Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Senegalese Youth's Migrations To Europe: "The Barca Or Barsaakh Phenomenon, Mohamed Thiam

Theses - ALL

Human Migrations can be defined as the movement or displacement of peoples from one place to another, in particular from one country (emigration) to another (immigration) for political, social, economic, or personal reasons. They have been the fact of life for populations integrating into a wider world. Historically, Senegalese migrations to Europe started under colonialism with the massive recruitments by the French colonial administration within the Senegalese territory. This practice of European colonial administration caused the first wave of Senegalese migrations towards Europe to conform to French colonial needs and expectations. Senegalese migrations to Europe continued in the post-colonial period …

Defending Boyle Heights: Visions Of An Emancipated Barrio, Mikayla Torres

Theses - ALL

This thesis explores the nuanced relationships between culture, embodied resistance and gentrification in the East Los Angeles neighborhood Boyle Heights. The barrio this project centers upon, is predominantly Latinx identified, low income, and is currently embroiled in a war against gentrification, not unlike the onslaught of displacement dozens of neighborhoods across the United States are currently facing. Specifically, I explore the agitative strategies and actions of the contemporary, grassroots, direct-action group resisting the displacement imposed by gentrification, Defend Boyle Heights. The project centers on two artifacts— a constitution video titled La Noticia: Boyle Heights se Defiende! and a video that …

Roles Of Race And Adverse Neighborhood Conditions In Urban Youth Alcohol Behavior, Jin Zhao

Theses - ALL

Substantial racial disparities exist in adolescent alcohol behaviors. Although racial minority adolescents are less likely to drink, when they drink, they experience similar or greater levels of negative drinking consequences compared to Whites. However, such racial disparities have rarely been examined within the neighborhood environmental context. This study examined whether racial differences exist in the prospective association between adverse neighborhood conditions (i.e., disadvantage and disorder) at Year 1 (Y1) and adolescents’ current drinker status and risk for hazardous drinking at Year 2 (Y2) in racially diverse urban high school students. Data were drawn from a two-wave, one-year prospective health study …

Voices Of The (In)Visible: A Gendered Study On Higglers In Downtown Kingston, Jamaica, Reneé Brown

Theses - ALL

This project examines the lived experiences of higglers in Downtown, Kingston, and how they survive Jamaica’s misogynistic capitalist patriarchal society as marginalized Black working-class women. Data were gathered through a series of semi-structured and unstructured interviews, and participant observation and journal entries. My theoretical frame employed historical materialism and Black Feminist epistemological standpoints which include Caribbean, African, and ‘Third World’ feminism, through a gendered lens to deconstruct neoliberal global capitalism in neocolonial Jamaica. My project also assumes that the impact of neoliberal global capitalism that thrives on patriarchy has forced Black working-class women in Jamaican to reproduce a political consciousness …

Fostering Hope In Adolescents Via Art Therapy Teen Group, Caitlin Pritchard

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The purpose of this Capstone Thesis was to analyze whether or not hope can be shared or encouraged within the context of a teenage art therapy group. Research demonstrates that hope encourages optimism, promotes happiness, and increases our psychosocial well-being (Catalino, Algoe, & Fredrickson, 2014; Le, Cropley, & Greaves, 2015; Yeung, Ho, & Mak, 2015), that an individual may be encouraged toward hope via therapy and the therapist/client relationship (Carmelo Vazquez, 2017; Yeasting & Jung, 2010), and that art therapy, which is creativity integrated with counseling encourages a deeper access of a client’s state of being verses simple talk-therapy (Bishop …

A Quantitative Approach And A Qualitative Approach Towards Intersectionality Among Individuals With Lgbtq+ Identities, Viet (Mason) Trinh

Honors Projects

This is a two-parted project that integrates a quantitative approach and a qualitative approach toward the concept of intersectionality. Research about intersectionality has shown the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. Therefore, I decided to explore the concept using both approaches. The quantitative section of this project investigates the relationship between victimization experiences due to race/ ethnicity and/ or LGBTQ+ identities and emotional well-being. The sample for this section consisted of college students from all states in the United States who identified as LGBTQ+ and were between 18 and 24 years old. The qualitative section examines salient identities, identity gaps, …

Trust, Political Participation, And Poverty: The Effects Of Poverty On Political Behavior, Melanie Cain

Honors Projects

With the upcoming 2020 election, the right to vote and otherwise participate in politics is as important as ever. In this research, I have examine the relationship between trust in government, political efficacy, participation in politics, and poverty to study why those in low-income households have lower rates of political participation and offer solutions to raise the rate of participation.

