Sociology Commons^™

War Photography & The Limits Of Empathy, Andrea Shi

Student Theses and Dissertations

The proliferation of photography, particularly war and poverty photography, has had massive implications for the level of vividness with which Americans are able to picture suffering beyond their doors. The mass atrocities that have occurred since the advent of photography – that is to say, the last 200 years – are so relentlessly circulated that they feel, sometimes, as an inevitable byproduct of human nature. It’s not surprising, then, that a lot of media theory and analysis reduce the dilemma of atrocity photographs to a psychological level. Do they numb us, or do they incite empathy? Are they a call …

Queer Ballroom In 1980s-90s New York City: Connections To Joy And Education, Maya A. Gary

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This master's thesis project delivers a concise history of the development of Queer Ballroom in the 1980s–1990s in Harlem, New York City, primarily focusing on low-income Black and Latino queer individuals and how they created spaces of belonging and joy during the HIV/AIDS crisis. This work illustrates how ballroom culture functioned as both a space of refuge and a network for mutual aid, outreach, and advocacy. In addition to the historical analysis, this project includes a free-to-use educational website and lesson plans aligned with the Virginia Standards of Learning for grades 6 and 11. This work demonstrates the importance of …

Shaping Narratives By Defying Math: How Black Congressional Candidates Frame Economic Issues From 2018–2022, Dante Allen Miller

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation moves the discussion of Black candidates economic policies beyond race to understand how Black candidates participate in racial capitalism. Using a mixed-methods approach, including textual analysis, and multinomial logistic regressions, I interrogate how 374 Black candidates navigate economic framing. Candidates use four distinct economic frames, three of which are rooted in neoliberalism, traditional, welfare state, progressive, and vague values. I present the findings in three papers which examine framing via textual analysis, the intra-categorical differences, and differences by congressional district demographics. In the first paper I show that Black candidates framing of economic issues reinforces racial capitalism even …

Exploring A Boxing Community Exercise Porgram For Women With Parkinson's Disease, Emily Truong

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Objective: The purpose of this capstone project was to explore the lived experiences of 10 women with Parkinson’s disease (PD) who participate in the Rock Steady Boxing (RSB) program, an exercise community-based non-contact boxing program. Because women remain underrepresented in PD research and exercise-based interventions, this project aims to better understand how women perceive the physical, emotional, and social impacts of participating in RSB.

Methods: This qualitative case series included 10 women diagnosed with PD that participate in RSB at the Tony Cress Training Center. Data was collected through individual semi-structured interviews and audio recordings. Interviews were consented, transcribed verbatim, …

Vietnamese American Anti-Imperialism: South Vietnamese History And Analysis Of Publications Pre-1975, Jeannie Nguyen

Master's Theses

During the Vietnam War, citizens contested US imperialism at multiple levels. In South Vietnam, citizens published newspapers and magazines to challenge their government and expose the depth of US aggression in South Vietnamese society and culture. Inside the imperial core, Black, Chicano, and Asian American activists formed solidarities to resist the war and challenge racial inequality. At the intersection of imperialism inside and outside its borders, lies a group of South Vietnamese students and scholars who became American, migrating during the war via state-structured projects. However, in response to the heightening of war and drawing inspiration from their ‘Third World’ …

Addressing Sexual Health For Older Veterans By Healthcare Providers: A Mixed Method Study, Andrew James White

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Background: Older adults remain sexually active, yet sexual health is frequently under-discussed in healthcare settings, particularly within veteran populations. Sexual health is essential to overall quality of life, and prior studies have shown that older patients value these conversations. However, veterans often face unique factors such as military-related trauma, including military combat exposure and post-traumatic stress disorder, in addition to compounded stigma from these topics in regards to open discussions about sensitive health issues to their healthcare providers. This study is significant in its potential to uncover systemic, cultural, and interpersonal influences that shape these dynamics, with a particular emphasis …

And Now It Blooms And Sings: The Music And Poetry Of Noël By Clémence De Grandval, Nicholas Stephen Carozza

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This document presents a historical background with poetic and musical analysis of Noël for voice, oboe, and piano by Clémence de Grandval (1828–1907) to contextualize the work within the lives of the composer, performers, and poet. Noël occupies an important period in Grandval’s life as one of the few pieces composed after 1900, and features a unique instrumentation of voice, oboe, and piano. The work is a musical setting of poetry by Nobel laureate Sully Prudhomme and was dedicated to oboist Louis Bleuzet and baritone Paul Daraux. This document presents biographical information, compositional background, records of performances, and analysis to …

