Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Revisiting Interview Data Through A Post I-Poem, Julie E. Schrauben, S. Rebecca Leigh

The Qualitative Report

A former participant in a research study on adolescent writers was invited to read and respond to a Post-I-Poem (PIP), a poetic transcription constructed from her interview data in what is now a closed study. The purpose of this investigation was to explore what could be learned from doing a PIP in the first place and what lines of inquiry this investigation could raise for why a researcher might revisit old interview data. Analysis of one student’s PIP suggests that using poetic transcription to revisit retired transcriptions offers researchers potentially new directions for further study.

Directed Qualitative Content Analysis (Dqlca): A Tool For Conflict Analysis, Naupess K. Kibiswa Phd

The Qualitative Report

Qualitative Content Analysis (QlCA) is a research methodology carried on in either an inductive or deductive way. The former way is widely used by qualitative researchers and is more presented in qualitative research manuals than the latter is. While in the inductive approach, the researcher draws categories/themes from data she collected to start her research, in the deductive, aka, directed approach, she rather draws them from (an) existing theory/ies to set up the categories/themes that guide her research. The deductive or directed qualitative content analysis (DQlCA) is used to test, to corroborate the pertinence of the theory/ies guiding the study …

Understanding The Relation Between Mindfulness-Based Interventions, Reading And Attention, Adam Joseph Clawson

Theses - ALL

According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), roughly one third of American 4th and 8th grade students perform at or above the proficient level, suggesting that further interventions are needed to support student reading skills. Mindfulness interventions have generally been implemented to impact attentional, social-emotional needs, and internalizing symptoms such as stress and anxiety. However, mindfulness interventions have only recently been deployed to increase academic skills such as reading. This current research evaluated the effects of a brief year-long mindfulness intervention on reading and attention skills across an ethnically diverse at-risk sample of 7th grade students. Five 7th …

Black Lives Matter? Reporting Styles And The Public’S Acceptance Or Rejection Of Racially Charged Protest, Alexandria Haynes

Theses - ALL

Communication and media studies scholars have commonly accepted that the news media has significant influence on the public, so the tendency to marginalize protest groups as socially deviant, can have serious implications for the cause being protested. This two-part qualitative study first examined news coverage of racially charged protests surrounding the controversial judicial ruling regarding the death of Trayvon Martin. News coverage of protests that followed the verdict was analyzed based on elements consistent with Framing theory, using a Critical Discourse Analysis methodology. The second part of the study analyzed the same news articles corresponding comment sections, in order to …

Environmental Enrichment Improves Sociability In Btbr Mice, A Rodent Model For Autism, Bradley Andrew Diamond

Theses - ALL

This study examined the hypothesis that environmental enrichment (EE) would reduce autistic-like symptoms on three behavioral tasks in BTBR mice, an inbred strain used as a genetic model for autism. Based on our previous work with adversity induced symptoms of mental disorder in an outbred mouse strain, we predicted that EE would 1) increase preference for social stimuli in the 3-chamber apparatus, 2) enhance preference for home nest odors versus clean familiar shavings on the odor preference test, and 3) reduce anxiety-like behavior on the elevated plus maze. We found that EE 1) increased BTBR preference for a stranger mouse …

Parenting In Chinese Immigrant Mothers: The Influences Of Chinese Identity, Cultural And Parenting Cognitions, Grandparent Support And Child Temperament, Kai Sun

Dissertations - ALL

Cultural cognitions have been shown to have important implications for parenting cognitions, behaviors and adjustment across cultures. However, few studies have examined the associations between cultural cognitions and parenting in acculturating Chinese communities. This study explored the following research questions among acculturating Chinese mothers in the United States: 1) How parents’ sense of investment is determined by acculturation processes and its importance for parental involvement; 2) the relationships between parental satisfaction, individualism/collectivism and parenting stress; 3) the moderating role of acculturation on the relationship between grandparent support and parenting stress; 4) the moderating role of gender and acculturation on the …

