Politics and Social Change Commons^™

Healing Racial Injustice With Mindfulness Research, Training, & Practice, Danielle "Danae" Laura

Mindfulness Studies Theses

This thesis offers a collection of authors and studies in support of improved research, training, and practice connecting mindfulness with racial justice through intergroup applications. The paper identifies barriers at work (e.g., colorblindness, spiritual bypass, white fragility, and implicit bias) in contemplative science, Western Buddhist communities, and secular mindfulness centers, which block the sizeable contributions possible in studying the intergroup application of mindfulness practice—specifically Lovingkindness Meditation, among others—when used as an intervention with anti-racist aims. Through secondary qualitative research, I reviewed six key works from Black authors on mindfulness and race, as well as six sample studies on the prosocial …

Spillover Effects Of Quota Or Parity Laws: The Case Of Ecuador Women Mayors, Marcos Fabricio Perez, Santiago Basabe-Serrano

Political Science Faculty Publications

Do quota or parity laws designed to improve the representation of women in plurinominal elections have a spillover effect to uninominal elections? We empirically test this theory by analyzing the effects of quota and parity legislations implemented in Ecuador for plurinominal elections on the proportion of women elected as mayors. Through an unpublished database, our results show that after the implementation of such legislation, the probability of a woman being elected as mayor almost doubles (ceteris paribus). We also find evidence that a possible causal chain for the documented spillover effects is the increasing importance of female role models, motivated …

Book Review, Cheela Chilala

Zambia Social Science Journal

A review of Nation-Building in the Context of ‘One Zambia, One Nation’, by Mubanga E. Kashoki. (Lusaka: Gadsden Publishers, 2018).

The Torch (Winter 2022-2023), Crtp

Torch: The Civil Rights Team Project Newsletter

No abstract provided.

No. 54: Affordable Food Shops And Urban Food Security In China, Taiyang Zhong, Jonathan Crush, Yaya Song, Zhenzhong Si, Steffanie Scott, Yuxin Peng

Hungry Cities Partnership

Food subsidies have been widely implemented as part of government policies to mitigate food insecurity among the urban poor. The effectiveness of supply and demand-side subsidies have been a source of debate in the literature. One form of supply-side subsidy designed to make food more affordable to low-income consumers is to offer subsidies to retail outlets. China’s affordable food shop (AFS) program is one such example. The program was introduced by the central government in 2011 and implemented by municipal governments. Shops signing on to the program were required to sell a list of essential food items at a discount …

No. 55: Food Clusters, Food Security And The Urban Food System Of Northern Namibia, Lawrence Kazembe, Jonathan Crush, Ndeyapo Nickanor

Hungry Cities Partnership

A central feature of the transformation of urban food systems in cities of the Global South is the growing presence of supermarkets and their supply chains, often termed supermarketization or a supermarket revolution. A key issue in the African context is whether supermarkets are a threat to other sources of food including informal sector vendors. Most research on the supermarket revolution and competition with other food retailers focuses on large urban conurbations with little attention paid to the role of supermarkets in secondary urban centres. This paper aims to rectify this situation through a case study of the role of …

Postcolonial Indian Ruling Texts: The Ramayana, Shuchi Sanyal

Undergraduate Honors Theses

I shall be writing about the Ramayana as a ruling text and the post colonial interpretation of Hindu mythology perpetuating gender roles and encourages women to be submissive. The imposition of Western ideals alters the perception of cultural expectations of women and that to behave misogynistically is to be true to traditional Indian values. The Ramayana is a fable recorded in religious text, The Bhagavad Gita, and is taught to children to convey the Hindu objective of human pursuit composed of duties, prosperity, desire, spiritual liberation. The original text consists of nearly twenty four thousand verses in the Shloka meter, …

Community-Oriented Policing: Building Trust And Collaborative Relationships With The Black Community, Tunice M. Cole

DSW Capstone Projects

Black people die at the hands of police at a disproportionate rate. In the United States, Black citizens are three times more likely to be killed by police than White citizens. This, along with other factors, has caused a lack of trust, legitimacy, and relationships between police and the Black community. Examining this problem from a socio-ecological and social constructivist perspective suggests that the solution encompasses the use of community feedback and experiences to build and develop a model of community-oriented policing that addresses the issues of the community being served.

