Digital Commons Network^™

Towards An Understanding Of Effortful Fundraising Experiences: Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis In Fundraising Research, George Shelton

Plymouth Business School Theses

Physical-activity oriented community fundraising has experienced an exponential growth in popularity over the past 15 years. The aim of this study was to explore the value of effortful fundraising experiences, from the point of view of participants, and explore the impact that these experiences have on people’s lives. This study used an IPA approach to interview 23 individuals, recognising the role of participants as proxy (nonprofessional) fundraisers for charitable organisations, and the unique organisation donor dynamic that this creates. It also bought together relevant psychological theory related to physical activity fundraising experiences (through a narrative literature review) and used primary …

Feeling Fat: Theorizing Intergenerational Body Narratives Through Affect, Katie Cook

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study set out to understand the intergenerational movement and impact of obesity epidemic and anti-fat narratives that emerged after the 1950s in North America. Embedded in an Anglo-Western, neoliberal context, the current study sought to understand the impact of weight-based messaging on the embodied experiences of parents and their now-adult children. Working within a critical-transformative paradigm and drawing on post-humanism and new materialism, I conducted 19 narrative interviews with individuals born between 1955 and 1990, six of whom were mother-daughter dyads, as well as a body mapping workshop with five self-selecting participants over the course of three sessions. I …

Trans-Forming Resilience Research: A Critical Interpretive Synthesis Of Resilience Research With Transgender And Gender Diverse Populations, Morgan Brooks

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Historically, much of the research pertaining to transgender and gender diverse (trans) health and wellbeing has been conducted in ways that are reductive, pathologizing and exploitative. Trans activists and scholars express concerns about how such research contributes to pervasive negative perceptions, stigma, and cisgenderism, reinforcing stereotypical, binary ideas of trans people as both damaged and dangerous, vulnerable and heroic. Ongoing negative media attention and harmful policy decisions rooted in these views demonstrate the importance of offering alternatives to these reductive, deficit-based narratives associated with trans people. In response, strengths-based research oriented around the construct of resilience is increasing; yet approached …

Exploring The Impact Of Social Media On The Religious And Spiritual Beliefs Of Emerging Adults, Mark Ehlebracht

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

The adoption of social media has been suggested to contribute to a syncretic behavior in emerging adults. The rate of innovation and change that occurred in the church during the Reformation, concurrent with the rise of the printing press, is similar to the rate of cultural change occurring today; a primary missional challenge of the Christian church is to incarnate the gospel in the digital world. While much research has been conducted on the effects of social media in a variety of demographics and its unintended consequences, limited research has examined the impact of social media on the religious and …

Imagining White Victims And Punishing Black Trauma: Whiteness, Anti-Blackness, Trauma, And Social Work In Canadian K-12 Schools, Christine Mayor

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This study critically examined how whiteness and anti-Blackness structure Canadian school social workers’ understanding and responses to students’ expressions of trauma in K-12 schools. Very few studies have previously explored the damage that increasingly popular trauma-engaged school programs may be doing, particularly to Black students. Therefore, this study addressed the role that school social workers play in reproducing harm for racialized, and especially Black, students when implementing trauma-engaged practices.

This critical qualitative study used an innovative methodology combining fictional vignettes and semi-structured interview questions with Ontario school social workers (n=19). Data were analyzed using critical whiteness, anti-Blackness, and critical trauma …

Loose Coupling, Burden Shuffling, And Pervasive Penality: The Role Of Bylaw Enforcement In Managing Homelessness, Natasha Martino

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In Canada, over 235,000 people experience homelessness per year. The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the visibility of homelessness and the use of homeless encampments across Ontario. As visibility has increased, so too have community members’ expectations to manage homelessness or find a solution to minimize the visibility of homelessness. While there has been some scholarship about the police management of homelessness, far less is known about the role of bylaw enforcement. Yet, bylaw officers play a critical role in responding to homelessness due to their increasing responsibility for enforcing municipal bylaws and COVID-19 public health mandates, such as stay at …

An Analysis Of Collective Efficacy As A Predictor Of Gun Violence In Toronto, Carly Richards

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

There has been a 42% increase in gun violence in Canada since 2013, largely due to increases in Toronto (Statistics Canada, 2022a). To gain a better understanding of this phenomenon, this study evaluated collective efficacy as a predictor of gun violence. Seven correlates of collective efficacy were identified including, low economic status, ethnic diversity, mobility, family disruption, employment rate, low educational attainment, and youth percentage in a population. This study included data from the City of Toronto’s Open Data Portal and the 2016 Canadian Census. The data were pulled from various datasets and then were reorganized into one file, which …

