Digital Commons Network^™

Early Intervention Within Orthodontics: The Sociological Aspects, Trenton Hammond

Honors Theses

Orthodontic treatment is one of the final phases of dental treatment. Its use is to provide aesthetics in some cases, yet the quality-of-life aspect that it can provide is greatly underestimated. Orthodontic care can provide proper function of teeth, improve facial structure, avoid tooth decay/loss, and improve gum health (AAO, 2024). Within this research the overarching goal is to understand the sociological aspects of families looking to start orthodontic care, what the reasons behind starting or not starting are, and providing information to the public about orthodontics that may be misunderstood or might push people away from searching for orthodontic …

Interviews In Global Catholic Studies: Richard Wood, Mathew N. Schmalz, Richard Wood

Journal of Global Catholicism

No abstract provided.

The Portrayals Of Trans Athlete Accomplishments In Newspapers, Sierra L. Davidson

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between events related to trans athletes and their portrayal in the media. This research project focuses on the accomplishment of one trans athlete, Lia Thomas, winning a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division 1 swimming championship in 2022. Articles from three newspapers of differing biases: The Washington Post, USA Today, and Washington Examiner, and one local newspaper of Thomas’ competing state, Philadelphia Daily News, were used in this analysis. Emerging themes were identified and codes were developed. These recurring themes and codes revealed differences in how newspapers reported on this …

Differences In Death And Dying Anxiety Among Undergraduate Freshmen And Seniors, Greyson A. Owens

Honors College Theses

This research will observe the differences in death anxiety among undergraduate university freshmen and seniors. This study was conducted using a quantitative survey instrument. The Collett-Lester death anxiety scale was used to survey students. The instrument consists of thirty-two Likert scale questions that focused on anxiety levels of death and dying for the respondents and when thinking of others. I asked professors to post a recruitment flyer that I emailed to them on their Folio page, and I also posted these flyers in common areas on the Georgia Southern Campus. Data from freshmen and seniors were collected and analyzed. I …

Understanding The Impact Of Pedagogical Changes In An Honors Activism Course: A Case Study, Aaron Peeksmease

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

The purpose of this portfolio is to document learning outcomes after initiating three pedagogical changes in an Honors Sociology of Activism course taught at UNL in both the Fall of 2022 and Fall of 2023. The first change was to provide students with prior student work of an assignment to see if student performance on the assignment improved. Findings indicated that providing examples of previous student work did not raise grades on the overall assignment, but did result in stronger projects for that one aspect of the overall assignment. The second change examined the impact of introducing reading quizzes and …

Sociology Final Project/Presentation, Allyssa Baumbach

AI Assignment Library

This assignment requires students to demonstrate their learning through a presentation of a sociological topic to a lay audience. The presentation development process involves use of AI as a brainstorming and organization tool. Students critically analyze and evaluate the quality and accuracy of the AI-generated material and make adjustments to the output as appropriate for their topic and goals for presenting.

Dialoguing Narratives Of Social Movement Theories And Subjectivities, Sarra Moneir

Future Journal of Social Science

This paper serves as a theoretical study for displaying a sample of the prime literature on social movement theories in comparison with one another, shedding light on the gaps and fundamental contributions. This will be carried out in comparison to the scholarship on subjectivity. Social movement and social movement theories have been inevitable tools of analysis since primarily the 1980s, serving as replacements for modes of apprehending popular mobilization. Since then, theoretical contributions in this field have grown and shown a multitude of orientations and focal strategies on how to focus and study social movements in their various forms and …

Portfolio For Soci 346: Environmental Sociology, Gwendwr Meredith

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Environmental sociology, SOCI 346, is the study of how social systems interact with ecosystems. As such, it is a very broad course that is tasked with understanding complex and often controversial questions about the social causes, consequences, and responses to environmental disruption. In this teaching portfolio, I enumerate how I use a backward design for crafting assessments that cater to my specific teaching goals and learning objectives for the course. In the first stage of this process, I reflected on what learning outcomes I wished to achieve and determined that structuring the course in modules aligned with the learning objectives …

Eco-Interoception: What Plants, Fungi And Protista Have Taught My Body, Sara Riley Dotterer

Art Theses and Dissertations

To me, ecology is the relational, full-body awareness that I am made up of and deeply connected to everything around me; and for better or worse, this is reciprocal. I form ecotones, an ecological transitional zone between two ecosystems, with the world around me. I use this ecotonal lens to blur binaries and dissolve boundaries between me and the world “outside my body.” During my Masters of Fine Arts at Southern Methodist University, I have continuously explored and represented the lives of various more-than-human species outside of my body, including plants, fungi and protista through an ecotonal lens. Although these …

