Digital Commons Network^™

Demographic And Population Change In Mountain West Cities And Suburbs, 2020 Census, Zachary Billot, Saha Salahi, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Demography

This fact sheet examines the five metro areas with populations exceeding one million in the Mountain West, drawing from the Brookings Institution report, “Today’s Suburbs are Symbolic of America’s Rising Diversity: A 2020 Census Portrait” by William Frey. Demographic data are included for both primary city and suburban portions for the major metros in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah.

Questioning Identity: How A Diverse Set Of Respondents Answer Standard Questions About Ethnicity And Race, Dana Garbarski, Jennifer Dykema, Cameron P. Jones, Tiffany S. Neman, Nora Cate Schaeffer, Dorothy Farrar Edwards

Sociology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Ethnoracial identity refers to the racial and ethnic categories that people use to classify themselves and others. How it is measured in surveys has implications for understanding inequalities. Yet how people self-identify may not conform to the categories standardized survey questions use to measure ethnicity and race, leading to potential measurement error. In interviewer-administered surveys, answers to survey questions are achieved through interviewer–respondent interaction. An analysis of interviewer–respondent interaction can illuminate whether, when, how, and why respondents experience problems with questions. In this study, we examine how indicators of interviewer–respondent interactional problems vary across ethnoracial groups when respondents answer questions …

Making Space Behind The Veil: Black Agency Within A Predominantly White Religion, Michael Wood, Grace Ann Soelberg, Jacob Rugh

Faculty Publications

The work of W.E.B. Du Bois highlights the significance of Christian religion in Black American life. According to Du Bois, the Black Church serves as a site of self-formation and affirmation, and the White Church as a source of racist beliefs and justifications for inequality. In this paper, we expand Du Bois’ inquiry about the influence of religion with a study of Black Americans who belong to a predominantly White religion. For those whose religious experience is almost wholly within the “white world,” what role does religion play in their lives? We analyze a set of 52 public accounts by …

The Connection Between Colorism And White Supremacy: Colorism As A Tool Of White Supremacy In The Contemporary Age In The United States And Puerto Rico, Taylor Nicole Bell

Senior Theses

As the world moves into a perceived post-racial era, it is important to acknowledge and understand the existing presence and strength of white supremacy. While outright expressions of racism become less acceptable, people of color continue to face discrimination in multiple facets of their lives. One way to preserve and strengthen white supremacy in the modern age is through color-based discrimination or colorism. Across the globe, people of a lighter complexion, or those in closer proximity to whiteness, experience privileges and better treatment than those of a darker complexion. My thesis aims to argue that colorism in the modern age …

The Perpetuation Of Racial Inequalities In The Criminal Justice System, Chloe Bessette

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

The criminal justice system is not necessarily just and is particularly unfair towards Black Americans. The research shows that they face discrimination in every step of the justice system, from initial arrest to sentencing. Many peer-reviewed sources were analyzed in order to compile the evidence that supports that claim, and what follows is a summation of that research. This paper succinctly proves, using facts, that discrimination and racism still run rampant in the American justice system. These facts include an over 50% higher chance of being killed during an arrest, five times as likely to be incarcerated, three times as …

Abolition Ecologies And The Making Of Freedom As A Place In Bayview-Hunters Point, Spencer Daniel O'Hara

Master's Theses

In this paper, I critically explore the subjectivities of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard (HPNS), part of the largest redevelopment project in San Francisco since 1906. Applying an abolition ecologies framework, I ask what explains the duplicity of the Shipyard as a site of radioactive contamination and capital accumulation, and in the same time-space one that creates the conditions for radical place-making. Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is a former commercial and military shipyard located on a peninsula in southeastern San Francisco. Motivated by its desire for a major shipbuilding and repair facility to project maritime power in the Pacific, the Navy …

Associations Between Tiktok Use, Mental Health, And Body Image Among College Students, Alexz Carpenter

Honors Theses

Background. Social media use continues to increase globally, and there is a large field of research examining the relationships between social media use with anxiety, depression, and body image. College-aged students are particularly vulnerable to these associations because they are at a unique developmental point of their life. College-aged students also use social media more frequently than almost any other age group, which may put them at increased risk for negative mental health and body image outcomes related to their social media use. TikTok is a relatively new social media app that has exponentially risen in popularity, especially among younger …

