Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Sculpting Aesthetic Experiences Through Autistic Indigenous Knowledge, Manuel A. Sánchez Peña

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

The intersection between the autistic mind and the experience of aesthetic elements sculpts a distinct lens through which individuals could explain and appreciate the human experience. Differences between neurotypicals and autistics in terms of sensory experience, cognition and communication, combined with knowledge produced by the Philosophy, Psychology, and Anthropology fields in Aesthetics permit the application of the Neurodiversity Paradigm as a source to explain the perception of aesthetics in the collective. The complexity of these experiences in autistic people not only expands deeper comprehension on aesthetic experiences and all its relativisms, but also illustrates neurodiversity as a form of cultural …

Still Lacking Self-Reflection After All These Years? (De)Stabilizing Factors Of Transatlantic Relations According To German And Us Foreign Policy Experts Between 2011 And 2017, Ulrich Franke, Hermann Kurthen

Peer Reviewed Articles

This article compares the trends and theoretical positions found in the recent academic literature on the status and trajectory of transatlantic relations with the beliefs of 96 German and US foreign policy experts. The qualitative data are derived from open-ended in-depth interviews about the political, economic, and cultural factors that influence transatlantic cooperation and friction. Conducted in Berlin in 2011 and in Washington, D.C., in 2017, the interviews correspond with optimist and pessimist perceptions found in the academic literature and align roughly with realist, respectively, liberal/institutionalist and constructivist theoretical positions in International Relations theory and left/right political leanings. The study …

Impacting Michigan Latino Students’ Perceptions Of Higher Education: How To Better Communicate And Promote 4-Year College Degree Opportunities, Michael A. Guerra

Culminating Experience Projects

In the state of Michigan, the marginalization of Latino students continues due to historical and social factors; this is ultimately reflected in higher education enrollment and graduation rates when compared to their White peers, the dominant group in the state (MI School Data, 2022). For varying reasons, not every student will seek higher education after high school, but it is worth ensuring opportunities and reasons to attend are properly communicated for sake of helping Latino students better explore all their college and career options. While the Michigan Latino population has the highest labor force participation compared to other racial or …

Autism, Sexuality, And Bdsm, Ariel E. Pliskin

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

This paper will explore the following areas in which idiosyncratic, sensitive and intense autistic ways of being result in patterns of sexual behavior and reasons autistic people may be particularly drawn to BDSM: 1) autistic sensorimotor intensity promotes non-normative movement, including sadomasochistic, patterns of movement 2) the autistic preference for literal and concrete language matches the BDSM culture’s norms of explicit verbal consent 3) idiosyncratic autistic attention fits will with opportunities within BDSM for developing a long-term career of learning and deep engagement. 4) the double empathy problem results in marginalization of autistic people from mainstream society while BDSM communities …

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.

Equity + Catalyst Framework Guide, Naomi M. Silas

Culminating Experience Projects

There has been a shift in society, in light of Covid-19 and the global pandemic, more people have begun to recognize the structural and institutional injustices that exist in this country. Social innovation allows collaboration between people from different sectors, disciplines, industries, and backgrounds; in order to create sustainable change to complex social issues. Design thinking is an iterative process used in business to create innovation and products; it’s also used for social impact.

The goal of the Equity + Catalyst Framework is to bridge concepts that include design thinking, and embodiment, as well as lived experiences and community care …

Soc 105: Social Problems Oer Curation, Chealsye Bowley

Curated OER Collections

This OER curation is an annotated bibliography of prospective OER for the GVSU course SOC 105: Social Problems.

Farmers Markets And Social Cohesion In A Post-Covid-19 World, Daniel Falknor

Culminating Experience Projects

The sense of belonging to a community, or social cohesion, is established in food spaces enabled by three separate and unique mechanisms: proximity, frequency, and interactions. This study looks specifically at the Fulton Street Farmers Market in Grand Rapids and the effects the COVID-19 pandemic had on the social benefits derived from the mechanisms of social cohesion, in an attempt to identify and discover new ways to leverage social cohesion in food spaces. Three populations were identified at the farmers market: customers, vendors, and market staff. Surveys and informal interviews provided evidence that proximity to and within the market, higher …

Int 312: Collaborative Communication Oer Curation, Chealsye Bowley

Curated OER Collections

This OER curation is an annotated bibliography of prospective OER for the GVSU course INT 312: Collaborative Communication, assembled by request from the instructor.

