Social Policy Commons^™

Debbie Alicen Reclaimed Her Voice And Started The Human Rights Campaign In Lincoln, Nebraska, Morgan Grey, Debbie Alicen, Moni Usasz

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A story about Debbie Alicen's efforts in the early 1980s to have an amendment added to Lincoln, Nebraska's Human Rights Ordinance that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual preference.

Urban Isolation In The Digital Age- Examining The Sociological Impact Of The Digital Divide On Civic Life In U.S. Cities, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

The digital divide remains a persistent barrier to civic participation and social inclusion in urban America, particularly in historically underserved communities. This mixed-methods study investigates how digital lack of access affects civic engagement, social capital, and community cohesion in U.S. cities, with a focus on Chicago’s South Side, Harlem New York, St. Louis, and Orlando. Drawing on quantitative data from recent surveys and qualitative insights from peer-reviewed literature, the research applies four sociological frameworks, Urban Sociology, Social Capital Theory, Critical Race Theory, and Symbolic Interactionism. These were used to examine the structural and interpretive aspects of digital isolation. Findings reveal …

From Tricare To Medicaid: Dental Insurance Disparities Among U.S. Veterans And Active Duty Service Members, Madeline K. Mcnutt Ms

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Oral health plays a critical role in systemic well-being, yet dental care access in the United States remains deeply unequal, particularly among low-income and historically marginalized populations. Among those significantly affected are military veterans, who frequently experience barriers to oral healthcare due to eligibility restrictions within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) system. This study offers a comparative analysis of dental insurance satisfaction between recipients of Medicaid and the TRICARE Active Duty Dental Program (ADDP), two federally funded programs that reflect the divide between civilian and military healthcare access. While TRICARE ADDP provides comprehensive and uniform coverage for Active Duty …

The Permanent Supportive Housing Of Central Virginia’S Aged Out Foster Youths: The Permanent Supportive Housing Of Central Virginia’S Aged Out Foster Youths A Plan To Increase Regional Capacity, Fill Gaps In Service, And Identify Potential Sites., Matthew Snow

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

As of 2024, Virginia’s Central Region continues to produce one of the highest rates of foster care emancipations in the state, despite having minimal infrastructure to support young adults transitioning out of care. Each year, dozens of foster youth in the region age out of the system without reunification, adoption, or other forms of permanency, disproportionately entering adulthood without the stability of housing, employment, or accessible services. Although permanent supportive housing (PSH) has emerged as a nationally validated model for housing and service integration, few PSH developments in Virginia are designed specifically for aged-out foster youth or their families.

This …

Through The Lens Of Social Media: Examining The Relationship Between Exposure To Social Media Videos Of Police Misconduct And Perceptions Of Legitimacy And Cooperation With Campus Police, Kamal Alhassan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines how exposure to social media and internet news videos depicting police misconduct influences college students' perceptions of campus police legitimacy, procedural justice, and willingness to cooperate. Although prior research has demonstrated the impact of media portrayals on perceptions of municipal police, limited attention has been given to campus policing contexts. Guided by Tyler’s process-based theory of police legitimacy and Gerbner’s cultivation theory, this quantitative study surveyed 400 students at a large public university in the Southeastern Mid-Atlantic region. Measures included self-reported viewing and engagement with police misconduct content on social media, internet, and traditional media platforms, as …

Examining Drug Policy In Portugal And Greece, Collin Fernandes

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the divergent drug policies implemented in Portugal and Greece, analyzing why Portugal's comprehensive decriminalization model has been more successful than Greece's partial approach. Since 2001, Portugal has pioneered a drug policy that decriminalizes all drugs for personal use while investing in harm reduction services, rehabilitation, and social reintegration. In contrast, Greece maintained criminalization while implementing more limited harm reduction measures, particularly through OKANA (the Organization Against Drugs). The research highlights how economic factors, particularly the 2008 financial crisis and austerity measures, negatively affected both countries' programs but hit Greece's initiatives with greater severity. Portugal's programs have remained …

