Sociology Commons^™

At Home In The World : The American Middle-Class House As A Twenty-First Century Public Square, Kathleen Holt

Dissertations and Theses

Using personal narrative, interviews, and research, this thesis project looks at how the middle-class American home has been transformed, by people like me, into a modem-day public square.

Evaluation Design For The District Of Columbia Department Of Corrections' Use Of Radio Frequency Identification (Rfid) Technology With Jail Inmates, Laura J. Hickman, Mel Eisman, Lois Davis

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

In consultation with the District of Columbia Department of Corrections (DC DOC), researchers developed an evaluation design oriented around five objectives. One objective is to provide timely feedback to the U.S. Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice (the funder of the evaluation), DC DOC, and other interested jurisdictions on RFID’s implementation. A second objective is to provide feedback on the process of implementing RFID. A third objective is to assess the impact of RFID’s implementation on identified outcome measures. A fourth objective is to compare costs to the facilities against the cost of implementing RFID technology, including direct and indirect …

Sociology Of Islam & Muslim Societies, Newsletter No. 3, Tugrul Keskin

Sociology of Islam & Muslim Societies Newsletter

Table of Contents:

• Interview with Sherry Jones on Her Novel “The Jewel of Medina”, Islam and Free Speech
• The Strange Case of the UIJ, or the evolutions of Uzbek Jihadism by Didier Chaudet
• 'Hizb ut-Tahrir in Uzbekistan: A Postcolonial Perspective' by Reed Taylor Islamic Banking by Husnul Amin

"Sitting In Different Chairs:" Roles Of The Community Health Workers In The Poder Es Salud/Power For Health Project, Stephanie Farquhar, Noelle Wiggins, Yvonne L. Michael, G. Luhr, Jennifer Jordon, A. Lopez

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Evaluations of Community Health Worker programs consistently document improvements in health, yet few articles clearly describe the roles of Community Health Workers (CHWs) from the CHWs' perspective. This article presents the CHWs' points of view regarding the various roles they played in a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project, Poder es Salud/Power for Health in Portland, Oregon, including their roles as community organizers and co-researchers. Methods: Authors draw from an analysis of transcript data from in-depth interviews conducted with CHWs to present a description of the strategies employed by the CHWs to build leadership skills and knowledge among community members. CHWs …

"Do I Really Belong Here?" The Effects Of Difference In Paths Through Higher Education On Graduate Student Perception On Legitimacy, Tina Dawn Lillian Burdsall

Dissertations and Theses

Why do some master's level students feel confident in completing their programs and some do not? Why do some feel connected to their department and some do not? Why do some feel legitimate as graduate students and some do not? This research proposes that there may be differences in how master's students understand the graduate student role based on whether they went directly from high-school through their bachelor's to their master's, or if they took time off between their bachelor's and master's program. This thesis used in-depth interviews with twelve second-year master's students at Portland State University to explore these …

An Evaluation Of The Texas Team’S Teen Dating Violence Awareness And Prevention Toolkit, Nöel Bridget Busch-Armendariz, Karen Kalergis, Alison Little, Hyeyoung Woo, Jacqueline Garza, Tiffany Ross, Institute On Domestic Violence And Sexual Assault

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The purpose of the evaluation project is to assess the process and the outcomes of implementing an intervention based on the Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Toolkit. For this purpose, the IDVSA research team developed a model for schools to follow based on multiple materials in the Toolkit. The project looked at how effective the intervention was in increasing awareness of dating violence among teens and knowledge of how to respond if they or their peers are in an abusive relationship.

The findings are organized into three sections based on the sources of data. The first section records the …

Sociology Of Islam & Muslim Societies, Newsletter No. 2, Tugrul Keskin, Gary Wood

Sociology of Islam & Muslim Societies Newsletter

Table of Contents:

• Feminism in Kuwait by Meredith Katz
• Research Abstracts and Updates: Babak Rahimi on Public Islam in Iraq; Thomas Pierret on Ulema in Modern Islam; CESS 2008 Islam Panel Neo-Imperialism and the Promotion of Democracy in Central Asia; and ASA 2008, Boston Islam and Muslim Societies Panels and Roundtables

Physicians Providing Alternative Medicine: Boundary Crossing And The Emergence Of Integrative Medicine, Richard Scott Lockwood