A Study On The Beliefs Of Juvenile Justice Practitioners On Youth Behavior And Treatment, Chase S. Christenson

Masters Theses

The following study was conducted to determine the beliefs juvenile justice practitioners (police officers, juvenile probation officers, and youth specialists) have about youth behavior through the lens of Wolfe’s (1998) Entitlement Theory. The four beliefs explored between juvenile justice practitioners are: (1) beliefs about why youth act out, (2) what changes youth behavior, (3) an expectation of youth obedience to authority, and (4) attachment relationships influencing youth behavior. The researcher used a 43-item survey measured with a 5-point Likert scale and open-ended questions that were administered to West Michigan’s juvenile justice practitioners through Qualtrics. Responses were analyzed using an ANOVA …

An Investigation Of Age-Friendly Cities In The United States, Trevor Sherman

Honors Projects

The population is aging at an unprecedented rate worldwide, especially in the United States. This will put increased strain on fundamental parts of society such as health care and social safety nets. Thus, changes will need to be made to existing structures to accommodate the demographic shift while also meeting the needs of an aging population. Cities worldwide have already started age-friendly initiatives in partnership with the World Health Organization in effort t o make their city more accessible for all ages. The purpose of this study was to explore age-friendly initiatives in the United States and to learn more …

To What Extent Is The Death Penalty A Tool Of Racial Terror In America, And How Can We Fix It?, Gabrielle Boileau

Honors Projects

In this project, I seek to answer the question: To what extent is the death penalty a tool of racial terror in America, and how can we fix it? America has long been plagued by the legacy of slavery and white supremacy. In the reconstruction era, when slavery was no longer legal, angry white citizens would simply round up African-Americans and lynch them if they felt they had done something “wrong”. However, in the modern era, such blatant displays of racism are illegal, and the racist views of society are subverted into the court system. Black men are disproportionately arrested …

Roles Of Social Media In The Black Lives Matter Movement During Covid-19, Reilly E. Olson

Honors Projects

By definition social movements reflect unique times in history. To fully grasp the implications of a movement the social and political climate that induce them must be understood. An intersectional model should be used when framing and studying the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, a modern descendant of both the NAACP and Civil Rights movement. From its inception, BLM has utilized social media as an important tool by coining #BlackLivesMatter, a hashtag that frequently comes to life offline as BLM organizers use it as a call for action and mobilization. The accessibility of social media made its role in the …

Max Weber's Living Legacy, Hermann Kurthen

Peer Reviewed Articles

June 14, 2020 was the hundred-year anniversary of Max Weber's death. He died in Munich at age 56 after most likely contracting the Spanish flu. He is often considered one of the founding fathers of sociology next to Marx and Durkheim, despite Weber resisting this label. Given Weber's worldwide reception, his enduring relevance for sociology and beyond is unbroken, even though he left a huge unfinished work not intended as a conventional sociological grand theory but as a historical-comparative attempt to understand how humans interact within their social environment and how they construct a social reality of their own making. …

How Do Food Shopping Behaviors Differ Between High-Income And Low-Income Shoppers In The Grand Rapids Metropolitan Area?, Alison M. Cooney

Masters Theses

Background: The social determinants of health and health equity are influenced by access, environment, and socioeconomic status (SES). Health inequities are preventable and can be avoided with systemic policy change surrounding the distribution of wealth and resources. Few studies have researched the differences in different income levels and the influence income has on food shopping behaviors.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in food shopping behaviors between high-income and low-income shoppers living in the same zip code. Subjects Sixty-eight individuals who live in the 49341 zip code which represents a small city in Kent County, …

I, Too, Sing Neurodiversity, Morénike Giwa Onaiwu

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

The neurodiversity community was envisioned as an inclusive and welcoming space for individuals with neurological conditions such as ADHD, autism, Tourette’s Syndrome, giftedness, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, intellectual disability, NVLD and related diagnoses. The underlying premise of neurodiversity is that people present with various neurological differences and there is value in acknowledging and accepting these differences. Despite efforts made over the past few decades, a growing number of individuals within the neurodiversity community, including people of color, have called for intersectional concepts to be more intentionally and more effectively interwoven into neurodiversity as a whole. Referencing “I, Too,” a decades-old poem …

