral Consequences And The Bars Outside Of Incarceration: An Assessment Of Massachusetts State Policies Surrounding Reentry, Nisa Rivera

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

How do Massachusetts policies impose collateral consequences for people with felony convictions and/or periods of incarceration? Previous research shows that having some form of a criminal record can make it harder to obtain housing, employment, and other sectors of life. Research was conducted to examine how Massachusetts policies restrict access to necessary resources that would otherwise allow returning citizens to become self-sufficient. Assessments were made regarding civic engagement, housing, higher education, employment, occupational licensing, and government assistance. The presence of a collateral consequence was based on whether a felony conviction was taken into consideration or served as a disqualifier, whether …

Generational Trauma And Its Effects On Newer Generation Parents, Hailey I. Bravo

Undergraduate Theses and Capstone Projects

Generational trauma, stemming from historical events such as systemic injustices, wars, genocides, displacement, and migration, has been shown to influence the newer generation of parents. This literature review explores how such trauma affects parental behaviors, emotional well-being, and relationships between parents and their children. Also, exploring how unresolved trauma from past generations manifests in parenting styles and responses to their own children. By analyzing these dynamics, the review contributes to a deeper psychological understanding of how generational trauma shapes parenting practices and family dynamics, along with examining the intergenerational transmission of trauma, highlighting its implications for parental mental health and …

Social Control And Homeless Encampments: Shifting The Role Of Shelters Through Judicial Review, Alexandra Flynn

All Faculty Publications

This paper examines the recent Canadian judicial decisions in relation to the eviction of encampment residents from public space to analyze what constitutes “reasonableness” in government decision-making in relation to short-term shelters. I argue that courts have called into question a key aspect of social control that relates to unhoused populations: the institutional belief that temporary shelters serve as a reasonable form of accommodation and an appropriate alternative to living in encampments. Recent legal decisions have challenged both this institutional belief and the methods used by officials to track which shelters are available. I conclude that the legal approach of …

The Chinese Tax System: Where It Stands And How We Should Study It, Wei Cui

All Faculty Publications

This book chapter offers an overview of where China’s tax system stands, critically assesses recent scholarship on Chinese taxation, and urges researchers to attend more to normative questions of tax design (e.g., economic efficiency and redistribution). After surveying major tax instruments deployed in China today, the chapter reviews recent studies of taxation’s impact on the Chinese economy, arguing that such scholarship often falls short of providing systematic support for policy analyses, and that ignoring normative questions in tax design leads to poor conceptual framing in positive analyses. The chapter then considers some themes at the intersection between Chinese political institutions …

Let Your Head Hang Down: A Narrative Examination Of Cultic & Conspiratorial Romance, Kyle Macy

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

A response to recent cultural trends of radicalization, extremism, and violence in American society, this dissertation, a novel rendered in ephemeral fragments of oral histories, interrogates the romanticist postures that compel a community of musical artists, the so-called “Folk Revival Revival,” toward infamy and tragedy. Where more traditional sociological approaches to cultic formations stress the importance of centralized charismatic authority, and more traditional psychological approaches rely upon a conspiratorial Cold War ethos of cognitive bias and coercive control (i.e. “brainwashing”), this project meets such assumptions with incredulity, asserting instead that cultic and conspiratorial entrancement awakens first from within, and may …

Effects Of Grant Termination For Orphans, Vulnerable Children And Their Caregivers In Windhoek, Namibia, Miriam Winnie Hasheela

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Namibia faces complex child welfare policy dilemmas in providing sustainable support for the increasing number of AIDS-orphaned youth transitioning into adulthood. While Orphan and Vulnerable Children (OVC) social grants have played a vital role in poverty alleviation and childhood development (Ministry of Gender Equality, Poverty Eradication and Social Welfare, 2021), the abrupt termination of these grants for youth when they reach 18 years of age without any transitional support has posed significant risks to their well-being. While much research in Namibia (Mnubi-Mchombu and Ocholla, 2014; Van Der Brug, 2012.) has examined the impact of OVC grants on children under the …

A Descriptive Analysis Of Depressive Symptoms And Body Image By Race/Ethnicity And Nativity Status Among Adolescents, Radhika Prasad

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Previous research on the immigrant health paradox among children and adolescents show a mental health advantage yet it is unclear if this applies in a similar magnitude to females (Fillion et al., 2018; Zarei et al., 2023). Immigrants may be exposed to stressors related to immigration and acculturation. Some research suggests that females respond more to stress through internalizing symptoms relative to males (Hall-Lande et al., 2007; Adkins et al., 2009). Given these gender differences in stress response, female immigrants may be particularly vulnerable to the psychological consequences of immigration related stressors. The immigrant health paradox has also overlooked subjective …

