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Articles 1 - 30 of 96
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
An Analysis Of Vogue: Femininity & Intersectionality As A Societal Standard In Fashion, Cassidy Tamburro
An Analysis Of Vogue: Femininity & Intersectionality As A Societal Standard In Fashion, Cassidy Tamburro
Scholars Week
The goal of this research project is to see if Vogue has evolved or changed its fashion coverage to be more intersectional as well as evolved in what it means to be ideally feminine. The research question that guided my work is: How has Vogue’s intersectionality and feminine ideals evolved in its fashion coverage from 1975 to 2019? My methods include a semiotic analysis of Vogue magazine covers images from 1975 and 2019, examining model diversity, cover-photo elements, and representations of styles. A qualitative analysis, including content-coding, of Vogue fashion articles 1975 and 2019. The main findings included that Vogue …
Asian American Happiness: A Preliminary Analysis, Kris Tran, Hannah Proctor
Asian American Happiness: A Preliminary Analysis, Kris Tran, Hannah Proctor
Scholars Week
Happiness has been a long celebrated and pursued goal throughout the history of man. As the field of cross-cultural psychology looks to expand research boundaries, Asian Americans experience a unique blend of multiple cultures, and as a result, also hold a unique perception of happiness and subjective well-being. To understand their experience, we assessed relevant studies of life satisfaction in Asian American groups to uncover their population’s true mean level of happiness. We also looked to systematize and collate the various theories impacting Asian American happiness, to gain a more comprehensive understanding of subjective well-being and happiness overall.
Epa’S Meaningful Involvement In Ej: Mission Accomplished?, Dawn Weimer, Gail Sandlin
Epa’S Meaningful Involvement In Ej: Mission Accomplished?, Dawn Weimer, Gail Sandlin
Scholars Week
Forwarding research analyzing the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Environmental Justice Small Grant (EJSG) program. According to the EPA, Environmental Justice is built around “the meaningful involvement of all people… with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies (EPA, 2014)”. The former research of Abel and Stephan analyzed grants years 1996-2002 and Sarver’s 2003-2011 analysis. Their analysis confirmed EPA’s EJSG program capacities have been granting civic capacity the least, which contradicts the EPA’s mission to EJSG program. This forwarding research hypothesizes is that EJSG’s will track the previous research’s trends given the historical data. In …
Kulshan Gives: Helping A Nonprofit Choir Create A Culture Of Giving, Emily Jackson, Schuyler Shelloner
Kulshan Gives: Helping A Nonprofit Choir Create A Culture Of Giving, Emily Jackson, Schuyler Shelloner
Scholars Week
How can a nonprofit organization change from a culture of caring to a culture of giving? Emily Jackson, Schuyler Shelloner and Emma Calvert sought to answer that question in Fall 2020 during their public relations course, Research and Campaigns. They formed the Skyline Group agency and developed a PR campaign proposal for the Kulshan Chorus. This nonprofit, social-justice-oriented choir wanted to raise awareness about their mission, increase funding and involve more choir members in more community outreach. In response to their request for proposal, the Skyline Group conducted research, defined target audiences and created a 53-page campaign booklet with deliverables …
Black Power Imagery As Resistive Memory-Making, Courtney Kruzan
Black Power Imagery As Resistive Memory-Making, Courtney Kruzan
Scholars Week
The “Four Black Panthers” is a photograph of Assata Shakur (middle left), Dhoruba bin-Wahad (far left), and two other unknown individuals (middle and far right) that was found attached to the essay Assata Shakur, Excluding the Nightmare After the Dream by bin-Wahad. “Four Black Panthers” is a part of a rich genre of Black Power Era imagery that attempts to portray the collective memory of Black communities and to articulate an alternative history that challenges the hegemonic narrative put-forth in the U.S. The narrative of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s is that peaceful, non-violence made the movement. Dr. …
Journalism In The Age Of Doxxing, Kathrine Huntington
Journalism In The Age Of Doxxing, Kathrine Huntington
Scholars Week
Doxxing is something that is becoming more and more of a reality to many journalists today and that reality can quickly become a nightmare if used in the wrong way. Doxxing is known as the release of private information without consent of the person it is directed towards. It is important for journalists today to be familiar with what doxxing is, what ethical dilemmas it creates as well as how to protect themselves against being doxxed. Anyone can be doxxed but journalists face the highest risk in today’s modern world due to easy accessibility to technology as well as our …