Teaching While Autistic: Constructions Of Disability, Performativity, And Identity, Alexa Baird

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

The structure of organizational contexts and practices tends to be based on the normative assumption of the non-disabled individual as the prototypical state of being human. Therefore, schools, like many institutional sites, act to replicate the normative expectation of ableism and the atypical mind. These parameters impact not only the disabled students that operate both within these educational spaces but also the disabled adults embedded within these arenas professionally. Thus, disabled teachers act as a marginalized group that has historically been largely absent from the discourse on education and critical disability studies. This paper seeks to develop an understanding of …

Savannah Hockey Classic Attendance Motivation, Chris Hanna, Chris R. Barnhill, Gregg Rich, Amy Rundio, Christina Gipson

Journal of Tourism Insights

The Savannah Hockey Classic has become a very successful annual university club hockey team tournament. The 21^st edition of the tournament was held in January 2020 in Savannah, Ga. featuring the Georgia Institute of Technology, University of Florida, Florida State University, and University of Georgia club hockey teams—the same teams that have comprised the tournament for many years. This study utilized Personal Investment Theory (Braskamp, 1986) and the SPEED scale (Funk, Filo, Beaton, & Pritchard, 2009) for attendance motivation assessment. Social interaction motivations were significantly higher for county residents, spectators attending with friends, spectators attending with family, and past …

The Link Between Nativity Status And Racial Infant Mortality Disparities, Hannah Pierson

McNair Scholars Manuscripts

The United States has one of the highest rates of infant mortality in the developed world. Studies indicate infant mortality varies greatly across racial groups. Black women are twice as likely to report preterm birth or infant death relative to White women. Foreign-born Black women have similar rates to that of native-born White women rather than native-born Black women, suggesting the link between race and reproductive health is more complex than previously understood. Thus, this study examines the interplay between nativity, race, and reproductive health. The cumulative disadvantage perspective has been employed to better unpack how life course stressors may …

Addressing Sexual Violence In K-12 Education, Taylor Bowie

McNair Scholars Manuscripts

Sexual assault has been widely recognized as a public health crisis for decades. Since at least the late 1980s, rates of sexual violence have been steady around 25% of women experiencing it by their freshman year of college. Our past and most prevalent prevention methods have consistently shown to be useless, as rates of violence have not decreased, and the results often do not lead to increased understanding about sexual assault and violence intervention. In recent years, college campuses have started to implement a new prevention education known as the bystander model. While the literature generally agrees it has some …

Insight Into Student Perceptions Of Lgbtqia+ Content Inclusion In Bsn Education, Kenny Sullivan, Jae Basiliere

Honors Projects

Previous research has indicated that LGBTQIA+ clients continue to receive discriminatory care from healthcare professionals. Undergraduate nursing students (n = 24) completed a survey inquiring about their perceptions of knowledge of this vulnerable population, their preparedness to provide care, and the education they received from their BSN program. Twenty-two students’ responses, 91.67%, indicate a need for further education on the provision of care to LGBTQIA+ patients. These students demonstrated discrepancies in their perceptions and the application of their knowledge. As such, nursing programs should begin to consider providing more thorough education on this vulnerable population to prepare student nurses with …

The Analysis Of Trauma-Informed Risk Assessments Within A Juvenile Justice System In A Midwest State, Kayla M. Bates

Masters Theses

With approximately 90% of justice-involved youth experiencing at least one traumatic event before entering the justice system, trauma-informed care has moved to the forefront of juvenile justice in recent years (Dierkhising et al., 2013). Trauma-informed care aims to capture and address the impact trauma has on youth. One area within the juvenile justice system that is critical to capturing these events in justice-involved youth are risk assessments. The current study aimed to address whether a Midwest state is using trauma-informed questions and incorporating aspects of intersectionality (gender identity, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and class) within practices directed at justice-involved youth. …

Recidivism, Gender, And Race: An Analysis Of The Los Angeles County Probation Department’S Risk And Needs Assessment Instruments, Robert V. Howard