Consolidating The Carbon Trade: Policy Recommendations To Promote Standard Convergence Among The Vcm, Article 6, And Regional Pricing Instruments, Jack M. Barrett

CMC Senior Theses

Efforts to construct robust international carbon markets have repeatedly fallen short of their climate and sustainable development objectives. From the Clean Development Mechanism’s collapse under the weight of non-additional credits to the Voluntary Carbon Market’s recent legitimacy crisis, structural flaws and fragmented standards have undermined offsetting systems for more than two decades. Today, the emergence of the Paris Agreement's Article 6 mechanisms, alongside initiatives like the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market (ICVCM), offer a critical but fragile opportunity to rebuild market credibility. The proliferation of diverging standards across Article 6, voluntary markets, and regional carbon pricing instruments risks …

Exploring The Dynamics And Outcomes Of Family Engagement In Child Welfare Services: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach, Jianchao Lai, Michelle Graef, Todd Franke

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

Background: Engaging families effectively in child welfare services remains a persistent challenge, shaped by complex interactions between agency practices and family circumstances. While existing research has explored this issue, it has predominantly relied on data from agency and caseworker perspectives, often overlooking the crucial viewpoint of the families. Objectives: This study investigates families’ subjective experiences and perceptions within the child welfare system, focusing on their satisfaction with child welfare workers and overall engagement. Methods: The study draws on data collected through an evaluation of the implementation of Alternative Response in a Midwestern state. Agency administrative data is integrated with additional …

Digital Orthodoxy And Political Populism In Eastern Europe: How Orthodox Media Facilitate Political Mobilization, Dmytro Garaschuk, Oleh Sokolovskyi

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article examines the intersection of Orthodox digital media and political populism in Eastern Europe, focusing on how religious institutions utilize digital platforms to facilitate political mobilization, reinforce nationalistic narratives, and undermine democratic institutions. Drawing on a comparative analysis of six countries–Russia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Georgia, and Montenegro–the study identifies a shared ideological matrix that fuses populist rhetoric with theological motifs. The research highlights the strategic use of digital media by Orthodox actors to construct moral binaries, sacralize political resistance, and disseminate disinformation framed in religious language. Particular attention is given to the role of the Russian Orthodox Church and …

Gods Guns: Why Firearms And Firearm Culture Remain Sacred To Rural Americans, Thomas Westrick

West Chester University Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Final Projects

With ample evidence demonstrating a link between low levels of gun regulation and high levels of firearm fatalities, it seems intuitive that Americans would want to increase the level of firearm regulation to bring down the level of violence. However, the target population, white males living in rural areas of the State of Indiana and practicing the Christian Evangelical Protestant tradition, display high levels of resistance to new firearm regulation. This study sought to explore that resistance through the lens of the rural gun culture with an interpretivist qualitative design using reflexive thematic analysis to answer the research question: How …

Journey To Well-Being: An Exploration Of Thrivership Post-Domestic Violence, Kader Gumus

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Domestic violence profoundly affects multiple facets of a survivor’s life. While most existing literature on survivorship addresses the immediate aftermath of domestic violence, this study delves into the extended process following the trauma of abuse to attain “thrivership,” a new concept in the scholarly and practice literature that emphasizes enduring well-being and flourishing. This dissertation examines the journeys from surviving to thriving for 13 women who transformed themselves and their lives to achieve well-being after traumatic domestic violence. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory was applied to examine the multiple layers of environmental influences on an individual’s development, including the micro, meso, …

Welfare States And Imprisonment Rates: Revisiting The Study Of Public Assistance And Punishment In The United States, Stefan Ivanov