Reducing Stress For Student Journalists, Melody Kazel
Reducing Stress For Student Journalists, Melody Kazel
Scholars Week
As a student in JOUR 214 and 414, I noticed that stress levels in the class were high. I asked students, currently in the class or who’d taken it one quarter previously, to fill out a survey about their stress levels and causes of stress. In order to prevent unconscious negative bias because of the nature of a survey about stress, I included questions about student satisfaction levels and causes of satisfaction. The majority of students rated stress at an eight or ten out of ten. Satisfaction levels were more varied; most students rated their satisfaction at a four, five, …
Self-Care Practices Among College Students Today: Coping With Mental Illness, Ashley Manawa
Self-Care Practices Among College Students Today: Coping With Mental Illness, Ashley Manawa
Scholars Week
This study focuses on aspects of mental health and illness experienced by college students who access the university Wellness Center. In this study, researchers conduct qualitative interviewing with participants to better understand their perspectives and experiences, as well as treatment in the form of self-care practices. Implications of this study include the impact that the self-care practices have on the students experiencing mental illness.
The Advocacy And Rhetoric Of Students Experiencing Hunger In The Pursuit Of College Degrees, Mckenzie Goff
The Advocacy And Rhetoric Of Students Experiencing Hunger In The Pursuit Of College Degrees, Mckenzie Goff
Scholars Week
The following proposal is examining the interaction between college rhetoric of hunger with the self-advocacy of students experiencing food insecurity. The study will be a face to face interview with 20 students of any gender, between the ages of 19 and 25. The face to face interview will cover questions on experiences in food insecurity as well as comfort level when partaking in self-advocacy and it will be followed up with an email with the same questions. The results of this study will be used to examine current rhetoric of hunger used by college administrations to reform said rhetoric.
Journalists Need To Be A Voice For The Weakest Stakeholders In The Climate Crisis, Lucille Giaccio
Journalists Need To Be A Voice For The Weakest Stakeholders In The Climate Crisis, Lucille Giaccio
Scholars Week
The paper covers the ethical dilemma concerning Journalism and its lack of coverage of the animal perspective. The research was done using Western Washington University's library databases and other news articles about the issue. The articles and websites focused on the ethical aspect of the "Voice for the Voiceless" including animals and nature. The primary issue with news organizations failing to discuss the animal suffering in the climate crisis was because they claimed it was too complicated. The challenge after that is writing for a human audience with a nonhuman perspective. Many journalists have adapted their style to cover all …
Decolonizing Disability: An Independent Research Project, Audrin Thorn
Decolonizing Disability: An Independent Research Project, Audrin Thorn
Scholars Week
It may appear that the marginalization of people with disabilities/impairments and the marginalization of colonized subjects are separate issues, even if they sometimes intersect in the bodyminds of disabled Indigenous individuals. However, the marginalization and oppression of disabled and Indigenous people goes beyond the “simple” intersecting of oppressions. Indigenous peoples and those constructed by Western culture to have disabilities are disempowered and marginalized by deeply overlapping and mutually reinforcing mechanisms of oppression. My academic goal for this research was to engage in a borderland dialogue between Indigenous and Western worldviews around conceptions of health and unwellness, as a basis for …
"Contained: The Separation Wall In Palestine/Israel", Tyler Durbin
"Contained: The Separation Wall In Palestine/Israel", Tyler Durbin
Scholars Week
Despite international legal consensus declaring the separation wall in Palestine/Israel as illegal, Israel has continued this geopolitical project unchallenged. Examining the judicial decisions of the International Court of Justice and Israel’s High Court of Justice on the wall, and their following political developments, reveals that Israel’s wall project was motivated by a political desire to protect illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories, confiscate Palestinian land, and constrict their movement and space. Analyzing the entirety of the wall through the lens of containment illuminates how the wall’s fracturing of Palestinian land created the material conditions, or the ‘facts on the ground’, …
