Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Opening The Halls Of Power: Implementing A Community Organizing Approach To Parent Engagement In New York City’S Community Schools, Andrew R. King

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Under former Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York City launched a Community Schools Initiative (NYC-CS) in 2014 that now includes more than 300 schools, making it the largest school improvement plan of its kind in the country. Bloomberg, the previous mayor, had championed market-based reform strategies by closing struggling public schools and replacing them with privately run charter schools. In contrast, the community schools model supports struggling schools by providing them with wraparound services to address not only the academic—but also the health, social, and emotional—needs of the “whole child.” Research has shown the NYC initiative has had positive impacts …

Community Engagement And Planning: Reading Center For Active Living (Recal), Ceara Somerville, Caitlin Coyle, Beth Rouleau

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

This report describes research undertaken by the Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging (CSDRA) within the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston, on behalf of the Town of Reading. The goals of this project were to (1) engage the community and (2) investigate the needs, interests, preferences, and opinions of Reading residents regarding the possibility of a new community or senior center. The content of this report is meant to inform the Reading Center for Active Living Committee (ReCalc) on its mission to “explore the current and future needs of the community and initiate planning for …

Voices That Matter: Boston Area Residents Of Color Discuss Climate Change, Lorena M. Estrada-Martínez, Paul Watanabe, Katsyris Rivera-Kientz

Sustainable Solutions Lab

This report presents findings from a qualitative study conducted by the Sustainable Solutions Lab at the University of Massachusetts Boston, centering on the climate change perspectives of 70 residents of color from the Greater Boston area. Through focus group discussions with Asian American, Black, Latino/a, and Native American participants, the study examines three core areas: the health impacts of climate change, levels of community preparedness, and individual and governmental responses. The findings reveal a shared concern over climate-related health vulnerabilities, structural barriers to climate preparedness, and a general mistrust of governmental leadership stemming from historical and ongoing racial inequities. Participants …

Aging In Middleton: A Community Needs Assessment, Sue Berger, Caitlin Coyle

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

This report describes research undertaken by the Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging within the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston, on behalf of the Town of Middleton. The content of this report is meant to inform the Middleton Council on Aging (COA), and organizations that work with and on behalf of older residents of Middleton, for the purposes of planning and coordination of services. Through a process of community engagement and mixed method data collection, the goals of this project are twofold: 1) to inform the planning and design of the future senior center space …

Climate Change Impacts On Groundwater In Mapc Communities, Jayne F. Knott, Paul Kirshen, Ellen Douglas

School for the Environment General Publications

Groundwater is important for human health and the environment but has often been overlooked in the development of climate change adaptation strategies. This is because groundwater is rarely visible, and because changes in groundwater levels are not as dramatic as extreme flooding events, coastal storms, and storm surge. The importance of groundwater for drinking water, natural resources, and streamflow is well documented. Groundwater levels are also important considerations in the design of pavements, underground infrastructure, foundations, on-site wastewater treatment systems, and in the remediation of hazardous waste disposal areas. Groundwater is especially important in the wet northeast, where groundwater levels …

Latinos With Disability In Massachusetts, Phillip Granberry, Vishakha Agarwal

Gastón Institute Publications

A disability, as defined by the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), is an individual’s physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. Data from the 2016-2020 American Community Survey identify six disability types: hearing, vision, cognitive, ambulatory, self-care, and independent living difficulty. In Massachusetts, approximately 108,000 Latinos have one or more of these disabilities compared to 738,000 Non-Latinos. This report examines demographic and economic characteristics of Latinos and Non-Latinos with disabilities in Massachusetts.

Visual Report Of Cop26, Stéphanie Heckman

New England Journal of Public Policy

As a visual practitioner my job is to draw people’s thoughts, and in so doing, help people make sense of them. The visual summaries I create live during conferences aim to capture more than just the dry content, but also the dynamic, the mood and the unspoken. It is a tool more aligned with how our associative, sensory-fed brains work, for coping with the deluge of information that faces us these days. And it’s a tool that can help overcome language, learning and other barriers to access.

When I discovered in January 2020 that the next Conference of the Parties, …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

Stephanie Heckman is a visual artist who attended the Glasgow conference. “I attended COP26 as a visual storyteller,’ she says. “Visual storytelling (known also as graphic recording) involves the use of graphics, drawings and hand lettering to capture the essence of collective conversation. It is a tool for live notetaking and sense-making; it stimulates participants to engage with each other and complex subject matter, and makes the outcomes more memorable, engaging and accessible to others not present at these conversations.”

