Place and Environment Commons^™

Review Of School Violence In Context: Culture, Neighborhood, Family, School And Gender. Rami Benbenishty And Ron Avu Astor. Reviewed By Susan Stone., Susan Stone

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Rami Benbenishty and Ron Avi Astor, School Violence in Context: Culture, Neighborhood, Family, School and Gender. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. $39.95 hardcover.

The Politics Of Indigenization: A Case Study Of Development Of Social Work In China, Miu Chung Yan, Kwok Wah Cheung

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Internationalization and indigenization are dialectical processes of knowledge transfer. However, social work literature has paid scant attention to the process of indigenization, which can best be understood as one of recontextualization. This paper introduces Basil Bernstein's theory, which contends that recontextualization is a political process, as an analytical tool for us to understand the politics of indigenization. To demonstrate the usefulness of this tool, this paper analyzes how, in China, the Ministry of Civil Affairs and social work academics interactively compete for this control.

Explorations Of Self: A Philosophical Inquiry, Meredith Rathbun

Senior Honors Projects

Asking “Who am I?” seems to be something that everybody ponders. This concept of “I”—what is it? We all have an individual and unique “I”—something that has been with each of us since birth, something that has changed and grown, but also stayed the same in many ways. My question “What is The Self?” is imperative. What is it that experiences life, if not The Self? When a 99-year-old man watches his last sunset, reflecting on his life, what inside of him is doing that reflecting? As you read my ideas on this page, what inside of you is processing …

Symbolic Interaction Theory And Architecture, Ronald W. Smith, Valerie Bugni

Sociology Faculty Research

Architectural sociology is receiving renewed attention but still remains a neglected area of investigation. As a major theoretical perspective within sociology, symbolic interaction helps us understand how the designed physical environment and the self are intertwined, with one potentially influencing and finding expression in the other; how architecture contains and communicates our shared symbols; and how we assign agency to some of our designed physical environment, which then invites in a different kind of self-reflection. This article discusses numerous instances of symbolic interaction theory–architecture connections, with applied examples showing how symbolic interactionists and architects can collaborate on projects to the …

Trust In Wildland Fire And Fuel Management Decisions, William T. Borrie, Adam Liljeblad

Society and Conservation Faculty Publications

Public land managers are stewards of public lands and of the relationship between the public and these lands. Maintaining one aspect of this relationship, trust in the agency, can be challenging. Lack of trust can influence public response to management decisions, including about wildland fire use. By considering the factors that influence trust, managers can be more effective in accomplishing fire stewardship objectives.

Donde Habite El Olvido (Reflected In The Photograph), Michaela Mccaughey

Senior Honors Projects

The concept of place, so intangible and yet embedded in all, remains a complicated and debated philosophical topic. What is place? Why are we drawn to certain places and averse to others? Why does a sense of home continue to feel so necessary to us – when there we are nurtured by it and when separated we long for it. Art works, places in themselves, provoke similar questions in us. We are drawn to certain works of art; they signify something to us in their being-in-the-world. Their place matters to us. Art is a place you can return (home) to. …

Dance Club Culture, Amy M. Iseler

Masters Theses

My research examines the dance club culture in a mid-sized Northwestern city. I explore this subject through participant observation and interviews with dance club patrons. The issues I address in my research include dance club music, music videos, alcohol, clothing, sexual behavior, non-verbal communication and the dance club environment. The purpose of this Masters Thesis is to determine whether dance club culture perpetuates sexist attitudes and beliefs within its patrons.

This original piece of research is based in existing literature which informs the individual elements of the dance club culture. The experiences of dance club patrons demonstrate how these elements …

Nixi: A Case Study Of The Influences Of China’S Economic Development On The Fringe Of Tibet, Zachary Johnson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

On the eastern mountainside of Nixi cling several tall, red earthen houses, the winding road to Deqin cuts between; they face a swell in the middle of the valley where several more houses stand, and one in mid-construction. The two clusters of beautiful Tibetan houses are connected by a fairly recently added crushed stone road, walled in by rough stonework patched with cement. The village is surrounded by evergreens and blossoming mountain laurels. To the north the green mountains are staggered until they slowly fade into pale blue creases humbled by a high snowcapped range at the Tibetan border. To …

Geophilia, Paul Faulstich

Pitzer Faculty Publications and Research

Extrapolated from E. O. Wilson's concept of biophilia, geophilia asserts that humans have an organic propensity to find wildlands emotionally compelling. It exists as a human tendency to emotionally connect with natural landscapes.

