Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Spatial And Morphological Change Of Eliot Glacier, Mount Hood, Oregon, Keith Michael Jackson

Dissertations and Theses

Eliot Glacier is a small (1.6 km²), relatively well-studied glacier on Mount Hood, Oregon. Since 1901, glacier area decreased from 2.03 ± 0.16 km² to 1.64 ± 0.05 km² by 2004, a loss of 19%, and the terminus retreated about 600 m. Mount Hood's glaciers as a whole have lost 34% of their area. During the first part of the 20th century the glacier thinned and retreated, then thickened and advanced between the 1940s and 1960s because of cooler temperatures and increased winter precipitation and has since accelerated its retreat, averaging about 1.0 m a^{-1 …}

Radicalism In American Political Thought : Black Power, The Black Panthers, And The American Creed, Christopher Thomas Cooney

Dissertations and Theses

American Political Thought has presented somewhat of a challenge to many because of the conflict between the ideals found within the "American Creed" and the reality of America's treatment of ethnic and social minorities. The various forms of marginalization and oppression facing women, blacks, Native Americans, and Asian-Americans have been as much a part of the story of America as have been natural rights and the Constitution.

Taking this into account, this thesis is an effort to argue that the radicalism on display in the Black Panther Party, a group that emerged in the turmoil of the 1960' s, was …

Adolescent Mothers : Youth In Need Of Developmentally Appropriate Services, Patricia Arlyne Zimmerman

Dissertations and Theses

This research examines the childhood abuse and maltreatment experiences of adolescent mothers (age 14 to 17; N = 80) to investigate if these experiences have hindered their socioemotional development and consequently, their parenting behaviors and attitudes. Data were gathered using four standardized self-report instruments: the Child Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), the Trauma Symptom Checklist for Children (TSCC), the BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory-Youth Version (EQi-YV), and the Adult Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI-2). Two additional questionnaires were developed to gather demographic and social service information to add to the knowledge base of the field, and to examine what (if any) developmentally focused services …

An Examination Of Conflict Conversation In An Online Community: The Pie Fight At Dailykos.Com, Samantha Isabella Soma

Dissertations and Theses

The increasing popularity of the social web and online communities requires the attention of researchers of conflict resolution. Although there are many ways to resolve conflict offline, the ways in which conflict takes place within a native online context have not been much studied. Are any of the tools and strategies that are used to improve communication offline used successfully online, or are some other strategies taking their place? What communication patterns occur within an online community equipped with comment moderation capabilities? This research is a case study and addressed these questions by performing a qualitative analysis of comment conversations …

Social Workers Addressing Student-Perpetrated Interpersonal Violence In The School Context : Awareness And Use Of Evidence-Supported Programs, Natalie Diane Cawood

Dissertations and Theses

Researchers have argued that there is a research-practice gap in the delivery of prevention and mental health services in the school setting. An extension of the work of Astor and his colleagues (Astor et al., 1997, 1998, 2000), this study addresses that gap by examining the extent to which evidence-supported school violence intervention programs (ESP) are known and used by school social workers, and the barriers that are related to the use of ESPs.

A cross-sectional, web-based survey was completed by 250 members of the School Social Work Association of America, the majority having an MSW as their highest degree. …

Sons Providing Care At End-Of-Life : Common Threads And Nuances, Patricia Ebert

Dissertations and Theses

Family care is common in the majority of families in the United States, the primary care providers for older adult family members most often are wives, daughters or daughters-in-law. As the proportion of the oldest old continues to expand so too will the need for family careproviders. Recent demographic changes have served to deplete the pool of available caregivers. Caregiving research has naturally evolved into investigations into the experiences of women with little attention paid to the care contributions men make.

