Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Cheer Up Luv: An Examination Of The Activistic Efforts Of Eliza Hatch, Jasper (Kirsten) Boyd

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

This paper examines the efforts put forth by Eliza Hatch, who is an established photojournalist and activist, which pertain to women’s rights and sexual harassment all over the world. Hatch has a multitude of projects dealing with sexual harassment and the unequal treatment of women all across the globe. She is mainly based in London and New York, but has also completed projects in Sri Lanka. Through her activistic career, which began in 2017, she has garnered ample media attention and has raised awareness regarding the issues she tackles in her projects. Through her photo-sets, documentaries, and talks at universities, …

Editorial: Black Bear Pride Means Protecting Students From Hate Speech, Liz Theriault

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

On Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2019, Rep. Lawrence Lockman arrived at the University of Maine campus to give a keynote presentation at the “Crisis at the Border; A Citizen’s Guide to Resisting Racist Immigration Policies in Maine” event, organized by the UMaine College Republicans. It did not take long for many UMaine students and alumni to condemn this visit, citing evidence of violent, discriminatory and hateful statements made by Lockman in the past. The controversy stirred up by Rep. Lockman’s visit is a perfect example for how UMaine, its students and its administration need to take a moment to reassess how …

Can "Slacktivism" Work? Perceived Power Differences Moderate The Relationship Between Social Media Activism And Collective Action Intentions Through Positive Affect, Mindi D. Foster, Eden J.V. Hennessey, Benjamin T. Blankenship, Abigail Stewart

Psychology Faculty Publications

We argue that the often-used critique of social media activism as merely a ‘feel-good’ mechanism can be countered by conceptualizing social media activism as a necessary type of collective action (i.e., consensus mobilization), incorporating theory on the benefits of positive feelings for activism, and by examining how power may affect these relationships. Women from two different samples (MTurk and university) were randomly assigned to recall a high- versus low-power experience, view real-world events of sexism, and then complete questionnaires assessing endorsement of social media activism, positive affect, and collective action intentions. A dual moderated mediation analyses at the second stage …

Leymah Gbowee And The Army Of Women In White, Alexis Steele Hackenberg

Faculty Curated Undergraduate Works

This paper describes the founding of peace activist Leymah Gbowee’s Liberia Mass Action for Peace (LMAP) movement that helped to end the Second Liberian Civil War. It provides a biographical account of the life experiences that were crucial for Gbowee to advocate for peace and found the movement. The paper also compares the LMAP movement with the more recent #MeToo movement and analyzes Gbowee’s personal critiques of #MeToo.

“Trying To March Less And Organize More”: Culture, Capital, And Structure In Civic Engagement Among College Students, Bailey Haas

Sociology Honors Projects

This study explores volunteerism and activism in tandem under the umbrella of civic engagement and questions the importance of intergenerational transmission of forms of capital and cultural models of agency in how and why college students choose to be civically engaged. This study utilized a mixed-methods design with a survey to determine base rates of engagement and semi-structured interviews to identify differences in engagement based on class culture and capital. Overall, there were not differences in rate of participation by social class, but students volunteered more regularly than they engaged in activism. The interviews illustrated how students theoretically distinguish activism …

Wgs Program Hosts 'Pop-Up' On Political Correctness, Charles Cramer

Social Justice: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion

For the first time this semester, the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies (WGS) program hosted one of their ‘Pop-up Panels.’ The panelist/audience discussions address topics of a divisive and polarizing variety in a format that is open to the student body. The hour-long event, which began at noon on Wednesday in the Memorial Union’s Bangor Room, discussed the concept of ‘political correctness’ and the connotations it often evokes.

