Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Son Otros Tiempos: Generational Experiences Of Male Friendships Amongst Mexican And Mexican American Men, Marisela Rodríguez Molina

Dissertations and Theses

Culturally specific work with Latinx men has also discussed the way Latinx masculinities are being redefined by younger generations. Grounded in Chicana Feminist epistemologies, I use Gloria Anzaldua's borderlands framework to analyze data from 20 interviews with sons and their father figures in understanding experience of masculinities within the context of male friendships. Differences between father's and son's experiences can be attributed to social context in which men are socialized and their borderlands experiences. Findings illustrate how understandings of masculinities represent a melding of cultural values between the dominant individualistic perspective in the U.S. and the collectivist perspective from men's …

An Integrated Analysis Of Urban Sustainability In Portland: Issues, Indicators, Stakeholders, And Geospatial Assessment, Arun Kumar Pallathadka

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation presents three individual studies that collectively explore the concept of urban sustainability. The research is grounded in the recognition that many cities worldwide are striving to achieve sustainable development, yet existing sustainability frameworks often lack comprehensive definition and consideration. Moreover, the existing sustainability frameworks and methods are often not clearly structured to allow for their replication and adaptation to meet the unique needs of diverse local settings. To address this gap, the dissertation utilizes the Social-Ecological-Technological Framework, with particular emphasis on equity, to investigate key issues in urban sustainability, such as indicators, stakeholder engagement, tradeoffs, and assessment. The …

The Factors Contributing To The Resilience Of Thailand's Social Welfare Nonprofit Organizations Since The Onset Of The Country's Prolonged Political Crisis In 2005, Narttana Sakolvittayanon

Dissertations and Theses

Since 2005, nonprofit organizations in Thailand, a transitive country, have experienced survival challenges due to social, economic, and political changes. This study aims to explore the organizational attributes of nonprofit organizations in Thailand that contribute to resilient capacity, which is an ability to survive and continue providing goods and services to fulfill missions when facing challenges. The research questions of this study are what factors have affected the resilience of social welfare nonprofit organizations in Thailand since the onset of the country’s prolonged political crisis in 2005? And to what extent do theories of nonprofit resilience in advanced liberal democracies …

Contextualizing The Role Of Answerers' Gaze Orientation In Turn Taking, Cassidy Moore

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis extends our understanding of the role of gaze orientation in turn taking, answering the following research question: When an answerer withdraws their gaze from a questioner at the completion point of the first turn-constructional unit of their answer, is this a practice for communicating that their answer-turn-so-far is not transition relevant (i.e., that the answerer is not complete with their turn and will continue speaking)? Data are videotapes of 274 information-seeking sequences drawn from 28 dyadic, mundane, English conversations between close friends. The methods are mixed, including conversation analysis and coding for statistical purposes. Data were transcribed for …

The Health Impacts Of The Trump Administration Among California Immigrants, Claudia M. Calhoon

Dissertations and Theses

Immigration policy was a marquee issue in the US presidential administration of Donald Trump. Trump’s administration employed both policy and rhetoric related to immigrants to mobilize voters, alter immigration policies and practices, and sustain a narrative of a nation under attack by immigrants. Administration officials were able to undertake these approaches because of existing immigration law, but they did so in more explicitly punitive ways than in recent administrations. The goal of this dissertation is to explore the health impacts of the administration’s practices and their effects. Paper 1 analyzes the immigration rhetoric and policies of US president Donald Trump …

A Policy Proposal For Agricultural Data Governance, Ana Sofía Castellanos Santamaría

Dissertations and Theses

As the digital economy continues to grow and data becomes increasingly important, effective data governance is essential. A data governance framework enables the efficient management, sharing, and integration of data, resulting in better decision-making, increased productivity, and enhanced innovation across industries, including agriculture. However, the agricultural sector in the United States is lagging behind other industries in the adoption of effective data governance practices. Agricultural data governance presents a unique set of challenges due to the wide range of stakeholders involved and the ever-increasing volume of data generated by digital technologies in farming. One key challenge to achieving the benefits …