Product one of this capstone was a systematic literature …

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: Exploring The Lived Experiences Of African-American City/County Managers And The Impact Of Mentoring On The Profession, Johnny Mays

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

ABSTRACT

Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis: Exploring the Lived Experiences of African-American City/County Managers and the Impact of Mentoring on the Profession

Literature regarding African-American City/County manager's experiences in local governments is limited, and any available resources primarily focus on the profession. An interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to explore the experiences of African-American city/county managers from their viewpoints. Grounded in Critical Race Theory, this investigative research attempted to shed light on the lived experiences of Black City/County managers pursuing their professional goals to lead a municipal organization. The study also aimed to understand the impact mentoring has on the profession.

Data …

À La Carte Cable: A Regulatory Solution To The Misinformation Subsidy, Christopher R. Terry, Eliezer J. Silberberg, Stephen Schmitz, John Stack, Eve Sando

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Although “fake news” is as old as mass media itself, concerns over disinformation have reached a fever pitch in our current media environment. Online media outlets’ heavy reliance on user-generated content has altered the traditional gatekeeping functions and professional standards associated with traditional news organizations. The idea of objectivity-focused informational content has primarily been substituted for a realist acceptance of the power and popularity of opinion-driven “news.” This shift is starkly visible now: mainstream news media outlets knowingly spread hoaxes, conspiracy theories, and the like.

This current state of affairs is not some freak accident. The Supreme Court’s First Amendment …

Community Interventions To The Food Insecurity Crisis Inuit Currently Face In Nunangat, Alyssia R. Getschow

Honors Theses

Inuit living in Nunangat, a northern territory in Canada, are facing unprecedented rates of food insecurity. The increasing impacts of anthropogenic climate change are rapidly changing the Arctic landscape in Nunangat, posing challenges to Inuit hunters who hunt and live completely self-sufficient off of the land. This lack of access to country foods and the impacts these conditions are having on Inuit communities are forcing Inuit to consider aid propositions from the Canadian government. Due to a long history of conflict with white settlers during the colonization of Canada, there is a feeling of distrust and cultural distaste between Canada …

The White Ally Experience: A Look Into The Impacts Of Being A White Ally, Kristen Maclin

Masters Theses

If an ally knew what they would experience, would they be more willing to stand up? Racism, institutional racism, racial bias, discrimination, and microaggressions have existed in our country since its inception. One way to work to overcome these is by growing allyship and having allies who are willing to speak up and stand beside marginalized groups. This research study addressed what allyship means, the byproducts of racist structures that allies have encountered, ally burnout, and ways to overcome burnout. These were researched through surveys from BIPOCs, named allies, and my school colleague populations. My research found that many White …

"Adapt Or Die": How Young Millennials Are Surviving The Threat Of Ontological Insecurity, Nathalie Marx

Scripps Senior Theses

Postmodernity has been dictated by a thirst for advancement, efficiency, and discovery. It has also created unimaginable risk: threats of nuclear war, frightening climate events, unreliable economic systems. This thesis investigates the tension between external risks, threat of future instability, and individual action and resistance. Through an analysis of twelve in-depth interviews with young millennials, I suggest that through perceived “zones of security,” individuals develop cognitive schemata to calculate the probability of their own, and others’, ontological continuity. This paper contributes to the scarce collection of sociological literature that represents the modern, intersecting crises which might contribute to a culture …

Three Essays On Governance, Inequality, And Social Equity, Sarah Ausmus Smith

Theses and Dissertations--Public Policy and Administration

Comprised of three essays, my dissertation is linked by a common focus: the relationship between state or local governance arrangements and inequality or facets of social equity. I draw upon a range of literatures to motivate my research questions and inform my methodologies—welfare and social policy, public economics, intergovernmental relations, public finance and management.

