Sociology Commons^™

A Phenomenological Investigation Into The Self-Efficacy Beliefs Of Teachers Who Have Persisted In The Teaching Profession, Shana Market Norton

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This phenomenological study investigated the lived experiences of 12 secondary school teachers from public secondary schools in northern Georgia regarding their feelings about self-efficacy and why they have persisted in the teaching profession. The research questions centered around their perceptions on how self-efficacy influences the academic achievement of their students, on what personality characteristics they feel teachers add to their positive or negative self-esteem in teaching, and on what factors they identify as influencing their professional self-efficacy in teaching. Teacher self-efficacy, the belief in oneself to succeed at completing a task, is a key factor in retaining teachers. Four data …

Battle For The Mountains: Restructuring Extractive Production And The Socio-Ecological Crisis In West Virginia's Coalfields, Ben Marley

Geography and the Environment - Theses

The coalfields of southern West Virginia have faced recurring crises linked to its regional political economy. Today's crisis is constituted by the decimation on the United Mine Workers of America and the greater use of mountaintop removal coal mining in conjunction with policies and market conditions. This thesis argues that crisis in southern West Virginia's coalfields, like previous crises, will mean the reorganization of human and extra-human natures in which social movements along with economic conditions play an integral role in transcending the crisis. Tracing the history of crises in southern West Virginia's coalfields and interviewing retired coal miners, community …

The Real Housewives Of The Garden Of Eden, Victoria Hurst

All Theses

This essay focuses on a critical analysis of the reality television program The Real Housewives, using the biblical story of Eve to illuminate the ways in which myths of femininity are perpetuated and reimagined within popular culture. Bridging reality television scholarship with post biblical scholarship surrounding the figure of Eve, this essay seeks to approach how both mythology and spectacle intertwine within the mass consumed genre of reality television to reiterate and recreate notions of the eternal feminine in ways that disarm and disengage audiences' critical thinking and response to these representations. By focusing on conspicuous consumption and bodily alteration …

Greyhound, 1984, Lisa K. Sandlin

Writer’s Workshop Faculty Publications

In "Greyhound, 1984," fiction writer Lisa Sandlin grabs and holds onto the reader with terse, rhythmic language, unique imagery, and a story that's both unsentimental and poignant.

Let’S Discuss: Teaching Students About Discussions, Eve Brank, Lindsey Wylie

Academic Publications

Research consistently demonstrates the benefits of employing classroom discussions; however, there has been less attention given to teaching students about discussions. The current research compared 2 advanced social psychology courses: 1 without (control) and 1 with (experimental) a week devoted to learning about and discussing discussions. Several different indicators showed marked improvements for the experimental group as compared to the control group. The differences between the two classes were particularly noticeable at the beginning of the semester. Even though the control group was able to eventually obtain similar scores, the differences at the beginning of the semester suggest that students …

Coping With Pediatric Cancer: Conversational Methods Utilized By Parents And Children When Dealing With Pediatric Cancer, Chelsi Morgan Walls

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study analyzed how people perceived parents should communicate with their child regarding pediatric cancer treatments. When dealing with pediatric cancer, it is vital that parents and their child communicate about the illness in order to effectively cope with the cancer. Using Uncertainty Management Theory, appraisals, inferences, and illusions, are examined in this study to discover how much affect-management and buffering would be used to manage the illness. Under UMT, the coping mechanisms of affect-management (i.e., religious coping and behavioral disengagement), and buffering (avoidance and child distraction) depend upon how individuals appraise the uncertain situation (positive vs. negative), the inferences …

Medicaid Expansion, Long-Term Care Financing In Retirement States And The Post World War Ii Birth Cohort, Toni P. Miles

Center for Policy Research

This policy brief contains a formal consideration of ideas discussed during a presentation to the 2012 Syracuse Seminar on Aging. Like most briefs, it will appeal to policy makers and academics craving detailed demographic, fiscal and policy data. Before diving into this brief, I would encourage readers to view the presentation video (available at http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=bsv8K7DdJFY). As you will see, the seminar was informal and the discussion was wide ranging. In contrast, this brief focuses on limitations faced by states as they finance longterm care. It is primarily concerned with the Medicaid expansion and growing need for care as the …

Three Essays On Social Health Insurance In Developing Countries: The Case Study Of Ghana, Stephen Ofori Abrokwah

Dissertations

More than 2 billion people live in developing countries with health systems constrained by inequitable access and inadequate funding. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 150 million of these people suffer financial breakdown every year having to make unexpected out-of-pocket expenditures for emergency care.