"I Stayed There The Whole Night": Exploring Caregivers' Experiences With The Healthcare System When Caring For A Parent At The End Of Life, Lillian Mehran

Dissertations and Theses

Background: In the United States, there are nearly 53 million individuals serving as caregivers to a loved one. Half of all caregivers are caring for a parent or parent-in-law, and 79% of caregivers are caring for a person aged 50 or older. In New York State, there are an estimated 4.1 million caregivers who collectively provide over 2.6 billion hours of unpaid care, with those caring for a person at the end of life providing twice as many hours of caregiving per week compared to other caregivers. The number of individuals requiring caregiving is expected to increase as a significant …

Earthbound In The Anthropocene: Spirituality, Collective Identity, And Participation In The Direct Action Climate Movement, David Alan Osborn

Dissertations and Theses

Climate change, as part of a broader ecological crisis, is becoming an ever more potent event structuring human societies and planetary ecosystems. As the climate crisis deepens, climate change is unsettling core human identities, as well as the ontologies that define and situate concepts of "human" and "nature." And as social movements act to challenge and mitigate the catastrophes arising in the Anthropocene era, the question of how to sustain participation is critical. This dissertation explores these dynamics through a study of spirituality, collective identity, participation, and ontology in a subset of the climate movement. The research questions were: (1a) …

Obesity Risk And Comorbidities Among Colombians In New York City And In Colombia, Carlos A. Devia

Dissertations and Theses

Introduction: The prevalence of obesity and overweight in adults and children continues to increase worldwide, accounting for the mortality and morbidity from several diseases. Obesity disproportionally impacts Latinos in the United States (U.S.), and despite their diversity in origins, ancestry, and culture, it is still unclear the burden of obesity by specific Latino groups. For example, little information is available about how obesity impacts Colombians in the U.S. (the largest South American population). New evidence also indicates that Latino immigrants may no longer be arriving with healthy weight status to the U.S. because Latin American countries are undergoing epidemiologic and …

Investigating And Mitigating The Harmful Impact Of Precarious Employment On The Health And Well-Being Of New York City Food Workers, Emilia F. Vignola

Dissertations and Theses

Much of the United States (US) food chain – from production to processing, wholesale, retail, and services – is characterized by precarious employment, defined as work with little employment security, inadequate income, and limited rights and protections. Studies show that precarious employment is associated with adverse mental and physical health and well-being outcomes. Separate research indicates numerous health issues in certain segments of the food workforce; little scholarly work has explored the contribution of precarious employment as an upstream driver of these health issues. Gaps remain in our understanding of 1) the health needs and status of workers across the …

Comparing True Maternal And Paternal Care In Pair-Living, Ex-Situ Varecia Rubra (Red Variegated Lemurs) Contextualized Among Other Primate Cooperative Breeders, Payton Elizabeth Zuver

Dissertations and Theses

Observations of variegated lemurs in the wild have revealed a cooperative breeding strategy including extensive male care to young, primarily in the form of infant guarding. This thesis presents an analysis of the first quantitative assessment of true paternal and true maternal care from pair-housed, ex-situ red variegated lemurs (V. rubra) housed at the Lemur Conservation Foundation's Myakka City Lemur Reserve in western Florida. This study aims to answer specific research questions: How do paternal and maternal care compare when resources are abundant, and paternity is certain? Is male care instinctual? Is it driven by energetic necessity? If …

Stakeholder Engagement In Urban Public Transportation Agencies In The United States, Tyler Joseph Wolfe

Dissertations and Theses

Major urban public transportation agencies in the United States are often under pressure to engage stakeholders in order to improve both the legitimacy and effectiveness of their transit systems. Based on qualitative methods of directed content analysis, this dissertation answers three related questions: (I) How do internal organizational qualities affect stakeholder engagement? (II) How do external socioeconomic factors affect stakeholder engagement? and (III) Does stakeholder engagement lead to better performance? Using a most similar comparative case study design, this research studies stakeholder engagement in five major urban public transportation agencies (Denver, Oklahoma City, Seattle, Portland, and Memphis). It demonstrates the …

