Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Negotiating Matriarchy: The Discourse Of Single Mothers Taking Care Of Their Families On Small Incomes, Tonya Janiece Redman

Communication Theses - Archive

This study used ten in-depth interviews with single mothers on small incomes to analyze for discursive themes. Three theoretical frameworks of Symbolic Interactionism, Presentation of Self and Cognitive Dissonance were used to guide this analysis. The discourse of these mothers found a matriarchal framework with four discursive themes of centrality, solidarity, moral economy, and support. Centrality refers to the way these single mothers position themselves as provider, protector and nurturer. The theme of Solidarity refers to how mothers viewed their relationships with their children. Discursive matriarchy is characterized by a moral economy that emphasizes spending time and paying attention. Support …

Growth/Decline Of Employment Subcenter In Polycentric Regions: The Case Of The Dallas-Fort Worth Metropolitan Area, Maher Sayel Al-Shammari

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

This research is concerned with explaining the variation in growth rates among employment subcenters. The purpose of the study is to find answers to the question: What factors/variables contribute to the growth or decline of employment subcenters? More specifically, the study aims to 1) identify and describe employment subcenters in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, and 2) explain the variation in their growth rate over a specified period of time through testing a set of variables extracted from related literature. A multiple regression analysis technique is employed to complete the empirical analysis. The DFW metropolitan area was chosen as a …

Factors Influencing The Relationship Between Nonprofit Child Care Providers And The Texas Department Of Family And Protective Services As A Predictor Of Policy Outcomes, Larry Watson

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

Over the past 30 plus years, there has been a shift in public administration responsibilities from providing direct services to the complex functions of contract management. Public administrators must now perform functions across jurisdictional lines to accomplish the purposes of the state (Frederickson & Smith, 2003). Public administrators can no longer be concerned only with the functions of government but must accomplish their work through the private and nonprofit sectors as well. The movement from the provision of direct services to the management of contracts is evident in Texas, where state legislators are working to privatize the state's child welfare …

Factors Influencing The Relationship Between Nonprofit Child Care Providers And The Texas Department Of Family And Protective Services As A Predictor Of Policy Outcomes, Larry Dan Watson

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

Over the past 30 plus years, there has been a shift in public administration responsibilities from providing direct services to the complex functions of contract management. Public administrators must now perform functions across jurisdictional lines to accomplish the purposes of the state (Frederickson & Smith, 2003). Public administrators can no longer be concerned only with the functions of government but must accomplish their work through the private and nonprofit sectors as well. The movement from the provision of direct services to the management of contracts is evident in Texas, where state legislators are working to privatize the state's child welfare …

Planning For Growth In Cities And Metropolitan Regions: An Empirical Study Of Impact Fees And Choice, Chi-Hyoung Park

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

This research examines what city factors relate to the likelihood of adopting impact fees by local governments within metropolitan regions using data from the U.S. Census Bureau. More and more cities are adopting different types of impact fees for financing public facilities and infrastructure to accommodate their cities' growth without full understanding of issues, public and private criticisms of impact fees, and the empirical information needed. This dissertation investigates a random sample of 278 cities out of 827 cities populations over 25,000 located within 97 MSAs to understand what variables within their settings relate to impact fee adoptions using five …

A Comparative Study Of Performance Measurement In Korean Local Governments Using Data Envelopment Analysis And Stochastic Frontier Analysis, Dong Jin Lim

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

This study examines efficiency as a key component of performance, applies new performance measurement techniques to the measurement of local government performance, and verifies theoretical debates on economic, financial, political, and environmental factors related to performance in local government. Improving performance and promoting efficiencies in local government are important issues in both academic and practical public administration. Despite the remarkable development of performance measurement in local government since the 1990s, empirical evidence is still limited on the extent of the utility and practicability of performance measurement in local government.

Results of this research are developed from a study of Korean …

Mental Training For Combat Sports, Randy Borum

Mental Health Law & Policy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Community Leadership Programs: Where They Have Been And Where They Are Going, Cynthia A. Hedge

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Community leadership programs have been a part of the landscape of communities across America for nearly 50 years. This project looked at 14 aspects of community leadership programs: (1) their history; (2) purpose; (3) goals; (4) program participants; (5) alumni; (6) sponsors; (7) funding; (8) tuitions; (9) formats; (10) program faculty; (11) curricula; (12) their impact on participants, organizations, communities, fields and systems; (13) evaluation processes used to measure their impact; and (14) their future.