From The Forest To The River: Citizens' Views Of Stakeholder Engagement, Gregg B. Walker, Susan L. Senecah, Steven E. Daniels

Sociology, Social Work and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Since the early 1990s collaboration and consensus processes have become associated with success in the environmental policy and natural resource policy arenas. Interest in collaboration and consensus processes have emerged, in part, out of a frustration with more conventional efforts used to involve stakeholders, to work though conflicts, and to make decisions in the environmental and natural resource policy arenas. Collaboration and consensus processes, when designed well and applied appropriately, provide opportunities for meaningful stakeholder engagement. This essay features aspects of two government-led or agency-based (Koontz et al. 2004; Moore and Koontz 2003) planning efforts that consider collaboration and citizens/stakeholder …

Imagined Cities, Real Futures: Simcity And The Co-Production Of Urban Dystopias, Samuel Gerald Collins

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

While the author of this chapter agrees with anthropologists who reject an urban studies predicated on postmodern surfaces and insist that we analyze cities in regional, national and global contexts of political economy, he nevertheless suggests that the urban imaginary has never been so important: Movies, television and music have proven all too useful in the continued vilification of an urban underclass. In 2001, in order to explore the role media might play in the structuring and delimitating of the ways we think about cities, Collins assigned SimCity, a computer simulation game combining models of urban development with cellular automata, …

“Peace Is More Than The End Of Bombing”: The Second Stage Of The Vieques Struggle, Sherrie Baver

Publications and Research

The nature of colonialism in Puerto Rico has caused most political issues to be viewed within the framework of status politics. In the first stage of the struggle to expel the U.S. Navy from the island (1999–2003), civil society in Puerto Rico united when the issues were reframed with links not to status politics but to human rights and social justice. Viequenses symbolized for Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico, on the mainland, and in the world at large the costs of military colonialism. In the second stage of the struggle, since the military’s departure, Viequenses have struggled to control the …

An Analysis Of The Relationship Between Social Capital And Subjective Well-Being In Four Regions Of Spain In The Mid-1990s, Maria Puerta Francos

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research offers an analysis of two concepts: subjective well-being and social capital. I examine each concept separately, looking at their underlying determinants and characteristics, and I also look at the links between these two notions, as there is theoretical support for their interdependent relationship. I have conducted data analysis of five samples, all part of the World Values Survey 1995-1996. The WVS 1995-1996 offers vast data for Spain and for four autonomous regions - Basque Country, Andalusia, Galicia and Valencia. For the national sample N= 1211. Regional sampling is as follows: Basque Country (N=2205), Andalusia (N=1803), Galicia (N=1200), and …

Review Of One Nation, Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All. Mark Robert Rank. Reviewed By Joel Blau., Joel Blau

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Book review of Mark Robert Rank, One Nation Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. $29.95 hardcover.

La Migración Por Obligación: Los Movimientos Migratorios De Los Mapuche, Rebecca Jones

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This project seeks to explore connections between the neoliberal economic model with the migratory patterns of the mapuche, an indiginous people group in Chile. Since the imposition of neoliberalism the mapuche have been forced to migrate from the country to urban centers in order to survive. Chile has taken control over the majority of mapuche land, forcing an economy of subsistence agriculture on the pueblo. Thus, the youth vacate their communities, migrating to the cities to try and provide a future for their families. In so doing, the influences of the dominant culture permeate nearly every aspect of their lives. …

Compendium Of Quality Indicators: Older Adults, Adults With Physical Disabilities, Adults With Mental Retardation/Autism Living At Home, In The Community Or In Long Term Care Facilities, Julie T. Fralich Mba, Stuart Bratesman Mpp

Disability & Aging

Researchers at the Muskie School of Public Service compiled over 15 tools and surveys. Included in the report are Participant Experience Surveys, Performance Indicators, Experience Surveys, Core Indicators, Consumer Surveys, Behavioral Risk Factors, Outcome Measures, and a variety of Quality Measures. Sample questions and tools are shown in this Compendium of Quality Indicators

Getting Grounded In The Post Hometown World, Hedley Burrell, David E. Drew

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

Remember when Americans had hometowns? "Where are you from?" we'd ask one another.