Developing A Sample-Efficient Analytical Pathway For A Qualitative Chemical Investigation Of Ancestral Chilkat Dyeing And Weaving Practices, Dario Gerlando Durastanti

Dissertations and Theses

The project goal is to identify the dyestuffs used in hand-woven Chilkat blankets from the collection of the Alaska State Museum and the Sheldon Jackson Museum. Chilkat weaving is practiced by Northwest coastal clans, particularly in Southeast Alaska since at least the early 19th century. Through this collaboration, 117 wool fibers from 23 Chilkat textiles, and 193 reference samples consisting of dyed fibers using both natural and synthetic dye sources, raw dye material, and dye bath aliquots were provided to the lab for reference characterization and identification. In these analyses, dyes were classified as being either natural or synthetic, subdivided …

A Gridded Co2 Emissions Inventory For Portland, Or, James E. Powell

Dissertations and Theses

Here we develop a new high resolution inventory of CO₂ emissions for the three Oregon counties which comprise the bulk of the City of Portland, Oregon, USA. Locally curated and long-running data collection efforts for on-road traffic activity and emission rates are used to model on-road emissions, and a new survey of the area's natural gas network informs the building energy model. The inventory estimates total emissions of CO₂ for each hour of the year 2018 in the on-road, residential, and commercial building sectors at 1 km² resolution. The onroad inventory compares to within 3% with an …

Experiences Of People With Serious Mental Illness Seeking Services At Community Mental Health Centers During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Emily Leickly

Dissertations and Theses

Community mental health centers (CMHCs) have been underfunded and overburdened since Reagan-era disinvestment and the United States' move toward neoliberalism. Rates of mental illness have been rising consistently, particularly in Oregon, as CMHCs face continuing financial pressures and staff retention issues. This was before the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, we are still trying to understand the ongoing pandemic's impact on people with serious mental illnesses (SMI). Most of the studies in this area thus far are quantitative, and first-hand accounts of the pandemic from people with SMI are largely absent. Additionally, research in this area fails to draw on critical alternative …

Nothing About Youth Without Youth: Involving Youth In Participatory Action Research Conducted With Health Departments, Vivian Cortes

Dissertations and Theses

Background: Health departments are vital to community-partnered public health efforts and research and are positioned to influence community or policy level systems that impact population health. However, while some health departments partner with community members in their programming, not much is known about health departments partnering with community youth. From 2018-2019 the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene (NYC DOHMH) implemented a youth participatory action research (YPAR) project to develop a public awareness campaign in partnership with youth and adult community stakeholders for a federally funded program. It was the first participatory research conducted by the agency …

The Use And Influence Of Health Indicators In Municipal Transportation Plans, Kelly Christine Rodgers

Dissertations and Theses

Transportation is an important social determinant of health that shapes the places where people "live, learn, work, and play" to the extent that an individual's zip code better predicts their health than their genetic code. Researchers and practitioners have called for the use of health indicators in transportation as one way to integrate public health concerns into transportation. The underlying hope is that new organizational routines, such as measuring and tracking indicators, can translate policy goals into policy practice. However, it is unclear how indicators are used and what impact they have on policy--the creation or modification of policies and …

Main, Mediated, And Moderated Effects Of Participating In An After-School Social And Emotional Learning Program On Young Children's Development Of Social-Emotional Skills, Amy L. Cordier

Dissertations and Theses

Young children's social and emotional skills (SE skills) are highly predictive of the ease with which they transition to kindergarten as well as their success in the K-12 school system and in life after graduation. Children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds often enter kindergarten with less well-developed SE skills and lag their peers throughout their school careers. Studies of social-emotional learning (SEL) programs indicate that these programs are successful in teaching SE skills, both in school and in after-school programs. However, less is known about the mechanisms of changes through which SEL programs improve children's SE skills and for …

