Public Policy Commons^™

Self-Help Support Groups: Choices In Participation Among Women Facing Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (Sle), Maria A. Pfeifer

Dissertations and Theses

This research study explored the experiences of 19 women who had been diagnosed with, or were still seeking the diagnosis of SLE (lupus) and their decisions regarding support group participation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the variety of factors influencing their choices in types and sources of support, their coping strategies and the reasons behind their decisions to either choose or not choose lupus support groups as a viable support resource. Those women identified as support groups attendees recalled a more emotion-focused response to their diagnosis and showed stronger reliance on seeking emotional forms of support. Conversely, …

Opal Creek: The Framing Of A Policy Controversy, James Floyd

Dissertations and Theses

The denouement of conflict is essential in the process of crafting public policy. The settlement of clashes over who get what, who pays, and who benefits is a critical component of a process described as decision making in the public interest. However, in some cases, the process results in unresolved controversy rather than the formulation of public policy. This may result from too little time being allocated to problem setting because of a rush to find problem solutions.

Conflict arises in public disputes due to a mixture of interests and values by multiple parties and the expression of divergent views …

Portrayals Of Disability In The Professional Preparation Of Speech-Language Pathologists, Jane Eric Sleeper Gravel

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of this dissertation research was to discover, describe, and analyze how disability is portrayed to students attending graduate programs with the objective of becoming certified to practice the profession of speech-language pathology (SLP). Curricular materials drawn from the 228 SLP graduate programs in the United States were analyzed, using qualitative research strategies, to shed light on the processes by which portrayals of disability affect the presuppositions and practices of professionals who work in disability services.

The analysis provided supporting evidence for the claims of disability scholars and activists that the concept “disability” is a malleable social construction that …

Presidential Domain: An Exploratory Study Of Prospect Theory And Us Climate Policy Since 1998, Hal T. Nelson

Dissertations and Theses

The Bush administration's decision to abandon the Kyoto Protocol can be explained by prospect theory. The change in federal climate policy between the Clinton and Bush administrations was due to the difference in domain that each president operated under. President Clinton operated under a domain of losses as he associated continued fossil fuel use with future socio-economic and environmental damages from climate change. This domain of losses increased President Clinton's risk tolerances and explains his pursuit of the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Conversely, President Bush operated under a domain of gains where he did …

The Effects Of Parent Care And Child Care Role Quality On Work Outcomes Among Dual-Earner Couples In The Sandwiched Generation, Angela Rickard

Dissertations and Theses

Research has shown that more men and women are occupying multiple roles as employees and caregivers to a child or an elder. The proliferation of women in the U.S. workforce since the 1960's has resulted in a “typical” American family that no longer consists of an employed father and stay-at-home mother, but rather one in which the father and mother both work outside the home. Indeed, the “dual-earner” family is the dominant family form in the U.S. today and into the foreseeable future. The aging and increased longevity of the American population, coupled with changes in the level and timing …

The Role And Performance Of Governmental And Nongovernmental Organizations In Family Planning Implementation : Jordan As A Case Study, Khalaf Al Hadded

Dissertations and Theses

The role of governmental and nongovernmental nonprofit organizations in population issues has become a familiar reality in contemporary Third World countries. A distinct irony lies in the increasing growth of the role of NGOs in implementing public programs that are conventionally assigned to government bureaucracy. In certain circumstances, these organizations become an outlet to deliver and do certain things that government agencies are not able to do. Although there is an extensive body of research and publications on nongovernmental and charitable organizations in the Third World, there are only a few cases where small NGOs are working directly with the …

The Value Of Independence In Old Age, Paula C. Carder

Dissertations and Theses

Why is independence a central theme for proponents of assisted living facilities? How do assisted living providers respond to this theme? These questions are pursued in an ethnographic study centered on Oregon's assisted living program. Assisted living facilities (ALF), defined and monitored by Oregon's Senior and Disabled Services Division (SDSD), are a type of housing for disabled, primarily elderly, persons. Oregon Administrative Rules (OAR-411-56) define independence, requiring ALF providers to support resident independence.