Two Decades Of Western Spruce Budworm Outbreaks In The Pacific Northwest, Nathan Roueche
Two Decades Of Western Spruce Budworm Outbreaks In The Pacific Northwest, Nathan Roueche
Scholars Week
Insect outbreaks are one of the important natural disturbance processes in forested ecosystems due to their tendency to periodically restructure stand composition and provide dynamic fluctuation via trophic interactions. Multiple agencies across various jurisdictions collect annual forest health inventory data via aerial detection survey (ADS) mapping, allowing trends in forest disease and pest prevalence to be explored across both space and time. While these data sets are a powerful tool for research and management, the data is often recorded and stored in regionally differing formats and is not easily accessible to researchers or the public. The lack of cohesive broad-scale …
Dependence Of Hydrological Modeling On Spatial Resolution In Lake Whatcom Watershed, Emily Mcginty
Dependence Of Hydrological Modeling On Spatial Resolution In Lake Whatcom Watershed, Emily Mcginty
Scholars Week
Remotely sensed digital elevation data can be utilized through geographic information science (GIS) techniques to model watershed and stream delineations. These techniques allow analysts to easily produce results that would otherwise require hours of intense field work, if possible at all. The accuracy of these watershed and stream models can be dependent on the resolution of the elevation data, and choosing an inappropriate resolution can result in further analyses producing inaccurate and/or misleading results. The purpose of my research is to quantify the differences between hydrological models developed from elevation data at varying resolutions. I chose the Lake Whatcom watershed …
Nike In Politics: How Political Consumerism Impacts Corporate Social Responsibility, Samantha Frost
Nike In Politics: How Political Consumerism Impacts Corporate Social Responsibility, Samantha Frost
Scholars Week
How does Nike's campaign supporting Colin Kaepernick and the Black Lives Matter movement reflect the alignment of large corporations with political movements as a Corporate Social Responsibility strategy and how does political consumerism impact this decision? The purpose of this project is to examine how Nike used the ‘Dream Crazy’ campaign to piggyback off the Black Lives Matter movement as a public relations and marketing strategy as well as how political consumerism is shaping corporate social responsibility. How do political movements impact the corporate world and how do corporations impact political movements? Nike’s Colin Kaepernick campaign titled ‘Chasing Crazy’ was …
The Education Beat In A Declining Industry, Jon Foster
The Education Beat In A Declining Industry, Jon Foster
Scholars Week
The collapse of the newspaper industry and the disappearance of the education beat on many local and national newspapers can have profound impacts on journalism, civic engagement and our democracy. In this paper, I look at the the current state of education reporting in America and examine the ethical dilemmas local and national news agencies face as well as the hopeful future it has in a transforming news industry.
Bees And Trees: The Ecological Ramifications Of Our "Honey-Nut" Agriculture, Becci Larreau
Bees And Trees: The Ecological Ramifications Of Our "Honey-Nut" Agriculture, Becci Larreau
Scholars Week
People love almonds and honey bees. The honey bee is the only agriculturally-reliable pollinator of almond trees. California produces the entire domestic supply of almonds, and ~80% of the international supply. In early spring, nearly all of the commercially-managed beehives in the nation travel by truck to California to pollinate the almond orchards. They remain for a mere few weeks and then move on to other areas to service other crops or to seek honey forage. Migratory beekeepers are the linchpin that keeps the wheels of this particular agricultural system in motion. Without the migratory beekeeping industry, California's multi-billion dollar …
Creating A Canadian-American Wildfire Atlas For Late 19th-21st Centuries, Kate Welch
Creating A Canadian-American Wildfire Atlas For Late 19th-21st Centuries, Kate Welch
Scholars Week
Wildfires are increasingly on the minds of people living in Western North America as climate change and long periods of anthropogenic fire exclusion shift the dominant fire regimes toward possibly higher severity, larger fires than we remember. We are still piecing together the history of wildfires and how they have changed since Europeans settled in North America and moved West, and we know very little about the fire history of the areas where a large portion of our population currently lives. Using available government resources and data, I synthesized and created a fire Atlas of wildland fires in the Western …