Race, Gender, And Inheritance: The Experience Of Black Farmers In Mississippi, Gbenga Idowu Elufisan

Theses and Dissertations

The population of Black farmers in the U.S. has declined to 2% of farmers in the U.S. because of institutional racism, land dispossession, heir’s property, and youth’s disinterest in farming. Most works on Black farmers have focused on racism, and heirs’ property, but little is known about the influence of race, gender, and inheritance on Black farmers’ experience. To understand this, I asked: what are the contemporary challenges associated with farming among Black farmers in Mississippi? How do race, gender, and inheritance influence the experiences of Black farmers? And how do Black farmers cope with their farming challenges? Twenty farmers …

Identifying And Transforming Sites Of Power In Collaborative Community-Based Research, Jessa Dickinson

College of Computing and Digital Media Dissertations

For this dissertation, I analyzed collaboration practices and power structures within three community-based participatory research (CBPR) studies I conducted for my Ph.D. I ask: 1) How do dominant power structures, epistemologies, and narratives manifest in HCI research and praxis? 2) How can we structure research to support our community partners' goals while resisting dominating and extractive practices in academic research? To respond to these questions, I conducted member checking interviews with my collaborators and a duoethnography with my dissertation advisor, Dr. Sheena Erete, about our experiences in the studies as a Black female professor and a white female graduate student. …

Indoctrination Into Hate: The Development Of Racial Neuroses Resulting From Racist Socialization Under White Supremacy, Aliya Kathryn Benabderrazak

Haslam Scholars Projects

Racial-ethnic socialization is critical to our unique and individual conceptualization of reality. This socialization occurs explicitly and implicitly across the lifespan and has significant implications for one’s behavior, social relationships, and ideological beliefs. Two of the most notable and impactful spheres in which racial-ethnic socialization occurs are within the family unit and schooling contexts. The treatment and teachings within these two spaces shape our social and psychological development. The first part of my project considers the neurosis of Whiteness as a psychological consequence of racist socialization within school settings and primarily White communities—as a macro example of the family unit—to …

The Black Progress Index In Mountain West Metropolitan Statistical Areas (Msas), Zachary Billot, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Demography

This fact sheet examines data from the Brookings Institution report, “Black Progress Index: Examining Social Factors That Influence Black Well-Being” authored by Andre Perry and Jonathan Rothwell in September 2022. The Black Progress Index (BPI) score is constructed using data and social factors that impact life expectancy for Black Americans. This fact sheet compares the BPI with the actual life expectancy of Black people in Mountain West metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). This fact sheet also examines each of the 13 variables included in the original report to present the BPI in the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise, NV MSA.

“Nope. Don’T Like That.” In Search Of Justice And Commitment To Nonmaleficence In Dance/Movement Therapy, Johnee Border

Dance/Movement Therapy Theses

The American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) and Dance/Movement Therapy Certification Board (DMTCB) have ensured those dance/movement therapists who have been educated, registered, and board-certified share a commitment to equity, justice, and nonmaleficence according to the ADTA and DMTCB’s Code of Ethics and Standards (The Code) (ADTA, 2015). “Nope. Don’t like that,” has been the actual, verbal, expression of the embodied experience of intersectional harm from a lack of assessed, decolonized dance/movement therapy practice and pedagogy. The ADTA, students, educators, and credentialed dance/movement therapists hold an established, ethical responsibility to justice and nonmaleficence, and as such, must demonstrate a commitment to …

Finish This Over Drinks? A Study Of Sexual Harassment Perceptions, Hannah E. Barti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The awareness of sexual harassment has been growing within the workplace, in the home, and within public areas. The #MeToo movement has shined light on this issue in recent years. This study aimed to understand how college students perceive sexual harassment within three scenarios: a music student and their teacher, two coworkers, and between an academic advisor and an adult student. This study included 531 responses from a diverse student population at a Southwest university. Consistent with previous findings, women were more likely to recognize sexually harassing behaviors. There were no significant gender differences in blame attribution in any of …

Examining Housing Experiences Among International Students At The University Of Tennessee, Knoxville (Utk), Rosemary Achentisa Ayelazuno

Masters Theses

As more students from across the world enrol in higher education to take advantage of the opportunities it offers, schools and universities are starting to address a problem that an increasing number of their students are experiencing, namely housing insecurity. With an increase in the number of students due to growing interest in higher education institutions, student housing has become a significant area of concern. More overseas graduate students are pursuing their degrees without regular access to their housing needs due to a lack of inexpensive and accessible housing, high tuition prices, and insufficient financial help. To better understand the …