To improve health and reduce the financial burden on households, a number of developing countries, including Ghana, Colombia, and Peru, have recently introduced social health insurance programs which are heavily subsidized. The dissertation is a collection of three essays looking at how individual health care choices changed as a result of the availability of …

Coveting The Backstage: A College Student Audience Study Regarding Authenticity Construction In The Reality Television Viewing Process, Lisa Marie Kruse

Dissertations

Television is a major staple of daily life for those who live in the United States and reality television has persisted as a primary genre of television programming. While it is unclear just how much reality television (RTV) viewers are watching, the genre’s dominance in primetime lineups suggests that RTV is a main type of programming viewed by television audiences.

Many audience studies have focused on the primary motivations for viewing the genre of reality television converging on four: to satisfy psychological desires (voyeurism, vengeance, and status); to connect with others; to socially learn; and the “quest for authenticity.” The …

Associations Among Indicators Of Depression In Medicaid-Eligible Community-Dwelling Older Adults, Elizabeth A. Byma, Charles W. Given, Barbara A. Given

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Purpose: The purpose of this research was to examine associations among 2 separate Minimum Data Set-Home Care (MDS-HC) depression measures (the Depression Rating Scale [DRS] and medical diagnosis of depression) with billed antidepressant medications in Medicaid paid claim files. Design and Methods: The sample for this cross-sectional research included 3,041 Medicaid-eligible older adult participants in a Home and Community Based Waiver Program and used data from the MDS-HC, Version 1 and Medicaid Paid Claim Files. Sensitivity and specificity analyses, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis, and t tests were utilized. Results: DRS scoring indicated that 15.4% of participants had behaviors …

Equity Or Marginalization? The High School Course-Taking Of Students Labeled With A Learning Disability, Dara Shifrer, Rebecca Callahan, Chandra Muller

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Placement of some students into the courses needed only for high school graduation and others into those that prepare them for college constitutes academic stratification. This study uses data from the Education Longitudinal Study of 2002 to investigate whether students labeled with learning disabilities complete fewer academic courses by the end of high school compared to their peers who are not labeled. Results indicate large disparities in completion of college preparatory coursework, especially in math, science, and foreign language, even net of students’ academic preparation for high school and their cognitive and noncognitive skills. The evidence supports the possibility that …

Faculty Newsletter (1st Issue), Office Of Service-Learning, Lingnan University

Faculty Newsletters 教職員通訊

No abstract provided.

Gender And Marital Status Differences In Retirement Planning, Maximiliane E. Szinovacz, Gerontology Institute, University Of Massachusetts Boston

Gerontology Institute Publications

During the past decades, women have increasingly joined the labor force and worked in their later years. Yet women, especially married women, often have shorter work histories than their male counterparts due to taking time off for child care or care for ailing relatives. Are they also different in their retirement expectations? To answer this question, we explore gender and marital status differences in retirement plans.

A Content Analysis Of A&E'S Hoarders, Samantha J. Redwine

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The interest in hoarding has peaked since its first clinical definition in 1996 and is evident by six television shows centered on the topic. This thesis reports the results a content analysis of two seasons (21 episodes) of the popular T.V. series A&E’s Hoarders. People rationalize hoarding in ways that both differ and overlap. Doctors, professional organizers, hoarders and their loved ones collectively frame hoarding as a medical and mental health problem. The results suggest that Americans’ perceptions of hoarding behavior has shifted from one that is deviant behavior to one that is medicalized.

Men's Modesty, Religion, And The State: Spaces Of Collision, Karen M. Morin

Faculty Journal Articles

This article examines religious practices in the United States, which govern modesty and other dress norms for men. I focus both on the spaces within which they most collide with regulatory regimes of the state and the legal implications of these norms, particularly for observant Muslim men. Undergirding the research are those ‘‘gender equality’’ claims made by many religious adherents, that men are required to maintain proper modesty norms just as are women. Also undergirding the research is the extensive anti-Islam bias in American culture today. The spaces within which men’s religiously proscribed dress and grooming norms are most at …

Factors And Motivations Behind Volunteering At Domestic Violence Emergency Shelters, Amy Fowler

HIM 1990-2015

Volunteerism is a commonly researched topic however, much scarcer is research into the factors or motivations behind volunteering at domestic violence emergency shelters. Knowing the motivating factors that lead people to dedicate their time to different organizations is important because it gives us an understanding of what can be done in order to get other people involved in pro-social activities that benefit society as a whole. Just as there are different types of individuals who volunteer their time, there are different factors and motivators that compel those individuals to do so. Research to date has identified some common motivators. One …