Finding Climatologically Teleconnected Sites With A Network Of Tree Ring Chronologies, Hannah Lagassey
Finding Climatologically Teleconnected Sites With A Network Of Tree Ring Chronologies, Hannah Lagassey
Scholars Week
We need information about the past to understand what is happening in the present and to predict what may happen in the future. Trees record climate conditions in their annual growth rings throughout their lives, providing us with centuries of valuable paleoclimate data. In addition to reconstructing climate records, dendrochronologists use tree rings to reconstruct the records of climate-driven phenomena, such as hydrological variables, prior to the start of instrumental records. Reconstruction models are improved with the inclusion of multiple tree species and multiple sites, which act as predictors of climatological and hydrological variables. I identified tree ring chronologies within …
Gender Discrepancy In Asexual Identity:The Effect Of Hegemonic Gender Norms On Asexual Identification, Tori Bianchi
Gender Discrepancy In Asexual Identity:The Effect Of Hegemonic Gender Norms On Asexual Identification, Tori Bianchi
Scholars Week
How do gender roles and expectations affect individuals identifying as asexual? Why do more women and genderqueer people identify as asexual? What about masculine stereotypes dissuades individuals from identifying as asexual? In this study I investigate how the cultural and societal expectations of different genders, both assigned and actualized, affect the perception and performance of an individual’s sexual identity. In particular I examine ideals of prescribed and hegemonic masculinity and femininity and how those ideals are upheld or broken by an asexual identity, and how those holding diverse gender identities feel their gender identity interacts with their asexual orientation.
Advocating For Gender Equality In A "Conservative Christian" Nation: An Exploration Of The Bahama's 2016 Referendum, Melinda Andrews
Advocating For Gender Equality In A "Conservative Christian" Nation: An Exploration Of The Bahama's 2016 Referendum, Melinda Andrews
Scholars Week
Gender expectation plays a significant role in a variety of human interactions, but this is perhaps seen best in the interactions between men and women. This study seeks to understand the way that the effect of gender expectation plays out in the youth of The Bahamas, particularly in the way these expectations affect teenagers understanding of their roles within a sexual or romantic relationship. One way this study seeks to explore this topic is through the examination of the broader religious and cultural history of The Bahamas providing context for its current understanding of gender roles.
Coverage Of The #Metoo & Time’S Up Movement: Examining Who Is Quoted And What Terminology Is Used In Msnbc, Fox News And The Bbc’S Coverage Of The #Metoo And Time’S Up Movements, Stella Harvey
Scholars Week
The widespread conversation on sexual assault and harassment that has been growing since October 2017 has impacted many industries, including journalism. Movements such as #MeToo and Time’s Up aim to raise awareness about the prevalence of these issues and stop the cycle of abuse. Within these movements, many celebrities have spoken publicly about their experiences, resulting in extensive media coverage on an issue that has historically been swept under the rug. The terminology that is used when it comes to issues of sex crimes and allegations is incredibly important because there is a great amount of nuance between terms. It …
Student Perceptions Of A White University Mascot, Ellen Carroll
Student Perceptions Of A White University Mascot, Ellen Carroll
Scholars Week
In November 2015, Western Washington University cancelled classes when a debate over changing the school’s mascot—an identifiably White Viking—resulted in hate speech and threats toward students of color. While some students held that the mascot could be offensive to non-White students who are unrepresented by the symbol of a White male, others felt the debate to be trivial. This event raises the question of how the university’s White mascot impacts its students. Scholars have recently begun to study views regarding Native American mascots, however there is an empirical gap concerning how mascots of other identifiable racial/ethnic groups are perceived. This …
The Little Klansman: A Symbol Of American Infantilism Amidst Racial Tensions, Lucia Gruber
The Little Klansman: A Symbol Of American Infantilism Amidst Racial Tensions, Lucia Gruber
Scholars Week
During December of 1865, a string of violence was unleashed as the United States witnessed the birth of its most infamous hate group, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). In the decades following its conception, the influence of the KKK has waxed and waned, but membership has always been a family affair. A photograph that exemplifies this phenomenon is one of a young boy identified as Josh, which was captured at a KKK rally in Gainesville, Georgia over Labor Day weekend in 1992. I argue that the photograph of The Little Klansman serves as an example of metonymy because it represents …