Dissertations and Theses

Integrative medicine (IM) has organized as a new area of specialization in mainstream healthcare. The development of IM is widely attributed to popular demand for the range of therapies known collectively as Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). During the 1990's the rate of acceptance of CAM accelerated among consumers, professions, financing and education. The Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) measured CAM utilization and professional service provision during the years 1996 and 1998, but never since. These surveys were unique because they specifically inquired as to whether CAM was provided by a physician, among other types of professionals. This dissertation defines …

"Whose Streets? Our Streets!" Urban Social Movements And The Transformation Of Everyday Life In Pacific Northwest Cities, 1990-1999, Leanne Claire Serbulo

Dissertations and Theses

This project returns to the questions that were once at the center of the urban studies debate over social movements. What are urban social movements, and what impacts do they leave on the cities where they occur? Urban protests in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington are used as the foundation for exploring the following research questions: What urban social movements occurred in the Pacific Northwest during 1990s? What goals were these movements struggling for? What impacts did urban social movements have on daily life in Portland and Seattle?

While this project has continuity with earlier attempts to identify, describe, and …

Impacts Of Early Sexual Experience And Associated Risk Of Sexually Transmitted Infection (Sti) Among Teens And Adults In The United States, Ginny Garcia-Alexander

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This analysis explores incidence rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among minority group teenagers (aged 15-19) and adults aged 20-34 in the United States. The primary research question is aimed at whether or not the early onset of sexual activity is directly related to the incidence of STI transmission among Americans. Discussion is given to the current literature with respect to the most recent trends in STIs as well as some historical background on classifications. Also examined are the differing impacts observed for those who are affected by bacterial infections (young minorities) and those who are affected by viral infections …

Sociology Of Islam & Muslim Societies, Newsletter No. 1, Tugrul Keskin, Gary Wood

Sociology of Islam & Muslim Societies Newsletter

Table of Contents:

• Welcome
• Dr. Kemal Silay’s at Virginia Tech
• Upcoming Conferences and Web Sites of Interest
• Forthcoming Edited Volume: Survey of Islamic Ideas and the Sociology of Islam & Muslim Societies
• Subscriber Statistics

Major Arteries And Motor Vehicle Theft: Investigating The Spatial Distribution Of Mvt In The Lower Mainland District, Kathryn Wuschke

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Vehicle theft, like most crime types, is spatially concentrated, with more than one quarter of these crimes occurring within fifty meters of a major roadway. Spatial analysis and mapping of all motor vehicle thefts (MVT) occurring in the PIRS system for the Lower Mainland District in 2004 and 2005 emphasize clear clustering around major roads. This map also reveals hotspots of MVT intensity occurring in specific point locations across the landscape. Future fact sheets will analyze these activity nodes to determine the specific land uses around which MVT events tend to cluster.

An Anatomy Of A Community-University Partnership: The Structure Of Community Collaboration, W. Barry Messer, Kevin Kecskes

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University for the past twelve years has been engaged in a transformation of its general education program and a renewal of its urban mission. A major thrust of this reform has focused on broadening the involvement of students and faculty in community-based learning and scholarship. Curricular and administrative changes have significantly raised the presence of the university in the community and resulted in numerous academic units actively engaging in community collaboration. The collaboration has proven to be an important platform by which the university has expanded its boundaries into the community through actions involving many challenges to the …

Loop Analysis Of Causal Feedback In Epidemiology: An Illustration Relating To Urban Neighborhoods And Resident Depressive Experiences, Alexis Dinno

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

The causal feedback implied by urban neighborhood conditions that shape human health experiences, that in turn shape neighborhood conditions through a complex causal web, raises a challenge for traditional epidemiological causal analyses. This article introduces the loop analysis method, and builds off of a core loop model linking neighborhood property vacancy rate, resident depressive symptoms, rate of neighborhood death, and rate of neighborhood exit in a feedback network. I justify and apply loop analysis to the specific example of depressive symptoms and abandoned urban residential property to show how inquiries into the behavior of causal systems can answer different kinds …

Hybrid Chronicles: Biracial And Biethnic Perspectives On The Pedagogy Of Unlearning Racism, Stéphanie Wahab, Sunshine T. Gibson

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article details an autoethnography project of our odysseys into the pedagogy of unlearning racism. Our know ledge creation process forced us to re-envision both our locations in, and pedagogy of, anti-racism work, with particular attention to the challenges and dangers of teaching about, to, and from White privilege within social work. In the end, we are both troubled and invigorated by what we experienced, witnessed, and supported. By asking people of color to share their personal narratives of racism in the presence of Whites, teachers, facilitators, and diversity trainers stand to continue privileging Whiteness where Whites benefit and learn …

Miami Voter Dispositions Toward The Development ‘Boom’ And Economic Development Policy: A Report On Focus Group Research Among City Of Miami Voters, Alex Stepick, Marcos Feldman

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The purpose of this project is to assess City of Miami residents’ opinions about Miami’s building boom of the past few years. We were concerned with how development directly affects the lives of individuals in Miami, especially in the areas where development is concentrated. We wanted to learn what residents view as the positive and negative impacts of development and what path they felt development should follow.

