Social Statistics Commons^™

The Politicization Of School Reopenings: Media Coverage Of Teachers Unions, Sarah King

Master's Theses

The process of school reopenings during the COVID-19 pandemic has garnered a significant amount of attention from various stakeholders including parents, school administrators, teachers, teachers’ unions, and the media. Negotiations over elements of school reopening policies, such as mask mandates and remote-learning options have, in certain school districts, been fraught with contention. The politicization of school reopening policies has been the source of a growing body of research, which tends to analyze policy decisions in conjunction with COVID data. However, a large gap in the literature has appeared concerning the politicization of school reopenings and the impact of the media, …

Has There Been Another “Ferguson Effect”?, Megan Majewski

Political Science Theses and Capstones

On May 25^th, 2020, America stood still as they watched the video of Officer Derek Chauvin press his knee onto the neck of George Floyd leading to his death. Protests, riots, and calls to defund the police all ensued in the following months. I focus on how Floyd’s death changed attitudes towards law enforcement and may have contributed to an increase in crime, similar to the idea of a Ferguson effect, perhaps there was a Floyd effect in 2021. I focused this research on 69 cities, using crime data from the Major Cities Chiefs Association. I then measured …

Homeless Youth Research Project: Expanding And Improving Services And Resources, Steve Lobo

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

The Coalition of Homeless Service Providers is a 501(c)(3) organization working to eliminate homelessness by promoting partnership and interagency cooperation. They serve the homeless community of Monterey and San Benito counties. The U.S. struggles with solving the homeless problem including homeless youth. There are many homeless youths in Monterey and San Benito counties. This project supports the Youth Homeless Demonstration Project’s efforts to expand services and improve policies that directly affect homeless youth. This project involved researching best practices in other jurisdiction’s Coordinated Community Plans. The expected outcome is to increase the agency’s knowledge of these best practices. The primary …

Life In Hampton Roads Survey Press Release #2: Politics And Political Opinions, Social Science Research Center, Old Dominion University

Life in Hampton Roads Survey Report

Life in Hampton Roads 2022 - Politics and Political Opinions

The Life in Hampton Roads survey always includes a few questions about political attitudes. In 2022 the questions included party affiliation, political ideology, job approval of President Biden, Gov. Youngkin and local mayors.

Human Exploitation: An Analysis Of Vulnerability, Clara Atchley, L Graham

Scholar's Day

This study explores the relationship that the vulnerability that a population experiences has to their susceptibility to exp loitation. This presentation presents preliminary analysis within Africa because it presents with the highest trends of human trafficking in comparisons to other regions. These trends were then measured against three subsets of the study’s total vulnerability measure which is defined generally as limited access to healthcare, education, wealth, and political power.

Covid 19 & Qanon: Enter The World Of Conspiracies, Gianluca Allesina

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

From Covid-19 to Qanon to a global warming hoax, we live in a world drowning in misinformation spread on the internet. Q-anonymous, a purposed government “leaker” is an alleged high-level government informant, according to Qanon followers, who posted cryptic messages about a satanic government on the now-defunct forum website, 8chan. This project will examine the possible relationship between a belief in various conspiracy theories associated with Qanon and how the Coronavirus affected rates of belief, utilizing the Chapman Survey of American Fears, a national study using a representative sample of U.S. adults. I expect to find that partisanship will play …

Atrapados Y Sin Salida: Explotación Delictiva De Niñas, Niños Y Adolescentes Venezolanos Migrantes Indocumentados En Colombia, Nicolasa M. Durán Palacio, Katy L. Millán Otero Srita

The Qualitative Report

Este texto devela las prácticas de explotación delictiva de niñas, niños y adolescentes migrantes venezolanos, sin estatus legal en Colombia, por parte de grupos armados ilegales y de las bandas de crimen organizado, especialmente en las fronteras colombo-venezolanas, lugar de tránsito de la población migrante indocumentada. A través de una revisión documental con diseño cualitativo, se identifican las lógicas de victimización de la población infantil migrante sin estatus legal, los riesgos a los que se enfrentan y los obstáculos legales migratorios que les afectan negativamente y que no pueden encarar, dada su condición de indocumentados y sin amparo de su …

Arkansas’S Culture Of Health 2011–2019: A Case Study Narrative Of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Data Sets, Dylan Travis

Student Theses and Dissertations

Investigating the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) yearly data sets from 2011 to 2019, I illustrate the numerous health decade averages that exist at the county level within the state of Arkansas. These health decade averages are representative of both health factors and health outcomes as measured by the RWJF. The decade averages are compared both nationally and at the county level. I reveal both the positive and negative decade averages that exist within the state, and ideally, to encourage further original study. This is accomplished through a narrative and summative approach of the existing data.