Fifth-Dimensional Warfare And National Security In Canada: Situating Microdeviation Theory Within C-59: An Act Respecting National Security Matters, Hayden Slight

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In an era of rapid technological change, the growing threat environment in the cyber dimension will continue to influence how a sovereign nation contends with attacks that can occur from any corner of the world. The growing adaptation and expansion of technology belonging to the Internet of Things (IoT) and the increasing prevalence of social media (Facebook, Twitter) has also influenced the spreading of attack surfaces that can become victim to exploitation by motivated parties including foreign states and terrorist groups. Against this backdrop, Canada’s own efforts to modernize and reinforce its own national security agencies resulted in the developing …

Exploring Climate, Wellbeing, Resilience, And Resistance In 2slgbtq+ Leisure Spaces: A Mixed Methods Study To Advance Inclusion, Tin Vo

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Participating in queer sports groups, rainbow choirs, trans virtual discussion groups and other Two-Spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other sexually and gender diverse (2SLGBTQ+) leisure activities can offer participants safety from societal heterosexism and cisgenderism and opportunities for community connection and peer support, as well as foster their overall wellbeing. Yet, transgender/gender nonconforming (TGNC), racialized, and/or disabled individuals, and those with other diverse identities are often marginalized in these spaces. Though researchers have studied exclusion within 2SLGBTQ+ leisure spaces, relatively little is known about how the climate of these spaces shapes social and mental health outcomes. Connected to …

Translating Mentoring Interventions Research Into Practice: Evaluation Of An Evidence-Based Workshop For Research Mentors On Developing Trainees’ Scientific Communication Skills, Erin K Dahlstrom, Christine Bell, Shine Chang, Hwa Young Lee, Cheryl B Anderson, Annie Pham, Christine Maidl Pribbenow, Carrie A Cameron

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

A key part of keeping doctoral and postdoctoral trainees in STEM research careers is mentoring. Our previous research indicates that mentoring trainees in scientific communication (SC) skill development increases research career intention through two social-cognitive constructs, self-efficacy in and outcome expectations for acquiring SC skills, as well as science identity. While many mentor training interventions exist, no programs focus on developing SC skills specifically. The "Scientific Communication Advances Research Excellence" (SCOARE) program trains mentors to address trainee scientific communication (SC) skill development as an innovative approach to increase trainee research career persistence. The SCOARE training is a half-day workshop for …

The Torch: Suffolk University College Of Arts & Sciences Honors Program Newsletter, No. 11, Winter 2022, College Of Arts & Sciences Honors Program

Torch Newsletter

No abstract provided.

The Torch: Suffolk University College Of Arts & Sciences Honors Program Newsletter, No. 12, Summer 2022, College Of Arts & Sciences Honors Program

Torch Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Cas Honors Symposium Program, Fall 2022, College Of Arts & Sciences Honors Program

College of Arts & Sciences Honors in the Major Symposium

No abstract provided.

Cas Honors Symposium Program, Spring 2023, College Of Arts & Sciences Honors Program

College of Arts & Sciences Honors in the Major Symposium

No abstract provided.

Cas Honors Symposium Program, Spring 2022, College Of Arts & Sciences Honors Program

College of Arts & Sciences Honors in the Major Symposium

No abstract provided.

The Public Law Paradoxes Of Climate Emergency Declarations, Jocelyn Stacey

All Faculty Publications

Climate emergency declarations occupy a legally-ambiguous space between emergency measure and political rhetoric. Their uncertain status in public law provides a unique opportunity to illuminate latent assumptions about emergencies and how they are regulated in law. This article analyzes climate emergency declarations in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. It argues that these climate emergency declarations reflect back a set of paradoxes about how emergencies are governed in law—paradoxes about defining the emergency, its relationship to time and who gets to respond to the emergency and how. These paradoxes productively complicate long-held and over-simplified assumptions about emergencies contained …

The New Norm: Do Societal Attitudes Still Play A Role In Unmarried Childbearing?, Madilynn Bulot

Honors Baccalaureate Theses

This study examines the influence of women’s economic changes in the United States on the incidence of out-of-wedlock births in the United States over time. The data were obtained from various sources including the CDC, BLS, and U.S. Census from the year 1980 to 2018. It was found that women’s education and the fertility rate had significant impacts on out-of-wedlock births. However, while these societal norms had a positive correlation in the first few decades since Roe v. Wade, the technology shock has died down while these trends have continued their path, and women are now choosing to both work …