Stephanie was an accredited observer delegate at COP26 and a “civic participant” in the many events happening around Glasgow at …

Complex Adaptive Systems In A Contentious World, Yasmin Merali

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is about developing and implementing interventions that are systemically viable in a world that is constantly evolving. Geopolitical and economic forces, environmental stressors, and the weaponization of information confront us with an unprecedented level of complexity, requiring new ways of seeing and being when intervening in conflictual situations. I draw on the Complex Adaptive Systems paradigm to explore how world order emerges from the dynamics of network relationships between the players in the cyber-social landscape. This treatment elaborates on mechanisms underpinning resilience, adaptation, and transformation of socioeconomic systems in turbulent contexts. It emphasizes a need to reconsider conventional …

What Motivates Barrier-Crossing Leadership?, Michael D. Buhrmester, Michael A. Cowan, Harvey Whitehouse

New England Journal of Public Policy

From large-scale wars, natural disasters, and pandemics to community-level religious and ethnic conflicts, many leaders wield power during crises by championing their group’s goals against those of rivals. But there is also a rarer breed of leader—barrier-crossers who pursue group interests by recognizing rivals’ interests and working with them to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. Though such leaders have played vital roles in resolving conflicts, little is known about their extraordinary motivation. Here we report survey results contrasting barrier-crossing with barrier-bound leaders from seven communities. In line with new theories from group psychology and anthropology, we found that barrier-crossers uniquely reported …

Cultural Work In Peacebuilding Among Traumatized Communities Of Northern Ireland 2: Talking About Culture, Eugen Koh

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article is the second of two that describe a psychodynamically informed understanding of the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland and an approach to cultural transformation called “cultural work” aimed at building peace among the state’s traumatized communities. The conflict between Protestant and Catholic communities has extended well into the cultural domain and is often weaponized to attack the Other. Conversations about culture quickly become stuck in a quagmire of identity politics. This article describes a psychodynamic trauma–informed approach to cultural conversations involving an in-depth analysis of culture that avoids becoming stuck. It outlines a framework and set of preconditions …

Cultural Work In Peacebuilding Among Traumatized Communities Of Northern Ireland 1: Background And General Considerations, Eugen Koh

New England Journal of Public Policy

Peace in Northern Ireland today remains fragile despite the exhaustive peacebuilding efforts that have taken place since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Many aspects of the sectarian conflict have been embedded in cultural substrata of the respective communities, and cultural transformation is necessary to achieve comprehensive and sustained peace. The basic assumptions about the Other in this sectarian conflict have their origin in traumatic events that occurred more than three hundred years ago and have been reinforced by the more recent three decades of conflict known as the Troubles. These traumatic individual and collective experiences across the generations have …

The Youth Inferno: Two-Way Working On Ancestral Lands, Pamela Nathan

New England Journal of Public Policy

In this article I present some of the work of Creating a Safe and Supportive Environment (CASSE) in Central Australia, Northern Territory, with the youth in the justice system, referring to our dual cultural and therapeutic program Shields for Living, Tools for Life. Psychoanalytic concepts and tools that have informed the work and transformed the trauma landscape are detailed. The work is at the epicenter of anger, concern, and politics in Central Australia and this epicenter has been named the “youth crisis.” It is a journey of feeling the heat, of being on a rollercoaster ride in a landscape of …

Editor's Note, Padraig O'Malley

New England Journal of Public Policy

The articles in this issue of the New England Journal of Public Policy reflect aspects of the changing world order as it continues to adjust to the digital age.