Building Community Research Capacity: Process Evaluation Of Community Training And Education In A Community-Based Participatory Research Program Serving A Predominately Puerto Rican Community, Laurene M. Tumiel-Berhalter, Victoria Mclaughlin-Diaz, John Vena, Carlos J. Crespo

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Education and training build community research capacity and have impact on improvements of health outcomes.

Objectives: This manuscript describes the training and educational approaches to building research capacity that were utilized in a community-based participatory research program serving a Puerto Rican population and identifies barriers and strategies for overcoming them.

Methods: A process evaluation identified a multitiered approach to training and education that was critical to reaching the broad community.

Results: This approach included four major categories providing a continuum of education and training opportunities: networking, methods training, on-the-job experience, and community education. Participation in these opportunities supported the …

Culture War: The Battle For Portland's Lair Hill Neighborhood, 1968, James Tucker Jackson

Dissertations and Theses

The youth explosion of the mid-1960s that spawned the hippie counterculture also bred fear among older Americans, many of whom viewed the cultural dissenters as immoral, deviant, and criminal. Some in the ranks of government shared this view and felt duty-bound to oppose the counterculture. This thesis examines one example of a municipal government and the series of policies it pursued to address the threat of a "hippie invasion" into the Lair Hill neighborhood in Portland, Oregon in 1968. The central question will be to determine whether these policies were enacted in pursuit of the stated goals of improved public …

Advancing Transdisciplinary And Translational Research Practice: Issues And Models Of Doctoral Education In Public Health, Linda Neuhauser, Dawn M. Richardson, Sonja Mackenzie, Meredith Minkler

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Finding solutions to complex health problems, such as obesity, violence, and climate change, will require radical changes in cross-disciplinary education, research, and practice. The fundamental determinants of health include many interrelated factors such as poverty, culture, education, environment, and government policies. However, traditional public health training has tended to focus more narrowly on diseases and risk factors, and has not adequately leveraged the rich contributions of sociology, anthropology, economics, geography, communication, political science, and other disciplines. Further, students are often not sufficiently trained to work across sectors to translate research findings into effective, large-scale sustainable actions. During the past 2 …

Radicalism In American Political Thought : Black Power, The Black Panthers, And The American Creed, Christopher Thomas Cooney

Dissertations and Theses

American Political Thought has presented somewhat of a challenge to many because of the conflict between the ideals found within the "American Creed" and the reality of America's treatment of ethnic and social minorities. The various forms of marginalization and oppression facing women, blacks, Native Americans, and Asian-Americans have been as much a part of the story of America as have been natural rights and the Constitution.

Taking this into account, this thesis is an effort to argue that the radicalism on display in the Black Panther Party, a group that emerged in the turmoil of the 1960' s, was …

Socioeconomic Status And Health: Focusing On Co-Morbidity Of Self Rated Health And Psychological Well-Being, Seung-Eun Song, Hyeyoung Woo

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Despite the well-documented associations between social and economic positions and diverse health conditions, the necessity and urgency of exploring the social and economic consequences of an array of health dimensions together have been proposed as a critical area of research to fully appreciate socioeconomic-health inequalities. The overall objective of the present study is to estimate the variance and covariation of two dimensions of health, i.e., self-rated health and psychological well-being, simultaneously, with specific attention to the social and economic influences, utilizing the multivariate response model. We use the 2005 National Health Interview Survey. Primary results indicate that variance in both …

Book Review Of, Foundations Of Evidence Based Social Work Practice, Daniel Coleman

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reviews the book "Foundations of Evidence Based Social Work Practice", by Albert R. Roberts and Kenneth R. Yeager

An Examination Of Conflict Conversation In An Online Community: The Pie Fight At Dailykos.Com, Samantha Isabella Soma

Dissertations and Theses

The increasing popularity of the social web and online communities requires the attention of researchers of conflict resolution. Although there are many ways to resolve conflict offline, the ways in which conflict takes place within a native online context have not been much studied. Are any of the tools and strategies that are used to improve communication offline used successfully online, or are some other strategies taking their place? What communication patterns occur within an online community equipped with comment moderation capabilities? This research is a case study and addressed these questions by performing a qualitative analysis of comment conversations …

Sons Providing Care At End-Of-Life: Common Threads And Nuances, Patricia Ebert

Dissertations and Theses

Family care is common in the majority of families in the United States, the primary care providers for older adult family members most often are wives, daughters or daughters-in-law. As the proportion of the oldest old continues to expand so too will the need for family careproviders. Recent demographic changes have served to deplete the pool of available caregivers. Caregiving research has naturally evolved into investigations into the experiences of women with little attention paid to the care contributions men make.

