Theory, Knowledge and Science Commons^™

Can The Lifeworld Save Us From Neoliberal Governmentality? Social Work, Critical Theory, And Habermas, Stephanie A. Bryson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Two years have passed since the 2016 election of Donald J. Trump, and U.S. social work is revisiting its radical stirrings and grappling with its conservative moorings. In this paper, I will argue that as U.S. social work appraises the adequacy of its intellectual leaders, the cultural relevance of its practice models, and its stance toward the Enlightenment ideals of reason, truth, and justice, it might usefully re-examine its relationship to the critical theory legacy of the Frankfurt School, especially the thinking of Jürgen Habermas. My goal is in this essay is to suggest ways in which Habermasian thinking could …

The Role Of Communication Accommodation In Mother-In-Law/Daughter-In-Law Relationships, Erin Claire Shelton

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The goal of this thesis was to further the literature on mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationships by directly employing Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT) to examine relationships between categories of accommodation and relational quality in these relationships. Daughters-in-law (N= 677) were solicited via private Facebook groups to complete an online survey regarding accommodation (their own and their mothers-in-law’s), their feelings of shared family identity, and their relationship satisfaction in their relationship with their mothers-in-law. Results demonstrated relationships between mothers-in-law’s accommodation, overaccommodation, and underaccommodation of their daughters-in-law and daughters-in-law’s feelings of shared family identify and relationship satisfaction. Additionally, relationships were present between daughters-in-law’s …

Integrating Sociological And Psychological Perspectives On Collective Efficacy, Michael Gearhart

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Collective efficacy is rooted in both psychology, and sociology. Discussions of the differences between the sociological and psychological conceptualization and operationalization of collective efficacy is limited. In psychology, collective efficacy reflects a group’s belief that collective action can be successful. In sociology, collective efficacy is a theory that describes the process by which social cohesion is activated as informal social control. Mutual efficacy was designed to incorporate the psychological concept of efficacy into collective efficacy theory. In this study, I conduct a multilevel confirmatory factor analysis to study the factor structure of social cohesion, mutual efficacy, and informal social control …

Durkheim’S Greatest Blunder, Stephen M. Marson, J. Porter Lillis

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

In describing fatalism in Suicide, Durkheim executes two blunders. The first can be categorized in errors of commission while the second should be included in errors of omission. In the error of commission area, he hypothesizes two platforms for existence of fatalistic suicide. Without employing theory-embedded data, he contends that infertility is a catalyst for fatalistic suicidal. Later, he asserts that slavery is fertile soil for fatalistic suicide. Although there is suicidal data in these two arenas, a closer inspection demonstrates that these are not characteristics of fatalistic suicide. For errors of omission, he failed to systematically observe …

State Regulated Relationships: Mothers' Experiences Of Partner Incarceration, Hannah Brianne Fields

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The effects of incarceration on families have been studied in-depth, but little research evaluates the effects on women parenting children after the incarceration of their romantic partner. This research evaluates how mothers manage to keep their families intact throughout the duration of their partner’s incarceration. I approached this question using a geography theory of care developed by Sophie Bowlby and Linda McKie. This theory states that the quality of care is dependent on the space in which it is provided, the social expectations within the caring environment, and the amount of time required to provide or receive care. Using this …

Purpose, Power, Politics, Privilege, And Promise: A Review Of International Perspectives On Autoethnographic Research And Practice, Kay Aranda Dr

The Qualitative Report

This collection of international critical scholarship seeks to question, provoke, unsettle and reengage with changing understandings of autoethnography, its research and practices. In this review I share my reading of these contributions by highlighting important themes running throughout the book. These involve the shared but differently positioned vulnerabilities present in knowledge making, alongside desires for recognition, visibility or belonging. However, equally present are processes of misrecognition, silencing and othering resulting from unequal distributions of power and privilege. This book reaffirms how autoethnographic research may recognise vulnerabilities, but these are always more than individual suffering. Vulnerability becomes political. The scope and …

Portraits With A Posthumous Voice: Reinforcing And Contesting Social Norms In The Heterotopic Museum And Cemetery, Matthew J. Crissey

Museum Studies Theses

Abstract

The following paper qualitatively analyzes and documents over 500 memorial-photographs/etched portraits on tombstones in ten Western New York cemeteries. This paper covers fourteen topics, ranging from religion to gang-violence. A juxtaposition of portraits exhibited within the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery with memorial-portraits on tombstones revealed heterotopic environments creating a public forum enabling the reinforcing or contestation of social ideologies. In other words, the author observed the similarities of identities and social norms publicly expressed on tombstones and gallery portraits.