Responding To Turbulent Times: Where Does Leadership Come In?, Mike Hardy Cmg Obe Frsa

New England Journal of Public Policy

Leadership is a major twenty-first-century concern because of the need to make sense of an increasingly complex context and to make choices between options for the positive changes that are deemed required. Reviewing the success of leadership responses to challenges of violent conflict and health pandemics as well as the extent to which we see futures through fragmented or solidarity lenses has created real interest in global perspectives in leadership and a new research agenda that is associated with this imperative. The article concludes by identifying work in progress, that is, by assessing the universality of characteristics that have been …

Bounded Confidence: How Ai Could Exacerbate Social Media’S Homophily Problem, Dylan Weber, Scott Atran, Rich Davis

New England Journal of Public Policy

The advent of the Internet was heralded as a revolutionary development in the democratization of information. It has emerged, however, that online discourse on social media tends to narrow the information landscape of its users. This dynamic is driven by the propensity of the network structure of social media to tend toward homophily; users strongly prefer to interact with content and other users that are similar to them. We review the considerable evidence for the ubiquity of homophily in social media, discuss some possible mechanisms for this phenomenon, and present some observed and hypothesized effects. We also discuss how the …

Enter The Age Of Csywar: Some Reflections On An Emergent Trend, Kumar Ramakrishna

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article uses the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict as a jumping-off point for a broader, preliminary reflection on the continuing evolution of war in the digital age. It is the contention here that we are witnessing an emergent phenomenon of what we might call csywar. Intervening states engaged in csywar—best understood as an indirect, hybrid strategy—seek to attain data, infrastructural, and epistemic dominance over the target state. This article discusses various defensive counter-csywar strategies that target states could pursue, such as fostering data, infrastructural, and epistemic resilience internally, and makes the case for developing deterrent counter-csywar capabilities against hostile intervening states.

Managing The Atmosphere: Intelligence And Assessment In The Early Years Of The Northern Ireland Peace Process—An Interview With Sir John Chilcot, Graham Spencer

New England Journal of Public Policy

Though the Northern Ireland peace process was shaped by the involvement of many actors and participants, it is also evident that certain figures were central to its development. One such figure was Sir John Chilcot, who, based in the Northern Ireland Office in the formative years of the peace process, provided a point of focus for communicating with and managing a range of individuals and groups with the overriding objective of ending conflict in Northern Ireland. This article is based on an extended interview with Chilcot about the challenges he faced in assessing intelligence across a range of sources and …

Aging In Sherborn: A Community Needs Assessment, Sue Berger, Caitlin Coyle

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

This report describes research undertaken by the Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging within the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston, on behalf of the Sherborn Council on Aging. The goals of this project were to investigate the needs, interests, preferences, and opinions of Sherborn’s population of residents who are age 55 and older. The content of this report is meant to inform the Sherborn Council on Aging, and organizations that work with and on behalf of older residents of Sherborn, for the purposes of planning and coordination of services, but also to build awareness about …

Statedata: The National Report On Employment Services And Outcomes Through 2019, Jean Winsor, John Butterworth, Alberto Migliore, Daria Domin, Agnes Zalewska, John Shepard, Esther Kamau

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

Access the latest information about employment and economic self-sufficiency for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Both national and state-level statistics are included.

Employment And Poverty Rates Of People With And Without A Cognitive Disability, John Shepard

All Institute for Community Inclusion Publications

This DataNote shares census data from the American Community Survey (ACS) that demonstrates 5-year trends in employment rates and poverty rates for working-age individuals. It compares these rates between individuals without any disabilities to individuals with a cognitive disability.

The State Of Latino Education: 2010-2020, Fabián Torres-Ardila, Nyal Fuentes

Gastón Institute Publications

In this report, we will provide a descriptive analysis of the main trends in educational achievement for Latinos in Massachusetts in the period 2010-2022. We highlight areas in which Latino students have made considerable progress since the publication of the 2010 Gastón report “The State of Latinos and Education in Massachusetts: 2010,” along with other areas in which progress has stalled and/or been reversed. The data presented cover only until 2020, before the full effects of the Covid-19 pandemic were felt. We end with recommendations for further development of a Latino Education agenda.

"Glass Ceiling" For Asian American Professionals Persists In Massachusetts: A Look At U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Data, Shauna Lo

Institute for Asian American Studies Publications

For this report, the Institute for Asian American Studies (IAAS) accessed U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) EEO-1 data from 2018 to find out if Asian Americans (as well as Whites, Blacks and Hispanics) are underrepresented in executive and managerial positions in Massachusetts businesses.

