Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Freedom Song: Uncovering A Politics Of Dignity In Black Feminist Thought And Praxis, Abegail M. Dobson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This master's thesis delves into Intersectionality as an organizing framework and critical social theory, emphasizing the significance of Black feminist thought to social justice initiatives that challenge prevailing intersectional violence. The central inquiry of this project is uncovering a Black feminist conceptualization of dignity as articulated in foundational texts. I scrutinize the essence of dignity within Black feminist theory and praxis, particularly addressing the question: How valuable is a "right" when societal experiences consistently undermine one's basic needs and protections required to live a dignified life beyond survival?

Black feminist thought, encompassing praxis, is posited as a profound space for …

Typologies Of Battering: Uncovering Patterns Of Coercive Tactics Used By Abusive Men In A Mixed Methods Study, Abbie L. Tuller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Coercive control provides a current day feminist understanding of intimate partner violence (IPV). Recent research has demonstrated the significance of coercive control and suggests it provides a more accurate understanding of IPV than using physical violence alone. Utilizing a feminist lens, this study’s first aim was to explore if typologies based on coercive control could be developed. The second and third aims were to explore if demographic differences and differences in masculinity exist across typologies. The final aim of this study was to continue the feminist understanding of IPV using the moral emotions of shame and guilt as an extension …

Nursing Perspectives On Intimate Partner Violence Screening In The Emergency Department, Justin Cabrera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Using descriptive and quality descriptive (QD) analysis, emergency department nurses from around the country completed a modified version of the Physician Readiness to Manage Intimate Partner Violence Survey (PREMIS) tool to gain insight on their attitudes, knowledge, and preparedness about working with patient survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) regarding their willingness to and comfort in engaging in IPV screening practices. In total, 1,523 responses were received from emergency department nurses currently or formerly in practice.

Findings show that there was no correlation between emergency department nurses’ education and training on IPV and willingness and comfort with IPV screening with …

Evocative Visualization Of Void And Fluidity, Tomiko Karino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the last few years alone, we have seen a significant increase in a demand for inclusion and diversity in every sector in our society. While there are numerous data visualization projects that point out and raise concerns about the lack of diversity, they often merely illustrate the disparity. By using the permanent collection data of the Museum of Modern Art, this capstone project explores ways to creatively visualize gender disparity among the artists in the museum’s collection and questions what makes evocative visualizations that make an impression on the audience. It examines how to create visualizations that not only …

Regulating The Care Boom: Labor Standards Enforcement And Paid In-Home Care Work, Isaac Jabola-Carolus

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the United States, population aging has driven explosive growth in care-sector occupations, especially among low-wage home care aides who provide long-term assistance to older adults. These aides, predominantly women and disproportionately people of color, now represent one of the country’s largest and fastest-growing occupational groups. In recent decades, economic inequality and meager social policies have also spurred demand for nannies, housecleaners, and other domestic workers—occupations heavily reliant on immigrant women, many undocumented. While scholarly and public discourse has addressed labor shortages and job quality in such occupations, a related problem is the widespread violation of labor standards, including minimum …

Audible Futures: Scenes Of Sonic Encounter In Cold War Kurdistan, 1923–2023, Nicholas S. Glastonbury

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines a century of cultural politics in Kurdistan, from 1923 to 2023, and it does so from a relatively marginal vantage point in most histories of Kurdistan: that of the Soviet Caucasus. It takes as its primary object the cultural and political itineraries of sonic media and listening in Kurdistan, from Soviet Kurdish radio broadcasting and pirated cassettes to postsocialist archives, DJ booths, and streaming music. These itineraries map not only the emergence and circulation of Kurdish notions of tradition, heritage, and cultural memory, but also the methods of counterinsurgency deployed by the states that occupy Kurdistan. In …

Understanding The Impact Of Incentive-Driven Changes In Hospital And Physician Practice Styles, Ke Zeng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that investigate impact of incentive changes on hospital and physician practice styles, as well as patient outcomes.