A Social Constructionist approach enabled the study to examine how one social phenomenon contributes to the shaping of a culture. …

Commons: Can This Be The Name Of ‘Thirdness’? (Revised), Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In 1995, a journal article asked if 'commons' might be the name of 'thirdness'. In this revision of that article the question is renewed and reintroduced. The concept of the commons and common goods still offer satisfactory ways to label and characterize voluntary action outside markets, states and households. Theory is said to be a problem of language. Language creativity, including the coining of various new terms is a characteristic part of the commons theory of voluntary action. The remaining challenge is how the concept of the commons can relate to the other side of the third sector - the …

Book Review: Theory For The Working Sociologist, Joseph Van Der Naald

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Community Initiatives Multiply University Partnerships, Christopher Lafontaine

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

Christopher LaFontaine is a senior studying psychology and sociology at Indiana Purdue Fort Wayne (IPFW). He has concentrated on community engagement and service learning as areas of focus for the past year. He plans to pursue a career in applied sociology and he has been involved with applied research among vulnerable populations. Christopher has worked with homeless veterans in Fort Wayne and has studied health conditions in a rural county that ranks low in health outcomes. In this article, he describes his experience with service-learning partnerships between community organizations and an institution of higher education.

The Evolution Of A Collaborative Network: Understanding Partnerships In A Policy Mandated Collaboration Through Social Network Analysis, Pallavi Singh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Federal funding agencies that administer financial support in the form of program grants to non-profit organizations (NPOs) that provide child and family services increasingly require NPOs to formalize inter-organizational partnerships in order to receive this vital source of funding. That is, by mandate NPOs must participate in inter-organizational collaboration networks to receive these essential federal funds. Therefore, there is a need to understand the collaboration behavior of NPOs in a policy-mandated environment. This study considers collaboration behavior as information sharing and advice-seeking between the organizations who are part of a collaboration network as a result of a policy mandate.

Drawing …

The Intentional De-Cohesion In Deportability, Talha Issevenler

Publications and Research

A critical exploration of loss or decohesion of political agency in deportability.

Robotic Reflection: An Exploration Of Humanity Through The Bodies Of Sex Robots, Audrey Pope

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Sexuality and technology have long been recognized as markers of the human experience. The burgeoning industry of sex robots exists at the junction of these features, making sex robot technology both a highly intriguing and highly relevant subject of research. This study explores sex robots from a technical and a theoretical perspective, analyzing the potential impact of the technology on sexual relationships in the future. Data analysis proved an emphasis on embodiment in intimate relationships, which, combined with theories of sexuality, self formation, fear, and desire, proves the potential of sex robots to function not only as the future of …

Anti-Queer Microaggressions Towards Queer Black Men, Camisha D. Fagan, Anna Smedley-López

McNair Poster Presentations

Microaggressions are reoccurring derogatory messages that degrade and/ or discredit one’s identity. While invisible and unknown to many, they remain visible and apparent to those impacted by them. The research questions for this project are: (1) What microaggressions do Queer Black men experience within larger society? (2) To contrast with larger society, what microaggressions do Queer Black men experience within Black communities? By conducting focus groups, I will examine the intersectional microaggressions that Queer Black males experience in their own community, as well as document microaggression that they experience in larger society. After conducting my focus groups, I will be …

Intercultural Coworker Relationships (Icors) In The Global Workplace: A Grounded Theory Study, Jennifer L. Morton

Dissertations

Previous research supports what employees intuitively sense: peers make the place (Chiaburu & Harrison, 2008; Schneider, 1987). Extant research suggests coworker relationships have critical influence on outcomes ranging from turnover (Felps, Mitchell, Hekman, Lee, Holtom, & Harman, 2009) to creativity (Homan, Buengeler, Eckhoff, van Ginkel, & Voelpel, 2015) to organizational commitment (Viswesvaran & Ones, 2002) to employee health and well-being (Heaphy & Dutton, 2008). Despite the increase of Intercultural COworker Relationships (ICORs), particularly in multinational firms in the technology industry, research has yet to examine what defines coworker relationship quality in the presence of national cultural differences. In other words, …