Young People’S Expectations To Participate In Legal And Illegal Activities To Express Their Opinions: Findings From Iccs 2016, Wolfram Schulz

Civics and Citizenship Assessment

In reference to the theory of planned behaviour which links attitudes to action through intentions (Ajzen, 2001; Ajzen, & Fishbein, 2000), the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) 2016 (Schulz et al., 2018) measured students’ intentions to engage in the future and developed items measuring students’ beliefs about their likelihood of civic engagement in the future. This paper focuses on young people’s expectations to participate in legal or illegal activities (as “unconventional” forms of engagements) to express their opinions. This paper uses data from 14 European countries that participated in the recent IEA study ICCS 2016 to explore the …

Restoring Solidarity: "Accountability" In Radical Leftist Subcultures, Sarah M. Hanks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In radical left activist subcultures, ‘accountability processes’ are a form of DIY transformative justice dealing with abuse and sexual assault, focusing on the needs of the ‘survivor’ and transformation of the ‘perpetrator.’ Within activism identifying abuse is particularly difficult because it means acknowledging abuse by a person considered politically virtuous. The specifics of a process are situational and provisional. The overwhelming pattern is male identified people abusing female identified, gender non-binary, and transgender people. My research examines why activists are developing processes to address problems and whether or not they are successful.

Within the subculture, the topic is important enough …

The South African Women's Movement: The Roles Of Feminism And Multiracial Cooperation In The Struggle For Women's Rights, Amber Michelle Lenser

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the historiography of South Africa’s recent past, focus has been most heavily placed on apartheid and the anti-apartheid movement, with much emphasis placed on male involvement and men as the primary agents of change in the country. Women are largely viewed as playing a supportive role to male activists throughout the movement, and far less has been written on female involvement or women’s activism in its own right. Running parallel to the anti-apartheid movement, however, was a women’s movement characterized by women across the racial and socioeconomic spectrum struggling to secure their own rights in a very hostile and …

Civic Knowledge And Expected Civic Engagement Among Lower-Secondary Students, Wolfram Schulz, Julian Fraillon

Civics and Citizenship Assessment

Based on survey data from the latest implementation of the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS 2016), this paper explores the associations between students’ civic knowledge, their disposition to and involvement in civic engagement within the school and community context, and their willingness to engage in future civic activities as adults. The multivariate analyses also include factors related to resources for engagement, variables reflecting the psychological disposition towards engagement, and network-related variables in order to explain variation in expected electoral and active political participation. The results show that civic knowledge is related in different ways to expectations of future …

The Complicit Anthropologist, Ruth Gomberg‐Muñoz

Ruth Gomberg-Munoz

The invitation to become “accomplices, not allies” is a timely and urgent summons to a political left that has recently swelled with renewed vigor. Galvanized to contest the Trump administration, freshly politicized young people and veteran activists alike have a spectrum of options for political engagement—few of which seriously threaten to dismantle broader systems of inequality and injustice. In line with Rosa and Bonilla's call to avoid exceptionalizing Trump in favor of more critical and robust analyses of colonialism, racism, and U.S. statehood, the call to become accomplices urges progressives to avoid the deceptive comfort of allyship, and, instead, to …

“Come Hell And High Water”: The Role Of Archivists, Historical Myths, And Activism In Communities Facing Repeated Extreme Flooding Events, Jay-Marie Bravent, Kari A. Greenwalt, Shawn Gladden

Library Presentations

While the names Harvey, Sandy, and Katrina ring loudly in the ears of many today – can we still learn valuable lessons in the archives from Diane, Camille, and Agnes? Climate change increasingly contributes to not only more frequent and more violent tropical cyclogenesis, but repeated extreme flooding events caused by unnamed weather systems, supercells, dam failures, and surges from rising oceans. These events have opened questions of survival for communities across the United States, and recent examples show that some communities indeed face pressure to abandon their long-standing ground and forego rebuilding.

In a 2013 article titled “Come Hell …

Recalibrating Micro And Macro Social Work: Student Perceptions Of Social Action, Amy Krings Phd, Charla Truby-Hockman Msw, Michael P. Dentato Phd, Msw, Susan Grossman Phd

Michael P. Dentato

Activism And The Fossil Fuel Industry By Andrew Cheon And Johannes Urpelainen, Alexandra Watt Simpson

The Goose

Review of Andrew Cheon and Johannes Urpelainen's Activism and the Fossil Fuel Industry

For The Wild: Ritual And Commitment In Radical Eco-Activism By Sarah M. Pike, Alda Balthrop-Lewis

The Goose

Review of Sarah M. Pike's For the Wild: Ritual and Commitment in Radical Eco-Activism