The Collegiate Black Space: Black College Students’ Use Of New Counter-Spaces For Support, Knowledge Production, And Organizing For Activism, Heather Streets

Doctoral Dissertations

Black collegians who attend historically white institutions continue to struggle with racism, microaggressions, feelings of alienation, minimal or improper advising, and an undue pressure to prove themselves (Bonner, 2010; Feagin & Sikes, 1995; Strayhorn, 2010). These barriers to success result in part due to a lack of support from the colleges and universities that they attend (Allen, 1992; Parker, Puig, Johnson & Anthony, Jr., 2016). With institutional benefits designed to benefit white students over students of color, Black students must find their own alternatives for collaboration and to provide support for their peers.

Many Black spaces can be defined as …

Teaching Solidarity: Popular Education In Grassroots U.S. Social Movements, Tenaya Summers Lafore

Doctoral Dissertations

Fifty years after he wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), Brazilian educator Paulo Freire’s work is as relevant as ever. But while many of Freire’s ideas are well known in the United States, there is limited research on their application in social movement settings, a practice commonly known as popular education. This comparative case study draws on Freire’s theory of popular education to analyze two U.S.-based grassroots education programs, one with low-income residents in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco and one with front-line hospital and public school employees on the East Coast. Through six months of participant observation and …

Cuentos Criollos: Colombian Internally Displaced Families As Knowledge Producers, Liliana Salazar De Deck

Doctoral Dissertations

Colombia continues to report the highest number of internally displaced people (IDPs) with over eight million registered in 2021 (UNHCR, 2021). The majority of the internally displaced people are campesinos, AfroColombians, and members of Indigenous communities. Historically, people in these demographic groups have been excluded from political participation and wealth accumulation, and their identities are minoritized (Bello, 2003). Urban schools have become contact zones (Pratt, 1991) for internally displaced families and various economic, social, and political discourses attempt to explore and explain their experiences. However, the voices of the families themselves are not often found within this body of scholarship. …

An Exploration Of Learning-At-Home Experiences Among Families And Children Of Color Labeled With Disabilities During Covid-19: A Narrative Inquiry, Nam Ju Han

Doctoral Dissertations

We are living in this historical moment of a COVID-19 global crisis that is continuing to impact marginalized families in our very own communities. Students of color, especially those who are already on the margins, and experience inequities in the classroom and in the community, have been further impacted by the quarantine as the educational system had not prioritized how to support students who face certain vulnerabilities due to lack of government funding, the historical oppressive tendency for schools to function within a medical model of standardization, along with the commodification of learning. Given the novelty of COVID-19 research, the …

Feminist Catholic Organizational Identity: A Phenomenological Study Of Charism In The Lay Educator Of A Notre Dame De Namur Learning Community, Kathleen Barrera Quiazon

Doctoral Dissertations

The Catholic schools of women’s religious congregations in the United States possess a distinctive Catholic identity, owed in great part to the charism of their founders and the feminist worldview that emerged in the sisters’ mission, communal narratives, and ministries. With the decline of women religious across the country, schools and congregations ask questions for the future of that identity in the hands of lay educators. As with many religiously sponsored schools, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and their lay partners in education are engaged in these critical questions for their own learning communities across the country.

This …

Organizational Practices And Second-Generation Gender Bias: A Qualitative Inquiry Into The Career Progression Of Us State-Level Managers, Maria J. D’Agostino, Helisse Levine, Meghna Sabharwal, Ai C. Johnson-Manning

Publications and Research

Ely and Meyerson’s gendered organizations framework reconceptualizes traditional gender differences defined by biology and lack of structural opportunities, to a complex set of social relations in the workplace. We apply this framework to second-generation gender bias to further understand impediments to women’s career progression in the public sector workplace. In-depth interviews of state-level administrators in U.S. public sector agencies indicate that “narratives” perpetuate second-generation gender bias that is deeply ingrained in organizational practices and policies, especially for women and women of color. This framework can be applied to future studies examining the gendered nature of organizations in different workplace settings. …

Enhancing Police Accountability And Legitimacy, Daniel L. Stageman

Publications and Research

As the institution responsible for exercising the state monopoly on violence within U.S. borders, the legitimacy of policing depends on its accountability through the democratic process. Ideally, police in a democracy are authorized by the voting public to use force in a manner that is limited, justifiable, and clearly in service of the aims of public safety and law enforcement - in other words to prevent the social harms associated with criminal behavior. A combination of factors including structural inequality, historical associations with white supremacy, and hyperlocal oversight structures present significant challenges to police legitimacy, especially in highly policed communities …