Barriers And Bridges: Exploring Factors That Shape Mental Health Service Utilization In Rural America, Margaret Wiwuga

Educational Specialist, 2020-current

Despite disproportionately higher suicide mortality rates and comparable prevalence of mental illness across urban and rural communities in the United States, rural populations across the nation experience significantly lower access to and utilization of mental health services, naturally leading to worse comprehensive outcomes. This literature review examines multifaceted factors shaping mental health service use in rural America, taking note of both barrier and enabling factors that impede or enable these unique populations’ willingness and ability to access and use mental health services. Ten articles published prior to September 9, 2025, were selected from the James Madison University Libraries’ Psychology and …

Geopolitical Chessboard: How Vietnam Shapes American-Chinese Competition, Kiet H. Lê, Hiep X. Trần

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Vietnam’s geostrategic position—bordering China and commanding key South China Sea maritime routes—makes it a pivotal actor in shaping great-power competition in Southeast Asia. This article argues that the United States should support Vietnam’s neutrality and strategic autonomy as a means of countering Chinese influence. Unlike prior studies that portray regional states as passive players, this analysis highlights Vietnam’s active role in influencing regional dynamics. Through comparative analysis with the Philippines, using historical case studies, geographic assessments, and policy reviews, the article offers practical insights for military and policy practitioners on how geography shapes alliance formation and strategic competition.

Key Themes In Sino-American History, David J. Lorenzo, Ian Murphy

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article examines how historical narratives shape the messaging of the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Republic of China, particularly regarding Sino-American relations. It identifies three key historical themes—trade, discriminatory policies, and Taiwan—that are frequently invoked in China’s statements and information campaigns. By contextualizing these themes, the article argues that military and national security professionals need a deeper understanding of Sino-American history to interpret China’s messaging correctly and counter its influence effectively. The article advocates for the integration of Sino-American historical content into professional military education curricula to enhance strategic awareness and policy formulation.

From The Editor In Chief, C. Anthony Pfaff

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

Welcome to the Summer 2026 issue of Parameters, which consists of two In Focus special commentaries, three forums (Indo-Pacific, Strategy, and Historical Studies) and the Strategic Competition Corner.

Parameters, Usawc Press

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Power: E. H. Carr’S Enduring Lessons For Modern Strategists, Brian J. Hasse

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article argues E. H. Carr’s classic conception of power provides enduring lessons for national security, but these lessons are easily lost in application. Unlike much of the existing literature, this article emphasizes how modern conceptions of power convey an illusion of balance, while the national security bureaucracy constrains the effective synchronization of power. The analysis leverages both historical and contemporary case studies to identify what a balanced conception of power looks like in practice, with the hope of informing US national security strategy and policy in today’s complex security environment.

How Is Going To War Like Buying A Car?: The Bargaining Model Of War, Richard R. Johnson

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

The bargaining model of war, a popular, yet complex international relations theory, emphasizes how nations communicate signals regarding military strength, resolve to fight, and foreign policy goals. Since the military plays a major role in communicating these signals, its leaders should understand this theory, despite its complexities. This article explains the model and its components through the used car sale bargaining process and supplements the analogy with real-world examples of international events. This article will help military and foreign policy professionals easily grasp the concepts of the model.

A New Security Framework For Nato’S Eastern Flank, Matthew J. Kukla, Anna Batta

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article argues for a NATO-EU–led security strategy to achieve long-term deterrence in Ukraine after the end of the Russia-Ukraine War. Unlike existing analyses, this article straddles the strategic level of deterrence, outlining an operational road map. Its historical example of the Iraq War shows that long-term security requires the development of plans before a conflict ends, long-term commitments, and multilateral—not unilateral—security efforts. The proposed solution provides strategic planners and policymakers with a low-risk, high-reward approach that leverages burden sharing through a multinational framework.

Turning Tactical Victories Into Strategic Success: Counterinsurgency In The Irish Civil War, 1922–23, Gareth Prendergast, John A. Nagl

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

The fundamentals the Irish National Army used in the Irish Civil War (1922–23) are a model for the successful application of a classic counterinsurgency which, if understood earlier, could have made a difference in the United States’ most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Irish Civil War has not been examined in-depth through the lens of modern counterinsurgency doctrine. This article draws on military history and recent counterinsurgency doctrines to provide US policymakers and military practitioners practical guidance for how counterinsurgent forces can foster trust and use appropriate tactics that lead to strategic success.

