Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Pushed Without Direction: Privileged Problems And The Configuration Of Class And Race. How Latent Class Differences, Supported Through Racial Inequities, Maintain The Achievement Gap For Upper Class Black Students, Jullian Harrison

Theses and Dissertations

Scholars for decades have studied the achievement gap and attempted to explain it in regards to race and class. Throughout the existing literature regarding the achievement gap between black and white students, however, there is a dearth of research exploring why the gap exists for upper-class black students; this population is largely ignored. This research seeks to explain why an achievement gap exists between white and black students who come from households of similar incomes. Ten students (five white and five black gradates) of a private, non-parochial school in Washington DC are interviewed about high school and post-high school experiences. …

Acute And Chronic Effects Of Inhalants In Intracranial Self-Stimulation, Matthew Tracy

Theses and Dissertations

Inhalants are a loosely defined diverse group of volatile substances which people abuse. Despite widespread misuse of inhalants, there are limited preclinical methods available to study the reinforcement-like properties of inhalants. One procedure which has demonstrated substantial promise as a tool to investigate inhalant pharmacology is the intracranial self-stimulation (ICSS) procedure. ICSS utilizes pulses of electrical stimulation to the mesolimbic reward pathway to serve as a temporally defined and controlled operant reinforcer with a highly adjustable efficacy. The first aim of the project was to characterize the effects of commonly abused inhalants: including toluene, trichloroethane, nitrous oxide, isoflurane and R134a …

Everywhere And Nowhere: Public Art Interventions In Qatar, Barbara Charrue

Theses and Dissertations

Qatar is rapidly becoming an internationally renowned art hub not only through the construction of numerous museums and galleries, but also through the development of public art projects.

I strongly believe that Qatar can be more than a place to work; it can be a space where art is part of public spaces. But how can we fully and effectively integrate art into public space in Qatar? How can Qatar be more than a place where we work, eat, sleep, and go to the mall from time to time? How can public art involve / benefit the community and local …

Aging, Discourse, And Ideology, Julia Mckinney

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the language practices of members of the Andrus Center, a recreational senior center located in the southeastern United States. It specifically examines how “young-old” members, or those who had relatively recently made the transition to older identity, invoked and contested widely circulating ideologies of aging in the course of constructing their local age identities. Rather than treating age as an objective, individual characteristic, as commonly presumed in sociolinguistics, this study highlights the ways in which age identities were relationally and emergently coconstructed. Through analyses of interactional and ethnographic data collected over 18 months, I argue that mainstream …

Synoptic Climatology Of Extreme Snow And Avalanche Events In Southern Alaska, Kristy C. Carter

Theses and Dissertations

Snowfall distribution in southern Alaska during large snowfall events (>12 inches/day) is complex and dependent on several small-scale factors. Output from highresolution WRF simulations was used to provide further insight into factors that contribute to differences in precipitation patterns. Common synoptic patterns among large snowfall events and cities were studied to create a snow climatology for seven cities in southern Alaska based on the predominant wind flow at the surface and aloft and the location of the surface low and 500 mb height field. Results aid in understanding the synoptic set-up for large snowfall events in each city and …

Hydrologic Modeling Scenarios In A South Carolina Piedmont Drainage Basin, Parker Douglas Leslie

Theses and Dissertations

Changing land cover can drastically alter the hydrologic processes of a drainage basin. At the same time, the hydrologic processes that occur are governed by weather and climate of the region. The Southeastern United States, and more specifically the Piedmont region of South Carolina, is experiencing significant changes to the landscape and highly variable weather and climate conditions. Few modern hydrologic studies that investigate the impact from these dynamic variables on streamflow and the water balance within the region have taken place and further study is warranted because of the drastic change likely to occur. One objective of this thesis …

The Socio-Legal Construction Of Adolescent Criminality: Examining Race, Community, And Contextual Factors Through The Lens Of Focal Concerns, Patrick Glen Lowery