Examining The Transfer Of Function Representations, Ashley Nicole Douglass

Theses - ALL

A transfer task was used to test whether people rely on rules or associations to learn a function. The primary function that everyone received was an inverse absolute value function. The secondary transfer functions that had a similar rule were flip conditioned or shift conditioned version of the primary function. The secondary function representing association was a parabola condition shaped function, which had input-output pairs closest to the primary function. It is expected that since the Parabola condition has less deviations from the trained function that if people favor associations then it would be easier, despite it having a very …

Personality Pathology Severity And Hazardous Cannabis Use: Does Instability In Daily Life Mediate This Association?, Nicole Elizabeth Ellerbeck

Theses - ALL

Comorbidities between personality pathology and cannabis use disorders among young adults are a growing public health concern. Young adulthood is the period in which personality pathology and associated dysfunction peak, and evidence suggests personality pathology contributes to substance abuse behaviors. However, the specific aspects of personality pathology that explain these associations remain unclear. Personality disorders tend to share in common three domains of dysregulation that are marked by instability in self-esteem (identity), affect, and interpersonal experiences. This study investigated whether these common domains of personality dysfunction mediated associations between personality pathology severity and patterns of cannabis use. The current study …

Screening For At-Risk Substance Use And Behavioral Health Concerns In University Primary Care, Clare Elizabeth Campbell

Dissertations - ALL

Harmful substance use is a prevalent and under-treated public health problem, with use of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs among the top preventable causes of death in the United States. The unmet need for treatment is particularly pronounced among young adults, for whom university primary care is an important venue for early detection and intervention. Although a number of different multi-substance use screens have been developed for primary care settings, none have been validated in university primary care. Other behavioral health concerns are also highly prevalent among college students, although little is known regarding how behavioral risk factors co-occur in …

Three Essays On Property Tax Administration, Yusun Kim

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is comprised of three essays on real property tax administration and related state-local fiscal relations. All three essays exploit variation in state policies as natural experiments to study the various features of the property tax system.

The first essay examines how county governments respond to a state policy that reduced counties' share of state Medicaid costs, in a state where counties are mandated to financially contribute to the state program. The key motivation of this study is to understand the consequences of a change in the way a large public insurance program is co-financed by different levels of …

Gender And Legitimacy In United Nations Mediation, Catriona Standfield

Dissertations - ALL

In 2000, the United Nations (UN) adopted Resolution 1325, the foundation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda. It aims to make peace and security more gender-sensitive and inclusive. Scholars have examined the implementation of the WPS Agenda in peacebuilding and peacekeeping; however, mediation, particularly UN-brokered peace processes, remains under-researched. Nineteen years on, progress is inconsistent. Numbers of women have increased in negotiations, but they remain a minority. While the UN has guidelines on gender in mediation, peace processes do not consider gender issues systematically. This project considers the problem of how the UN has institutionalized the WPS Agenda …

Beyond The Rubicon: Command And Control In Regional Nuclear Powers, Giles David Arceneaux

Dissertations - ALL

What factors explain the origins of command and control systems in emerging nuclear powers? Why do some states implement robust administrative, physical, and technical controls over their nuclear arsenals, while others limit safeguards against nuclear use?

The nature of a state’s nuclear command and control systems underpin the deterrent capacity of a state’s nuclear arsenal, determine the likelihood of accidental or unauthorized nuclear use, and affect the likelihood of conventional conflict escalating across the nuclear threshold. Despite the importance of command and control systems for nuclear stability and security, however, detailed analysis on the sources of nuclear command and control …