Developing The Competency Of Serious Play, Mark D. Hylton

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This project explored the development of serious play as a personal competency of creative leadership and as a dimension of a creative organizational climate. Skill development was undertaken through acquiring certification as a LEGO® Serious Play™ facilitator and three workshops were subsequently delivered to a range of clients. The principles of play and Papert’s theory of constructionism were used to develop a serious of creative products as prototypes tried out with clients in the form of team based games. The outcomes of this project are ideas on how to bring play into the workplace, creating a climate for creativity and …

The Impact Of Creative Process On The Development Of A New Assessment Tool For Innovation: A Case Study., Anne Manning

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

This case study explores the link between the development of a comprehensive organizational assessment tool, the Innovation Aptitude™ Audit and the creative thinking process, as defined by Paul Torrance. The case is designed to engage readers with the Audit while simultaneously exploring the multiple dimensions of the creative process. It shows the power of the creative process at its best (in that it enables us to develop output that is new and useful) and at its most challenging (in that it constantly tests our commitment to our original visions, requires us to take uncomfortable risk and manage self-doubt). By portraying …

Journal Of The American Deafness And Rehabilitation Association Year 2007, Volume 40, Number 2 Complete

JADARA

Upload of old JADARA issue for digital access

Harvesting The Devil's Garden, Andrew Schurgott

Global CWD Repository

Ambitious development plans for the Northwest Coast run into a 65-year-old problem waiting beneath the sand...

Volume 27, Number 4, December 2007 Olac Newsletter, Jain Fletcher, Jay Weitz, Barbara Vaughan, Amy K. Weiss

OLAC Newsletters

Digitized December 2007 issue of the OLAC Newsletter.

"Does Your Throat Hurt More In The Morning Or Throughout The Day?" "Yes.": Intercultural Medical Discourse, Sarah Elizabeth May

Linguistics & TESOL Dissertations - Archive

An increasing number of immigrants to the United States do not use English as their first, or even second, language. Members of the medical community who treats such patients often do not speak the range of home languages of their patients. As a result of the absence of a common language, many patients are forced to communicate the best they can with their physicians in English. This study focuses the interactions of non-native English speaking patients with their doctors when interpreters were unavailable. Interactions between health care providers and non-native English speaking patients at a university health clinic were videotaped …

Message From The Provost, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Today's Army: An Examination Of The Differences Of Newspaper Coverage About America's Army In Small And Large Markets, Kimberly Levine Hanson

Communication Theses - Archive

This study examines differences in coverage of prominent Army news stories in a daily newspaper in a rural town near an Army post and the nearest metropolitan area. Past media and visual effects research suggests that newspaper coverage sets the agenda not only for its readers, but for other mass media, as well. As the American population moves in and around metropolitan regions and further away from any major Army presence, newspaper coverage may become essential in informing the general public about the Army that serves them. A content analysis over a two-month timeframe of the Killeen Daily Herald and …

Beetles For Breakfast: What The Fda Should Be Telling You, Kaycee L. Wolf

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Imagine sitting down to breakfast and eating strawberry yogurt with a glass of grapefruit juice. You think you are eating a healthy meal, but along with vitamins, calcium, and nutrients, you are getting a side of crushed beetles. Cochineal extract and carmine, two color additives derived from the cochineal beetle, color many foods such as strawberry yogurt. When people consume products with color additives, most do not realize that they could be ingesting insects, which can also be potentially dangerous, not to mention possibly unappetizing or upsetting. Imagine that one minute you are sitting down to eat a healthy cup …

Gateshead Revisited: Perceptual Simulators And Fields Of Meaning In The Analysis Of Metaphors, L. David Ritchie

Communication Faculty Publications and Presentations

In an extension and partial reformulation of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), Ritchie (2003, 2004, 2006) proposed that the linguistic expressions cited as evidence of complex conceptual metaphors can be parsimoniously interpreted in terms of perceptual simulators (Barsalou, 1999), often within extended fields of meaning, which may be but are not necessarily anchored in underlying conceptual metaphors. Cameron (2003, 2007) added substance and precision to the focal concept of communicative context, and showed how metaphors can be analyzed both as part of an overall pattern of figurative language in a communicative event. In this essay a series of …

The Importance Of Ideas: An A Priori Critical Juncture Framework, John Hogan

Articles

This paper sets out an improved framework for examining critical junctures. This framework, while rigorous and broadly applicable and an advance on the frameworks currently employed, primarily seeks to incorporate an a priori element. Until now the frameworks utilized in examining critical junctures were entirely postdictive. Adding a predictive element to the concept will constitute a significant advance. The new framework, and its predictive element, termed the “differentiating factor,” is tested here in examining macro-economic crises and subsequent changes in macro-economic policy, in America and Sweden.