Chitown Loves Youhip Hop’S Alternative Spatializing Narratives And Activism To Trump’S Hatefulcampaign Rhetoric About Chicago, George Villanueva

School of Communication: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign rhetoric about violence in Chicago spatialized a narrative that branded the city as the poster child of urban disarray. His bombast lacked any contextual understanding of the issue and offered no productive pathways for collective solutions. Alternatively, I argue in this paper that a rising collection of Chicago hip hop artists were producing musical discourses in 2016 that not only challenged Trump’s negative rants, but also spatialized a multilayered narrative of the intersections between hip hop and activism in the city. Through textual analysis of three tracks from three breakout artists in 2016, my goal …

"Earth Mommas”: The Impact Of Mothers On The American Environmental Justice Movement, Marie Gabrielle Buendia

Environmental Studies

Since the movement’s roots in the mid-twentieth century, mothers have been at the forefront in the pursuit of environmental justice in the United States. Raising their voices while raising their children and the community, they present a strong, effective and formidable force in the landscape of activism and advocacy. A mismanaged environment, years of political disenfranchisement, and persistent gender stratification have interacted throughout the country’s history to specifically position women and mothers – sometimes through force and always out of necessity – as the foundation of the environmental justice movement. For better or for worse, with the skills acquired through …

Crowdsourcing Change: An Analysis Of Twitter Discourse On Food Waste And Reduction Strategies, Annie R. Specht, Emily B. Buck

Journal of Applied Communications

Food waste has emerged as a major issue in the United States as the nation collectively sends more than 133 billion pounds of food to its landfills every year. In September 2015, the USDA and EPA announced an initiative to cut U.S. food waste in half by 2030. Between 2015 and 2016, nearly 100,000 posts about food waste have been published on Twitter, a microblogging platform that has been a hub of “slacktivism” since its inception in 2006. Using a conceptual framework of social cognitive theory, online activism, and crowdsourcing, we analyzed food waste conversation participants’ demographics, online communities, and …

Choosing Advocacy

Occasional Paper Series

Two articles comprise this publication. In "Beyond the Story-Book Ending: Literature for Young Children About Parental Estrangement and Loss," Megan Matt analyzes over 30 books for young children on the topics of abandonment, estrangement, divorce, and foster care. She observes that this loss might appear as an event within the story or as a fear articulated by a young child. She states that, as an educator, she hopes that she can make the children realize that their own stories are "real" and legitimate, no matter what messages they might encounter or fail to encounter in the media. In "Walking the …

Dacamented: Latinx Youth Immigrant Struggle, Activism Through Images, Nicole Rivera

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

Many social changes have transpired since Chicanx youth walked out of their classrooms during the 1968 grassroots mobilizations demanding equal access to education. Currently, young people continue to lead different social movements around the country, transforming activism and advocating for equality. In this new era of activism, Latinx youth immigrant communities have utilized digital photography and social media networks as platforms to promote changes in immigration policies. More importantly, their activism has brought visibility to the lives of immigrants, especially DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) recipients. Although previous research has examined the pivotal connection between Latinx youth activism and …

Activists’ Strategic Communication In An Authoritarian Setting: Integrating Social Movement Framing Into Issues Management, Hue Trong Duong, Hong Tien Vu, Nhung Nguyen

Communication Faculty Publications

Triangulating 18 in-depth interviews with activists and campaign participants, news coverage, and social media content related to the campaign “6,700 people for 6,700 trees,” this study integrates social movement framing theory and issues management framework to examine activists’ strategic communications in an authoritarian setting. Results indicate activists’ sophisticated use of framing strategies following different stages of the issue life cycle to legitimately form an issue and successfully manage the issue in order to achieve their goals. This study offers meaningful theoretical implications for examining strategic communication in social movement campaigns. It also discusses practical lessons for applying these strategies to …

International Justice: Bringing The World Home Through Social Justice, Gabriel Rubin

Gabriel Rubin

As the head of my university’s new International Justice program, I am well placed to speak about the trials and tribulations of teaching students about global politics. Our program draws in Sociology, Justice Studies, and Political Science students. The overarching goal is to make students aware of international issues ranging from genocide and terrorism to international migration and global institutions through the lens of social justice. The social justice lens is particularly effective because it provides a reason for exploring global issues. These issues are not bloodlessly described in my courses with the hopes of extracting causal variables. Instead international …

March For Our Lives: Hope Through Anger, Shelly K. Barber

Research on Diversity in Youth Literature

No abstract provided.