In the first essay, I ask: does localizing welfare governance impact geospatial access to the social safety net? This is an important question because proximity is highly salient to program utilization. I geocode the location of human services nonprofits from tax filings in eight states using …

Honor Thyself, Alonzo O. Williams

Dance (MFA) Theses

The black male experience and identity in America are filled with complexity. We struggle to know ourselves. We work to see the way of love and the peace of an unviolated free spirit. We want to engage with ourselves with the highest degree of freedom and comfort, not to continue to question our identity in a life-threatening white patriarchal masculinity ideal. Honoring oneself from the lenses of the Reconstruction era of the United States is essential. Reconceptualizing this history explores the significance of emphasizing Reconstruction in my life as a black male to go through a process of self-discovery and …

Are Times A-Changin’? Exploring Current Perceptions Of Individuals Based On Sexual And Relationship Orientations, Leah Howard, Kenneth Barideaux

University of South Carolina Upstate Student Research Journal

The purpose of this study was to explore if there were any significant differences in perceptions of couples based on their sexual orientation (heterosexual or homosexual) and their relationship orientation (monogamous or consensually nonmonogamous).

As perceptions held by individuals influence collective perceptions when they are largely held in common, there is value in capturing culturally current perceptions of individuals to assess if social shifts may be on the horizon. To measure the perceptions of individuals with regards to sexual and relationship orientation, a sample of 37 college students were instructed to read narrative paragraphs about four couples.

Participants were then …

Smoke Filled Back Hollars: The Impact Of Traditional Barbecue On Modern Political Campaigns Within Western Virginia, Monica Thomas Fury

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The first political barbecue took place in Virginia during the Colonial period. Since then, barbecue has remained an essential part of American civic life. Western Virginia, defined for the purposes of this thesis as the political borders of the sixth and ninth Congressional Districts in Virginia as drawn in 2021, is largely a rural area, considered by most political consultants to be heavily Republican and not winnable seats for Democratic candidates. The state Democratic Party of Virginia has rarely earmarked funds or support for candidates within those districts for the past two decades. Ironically, the Democratic party controlled this same …

The Isolated As The Revolutionary: How “Leftover” Men In China Challenge Heteronormativity, Ruwen Chang

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

In contemporary China, demographers estimate that 30 million men are single because there are simply not enough women in the Chinese population, and the 2020 Chinese census shows that there are 34.9 million more men than women. These men are called guanggun, which can be directly translated to “bare sticks/branches,” a slur that indicates a lack of marriage and sex. In this project, I demonstrate that guanggun’s singlehood marks them as the marginalized at the intersection of heteronormativity, patriarchy, globalizing capitalism, and pronatalist governmentality. In a highly heteronormative and patrilineal culture, guanggun are branded as abnormal/incomplete. However, because …

The Influence Of Sociopolitical Factors On Adolescents’ And Youths’ Development, Banafsheh Aghayeeabianeh

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

Youths and adolescents are one of the major perpetrators of antisocial and deviant behaviors, which have deleterious consequences for both the perpetrators and society. Although there is extensive literature on youth and adolescent antisocial behavior, some correlates of youth antisociality are not known yet. As such, the present study is devoted to understanding the micro- and macro-level predictors of youth and adolescents’ antisociality in three contexts. Three empirical studies applying bioecological systems theory and analyzing data from the International Dating Violence database using Mixed Effects Models were conducted to investigate the ecology of the development of antisocial behaviors among youth. …

A Socio-Historical Analysis Of The Dynamics Of Genocide In Bosnia 1992-1995: Forces Contributing To The Continuation Of Genocide, Lejla Alvarez

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Despite preventive and diagnostic instruments and mechanisms put in place by the international community, genocide - systematic destruction of social groups - persists as a major regional and global problem. Genocidal processes are multifaceted and involve multiple factors at all levels of analysis interacting to produce genocide. This study examines the most significant socio-historical factors in producing the genocidal war in Bosnia that started in the spring of 1992, carried out generally uninterrupted until late 1995, with some forms of violence continuing years after the official end of the war. The main goals of the research were to contextualize the …