Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Climate Services And Transformational Adaptation, Edward Carr

Sustainability and Social Justice

The Working Group II contribution to the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report states that effective adaptation to the changing climate will require transformational changes in how people live. This article explores the potential for climate services to catalyze and foster transformational adaptation. I argue that weather and climate information are not, in and of themselves, tools for transformation. When designed and delivered without careful identification of the intended users of the service and the needs that service addresses, they can fail to catalyze change amongst the users of that information. At worst, they can reinforce the status quo and drive maladaptive …

We Shall Overcome: A Case Study Of The Lgbt Asylum Task Force, A Parish Ministry, Max Niedzwiecki

Sustainability and Social Justice

This is a case study of the LGBT Asylum Task Force in Worcester, Massachusetts. The Task Force is a ministry of Hadwen Park Congregational Church, UCC. It is the only program in the U.S. dedicated to providing wrap-around services, including housing, to LGBT asylum seekers. Since its inception in 2008, it has provided services to over 219 people from 24 countries. The discussion of the Task Force makes extensive use of interviews with its leadership and membership to showcase lived experiences of asylum seekers and those who assist them. © 2023, The Author(s).

The Sociological Eye 2023, Loyola Marymount University, Sociology Department

The Sociological Eye Student Journal

Faculty Advisors: Dr. Stacy Burns & Dr. Rebecca Sager

Editor: Katie Flint

The Importance Of Intersectionality In Evaluating The Surveillance And Protest Politics Of The Movement For Black Lives (M4bl), Shaneda L. Destine

Sociology Publications and Other Works

This study analyzes the political challenges presented to Black women and queer activists affiliated with Black Lives Matter (BLM) and the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL). BLM is a Black liberation global network that developed in 2013 and expanded into M4BL in 2016 to include more grassroots organizations. Social movement scholars have not centered the intersectional goals of this Black women-led M4BL or confronted the white (back-) lash of the Trump’s administration’s Department of Justice’s use of federal law to further cis-heteropatriarchal white supremacy. The Movement began and developed due to the social media and protests in Ferguson, MO. However, …

Cannabis, Communities, And Place: (Re)Constructing Humboldt’S Post-Prohibition Present, Josh Meisel, Dominic Corva, Ara Pachmayer

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

Since 1990, many Cal Poly Humboldt faculty and students have made cannabis the focus of scholarship and learning. This work has been shaped by the political, economic, and cultural legacies of cannabis in Humboldt County. Scholarly interest spans multiple dimensions of cannabis cultivation, commerce, consumption, and related social issues. As a multidisciplinary team of scholars, Cal Poly Humboldt faculty affiliated with the Humboldt Institute for Interdisciplinary Marijuana Research (HIIMR) have also shaped the Bachelor of Arts in Cannabis Studies that will launch in Fall 2023. This is the first social science degree program in the United States with this orientation. …

Volume 45: Full Issue

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 50th Anniversary Edition: Becoming a Polytechnic

Sheprep: Examining The Influence Of The Messaging And The Messenger Associated With Prep Uptake Among African American Women, Christian C. Spears

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

African American Women (AAW) make up less than 15% of the female population in the United States but account for over 50% of new HIV diagnoses among females. This largely preventable health disparity can be mitigated by advocating and prescribing Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), a preventive HIV medication, to persons at risk. Despite advances in medication options, there are less than 13% of Black people who could benefit from having been prescribed PrEP, and limited research and promotion on the effectiveness of PrEP for AAW. The “ShePrEP Study” aimed to assess awareness, perceptions, and receptivity toward PrEP among AAW. This study …

Not Another Plant-Based Documentary: A Critical Review Of Eating Our Way To Extinction, Melissa Plisic

