Politics and Social Change Commons^™

Emergence: Social Movements, Law Enforcement, And Defending The Sanctity Of Life, Diana Elizabeth Aroche

Doctoral Dissertations

This study examines the aftermath of national social movements advocating for police reforms and accountability, with San Francisco emerging as a pivotal city at the forefront of criminal justice and policing transformations. Rebuilding community trust and implementing substantive police reforms aimed at preserving lives has proven to be a formidable challenge. The convergence of interests among all stakeholders, driven by a shared commitment to dismantling institutional racism and implementing reforms that fostered trust with communities of color and law enforcement, played a pivotal role.

A significant aspect of this reform process has been the development of social movement convergence, where …

Coalitional Response(Ability) In Rhetoric And Composition, Zoe Nicole Mcdonald

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

This dissertation considers the literacy practices of progressive coalitions as a provocative way to examine central responsibilities of rhetorical scholars, college writing instructors, and writing program administrators. Through attention to case studies, this dissertation suggests opportunities to consider social differences as crucial assets for political advocacy, scholarly knowledge production, and teaching strategies.

Advisor: Stacey Waite

That Way: An Examination Of Male Relationships In Film During The Hays Code, Jane Knudsen

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

The Hays Code (1934-1968) influenced the construct of United States masculinity and the discourse surrounding masculine presentation between the 1920s to the 1960s. The Hays Code and World War II affected the culture surrounding male/male relationships in the United States. Previous research done by David Lugowski (1999) and Jeffrey Suzik (1999) shows that both World Wars led to crises of masculinity in which the hegemonic ideal of masculinity was restructured to establish men as providers and warriors, and Code-era films reflected the discourse. To understand the gender roles in the 20^th century, I analyzed the Hays code, male bonds, …

Reaping What We Sow: The Implications And Outcomes Of Mississippi House Bill 1125, The “Regulate Experimental Adolescent Procedures (Reap)” Act, Kerigan Brewer

Honors Theses

Mississippi House Bill 1125 (MS HB1125), also known as the “Regulate Experimental Adolescent Procedures (REAP) Act,” was signed into law by Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves in early 2023 (REAP Act, 2023). It is one of multiple policies passed into law that limit the rights of transgender people. This thesis aims to clarify the history of the trans community, dispel myths around gender-affirming health care and the trans identity, and discuss the current state of anti-trans laws and transgender rights. Using a policy analysis framework by DiNitto (2011), MS HB1125 is analyzed on points like its social and economic costs, the …

Cultural And Structural Barriers Of Utilizing Mental Health Services In A School-Based Setting For Latinx Populations, Silvia Lozano, Bridgette Guadalupe Calderon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This qualitative research study aimed to reduce mental health service disparities in Latinx communities and helps fill in the gap by addressing cultural and structural barriers to utilizing MHS in a school-based setting for Latinx youth. There is limited research regarding Latinx parents’ perspectives and the reservations they have on utilizing school-based mental health services (MHS) for their children. This study identified six important themes: cultural factors, trust and rapport, reservations, access and awareness, parental involvement and challenges, and school-based resources. Implications for school districts are that they can use these findings to increase early intervention mental behavioral health programs …

The Viral Spread Of Xenophobia: Analyzing The Influence Of Far-Right Politics On Anti-Asian Sentiment Expressed On Social Media During Covid-19., Robert F. Arnold Iii

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Throughout history, viral outbreaks have frequently led to the emergence of biased and discriminatory attitudes, often targeting populations that deviate from Western norms. These sentiments commonly manifest as xenophobia and racism (Chen, 2020; Chou, 2021). This report serves as an in-depth analysis of the role far-right political phrasing of Covid-19 as the “Chinese Virus,” played in the proliferation of anti-Asian and xenophobic attitudes, expressed on the social media platform X (Twitter). This study also aims to better understand the various different factors that cause followers of far-right politics to engage and believe in anti-Asian sentiment online. Using Integrated Threat Theory …