#Me Too: An Analysis On Whose Sexual Assault Stories The New York Times Publishes, Alyssa Evans
#Me Too: An Analysis On Whose Sexual Assault Stories The New York Times Publishes, Alyssa Evans
Scholars Week
Source representation in media impacts the public’s perception of social issues and groups represented. This study examines the extent to which coverage by The New York Times of the #MeToo movement includes a diverse background of victims of sexual assault and harassment. An extension of research is added to scholarly discourse on framing of sexual assault victims and the inclusivity of the Times’ reporting on sexual assault. Human sources most often sourced in #MeToo-related stories analyzed were white female victims who held jobs in the entertainment industry or politics. The second most often represented source was found to be white …
Diversity Climate Assessment Of The Communication Studies Department, Annapurna Beavon
Diversity Climate Assessment Of The Communication Studies Department, Annapurna Beavon
Scholars Week
This study is a mixed-method assessment combining survey questionnaire and qualitative interviews in assessing and understanding student experiences in the communication studies department at Western Washington University. The purpose of the study is twofold: (a) to examine students’ perception of the diversity climate in communication classes and the department in general; and (b) to understand communication patterns that silence marginalized voices in the classroom. Aside from studies published in educational journals, Halualani (2010) is the first published study in the communication discipline that investigates diversity climate assessment at a multiracial university on the U.S. West Coast. Therefore, the findings of …
Understanding What Influences Transfer Between Scientific Disciplines, Shaye Fowler
Understanding What Influences Transfer Between Scientific Disciplines, Shaye Fowler
Scholars Week
Transfer, the ability to apply a learned concept to a new context, is an assumed outcome of most undergraduate curricula. This is particularly true in the case of energy as a concept applied across science disciplines. Chemistry courses, for example, expect students to understand and apply energy-related arguments when learning about atomic structure and bonding, presumably relying on energy-related ideas learned first in physics. However, students are often introduced to energy ideas with discipline-specific vocabulary and problem-solving tasks, obscuring the fact that energy ideas translate across the disciplines. Consequently, students may develop compartmentalized, surface-level understandings. We are investigating student transfer …
The Fake Account For The Real Self, Miranda Abrashi
The Fake Account For The Real Self, Miranda Abrashi
Scholars Week
Fake Instagrams, or more commonly known as "finstas" have increased in popularity over the past few years. This study's goal is centered around finding patterns of behavior that explain the desire to use finstagram as a platform. I observed the culture surrounding finstas by engaging directly by creating and posting my own content while interacting with others' content as well. I created and used my finsta for three months, during which I observed and conducted interviews to expand on my own knowledge and understanding of this particular culture. I discovered three main findings through my research that supported individuals' need …
St. Vincent’S “Equal-Opportunity” Guitar, Lexi Foldenauer
St. Vincent’S “Equal-Opportunity” Guitar, Lexi Foldenauer
Scholars Week
This research paper applied semiotics to examine the ways in which Ernie Ball Music Man's PR campaign for the release of St. Vincent's customized guitar utilized a third-wave feminist framework.
Women And Health Care: Exploring The Communication Dynamic Between Women And Their Doctors, Mairin Mccurdy
Women And Health Care: Exploring The Communication Dynamic Between Women And Their Doctors, Mairin Mccurdy
Scholars Week
This is a qualitative study examining the effects of the communication between patient and doctor on the self-concept of female patients. The researchers will use a combination of the Health Belief Model, which studies the individual constructs and beliefs that one feels and how this affects decisions made about health, and the Spiral of Silence, which explores how minority groups stay silent for fear of retaliation. Through the scope of these theories, the researcher will attempt to understand how insufficient communication on the part of the doctor, both in situations of diagnoses and in general practice, impacts how the female …