The Role Of Familial Support And Gender In Asian American Students’ Stem Career Development: A Test Of Social Cognitive Career Theory, Xiao Ting Wang

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This study, based on Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT; Lent et al., 1994, 2000), investigated the role of familial support in the STEM career development of Asian American college students. Participants included 446 first-year undergraduate students who identified as Asian or Asian American and had not declared an academic major. Due to multicollinearity, four initial familial support variables—instrumental assistance, career-related modeling, verbal encouragement, and emotional support—were regrouped into two: performance motivation (instrumental assistance and verbal encouragement) and career mentoring (career-related modeling and emotional support). Structural equation modeling showed acceptable fit for a modified model, and the results partially supported the …

Dishes Of Yesteryear: Memories, Stories, And Representations Of The Past Within Food Media, Diana Willis Bottomley

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

In 1963, Julia Child revolutionized cooking television. Child’s The French Chef, which ran for ten years on the Boston public television station, WGBH, changed how American’s viewed, produced, and consumed food. And in the sixty years since Child’s debut, food media has grown in scope and popularity, increasingly altering how we communicate identity in and through food and foodways. In this dissertation, I examine the relation between food, media, and memory, with particular attention to: how the past moderates the connection between food and identity; how food media produce a sense of place integral to identity; and how food …

The Retention Of Urban Secondary Special Education Teachers: Why Stay?, Chelsea Quezada

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

Utilizing interview data collected from six urban secondary special education teachers (SETs), this qualitative study explored why these individuals chose a teaching position in special education in urban secondary schools and why they remained in those positions despite the challenges inherent to that setting. From role and organizational theory, we know that retention is the result of a complex set of socialization factors that either support successful integration into the SET role or impede the individual’s efforts to achieve fit within the given organization. This study sought to understand how these six SETS experienced the socialization process and which factors …

Public - Private In Vietnamese Universities: Exploring Sectoral Distinctiveness In Program Offerings, Lan Hoang

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The public-private issues in higher education have been a longstanding important topic of academic and policy interest, especially in the context of the public - private duality in most higher education systems. With PHE’s impressive growth over the past few decades, now enrolling one third of global HE enrollments, the study of PHE has also been expanded, with several national case studies and world/regional edited books yet being mostly ad hoc with minimal synthesis or comparative analysis (Levy, 2024). The current case study of Vietnam, employing Levy’s double distinctiveness approach in sectoral distinctiveness analysis with the intrasectoral dissection on the …

Everyone’S A Critic: Processes Of Legitimation In The Video Essay Genre On Youtube, Kendall Nagi

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The rise of video essays as a popular genre on YouTube is a notable development in the media criticism and intellectual work in online spaces. Theorization on criticism as intellectual work and the performance of expertise and credibility is well developed within sociology (Alexander 2004; Jacobs & Townsley 2017) but esearch on YouTube specifically is quite limited within the social sciences. Most existing research on the video essay genre comes from media studies and communications scholarship (McWhirter 2022; Smarandache 2021; Sylvia & Moody 2022). This study seeks to understand how creators working in the video essay genre, and more specifically, …

Re-Globalizing Yorkville: The Languages On Shop Signs In A Non-Migrant Neighborhood, Lisabeth G. Dashman

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

The term “linguistic landscape” is used to describe the usage and placement of language in public places of a specific geographic area, such as on buildings, street names, pedestrian notices, vehicular warnings, and advertising billboards. Studies of a space’s linguistic landscape typically involve an accounting and analysis of the visible signs and/or the presentation of bystanders’ or researchers’ thoughts and observations. This study instead probes the intentions of the sign creators: the owners of the façade sign and the business it advertises. The façade sign, often called the shop sign, is frequently the first image for a business that a …

Gender And Nostalgia In Period Drama: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel And Mad Men, Deidre Pribram

Communications: Faculty Publications

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017-2023) and Mad Men (2007-2015) share a common genre, location, and era.  Both are period dramas, set in New York City, as the waning 1950s transition into the 1960s.  Additionally, both television serials address changing cultural conditions, especially surrounding gender.  Yet, when analyzed through the prism of nostalgia, the two programs deviate in significant ways.  This essay uses Grainge’s (2000) distinction between nostalgia as mood and nostalgia as aesthetic style, applying it to the two television serials.  It also incorporates concepts of nostalgia as critique (Cook, 2005), as well as imagined nostalgia as the longing “for …