Using social worlds theory as a sensitizing concept, assisted living is treated as a distinct social world. The activities of key groups, including SDSD staff, an ALF …

The Effects Of Mentoring On Work-Parenting Gains And Strains In A Sample Of Employed Predominately Female Afdc Recipients, Charlene Rhyne

Dissertations and Theses

Nationally, as well as locally, the emphasis in public assistance is to assist clients in becoming job ready. To this end, Oregon received waivers necessary to implement an innovative welfare reform effort, JOBS Plus Program (JPP), in 1994. The JPP provided subsidized employment for welfare recipients through the cashing out of public assistance benefits and Food Stamp monies. Employers were required to provide an on-site mentor for subsidized employees as a condition of agreement to participate in the Program.

Mentoring has been shown to positively impact employee overall job satisfaction, tenure, salary and promotion. While mentoring has been seen traditionally …

State Funding For Special Education In Oregon : Calculating Cost Differentials Of Special Education For Handicapped Students In Oregon School Districts, Kyung-Sup Kim

Dissertations and Theses

A general principle of school finance is that the cost of the educational program is influenced by varying characteristics of students and school districts. This raises the question of whether state allocation policies should reflect the additional costs associated with particular educational programs, such as special education for handicapped students, vocational, compensatory, bilingual education, and gifted and talented education programs as well as cost differences associated with size, salaries, and related issues. Thus, it is essential for state government to identify cost differentials for special education programs in terms of various school districts to determine the importance of such differences …

Implementing Community Policing: A Documentation And Assessment Of Organizational Change, Emmajean Williams

Dissertations and Theses

Four research questions guided this documentation and assessment of the Portland Police Bureau's conversion to community policing. These questions generated a description of the events and circumstances that created the perceived need for change in the Bureau's role and function; a search for justification for selecting community policing as an alternative policing approach; a comparative analysis of past attempts to implement innovative change of a similar dimension in police organizations; and an assessment of the process by which the Bureau implemented this new policing strategy.

The findings indicate that the prominent factors driving this change are first, the limitations of …

Behavioral And Community Impacts Of The Portland Needle Exchange Program, Kathleen Joan Oliver

Dissertations and Theses

Research questions were: 1: Will Drug Injectors Use An Exchange In A StateWhere Syringes Are Legal? 2: Will Drug Injectors Using An Exchange Decrease Risky Behavior? 3: Will Frequent Clients Change Risk Behaviors More Than Infrequent Clients? 4: Will Drug Injectors Using An Exchange Change Risk Behaviors More Than A Comparison Group Not Using An Exchange? 5: Does An Exchange Have An Impact On The Number Of Discarded Syringes On The Streets? 6: Is There A Difference In The Rate Of Spread Of HIV Infection Among Users And Non-Users Of The Exchange. Drug injectors will use needle exchange programs, even …

Pretrial Release In Criminal Courts: A Study Of Three Oregon Counties, Melvin Earl Degraw

Dissertations and Theses

Pretrial release (PTR) is the permanent or temporary freedom from incarceration for criminal defendants awaiting adjudication of their cases in court. From Anglo Saxon times in England, people accused of non-capital crimes were generally permitted to remain free until judicial officials could hear the charges against them. In America, pretrial release has been advocated by the courts since the colonial era. The U. S. Constitution requires that bail not be excessive, but leaves governments free to decide how bail laws are administered. The study briefly traces the historical developments of PTR up to the present time. The study then centers …

The Impact Of Collective Bargaining On The Civil Service Merit System In Oregon, David K. Blanchard

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the impact of collective bargaining on the civil service merit system in the State of Oregon. Four topics of current interest are explored. The first is a discussion of the status of collective bargaining and the civil service merit system legislation. The second topic is an analysis of the extent to which the day-to-day administration of public sector personnel functions is determined by the relative influence of collective bargaining agreements and civil service rules. The third is the impact of the collective bargaining model on the integrity of the merit principle. The final topic addressed by this …

The Impact Of Enterprise Zones On Employment, Terry William Van Allen

Dissertations and Theses

The objectives of this study are to investigate the impact of Enterprise Zones (EZs) on the employment of zone residents in 14 states and 60 communities. The author's investigation constitutes the "first" national study to evaluate the employment impacts on zone residents.