In an effort to curb the escalating healthcare expenditure, the Center for Medicare \& Medicaid Innovation has introduced several alternative payment models, which have garnered significant attention in numerous studies with varied findings. This first chapter introduces the focal point of this thesis, namely the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) model, and provides a review of pertinent studies that have examined this model and related areas. Specifically, this chapter reviews and summarizes the findings from studies …

You Hurt My Feelings: Autonomic And Behavioral Responses To Social Exclusion And The Moderating Effect Of Psychopathic Traits, Liat Kofler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Humans have a fundamental need to form and maintain social connections, and thus experiencing social exclusion is extremely distressing as it threatens this basic human need. Individuals who are socially excluded often respond aggressively, not only towards their ostracizers but also towards innocent bystanders, with ostracism being implicated in extreme acts of violence such as school shootings. However, individual differences in behavior exist within the context of social exclusion as not everyone responds aggressively after being ostracized. Identifying risk factors for retaliatory aggressive behavior following experiences of social exclusion may facilitate the development of targeted interventions aimed at mitigating such …

Settling Into Inequality: Resettled Afghans In The Washington Dc Metro Area, Harry Frey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August of 2021, nearly 90,000 Afghans who had fled their country have been resettled in the United States, constituting one of the largest groups of refugee arrivals in the U.S. in recent history. Working from a database I created from the administrative records of a non-profit refugee aid group, I use data and spatial analysis to examine the demographics of Afghans resettled in the DC metro area, the characteristics of the census tracts and counties in which they have been resettled, and their access to public transportation. I find that the …

The Relationship Between “Black Lives Matter” Movement Protests And Police Arrests In New York City, Chicago, And Los Angeles: An Empirical Analysis, Lukas Louwagie

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The summer of 2020 marked a boiling point of protest and frustration at long-criticized police behavior in the United States. The events that summer revealed the “Black Lives Matter” (BLM) movement as something that could not be ignored and was capable of drawing national support and attention across many dividing lines (Mitchell 2020). Today, it seems evident that the BLM movement has had a substantial impact on modern political discourse—yet its impact on police behavior and reform, the primary target of the movement, is murky. Police departments across the nation are pushing back against calls to defund and reform their …

Representaciones Ideológicas Del Lenguaje Entre La Población Mexicana En Nueva York, Maria Del Rocio Carranza Brito

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the linguistic ideologies that Mexican migrants bring when migrating and reproduce in their daily interactions with other Spanish and English speakers, as well as the representations of the language presented in their linguistic behaviors. This work presents an intersectional analysis where the factors of gender, migratory status, education, and work are determining factors in the adoption, maintenance, and reproduction of language ideologies, which affect the linguistic decisions of the speakers in their use of Spanish, learning of English and the support of bilingualism. Based on the stereotypical idea of Spanish as the …

Burnout And Depression In Teachers And Members Of Other Occupational Groups: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analyses On Potentially Overlapping Conditions, Gail Swingler

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Burnout has long been recognized as a workplace issue among teachers, and other occupational groups. Burnout has potentially been increasing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Researchers tend to regard burnout as a distinct syndrome comprising emotional exhaustion (EE), depersonalization (DP), and reduced personal accomplishment (rPA). Recent evidence suggests that burnout (as a tripartite syndrome) lacks discriminant validity vis-à-vis depression. The overlap between burnout and depression was examined through two meta-analytic studies.

The first study (K = 13) examined the relationship between burnout and depression in teachers with burnout assessed using the MBI. The findings indicated that exhaustion (EE), and depression …

Illness Intrusiveness And Psychosocial Adjustment Among Older Adults With Multimorbidity, Irina Mindlis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Given the high prevalence of multimorbidity (MM) among older adults and the exponential growth of the older adult U.S. population, identifying factors that can lessen depressive symptoms and improve quality of life (QOL) in this population is timely and important. While it is well established that MM is associated with greater depressive symptoms and poorer QOL (Li et al., 2016; Makovski et al., 2019; Marengoni et al., 2011; Read et al., 2017), the mechanisms underlying these relationships remain understudied. The illness intrusiveness model (Devins et al., 1984) proposes that stressors posed by diseases (disease-related factors) and their treatments (treatment-related factors) …

Abuse Victimization And Impulsivity In Incarcerated Males: Examining The Roles Of Affective Instability And Trauma Symptoms, Jacqueline K. Douglas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Incarcerated individuals with a history of physical and/or sexual abuse have been found to exhibit increased levels of impulsivity compared to those with no abuse history (Carli et al., 2014; Davis et al., 2017; Sergentanis et al., 2014). Given that impulsivity is a risk factor for criminal delinquency (Carroll et al., 2006; Kamaluddin et al., 2015; Zimmerman, 2010), it is important to gain a thorough understanding of psychological factors that may contribute to higher levels of impulsivity in incarcerated populations. The present study examined the mechanisms underlying the relationship of physical and/or sexual abuse history to impulsivity in a sample …

Variations In Family Child Care: Providers' Experiences Crafting Spaces In-Between School And Home, Eleanor Luken

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Family child care, which takes place in the caregiver’s own home, is one of the most common arrangements for American working parents, yet it remains low paid and undervalued in the ecosystem of early childhood care and education (Uttal and Tuominen, 1999). Little is known about how family child care providers organize space within their homes and the repercussions the location of care has on their daily practices with children, relationships with family members, and design of their homes. Even less is known about the strategies used by providers operating in dense, urban neighborhoods with high housing costs. This investigation …