This investigation examined the perceptions of sons who served as primary caregivers for their dying elderly parents. It was …

The Fisheries Of The Lower Columbia River, 1792 To 1850, Based On Euroamerican Explorer And Fur Company Accounts, Michael A. Martin

Dissertations and Theses

The role of fish in the Native American economy of the lower Columbia River has never been considered in detail. My study focused on the Columbia River from its mouth to the Cascades and the Willamette River from its confluence with the Columbia to Willamette Falls. For this study I asked: How was salmon used? What other fish were important? Where and how were these fish taken and used?

To address these questions, I evaluated historical documents, including explorer's accounts and the administrative records of fur companies dating from the late 1700's through the 1850's. I used fishery data, physical …

Impact Of Universal Health Coverage On Health In Late Life, Nathalie Huguet

Dissertations and Theses

The growth of the elderly population is a major public concern in industrialized countries. Understanding the factors contributing to better health in late life is essential. Canadians appear to be healthier than Americans, yet concrete findings that determine whether older Canadians are healthier than older Americans are missing. The primary goal of this study is to examine the relative importance of the health care system in explaining why older Canadians may be healthier than older Americans. To achieve this goal, this study (a) assessed if older Canadians are healthier than older Americans; (b) investigated the impact of health care coverage …

Expanding Responsibilities And Shifting Demands: An Analysis Of The Effects Of Migration And Employment On Immigrant Women's Negotiating Power In The Household, Kerry Greer

Dissertations and Theses

This study's objective was to examine the affect that migration and employment have on immigrant women's negotiating position within the household. Depth interviews were conducted with nine women who migrated to Portland, Oregon from Ethiopia or Eritrea. Women were encouraged to share a narrative history of their migration and employment experience. These interviews were analyzed to answer three primary questions: Who are immigrant women supporting through their participation in the paid labor market? How do women utilize gain access to employment opportunities and what strategies do women use once employed to meet competing demands on them at work and in …

Conceptualizing And Measuring The Self In Chronic Illness And Its Relationship To Adjustment, Jessica Marie Morea

Dissertations and Theses

This research sought to clarify the role of the self in chronic illness by developing and evaluating several new constructs, which intend to describe the extent to which illness permeates the self-concept. Following the works of Lewin and Asch, the concepts of central and peripheral regions of the self were elaborated to describe the state of illness within the self, termed "illness self-concept".

Three subsidiary constructs were introduced to further depict illness self-concept: directionality, pervasiveness, and illness self-consciousness. Directionality refers to whether illness drives the self or self drives illness. Pervasiveness refers to whether illness affects many or few regions …

Redrawing The Color Line : A Case Study Of The Alliance Of Minority Chambers Of Commerce In Portland, Oregon, Francisca Inez Trujillo-Dalbey

Dissertations and Theses

This study focused on a minority coalition formed in 2002 to secure municipal parking lot contracts in the City of Portland, Oregon. It is grounded in Bates and Howell's (1998) theory of barriers to minority entrepreneurship. The minority group's actions are applied to Butler (1991), Prabhu (1999), and Dees' (2001) theory of social entrepreneurship. The formation of the coalition provides empirical support for Allport (195411979) and Pettigrew's (1998) positive intergroup contact theory.

The creation of minority group coalitions for community economic development purposes, using the chamber of commerce structure, adds to the community economic development literature. Further, the intercultural communication …

Is It Just Me? Felt Hiv -Related Stigma Among Adults With Hiv, Rebecca Gila Block

Dissertations and Theses

HIV carries a significant social stigma in the United States based on the virus being contagious, incurable, visually apparent, and still somewhat mysterious to the public. People who are HIV positive, people who love them and people who work with them may all experience HIV-related stigma. The effects of HIV-related stigma vary from individual to individual; from community to community. The magnitude of feeling stigmatized and experiencing stigmatizing behaviors such as discrimination and exclusion also vary among individuals. Individuals experience stigma differently and respond to the experience in diverse ways.