The results show that the impact of EZs on decreasing the unemployment rates of zone residents is significant. Also, the interventionist factors of length of time since designation, type of incentives, and number of incentives are all significant indicators of different performances between zones. The employer-based incentives of property tax abatements and income tax credits are the types …

Total Quality Management: The Case For The Public Sector: A Comparative Study Of The Implementation Of Total Quality Management In Three Health Care Organizations, Zayed Mohammed Abu

Dissertations and Theses

Total quality management [TQM] is an approach to improving the competitiveness, effectiveness and flexibility of the whole organization through the improvement of the organizational processes and those who perform them. There has been a rising interest among public sector professionals in examining the applicability and usefulness of TQM methods to public organizations. This research provides descriptive information about the experience of three health care organizations that vary in terms of ownership, whether being publicly or privately owned, with implementing TQM. Participants at these organizations were interviewed, and/or surveyed and observed. The study provides a narrative description of each organization's experience …

Portland's Multifamily Recycling Program: A Study Of Coproduction Policy Implementation And Citizen Involvement, William Barry Messer

Dissertations and Theses

This study is on coproduction as a governing policy instrument. Coproduction can be understood as the joint production of services by local officials and individual citizens intended to raise the quality and or amount of service provision. The concept of coproduction as developed in this study suggests that urban services are not simply created by officials and delivered to a passive public. Rather that actions of citizens are an integral part of the service production process. The study purposes are two-fold: (1) to construct a model of coproduction which provides a basis by which citizen involvement in the provision of …

Determining The Property Value Impact Of Landfills, Okwuchukwu Gerald Uba

Dissertations and Theses

The decline in property value can be due to owner's act or exogenous act from the operation of landfills. Landfill neighbors, especially home owners, perceive landfill operation to pose environmental safety problem such as ground water contamination and methane gas leakage that could affect home value.

Owners of landfills, especially those landfills that accept only dry waste (limited purpose landfill), claim that since their facilities meet the requirements of environmental regulations and the type of waste they accept could not possibly produce methane gas and leachate there is no property value impact of their facilities.

Several studies have shown that …

Rapists And Their Parental Relationships, Yaeko Steidel

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation attempts to find out what associations exist between dysfunctional parental relationships in the childhood of rapists and the rapists' violent acts. It also briefly examines the sociocultural effects which nurture such relationships.

Rape, a crime very prevalent in our society today, is now perceived as an acute expression of men's contempt for and anger against women. The former interpretation of rape as primarily a sexually motivated crime is no longer popular. This dissertation attempts to trace the origin of the rapist's psyche from his dysfunctional parental relationships.

Rare data on rapist's family relations from a recent FBI survey …

An Implementation Analysis Of The Water Resources Development Act Of 1986, James Joseph Rich

Dissertations and Theses

Implementation research, an area once largely ignored in favor of policy design and impact assessment, now constitutes a significant portion of the policy analysis literature. One of the key issues addressed by the theory building portion of that literature is the necessity of precisely identifying implementation variables, conditions, or actions that measurably contribute to the success or failure of implementation efforts over a broad range of policies and programs, and to then suggest some order of significance. In order to test the validity of a variable set proposed by the literature, a multivariate implementation model was employed as the basis …

Trouble In River City: An Analysis Of An Urban Vice Probe, Joseph S. Uris

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation is an historical case study of a highly publicized investigation of vice and official corruption which took place in Portland, Oregon from 1954 to 1958. Three major relevant areas of social science literature are reviewed. These are: historical material on American reform and corruption, criminology and political science. This literature suggests both the ubiquity and usefulness of vice and corruption in the urban situation.

A set of propositions regarding vice, corruption and reform was developed from these works. These propositions were then examined in terms of the vice probe and political situation in Portland, Oregon.

The triangulation method …

A Study Of The Effect Of Drug Use On The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Mary Ellen Hammons

Dissertations and Theses

The Drug Treatment and Training Project of the State of Oregon Mental Health Division, Alcohol and Drug section in Portland, Oregon is engaged in the treatment of young people between the ages of 15 and 27 who have indicated that they have a problem with drugs, and have asked help in overcoming this problem. As part of the treatment program, the clients are given the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) and a questionnaire developed by the drug project. The thesis analyses the Drug Treatment’s MMPI results and compares them to other studies.