Animal Studies Journal

Despite mounting evidence that industrial animal agriculture is a formidable force of climate change and mass extinction, many humans remain impervious to this knowledge. Eating Our Way to Extinction is a timely documentary that takes this issue head on. This film review is guided by Alexandra Juhasz’s explanation of media praxis as ‘an enduring, mutual, and building tradition that theorizes and creates the necessary conditions for media to play an integral role in cultural and individual transformation’ (299). Eating Our Way to Extinction attends to some of the most popular strawman arguments against veganism and is widely accessible. That being …

[Review] Carol Gigliotti. The Creative Lives Of Animals. New York University Press, 2022. 289 Pp. Isbn 9781479815449, Wendy Woodward

Animal Studies Journal

[Review] Carol Gigliotti. The Creative Lives of Animals. New York University Press, 2022. 289 pp. ISBN 9781479815449

Exploring Inequality At Copan, Honduras: A 2d And 3d Geospatial Comparison Of Household Wealth, Heather Richards-Rissetto

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The archaeological site of Copan was a cultural and commercial crossroads at the southeastern Maya frontier. Research indicates that the demographics and sociopolitical circumstances of the city of Copan and its location within a circumscribed pocket (24 km²) of the larger Copan Valley varied through time. These circumstances not only influenced its social, political, and economic interactions, but likely the size, construction, and organization of households, specifically plazuelas. Copan’s plazuelas differ from those located in other Maya regions because they often have smaller house platforms, comprise more than a single patio, and exhibit a larger than normal …

Your Workplace Is Political And So Are You: Union Membership And Political Participation, Alex Legrys

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

"I Want To Take You Higher": Popular Music Museums As Social Fields For Legitimizing Popular Music Memories, Olivia Paige Zinn

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This paper is an ethnographic and interview-based study of popular music museums in the United States. I observed that curatorial practices in pop music museums aligned with two major goals -- education and entertainment. These curatorial practices worked within the goals of the social field of museums as well as responded to the legacy of cultural hierarchy. I ultimately find that popular music museums are sites for legitimizing Americans' memories of and taste for popular music, rather than merely sites of music history education or entertainment.

Cutting The Puppet Strings: Confronting The Singularity, Gabriel Joesph Weiss

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Modern technology has excelled at an unprecedented rate. The rise of artificial intelligence raises many ethical questions and concerns for humanity, as it has incited many pressing debates between philosophers, computer scientists, and social critics who share concerns for the future of humanity but conflict with one another regarding whether or not we should rely on technology to govern human affairs and control society's infrastructures. Drawing from Martin Heidegger, Jacques Ellul, Hubert Dreyfus, and others, this project weighs out the probabilities and problems of the technological singularity posited by Ray Kurzweil, confronting our habits of addressing technology and the way …

Fostering Teacher Vitality Through Student Care: A Mixed Methods Study Of The Demoralized Teacher, Zaina Daria Autor

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This mixed methods research study on "teacher demoralization" works to conceptualize the school as a site of care, teachers as providers, and obstructing forces in the performance of that care as the problem. It lays bare the fact that if teachers feel that in order to do their assigned job they are being asked to work against their sense of morality, or if they feel significantly blocked from enacting their moral goals, then there may be issues not just with how we are treating teachers but how we are teaching students. Ultimately finding that rather than understanding teacher exhaustion as …

Another Tool In The Birth Bag: A Sociological History Of "Gossip" In American Childbirth, Theodora K. Stone

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Overusing, Overposting, Oversharing, Subtitle (Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid), Samantha Dandridge

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Through a sociological perspective, this piece attempts to further understand social media dynamics, particularly the concept of "oversharing" online through original data collection and sociological theory. Centered around a month-long Instagram study, the objective is to further understand what compels some young adult users to overshare, the consequences of oversharing online and how they effect the poster, their following and social media platforms generally. Recruited participants were instructed to follow and engage with Loren's, an entirely faux persona created by the researcher, Instagram account where she frequently posted content most would label "oversharing". While participants understood Loren was a fictitious …

Refugees As Discursive Others: (Re)Producing State Power And Acting As Citizens At Berlin’S Oranienplatz, Elena Rose Paz Thompson

