Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Gis-Integrated Mathematical Modeling Of Social Phenomena At Macro- And Micro- Levels—A Multivariate Geographically-Weighted Regression Model For Identifying Locations Vulnerable To Hosting Terrorist Safe-Houses: France As Case Study, Elyktra Eisman

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Adaptability and invisibility are hallmarks of modern terrorism, and keeping pace with its dynamic nature presents a serious challenge for societies throughout the world. Innovations in computer science have incorporated applied mathematics to develop a wide array of predictive models to support the variety of approaches to counterterrorism. Predictive models are usually designed to forecast the location of attacks. Although this may protect individual structures or locations, it does not reduce the threat—it merely changes the target. While predictive models dedicated to events or social relationships receive much attention where the mathematical and social science communities intersect, models dedicated to …

Producing Collaborations Through Community-Level Processes Of Climate Change And Water Management Planning, Dumitrita Suzana Mic

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While much attention has been given to the ways local communities may be impacted by climate change, this dissertation focuses ethnographically on the local agencies decision-making processes, a less-studied aspect of this topic. The primary purpose of this dissertation research is to understand how government agencies in southern Florida integrate climate change into their decision-making processes while dealing with political resistance. This research expands our understanding on the cultural politics of a new kind of environmental change, where national and international climate-change politics is brought into local water politics to illuminate how new and not so new visions about life …

Constructing Childhood: Place, Space And Nation In Argentina, 1880-1955, Melissa Malone

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the vastly transformative stages of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, notions of the urban and definitions of childhood mutually intersected to create and define a modern Argentine landscape. The construction of new urban environments for children defined and reflected larger liberal elites’ definitions of childhood writ large. To better understand the production of this modern childhood in Argentina, this dissertation examines its other through the spatial-discourses behind constructions of childhood for the socio-economic lower classes - children who largely did not meet the expectations of the elite.

I employ the use of both published and archival sources, …

Geographical Literacy, Attitudes, And Experiences Of Freshman Students: A Qualitative Study At Florida International University, Daniela F. Ottati

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to explore the geography literacy, attitudes and experiences of Florida International University (FIU) freshman students scoring at the low and high ends of a geography literacy survey. The Geography Literacy and ABC Models formed the conceptual framework. Participants were freshman students enrolled in the Finite Math course at FIU. Since it is assumed that students who perform poorly on geography assessments do not have an interest in the subject, testing and interviewing students allowed the researcher to explore the assumption.

In Phase I, participants completed the Geography Literacy Survey (GLS) with items taken from …

Resistance Performances: (Re)Constructing Spaces Of Resistance And Contention In The 2010-2011 University Of Puerto Rico Student Movement, Alessandra M. Rosa

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

On the night of April 20, 2010, a group of students from the University of Puerto Rico (UPR), Río Piedras campus, met to organize an indefinite strike that quickly broadened into a defense of accessible public higher education of excellence as a fundamental right and not a privilege. Although the history of student activism in the UPR can be traced back to the early 1900s, the 2010-2011 strike will be remembered for the student activists’ use of new media technologies as resources that rapidly prompted and aided the numerous protests.

This activist research entailed a critical ethnography and a critical …