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 …

Dungeons & Dragons: Fractals Of The Human Self, Katie Anderson

Honors Theses

Dungeons & Dragons at its core is roleplay based storytelling, which implies the idea that the game is a work of fiction. While the world of Iad and the Free States of Tarvan does not exist on planet earth, the experiences and emotions felt by the players and their characters within the world are very much real. Players use extensions of themselves, their characters, to interact with the world around them, forging relationships and new lines of fate and destiny. Characters are fractals of their out of game personas, attached to one’s base personality and expanding outwards. The development of …

Who Cares For The Caregivers: How Being A Caregiver Impacts Cancer Survivorship, Cristy Romero

Sociology Student Scholarship

Cristy Romero ’23
Majors: Sociology and Biology
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Brandon C. Martinez, Sociology and Anthropology

With an aging population, informal caregiving is rising and is the predominant way for people with chronic illnesses to receive care. Providing care for someone with a chronic illness can take a toll on the caregiver. Caregivers often develop their own chronic illnesses such as cancer. Compared to Whites, Latinx cancer survivors and their families experience disproportionate adverse effects of cancer and cancer therapy as a result of physical, emotional, and financial challenges. This highlights racial/ethnic disparity in cancer survivorship. Due to the interwoven …

Sociology: A Guide To Action Or To Analysis In The Global Climate Change Crisis? A Call For Action By The Social Sciences And The Humanities, Kim Scipes

Class, Race and Corporate Power

The debate over the purpose of sociological research has historically been one between Marx and Weber: is sociology’s role to analyze society (ala Weber) or to change it (Marx)?

The issue of climate change and environmental destruction is one that has been relegated to the margins of Sociology, being seen as an “environmental” issue. The changes we’ve seen so far, however, show how this has had and is having a major impact on human beings and, at least in the United States, is having a major impact on the culture of the country, both in general and specifically on different …

Sociology Ethnographic Film Review, Kristen S. Addessi

Open Educational Resources

This is an assignment that gives students options of using different films as examples of ethnographies to understand key issues that occur in our society.

The First-Generation Student Experience; Why Building Solidarity Is Vital, Amarilys Torres-Nunez

Student Symposium

First-generation college students (i.e students whose parents or guardians do not have a 4-year college degree) face a unique set of challenges. Psychological, academic, financial, and social barriers all pose a threat to a first-gen student's success. Despite this, first-gen students possess unique strengths and resiliency that if recognized, can function as assets. This presentation highlights and addresses these elements while focusing on my experiences as the First-Generation Program Coordinator at OWU. The position creates, promotes, and evaluates first-gen programming. It serves as a student representative on the First-Gen Advisory Board, a group of faculty, staff, and students that strives …

Sociology Of The Family (Asynchronous), Francine Almash

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Methods And Techniques Of Sociological Research, Larry Au

Open Educational Resources

Sociological research—like all forms academic research—is a conversation. Like all conversations, sociology has established conventions, styles, and genres. To participate in this conversation, we first need to understand how sociologists make and substantiate claims. As an empirical social science, much of the sociological enterprise consists of the collection and analysis of data that allows us to measure, interpret, and theorize social relations. But because social life is complex, sociological inquiry also requires an understanding of the limitations of different methodological approaches and the positionality of the researcher. Furthermore, sociology is a diverse field: diverse in its objects of study, and …

Collaborative Book Assignment: New York And The World - What Migration Stories Teach Us, Maritsa Poros

Open Educational Resources

Collaborative book assignment on migration histories of New Yorkers.

Freedom And Heteronomy In The Anthropocene, Alexander M. Stoner, Harry F. Dahms

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

City Flags And The Politics Of Urban Revitalization: The Case Of Syracuse, Ny, Grace Risinger

Honors Theses

People tend to care about flags, but are not aware that their city has a flag. A recent wave of flag redesigns has been happening in the United States since a 2015 TED Talk was posted widely criticizing city flags. This subject prompted my professor, Daniel Alvord, to ask for a research assistant for his project to understand this phenomenon. For my thesis, I focus on a specific flag redesign initiative in Syracuse, NY, through an ethnographic case study. By applying previous urban sociological literature to my focus on flag redesigns, I can connect the Syracuse community member’s increased civic …

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 …

Bureaucratic Sorceries In The Third Policeman: Anthropological Perspectives On Magic & Officialdom, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