Theses and Dissertations

The first American juvenile court opened in 1899, with the understanding that children and adults are fundamentally different, and as such, should be treated differently by the law. Less than 50 years later, every state within the United States had developed a separate juvenile justice system, along with the adoption of many significant statutes that made the juvenile court markedly different from the adult criminal court. Over time, however, dissatisfaction with numerous inadequacies in the juvenile court led to the “due process revolution” of the 1960’s and 1970’s. The legal and philosophical changes made during this time were not long …

Toward A Situational Technology Acceptance Model: Combining The Situational Theory Of Problem Solving And Technology Acceptance Model To Promote Mobile Donations For Nonprofit Organizations, Yue Zheng

Theses and Dissertations

Using a nationwide survey of 994 respondents in February 2016, this study combines the situational theory of problem solving and technology acceptance model to refine the conceptual understandings of people’s motivations to make a mobile donation benefiting health-related nonprofit organizations. Findings provide empirical support for the combined model and an emerging situational technology acceptance model. Mobile phone users’ intentions to make a mobile donation are mostly influenced by their attitudes toward using technology and subjective norms. Practical implications are also discussed for nonprofit practitioners to better segment publics, design strategic messages, and disseminate communication campaigns to improve future fundraising.

A Phenomenological Examination Of The Civilian Mental Health Clinicians’ Perceptions About Serving Military Members And Their Famlilies, Lorell Cynthia Gordon

Theses and Dissertations

This study utilizes qualitative inquiry to examine the perceptions of nine civilian mental health clinicians. The goal of this study is to answer the primary question: How do civilian mental health clinicians perceive working with the military population? The three sub questions that further direct this study are: (a) how do the clinicians describe their perceptions of their knowledge base to work with the military, (b) how do the clinicians describe their attitudes and beliefs about this special population, and (c) how do the clinicians describe their understanding about the world view of the military population? To answer these research …

Assessing Individual Transit Vulnerability To Nuisance Flooding In The Charleston, Sc Area, Sumathee Selvaraj

Theses and Dissertations

Minor coastal flooding, also known as nuisance flooding, is projected to be more frequent due to relative sea level rise. Nuisance flood events in Charleston have resulted in various social impacts caused by road closures, traffic disruptions, and economic losses. This thesis presents research conducted to understand the dimensions of individual transit vulnerability to nuisance flooding and how transit vulnerability will be affected by increased extents of nuisance flooding driven by rising sea levels and heavy rainfall. Mixed methods were used to conduct this research in Berkley, Charleston, and Dorchester Counties, South Carolina. An electronic, in-person survey was administered at …

Multivariate Analysis And Geographic Modeling Of Archaeological Landscapes, J. Christopher Gillam

Theses and Dissertations

Advances in Geographic Information Science (GISci), archaeological databases and statistics enable the development and refinement of spatial applications of multivariate statistics and other quantitative methods for modeling ancient and historical cultural landscapes. Along the Central Savannah River of South Carolina, this research on prehistoric and historic site distributions, their environmental, temporal and cultural context, and geographic modeling explored methodologies for predicting site locations and modeling cultural landscapes to gain a better understanding of the distant and recent past. Methods for testing extant models, detecting changes in land-use through time, and for developing time-sliced and adaptation-based landscape models were demonstrated using …

Adaptive Skill Trajectories In Infants With Fragile X Syndrome, Kelly Elizabeth Caravella

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined longitudinal trajectories of adaptive behavior in infants with fragile X syndrome (FXS), compared to typical development (TD) and infant siblings of children diagnosed with autism (ASIBs). Additional analysis were conducted to examine the differences in trajectories for males and females with FXS, and to identify if a profile of strengths and weaknesses appeared across domains by 24 months in males with FXS. Participants included 76 male infants assessed up to 4 times between 6 and 24 months of age. A sample of 12 females with FXS was also included for the comparative sex analysis. Infants with FXS …