Motivations For Women’S Activism In Hydraulic Fracking, Taya Godfrey

Research on Capitol Hill

Research Question: What motivates females to become anti-fracking activists?

Hydraulic fracturing is a way of obtaining natural gas and oil from deep within the earth by injecting high powered water and chemicals into shale rock to fracture it, and therefore release natural resources (Manfreda, 2015).

We have seen much activism surrounding the issue of fracking because of the environmental and health controversies associated with it. We have also noted an increasing number of female activists and hope to determine the cause. By understanding what motivates women to become anti-fracking activist we can further encourage female activism in many other spheres. …

Going For Broke: A Talk To Music Teachers, Juliet Hess, Brent C. Talbot

Sunderman Conservatory of Music Faculty Publications

In 1963—a racially-charged time in the United States—James Baldwin delivered “A Talk to Teachers,” urging educators to engage youth in difficult conversations about current events. We concur with Giroux (2011, 2019) that political forces influence our educational spaces and that classrooms should not be viewed as apolitical, but instead seen as sites for engagement, where educators and artists alike can “go for broke.” Drawing upon A Tribe Called Quest’s 2017 Grammy performance of “We the People…” as an example of the role of the arts in troubled times, we consider ways to work alongside youth in schools to respond, consider, …

Sr. Jay: Social Justice, Shayna Smith

Ask a Sister: Interview Wisdom from Catholic Women Religious

I interviewed Sr. Jay in January 2019 regarding her path to becoming a woman religious, and her experiences within her chosen order. This segment of the paper details her order’s partaking in social justice oriented activities, and how that connected to course content.

Palestinian Liberation, Jennifer Thomson

Bucknell: Occupied

Jennifer Thomson, assistant professor of History at Bucknell University, interviews Miko Peled, Israeli-American activist and author. Peled contextualizes the Israeli occupation of Palestine, describes discriminatory treatment of Palestinians, and discusses his own experience as a Jewish peace activist in support of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Michael Drexler, professor of English at Bucknell University, discusses contemporary conversation on university campuses and interrogates the uncritical support of Zionism.

Wounded Heroes And Heroic Vocations: Heroism And The Storied Lives Of Therapists, Peter Bray

Heroism Science

For many the world can be a dangerous place. Life is random. Survival is conditional, and individuals inevitably sustain physical and psychological wounds along the way. Challenged by change, human beings seek meaning in the making and remaking of personal myths that acknowledge both failure and the heroic achievement to endure and flourish. Revealing the heroic character of their creators, this impulse to make and share stories also elevates prosaic, day-to-day struggles into inspirational tales that can transcend context and speak into others’ lives. The sharing of stories permits others to purposefully consider their own struggles and can inspires them …

The Dogmatism Of Dissent: How Open-Minded Cognition Influences Protest Attitudes, Chad Osteen

Master's Theses

While protestors are often thought of and portrayed as dogmatic actors on the political stage, research has yet to empirically investigate the cognitive processes of protestors. While previous research has investigated how open-minded cognition relates to political party and ideology, its relationship to political activism has remained under studied. This study used a between subject's design to determine how priming system rejection may affect open-minded cognition and protest attitudes. The sample of 450 participants recruited through Amazon's Mechanical Turk is based off a power analysis with small to medium effect sizes (r2=0.25) and a power of .95. Using SurveyGizmo software, …

Reflections On A Pedagogical Shift: A Public Speaking For Social Justice Model, Angela L. Putman

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

While the basic content of the public speaking course has changed little, the method and manner in which these skills are taught can, and should, reflect the dynamic socio-political contexts in which we live and teach. This reflection essay addresses a struggle to keep the public speaking course relevant, innovative, and practical while also incorporating necessary learning outcomes. As a potential solution, I introduce a Public Speaking for Social Justice Model for the introductory course. The model requires that students thoroughly examine a timely social justice issue; situate themselves and their classmates within the issue while featuring marginalized voices and …