Mcnair Scholars Program, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Notes From The Director, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Full Issue, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Halloween Open House, Vol.5 (6) November - December 2007, Houston Academy Of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library

The Insider (2003-2008)

No abstract provided.

Fund Raising, Vol.21 (2) October - December 2007, Houston Academy Of Medicine-Texas Medical Center Library

Library Lines (1998-2009)

No abstract provided.

Associations And Predictors Of Depressive Symptoms And Smoking Among Adolescents In United States, Bonnie Choi Mo

Social Work Theses - Archive

Studies done on the association of smoking and depression found inconclusive results in the direction of the association. The present study utilized public data from the Add Health to examine the associations between depressive symptoms and smoking concurrently and prospectively in adolescents, predictors of current smoking, and associations between concurrent depressive levels and smoking cessation status. The results indicate depressive symptoms promote concurrent and prospective smoking behavior. Higher levels of depressive symptoms at Wave I was characteristic of participants who smoked in the past and smoked regular. Higher depressive symptoms in Wave II were indicative of smoking initiation and regular …

The Effect Of Social Capital In Women's Participation In The Labor Force In Mexico: A Neighborhood In Monterrey, Maria Luisa Martinez Sanchez

Social Work Dissertations - Archive

The purpose of this dissertation study was to explore associations between Women's Participation in the Labor Force (WPLF), family organization (type of family, family size, domestic work and decision-making), personal attributes (years of schooling and labor experience), and social capital, an original approach of this study to understand WPLF. Social capital theoretical approach has been tested mainly in developed countries, in this study a qualitative component to explore cultural factors has been added. In the quantitative component, the study is a cross-sectional, with survey of 190 women (103 working women, 87 non-working women) between the ages of 18 and 64 …

Assessment Of Social Support And Peer Influence As Factors Contributing To High School Completion Among African American Males, Kristen Shanutelle Guillory

Social Work Dissertations - Archive

The study employed a non-experimental survey design to assess social support, spiritual beliefs and peer influence as contributing factors to high school completion among 203 African American males between 18 and 24 years old. A review of empirical and theoretical literature is presented. The participants completed a paper and pencil or online self report survey comprised of demographics, past psychosocial factors, the friends measure of the Texas Christian University/ Prevention Management and Evaluation System scales on family, friends, and self (TCU/PMES), and the Young Adult Social Support Index (YA-SSI). Descriptives revealed that students residing in "run down" communities and attending …

Exercise Makes You Feel Good, But Does Feeling Good Make You Exercise?: An Examination Of Obese Dieters, Robert A. Carels, Carissa Coit, Kathleen Young, Bonnie Berger

Psychology Faculty Publications

Whereas exercise-induced mood enhancement has been well documented, the relationship between mood and exercise participation is less well understood. Mood states influence evaluative judgments that could plausibly influence a decision to exercise. Further, most exercise-mood research is limited to normal weight adults in response to a single exercise session. The current investigation examines the influence of (a) morning mood on exercise, (b) exercise intensity/duration on mood enhancement, and (c) daily change in mood on exercise days compared with nonexercise days in obese behavioral weight loss program (BWLP) participants. Participants (N=36) recorded morning, evening, and pre- and postexercise mood, as well …

Are Some Children Weight Blind? The Stigma Of Obesity And Its Influence On 3rd-6th Grade Children, Madeline Rex-Lear

Psychology Theses - Archive

The aim of this research was to examine when the buffering effects (if any) of ethnicity, sex, age difference, and personality affect the stigmatization of overweight children, and to determine if some children can indeed be weight-blind. A total of 315 3rd- 6th grade children (boys = 157) completed an online computer survey measuring their perceptions of thin, medium and heavy children of different ethnicities and sex. Children also provided measures of their personality and attitudes toward weight. Finally, height and weight were collected for each child. Results revealed an overwhelming weight bias, which was only weakened by higher levels …

The Commercial Sexual Exploitation Of Children, Cynthia Hipolito

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

The purpose of the study is to review the thematic content analysis of the empirical literature on the commercial sexual exploitation of children. The research explores recurring themes and/ or trends in the literature by inductive content analysis. The research involves the examination of the research, that is, published books, book chapters, magazine articles, newspaper articles, and refereed journal articles on the topic of commercialized sexual exploitation of children. This very basic form of content analysis will seek to amplify issues on the topic in an organized fashion, by exploring the themes to emerge inductively and make policy recommendations. This …