This investigation examined the perceptions of sons who served as primary caregivers for their dying elderly parents. It was …

Measuring The Influence Of Built Neighborhood Environments On Walking In Older Adults, Yvonne L. Michael, Tracey Beard, Dongseok Choi, Stephanie Farquhar, Nichole Carlson

Community Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Examined the degree of association between perceived and objective characteristics of the neighborhood environment and the relation of each type of measurement to neighborhood walking in older adults. Participants included 105 adults aged 65-92 (mean age 75.1) from 10 neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon, participating in Senior Health and Physical Exercise (SHAPE), a randomized walking intervention. Neighborhoods were stratified by a "walking friendliness" ranking variable. This variable was derived for each neighborhood based on available social and environmental data that were hypothesized to correlate with walking and physical activity: high income, high older adult population density, high proportion of white residents, …

Expanding Responsibilities And Shifting Demands: An Analysis Of The Effects Of Migration And Employment On Immigrant Women's Negotiating Power In The Household, Kerry Greer

Dissertations and Theses

This study's objective was to examine the affect that migration and employment have on immigrant women's negotiating position within the household. Depth interviews were conducted with nine women who migrated to Portland, Oregon from Ethiopia or Eritrea. Women were encouraged to share a narrative history of their migration and employment experience. These interviews were analyzed to answer three primary questions: Who are immigrant women supporting through their participation in the paid labor market? How do women utilize gain access to employment opportunities and what strategies do women use once employed to meet competing demands on them at work and in …

The Heart Of The Matter: Aligning Curriculum, Pedagogy And Engagement In Higher Education, Kevin Kecskes, Seanna Kerrigan, Judy Patton

Public Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

This essay explores the themes of curriculum and pedagogy, as outlined by the editors of this special edition, in the context of Portland State University's institutional transformation. We elucidate select mechanisms that support curricular-community interactions, known at PSU as "community-based learning." In doing so we discuss how CBL and other civic engagement strategies relate to the disciplines, departments, and interdisciplinary work as well as how these various collaborative approaches affect pedagogy and epistemology at PSU.

Parents As Navigators: How Caregivers Of Children With Mental Health Difficulties Find Supports In The Workplace, Eileen M. Brennan, Marlene Penn, Katherine J. Huffstutter, Jennifer R. Bradley, Julie M. Rosenzweig

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Presentation given at the 19th Annual Research Conference: A System of Care for Children's Mental Health: Expanding the Research Base, Tampa, FL, February 2006.

Men As Caregivers At The End Of Life, Erik K. Fromme, Linda L. Drach, Susan W. Tolle, Patricia Ebert, Pamela Miller, Nancy Perrin, Virginia P. Tilden

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Few studies have focused on men as caregivers at the end-of-life. The objective of this secondary data analysis was to examine the experiences of men involved in end-oflife caregiving, focusing on caregiver strain.

Methods: We used a random sample of Oregon death certificates to telephone survey family caregivers of Oregonians who had died 2 to 5 months earlier in private homes, nursing homes, and other community-based settings. Measurements included single-item indicators and embedded scales to measure caregiver strain and perceived decedent symptom distress. For the 25 husbands, sons, wives, and daughters who reported the highest levels of strain, we …

Issue Brief: The Impact Of Cost Sharing And Benefit Changes To Oregon Health Plan Beneficiaries: Results, Two Years Later, Bill J. Wright, Matthew J. Carlson

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study was launched in 2003 and followed a representative sample of OHP enrollees through the redesign of the program (OHP2) to gain a better understanding of the impact of those changes, including increased cost-sharing, cuts to benefits and stricter rules around payment of premiums. The objectives of this ongoing study are to assess the short and long-term impacts around five main outcome areas: health insurance coverage, access to care, utilization of care, individuals’ financial well being and health status. The key findings from the second round of surveying are detailed in this brief and reflect impacts approximately 18 months …