Whose Nation Is It? A Critical Analysis Of The Impacts Of Conservative Nationalism And Migration Security On Marginalized Groups In America, Joshua Jackson

International Studies (MA) Theses

This research aims to examine the effects of migration securitization on marginalized citizens in the United States of America by examining it through a conservative nationalist lens. While the securitization of migration is “the process through which the phenomenon of migration is framed as a threat to the survival of a certain referent object” (von Rosen, 2019, p. 36), the byproduct of that framing extends beyond the initially constructed threat (von Rosen, 2019). The framing of immigration and migrants as a threat to the United States is not a new occurrence and has served to bolster conservative politicians and construct …

“Nails Done, Hair Done, Everything Did!”: Consumption And The Creation Of Black Feminine Selves, Simone Reid

Honors Theses

This thesis examines how race and gender shape the meaning that Black women associate with their beauty consumption practices and spending. Much of the existing feminist scholarship on beauty has been postfeminist, privileging the concept of agency and empowerment over structural realities. However, the materialist feminist frame has more utility to address how beauty operates within the lives of Black women as a form of distinct gendered racial oppression. The concept of aesthetic capital emerges from the materialist feminist perspective and suggests that beauty demands the investment of considerable economic resources and can deliver economic returns. Despite this, aesthetic capital …

Complex Stereotypes: Stereotypes Across The Intersections Of Gender, Sexuality, Age, Race/Ethnicity, And Social Class, Nicholas Heiserman

Theses and Dissertations

Research on stereotypes and their consequences often focuses on discrete categorical stereotypes in isolation from each other (e.g. gender or race categories), and rarely centers the fact that people belong to many social categories at once (e.g. gender and race categories). I address this issue using two large factorial experiment (N=1,762 and N=1,481) designed to measure two core aspects of stereotypes, warmth and competence, across the intersections of multiple social categories: Gender, Sexuality, Age, Race/Ethnicity (Chapter 3), and Social Class (Chapter 2). In Chapter 2, I develop a framework for analyzing intersectional complexity in these data, beginning with overall measures …

Physician Workforce In The Mountain West, Hira Ahmed, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Health

Using data from the Association of American Medical College’s State Physician Workforce Data Report, this fact sheet synthesizes Mountain West data on the numbers of active physicians and active physician demographics in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. This fact sheet focuses on active physicians in the Mountain West region by gender, race and ethnicity, as well as the number of students pursuing medical and premedical education.

Connectivity And Racial Equity In Responding To Covid-19 Impacts In The Chicago Regional Food System, Rowan Obach, Tania Schusler, Paulina Vaca, Sydney Durkin, Ma'raj Sheikh

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The COVID-19 outbreak led to major disruptions in food systems across the globe. In the United States’ Chicago region, the outbreak created immediate concerns around increased hunger, food insecurity, supply chain disruptions, and loss of local livelihoods. This was especially evident in communities of color, which faced disproportionate impacts from the pandemic. In March 2020, the Chicago Food Policy Action Council (CFPAC) coordinated a Rapid Response Effort that convened people in working groups related to emergency food assistance, local food producers, small businesses, and food system workers to address urgent needs that arose due to the pandemic. Each working group …

Breast Cancer Knowledge Among Students At A State Comprehensive University, Calvin Odhiambo, Shimia Hunter

Teacher-Scholar: The Journal of the State Comprehensive University

Background: Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide and the second-leading cause of death among women in the United States. While lack of knowledge about breast cancer is a key factor in breast cancer mortality, little is known about breast cancer knowledge among women and men under the age of 30. The goal of the current study was to investigate the knowledge and awareness of breast cancer among female and male undergraduate students at a State Comprehensive University in the Southeastern United States.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey of 265 male and female undergraduate …

Red, White, Blue & Black: A Phenomenological Analysis Of The African American Officer Experience Of Mentorship In The California Army National Guard, Larry B. Rankin Ii

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this interpretive phenomenological analysis is to explore the perception of mentorship through the experiences of African American Officers (in the ranks of O-4 and above), as it relates to their retention in the California Army National Guard.