An Inferentially Robust Look At Two Competing Explanations For The Surge In Unauthorized Migration From Central America, Nick Santos

Dissertations

The last 8 years have seen a dramatic increase in the flow of Central American apprehensions by the U.S. Border Patrol. Explanations for this surge in apprehensions have been split between two leading hypotheses. Most academic scholars, immigrant advocates, progressive media outlets, and human rights organizations identify poverty and violence (the Poverty and Violence Hypothesis) in Central America as the primary triggers responsible. In contrast, while most government officials, conservative think tanks, and the agencies that work in the immigration and border enforcement realm admit poverty and violence may underlie some decisions to migrate, they instead blame lax U.S. immigration …

No More Shade: Deforestation And Rural-Urban Migration In Nigeria, Kambre Sims

Master's Theses

Some of the most well-documented motivating factors of migration in Nigeria include education, employment opportunities, and cultural conflicts. However, as the deforestation crisis has not improved and Nigeria has maintained its spot as the country with the most deforestation on Earth, access to critical forest resources may be in danger. In light of this crisis, this paper attempts to determine if deforestation has become a new motivating factor for migration as those in rural communities seek other avenues of obtaining those vital resources. Subsequently, Nigeria is also experiencing a housing crisis within its rapidly growing urban centers; obtaining and keeping …

The Eviction Landscape In South Carolina, Ethan Magnuson

Senior Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyze the South Carolinian eviction crisis from the perspective of radical geography. South Carolina was chosen for the severity of its crisis and the lack of research at a sub-state level. Court records of eviction filings from 2019 were geocoded and tested for spatial clustering, which was clearly visible. Plaintiff names were used to identify the most frequent filers and distinguish landlords by type. At the census tract level, eviction filing counts were compared with neighborhood characteristics using negative binomial regression, and most were found to be significant in South Carolina. …

Barriers To Post-Secondary Success, Douglas Swanson, Najeana Henderson, Maritza Sloan

Dissertations

This study reviews factors that prior studies have identified or failed to consider as barriers to post-secondary success. The three main areas include academic success for Latinx students after high school, organizational systems and their impact on African-American students’ postsecondary readiness, and what workers think of their high school education with regards to career preparedness.

Five factors are identified as major barriers for Latinx students to continue in a higher education system. A survey of former students from Saint Louis, Missouri, and Dallas, Texas, metroplex area identified 56 Latinx students that participated in an initial survey. This led to a …

Pornography: Social, Emotional And Mental Implications Among Adolescents, William Kelly Canady

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Conference

This presentation will explain the historical development of pornography. It will highlight four segments: 1- Porn’s impact on brain development of reward pathways, ultimately increasing the appetite for more porn. 2- Porn can be a false substitute for real intimacy, resulting in decreased sexual satisfaction with a real person and increased verbal and physical aggression. 3- Porn promotes sex trafficking, promotes multiple sex partners and reduced STD prevention. 4- A review of interventions available to assist clients in navigating a lifestyle away from pornography.

Life In Hampton Roads Survey Press Release #4: Politics & Ethics In Government, Social Science Research Center, Old Dominion University

Life in Hampton Roads Survey Report

Life in Hampton Roads 2021 - Politics & Ethics in Government

The Life in Hampton Roads survey typically includes a few questions about political attitudes. In 2021, the questions asked included party affiliation, job approval of President Biden and preferences for the 2021 gubernatorial election. The survey also included a set of questions about ethics in local government that have been asked in previous surveys.