Food Policy Council, Alexandra G. Winn, Kirsten Hannah Jaquish, Shelby Lynn Davis, Alexandra N. Ehlers, Joshua Lohnes

Undergraduate Scholarship

Nourishing Networks is a workshop that promotes the development of Food Policy Councils, which are a group of community members that advocate for the Right to Food in their community. Through conversation surrounding food access barriers and strategies in their community, the workshop aims to educate participants on how they can improve food access in their community. This research project sought to conduct Nourishing Networks meetings in a variety of West Virginia counties with the intention of accompanying local community members and organizations to create a Food Policy Council for their region. Using a standardized organization process, curriculum, and reporting …

Reclaiming Housing For Sustainable And Equitable Development, Ethan Harner, Gabrielle Fraizer, Bradley Wilson

Undergraduate Scholarship

Across West Virginia, Appalachia, the South, and other regions which have borne the historic brunt of extraction, capital flight, and systemic lack of opportunity, cooperative and community-based solutions to economic challenges have historically and presently been found in and amongst marginalized communities. As a critical component of community wellbeing, development, and prosperity, we situate housing as a necessary component to the understanding of cooperative, grassroots, and solidarity forms of economic organization. In this we explore the ways community-based housing solutions contribute to senses of community and solidarity both within housing structures and the broader community. We place these findings in …

No. 18: Refugee Protection And Food Security In Kampala, Uganda, Andrea M. Brown

Migration and Food Security (MiFOOD) Network

This study proposes strategies to better recognize and protect the food security needs of Kampala’s refugee population. Uganda is Africa’s largest refugee host, with a policy approach that has been widely lauded for its flexible settlement provisions and commitment to durable solutions. However, growing refugee populations and underfunding have led to serious pressures, severely exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. Food insecurity in designated refugee settlements is at critical levels: 75% of residents are food insecure. One unique aspect of Uganda’s refugee governance approach is the allowance of refugee populations to self-settle outside of designated camps, in the capital city, Kampala. …

What Comes After The Critique Of The Corporate University? Toward A Syndicalist University, Clyde W. Barrow

Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis

For the past three decades, university faculty have produced a cascade of contemporary protest literature that routinely criticizes the knowledge factory, academic capitalism, managed professionals, college for sale, the university in ruins, the corporate corruption of higher education, and University, Inc. University faculty are regularly warned about the fall of the faculty, the last professors, and the last intellectuals. This article reviews the historical development of the corporate and neoliberal university, but it takes the next step of asking what is to be done after the critique of the corporate university. It calls on faculty to engage in a variety …

Charge The Cockpit Or Die: An Anatomy Of Fear-Driven Political Rhetoric In American Conservatism, Daniel Hostetter

Senior Honors Theses

Subthreshold negative emotions have superseded conscious reason as the initial and strongest motivators of political behavior. Political neuroscience uses the concepts of negativity bias and terror management theory to explore why fear-driven rhetoric plays such an outsized role in determining human political actions. These mechanisms of human anthropology are explored by competing explanations from biblical and evolutionary scholars who attempt to understand their contribution to human vulnerabilities to fear. When these mechanisms are observed in fear-driven political rhetoric, three common characteristics emerge: exaggerated threat, tribal combat, and religious apocalypse, which provide a new framework for explaining how modern populist leaders …

Professionals, Not Laborers: Historical Contingencies Impacting Faculty Prestige And Unionization, Camden M. Webb

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Some higher education faculty believe that unionization is beneath their status, despite lacking ownership of the means of production. While higher education experienced increasing importance in the United States during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, faculty unionization saw periods of both growth and decline. From a macro-level framework in social structures of accumulation (SSA) theory, with additions from Marx, the Ehrenreichs, Bourdieu, and Simmel, my research develops a theory to explain the impact of changing social structures on status reproduction and faculty unionization. SSA theory explores the historical contingencies that impact relationships between institutions and capital accumulation. Marx’s class relationships, …