Perceptions Of Sex Offenders On College Campuses, Dayanne Harvey

HIM 1990-2015

As previous research has indicated, it is not a common societal norm that sex offenders generally have a negative connotation associated with them. These types of perceptions are held without considering the varying types of sexual offenders and sexual offenses. The legislation concerning sex offenders is broad, and therefore encompasses a lot of different offenses and people. Notification of these types of offenders varies by state, but all states require sex offenders to register. A number of colleges also require sex offenders to register before attending classes. This research focuses on student's perception of sex offenders on college campuses. That …

The Formalities Of Informal Urbanism: Technical And Scholarly Knowledge At Work In Do-It‐Yourself Urban Design, Gordon Douglas

Faculty Publications, Urban and Regional Planning

Among the numerous ways people make illegal or unauthorized alterations to urban space, of particular interest in recent years have been the creative, local, and often anonymous efforts at informal but functional “improvement” to the built environment where the state or property owners have failed to act – practices I call “do-it-yourself urban design.” Authorities, planners, and community members alike rightfully wonder about the meanings of these actions, and the questions they raise about rights, responsibilities, benefits, and consequences. Building from alarger qualitative study on DIY urban design across eleven cities, this paper focuses on the motivations, methods, and self-perceptions …

Characteristics Of 4-H Participants And Their Psychosocial Development, Lauralee Lyons

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Volunteerism is an important component in the 4-H program. It was initially used as a method to help agents reach the many youth interested in participating in 4-H. Community service has since become a required component for every club project. Research shows that volunteering can impact youth in many different ways. Other research shows that 4-H youth are more likely to contribute or do some type of community service.

The present study uses the Modified Extended Version of the Object Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOMEIS), the Cognitive Autonomy and Self-Evaluation (CASE) inventory, and an instrument specifically designed to study …

The Influence Of Contextual Factors On Community Reintegration Among Service Members Injured In The Global War On Terrorism, Brent Hawkins

All Dissertations

Community reintegration among military service members with physical and psychological injuries sustained during combat has been an emerging issue since the beginning of the Global War on Terror (GWOT) in 2001. Injured service members from the GWOT, including Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation New Dawn, are much more likely to survive their injuries when compared to previous wars such as the Vietnam War and World War II (Holcomb, Stansbury, Champion, Wade, & Bellamy, 2006). Therefore, many more injured service members are receiving physical rehabilitation and mental health services to assist them in transitioning back into their homes …

Decoding Literary Aids: A Study On Issues Of The Body, Masculinity, And Self Identity In U.S. Aids Literature From 1984-2011, Alexander Shimon Abrams

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Rather than waiting decades to respond, novelists of nearly every literary genre began conceptualizing the AIDS epidemic shortly after the first documented case of the virus in the United States in 1981. Writers, feeling a sense of urgency, wasted little time constructing didactic texts that differ from much historical fiction in that they were written as the tragedy they are commenting on occurred. However, AIDS literature has changed as the disease has spread well beyond the gay communities of San Francisco and New York, causing people to reexamine their longstanding beliefs on masculinity, sexuality, and body politics.

My Master's thesis …

"Having Our Say": High Achieving African American Male College Graduates Speak About Parental Involvement And Parenting Style, Lynn Cheryl Lanier Odom

Dissertations

This study examined the patterns of parental involvement and parenting styles of a particular sample of academically successful African American males who attended and graduated from historically Black colleges or universities. More specifically, investigated was the presence of any relationships between parental involvement, parenting styles, grade point average, family structure, and parent(s) educational level. An online self­ report instrument was administered to 36 participants. Information gathered focused on how the graduates viewed their parents' child-rearing or parenting style during their educational experiences from kindergarten to the 12th grade. Three students agreed to participate in interviews designed to provide more information …

Multiple Motherhoods: An Examination Of Mother Status On Life Satisfaction And Psychological Distress, Kayla M. Pritchard

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Motherhood represents a status that has substantial cultural meaning. The ways in which people think about motherhood, however, tend to be limited to biology. Among partnered or married women, this study seeks to compare variations in motherhood by recognizing women as biological mothers, stepmothers, and double mothers. Double mothers are a previously unexamined category of motherhood that refers to women who are both biological and stepmothers. Using the National Survey of Fertility Barriers, I assess potential differences in life satisfaction and psychological distress across these three mother statuses and two types of non-mothers (voluntary childfree and involuntary childless women). Factors …