The objective of this study was to explore felt HIV-related …

The Interactions Between Carbon Regulation And Renewable Energy Policies In The United Kingdom, Hal Thomas Nelson

Dissertations and Theses

The power sector is experiencing profound changes worldwide as policies are enacted to address the linkages between energy use and environmental degradation, as well as improve energy security and local economic development outcomes. This research examines the carbon dioxide (CO2) cap and the renewable energy quota in the United Kingdom's power sector using a constrained optimization model of the U.K. electricity grid. Scenarios simulate the dynamic nature of the supply curve for CO2 mitigation based on the availability of nuclear technologies, energy efficiency investments, fossil fuel prices, and access to emissions reductions from the EU CO2 Cap.

The analysis shows …

Presidential Values : Implications For Foreign Policy, Jordan Katherine Durbin

Dissertations and Theses

Highlighting presidential values brings to center stage the leadership dimension of foreign policy. Because values play an instrumental role in the policy process, understanding the dominant values of powerful leaders is crucial to sustaining democracy at its most basic level. An empirical study of public statements on Iraq by Presidents Bush, Clinton, and W. Bush from August 2, 1990, the date Iraq invaded Kuwait, through March 19, 2003 provides the data for analysis. Combining Lasswell's theory of political values and dictionary construct based on the language of values provides an analytical tool to minimize influence of political ideology and researcher …

Social Regulatory Policy : A Challenge To Federalism, Kimberly Janet Russell

Dissertations and Theses

Access to assisted suicide has been the center of a federal standoff between Congress and the state of Oregon since 1998, but few academic papers on American federalism acknowledge this development. Through the initiative and referendum process, Oregonians gave themselves the right to assisted suicide in 1998. Congress reacted immediately, attempting to overturn the Oregon law with national legislation. By historical and constitutional precedent states control issues related to events of daily life such as birth, death, marriage, and healthcare issues. In reality, Congress has entered the arena of moral policymaking and protection under the Tenth Amendment is unreliable. The …

Examining The Effects Of Transit Service On Commuting Mode Choice And Residential Location Choice, Jaturapat Bhiromkaew

Dissertations and Theses

Empirical studies on the link between land use characteristics and travel behavior may generate biased estimates when the choice of residential locations is influenced by mode preference (i.e., residential self-selection). Without appropriately addressing this matter, the effects of land use characteristics on travel behavior may be overestimated. This study aims specifically to address the residential self-selection problem related to transit service. It also aims to take into account the effects of density and transit service at the origin and destination on mode choice because the level of transit service is often correlated with density. Mode choice effects associated with density …

Oregon's Approach To Health Care Reform : An Analysis Of The Role Of The Business Community In The Evolution Of The Oregon Health Plan, Peter Chuka Olemgbe

Dissertations and Theses

On February 1, 1994, the state of Oregon implemented its landmark health reform legislation---the Oregon health plan. The plan was conceived as an insurance program which uses a prioritized list of treatment protocols to ration health care services to Oregon's poor residents.

During the planning and implementation process of the program, various groups (political stakeholders) participated to bring the program to fruition. Although it is commonly known that one of these stakeholders was the Oregon business community, it is not clear what form its participation took and the nature of its influence. While it is generally assumed that businesses are …

Regeneration Patterns And Facilitation Following Blowdown In A Self- Replacing Lodgepole Pine (Pinus Contorta) Stand In Central Oregon, Jennifer Michelle Karps

Dissertations and Theses

Nurse plant and object facilitation is an important factor mitigating abiotic stress, improving seedling recruitment, and shaping the fine-scale spatial patterns of many plant communities. I investigate the role of facilitation on lodgepole pine regeneration following blowdown in central Oregon. My objective is to examine the importance of nurse objects on seedling recruitment under varying stand conditions. I base my analysis on 1) the mapped locations and attributes of seedlings, saplings, trees, shrubs, snags, stumps, and sound and decomposed logs in each of five, 500 m² circular plots, 2) water holding capacity estimates of woody and leafy litter and …

Deer-Vehicle Accident Hotspots In Northwest Clackamas County, Oregon, Linda K. Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

Road-kill of wildlife is common on Portland, Oregon's suburban fringe where development has increased road densities and traffic volume in rural areas. I identify the spatial and temporal patterns of black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus) deer-vehicle accidents (DVA) at the suburban/rural interface of developing northwest Clackamas County using deer carcass pickup reports for county maintained roads for 1997-2004 and Oregon Department of Transportation deer-vehicle accident reports for 1996-2004. No black-tailed deer DVA models exist in the literature.