Health Care Providers' Attributions Of Blame For Unintended Pregnancy And Hiv Acquisition Among Cisgender Women, Alison J. Goldberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Unintended pregnancy and HIV are both possible but preventable outcomes of vaginal sex, and both can be prevented in similar ways (condoms, daily oral medication, etc.). Despite these similarities, providers more readily prescribe contraception to cisgender women, compared to PrEP (Guttmacher Institute, 2021; Raifman et al., 2019). Providers’ differential willingness to prescribe each medication cannot be attributed merely to differences in women’s need for pregnancy prevention vs. HIV prevention, as women account for nearly 20% of new HIV infections (CDC, 2021). Through three studies, I examined whether perceivers’ support for harm reduction (i.e., prescribing PrEP/contraception) and behavior reduction (i.e., discouraging …

Bargaining In The Shadow Of The Truth: How Client Assertion, Perception Of Guilt, And Predictive Inaccuracy Influence Plea Recommendations, Anna D. Vaynman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Over the past few decades, the largely hidden, secretive, and widely used system of plea bargaining has caught the fervent attention of scholars. The Shadow of the Trial model has been central to much of the plea-bargaining literature, despite significant critiques about its oversimplification. The model posits that defendants and their attorneys make plea decisions based largely on the estimated probability of conviction and the severity of the sentence to which the defendant could be exposed at trial.

The model, however, assumes that all actors are rational, equally risk averse, have no competing interests, and possess high predictive accuracy. It …

Effects Of Genes And Gene-Environment Interactions On Work-Family Conflict And Enrichment, Peter Yu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown how macro-level issues can influence how we manage work and family responsibilities. Yet, work-family (WF) research at different levels of analysis is relatively scarce. To address this, I take a multilevel lens to study WF conflict and enrichment in the context of micro-level factors (in the form of genes), macro-level factors (in the form of family and community-level demands), and their cross-level interactions (i.e., gene–environment interactions). To study genetic main effects, I drew from the work-home resources model to identify four candidate genes associated with conditions that could impact the ability to accrue WF resources …

The Impact Of Political Affiliation On Performance Judgements, Kajal Patel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The ability to keep politics out of daily organizational life has been severely eroded. With the increasing polarization in American politics and ubiquitous use of social media to express political positions, negative attributions are being made of individuals holding different political positions. Due to its pervasive nature, it is important to understand how politics impacts organizationally relevant decisions that supervisors and others make as a routine part of their jobs. This study examined the influence of similarity and dissimilarity in political affiliation between a rater and ratee on performance judgments. To examine the relationship between political affiliation similarity and performance …

Applying Linguistics To The Adult Esol Classroom: A Guide For Esol Teachers In Community Centers, Lenore Costello

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many community centers in urban areas of the United States offer English as a Second or Other Language (ESOL) classes to adults. This thesis is intended as a resource for teachers of those classes, so that they may make pedagogical decisions that are informed by Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research findings on how languages are learned. The thesis is designed for teachers with and without formal background in ESOL or linguistics. Each chapter introduces an SLA concept that pertains to instructed SLA: (1) the natural order hypothesis, (2) mental representation and interlanguage, (3) the role of input in acquisition, (4) …

A Consecutive Case Series Evaluation Of Tummy Time With And Without Preferred Items, Rika Ortega

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Tummy time is an activity for infants to practice their early motor skills. Although most pediatricians recommend tummy time, parents may avoid the procedures due to infant discomfort during this period. The present study investigated whether a preferred item functioned as a reinforcer to increase head elevation and decrease crying during tummy time with 16 consecutive, typically developing infants. The study compared the preferred items selected from a preference assessment to that of caregiver attention. In addition, we directly evaluated parental choice by allowing the mothers to select which tummy time treatment they would like to implement. We found that …

Conservative And Cultural Clashes With Comprehensive Sexuality Education, Bryan Z. Anderson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes the multifaceted debate over the use of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) in United States public schools, while also emphasizing the ways in which withholding CSE is a strategy to uphold the white supremacist patriarchy. The work begins by historically framing the evolution of sexuality education through the United States’ history. This leads to the current discourse around CSE and the ways in which it is the optimal support for American youth today. After setting this foundation, the thesis looks at conservative figures and groups who are seeking to prevent public school adoption of CSE standards, as well …

Voiding The Unwanted Self: An Examination Of Racialized Violence In The United States, Benjamin Stark