Education And Religion In Shaping Support For Same-Sex Relations: Considering Differences Over Time And Across Geographical Areas, Amy Adamczyk, Ashely French

Publications and Research

Across the world, attitudes about same-sex relationships have become rapidly more supportive. While education is typically viewed as a liberalizing force, religious beliefs are often seen as restricting more tolerant perspectives and contributing to more conservative attitudes in general. Focusing on the United States this study examines the roles of religion and education, as individual and group properties, for understanding disapproval of same-sex relationships. Drawing on restricted information that makes it possible to identify where General Social Survey respondents lived, we find that graduating from college is associated with more support, but has less of an effect on Evangelicals and …

Cas Honors Symposium Program, Spring 2024, College Of Arts & Sciences Honors Program

College of Arts & Sciences Honors in the Major Symposium

No abstract provided.

Does Money Matter? Exploring Pay Disparities For Nursing Faculty Educators, Jacqueline Christianson, Jessica L. Zemlak, Kathryn J. Malin, Lisa M. Grabert

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Key Takeaways:

• The nurse faculty shortage must be addressed to meet the healthcare needs of the public.
• The salary gap between academic nurse educators and clinical practice nurses likely contributes to the nurse faculty shortage.
• Additional investments are necessary to recruit and retain sufficient nursing faculty.

Process Of Maintaining Self In Individuals Living With Systemic Sclerosis: A Grounded Theory Study Of American Women, Donald D. Miller, Jennifer J. Doering

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Background: People with chronic illnesses may struggle to adapt psychologically to the illness experience and have feelings of identity loss, self-diminishment, and biographical disruption. This may limit people’s ability to engage in optimal selfmanagement. Systemic sclerosis is a debilitating, stigmatizing, and life-limiting progressive chronic illness with significant disfiguring effects. Little is known about the identity management process in people with disfiguring and debilitating conditions such as systemic sclerosis.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to generate a grounded theory explicating the process of maintaining a sense of self in people living with systemic sclerosis.

Methods: Fifteen women with systemic …

Assets For Integrating Task-Sharing Strategies For Hypertension Within Hiv Clinics: Stakeholder's Perspectives Using The Pen-3 Cultural Model, Juliet Iwelunmor, Daphne Lew, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: Access to antiretroviral therapy has increased life expectancy and survival among people living with HIV (PLWH) in African countries like Nigeria. Unfortunately, non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases are on the rise as important drivers of morbidity and mortality rates among this group. The aim of this study was to explore the perspectives of key stakeholders in Nigeria on the integration of evidence-based task-sharing strategies for hypertension care (TASSH) within existing HIV clinics in Nigeria.

METHODS: Stakeholders representing PLWH, patient advocates, health care professionals (i.e. community health nurses, physicians and chief medical officers), as well as policymakers, completed in-depth …

Four-Dimensional Ecology Education (4dee) For Everyone: Teaching Ecology To Non-Majors, Vikki L. Rodgers, Sara E. Scanga, Justin R St Juliana, Erica S. Tietjen, Jon M. Honea, Loren B. Byrne, Zakiya H. Leggett, George Middendorf

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

Originally developed for application to ecology courses for undergraduate majors, the Four-Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) Framework offers possibilities for adaptation to courses with ecology content for many other audiences. Recognizing the extraordinary range of classroom contexts and constraints, we developed some general, flexible recommendations and approaches to guide instructors in adapting the 4DEE Framework for an array of non-major audiences and classroom context needs. Our hope is that 4DEE-aligned courses for non-majors will provide these students with greater appreciation of ecology and inspire them to use their knowledge to address many critical environmental issues in their personal and professional lives. …

A Second Look At Active Shooter Events: Expanding Our Understanding Of Key Factors, Kyle Gamache, Matt Zaitchik, Judith Platania, Cecelia Coslovi, Willem Pontbriand

Arts & Sciences Faculty Publications

In the current study, we investigate active shooter events (ASEs) with emphasis on expanding our understanding of key factors involved in these events. The impetus for this study is a 2015 exploration (Gamache et al., 2015) that highlighted common perpetrator and event characteristics in ASEs occurring in the US prior to 2014. Since the 2015 study, mass-shooting events have moved from tragic, isolated incidents, to a phenomenon that is widely discussed in the media and highly politicized. Our goal was to investigate continued trends, if any exist, and to compare our current sample of ASEs to the sample utilized in …

Screening For Food And Nutrition Insecurity In The Healthcare Setting: A Cross-Sectional Survey Of Non-Medicaid Insured Adults In An Integrated Healthcare Delivery System, Carmen Byker Shanks, Nancy P Gordon