Bridging The Generation Gap In The Lgbt+ Community Through Advocacy, Melanie Moore

Honors Projects

HEALTH is a program designed to meet the needs of LGBT+ older adults by connecting them with volunteers of LGBT+ nonprofit organizations. Through HEALTH, LGBT+ youth and older adults can form connections that can extend beyond the structure of the program. By connecting younger volunteers with older adults, HEALTH can help grow the social capital of the LGBT+ community. Fostering friendly relationships between people of all ages can influence the progress of LGBT+ rights moving forward by combining the experience of the elders with the technological and social capabilities of the youth.

Regional Airlines, Benjamin Jones Jr.

Student Works

The airline industry plays a major role in the United States. Many passengers use air transportation as a major mode of traveling for business and personal. As the demand for traveling increased, pilot shortage has increased as well. A pilot shortage will devastate the economy and have a lasting effect that will be felt worldwide. However, sources predict that the United States will experience a sizable pilot shortage over the next few years. This paper will identify the reasons for the pilot shortage and discuss the devastating effects that the shortage has on the regional airline industry. In addition, this …

Some Reservations: Food Tourism, The Food-Selfie, And Everyday Life Performances On Instagram, Alexander Charles Breth

Theses - ALL

Food is the very lifeblood of who we are; it brings us together, defines our cultures, and provides us the vital nourishment we need to survive. However, with the rise of social media platforms that encourage image-sharing, images of food have become increasingly significant in regard to how we understand our communicative choices and habits online. In this project, I trace a lineage of popular food media aesthetics from cable and streaming television shows through the online social media platform Instagram, to argue that an expanded understanding of the “food-selfie” helps one articulate how and why they share images of …

Agroecology Feminisms: Gender, Social Movements And Alternatives To Industrial Agriculture In Paraguay, Jamie C. Gagliano

Theses - ALL

As plantations of mono-cropped cash crops continue to expand globally, small farmers and peasants continue to make out a living at the edges of plantations. Though it draws on long histories of traditional farming, agroecology emerged as alternative set of agricultural practices to counter industrial agriculture in the 1990s. It encapsulates both the diversity of traditional agricultural systems and the systematization of these practices, making it a response of campesinos (peasants) to plantation expansion. In Paraguay, agroecology has been taken up by several campesino social movements, including the women’s and indigenous movement known as Conamuri. For twenty years, Conamuri has …

Coping Motives As A Moderator Of The Association Between Minority Stress And Alcohol Use Among Emerging Adults Of Marginalized Sexualities And Genders, Jeremy Ramos

Theses - ALL

Alcohol use and negative consequences are higher among individuals of marginalized sexualities and genders (MS/G), and emerging adults within this category face particular risks. According to Meyer’s (2003) minority stress model, the higher prevalence of alcohol use and negative consequences among MS/G is an attempt to cope with proximal/internal and distal/external minority stressors. The purpose of this study was to examine whether coping motives moderated the relationship between internal minority stress and alcohol use outcomes. We hypothesized that higher internal minority and emerging adult stressors would be positively associated with higher levels of drinking-related outcomes, and that coping would moderate …

A Textual Analysis Of Online Asexual Representation And Visibility On Reddit, Kyle Kreye Webster

Theses - ALL

Asexuality remains an under-researched topic in media, gender & sexualities studies. Previous research has explored definitional questions of asexuality, interviews and surveys of asexual people, and consideration of asexuality’s place within queer and feminist communities. However, research has not yet fully explored the issue of asexuality invisibility in the media, which currently amounts to symbolic annihilation. While representation of asexuality is nearly non-existent in mainstream and traditional media, digital spaces have been the location of visibility and self-expression for asexuals. In examining how queer representation of asexuality is seen and made visible online, this textual analysis study examined the content …

St. Benedict Parish For The Deaf Church Bulletin, May 10, 2020

Saint Benedict Parish for the Deaf Church Bulletin

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in San Francisco, CA

Saint Benedict Parish for the Deaf Church Bulletin Finding Aid

Rural Political Agency And Local Politics In Globalized Market, Ranitya Kusumadewi

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation seeks to demonstrate civic activism among rural communities in Indonesia and how they can obtain their policy of interest – two main features that build rural political agency. It emphasizes on rural participation in Rural Producer Organizations (RPOs), popular community-based farmer organizations, which have proliferated over the last decade. Two research questions guide this project: (1) What are the conditions that explain rural participation in RPOs in Indonesia? and (2) What are the effects of this participation on the political agency of rural communities?. Using a mixed-method approach that consists of original survey analysis, interviews, and quantitative analysis, …

Transgender Congruence And Sexual Satisfaction In Trans Masculine Adults: The Role Of Affirmative Sexual Partners, Tristan Karel Martin