The Applicability Of Artificial Intelligence In Tour Guiding: Perspective Of Sustainable Service Innovation In Tourism With Technology, Chiranjib Kumar Choudhary Phd, Aditi Choudhary

International Journal of Tour Guiding and Visitor Attraction Research

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly transforming various sectors of the tourism, travel, and hospitality industry. Among these, the role of tourist guides remains crucial, as they act as cultural ambassadors representing destinations and nations. The primary objective of this study is to explore the applications of AI in developing intelligent audio-visual tour guides and assistive devices that enhance tourists’ real-time experiences at heritage sites, tourist attractions, and places of archaeological significance. The research adopts a qualitative approach, utilising secondary data gathered from academic literature, printed and electronic resources, online databases, and expert opinions from tourism professionals. The collected data were …

Landscapes Of Home And Maps Of The Heart: Using Art To Understand The Meaning Of Home For First And Second Generation Immigrants In Worcester Massachusetts, Sophie Sundaram

Fenwick Scholar Program

Landscapes of Home and Maps of the Heart: Using Art to Understand the Meaning of Home for First and Second Generation Immigrants in Worcester Massachusetts explores how individuals with histories of migration understand and experience “home,” and how those understandings can be translated into visual form through portraiture. Developed through conversations with Worcester community members, the project combines studio practice with methodological approaches drawn from sociological and anthropological fieldwork, including participant interviews, relational research practices, and community-based engagement.

Grounded in Worcester, a city shaped by multiple waves of migration and cultural diversity, the project investigates how senses of home are …

Thoughts, Lately, Thomas L. Reid

Theses

Swift changes in government occur through several avenues. One option involves quick decisive action that entails violence. These set of poems exhibit a reaction to suddenly changing political and social structures in America during the second term of a divisive executive administration. Alongside this change—the author’s personal experiences as queer individual in a historic area of the deep South.

Resilience In Recreation: Stories Of A Changing Climate, Casey L. Auberle

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

As the impacts of climate change become increasingly prevalent, the outdoor activities that bond us to our local communities and environments are under threat. In Missoula, MT, drought, rising temperatures, and wildfire smoke change what it means to fish, ski, run, and recreate in our town. In a series of Q&A style podcasts, environmental philosophy graduate student Casey Auberle creates a platform to share stories of a changing climate through the lens of local recreators and climate activists. Capturing these voices invites us to consider our relationship with nature on both an individual and communal scale, to find unity in …

Hi Friend! Msw Portfolio Of Community Building And Advocacy, River Gerard Segar

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

This MSW Portfolio emphasizes the importance of being rooted in community and demonstrates how to engage in community building in a way that helps center marginalized voices. This portfolio also highlights advocacy in the United States for transgender people and asserts the need for increased cultural competency in clinical practice with people in non-monogamous and/or kink relational structures.

Hunting, Craftsmanship, And Migration: The Ethnobiology Of The Raute Nomads Of Nepal, Ramesh Prasad Adhikary

Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences

This study explores the ethnobiology of the Raute nomads in Nepal, a dwindling hunter-gatherer group facing threats from modernisation, deforestation, and sedentarisation policies. Despite growing ethnobiological research on indigenous knowledge, there remains a scholarly gap in integrated analyses of how nomadic practices like hunting, craftsmanship, and migration interlink to promote sustainability, particularly in South Asian contexts. Drawing on six weeks of ethnographic fieldwork with a single Raute community (n=15 key informants via purposive sampling for interviews; 3 focus groups of 6-8 participants via convenience sampling), this research employs participant observation, in-depth interviews, and focus group discussions to address this gap. …

From Farewell To Fáilte: The Voices Of Iowa’S Irish Daughters, Katie Hermanson

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

Irish women’s immigration to Iowa brought rich culture and lasting impacts, despite their contributions being silenced by history. Women left Ireland for economic opportunity and education abroad to support their impoverished families. Millions emigrated between 1830 and 1915, spreading across the world. The Irish women who came to the United States encountered discrimination and cultural stereotyping as they worked in domestic service, developed religious orders, taught school, owned businesses and raised families. Women bore the burden of supporting their families in Ireland by sending remittances home and communicating between countries. Their cultural identity as exiles dwelled in guilt for leaving …