Voices Beyond Bars: A Qualitative Study Examining Occupational Participation For Formerly Incarcerated Women, Brianna Correia, Mary Smith Otd, Otr/L, Cynthia Simons Rps, Mhps

Spring 2024 Virtual OTD Capstone Symposium

This capstone project addressed the research question: “What are the systemic, societal, and personal barriers and facilitators to occupational participation and engagement that formerly incarcerated women experience in Texas?” The project aimed to advocate for formerly incarcerated women living in Texas by interviewing and collaborating with them to create an advocacy booklet highlighting their lived experiences. Following USAHS IRB approval, recruitment, and screening, 20 participants engaged in a semi-structured interview via Zoom. Insights on their experience post-incarceration in Texas regarding housing, employment, family, healthcare, and change were explored. The data obtained was analyzed and codes and themes were identified. When …

How Do Differences In Sex Education Alter Perception Of Consent?, Hannah G. Stone

ATU Scholars Symposium

The following research was conducted to answer the question: how do differences in sex education alter perception of consent? As of 2021, only 7 states and the District of Columbia mandate comprehensive sex education policies that include consent education, and in contrast, 17 states do not mandate comprehensive or non-comprehensive sex education (“Sex and HIV Education” 2021). Because sex education in schools is where a large proportion of young adults receive all of their instruction on sexual topics, it can be inferred that the lack of sex education would constitute a lack of consent education as well (Deluna 2019; “Section …

An Ecology Against The Right. Learning Uncertainty And Humility From Ecosystems, Pierre L. Ibisch, Mona Eikel-Pohen, Elias Iceman, Jake Snelling

Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics - All Scholarship

This article is a translation from the German to English. The title of the original is:

Ibisch, P.L. (2020): Eine Ökologie gegen rechts. Von Ökosystemen Unsicherheit und Demut lernen. In: Leitschuh, H., A. Brunnengräber, P.L. Ibisch, R. Loske, M. Müller, J. Sommer & E.-U. v. Weizsäcker (eds. J. Sommer, P.L. Ibisch, A. Brunnengräber): Ökologie und Heimat. Jahrbuch Ökologie 2021. Hirzel-Verlag, Stuttgart, 191-205.

Gaza War: Too Many Citizens Being Killed, Sheraz Yaqub, Bjørn Edwin, Zane Hammoud, Gabriel Herrera-Almario, Buthaina Jabir, Kristoffer Lassen, Pål Dag Line, Miguel Angel Lopez-Gonzalez, Michael Puttick, Mohammed Ahmed Idrees Saadelnour, José Sampaio-Neto, Raghuram Sampath, Konstantin V. Sementsov, Ajith K. Siriwardena, Ernesto Sparrelid, Alberto Büge Stein, Robert Sutcliffe, Helena Taflin, Hany Takla, Silvio Valdec, Cherisse N. Vinoya, Waleed Zaid, Stephen J. Wigmore

School of Dentistry Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

2023-2024 Online Student Survey Of Priority Issues, Heather D. Flick

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

The purpose of the 2023-2024 Online Student Survey is to provide research backed priorities for the incoming elected senate for the 2024-2025 academic year. Each year the survey is revised based on newly obtained knowledge from coursework as an FHSU Online student as well as past years survey results.