Countering Anti-Vaccination Rumors On Twitter, Ji Won Kim

Dissertations - ALL

This study examined the effects of the counter-rumor on changes in the belief about the anti-vaccination claim, anxiety associated with the rumor, intentions to vaccinate a child and share the rumor. Particularly, we tested whether argument strength, source expertise, as well as the recipient’s previously held attitude toward vaccination, could affect these outcomes. First, the pilot tests were conducted to check source expertise (N = 161) and argument strength (N = 74; N = 73) and select sources and messages used in the experiment. A 2 (argument strength: strong vs. weak) x 2 (expertise source: high vs. low) between-subjects factor …

Nunavut, A Creation Story. The Inuit Movement In Canada's Newest Territory, Holly Ann Dobbins

Dissertations - ALL

This is a qualitative study of the 30-year land claim negotiation process (1963-1993) through which the Inuit of Nunavut transformed themselves from being a marginalized population with few recognized rights in Canada to becoming the overwhelmingly dominant voice in a territorial government, with strong rights over their own lands and waters. In this study I view this negotiation process and all of the activities that supported it as part of a larger Inuit Movement and argue that it meets the criteria for a social movement. This study bridges several social sciences disciplines, including newly emerging areas of study in social …

Studying The Impact On Urban Health Over The Greater Delta Region In Egypt Due To Aerosol Variability Using Optical Characteristics From Satellite Observations And Ground-Based Aeronet Measurements, Wenzhao Li, Elham Ali, Islam Abou Al-Magd, Moustafa Mohamed Mourad, Hesham El-Askary

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

This research addresses the aerosol characteristics and variability over Cairo and the Greater Delta region over the last 20 years using an integrative multi-sensor approach of remotely sensed and PM10 ground data. The accuracy of these satellite aerosol products is also evaluated and compared through cross-validation against ground observations from the AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) project measured at local stations. The results show the validity of using Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors on the Terra and Aqua platforms for quantitative aerosol optical depth (AOD) assessment as compared to Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI), Sea-viewingWide Field-of-view …

Vicarious Racial Discrimination, Racial Identity, And Alcohol-Related Outcomes Among Black Young Adults: An Experimental Approach, Jessica Mae Desalu

Dissertations - ALL

Personal experiences of racial discrimination have been well investigated for its association with diverse alcohol-related outcomes among Black Americans. However, vicarious racial discrimination (i.e., the observation of others’ experience of racial discrimination) has yet to be examined for its alcohol-related outcomes. The extent to which vicarious discrimination experiences influence alcohol outcomes may differ by three components of racial identity: centrality (significance of being Black), private regard (personal evaluative judgments of being Black), and public regard (beliefs about others’ evaluative judgments of Blacks). The current within-subject experiment examined whether associations of vicarious racial discrimination (manipulated by video clips) with alcohol use …

Examining The Classification Accuracy Of The Social, Academic, Emotional Behavior Risk Screener And Its Relationship With Writing Performance, Narmene Hamsho

Dissertations - ALL

This study examined the relationship between two school-wide screening measures, one examining classroom behaviors (the Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener; SAEBRS; Kilgus, Chafouleas, & Riley-Tillman, 2013) and another evaluating writing fluency (Curriculum-Based Measurement in Written Expression; CBM-WE). This study also evaluated the area under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve of the SAEBRS and CBM-WE for identifying students at-risk for writing achievement deficits. A convenience sample of 147 third-grade general education students across two schools, who were determined to not have any significant impairment impacting their writing performance, participated in this study. The index tests (i.e., SAEBRS, CBM-WE) …

Hope, Courage, And Resilience In The Lives Of Transgender Women Of Color, Nadine Ruff, Amy B. Smoyer, Jean Breny

The Qualitative Report

There is a lack of qualitative and strengths-based knowledge about the lived experience of transgender women of color in the US. To address this research gap, a Photovoice project was undertaken with five transgender women living in a small urban area. Thematic analysis of the participants’ discussion of their photographs identified three major themes: hope, courage, and resilience. Analysis suggests a framework for understanding these women’s lived experiences and the psychosocial tools that they use to negotiate their daily lives and persevere in the face of interpersonal and structural oppression.