The Role Of Body Surveillance, Body Shame, And Body Self-Consciousness During Sexual Activities In Women's Sexual Experience, Kimberly Claudat

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Objectification theory is a social constructivist framework that aims to explain how sociocultural and intrapersonal variables impact women's mental health. To date, however, few studies have used an objectification framework to examine the relationship between body image and sexual functioning in ethnically diverse samples of women. Consequently, the present study used the tenets of objectification theory to examine body image and sexuality in women. Specifically, this study investigated the relationships between body surveillance, body shame, body self-consciousness during sexual activities, and sexual satisfaction in American female college students. Participants completed self-report measures of demographic information, body shame, body surveillance, body …

The Impact Of Sexual Arousal On The Category Specificity Of Women's Visual Attention To Erotic Stimuli, Sarah Jones

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Research has shown that women have a much less category-specific pattern of visual attention to erotic stimuli than do men. That is, when simultaneously presented with male and female erotic stimuli, heterosexual women attend much more evenly to both male and female erotic stimuli than do heterosexual men, who attend almost exclusively to female stimuli. The present study investigated one proposed explanation for women's more diffuse visual attention patterns - that erotic female images have arousal value for heterosexual women. To test this hypothesis, heterosexual women were presented with either a 12-minute neutral, non-arousing video (n = 19) or a …

The Relationship Between Sex-Typing And Help-Seeking Behaviors In Adults, Joshua Juvrud

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The process of expressing what is masculine promotes attitudes and behaviors that can discourage men from seeking help, contributing to numerous health issues in males. The purpose of this study was to explore how personally endorsed gender stereotypes vs. gender stereotyped attitudes impacted help-seeking behavior. In the current study, female and male adults completed challenging puzzle tasks, recalled previous health help-seeking behavior, and completed sex-typed measures. Females utilized personally endorsed gender stereotypes more during the puzzle tasks, while males utilized both personally endorsed gender stereotypes as well as gender stereotyped attitudes. When males recalled health-related events, however, personally endorsed feminine …

Beliefs In Action: Ideologies, Motivations, And Capital Among English As A Second Language Learners, Damon Lasiter

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Language learning motivations among immigrants are tied - via language ideologies - to socio-economic position, social networks, and problems encountered by the language learners in their everyday lives. Research into immigrants' reasons for language learning has often overlooked these factors (see Klassen & Burnaby, 1993, and Norton, 1995), but I offer in this thesis that the above factors are foundations for many immigrants' language ideologies - beliefs that people have about language. These language ideologies are, in turn, the foundations upon which one's motivations to learn a language are based. Using a Bourdieuvian paradigm, where inequitable positions of power exist …

A Social Justice Perspective In Anti-Bullying Program Implementation, Monica Vanderheiden

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Oppression is in our everyday lives. Children get to experience it first hand in school by simply being different than others. Bullying has become a serious problem in American schools and many programs have been implemented to address it. This thesis grew out of a large evaluation study of anti-bullying program implemented in a large school district located in the Pacific Southwest. The main goal of this thesis is to continue the research process of the large evaluation study by focusing on the theme of implementation. Another goal is understand social justice as it relates to anti-bulling program evaluation. In …

Testing Orthodox Utilitarian And Extrajudical Determinants Of Incarceration In The U.S. At The State-Level, 1980-2005, Pavel V. Vasiliev

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This project is a theory-driven secondary data analysis of state-level incarceration trends in the U.S. between 1980 and 2005. I replicate and advance Smith's (2004) study of the relationship between the socioeconomic, demographic, political, electoral, and criminal justice factors and incarceration rates at the state level. The purpose of this project is to determine the empirical validity of the major explanations of the incarceration trends in the U.S. I advance Smith's (2004) study using important novel elements. First, I extend the scrutinized historic period by a decade by compiling time-series data for 1980-2005. Second, I employ a more sophisticated analytic …

Christ's Response To The Last, The Least, The Lost, The Left Out - Is The Church Living Up To Christ's Standard?, Jerry Staples

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

There is a plethora of statistics concerning how many un-churched people there are in the United States and the socioeconomic ladder does not discriminate who fits this lost category. Yet, the concern of this project deals with the gang member, drug dealer, drug users, pimps and prostitutes. The intent is to take outreach to the street through cook outs, Holy block parties, street revivals and the like. The rationale of this project is to show how one can reach, teach and keep this group of people, the potential dangers, and positive consequences associated with it. The potential value of this …