Methodology: For this study, a qualitative design was used to conduct research to identify and describe the perception of mentorship through the experiences of African American Officers. The sample was composed of five African-American officers (rank O-4 and above) still serving in the California Army National Guard.

Findings: Analysis of the data collected from 10 semi structured interview questions …

Race, Gender, Physical Activity, And Cancer: A Quantitative Investigation, Shawna A. Townsend

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Black women are more likely to die from cancer than any other population in the United States. Physical activity is known to be associated with preventing and reducing cancer burden. However, Black women are less physically active than their White counterparts and have a higher prevalence of diseases related to lack of physical activity than any other female group. To better understand these issues, this study employed the self-and-family management framework and intersectionality as theoretical frameworks through a secondary analysis of the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) dataset and hierarchical regression modeling to examine the relative impact of (a.) …

The Effect Of Race On Housing Stratification Among Latinos, Julia T. Gomez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Housing discrimination has been an ethical, social, and economic blight on the American society. Among the negative outcomes of this practice are higher crime rates, lower educational attainment, and concentrated poverty. Beyond the moral injustice of this practice, housing discrimination adversely affects the socio-economic mobility of those victimized and this extends across generations. The research on the intersection of race and Latino identity demonstrates the complexity of the issue and suggests that an examination such as done in this study can add to the current knowledge. The purpose of this study was to determine what, if any, association race has …

A Map To Ecosocialism, Marco Armiero, Erik Swyngedouw, Massimo De Angelis, Stefania Barca, Sutapa Chattopadhyay, Mina Lorena Navarro Trujillo, Theordore Steinberg, David N. Pellow, Salvotore Engel-Dimauro

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

No abstract provided.

Trans Women And Reproductive (In)Justice - How Race, Class, And Gender Shape Experiences Of Family Formation And Parenthood, Derek Siegel

Data and Datasets

The following support document includes demographic data from my dissertation research, disaggregated to preserve the anonymity of respondents. It also includes two separate interview schedules for semi-structured interviews I conducted with trans women who were either currently parents (the first guide) or who want to be parents in the future (the second guide). My dissertation examines how race, class, and gender shape trans women’s parenting journeys. Trans women, and particularly trans women of color, experience high levels of discrimination across the contexts of employment, healthcare, and the legal system, yet remain virtually absent from contemporary research on family and parenting …

“That’S Just The Way It Was”: A Critical Analysis Of Guilt, Evasion, And White Supremacy, Sommer Mahoney

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

In the public discourse around American slavery, there is an apologist evasion that can be summarized as such: that slavery was “just the way it was back then.” The word “just” in that phrase connotes a rather casual finality - that slavery in the American colonies, and then in the United States, could not have been avoided. But even a cursory overview of slave rebellion history and abolitionist history prove that this is not true. This reaction is an attempt at evading the feeling of guilt often associated with historical atrocities. However, as Americans avoid their guilt, they also evade …

Book Review: A Field Guide To White Supremacy, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

College Students And Beliefs In The American Dream: The Impact Of Race, Class, And Gender, Maggie E. Marlow

Honors College Theses

The concept of the American Dream and its promises of prosperity and social mobility, primarily through hard work, has been prevalent throughout modern U.S. history. However, what defines the American Dream has been arbitrary and varied, and research has shown that attitudes and beliefs surrounding the Dream have changed over time with shifts in the economic and political environments. The research for this thesis uses qualitative methods, specifically thematic analysis, to analyze 16 in-depth, one-on-one interviews to examine how students attending a predominantly white university in the Southeastern United States perceive the American Dream today while factoring in how those …

Understanding An American Paradox: An Overview Of The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, Spearit

Articles

In The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, Sahar Aziz unveils a mechanism that perpetuates the persecution of religion. While the book’s title suggests a problem that engulfs Muslims, it is not a new problem, but instead a recurring theme in American history. Aziz constructs a model that demonstrates how racialization of a religious group imposes racial characteristics on that group, imbuing it with racial stereotypes that effectively treat the group as a racial rather than religious group deserving of religious liberty.

In identifying a racialization process that effectively veils religious discrimination, Aziz’s book points to several important …

The Human Environment: Awakening To The Indomitable Cuban Spirit--Government, Culture, And People, Berta Hernández-Truyol

FIU Law Review

My thoughts are to write about The Human Environment. I will address the recent events concerning the increased silencing of dissent and the criminal law reforms that prohibit peaceful gatherings.