Frenemies In The Academy: Relational Aggression Among African American Women Academicians, Wendi S. Williams, Catherine Lynne Packer-Williams

The Qualitative Report

Black women academicians represent a highly educated group that at times hold positional power within institutions of higher education. In this paper, the authors utilize a critical race feminist frame to explore their experiences with relational aggressive dynamics within higher education work settings. Using auto-narrative qualitative methodology, they collected data through scholarly personal narratives in the form of journals. The entries were analyzed by utilizing an intersectional lens with a focus on coping. Data analysis yielded four themes framed as coping with frenemy dynamics between individuals and contexts. The authors consider the contribution of individual, institutional and structural elements.

Valuing Vacancy: Land Banking And Property Governance In The U.S. Rust Belt, Patrick Oberle

Dissertations - ALL

In the early 1970s, planning and city officials in St. Louis, Missouri were grappling with the consequences of white flight, urban renewal, and a withdrawal of federal funding on the city’s increasingly abandoned and tax delinquent housing stock. In response, the city government implemented a land bank to acquire tax foreclosed housing and other property and re-sell it through an urban homesteading plan. Later that decade, a similar program was implemented in Cleveland, Ohio. By the early 2000’s the land banking idea had transformed from a city agency to a near-governmental non-profit regional organization with the powers to acquire abandoned …

Modern Health Worries And Emotional Reactivity To Images Of Air Pollution, Garry Spink

Dissertations - ALL

Modern health worries (MHW) represent individual differences in the perceived threat posed to health and well-being by aspects of modern life. Current evidence suggests that MHW are positively associated with trait negative emotionality, and given that trait negative emotionality is associated with state emotional reactivity to environmental stressors, it is reasonable to expect that persons with elevated MHW would show increased state emotional reactivity to MHW-related stimuli. Consequently, this study aimed to investigate the association of MHW with state emotional reactivity (i.e., valence and arousal) to MHW-related stimuli (i.e., images of air pollution). Combining these stimuli with other stimuli varying …

The Longitudinal Association Of Neighborhood Stress And Sexual Risk Behaviors And Outcomes Among Black Adolescents: Main Effects And Theoretically-Informed Mediation, Sarah Rose Lafont

Dissertations - ALL

Neighborhood stress stemming from exposure to physical and social decay, as well as violence and crime may be a critical risk factor for risky sexual behaviors among adolescents. The present study sought to: 1) characterize the prospective association of neighborhood stress with adolescent sexual risk behaviors; 2) test whether depression and perceived peer risk norms mediate this association, as proposed by the stress and coping hypothesis and social control theory, respectively; and 3) test whether plausible alternative hypotheses to the stress and coping hypothesis and social control theory can explain the data as well as these hypotheses. Path analysis was …

Review Of Infected Kin: Orphan Care And Aids In Lesotho, Cassandra L. Workman

The Journal of Social Encounters

In the opening vignette, “A Story about Joala,” we readers are brought to the highlands of Lesotho to share homebrewed beer with brewers, research participants, and the authors. This experience of sharing a drink asks us to consider what it means to share in Lesotho, what the ties are that hold people together. Like the communal sharing of food, sharing joala is a defining social activity and as we learn throughout the ethnography, one that is important in the creation of kin. Indeed, this book is presented though a kinship-first perspective.