Values-Based Clinical Ethics: A New Model Of Health And Ethics Consultation For Patients Suffering In Extremis, Adam Trainer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation argues that contemporary clinical ethics is inadequately equipped to support patients suffering in extremis because it relies on an insufficiently discriminating account of health and a constrained model of moral reasoning. Drawing on Bernard Lonergan, it reconceives health as an emergent, multi-layered, heuristic notion shaped by biological, psychological, social, and existential goods. On that basis, it critiques principlism’s global applicability thesis and the undergirding claim that its principles form part of the common morality, arguing that this justificatory structure is philosophically insufficient and practically limited for clinical ethics in cases marked by profound suffering, moral plurality, and normative …

Esports Cosmopolitan Canopy, Reice Hicks

Honors Theses

This thesis concerns the area of sociology. Specifically, it is a sociological study of a community on Ole Miss’s campus and how they form what is known within the sociology field as a “cosmopolitan canopy,” a term coined by Elijah Anderson. Using this term, I proceed to prove not only how the Ole Miss Esports club falls under this jurisdiction, but the effects of esports on the youth as a whole, both positive and negative. All of my data was extracted via literature review, online research, note-taking, visual observation, and one-on-one interviews with people involved with the club. The entire …

Joy Beyond Circumstance: Crafting A Picture Book That Challenges Western Perceptions Of Joy, Sarah L. Stockett

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the creation of a children’s picture book as a method of challenging Western perceptions of happiness, particularly the assumption that material abundance determines joy. Drawing from two service-based experiences with Zoe Ministries in Kitale, Kenya, the project centers on The Glad Rag, a picture book in which a single piece of fabric travels through many hands and becomes many useful items. Through this narrative, the book invites young readers to consider resourcefulness, gratitude, and joy that transcends circumstance.

The project uses a mixed-methods research approach. Primary data were gathered through participant observation and informal conversations on …

Sexism In Unexpected Places: An Analysis Of Country Music Lyrics, Anna Rogers

Caravel Undergraduate Research Journal

This study aims to show that sexism exists in all facets of society by exposing its existence in the widely unexpected area of country music. Within sociology, much work has been done on sexism in the popular musical genres of rock and rap, but little attention has been given to country music. The focus of this study is an area of society where sexism is often thought to be less salient. In order to do this I will use a perspective developed from sociological perspectives on culture, gender, and music, and look at popular country songs for sexist lyrics. Using …

Spinoza On Invidia: A Social Theory Of Anti-Migrant Affect, Kevin Scott Jobe

Philosophy Faculty Publications

This paper develops a Spinozist social theory of anti-migrant affect by interpreting contemporary hostility toward immigration through the concept of invidia (envy). Drawing on recent empirical research on ‘superiority-seeking’, whereby individuals derive status utility from excluding others, the paper interprets invidia as an affective hatred of equality. For Spinoza, envy is caused not by actual material loss but from the imagination that misconceives shared goods as exclusive possessions. This social theory of invidia inverts readings that locate envy in migrants themselves, instead arguing that, in Spinoza’s Political Treatise, the democratic multitude harbours invidia against migrants when they are perceived as …

Exploring Identity Through Clay: A Humanistic Art Therapy Case Study With A Blind Chinese Adoptee, Virginia Jade Leicht

Expressive Therapies Theses

This qualitative case study explored how working with clay in art therapy can help support a blind man’s identity exploration. This paper addresses the problem of many traditional therapeutic approaches within the art therapy realm: They rely too heavily on visual engagement, which can limit the accessibility and opportunities for self-exploration and identity development for those who are blind. The study was grounded in current research and foundational theories based on the humanistic art therapy approach. Clay is considered an accessible medium that engages multiple senses and allows for emotional exploration and meaning making, specifically through tactile and sensory-based engagement …

The Bonds Of Family: A Case Study On Interconnectedness In The Prison-Industrial Complex, Cameron Stone

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

Beginning in the 1960s, a rightward shift in politics and “War on Drugs” policies propelled the United States toward mass incarceration. The result was a prison population of around 2 million people, in which minority groups have been disproportionately imprisoned. While historians and legal scholars have examined the policies and legal structures behind mass incarceration, oral historians working in the tradition of social history emphasize the importance of narratives of those most impacted yet traditionally neglected. This paper specifically examines the relatively unstudied Columbia University's 2019 Mass Incarceration oral history collection, which explores the interconnected perspectives of one family’s experience …