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

In the past fifty years, the United States has seen significant changes in both the criminal legal system and the welfare state. The incarceration rate surged by 475% from 1972 to 2007, driven by state-level decisions about criminal legal policy and disproportionately affecting Black Americans. Simultaneously, welfare programs became less generous, especially for those deemed “undeserving.” A long line of social science scholarship emphasizes that these two major social institutions—the welfare state and the carceral state—must be considered as complementary and alternative methods of managing marginalized groups. Quantitative research often confirms these claims, finding a durable inverse relationship between welfare …

Effects Of Actualized Language Policy On Ukrainian Stability, 1989-2022, Dawn Hersey

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

This dissertation seeks to generate a new perspective of the complicated relationship between actualized policy and stability through looking at Ukraine’s language policies and stability in a mixed manner approach that includes both primary and secondary sources. Russia justified its irridentist activities through claiming to protect Russian nationals within Ukraine’s borders: language policies within Ukraine appear to be a trigger for Russian antagonism. Neither Russian irridentism nor Ukrainian nationalism are being considered as right or wrong in this dissertation: the intent is to highlight trends, patterns, and perceptions in alignment with Ukrainian language policy. This dissertation does not present a …

The Affordable Care Act And The For-Profit Congregate Care Industry: How Good Policy Intent Turned A Fringe Industry Into A Taxpayer-Funded Multi Billion Dollar Industry, Erin Viehmann

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The Affordable Care Act significantly transformed the for-profit congregate care (FPCC) industry, which provides residential treatment for adolescents with behavioral and mental health issues. This study analyzes financial records from Universal Health Services (UHS), the largest provider in the industry, to examine how healthcare policy changes and economic conditions affected the industry's growth and funding structure. Through analysis of SEC Form 10-K filings from 2006-2016, the research documents how the ACA's mental health coverage mandates created new revenue streams that enabled dramatic industry expansion. Findings show that following ACA passage in 2010, UHS more than doubled its behavioral health capacity …

Understanding Mobility-Related Challenges For Aapi Older Adults: A Preliminary Study In Southern California, Yongping Zhang, Priscila Salgado Inzunza, Carol Kachadoorian, Wen Cheng, Calvin Wong

Mineta Transportation Institute

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) Nationwide, the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) community is projected to constitute 11 percent of people 65 years and older in the United States by 2050 (He et al., 2005). The challenges limiting the transportation and mobility of AAPI older adults include, but are not limited to, language barriers, cultural barriers, anti-Asian hate, accessibility to public transit, traffic safety and public security concerns, and changes to mobility due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This project conducted an extensive literature review and a preliminary multi-language survey in Southern California to better …

Why Domestic Violence Offenders Don't Give Up Their Guns, Natalie Nanasi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Perpetrators of intimate partner violence are barred by federal law and many states' laws from possessing firearms. While such prohibitions enjoy popular support, they are sporadically and inconsistently enforced, placing the lives of survivors at risk when offenders do not voluntarily comply. Many experts, including this author, have offered legal and policy solutions to increase the likelihood that perpetrators of domestic violence will either willingly relinquish their guns or otherwise be dispossessed of them. But these proposals may have been premature.

This Article is the first to take a step back and inquire why offenders do not surrender their firearms …

Legislating Trans Lives: An Archival Analysis On Trans Canadian Rights, Charlie E. C. Davis

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Previous research has outlined trans histories within the United States and Europe, illustrating historic transphobia, oppression and the origins of gender identity clinics. This type of historical literature is limited in the Canadian context, with more contemporary research demonstrating that trans people experience significant barriers to accessing healthcare, aversive health outcomes, and high rates of discrimination. Trans activists and advocates have always been and continue to resist these oppressive systems and have worked to improve the social and physical wellbeing of trans people in Canada. Utilizing archival data of trans activism and community mobilizing, I sought to address the gap …

Nh Ece Research Consortium 2024 Activity Timeline, Jess Carson, Evan England

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

The New Hampshire Early Care and Education (NH ECE) Research Consortium is a network of researchers and research users committed to strengthening the state's ECE landscape through the use of data. Discover what the Consortium accomplished during its first full year in this 2024 Activity Timeline.