Digital Commons Network^™

Cultural Matching And Treatment Utilization And Outcomes In Asian Americans: A Systematic Review, Ryan Lim

Theses and Dissertations

Research regarding cultural matching in clinician and client dyads as a means of improving care for underserved populations has become less prevalent over the past two decades. This review sought to examine and synthesize the existing literature on the relationship between three forms of cultural matching (i.e., racial matching, ethnic matching, and language matching) and mental health treatment utilization and outcomes for Asian Americans. Following an extensive database search process, we identified a total of 10 peer-reviewed studies as relevant to the review's topic. Overall, results from the studies suggest that ethnic and language matching were associated with an increased …

Belief Systems Amongst Black Women: A Qualitative Study Of Social Supports And Factors That Facilitate Pathways To Leadership Positions Within Professional Sport, Rachel Lofton

Theses and Dissertations

Despite notable advancements made by Black women in both athletic and professional settings, their representation in leadership roles within the sports industry remains disproportionately low. The underrepresentation of Black women in leadership positions within professional sport organizations underscores the need for research to identify the social supports and factors facilitating their career progression. This study addresses the gap in the literature through qualitative interviews with twelve Black women who hold director-level positions or higher in professional sports teams or leagues. Grounded theory was employed to gather, examine, and interpret the data from the interviews. Critical race theory, standpoint theory, intersectionality, …

The Use Of Humor In Mental Healthcare: A Systematic Review, Blake Song

Theses and Dissertations

Humor has been observed, practiced, and documented as an essential feature of society for thousands of years. However, there is still no formalized or widely referenced clinical guidance on how to effectively and appropriately utilize humor in mental healthcare despite ample research over the last 70 years noting the many potential benefits. This lack of guidance may, at least in part, be due to unresolved concerns pertaining to the use of humor in counseling and healthcare settings. For instance, humor is believed by some to be potentially distracting or undermining to the counseling process if used inappropriately. This continued absence …

Reflection & Reciprocity: The Role Of Community In The Career Decision-Making Processes Of Indigenous & Non-Indigenous College Students, Amanda M. Langhorst

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the complex role of community in the career decision-making of college students. Our career decisions impact our life in many ways; individualistic cognitive models provide some insight but miss the important relationships and interaction we have with our communities and the role of culture. Through 45 interviews across a primary sample and two contrast samples with public university college students and student service professionals, this research revealed two key processes in how we utilize community in our career decision-making, reflection & reciprocity. The data resulted in a Community-Embedded Career Decision-Making Model showcasing the process of “how” we …

Teacher Perceptions And Student Self-Reports: Examining Aggression, Delinquency, And Contextual Correlates In Education And Non-Educational Settings, Abigail Claire Boozer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the relationship between teacher-perceived delinquency and student self-reported delinquency, utilizing data from the LONGSCAN data set. The research also examines whether the correlates of these behaviors differ across classroom and non-classroom settings, offering insights into the contextual dynamics of delinquency. Grounded in labeling theory, this study explores the influence of teacher perceptions on student behavior, highlighting how labeling may reinforce or mitigate patterns of aggression and delinquency. By leveraging the rich longitudinal data from LONGSCAN, the research identifies key demographic, familial, and environmental factors that contribute to these behaviors. The findings aim to inform educational interventions and …

"Keep Coming Back!": How Recovering Addicts Use Narcotics Anonymous For Social Rehabilitation., Taylor Leigh Ransom

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the role of Narcotics Anonymous (NA) in shaping identity transformation and social reintegration among individuals in recovery. Using an ethnographic approach, including participant observation at NA meetings and semi-structured interviews with members, along with textual analysis of Narcotics Anonymous literature, this research explores how NA fosters social recovery by providing a structured yet flexible space for identity reconstruction. Through shared narratives, rituals, and peer support, members navigate the transition from an “addict” identity to one centered on personal accountability, community, and long-term abstinence from drugs.

By situating NA within broader sociological discussions of addiction recovery, social capital, …

The Feminomenon Of Athletic Band Directing: A Multiple Case Study, Sydney Leigh Rush

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Women represent a small fraction of leadership within two traditionally male-dominated fields: collegiate band directing and the marching arts (Foley, 2019; Gould, 2001; Rush, 2023). In 2015, approximately 21% of high school band directors were female and 79% were male (Yoder, 2015). Further, the CMS Directory of Music Faculties (2017 – 2018) revealed women held only 11.3 percent of all collegiate band director positions in the United States (Shaker, 2020). In 2023, women accounted for less than 6% of Directors of Athletic Bands for Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)- Division 1, four-year universities (Rush, 2023). Although research has been done regarding …

Escala De Machismo Para Personas Con Antecedentes De Violencia Doméstica (Mm-Vd), Paul Carrola, Eunae Han, Johana Rocha, Alberto Castro Valles, Maria Nieves Gonzalez Valles, Jorge Ramon Lozano Martinez, Juan Alejandro Anguiano

Departmental Papers (Counseling & Special Ed.)