Dissertations - ALL

Literature that addresses sexual issues pertaining to sexual satisfaction is often not inclusive and neglects transgender, specifically trans masculine, identities. The media frequently highlights physical transitions but ignores the distressing psychological effects of dysphoria on sexual satisfaction and the influence of sexual partners during sex. In this quantitative study informed by a systemic gender affirmative lens, trans masculine adults (N=1,041) responded to a questionnaire on their experiences of transgender congruence, sexual satisfaction, and affirmative sexual partners. Data analyses revealed diverse participant and partner demographics. The transgender congruence variable expressed group differences based on gender/sexual identity, age, and medical transition. An …

Time, Schedules, And The College Student With Adhd, Erik Daniel Rodriguez

Dissertations - ALL

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a complex, heterogeneous condition associated with organizational and time management challenges that can impact academic performance. Using information gathered through texts and 28 semi structured, in-depth interviews, I explored the everyday lived experiences of college students diagnosed with ADHD as they worked to adhere to the schedule and time expectations of their college coursework. I also the explored institutional policies and processes of the community college they attended to determine if, and how, these impacted the work of adherence.

Using institutional ethnography and Liza McCoy’s three-way alignment model as frameworks, this qualitative, ethnographic study …

Revolutionships: Experiences Of Queer Women Of Color Maintaining Romantic Relationships While Engaging In Contemporary Movements For Liberation, Montinique Denice Mceachern

Dissertations - ALL

Queer women of color (QWOC) organizing in resistance to the increasingly hostile contemporary political context of the United States of America are at immediate risk for threats to survival. Nevertheless, some maintain romantic relationships that fall outside of the hegemonic frameworks of romance. While simultaneously resisting a settler colonial state that sanctions violence, environmental racism, and homophobia, QWOC are cultivating love in the face of oppressions they seek to dismantle daily. I used a Black Feminist grounded theory framework to explore the experiences of QWOC in romantic relationships who were also organizing in the contemporary radical political movements – an …

“Put A Crapaud In A Suit And People Will Vote For The Pnm”: A Critical Examination Of Patronage, Loyalty, And The Structuring Force Of Party Partisanship In Trinidad, Taapsi Ramchandani

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation examines an unflattering aspect of political partisanship in Trinidad: the ambivalences of being a party loyalist. Extensive scholarship on Trinidadian politics points to the confluence of race and patronage shaping political decisions yet less is spoken of the conflicting subjectivities of loyalists that are obscured by their exercise of franchise once every few years. In truth, there are limited options to reject one’s socio-historical conditioning towards a party in Trinidad because, here, political identities are also psycho-social identities. They are entangled in generational dependencies, shared egalitarian aspirations, and hyper-local networks of reciprocity that make opting out an almost …

Musical Ability And Accent Imitation, Maria Murljacic

Honors Scholar Theses

This study investigates the intersection of musical ability and accent imitation, more specifically defining what factors cause a relationship between the two. The study was run on 50 participants, who each completed an accent imitation ability assessment, a musical ability assessment, and an articulation ability assessment. The scores for the accent imitation portion were rated by anonymous online raters. Each participant filled out a questionnaire on prior musical experience and were either classified as a musician or non-musician. The analysis found that those in the musician group performed better on the musical ability, articulation, and accent ability assessment than non-musicians. …

Examining Diversity In Youtube Music Videos With Queer Women Couples From 2006-2019, Sierra A. Holland

Theses - ALL

This quantitative study examines the diversity of women included in music videos with relationships between two women through a comparative content analysis. Informed by intersectionality and queer theory, this study investigated the racial diversity, body diversity, gender performance, and tropes present in music videos with queer women couples (n=473) through a quantitative content analysis. This study also compared the diversity and tropes present in music videos made by musicians who identify as lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, and queer women and music videos made by non-queer musicians. Quantitative data was collected and reported for musicians who identify outside of the gender binary …

The Impact Of Ben & Jerry’S Corporate Social Advocacy On Corporate Reputation And Brand Loyalty, Cayley Young

Theses - ALL

Companies are constantly sharing and posting content related to social issues. It is increasingly becoming an expectation for brands to take a stance on such controversies even where they may not be inherently related or relevant to the company’s daily activity. However, the extent to which this form of advocacy has residual effects on the advocating company is still unclear. This thesis aims to provide clarity on this matter by examining its impact on consumers’ relationship with the company and related perceptions.