Increasing Access To Doulas In Oregon: A Delphi Study, Courtney Elizabeth Crane

Dissertations and Theses

Doulas are trained, nonmedical support professionals that provide continuous emotional, informational, physical, and practical support before, during, and after childbirth. Doula care has been shown to reduce the cost of birth-related healthcare, reduce adverse birth outcomes, and increase patient satisfaction and positive birth experience. In 2011 Oregon became the first state to authorize payment expenditures of doula care through Medicaid as a strategy to reduce birth-related health disparities and increase culturally and linguistically appropriate healthcare delivery. The intention of the set of policies and administrative rules was to mandate access to doulas and other types of Traditional Health Workers (THWs) …

Kurdish Filmmaking In Turkey: History And Narratives, Omar Sadik

Dissertations and Theses

This research investigates the history and politics of cultural production by examining Kurdish filmmaking in Turkey. Sadik provide an analysis of contemporary films and filmmakers to explore how Kurdish cinema in Turkey is situated in broader, global political-economic structures. By examining this important case through the lens of history and memory, Sadik clarify how production and aesthetics in Kurdish cinema point to important systemic processes. Sadik uses three main research strategies in this study: a historical survey of Kurds in Turkey, an analysis of ten semi-structured interviews with contemporary Kurdish directors and an analysis of films directed by Kurdish filmmakers …

Antecedents Of Fssb: Evaluating The Demographic Basis Of Support, Erika Ann Schemmel

Dissertations and Theses

The benefits of family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) have been well-documented in recent literature. However, less research has examined the antecedents of FSSB. The present study draws from two theoretical models of FSSB to investigate the demographic antecedents of FSSB in a military sample. Supervisor and employee gender, partnered status, parental status, and elder caregiving status were examined to determine by whom, and for whom, FSSB is provided, as measured by employee perceptions. It is hypothesized that supervisors and employees who are women, partnered, parents, and/or caregivers to elders would have higher employee-ratings of FSSB. Furthermore, the present study applied a …

Global Climate Governance: Does Bilateral Cooperation Matter?, Nataliya Stranadko

Dissertations and Theses

The international relations literature looks at the climate regime from a perspective of power distribution, state interests, institutions, and multilateral negotiations. The international law literature focuses on legal analysis and design of international climate agreements. The transnational governance literature examines the participation of transnational actors at different levels of governance. However, each of these disciplines overlooks the trend in bilateral cooperation between national and subnational actors in a multilateral setting, which arises as part of the construction of the international regime. Why do national and subnational public actors in global climate governance cooperate bilaterally when multilateral cooperation already exists? What …

Does Structural Racism Influence How Black/African Americans Define Memory Loss And Cognitive Impairment? An Africana Phenomenological Study, Andre Pruitt

Dissertations and Theses

With the variety of research about dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD), few studies have explored the effect of social structures, such as racism, on how Black/African Americans conceptualize memory loss, dementia, or AD. Furthermore, limited within the scholarship are the environmental factors and structural racism that are thought to influence cognitive impairments and meaning making about cognitive decline impacting Black/African Americans.

Most U.S. research centers on methodologies and epistemologies grounded in Eurocentric ways of knowing (objectivity, individuality, either/or logic). However, Eurocentric methodologies fail to acknowledge the cultural experiences with memory loss, cognitive impairment, dementia, and AD, as well as the …

Defining Dementia-Friendly Communities From The Perspective Of Those Affected, Iris Alexandra Wernher

Dissertations and Theses

More and more communities across the globe are pledging to become more "dementia friendly," yet many initiatives lack direction as to what this pledge might entail. The intent of this qualitative study, conducted in the metropolitan area of Portland and several other cities in Oregon, was to better understand how communities can increase their dementia friendliness – from the perspective of people living with dementia and their care partners. The study further aimed to clarify if and how age- and dementia-friendly efforts can be integrated.