Critical Paradigm Theory: A Deconstruction Of The Dominant Discourse Shaping Public Education In America, Kevin Froner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this study was to deconstruct the dominant discourses shaping public education in America. To understand the ontological and genealogical roots of public education, the researcher developed a framework referred to as Critical Paradigm Theory (CPT) to examine the current education paradigm. Longitudinal data was collected from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) with an analysis of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Additional analysis was performed applying critical paradigm theory to a …

Making It Pay To Be A Fan: The Political Economy Of Digital Sports Fandom And The Sports Media Industry, Andrew Mckinney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a series of case studies and sociological examinations of the role that the sports media industry and mediated sport fandom plays in the political economy of the Internet. The Internet has structurally changed the way that sport fans access sport and accelerated the processes through which the capitalist actors in the sports media industry have been able to subsume them. The three case studies examined in this dissertation are examples of how digital media technologies have both helped fans become more active producers and consumers of sports and made the sports media industry an integral and vanguard …

The Larger Conversation: Contemplation And Place By Tim Lilburn, Emory Shaw

The Goose

Review of Tim Lilburn's The Larger Conversation: Contemplation and Place.

College Self-Funding Predicting Deviant Behaviors, Blake A. Darling

Masters Theses

This study examines the effects of the source of college funding on student participation in four deviant behaviors: monthly binge drinking, monthly marijuana use, illicit drug use, and academic cheating. Using secondary data from a self-reported online survey conducted at a midwestern University, competing hypotheses based in general strain theory and social bond theory, were tested. Logistic regression analyses of the four deviant behaviors suggest that the source of college funding has a very limited effect. Only in the cases of marijuana use and illicit drug use were significant relationships observed; where students whose funding came from their parents were …

Student-Athletes’ Experiences With Racial Microaggressions In Sport: A Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, Sae-Mi Lee, Malayna B. Bernstein, Edward F. Etzel, Brian T. Gearity, Clayton R. Kuklick

The Qualitative Report

Despite growing research on racial microaggressions as a subtle but prevalent form of racial discrimination, research on microaggressions in sport and their effects on the psychosocial wellbeing of athletes is scarce. Moreover, some researchers question the legitimacy of microaggressions due to their subtle nature and inconsistency in how they are experienced (Lilienfeld, 2017). The purpose of this study was to examine U.S. collegiate student-athletes-of-color experiences with racial microaggressions in sport through a new theoretical lens, Foucauldian poststructuralist theory. We theorized microaggressions as an example of the daily panoptic gaze that leads to self-surveillance and the production of normalized individuals (Foucault, …

Electric Light: Automating The Carceral State During The Quantification Of Everything, R. Joshua Scannell

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces the rise of digitally-driven policing technologies in order to make sense of how prevailing logics of governance are transformed by ubiquitous computing technology. Beginning in the early 1990s, police departments and theorists began to rely on increasingly detailed sets of metrics to evaluate performance. The adoption of digital technology to streamline quantitative evaluation coincided with a steep decline in measured crime that served as a proof-of-concept for the effectivity of digital police surveillance and analytics systems. During the turbulent first two decades of the 21^st century, such digital technologies were increasingly associated with reform projects designed …

Interethnic Marriages In The United States: An In-Depth Look At Marital Challenges, Spring C. Miles

Senior Theses

As ethnic diversity increases in the United States, interethnic marriages are becoming increasingly prevalent. Despite their increasing rates, interethnic unions experience lower levels of relationship quality and are at a higher risk of divorce than same-ethnic unions. Other factors that influence marital outcomes include age at marriage, education, religion, and parental divorce. However, factors that influence specifically interethnic marriages include internal stressors, such as conflicting values and relationship expectations, and external stressors, such as a lack of social support and/or legal barriers. The best theoretical framework for studying interethnic unions is interdependence theory because it analyzes these factors and their …

School Shootings: A Nexus Of Adolescent Masculinity, Bullying, And Homophobia, Jack Marsden