Neither “Post-War” Nor Post-Pregnancy Paranoia: How America’S War On Drugs Continues To Perpetuate Disparate Incarceration Outcomes For Pregnant, Substance-Involved Offenders, Becca S. Zimmerman

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the unique interactions between pregnancy, substance involvement, and race as they relate to the War on Drugs and the hyper-incarceration of women. Using ordinary least square regression analyses and data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, I examine if (and how) pregnancy status, drug use, race, and their interactions influence two length of incarceration outcomes: sentence length and amount of time spent in jail between arrest and imprisonment. The results collectively indicate that pregnancy decreases length of incarceration outcomes for those offenders who are not substance-involved but not evenhandedly -- benefitting white …

Public Policy Origins Of U.S. Data, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Provides detailed introduction and overview of public policy origins of U.S. data. Shows how congressional legislation and Office of Management and Budget documents influence compilation and dissemination of U.S. Government data. Stresses how Indiana General Assembly requirements influence compilation of Indiana state agency data and Indiana local government agency data. Places emphasis on roles played in data compilation and dissemination by public policy research institutions/think tanks. Concludes by stressing limitations of data collection by governmental and non-governmental entities.

The Association Between Family Income And Adults’ Attitudes On Whether The Government Should Help The Poor, Emily Malloy

Honors Projects

This research examines whether people in different social classes have varying views on whether the government should help the poor and whether that depends on political affiliation. Income inequality has become a greater problem in the U.S. in recent decades. This means that the poor could require more assistance and it is important to know if the public thinks the government should help the poor. Knowing what influences public opinion on this issue could help policy makers make informed decisions about whether the government should help the poor. Data from the 2008 (N=2,023) and 2018 (N=2,348) General Social Survey (GSS) …

Analyzing The Onset And Resolution Of Nonstate Conflict In The Middle East & North Africa, Emily A. Barbaro

Senior Honors Projects, 2020-current

By applying structural-functionalist theories of deviance and opposition, this thesis deconstructs nonstate mobilization in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Using data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset, the quantitative analysis interpreted both group and leader behavior in conflict situations to determine factors that influenced conflict onset and resolution. The quasipoisson regression analysis of group behavior suggested that polity and state capacity were both significant predictors of violent and nonviolent mobilization. The negative binomial regression of regime behavior suggested that civilian casualties were the most significant predictor of a government response to nonstate mobilization. Ultimately, the …

Gender And Judicial Decision-Making, Alexandra Just

Undergraduate Theses

This study employs a unique two-tiered approach, involving both quantitative and qualitative methodology to analyze the influences – specifically, a judge’s gender – on the judicial decision-making process. First, a quantitative bivariate regression analysis was conducted to determine whether a Federal District Court judge’s gender had a statistically significant influence on the ideological direction of case outcomes (which is either liberal, meaning the decision was in favor of the petitioner, or conservative, meaning the decision was against the petitioner). Data was analyzed using the statistical program SPSS and was pulled from the 2016 Carp-Manning database, which contains over 110,000 federal …

Examination Of Online Voter Registration Within Non-Profit Organizations Post 1993, Jonathan Mcnicholes

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Voting is a key eliminate to the validity of our democracy. Nonprofit organizations are one of the fastest growing organization structures within our society, with growing opportunities to engage voters in pursuit of their goals along with enhanced pressure following the movements surrounding the 1993 voter registration act. In this Thesis I analysis what categories of nonprofit organizations promote voter registration using their websites, to order to establish which organizations are utilizing their resources to promote their goals. The data I use is taken from the Washington Representatives studies which consists of 43,012 nonprofit organizations within Washington DC. My research …

392— Hegemonic Masculinity And The Partisan Gender Gap: Implications For American Democracy, Emily Pascale

GREAT Day Posters

There is a growing body of evidence that shows a correlation between gender inequality and economic inequality. Often these highly unequal societies, such as the US, have stringent gender norms that disparately affect how men and women think and behave, including the kinds of political opinions they express. My research will focus on the implications of divergent gender norms for American democracy, particularly for proposals aimed at redressing economic inequality. Because this normative behavior has gendered the perceptions of political parties and policies—such as men cognitively linking redistributive policies to a feminine ethos—these gendered ideas may undermine policies that have …

Measures Of Ethnicity: Competing Concepts In Search Of Clarity, Daniel R. Jones

Student Publications

Why have many researchers historically relied on combined measures and explanations for the scholarship on ethnic polarization and ethnic fractionalization? In this article, I argue for the adoption of a new research mechanism that differentiates between both variables in order to test them independently vis à vis their relationships to civil war severity. The presence of a more ethnically polarized state seems to make it more difficult for the opposition groups to coordinate and to mount an effective attack/opposition against the government, thus limiting overall casualties. This also increases the difficultly for the government forces to identify the group(s) that …