Machismo has been investigated as an important factor in preventing and

remediating domestic violence. This study aimed to understand how to

measure culturally based gender biased attitudes of Mexican men with a

history of domestic violence and ultimately assist interventions for this pop-

ulation in the United States and Mexico.

Navigating The Neighborhood: Community, Identity, And Gentrification In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Kayla Karyl Thomas

Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations

Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York. This dissertation is a multi-method community study focusing on 21st century gentrification, concurrent socio-political changes, and their relationship to the ways residents understand and negotiate routine interpersonal relationships. The empirical core of the dissertation consists of three distinct yet interrelated papers on the social landscape of the contemporary Crown Heights neighborhood. These papers detail a range of approaches that residents adopt to better understand their own experiences of discrimination, gentrification, and efforts at reconstructing community and responding to change. Complemented by a chapter on the history of a single ‘representative’ Crown Heights apartment building, its …

On A First Name Bias: A Bibliometric Study Of Six Writing Studies Journals, Joe Torok

Wayne State University Dissertations

On a First Name Bias: A Bibliometric Study of Six Writing Studies Journals analyzes citation, authorship, source use, and other bibliometric patterns across a small collection of peer-reviewed journals featuring research from the academic field of writing studies (also known as rhetoric and composition). The study is grounded in a small but established tradition of RAD (replicable, aggregable, data-supported) scholarship in the field and uses bibliometric methods inspired by similar, primarily historiographic research studies within the field of writing studies and by critical inquiry from scholars across disciplines who have used bibliometric analysis to interrogate troubling patterns of publishing and …

The Alternative Schoolteachers Perspectives Of African American Males' Experiences In Alternative Education, Carlita Yevonne Y. Earl

Wayne State University Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study explores how alternative educators perceive the experiences of African American male students in Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs (DAEPs). Guided by critical epistemology and grounded in Critical Race Theory, the research uses narrative inquiry to examine the ways in which disciplinary reassignment from traditional school settings affects Black male students. The study highlights the systemic issues that disproportionately affect African American males while addressing the larger context of educational inequality and its relationship to the school-to-prison pipeline. The results show that alternative teachers are aware of the critical need for equity-focused professional development, culturally sensitive practices, and …

Property Value(S): Race, Class, And Political Economy In Narratives Of The Single-Family House And Lot, Scott A. Degregoris

Wayne State University Dissertations

This dissertation establishes the single-family house and lot as a political economy of its own. This project maps a political economy of race and class by focusing on both literary representations of the single-family house and lot and this space and structure’s historical, geographical, and architectural significance in and around the city of Detroit. Focusing on Sinclair Lewis’ Main Street (1920) and Babbitt (1922), John Updike’s Rabbit Redux (1971), Amy Haimerl’s Detroit Hustle: A Memoir of Love, Life & Home (2016), and Angela Flournoy’s The Turner House (2015) this analysis illuminates the values that underly and permeate this space and …

God’S Country: Perceptions Of Religious And Place-Based Candidate Identities, Levi G. Allen, James R.G. Kirk

Government: Faculty Publications

It is often assumed that the rural identity is linked to the Republican Party and the urban identity to the Democratic Party, but little scholarship has investigated how voters connect these identities to the parties in an electoral context and how that perception may influence their electoral preferences. Furthermore, recent elections have seen various political elites employ rural and Evangelical Christian identity labels in virtually synonymous ways in their association with the Republican Party. But are these partisan stereotypes really how Americans perceive these candidate identities? Utilizing a novel survey experiment, we find important distinctions between religious and place-based candidate …

Faith Amid Chaos: Does Religiosity Buffer Youth Delinquency In Disordered Neighborhoods?, Mason T. High

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study examines whether religiosity moderates the relationship between neighborhood disorder and delinquent behavior among juvenile offenders. Drawing on Social Disorganization Theory and Neighborhood Disorder, the study hypothesizes that religiosity, both as an attitude and as a behavior, serves as a protective factor against delinquency in disordered neighborhoods. Using data from the Pathways to Desistance study, this research employs Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression with and without interaction terms to assess how individual perceptions of disorder interact with religiosity in influencing minor and major delinquency. Results indicate a significant positive association between perceived neighborhood disorder and delinquency, reinforcing the notion …