Masters Theses

This study assesses the predictive validity of an adult risk need assessment, the Los Angeles Probation Department’s Risk and Needs Assessment Instruments, on 793 clients using several logistic regression models. Models were generated to look for a relationship between risk score and recidivism. This relationship is further explored across gender and race. There are two separate risk assessment instruments used in this study and the sample is separated into two separate groups. The first risk assessment instrument was based on static risk factors such as history of drug or alcohol use, age of first conviction, and conviction history. This assessment …

A Biopsychosocial Interpretation Of The Function Of Religion Evolutionary Perspectives, Jamesian Principles, And Consequential Effects, Austin Avison

Student Scholars Day Oral Presentations

This article seeks to assess the psychological role in which religion plays within human emotion, behavior, and mental processes. The aims of this research are to provide a psychological oriented basis for interpreting the function of religion within human operation and interaction. First, by incorporating contributions that have been made within the subfield of evolutionary psychology in assessing the evolutionary and adaptive basis in which religious cognition and experience emerged. Further, by addressing the theoretical contributions made within Terror Management Theory in accounting for a psychological function that religion serves. Third, by incorporating the ideas of William James in providing …

Social Movements: An Analysis Of The Youth Climate Strike, Hannah Pierson

Student Scholars Day Posters

Youth dominated social movements have been occurring throughout the last several decades, however recently they have been taking the world by storm. From the Civil Rights Movement and Anti-Apartheid to March for Our Lives and Friday’s for Future, these organizations have covered many bases and involved themselves in activism to new degrees. This research project is designed to understand and apply the social movement framework to a specific organization. Therefore, the goal is to determine if The Youth Climate Strike organization is, in fact, a social movement. If The Youth Climate Strike is a social movement then what are the …

Everyday Is Halloween: The Role Of Fashion And Music In Goth Subculture, Lucretia Dunlap

Student Scholars Day Posters

Goth subculture has been around since the 80s, first emerging as a reaction to the commercialized pop and rock scenes. This movement originated with the rebellious punk subculture of the West and United Kingdom. Very quickly, goth music and fashion were appropriated by other bands and magazines (Spracklen & Spracklen, 2014). Goth subculture has had massive effects on popular culture, influencing movies, various music scenes, and fashion styles. My research was motivated by a desire to contribute to the literature about goth subculture, with a focus on how those within the culture view the culture and their peers within it. …

An Analysis Of Asexual Identity Clubs And Their Role On College Campuses, Ellen Yope

Honors Projects

Identifying the lack of college asexuality clubs and the positive influence they have on students. Advocating for the creation of asexuality clubs at colleges and universities and the benefits they provide for students, socially and academically.

Incentives To Join Associations: The Case Of Agritourism, Jing Li, Carla Barbieri

Journal of Tourism Insights

Agritourism is a rapidly growing tourism sector due to the farmers’ need to increase their revenues and the public desire to reconnect with local food systems. Yet, agritourism development posits an additional burden to farmers who may not possess the business skills and resources required to serve visitors. In this scenario, associations emerged to provide business or technical assistance to agritourism farmers. However, these associations have been experiencing a decline of their membership body over the last decade, which is affecting the quality of their services. Although explanations on such decline are not available, it is plausible due to a …

Temple Stay As Transformative Travel: An Experience Of The Buddhist Temple Stay Program In Korea, Susan L. Ross, Jungyun (Christine) Hur, Jamie Hoffman

Journal of Tourism Insights

The burgeoning tourism niche called temple stay, which originated in Korea, has been marketed to Koreans and internationals as a means for travelers to become immersed in cultural heritage, learn about Buddhism, and find one’s “true self” by spending a few days to a week as a guest in a living, operational Buddhist monastery. Although this tourism segment is gaining wide-spread appeal, the temple stay phenomenon has received relatively little scholarly attention outside of Korea. The handful of papers identified on the subject that are written in English, refer to this phenomenon as constituting various segments such as rural tourism, …

Online News Representation Of Missing/Murdered Indigenous Women In Washington, New Mexico, And Arizona, Kelli Bowers

McNair Scholars Manuscripts

There is limited research on the rates of violence against the many missing and murdered indigenous women (MMIW) in the United States, especially in urban areas. There is also little news coverage given to women who are victims of this violence. The absence of research on this topic and the shortage of news coverage leads to a lack of understanding by the general public on the issue as a whole. This is a qualitative content analysis of the representation of MMIW in Washington, New Mexico, and Arizona. I will analyze the newspaper reporting of MMIW in these states and the …