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

“A Beautiful Thing, To Not Be The Everything:” Raising A Child Within And Around Negotiations Of Capitalism, Community, And Care, Trinity A.H. Delano

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Teacher Diversity Training: Revealing Biases And Changing Practices, Deva Grumet Bass

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Black students are disciplined in K-12 schools at higher rates when compared to their White peers. Research has shown that this inequality in treatment can be traced back to the teachers' biases and prejudices against students of color. Lack of support from teachers can harm students’ academic achievement and overall success outside of school as well. In response, various programs have been implemented to help teachers better support all of their students. For example, Social Emotional Learning (SEL) has been successful at helping teachers facilitate learning in an emotionally sensitive way. This program began as an initiative to help teachers …

“Joy In My Body:”An Exploration Of Queer Drug Use, Sam Baker

Senior Projects Fall 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

On The Outside Looking In: Difficulties In Obtaining The Opinions Of Muslim Religious Leaders’ Views On Domestic Violence Experienced By Married Muslim Women, Muhammed Suleman Dr

The Qualitative Report

In this paper I discuss the difficulties I faced in getting access to respondents in a qualitative study on the opinions of Muslim religious leaders on domestic violence experienced by Muslim married women. This in turn highlighted the need for me to reflect carefully on my own assumptions about my insider status and take into account how prospective participants identify me as a researcher. For the study on which I am reflecting, I chose an interpretive research paradigm which falls under the umbrella of qualitative research. This research paradigm was necessary as it places emphasis on context and nuanced meanings …

How Doctoral Students With Low Gre Scores Succeed: A Grounded Theory Study, Dea Mulolli, June E. Gothberg

The Qualitative Report

Most U.S. graduate schools rely on the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) to predict readiness for graduate degree programs and differentiate between applicants in verbal and quantitative reasoning, critical thinking, and analytical writing skills. Many times, low GRE scores create a barrier to entry into U.S. graduate programs despite research showing that selecting graduate applicants based solely on academic metric thresholds does not guarantee graduate student performance and many low scorers still attain a graduate degree on time (Miller et al., 2019b; Pacheco et al., 2017; Petersen et al., 2018; Wang et al, 2013). In this study, we used a constructivist …

Swerf Necropolitics: Three Sites Of Feminist Mistranslation And The Politics Of Feminist Exclusion, Aaron Hammes

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

The acronym SWERF, or Sex Work(er) Exclusive Radical Feminism, and its attendant ideologies brings up a number of questions and potential schisms for the enterprise of feminist thought more broadly. This inquiry examines what it means for feminism to exclude, what the excluders believe is gained by protecting certain boundaries around which identities and practices are included, and the ideological foundations and consequences of this thinking. SWERF logics are understood as mistranslations of the radical potentialities of feminism, clustered around three sites: exclusion (against bodily autonomy) , equivocation (between sex work and labor trafficking), and misrepresentation (of the sex worker …

Sex And Race Disparities In Mortality And Years Of Potential Life Lost Among People With Hiv: A 21-Year Observational Cohort Study, Rachael A Pellegrino, Peter F Rebeiro, Megan Turner, Amber Davidson, Noelle Best, Chandler Shaffernocker, Asghar Kheshti, Sean Kelly, Stephen Raffanti, Timothy R Sterling, Jessica L Castilho

Student and Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Since the availability of antiretroviral therapy, mortality rates among people with HIV (PWH) have decreased; however, this does not quantify premature deaths among PWH, and disparities persist.