DVA increased 121% from 1997 to 1999 followed by a 26% decline by 2004. The initial DVA increase appears related to …

Lives, Livelihoods, And Landscapes: A Study Of Land Use And Social Change In Northeastern Nepal, Jennifer Leigh Anderson

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis explores the forces of change in lives and landscapes that have altered the Lamosangu-to-Everest route in northeastern Nepal and shows how a transect in photographs and conversations across the east-central Himalaya allows us insight and a greater understanding into the processes and consequences of this change.

Three forces of change over the last twenty-five years dominated discussions with local informants: the rise of the "People's War"-Nepal's Maoist Insurgency beginning in 1996; the Democratic Revolution of 1990; and dependence on tourism for livelihood after the establishment of Sagarmatha National Park in 1976. Understanding the cultural-historical context for these forces …

Oxygen Demand Trends, Land Cover Change, And Water Quality Management For An Urbanizing Oregon Watershed, Michael Karl Boeder

Dissertations and Theses

In-stream aquatic habitat depends on adequate levels of dissolved oxygen. Human alteration of the landscape has an extensive influence on the biogeochemical processes that drive oxygen cycling in streams. Historic datasets allow researchers to track trends in chemical parameters concomitant with urbanization, while land cover change analysis allows researchers to identify linkages between water quality trends and landscape change.

Using the Seasonal Kendall's test, I examined water quality trends in oxygen demand variables during the mid-1990s to 2003, for twelve sites in the Rock Creek sub-watershed of the Tualatin River, northwest Oregon. Significant trends occurred in each parameter. Dissolved oxygen …

A Mixed-Methods And Multi-Level Investigation Of The Effects Of A Crew Chief Intervention On Job Attitudes, Occupational Stress, And Organizational Commitment, Michael Charles Leo

Dissertations and Theses

High-profile instances of workplace violence and increased pressure from competitors have threatened the viability of one of the nation's largest employers, the United States Postal Service (USPS). As a result, the USPS began a massive change effort in the early 1990's. One of the initiatives implemented to improve labor-management relations was a derivative of the self-managed work team known as the crew chief program. This study provides a mixed-methods and multi-level approach to understand the impact this unique program had on organizational attitudes.

The first aim of this study was to investigate whether the crew chief program reduced employees' stress …

Nesting Like Birds, Teaching Like Spiders: Emerging Visions In U.S. Higher Education For Biocultural Sustainability And Ecological Literacy Education, Ariana Marta Francesca Kramer

Dissertations and Theses

Sustainability education is a growing field still being defined. It draws from environmental education, but includes social justice and economic equity alongside environmental health. International efforts to define the parameters of sustainability education at the university level have called for interdisciplinary approaches that emphasize culture. However, in the United States most programs concerned with sustainability follow in the footsteps of environmental studies with a focus on science and public policy.

Seven interdisciplinary master's programs in sustainability education were reviewed as potential models for how the larger university system might approach teaching for sustainability. Document analysis was used to compare program …

Self-Help Support Groups: Choices In Participation Among Women Facing Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (Sle), Maria A. Pfeifer

Dissertations and Theses

This research study explored the experiences of 19 women who had been diagnosed with, or were still seeking the diagnosis of SLE (lupus) and their decisions regarding support group participation. The aim of this study was to evaluate the variety of factors influencing their choices in types and sources of support, their coping strategies and the reasons behind their decisions to either choose or not choose lupus support groups as a viable support resource. Those women identified as support groups attendees recalled a more emotion-focused response to their diagnosis and showed stronger reliance on seeking emotional forms of support. Conversely, …