And the answer would come back: New York City. St. Joseph, Mo. Atlanta. Santa Barbara, Calif. Chattanooga, Tenn.

But odds are that now we'd get a more complicated response. It'd go something like this: "Well, I was born in Atlanta but we moved to Baltimore when I was 11 and in my junior year of high school, we went out to L.A. I've been in Chicago for a year."

And even this might not be quite accurate. The speaker may have been born in an Atlanta exurb …

Access To Housing For Persons With Disabilities: Lessons Learned From Three Demonstration Projects, Cutler, Disability And Aging, Eileen Griffin Jd

Disability & Aging

The Quality Choices for Maine project was conducted from 2001-2004. This report focuses on Access to Services, one part of the three-year RCSC Quality Grant. The specific housing related goal was “to improve access to community housing for people with disabilities of all types.” Project activities were overseen by the Access to Services Technical Assistance Group and a variety of stakeholders. Read the activity summaries, lessons learned and recommendations on how to sustain the work.

Discovering Your Cinematic Cultural Identity, John Shelton Lawrence, Marty S. Knepper

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

This paired set explores the experience of cultural identities constructed by and experienced through popular film. The essay “Discovering Your Cinematic Cultural Identity” reflects the authors’ decades of residence in the state of Iowa and their personal irritation with the stereotypes that Hollywood regularly calls upon in evoking the American rural. We gained a new perspective on this sort of imagery when it surfaced again in Field of Dreams (1989) and The Bridges of Madison County novel (1992) and film (1995). Each of these films triggered unprecedented film tourism for the state. Through an exploration of these films and others …

The Place Of Race: Ethnicity, Location And Progress In The Fiction Of Chinua Achebe And Ralph Ellison, Harry Olufunwa

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

This paper examines the ways in which ethnicity and location intersect in selected works of fiction of Chinua Achebe and Ralph Ellison. It argues that the traceable correlation between ethnic origin and geographical location in the novels of these writers affects perceptions of and possibilities for personal and communal growth. Drawing upon Achebe’s No Longer At Ease and Ellison’s Juneteenth, the paper explores the ways in which characters and situations demonstrate the significance of ethnicity as major determinant of progress or catastrophe in multiethnic societies. It argues that the central characters of the two texts are culturally dislocated and …

Placemaking: A Democratic Project, Lynda H. Schneekloth, Robert G. Shibley

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

Democracy in a post-industrial society such as the United States is increasingly characterized as a system of governance orchestrated by the media to shape a mass of passive consumers who live in non-places. Because of the scale and structure of the political economy, we have come to understand the body politic as an adversarial system in which the primary responsibility of the citizen is to vote and consume. After 9/11, an additional alienating element, fear, has entered into our national imagination of passivity leading many people to believe that they are collectively powerless in the face of unknown terrors. If …

All The World's A Coffee Shop: Reflections On Place, Community And Identity, Anthony M. Orum

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

This essay uses a personal experience, the routine of daily activity at my local coffee shop, to illustrate the importance of places to the nature of human experience. Every day, I argue, the conversations and interactions that take place at the White Hen store nearby my house serve to reaffirm a number of important features of my life: (1) a sense of my own identity; (2) a sense of a larger community of people outside my family and close friends; (3) a sense of civility, of small kindnesses and courtesies among people who, on the face of it, seem very …

Kellogg Foundation Chooses Nebraska Initiative For National Grant: Hometown Competitiveness, Jeff Yost

Heartland Center for Leadership Development Materials

Lincoln, Nebraska, USA—HomeTown Competitiveness, a Nebraska initiative currently working in seven counties and communities in Nebraska, has been chosen as one of six recipients of grants provided through the W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s 75^th Anniversary Entrepreneurship Development Systems for Rural America.