METHODS: We examined all-cause and premature mortality among PWH receiving care at the Vanderbilt Comprehensive Care Clinic from January 1998 to December 2018. Mortality rates were compared by demographic and clinical factors, and adjusted incidence rate ratios (aIRRs) were calculated using multivariable Poisson regression. For individuals who died, age-adjusted years of potential life lost (aYPLL) per total person-years living with HIV were calculated from US sex-specific life tables, and sex and race …

Communication With Families: Understanding The Perspectives Of Early Childhood Teachers, Pearl Avari, Erin Hamel, Rachel E. Schachter, Holly Hatton-Bowers

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Communication between teachers and families in early childhood is a key aspect of successful teacher-family engagement. The goal of this exploratory study was to investigate how teachers communicated with families in early childhood classrooms and what they communicated about. This study of 31 teachers working with children birth to age five, primarily in the Midwestern U.S. examined how they described communication with families using semi-structured interviews. Findings indicated that teachers used multiple formats to communicate with families about children’s daily routines, developmental progress, and other relevant information. Teachers preferred in-person communication although challenges occurred due to classroom dynamics and the …

Syrian Refugee Women’S Maternal Mental Health Perceptions, Coping Strategies, And Help-Seeking Practices In Lebanon, Nada A. Alnaji, Julie A. Tippens, Wael Elrayes

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Introduction: Globally, 27 million female refugees of reproductive age are subjected to numerous socio-ecological factors that increase their risks of mental health issues, especially during the postpartum period. This study seeks to explore Syrian refugee mothers’ experiences and perceptions of postpartum depression.

Methods: We used a qualitative phenomenological approach to interview purposively sampled typical postpartum Syrian mothers living in informal camps in Lebanon to evaluate their maternal mental health perceptions, coping strategies, and help-seeking practices.

Results: Results revealed three major themes: conceptualizing maternal depression as extraordinary and ordinary, cultural perceptions of mental health help-seeking, and coping with negative emotions.

Discussions: …

Examining Foods And Beverages Served And Child Food Insecurity Across Early Care And Education (Ece) Programs In Communities With High Rates Of Obesity And Food Insecurity, Deepa Srivastava, Lucy R. Zheng, Dipti A. Dev

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to examine implementation of serving food and beverage evidence-based practices (nutrition EBPs) across CACFP participating licensed childcare centers (CCCs, n = 51) and family childcare homes (FCCHs, n = 49) in central California. Results indicated that FCCHs reported significantly higher (p < .05) implementation of nutrition EBPs and barriers than CCCs. Both CCCs and FCCHs refer families to WIC/SNAP when they observe child food insecurity and control how much food is served to children. It is important to consider organizational structure (CCCs, FCCHs) and child food insecurity when developing policies/interventions for improving implementation of nutrition EBPs in ECEs.

Investigating Tribal Co-Management Of Caifornia’S Public Lands, Zachary Joseph Erickson

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Collaborative management with Indigenous groups is becoming increasingly common as many Indigenous communities continue to assert their inherent rights to self-determination. Due to the removal from and dispossession of lands, tribes often rely on access to public properties for various uses including ceremonies and gathering of culturally important plants. Some believe that the absence of indigenous involvement has also led to a decline in both the quality and abundance of culturally important resources, as well as limited the intergenerational transfer of traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK. There is increasing momentum toward re-engaging tribes as stewards of their ancestral lands through …

Gender & Sexuality Services Newsletter, January 2023, University Of Northern Iowa. Gender & Sexuality Services.

Gender & Sexuality Services Newsletter

In This Issue:

--- LGBTea Time
--- Mail Exchange
--- QTBIPoC Affinity Group
--- Pride Week
--- Lav Grad
--- Did you know?
--- Safe Zone Ally
--- Upcoming Events

Equitable Access To Voting Practices In Marginalized Communities, Ryan Bergman

Social Justice | Senior Theses

For two hundred years Americans have had to fight for the right to vote, yet it is still an ongoing challenge for many communities, the Latinx community in particular. In this study I analyzed what factors determine an individual’s access and participation in the voting process, focusing on the Latinx community in the Canal District of San Rafael, who are impacted by the barriers intended to limit their ability to vote. This study used a mixed methodology to understand these factors with the aim of providing guidelines for supporting marginalized voters. In addition to using qualitative data from interviews with …