A Kinder Panopticon? Examining Effects Of Fairness And Justice On Performance Outcomes Under Advanced Electronic Monitoring Systems, William F. Tang

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The adoption of Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM) systems has increased with the prevalence of remote workers post-COVID. Research indicates EPM yields conflicting performance and behavioral outcomes. EPM-related behavior can be predicted by organizational justice (the extent to which workplaces are perceived as fair in nature); environments with higher justice ratings are less likely to induce issues like stress and distrust. However, advanced EPM like electroencephalograms (EEG) may modulate the relationships between perceived fairness, stress, and work performance. This study assigned 42 participants to a modified vigilance test (based on Temple, et al., 2001), which participants took under 3 placebo monitoring …

The Post-Alert Lexicon: A Multiphased Study To Develop Content For Post-Alert Messages, Jeannette Sutton, Hugh D. Walpole, Micki Olson, Lauren B. Cain, Savanah Olivas, Bruce Pollock, Nicholas Waugh

Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity Faculty Scholarship

Using a multi-phased, mixed methods approach, grounded in theory on alerts and warnings, the Post-Alert Lexicon serves as a companion to the Warning Lexicon to provide evidence-based guidance on how to construct a post-alert message for 45 hazards and missing person events. We draw from the results of quantitative content analyses of a census of post-alert messages issued as Wireless Emergency Alerts from 2012-2022, and public message testing experiments for three hazard types (wildfire, earthquake, and bomb threat), to find that a focus on hazard resolution and public action, rather than the commonly employed language of “all clear,” increases message …

Supports For Mental Well-Being Valued By Healthcare Workers: Qualitative Analysis Of Data From A Canadian Cohort Of Healthcare Workers During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Shannon Marie Ruzycki, Anil Adisesh, Quentin Durand-Moreau, France Labrèche, Tanis Zadunayski, Erica Stroud, Nicola Cherry

Études primaires

A prospective cohort of 4964 HCWs from four Canadian provinces was established early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants were invited to comment about workplace mental health supports at three time points. We performed a thematic content analysis of responses from 1738 participants using the Social Support Behaviour Code framework to categorize barriers to support as informational, tangible, emotional, social, or expressing esteem. Themes were synthesized into suggestions for healthcare organizations to prepare for future crises. Formal and informal peer support, workplace mental health supports, and one-on-one counseling were most often mentioned as valued. Analysis suggested that workplace social networks as …

Organizational And Structural Factors In Building The Therapeutic Alliance In A Work Rehabilitation Program With Injured Immigrant Workers In Quebec, Daniel Côté, Maude Arsenault, Jessica Dubé

Études primaires

Abstract

The therapeutic alliance is central to occupational rehabilitation, particularly for immigrant workers who face unique challenges of migration and of social and occupational integration. This study explores the development and maintenance of this alliance between immigrant workers with compensated work injuries and their care providers during work rehabilitation. Using ethnography, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups, the qualitative case study involved 7 injured immigrant workers and their interdisciplinary clinical team. The study identified several factors that weakened the alliance, including administrative complexity, conflicting views on pain and disability, cultural stereotypes, and interorganizational communication issues. Many of these challenges were systemic …

Investigating Subscriber Churn And Retention Strategies On Disney+., Maryam El Goss

Business ETD Collections

This study examines the challenges facing Disney+, a subscription-based streaming service owned by The Walt Disney Company, in sustaining long-term growth following its rapid global expansion since 2019. While early success was driven by access to major franchises such as Disney, Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars, and National Geographic, the platform is increasingly affected by high subscriber churn. Factors including price sensitivity, content saturation, and intensified competition from platforms such as Netflix, Max, and Amazon Prime Video have contributed to declining user retention. The phenomenon of “subscription cycling,” where users subscribe temporarily to consume specific content, further destabilises revenue streams and …

Relational Mentoring In Troubled Times, Fatima Suarez, Veronica Montes, Emir Estrada, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo

Sociology Faculty Research and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Technologies Of Violence: Law, Markets, And Innovation For Gun Safety, Joseph Blocher, Christopher Buccafusco

Faculty Scholarship

Violence in the United States is distinctive in many ways, perhaps none more visceral and fundamental than the technologies with which it is practiced. American violence disproportionately involves guns, and because guns are such an effective tool of violence, confrontations involving them are disproportionately deadly. Decades of research confirm this "instrumentality effect, " and it is reflected in the broad, bipartisan agreement that the nation has a gun violence problem. The deep disagreement, of course, remains about how to address it, with most of the debate focused on regulating who can carry which guns, where, and how.