The survey intended to gain insight on what issues are priorities to Fort Hays State University (FHSU) Online students to allow the Online Student Government Association (OSGA) to focus on the most important issues FHSU Online students experience. This is an annual survey which has been evolving each year to best …

Immigration, Moral Panics, And Punishment: The Impact Of Media Coverage And Public Interest On Jail Incarceration, Faraneh Shamserad

Dissertations

Despite extensive empirical evidence showing that immigration does not lead to increases in crime, the purported immigration and crime link has been used to buttress increasingly punitive immigration policies over the past few decades. While previous studies have explored the role of enforcement practices for punishment, this dissertation delves into the mechanisms through which immigrants are transformed into “criminal subjects” and the consequences for punishment at the local level. By integrating moral panic theory with research on immigration, crime, and punishment, I propose that the inflammatory language surrounding immigration in media and public discourse has punitive consequences for immigrants. Moreover, …

Beyond The Binary: Analyzing Transgender Legislation In Spain And Its Implications For Equality And Rights, Stephanie Hernandez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Spain is considered one of the leading countries in LGBT+ acceptance and rights with their progressive laws, gaining a name for itself as a haven for those within the community. In this research paper, I investigate the evolution of transgender legislation in Spain into the current day and how it impacts the public perception and gender affirmative care available to trans people. Focusing primarily on the passage of Trans Ley 4/2023 and the windows it opened in Trans rights. Looking into the improvements made in Trans laws, from Ley 3/2007 to current day. Additionally, this paper will look into attempted …

The Spirit Of Change: Pentecostals And Political Engagement In The Post-Dictatorial Southern Cone In South America, Thiago Camacho

Soc­iology Senior Capstone

The Pentecostal movement is the fastest growing religious movement in the world. It is an evolutive expression of Protestantism that places an emphasis on the Holy Spirit and spiritual solutions to life’s turmoils. This movement has been especially flourishing in the Global South with 86% of believers residing there. As the Western world becomes more secular the future of global Christianity is in the Pentecostal movement. The topic of this research will focus on a specific vein of the Pentecostal movement in Latin America. The Catholic Church has long dominated Latin America, and this move away from Catholicism in favor …

Empoderamiento De Las Mujeres De La Organización Chaski Warmikuna, Iliana Sarai Barnes Diaz

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este artículo examina el trabajo de la organización de mujeres indígenas Chaski Warmikuna, conocidas como “mujeres mensajeras” en kichwa, en la región de Saraguro, Ecuador. El grupo organiza apoyo a mujeres para aprender herramientas y estrategias que les permitan salir de la violencia y sanar sus traumas. A través de entrevistas con mujeres, revelan la prevalencia y normalización de la violencia en algunas comunidades, pero también iluminan el fortalecimiento y empoderamiento que estas mujeres han experimentado para liberarse de la violencia. Además, se señala que la violencia frecuentemente es transmitida de generación en generación en las familias y la sociedad, …

“Making The Bed”: Challenging Ideologies Of Ownership, Nonlocality, And Romanticism In The Age Of The Anthropocene, Ainsley P. Foster

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

The current Age of the Anthropocene marks a recent and rapid transition into a period in climate history that is notably defined by human impact. Modern Western sentiments of grief, frustration, and romanticism as a result of the interplay between domestic and corporate spaces seem to culminate in an overall attitude of apathy and acceptance of the Age of the Anthropocene. Various art forms collaborate to create the current conversation of the causatory and reactionary relationship that humans have with the Anthropocene, offering interpretations of how individuals and corporations view ownership of and responsibilities to the environment. There is a …

The Art Of Engaging The Public: The Effect Of The Arts On Civic Engagement, Kathryn Fraley

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

No abstract provided.

Controlling The Narrative: The Effects Of Media Coverage On Fear Of Crime And Socio-Political Ideology, Andrew Koppelman

Theses

Several decades of study have established an understanding that media have a unique power to influence the perspectives and worldviews of audiences. This phenomenon has been explored through the lenses of Social Learning and Cultivation theory, wherein media appeal to base human tendencies of self-preservation and teaches audiences how to maximize rewards for their actions by acting as a sort of instructor or friendly warning from members of the community. While prior studies have suggested the presence of this effect, little research has been devoted to understanding the ways that this may influence behaviors in viewers. My research seeks to …

Diaspora As A Cultural Hearth: A Case Study Of The Amazigh In Morocco, Maximo Ellis