Honors Theses

Though overall gun violence has plummeted since 1993, multi-victim school shootings have increased in frequency over the last fifty years and the number of adolescent perpetrators has more than doubled since 1996. I borrow from Kimmel and Mahler’s (2001) format to examine seven shootings that have occurred in the fifteen years since their paper’s original publication. I replicate their qualitative methodology and conduct my own analysis of these attacks. My findings suggest that these boys that open fire are mired in a history of routine, merciless bullying and that the content of the bullying is homophobic in nature. I also …

Towards An Agreed Definition Of Sustainability: Exploring The Concept Of Sustainability In Amherst, Massachusetts, Babatunde Ajao

Capstone Collection

Many educators agree that to learning about sustainability and discussing it’s implications on values, ethics and the role of humans are essential. With so many moving parts it is difficult to determine a sustainable assessment to encompass the changing world. The time has come for us to ask reflective questions about what exactly sustainability means. How has the term sustainability been used worldwide? What was the goal of sustainability and what is the result? Is there a better alternative to achieving this goal? By identifying the characteristics of best practice for sustainability, we take a step towards understanding the concept …

Right Of Adoption For Same-Sex Parents, Youjia Chen

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

The gay right has been one of the hot topics in the world, especially when the same-sex marriage legalized, there are few controversial topics still cannot be solved. I mainly discussed do same-sex parents have the right to have children or to be the adoptive parents. I have read several articles and research about how the same-sex parents affect their children, would their sexual orientation will affect the children etc. the result was the influence for children who grow in a homosexual family is same as heterosexual family, in conclusion, the same-sex parents definitely have the right to have children. …

From Theory To Practice: A Theory-Informed, Critical Review Of Research On Military Marriages, Benjamin M. Burke, Davina Quichocho, Mallory Lucier-Greer

Southeastern Council on Family Relations Conference [2018-2020]

Military marriages may be particularly vulnerable to marital distress and dissolution due to the unique challenges associated with military service. To better understand the research regarding military marriages, a critical literature review was conducted. Fifteen peer-reviewed, published articles were critically reviewed based on their theoretical applications and empirical findings. Articles were categorized according to stage in marriage and primary theoretical orientation. Results suggest that military marriages are at risk due to military factors, but they are also mostly stable. Results also indicate that theories are rarely made explicit in military marriage literature. Future research would benefit from providing clearer links …

Research Performance Of The Asean University Network Member Universities, Raffy A. Lacaden, Tereso S. Tullao Jr

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

The purpose of this research paper is to describe the research outputs of the member universities of the ASEAN University Network (AUN). The paper is an inductive type of research that used a variety of information from Scopus to determine what AUN member universities are actively writing about. The author captured data from 1997 to 2017 from scopus.com to analyze what the AUN member universities and their respective countries have been studying. Results show that almost 50% of the total research outputs of all the ASEAN nations are contributed by the AUN member Universities, with Singapore’s NUS and NUT contributing …

Murky Projects And Uneven Information Policies: A Case Study Of The Psychological Strategy Board And Cia, Susan Maret

Secrecy and Society

This case study discusses the Truman and Eisenhower administration's (1951-1953) short-lived Psychological Strategy Board (PSB). Through the lens of declassified documents, the article recounts the history and activities of the Board, including its relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and clandestine projects that involve human experimentation. Primary documents of the period suggest that institutional secrecy, coupled with inconsistent information policies, largely shielded CIA's BLUEBIRD, ARTICHOKE, and MKULTRA from the Board. This subject has not been previously reported in the research literature, and supplements existing historical understanding of the PSB's mission under the broad umbrella of psychological warfare.

Recent Futures: Classical Antiquity As Biopolitical Tool, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Developing A Cyberterrorism Policy: Incorporating Individual Values, Osama Bassam J. Rabie

Theses and Dissertations

Preventing cyberterrorism is becoming a necessity for individuals, organizations, and governments. However, current policies focus on technical and managerial aspects without asking for experts and non-experts values and preferences for preventing cyberterrorism. This study employs value focused thinking and public value forum to bare strategic measures and alternatives for complex policy decisions for preventing cyberterrorism. The strategic measures and alternatives are per socio-technical process.