But fully understanding, …

Risk Factors And Fraud Loss Magnitude: Informing Anti-Fraud Strategies, Robert Elias

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Fraud research posits risk factors may be utilized to identify individuals who are predisposed to perpetrate fraud (ACFE 2024). I find perpetrators who exhibit the following risk factors result in statistically higher fraud losses: living beyond their means, excessive pressure to perform within the organization, having excessive control issues regarding their job, are reluctant to take vacations, have a “wheeler-dealer” attitude, or addiction problems. I further find perpetrators who exhibit risk factors which are likely to be observed in a work setting are more likely to result in higher fraud losses. However, perpetrators who exhibit risk factors which are more …

Dyscluded': Women's Experiences Of Mothering Autistic Children As Described In Their Stories', Juliet Hall

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

My research, grounded in feminist research practices, uses an auto/biographical approach to explore the experiential knowledge of women mothering autistic children. It arose from a yearning for discovery. I use women’s stories to increase understanding of this experience to disrupt deeply embedded discourses and to benefit others with shared experiences.

There is a substantial body of knowledge on the experience of parent’s raising autistic children, however this tends to focus on a specific aspect of their autism journey. It is often presented in a gender-blind way. Much of it fails to acknowledge the implications of sociocultural expectations on mothers and …

Eros And The Sublime: Tools For Reaching Toward An Altered Ecological Consciousness, Aineka Carlson

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This thesis explores connections between the Kantian sublime and Anne Carson’s ideas regarding “eros.” Since Kant’s Critique of Judgement was published in 1790, the Kantian sublime has grown in popularity and been utilized by theorists and creative writers alike. While the Kantian sublime is often associated with nature in popular culture, there are certain egocentric and phallocentric elements of this mode of thinking that might inhibit a biocentric mindset. Through a character study of Oryx from Margaret Atwood’s novel Oryx and Crake, this thesis draws relations between the subjugation of women, nature, and the ways in which the popularized …

Today And Yesterday, Vol. 49, 2025, Illinois State University, Department Of History

Today and Yesterday

Newsletter of the Illinois State University Department of History

Metaphoric Sense Developments In The Names Of Places Of Worship In Contemporary American English, John G. Newman, Sylwester Łodej

Writing and Language Studies Faculty Publications

This paper offers an account of the metaphorical extension of the names of religious houses of worship such as temple, church, mosque, and synagogue in contemporary American English, reflecting processes of linguistic secularization. Using data from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), the study investigates how the meanings of religious terms enter into secular domains, signalling shifts in societal perceptions of religious experience. The findings show that temple and church frequently undergo metaphorization, appearing in phrases like temple of learning and church of football, where non-religious modifiers drive semantic extension. These terms increasingly denote secular places characterized by human …

Including Conscientiously: How Charter School Educators Experience Inclusion Education Implementation, Joe A. Petty

Dissertations

This narrative inquiry examined how charter school educators experience inclusive education implementation while confronting ableist systems that maintain exclusion through seemingly neutral practices. This research emerged from my lived experience of how educational structures systematically marginalize disabled students while appearing progressive. The study investigated two research questions: how support structures and leadership practices either perpetuate or dismantle ableist assumptions embedded in educational practice, and how educators negotiate tensions between implementing evidence-based inclusive strategies and addressing environmental factors that create the need for those strategies.

Data collection employed semistructured interviews with eight credentialed educators across two Southern California charter school sites, …

Meme Wars As Socially Situated Learning: Learning In Online Communities Of Hate, Conspiracy, And Insurgency, Kevin M. Clark

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

Learning is important in a pluralistic democracy, to enable citizens to make informed decisions. However, with the rise of the internet and social media, we need more than ever to understand how learning is shaped by social context and intertwined with issues of identity and belonging. One theoretical framework that addresses these social aspects of learning comes from the work of Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger on socially situated learning in communities of practice. This article focuses on what many would consider to be the darker side of learning—the rise of hate, disinformation/conspiracy, and insurgency in online communities. Specifically, it …

Prisons Are A Public Health Crisis: Alabama Paves The Way, Rae Peeples , '25

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.

From Personal To Institutional: The Struggle Of Maintaining Community Archives, Zack Kreines , '25

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

No abstract provided.