Structural, Functional, And Behavioral Alterations To The Dopamine System In The Female Hiv-1 Transgenic Rat, Robert Francis Roscoe Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

HIV-associated cognitive disorders continue to affect approximately 25 million individuals worldwide, and its prevalence is expected to increase as the lifespan of HIV-1 infected individuals continues to improve. The HIV-1 transgenic rat expresses 7 of the 9 genes that encompass the virus, and is an appropriate model for studying chronic HIV-1 infection at a level that is controlled through combined antiretroviral therapy. Psychostimulant abuse is known to exacerbate HAND symptomology, but the psychostimulant methylphenidate is a first line of treatment for HIV associated cognitive inhibition. Dopamine transport abnormalities in the HIV-1 Tg rat have been well characterized through behavioral testing; …

Depression Among African American Midlife Women: Delineating The Role Of Stress, Heather Page

Theses and Dissertations

Recent multi-ethnic epidemiologic studies indicate an increased risk for the onset of new as well as recurrent episodes of clinical depression among midlife women. However, little is known about the risk factors that influence the occurrence, severity, and course of depression in midlife among African American women (AAW). The purpose of the current study was to statistically model three prevailing conceptual views of stress and depression: 1) life course, 2) stress exposure, and 3) stress generation). The research investigated the abilities of these conceptual models to predict depressive symptoms severity, current depressed days, and major depression among midlife AAW. Data …

“More To Life Than Mental Health”: Investigating The Roles Of Community Mental Health Case Managers In Promoting Community Integration For Adults With Psychiatric Disabilities, Betsy A. Davis

Theses and Dissertations

The recovery movement in the field of community mental health has brought attention to more holistic outcomes of services for adults with psychiatric disabilities, including community integration. However, there is a lack of empirical investigations of the roles that service providers, and case managers (CMs) in particular, can play in promoting such outcomes for their clients. The present study took an exploratory, hypothesis-building approach to describing the ways in which CMs supported the community integration of their clients with serious mental illness. A cross-sectional design was used with qualitative and quantitative data collected from 6 CMs and a sampling of …

Implicit Causality And Consequentiality In Native And Non-Native Coreference Processing, Wei Cheng

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is composed of two studies that examined the role of implicit causality and consequentiality in coreference processing. Implicit causality (IC) refers to the phenomenon that certain interpersonal verbs bias the causation of the events described by the verbs towards either its subject (the first noun phrase NP1) or its object (the second noun phrase NP2). Implicit consequentiality (IR) refers to the phenomenon that certain verbs bias the consequence towards either NP1 or NP2. These IC and IR biases have been found to influence language comprehenders’ establishment of coreference.

The first study examined whether intentionality of an event affects …

Getting To Outcomes® In Clinical Practice An Empirical Exploration Of A Framework That Supports Quality For Graduate Student Therapy Training, Jennifer Castellow

Theses and Dissertations

Getting To Outcomes® in Clinical Practice is an innovation being developed and disseminated in a clinical training center for psychology doctoral students. The innovation is a step-wise framework posited to enhance clinical practice by supporting the planning, implementation, and evaluation of specific evidence-based practices in psychology. The current study introduces and defines the innovation and uses a multiple case study, mixed method analysis to evaluate current innovation use behaviors as well as attitudes about the innovation. The guiding research themes for this study include: (1) innovation use behaviors, (2) attitudes about the innovation, and (3) influential contextual factors that impact …

Linking Discrimination To Health: Does Coping Matter For The Mental Health Of Black Men And Women?, Calley Fisk

Theses and Dissertations

Efforts to explain the negative association between discrimination and mental health have examined psychosocial responses to discrimination, such as coping responses or resources. However, there is limited research on how these coping strategies affect the discrimination-health relationship among Black Americans. Using data from the National Survey of American Life (NSAL), the present study examines the effect of perceived discrimination on depressive symptoms separately for men and women and tests the mediating and moderating influences of five coping strategies on this relationship. Results suggest that social support partially mediates the negative association between discrimination and mental health for men and women. …