Female Inmates Perspectives On Incarceration And Correctional Education At Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Clara Guadalupe Ellis

Dissertations and Theses

Prisons provide us with a place to segregate criminals from the population at large, but the ongoing question is what to do with them once we have incarcerated them? On one side there is the idea that prisons should be used to punish those who have broken the law. On the other is the idea that prisons should help to rehabilitate prisoners so that they may be reintegrated into society upon their release.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role correctional education programs played in the life of female offenders in light of the debate mentioned above. …

Revisiting Invasion-Succession: Social Relations In A Gentrifying Neighborhood, Lynda Franks

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis examines the social relationships of different residents in a gentrifying neighborhood in Northeast Portland, Oregon. It examines theoretical tenants in the social identity tradition to understand social change in terms of the impact of neighborhood change on the day-to-day interactions of individuals in a gentrifying neighborhood by exploring the ways in which different members of that neighborhood define and describe the terms “neighborhood”, “neighbor”, and “neighborly behavior”.

Intergroup neighboring research posits two outcomes of neighborhood change on interactions between old and new neighbors, one of conflict, the other of cooperation. The conflict perspective proposes that, in situations where …

An Assessment Of The Impacts Of Climate Change On The Upper Clackamas River Basin With A Distributed Hydrologic Model, David Graves

Dissertations and Theses

The Pacific Northwest is dependent on seasonal snowmelt for water resources that support a significant portion of its economy. Increased temperatures resulting from higher concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases may cause disruptions to these resources because of reductions in the annual snowpack and variations of the timing of snowmelt. This study reconstructs and applies a GIS-based distributed hydrologic model at a monthly scale to assess the effects of future climate change on runoff from the Upper Clackamas River Basin (located near Portland, Oregon). Historic flow data and snow measurements are used to calibrate and test the performance of the hydro …

Ambivalent Landscapes: An Historical Geography Of Recreation And Tourism On Mount Hood, Oregon, Ryan Franklin Mitchell

Dissertations and Theses

Mount Hood is an Oregon icon. The mountain has as long and rich a history of recreation and tourism as almost any other place in the American West. But contemporary landscapes on Mount Hood reveal a recreation and tourism industry that has struggled to assert itself, and a distinct geographic divide is evident in the manner in which tourism has been developed. Why? In this study I chronicle the historical geography of recreation and tourism on Mount Hood. I examine the evolution of its character and pattern, and the ways in which various communities have used it to invest meaning …

Reorganizing The Oregon Department Of Human Services : An Exploratory Case Study Of Organizational Change, Charles Anthony Gallia

Dissertations and Theses

For decades, states have tried to reorganize their human service agencies in order to more effectively coordinate and integrate client services. Despite appearing to be a reasonable undertaking, previous studies indicated that such efforts met with only limited success (Dunkle & Surles, 1998; Pindus et al. 2000; Rabin & Steinhauer, 1988; GAO, 1992; Lynn, 1980; Owens, 1985).

This study had three objectives tied to understanding this type of reorganization. First, find out whether the OD process could inform restructuring. Second, determine whether evidence of the constraints to implementing planned organizational change that have been identified in the literature, became manifest …

Fuel Model Development And Fire Simulation Analysis In The Wildland-Urban Interface: The Case Of Forest Park, Portland, Oregon, David Malcolm Kuhn

Dissertations and Theses

Forest Park, a 5,000 acre heavily-forested park within the city limits of Portland, Oregon was selected as the study area for performing a fire simulation analysis. A well-documented fire swept over a large area of the park in 1951, and provides both direct inputs, including the ignition point, and context for the present day fire simulations. The goal of the research was two fold. First, determine the difference between small area simulations using standard and custom surface fuel models. Second, determine if fire simulation can be an effective tool in assessing fire danger and behavior in a wildland-urban interface environment …