Using this framework and ground-up analytical methodology, Block and …

Review Of Cahuilla Nation Activism And The Tribal Casino Movement, Terri Castaneda

The Journal of Social Encounters

In this highly accessible book, anthropologist Theodor Gordon tackles settler society’s deep deficit of knowledge about the tribal casino industry’s legal and historical underpinnings. At the core of his analysis are the Cahuilla nations and homelands situated in present day Southern California, the “epicenter of the tribal gaming movement” (p. 19). The fourth title in University of Nevada’s “The Gambling Series,” this study contributes new texture to the embryonic field of tribal gaming studies and is an especially welcome addition to the meager corpus of California-based tribal gaming ethnographies. Yet this hardly describes the breadth of its scholarly relevance. As …

Review Of This Is An Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping The Twenty-First Century, Patricia M. Mische

The Journal of Social Encounters

This book is must reading for peace educators, scholars, social activists and citizen groups. It belongs in public libraries and in nonviolent training programs. And it belongs in the hands of local, national and global policy makers. Normally, such a recommendation would be placed at the end of a review as part of a summation and conclusion. But for this book, this reviewer is placing the recommendation first for emphasis. Despite some questions about omissions, and suggestions for improvement, this work deserves much praise.

Review Of Essential Catholic Social Thought, William J. Collinge

The Journal of Social Encounters

Bernard V. Brady titles his textbook Essential Catholic Social Thought to indicate that his focus extends beyond documents of the Church’s magisterium, usually designated “Catholic social teaching” (CST), but his emphasis is on those documents nonetheless. I will comment on this book from my perspective as a teacher for twenty years of a course called “Catholic Social Teaching.” My course is addressed to upper-level undergraduates in a Catholic university and specifically to those majoring in international studies (though it is open to others), but I hope these comments will be helpful to anyone who is considering Brady’s book for teaching …

Review Of The Practice Of Islam In America: An Introduction, Aisha Ghani

The Journal of Social Encounters

The demand, indeed urgency, within the American Academy for courses on Islam has perhaps never been greater than at current. Yet, the very conditions that create this urgency also produce anxieties for those fulfilling this pedagogical role. The challenge confronting many of us - knowing that our students will enter the classroom with ideas/questions about Islam stemming, in large part, from what they’ve encountered through popular media and the news – is how to carry out this work in a way that both acknowledges this abiding, even if delimiting, contemporary context without allowing our teaching to be subsumed by it. …

Martin Luther King, Jr., Civil Disobedience And The Duty To Obey The Law: Where Do We Go From Here?, Walter J. Kendall

The Journal of Social Encounters

Not so long ago, several friends joined approximately 40,000 others in DC demanding action on climate change and opposing the Keystone pipeline. They left Illinois committed to breaking the law and getting arrested in front of the White House, as they put it, in the spirit of Dr. King. The law they broke when they got there was an anti-trespass type ordinance. They sat and waited to be ordered to move. They refused. They were arrested, fined and released the same day.

Being a lawyer, the son of a New York City police officer, and sometimes an activist I couldn't …

Africa Faith And Justice Network And The Damages Of Land Grabbing: The Case Of The Brewaniase Community, Ghana, Sr. Eucharia Madueke

The Journal of Social Encounters

This essay discusses the procurement of farmland around the town of Brewaniase in the Volta Region of Ghana by the New York based agribusiness Herakles Farm (HF). The essay highlights some of the repercussions of land grabbing by foreign corporations that seek only profit and do not fulfill promises made to locals who lease their land for a better life. It provides information on the efforts of Africa Faith & Justice Network (AFJN), a faith-based Washington DC non-governmental organization, to enable the local communities to avert land grabs and its damages. The essay aims to help African communities and individuals …

Interfaith Dialogue And Comparative Theology: A Theoretical Approach To A Practical Dilemma, Michael Atkinson

The Journal of Social Encounters

Interfaith dialogue is based on the premise that there is more that unites than divides us. Epistemological humility, acceptance of religious plurality or the need for unity itself have all been presented as unifying pathways across disparate religious traditions. Despite such approaches, conceptual understandings of interfaith dialogue have not kept pace with practice. This theoretical paper argues that interfaith dialogical theory profits from a deep understanding of moral psychology and social learning theory. The former posits that a sense of ‘fairness’ and ‘universal care’ are aligned with religious acceptance. On the other hand, values of sanctity, loyalty and authority promote …