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is concerned with the role of the psychic defenses projection and projective identification in the processes which lead to racialized violence in the United States. The dissertation posits that projection has been less considered as a primary driver of racialized violence than other psychic processes and should be better integrated into psychological research and literature on racialized violence. The thesis begins with a detailed examination of two instances of racialized violence, the first a macro example of nation vs. nation: the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003, before which the United States fantasized Iraq was developing weapons …

Immigration Status As A Social Determinant Of Health: Provider Perspectives, Elisabeth Brodbeck

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project examines how immigration is understood as a social determinant of health through the perspective of medical providers and social workers. Through the bridging of immigration studies in sociology and social epidemiology and public health, I demonstrate the need to bring these disciplines together to understand how immigration and legal status are encountered in clinical settings. I conducted a qualitative research study, specifically open-ended interviews with medical providers and social workers, to understand how providers currently screen for complex social determinants of health, and more specifically, how they engage with immigration as a factor influencing health during their patient …

Evaluating Neural Networks As Cognitive Models For Learning Quasi-Regularities In Language, Xiaomeng Ma

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Many aspects of language can be categorized as quasi-regular: the relationship between the inputs and outputs is systematic but allows many exceptions. Common domains that contain quasi-regularity include morphological inflection and grapheme-phoneme mapping. How humans process quasi-regularity has been debated for decades. This thesis implemented modern neural network models, transformer models, on two tasks: English past tense inflection and Chinese character naming, to investigate how transformer models perform quasi-regularity tasks. This thesis focuses on investigating to what extent the models' performances can represent human behavior. The results show that the transformers' performance is very similar to human behavior in many …

Essays On Tax Impacts On Corporate Finance, Corporate Governance And Regional Disparity, Mei Li

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation consists of three chapters that cover topics on tax impacts on corporate finance, regional disparity and corporate governance.

Chapter 1 - How Do Net Operating Loss Carryforwards Affect Tax Impact on Corporate Capital Structure? This paper examines the impact of net operating loss (NOL) carryforwards on the tax implications of corporate capital structure. Leveraging the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (TCJA), the largest tax reform in four decades, this paper investigates the effect of NOL carryforwards on firms' sensitivity to tax reforms. As NOL carryforwards have become increasingly significant since 2000, but not widely researched due …

Understanding The Relationship Between Working Memory And Long-Term Memory, Kelly Cotton

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

How lasting memories are created is a question that has driven much research into human cognition. An area of renewed research interest concerns the relationship between working memory and long-term memory. Recent research has investigated how the processing that occurs while information is held in working memory influences successful long-term memory creation. Both working memory consolidation and maintenance have been identified as critical in long-term retention, but the mechanisms underlying the working memory/long-term memory relationship remain unclear. The present dissertation examined different working memory mechanisms and their impact on long-term memory in a broader context by addressing two questions: 1) …

Entextualización Del Discurso Político En Colombia. Análisis Glotopolítico Del Proceso De Escritura De La Constitución De 1991, Jorge Luis Alvis-Castro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although constitutions are part of the canon of disciplinary writings, along with grammar books and etiquette manuals, and are also central texts in the processes of formation and consolidation of Latin American nation-states, to date, they have not been sufficiently explored in their social and linguistic processes of discursive elaboration. With a glottopolitical approach, this research examines the social, communicative and ideological components involved in the writing process of the Colombian Constitution of 1991, developed in a context of State crisis and violence aggravated by narco-terrorist attacks. Using the concept of entextualization, which refers to the process of extracting discourse …

Propensity Score Analysis And Machine Learning: A Comparison And Application To Post-Secondary Education Data, Khudodod Khudododov

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Estimation methods to identify the causal relationships between dependent and independent variables are fundamental to social science research. For social workers, these methods provide crucial knowledge about different factors' complex relationships with a particular issue. Such knowledge helps social workers be better micro, mezzo, and macro change agents.

Different causal estimation methods exist, from randomized controlled studies to methods involving observational studies. In observational studies, which is the focus of this dissertation, participants self-select into intervention. This behavior makes causal estimation more challenging. Since participants self-select into intervention or treatment, there are observed and unobserved differences between participants in the …

Factors Associated With The Life Satisfaction Of Gay And Bisexual Men And Their Variation By Race, Robert G. Considine

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although the literature is replete with evidence showing that gay and bisexual men experience higher rates of negative outcomes than their heterosexual counterparts, the literature exploring the well-being of this population is limited. Life satisfaction is a key aspect of well-being. There has been little research on the factors influencing life satisfaction for gay and bisexual men. Additionally, how these factors may vary by race for this population remains understudied. This gap in our knowledge impedes the ability of social workers to support gay and bisexual men in increasing life satisfaction. In addition, knowledge of how these factors vary by …