Change In Partisan Ideology Among University Students, Samantha Frenz

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Throughout modern history, people have sought to understand the causes behind political identities and how they’re formed. These factors began to be known as the agents of political socialization. As these factors shift, so do political beliefs. But how do these factors directly apply to university students? To answer this question, I studied how these factors applied to university students as well as new factors specific to their time in university, such as the control of the institution (whether it’s private or public), as well as the effect of campus culture and climates on their ideology, and what role extracurriculars …

Life In Hampton Roads Survey Press Release #4: Presidential Polling, Social Science Research Center, Old Dominion University

Life in Hampton Roads Survey Report

Life in Hampton Roads Survey - Presidential Polling Results

Respondents were asked: “Do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president?” Roughly one-third (34.1%) approved, with 13.9% strongly approving. Nearly two-thirds (65.9%) disapproved, with 43.8% disapproving strongly.

Uneven Influence: Why Female Representation Affects Some Migration Policies But Not Others, Lauren M. Olsen

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

In the wake of the 2015 migration crisis, immigration policy has become one of the most critical topics of academic scholarship and political debate. Despite this prolific response, very little research has investigated how the gender of policymakers affects immigration policy. This raises an interesting question: is there any difference in immigration policy among countries with high and low numbers of female legislators? To investigate this matter, I use panel fixed-effects regression to systematically compare the immigration policies of the original EU-15 from 2000 to 2010. As a single policy area, I find female representation has no significant impact on …

“Be Authentic”: Authenticity Norms In German Politics And Self-Idealizations Of Members Of The Bundestag, Alexander Geimer, Steffen Amling

The Qualitative Report

This contribution goes back to a study of the formative power of identity norms in professional fields of occupation (fine arts and politics). In this article, we focus on the understanding of identity norms that members of the German Bundestag have to meet and/or to cope with. Thus, our research question is which demands professional politicians encounter and which ways of dealing with them are established. Operating at the intersection of governmentality studies, subjectivation analysis and qualitative inquiry, and based on narrative interviews with MPs, this paper demonstrates how in the field of German politics (at federal level) the MPs …

Sweeping Exposures: Lead Poisonings And Black Working Poor Populations In The United States, Shirley Reid

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The focus of my thesis is to explore some of the realities that the impoverished urban black poor populations face in America today. The goal of my thesis is to illustrate how poverty is reproduced within impoverished neighborhoods through the idea and mechanism of lead exposure, by recognizing how specific exposure to the element lead and its by-products is both a symbol and a material cause of black urban poor illness and disability. There is no mistake that people living in the U.S. are aware of the social injustices against black populations in the form of racial injustice. However, …

Spa 2201hs Spanish For Heritage Speakers (Syllabus_Fall 2019), David Sánchez-Jiménez

Open Educational Resources

SPA 2201HS Spanish for Heritage Speakers is an intermediate course intended for students who were immersed in or exposed to the language while growing up, but who have received little or no formal instruction in Spanish. Strengthens students’ competence in the oral and written standard varieties of Spanish by building on their previous knowledge to expand their vocabulary, strengthen their command of grammar, and achieve more confidence and fluency in speaking and writing while learning about the diversity of the Hispanic cultures. The skills acquired in this course will help reinforce students’ bilingual abilities and cultural competence.

A New Paradigm Of Discrimination And Measures Of Latino Linked Fate, Michael Herndon

UNO Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

Linked fate has long been used as a measure of group consciousness and is an important component of group political behavior. Though applying linked fate to Latinos can be complicated because of a widely diverse set of nationalities and historical contexts, Latinos have shown signs of group cohesion under certain circumstances. Despite this, there is still a sizable gap exploring the theory of linked fate as it pertains to Latinos. Furthermore, there is a near-absence of literature that critically dissects the roles of different kinds of discrimination as they pertain to perceptions of linked fate amongst Latinos. There are distinct …

Measuring Public Utilization Perception Potential Of Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Julius Keller, Daniel Kwasi Adjekum, Bortiorkor Nii Tsui Alabi, Brian Kozak

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the National Air Space (NAS) in recent times has been met by mixed public responses. The paper establishes four constructs each of which encapsulates multiple backgrounds and concerns of the stakeholders: functional knowledge, utilization trust, operational integration support, and safety risk-benefits. The paper hypothesizes that these constructs can serve as underlying components for a research instrument namely, the Public Utilization Perception Potential (PUPP) which can be used to assess the opinions of the public on UAS integration into NAS. Responses from the public on items in a beta-tested survey instrument were analyzed …