Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Identities And Persistence Of Family Farm Operators, Parker T. Arnold

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the identities of family farm operators and the challenges to maintaining viable farm operations in today’s agricultural economy. Employing a grounded qualitative approach, the author conducted 18 in-depth interviews with principal farm operators from Iowa and Tennessee. Using the insights of farmers from geographically different agricultural regions, this study notes how preserving family histories, socialization processes, and farming as a moral career inform operators’ understandings of themselves and the work they do. The analysis also focuses on how family farm operators contend with a globalized agricultural economy and the moral and ethical concerns of managing a …

The Pulpit And The People: Mobilizing Evangelical Identity, Tim Moser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Using ten sermons from five prominent and politically active evangelical megachurch pastors taken from the 2016 presidential campaign season, this case study utilizes frame analysis to understand the political relevance of modern evangelical sermonizing. An inductive frame analysis allows the concept of a collective action frame to be observed as a process and for patterns to emerge from the source text. Within these sermons, ministers offer self-identifying evangelicals a vocabulary with which to understand and describe their own identity. In this context, the Bible is a powerful cultural symbol that represents an allegiance to traditions that are framed as the …

An Exploration Of Dementia Friendly Communities From The Perspective Of Persons Living With Dementia, Catherine Hebert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The growing global prevalence of dementia coupled with a shift in public perception from a hopeless disease to the possibility of living well with dementia has led to the formation of dementia friendly communities (DFC). DFCs are a new phenomenon in the United States, with a gap in knowledge on input from people living with dementia (PLWD). This study investigated DFCs from the perspective of PLWD in Western North Carolina, with the following research questions:

1. How are interactions and relationships experienced by persons living with dementia in the community?
2. How is community engagement experienced by PLWD?
3. To what extent and …

The Effects Of Employment On Recidivism Among Delinquent Juveniles, Leigh Kassem

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Current research indicates an association between intense adolescent work (twenty hours or more per week) and delinquent behavior. It has been widely speculated that this relationship is spurious, occurring only as a result of other factors which are common to both offending and intense employment. The current study attempts to fill a gap in the literature by utilizing the Pathways to Desistance dataset to examine the evolution of the relationship between work and self-reported offending in a longitudinal sample of juvenile offenders. Work intensity and consistency, social capital, and expectations for success were analyzed as potential predictors of recidivism or …

Environmental Factors And School Disorder: The Role Of Urbanicty, Brandon S. Coffey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the differential impact of various environmental and organizational factors on levels of school misconduct. Although we have a general understanding of this relationship, little effort has been made to determine whether the effects are influenced by urbanicity. The current study utilizes data from the 2007-2008 School Survey on Crime and Safety to address this gap in the literature by utilizing a series of negative binomial regression models that seek to determine differences between predictive factors in urban and rural settings. Results indicate that disorganization has a similar effect within urban and rural …

Exploring The Social Trend Of Household Computer Ownership In Affecting The United States 1990'S Crime Drop, Alison Kimberley Bogar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the 1990’s the world witnessed a crime drop throughout all categories of crime. Many researchers have sought to seek an explanation for this drop; however, there has been a lack of concrete findings to fully explain this phenomenon. The purpose of this study is to explore a further reasoning as to why this drop occurred, specifically throughout the United States. An unexplored factor to explain this phenomenon is the increase of household computer ownership during the 1990’s. During this decade, household computers and the internet became prevalent throughout the nation. This study utilized secondary data from the Uniform Crime …

Do Juvenile Offenders Hold To The Child Saving Mentality? The Results From A Survey Of Juvenile Offenders Placed On Court Mandated Juvenile Probation, Katelynn R. Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The juvenile justice system was established as a result of an unprecedented movement pioneered by the child savers. Child savers strived to protect America's children from physical and moral harm. Since the juvenile justice system's inception, research has focused extensively on the effectiveness of the juvenile system. Numerous studies have observed the perceptions of the general public, juvenile probation officers, and juvenile correctional staff regarding the juvenile justice system. The current study examined actual participants in the juvenile justice system to assess their opinions of the system that was designed to serve, protect, and rehabilitate them into active members of …

The Old Deery Inn & Museum: An Ethnographic Case Study, Rebecca J. Proffitt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses qualitative ethnographic research methods to present a case study that explores the multiplicity of meanings and representations that are attached to the Old Deery Inn & Museum in Blountville, Tennessee. Within the community, the Inn functions as a center for cultural memory, with the physical structure itself acting as an artifact that holds community identity. This community narrative contrasts with the official narrative used by tourism entities that markets the Inn as a part of the Appalachian region, situating the Inn within a complex and intricately constructed identity of place that is shaped by lived experiences as …

On Growing Up Finnish In The Midwest: A Family Oral History Project, Ingrid Ruth Nixon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explores what oral history interviews with my mother reveal about the familial and community dynamics that influenced Finnish-American children growing up on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula between 1930 and 1950. Close to four hours of oral history interviews were conducted with Viola Nixon, who is second and third-generation Finnish-American on her father’s and mother’s sides, respectively. After conducting a narrative analysis of the interviews, five themes emerged as significant to community function: family, language, education, work and church. I grouped some of these themes together to create three stories informed by materials drawn from the interviews, a cookbook, and …

Acculturation And Ethnic-Identification Of American Chinese Restaurant, Ting Shi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Immigration reform in 1965 enabled a large number of Chinese immigrants to settle in the United States. Chinese restaurants expanded quickly both quantitatively and geographically. This thesis researches the interactions between Chinese restaurant employers and employees and their customers. I focus on several Chinese restaurants in a mid-size Southeast U.S. city with a university and I analyze their methods for attracting culturally distinct groups of customers—local Americans and Chinese students or immigrants. I conducted participant observation in two Chinese restaurants and in-person interviews with 14 people from four restaurants whose roles are owners, managers, or servers. I found that Chinese …