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Diaspora consists of a group of people who reside in a location different from their imagined homeland. Despite the growing prevalence and prominence of diasporas around the world as contact between cultures becomes more frequent, there is relatively little consensus regarding the nature of diaspora communities and their identity construction. This paper uses the case study of the Amazigh diaspora to reveal some of the nuances and aspects that affect both the creation and spread of identity within diasporas. The Amazigh diaspora differs from other diasporas because it is a historically marginalized and oppressed group within their countries of origin, …

El Derecho A La Interrupción Voluntaria Del Embarazo A Inicios Del Gobierno De Javier Milei (Argentina, 2024) / The Right To The Voluntary Interruption Of Pregnancy At The Beginning Of The Government Of Javier Milei (Argentina, 2024), Willa Rudel

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

El objetivo de esta investigación fue entender las realidades del activismo en relación con el derecho al aborto en Argentina en el período después de la aprobación de la ley 27.610 del derecho a la interrupción voluntaria del embarazo, particularmente en 2020 y durante el gobierno actual de Javier Milei. Para responder la pregunta que articula la presente investigación, realicé seis entrevistas con activistas procedentes de una variedad de formaciones y con distintos tipos de participación en el movimiento. Primero describo la historia del activismo a favor del aborto en Argentina hasta la aprobación de la ley y el estado …

The Impact Of Jordan’S Peacebuilding Efforts In Gaza On Its Domestic Politics, Nina Sretenović

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Israeli-Palestine conflict has persisted for decades, becoming one of the world's longest unresolved conflicts. It is a long-standing struggle for sovereignty and territorial legitimacy on the land between the Jordan River on the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Since the UN Partial Plan in 1947 and the formation of the country of Israel until the most recent war started by the attack of Hamas on October 7, 2023, this conflict has shaped the politics of the Middle East. Jordan as its closest neighbor has especially been impacted by the developments of the conflict. Taking into consideration …

¿Fiesta O Protesta? La Marcha Del Orgullo En La Ciudad De Buenos Aires En Los Inicios De La Era De Milei Party Or Protest? / The City Of Buenos Aires Pride March In The Beginnings Of The Milei Era, Ella Mcdaniel

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este proyecto investiga el estado actual de la Marcha del Orgullo de Buenos Aires en el contexto del nuevo presidente libertario de la ultraderecha, Javier Milei. Se explora la eficacia de la Marcha en poder alcanzar su potencial político a través de la revisión de la historia del movimiento LGBTTI argentino. Además, se realizaron cinco entrevistas semi-estructuradas tanto con organizadores de la Marcha como con participantes para entender los objetivos y métodos del evento desde la perspectiva de lxs involucradxs. Usando principalmente las teorías de interseccionalidad y homonacionalismo, con una base en la teoría de la Estructura de las Oportunidades …

Queerness In Oaxaca: Perceptions Of The Lgbt+ Community, Sylvana Widman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study examines how young Oaxacans perceive the state of LGBT+ acceptance in Oaxaca. In particular, this study surveys a general university student population, in comparison to the perceptions of a focus group of LGBT+ identifying young people. Focus group data was collected through a survey combined with a thirty-minute interview with four participants, while university data was collected through a survey distributed to 31 students at the Language School of Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca. Results from both groups found that participants’ perceived their peers as more accepting than their family or Oaxacan society at large. A significant …

Establishing Consent: The Role Of Women Representatives In Passing Informed Consent Laws, Sophia Stockham

Department of Political Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

What predicts the adoption of informed consent laws for pelvic exams within the United States? As of January 2023, 22 states have adopted informed consent laws for pelvic examinations on women, with eleven being under Democratic control, six being Republican control, and five with divided control between the legislature and gubernatorial level at the time of adoption. Little attention, however, has been given to women’s health mandates outside the issue of abortion and to variation among state partisan adoption regarding informed consent for pelvic exams. This paper examines the impact of partisanship, the percentage of women in the legislature, and …