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

OBJECTIVES: Healthcare screening identifies factors that impact patient health and well-being. Hunger as a Vital Sign (HVS) is widely applied as a screening tool to assess food security. However, there are no common practice screening questions to identify patients who are nutrition insecure or acquire free food from community-based organizations. This study used self-reported survey data from a non-Medicaid insured adult population approximately one year after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (2021). The survey examined the extent to which the HVS measure might have under-estimated population-level food insecurity and/or nutrition insecurity, as well as under-identified food and nutrition insecurity …

Sails Symposium Launch On International Law Scholarship: What We Write, Where We Publish, And Why It Matters, Kathleen Claussen, Melissa J. Durkee, Rebecca Ingber, Steven Arrigg Koh

Articles

No abstract provided.

Improving Decision-Making Processes In Construction And Infrastructure Bidding: Qualitative And Quantitative Approaches Including Graph Theory, Game Theory, And Machine Learning, Muaz Osman Elzubeir Ahmed

Doctoral Dissertations

"Construction and infrastructure bidding is a highly competitive process that entails various uncertainties faced by contractors. Contractors weigh various factors to determine the expected benefits of a construction project and decide their bid value. However, the situation is more complex in multi-stage bidding (MSG), where general contractors must account for the bids of their subcontractors and face a greater threat of the winner’s curse (i.e., situation where the winning contractor underestimates the actual cost of the project). As such, bidding-related complexities, risks, and uncertainties, if uncontrolled, can lead to the rise of claims and disputes between stakeholders. Existing research falls …

Prevalence Of Food Insecurity Among Caregivers Of Young Children During The Covid-19 Pandemic In Ireland, Elizabeth J. O'Sullivan, Caoimhe Daly, Aileen Kennedy

Articles

Our objectives were to explore the prevalence of food insecurity in primary caregivers of young children in Ireland and to compare two tools for measuring food insecurity during the COVID-19 crisis. A cross-sectional online survey was conducted among caregivers of children aged <2 years in Ireland in May/June 2020. Relevant survey questions were closed-ended using two established tools for measuring food poverty/insecurity; the Irish Food Poverty Indicator and the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization. Descriptive statistics were used to calculate the prevalence of food poverty/insecurity. To explore agreement in the classification of food insecurity by the Food Poverty Indicator and the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, Cohen's κ was used. Analyses are based on 716 participants; most had a 3rd-level education and were married or in a partnership. Per the food poverty index, Ireland's national measure of food poverty, 3.9% (n = 28) of our sample were experiencing food poverty. This rose to 10.5% (n = 75) experiencing food insecurity when using the Food Insecurity Experience Scale, which also measures worry/anxiety around access to food. There was low agreement between the tools, with 11.3% of the sample classified as food secure by one tool and food insecure by the other. Our current measure of food poverty in Ireland may not be sufficient to describe the food-access struggles or worry/anxiety about food access, experienced by the population, particularly during an emergency like COVID-19.

Online Video-Mediated Compassion Training Program For Mental Health And Well-Being Of University Students, Thupten Tendhar, Melissa Ann Marcotte, Paul Bueno De Mesquita, Manob Jyoti Saikia

Political Science Faculty Publications

College students experiencing psychological distress have significantly greater negative emotions than students who practice compassionate thinking. We have developed Eight Steps to Great Compassion (ESGC), an innovative brief and no-cost online video training program about how to increase compassion among busy and young adult university students. To examine the effectiveness and benefits of the ESGC, a single-group pre-test–post-test quantitative design with undergraduate university students (N = 92; M_age = 20.39) evaluated its effects. The results from the post-test showed that the ESGC had a significant positive impact on increased feelings of compassion towards oneself, compassion for others, and the …

It Is Possible: A Future Without Nuclear Weapons. By Ward Hayes Wilson. New York: Avenues The World School Press, 2023., Abhishek Verma

Journal of Strategic Security

No abstract provided.

The Role Of High School Freshman Grades, Socioeconomic Status, And School Location On College Enrollment, Sarah Morris, Sarah Mckenzie

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

Prior research underscores the pivotal role high school freshman grade-point averages (FGPA) play in college enrollment, with a focus predominantly on urban settings. This study broadens this perspective, employing a diverse Arkansas sample (n = 33,207), spanning rural, suburban, and urban high school students and filling a notable literature gap. Utilizing a logit analysis, we found that high school students with an A FGPA were 23% more likely to enroll in college than B FGPA peers. Those failing a course in their high school freshman year were 13% less likely to enroll in college. Among similar academic ability students, …