An online survey was conducted in March 2020. Findings were compared with social analytic research. A correlation analysis …

Cortical Auditory Processing Of Informational Masking Effects By Target-Masker Similarity And Stimulus Uncertainty, Christopher Edward Niemczak

Dissertations - ALL

Purpose: Understanding speech in a background of other people talking is one of the most difficult listening challenges for hearing-impaired individuals, and even for those with normal hearing. Speech-on-speech masking, is known to contribute to increased perceptual difficulty over non-speech background noise because of informational masking provided over and above the energetic masking effect. While informational masking research has identified factors of similarity and uncertainty between target and masker that contribute to reduced behavioral performance in speech background noise, critical gaps in knowledge including the underlying neural-perceptual processes remain. By systematically manipulating aspects of similarity and uncertainty in the same …

User Experience As A Rhetorical Medium: User At The Intersection Of Audience, Reader And Actor, Áine Doyle

English Honors Theses

The goal of this project is to demonstrate how digital interfaces are bodies of visual language that can be “close-read” and interpreted critically, just like any other traditional text; digital user interfaces, like poetry and novels, have form and content that complement and shape the meaning and interpretation of the other. It is meant to encourage academic discussions about digital interfaces to go beyond whether social media is “good” or “bad” to how digital interfaces are structured, why they are structured the way they are, and what effects these structures have on the way they communicate information and content to …

The Strategic Balance Between The Public And Allies: A Theory Of Authoritarian Distribution In China, Dongshu Liu

Dissertations - ALL

This project explores how authoritarian regimes can meet the demands of both the ruling coalition and the public from a perspective of distributional politics. This challenge is particularly severe since authoritarian regimes face increasing pressure to expand public goods and welfare. This project proposes a theory of authoritarian distribution that addresses this challenge in the case of China. First, autocrats adopted a differentiated strategy of distribution. They allocate universalistic benefits that target the large group of people to the public while distributing the particularistic benefits, which is exclusively for a small and specific group of people, to the regime allies. …

Kim Dae-Jung's Leadership As Relevant To The Sunshine Policy (1998-2003), Shin Yon Kim

Dissertations - ALL

South Korea’s engagement policy toward North Korea has a unique potential to contribute to permanent peace on the Korean peninsula by improving inter-Korean relations. However, given Korea’s historical, political, and socio-cultural context, comprehensive engagement has proved difficult. Any South Korean leader who adopts overall engagement strategies vis-à-vis North Korea may face constraints and setbacks stemming from the internal and external environments, including North Korea (the target state), domestic politics, and the United States. During Kim Dae-jung’s presidency (1998-2003), North and South Korea engaged in an unparalleled degree of interaction, reshaping the pattern of inter-Korean relations. President Kim’s Sunshine Policy demonstrated …

Cyber Security @ Home: The Effect Of Home User Perceptions Of Personal Security Performance On Household Iot Security Intentions, Erica Mitchell

Dissertations - ALL

This study explored potential human factors predictors of home user security intentions through the lens of past performance, perceived self-efficacy, and locus of control. While perceived self-efficacy and locus of control are elements in several organizational and individual security models, past performance has been less frequently studied. The variable, past performance, which has been referred to in other studies as prior experience, knowledge, and information security awareness, is usually a single question self-assessment of familiarity or comfort with technology. This study explores user technical prowess in further depth, using formal technical education, informal technical education, employment in an IT/CS field, …

Essays On Globalization, Labor Market, And Productivity, Hoang Pham

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation studies issues at the intersection of globalization, labor market, and productivity in developing countries. It is composed of three chapters.

Chapter 1 studies how a country's trade policy affects competition in its domestic labor market. In a heterogeneous-firm model with oligopsonistic local labor markets, this chapter demonstrates that opening up to trade can affect distortions in such markets. These distortions arise because firms are large and able to exercise market power over their local workers. Using a panel dataset of Chinese manufacturing firms from 1998-2007, I measure firm-level labor market distortion, captured by the ratio between marginal revenue …

Privacy For Whom? A Multi-Stakeholder Exploration Of Privacy Designs, Yaxing Yao

Dissertations - ALL

Privacy is considered one of the fundamental human rights. Researchers have been investigating privacy issues in various domains, such as our physical privacy, data privacy, privacy as a legal right, and privacy designs. In the Human-Computer Interaction field, privacy researchers have been focusing on understanding people's privacy concerns when they interact with computing systems, designing and building privacy-enhancing technologies to help people mitigate these concerns, and investigating how people's privacy perceptions and the privacy designs influence people's behaviors.

Existing privacy research has been overwhelmingly focusing on the privacy needs of end-users, i.e., people who use a system or a product, …

Leadership Development Of Women In Panhellenic Organizations, Kristen Reynolds

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

This study seeks to understand how women of Panhellenic sororities at the University of San Diego (USD) define and perform their meaning of leadership to create positive change in their organizations. My overarching research question was: How can I assist the members of Panhellenic sororities at USD to take up their authority as leaders to influence positive change in their chapter? This research reflects my experiences with Panhellenic sorority women at USD and intentional stakeholders throughout the 2019-2020 academic year. This study was influenced by Ira Chaleff's work on courageous followership, Baxter Magolda’s theory of self-authorship, and David Cooperrider, Diana …