Twenty-five community-dwelling individuals living with dementia and their 25 informal carers participated separately in semi-structured …

"The Call Is Coming From Inside The House": Tracing Experiences In The Institutionally-Centered Process Of Establishing Limited Conservatorships In California, Barbara Alison Imle

Dissertations and Theses

In this institutional ethnography, multiple methods are used to explore California’s process of establishing limited conservatorships, which are legal proceedings that limit or terminate civil rights of people with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (IDD). This research uses observations of 93 conservatorship hearings, 16 interviews with people involved in the conservatorship process, and an analysis of over 40 documents related to these legal proceedings. These data are used to answer two questions: 1) what is the process of establishing a limited conservatorship in California; and 2) how is this process experienced by those involved?

Findings break down a complex process and …

Factors Affecting Community Rating System Participation In The National Flood Insurance Program: A Case Study Of Texas, Ryan David Eddings

Dissertations and Theses

Since the 1960s, the frequency and cost of floods have, on average, increased in the United States. Concurrent with this increase in flood losses has been an increase in flood insurance claims paid out by the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The existing literature shows that participation in the NFIP's Community Rating System (CRS) program successfully lowered flood losses and NFIP insurance claims in the participating communities. In spite of these successes, community participation in the CRS is low and the NFIP is currently more than $20 billion in debt. By identifying factors predicting participation and related barriers to entry …

Why So Serious? Using The Belongingness Need Tenet From The Self-Determination Theory To Examine Workplace Humor And Its Outcomes, Katharine Lucille Mcmahon

Dissertations and Theses

The small body of literature for workplace humor remains fragmented due to the lack of coherence in conceptualization and theory. Furthermore, the distinction between positive and negative humor adds complexity to predicting the outcomes of humor. Focusing on the foundation aspect of humor as a form of social play provides guidance on choosing a theory-informed integrative framework that could explain the implications of humor in the workplace. The belongingness need tenet of the self-determination theory offers a promising framework to synthesize existing research and to direct future studies. Paper 1 reviews the literature and concludes with an integrative framework suggesting …

Exploring Associations Between Military Identity And Well-Being Outcomes Among Post-9/11 Veterans After Separation, James David Lee

Dissertations and Theses

Approximately 200,000 service members exit the military each year; as of 2016, there were 19 million veterans in the U.S. As service members transition out of the military and acclimate to civilian life, they face a multitude of stressors. For example, estimates vary from 44 to 72% of veterans reportedly experience increased stress during their transition which often entails securing civilian employment, navigating interpersonal difficulties, and adapting to the challenges of civilian life. These stressors have harmful consequences and have been linked to physical and mental health, and suicide risk. Despite these findings, research examining the well-being of veterans following …

Researching Medical Treatment Assessments From United States Military Veterans Diagnosed With Substance Use Disorder, And Determining Interest In The Matrix Model Of Treatment For Potential Application In Their Treatment Programs, Christopher R. Strunk

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this research study is to learn the beliefs and thoughts on the current state of medical treatment provided to United States (US) military Veterans diagnosed with substance use disorder (SUD), and gauge Veterans’ levels of interest and support in the potential application of the Matrix Model of Treatment (MMT) in their healthcare programs. This proposal focused on verifying the Veterans’ interest in the MMT model since the US Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) does not currently implement this full-spectrum, 16-week treatment system. It is believed interest will be strong enough to merit supporting its consideration with approving …

Integrated Stem Learning Activity: Effect On Student Engagement And Learning, Leslie Deitrich Sauder

Dissertations and Theses

Student engagement in math and science courses decreases starting in middle school and continues throughout high school (Museus et al., 2011). This lack of engagement results in students taking only the required math and science coursework and not advanced coursework that would help prepare them for future careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Integrated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) learning activities may be used to promote student engagement and learning. This experimental design study was conducted with students in grades 3-5 in one rural mid-sized school district in the upper mid-west. Student engagement was analyzed using a …