The Impact Of Deinstitutionalization On Murders Of Law Enforcement Officers, Xueyi Xing

Theses and Dissertations

Occupational risk of violent victimization is a serious concern for law enforcement officers. However, there have been virtually no studies that examined the relationship between the incidence of police officer homicide victimization and the deinstitutionalization movement during which large number of persons with mental illness were released back into communities, often without adequate support systems. Research has shown that persons with certain types of mental illness have a greater propensity for violent behavior if they fail to take prescribed medications and/or abuse illicit substances. Since police are most often the first responders to persons with mental illness in crisis, increases …

Information Heterogeneity And Economic Voting: A Cross-National Analysis, Chia-Yin Wei

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation explores the effect of information sources (especially the media) on retrospective and prospective national economic evaluations and their subsequent voter choice in comparative perspective. I examine whether the level of democracy and level of economic development are associated with the effect of information sources on economic voting across nations. The results indicate that consolidated democracies and countries with middle income (GDP per capita: $1,000~$9,999) are most strongly associated with both retrospective and prospective national economic evaluations. However, the level of democracy and economic development are not associated with voter choice. The comparative case study of Mexico and Taiwan …

Barriers To Success: Refugee Mobility In The New South Immigrant Gateway City Of Columbia, Sc, Usa, Alysha V. Baratta

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores mobility and service access of refugees who have been resettled in a non-traditional smaller-city immigrant destination of Columbia, South Carolina. I show that delivery of basic refugee social services varies based on support from individual states while federal expectations for refugees to reach economic selfsufficiency are applied equally across the US. I argue that mobility is a major challenge in obtaining these goals, further exacerbated in the context of a smaller resettlement site. Although redistribution to smaller metropolitan areas may provide refugees safer and more affordable housing, less spatial distance to traverse (Mott, 2010), they often lack …

Exploring Teacher Readiness: What Features Of Professional Development Enhance Motivation To Implement Technology Innovations?, Robert S. Markle

Theses and Dissertations

Several studies suggest that if evidence-based school innovations are to be successful, schools must possess adequate capacity to implement them with quality. This paper utilizes a framework of organizational readiness called R=MC2, positing that readiness to implement with quality consists of three components: general capacities, innovation-specific capacities, and motivation. Specifically, this paper investigates whether certain key characteristics of professional development (active learning, integration, time for practice, collaboration, tailoring, coaching, and provision of feedback) can impact teacher motivation to implement novel educational practices. The paper answers two major research questions: 1) Which characteristics of quality professional development (PD) are related to …

The Impact Of Supreme Court Precedent In A Judicial Hierarchy, Ali Masood

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation explores three core questions. First, how is information regarding the preferences of judicial actors communicated within the American federal judiciary? Second, can U.S. Supreme Court justices meaningfully signal their policy preferences, vis-á-vis their decisions, to judges on the U.S. Courts of Appeals? Finally, what impact do such signals have on the propensity of lower courts judges to follow the precedents of the Supreme Court? The primary objective of this project is to identify the conditions that either increase or decrease the likelihood that judges on the courts of appeals comply with the precedents of the Supreme Court. I …

Exploring The Relationship Between Church Level Predictors Of Status And Obesity Risk In African American Women Of Faith, Kinjal Pandya

Theses and Dissertations

Although obesity is a nationwide epidemic, there are large racial, gender, socioeconomic, and geographical disparities in the rates of this condition. Specifically, African American women are more likely to be classified as obese as compared to all other gender and racial groups. Scholars have targeted African American churches to implement dietary and physical activity interventions in an attempt to combat the racial disparity in obesity rates. One of the main correlates studied in regards to obesity has been individual level markers of status such as socioeconomic status and subjective social status. Even though we focus on churches as a place …

Empowering The Enemy: The Cold War And The East-West Battle For Information Superiority, 1945 - 1969, Stan Trembach

Theses and Dissertations

This comparative study employs a historical perspective to narrow the gap in the existing knowledge of the origins of an information explosion phenomenon that dates back to the early decades of the twentieth century. It argues that the root cause of the unprecedented growth of the overall amount of documents was the rapid expansion of scientific and technical advances across the world and the subsequent spread of modern technologies, particularly those applied to scientific and technical information (STI).