Aging In Hingham: A Community Needs Assessment, Caitlin Coyle, Shayna Gleason

Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging Publications

This report describes research undertaken by the Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging within the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston, on behalf of the Town of Hingham. The goals of this project were to investigate the needs, interests, preferences, and opinions of Hingham’s residents aged 45 or older. The contents of this report are meant to inform the Department of Elder Services, the Hingham Council on Aging and Senior Center, and the Senior Center Building Committee that was appointed in 2020. As well, organizations that work with and on behalf of older residents of Hingham …

Latinas In The Labor Market, Lorna Rivera, Vishakha Agarwal, Phillip Granberry

Gastón Institute Publications

In Massachusetts, the share of Latinas in the overall population has been rapidly increasing. From 2000 to 2019, the number of Latinas increased by 81.5%1 even as the number of Non-Latina women declined by about 5.8% during that same period. The share of Non-Latina White women in the Massachusetts female population dropped from approximately 82% in 2000 to 71% in 2019.

This report offers an in-depth look at the difference between the median wage income and other labor market outcomes of Latina and Non-Latina women in the Massachusetts workforce. (A great majority of Non-Latina women workers in Massachusetts are White …

Associations Between The Content And Level Of Parent Concerns Pre-Diagnosis And Timeliness Of Autism Screening And Diagnostic Evaluation Among A Diverse Sample Of Children In Part C Early Intervention, Kohrissa Joseph

Graduate Masters Theses

Though autism can be diagnosed as early as 18 months for many children, the current average age of diagnosis is between 3 and 4 years old. Children of color are diagnosed even later. Several studies have examined this disparity and have found that one significant contributor is pediatric providers’ screening practices. Though the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends autism specific screening at 18- and 24-month well-child visits, many pediatricians report only screening if they are concerned or if the parent mentions a concern. In light of recent findings that Black and Latinx parents may have fewer autism-related concerns than …

Changing To Stay The Same: Spatial Analyses Of Tobacco Pipes From 18th- And 19th-Century Eastern Pequot Households, Stephen P. Anderson

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines indigenous smoking practices using European white ball clay pipe disposal patterns on the Eastern Pequot reservation in North Stonington, Connecticut. The Eastern Pequot used European-made smoking pipes in their day-to-day life during the 18th and 19th centuries. Material and spatial analyses of pipes and their disposal patterns detail how Eastern Pequot smoking practices changed and continued in the North American colonial world.

Smoking and tobacco use are unique in North American colonialism as the practice originates with the continent’s Indigenous people and was transformed by the English. Questions around cultural change and continuity in smoking due to …

Examining Culturally Adapted, Values Based, Mental Health Stigma Reduction And Help-Seeking Messages For Asian Americans, Anna M. Ying

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Mental health stigma is a ubiquitous concern impacting help-seeking in the United States and worldwide, including in college students. Insufficient attention has been given to the cultural context of stigma and help-seeking in Asian Americans, constructs in which culture has inherent relevance. The current study was the first to develop and test the acceptability of an online culturally adapted, values-based stigma and help-seeking intervention for Asian American college students, intentionally framing the benefits of therapy and mental wellness as congruent with values-based behaviors, intending to reduce the social costs and stigma of impaired functioning. A sample of 115 East, South, …

Lithic Debitage And Geospatial Analysis Of Hemish Obsidian Procurement And Reduction Strategies In Colonial New Mexico, Adam Vitale

Graduate Masters Theses

This project evaluates Hemish (people of Jemez) obsidian procurement and reduction strategies through an analysis of over two thousand pieces of obsidian debitage and geospatial analysis of potential hiking pathways. This diachronic analysis provides insight on the variation of the Hemish people’s usage of obsidian for stone tool production from four markedly different social climates which are referenced throughout this study as the pre-Colonial Period (AD 1300-1539), the Early Colonial Period (AD 1540-1680), the Revolt Period (AD 1680-1692), and the Late Colonial or Reconquista Period (AD 1694-1696). Now called the Jemez Plateau, this area is characterized by a series of …

“The Circle Of Your Acquaintance”: Early 19th Century Ceramic Symbolism And Constructions Of Black Womanhood At The Boston-Higginbotham House, Nantucket, Ma, Lissa J. Herzing

Graduate Masters Theses

During the early 19th century, ideologies of womanhood were beginning to solidify in the national discourse of the United States. The concept of domesticity, the process of homemaking through material and spiritual means, was a key aspect of womanhood during this time, the transition from the Early Republic to the Victorian period. These ideals were prescribed to white middle- and upper-class women but were altered by Black women to serve their needs and adopted to combat negative stereotypes of Black people in a society permeated with racism. This was evident in the work of Maria W. Stewart, the first Black …