Religion As A Micro And Macro Property: Investigating The Multilevel Relationship Between Religion And Abortion Attitudes Across The Globe, Amy Adamczyk

Publications and Research

In many countries abortion is the most contested issue being publicly discussed, in part, because it has implications for gender equality, health, family formation, and politics. Personal religious beliefs are often seen as having an important role in shaping disapproving attitudes. However, little attention has been given to the country religious context for understanding public opinion about abortion. Drawing on ideas from cultural sociology, the anti-ascetic hypothesis, and moral communities hypothesis, this study investigates the individual and country religious associations with abortion attitudes. Using hierarchical modeling techniques and survey data from over 70 nations, representing the majority of the world’s …

Using Internet-Derived Data To Measure Religion: Understanding How Google Can Provide Insight Into Cross-National Religious Differences, Amy Adamczyk, Jacqueline Scott, Steven Hitlin

Publications and Research

Internet and social media data provide new sources of information for examining social issues, but their potential for scholars interested in religion remains unclear. Focusing on cross-national religion data, we test the validity of measures drawn from Google and Twitter against well-known existing data. We find that Google Trend (GT) searches for the dominant religions’ major holidays, along with “Buddhism,” can be validated against traditional sources. We also find that GT and traditional measures account for similar amounts of variation, and the GT measures do not differ substantially from established ones for explaining several cross-national outcomes (e.g., fertility, circumcision, and …

Assessing The Benefits Of College Internships At A Hispanic Serving Institution, Amy Adamczyk, Katheryn Crawford, Yuna Kim

Publications and Research

Few studies have investigated the usefulness of internships at Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSI). Focusing on a 4-year public university (HSI), this study examined differences between the internship and the non-internship students, and changes across the semester for development. A structured internship appears to have some value; including increased interaction with faculty outside the classroom, confidence in verbally expressing ideas, and class presentations.

Assessing Variation And Change In Newspaper Portrayals Of Muslims: The Influence Of The Trump Election And Differences Across The United States In Local And National Papers, Amy Adamczyk, Emily Greene-Colozzi, Senahan Kiyal Keles, Aida Murati

Publications and Research

Since Donald Trump’s political campaign, Americans have appeared increasingly divided over public opinion issues and US policies with the media seemingly reflecting these divisions. One of Trump’s early initiatives was the “Muslim ban,” which restricted visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries. Focusing on the portrayal of Muslims in over 900 hand coded articles, our study uses multilevel modeling techniques to examine how newspapers changed their frames and claimsmakers in discussions about Muslims before and after Trump was elected. After the election, newspapers were more likely to include government claimsmakers and an immigration frame, and were less likely to mention a radical …

Unpacking The Influence Of Islamic Religious Culture And Individual Religious Affiliation On Testing Hiv-Positive, Brittany Hayes, Amy Adamczyk

Publications and Research

The distribution of HIV cases varies cross-nationally. We separate the influences of Islam at the macro-and micro-levels to understand the role of religion in shaping the spread of HIV. Drawing on biomarker data from the Demographic and Health Surveys, we construct a multilevel database (Individual N= 568,476; Country N= 30). We examine a series of national-and individual-level predictors that may mediate the relationship between Islam and testing HIV-positive. Individual religious affiliation and proportion Muslim retained their risk-reducing effects even when accounting for a range of mediators and suppressors. Islam has a sui generis effect on testing HIV-positive.

When And How Does Anti-Semitism Occur? The Different Trigger Mechanisms Associated With Different Types Of Criminal And Non-Criminal Hate Incidents, Matteo Vergani, Dan Goodhard, Rouven Link, Amy Adamczyk, Joshua D. Freilich, Steven Chermak

Publications and Research

We used data from an Australian community register to build a database containing 673 incidents, including both criminal and non-criminal anti-Semitic acts that occurred between October 2013 and September 2017. We conducted bivariate and multivariate analyses to explore the differences in the types of incidents associated with different trigger events. Using time series methods, we found a significant increase in criminal (but not in non-criminal) incidents during the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. During Jewish religious festivals, we found a significant decrease in criminal incidents, and a significant increase in non-criminal incidents. After the establishment of the neo-nazi group Antipodean Resistance, we …