This research is based on the premise that the thriving of the Soviet militaryindustrial complex went hand in hand with the rise …

The Effect Of Economic Inequality On Perceptions Of Merit, Nicholas Heiserman

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has shown that the rewards people receive are often taken as indirect evidence of their competence. Meanwhile, economic inequality has increased in the US over the past several generations. I propose that variation in economic inequality – the distribution of rewards in society – alters perceptions of the merits of people at different strata in society according to an assumption of equity. I use Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (mTurk) to experimentally manipulate the level of inequality (high vs low) participants perceive in an anonymized country, and I measure participants’ perceptions of merit for people in that country’s 90th and …

The Three Dimensionality Model Of State Security And Armed Conflict: Internal And External Dimensions And Lessons From The Middle East, Juri Kim

Theses and Dissertations

The primary objective of this research is to explore the dynamics in the development of civil conflict. Specifically, I attempt to explain the reasons for the occurrence of full-scale internal armed conflicts and the variation in intensity of those conflicts. Given that a substantial portion of previous studies in the field have taken rebel-centric and aggregate cross-country approaches, this research focuses on the state side and how the internal-external environments within which the ruling regime is situated affect its security decisions on rebellion.

The main argument is that internal armed conflict is a serious security problem of incumbent governments in …

Developmental Trajectories Of Working Memory From Age 6 Through 25 Years, Kristin L. Roberts

Theses and Dissertations

Working memory (WM) has been shown to be closely related to measures of achievement and intelligence, as well as attention, illustrating the critical role WM plays in the learning process. Understanding the typical developmental trajectory of WM is essential if professionals are to recognize and intervene when a child’s WM development shows signs of delay. The current study evaluated the development of WM in a crosssectional sample of 303 children, adolescents, and adults from ages 6 through 25 years. The study utilized a comprehensive measure of WM, assessing verbal, static visualspatial, and dynamic visual-spatial WM capacity across various processing demands. …

Attention Control And The Effects Of Online Training In Improving Connected Speech Perception By Learners Of English As A Second Language, Burcu Gokgoz-Kurt

Theses and Dissertations

One of the aspects of L2 English phonology which poses a challenge for L2 learners is learning how to decode the language, especially as spoken by native speakers. This difficulty may be due to the way the native speakers speak by ‘draw[ing] [the sounds] together’ (Clarey & Dixson, 1963), which results in realization of consonants and vowels differently than when uttered in isolation. This process is referred to as connected speech (e.g., pronouncing ‘want to’ as [wɑnə], and ‘going to’ as [ɡʌnə]). The challenge in teaching and learning these forms is that they lack perceptual saliency, requiring extra attentional resources …

Sounding Appalachian: /Ai/ Monophthongization, Rising Pitch Accents, And Rootedness, Paul E. Reed

Theses and Dissertations

Appalachia, the mountainous region that stretches from northern Georgia to Pennsylvania (ARC, 2015), is a region that has been considered culturally and linguistically unique in the United States. There is a small but growing body of literature that has demonstrated that the language varieties of this region, collapsed under the broad heading of Appalachian English (AE), diverge from Mainstream American English and other Southern American English varieties (Wolfram & Christian, 1976, Montgomery & Hall, 2004, Labov et al., 2006, among others). Much of this literature has focused on vowels and morpho-syntax, but other linguistic aspects have not received much attention, …