This article discusses The Third Policeman through the lens of a dialectic of enchantment and disenchantment that is firmly anchored in the history of anthropological discourse on bureaucracy (Malinowski, Lévi-Strauss, Tambiah, Herzfeld, Graeber, Jones). From this angle, Flann O’Brien’s novel is examined as an aesthetic illustration of an essentially anthropological argument: although bureaucracy has been described as an eminently rational form of social systematisation, regulation, and control (since Weber), it also functions, paradoxically, as a symbolic site for irrationality and supernatural occurrences, haunted by madness, mystery, and delusion. The novel is intriguing partly due to its nonchalant, humorous entwining of …

State Policy & Politics Database (Sppd), Jennifer Karas Montez

Center For Aging and Policy Studies

The State Policy & Politics Database (SPPD) is a compilation of annual data on state policies and politics that are particularly relevant for population health. The SPPD includes several categories of policies, including labor and economic policies (e.g., minimum wage levels, right to work laws), social safety net policies (e.g., earned income tax credits, SNAP), behavior-related policies (e.g., tobacco taxes, opioid prescribing), as well as the political ideology of the states’ government and citizens. Most measures are available annually from 1980 to 2021.

State Policy & Politics Database (Sppd), Jennifer Karas Montez

Center For Aging and Policy Studies

The State Policy & Politics Database (SPPD) is a compilation of annual data on state policies and politics that are particularly relevant for population health. The SPPD includes several categories of policies, including labor and economic policies (e.g., minimum wage levels, right to work laws), social safety net policies (e.g., earned income tax credits, SNAP), behavior-related policies (e.g., tobacco taxes, opioid prescribing), as well as the political ideology of the states’ government and citizens. Most measures are available annually from 1980 to 2021.

Market Feminism In Morocco, Claire Madsen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Despite widespread views of “Moroccan Exceptionalism,” Morocco continues to rank poorly on international evaluations of gender equality. This project seeks to understand the extent of the influence neoliberal economic forces in Morocco have had on the feminist landscape. Analysis of Moroccan political history, Foucauldian theories of power relations, and relevant literature on state feminism set the groundwork for the evaluation of the extent state feminism in Morocco can be understood as market-based, in accordance with the definition from From State Feminism to Market Feminsim (2012) by Kantola and Squires. Through interviews of three experts, three meetings with women’s empowerment NGOs, …

Lgbtq+ In The Cowl: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly - Tracing Coverage Of Lgbtq+ Topics From 1935 To 2022, Nicole Patano

Sociology Student Scholarship

In their very first issue published on November 16, 1935, The Cowl staff explained the purpose of the novel student newspaper: “Primarily, the COWL exists to serve the student body, not simply as a news organ, but more fundamentally as a means to foster and intensify an enthusiatic Providence College spirit and loyalty.” Since its founding, The Cowl has attempted to be just that, reporting news and welcoming discussion and debate from members of its staff and members of the larger Providence College community.

Unfortunately, however, the mission of the College can, and often has, run contrary to the mission …

Break The Chains Of Generational Trauma, Jessica Calalay

Sociology Student Work Collection

Generational trauma is complex. When you can identify the trauma, you can heal the trauma. You are not alone.

Soc 101: Introduction To Sociology Oer Curation, Erica L. Schiller

Curated OER Collections

This OER curation is an annotated bibliography of prospective OER for the GVSU course SOC 101: Introduction to Sociology.

Calling Out Street Harassment Of Women And Lgbtq People: A Review Of Kolysh’S Everyday Violence, Alexandra Nowakowski

The Qualitative Report

Street harassment often impacts people whose identities and presentations of self-intersect with femininity in any way. Yet, despite this frequent unwelcome scrutiny of our bodies and selves, few scholars have turned their own appraising gazes on street harassment in kind. Fewer still have centered queer and trans people in their inquiry. In Everyday Violence: The Public Harassment of Women & LGBTQ People, Dr. Simone Kolysh (2021) critically investigates street harassment from intersectional queer and nonbinary feminist perspectives. Their research both amplifies voices from survivors of harassment and directly explores perspectives from perpetrators of harassment. Per Kolysh’s own reflections, this …

Sin In A Southern City: The Unearthed History Of Atlanta’S Postbellum-To-Progressive Era Prostitution Trade, Mandy J. Swygart-Hobaugh M.L.S., Ph.D., Allyson Stephens

University Library Faculty Presentations

This presentation was given by Dr. Mandy Swygart-Hobaugh (Georgia State University Library faculty member) and Allyson Stephens (Georgia State University Sociology graduate student) at the 2022 Atlanta Studies Symposium. The presenters describe the methodology and share preliminary analyses of US Census data on Atlanta’s prostitution trade from 1880 through 1910. The presented research is a component of a larger project to reconstruct the lost history of the rise and fall of Atlanta’s prostitution trade from the Postbellum Era through the Progressive Era, drawing from newspapers, US Census data, city directories, property records, maps, and more. This site provides a …