The $2 million award, over three years, was approved by the Kellogg Foundation Board of Directors meeting at Battle Creek, MI last month. More than 180 applications were received for the grants to develop six national models in rural entrepreneurship.

HomeTown Competitiveness (HTC) provides a framework for rural communities to help them identify reachable goals and strategies focused …

Buscando El Cusco: Análisis Del Turismo En La Ciudad De Los Incas, Nicole A. Grant

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Al principio, yo empecé ésta investigación con motivos de exponer la inautenticidad de las experiencias turisticas debido a la increíble dependencia de las guías de viajes tales como Lonely Planet, Rough Guide, Fodor’s, Moon’s Handbook, etc. Andando por las calles de Cusco, uno no puede evitar una vista en que casi cada turista tiene una guía de viaje entre sus manos en búsqueda de la experiencia descrita en su libro. El turismo masivo ha creado un cierto tipo de turista que vienen a Cusco con poco conocimiento de la ciudad y muy poca iniciativa de descubrir algo más allá de …

A Falta De Voz Quilombola No Canto Brasileiro: As Conseqüências Da Desvalorização Da Terra Quilombola Pelo Estado Brasileiro, Maíra Dos Santos

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

No Brasil, existe uma longa história de um racismo institucional. Ou seja, desde a escravidão, a população afro-brasileira tem sido abandonada pelo Estado brasileiro. Esta pesquisa explora a relação entre o Estado e uma comunidade remanescente de Quilombo situada na Chapada Diamantina no Estado da Bahia. A relação entre os dois é estudada em termos dos direitos à terra Quilombola. Para os Quilombos, o direito à sua própria terra é o mais importante para a preservação das comunidades e também é o direito mais negado pelo Estado brasileiro. A negação desse direito tem muitas conseqüências para os quilombolas porque eles …

Environmental Issues, N.A,

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

No abstract provided.

Juanitas Family: Catherine Hufana (Youth), Lori Iwamasa

Filipino American Stories

Catherine Hufana grew up in Stockton, California. Her Filipino culture runs deep in her family and she has always felt “Filipino.” However, after visiting the Phillipines in 1992, Catherine realized that she identified much more strongly with Americans than native Filipinos. As an American, Catherine’s upbringing was much different than her parents. She was raised in a household that spoke mostly English, although her parents are bilingual. As Catherine struggled to fit in with her American peers, her parents continued to introduce her to their own Filipino culture…

Sosa Family: Evangelina Sosa (Elder), Tammy Hunt

Mexican American Stories

Evangelina Sosa begins her story of love and family in Sonora, Mexico. She was born in a small town called Agua Prieta, but raised in Sonora. Life in Mexico revolved around her large family of eleven brothers and sisters. Her father worked as a carpenter and her mother was a homemaker and seamstress. Although Evangelina was only able to attend school through the sixth grade, her mother taught her important domestic skills. Evangelina learned to sew and cook at a very young age, which enabled her to help her mother care for the large family and assist with the sewing…

Cuevas Family: Ricardo Cuevas (Middle), Janelle Fleming

Mexican American Stories

Growing up as the eldest of five children, Ricardo Cuevas had a sense of responsibility and of being more of an adult than his younger siblings. Ricardo was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, and grew up in the neighboring town of Zapotitan. He has three sisters—Reynalda, Angelica, Marisela and a brother Gerardo. His feelings of responsibility were enhanced by the absence of his father, who first came to the U.S. in 1961. Ricardo’s father wanted to make a better life for his family, but to do that he first had to leave behind his wife and two young children…

Komure Family: Dean Komure (Middle), Lori Iwamasa

Japanese American Stories

Dean Komure grew up, knowing in his heart, that if his word was good, he would always have something. That would be the pride of being a Japanese American. Dean learned this from his parents and it is what he has passed on to his children…