Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Kiezdeutsch: Perceptions Of A Metropolitan Dialect Of German, Emily Claire Krauter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, I explain perceptions of the German dialect Kiezdeutsch. The basis for the research came from four recorded interviews of male and female Kiezdeutsch speakers. I used the Kiezdeutsch recordings to perform research at the University of Mississippi by interviewing nine different German students who were studying abroad for the semester. The interviewees were separated into three different focus groups. I then performed a pilot study of perceptual dialectology folloby an open discussion. Although my sample size proved to be too small and limited to yield any statistically significant results, the data was regardless intriguing. This study focuses …

Investigating The Relation Between Self-Compassion And Romantic Relationships, Emily Jacobson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Self-compassion has recently emerged as a component of psychological health. Research on self-compassion processes has grown in recent years, and shows that self-compassion is related to lower levels of psychological distress and higher levels of positive affect. The current study examined the extent to which self-compassion is related to the quality of romantic relationships. Undergraduates at the University of Mississippi (N=261) completed online self-report questionnaires assessing self-compassion and relationship quality. Correlational and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted in order to assess the relation between self-compassion and relationship quality. Results indicated that self-compassion was positively and significantly correlated with relationship …

Figure Rating Scales: A Novel Measure Of Weight Bias, Joseph Mitchell Magness

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The obesity epidemic in the United States has grown in epic proportions over past decades. People who are obese experience weight bias, which is defined as any attitude that negatively influences obese individuals. Weight bias has also been documented in many areas of life. Furthermore, cultural differences in attitudes toward weight are salient in the conceptualization and maintenance of this phenomenon. Body dissatisfaction has also been linked to excess weight through negative views of fatness. One traditional measure of body dissatisfaction is figure rating scales. For this study, it was hypothesized that figure ratings presented with pictures of obese individuals …

Survivors Of Pediatric Brain Tumors: Psychosocial Outcomes And Executive Function, Lauren Elizabeth Cox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children treated with CNS-directed therapy for brain tumor (BT) are at significant risk for developing late effects secondary to both disease and treatment. Executive functions (EF) encompass those skills necessary for appropriate problem solving and other goal-directed behaviors. Although no homogenous neuropsychological profile exists in patients with brain tumors, the most affected cognitive domains include EF and related processes, with the magnitude of effect increasing over time. Deficits in EF have been implicated in the etiology of internalizing, externalizing, and social disorders suggesting that EF is a foundational cognitive process. With a growing population of pediatric BT survivors at risk …

Gender, Genre, And “Quality” Television: The Field Of Television Production In America From 1951 - 2013, Joseph Andrew Hoff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gender has a major impact on how society is organized. Societal processes taking place within fields continually shape and recreate our concepts of man and woman. Within television this is no difierent. Although a field closely tied to capitalistic economic interests, television has been afiorded a slight amount of autonomy that has allocertain shows in certain genres to be engaged with by audiences much like literature that is rich in symbolism and open to multiple interpretations. This study addresses how gender has structured the field over three distinct time periods as it expanded and provided men with opportunities and resources …

Is Your Parenting Style Hindering Your Child’S Chances At Succeeding In Their Post-Seconday Education? A Pilot Study Of Parent Gender And Parenting Style Effects On College Student Adjustment, Natya Jones

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research was conducted on parent gender and parenting style effects on college student adjustment. Literature suggest that an authoritative parenting style is most optimal for adolescent outcomes contributing to adjustment in the following ways: social, attachment, personal emotional and academic. The current study utilized a convenience sample of 52 participants that examined the associations of parent gender and perceive parenting styles on college student adjustment. Significant relations were found among the differences between maternal and paternal permissive parenting on overall student adjustment.

Funneled Into Prison: Race And Behavior Modification At A Mississippi Alternative School, Daniela Alexandria Griffin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

African American youth are 3.5 times more likely than their white counterparts to be expelled from traditional public schools and sent to an alternative school—an exclusionary disciplinary setting focused on behavior modification. Yet how administrators and faculty supervise students’ behavioral achievement in these settings is seldom examined. This research investigates how faculty and administrators define and implement a behavior modification program at Richmond Learning Center, an alternative education setting in Mississippi, and places African American boys as young as 12 years old on a path to prison. To understand how faculty and administrators perceive and practice this program, I performed …

Identifying Values: Comparing Four Methods Of Values Identification, Emmie Hebert

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Values have been described, from a behavioral perspective, as “freely chosen, verbally constructed consequences of ongoing, dynamic, evolving patterns of activity, which establish predominant reinforcers for that activity that are intrinsic in engagement in the valued behavioral pattern itself “ (Wilson & DuFrene, 2009). Emerging research supports the psychological benefits of interventions with a values component. However, there has been little experimental research that explores systematic methods of getting participants and psychotherapy clients to identify their values. This study evaluated four methods of identifying values by comparing within-subject ratings of participant-generated values stimuli. Participants were undergraduate students at the University …

Academic And Language Socialization Of Russian Ma Tesl Students At Us Universities: Struggles, Triumphs, And New Identities, Marina Lepekhova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Each year a great number of students leaves their home countries to study abroad. As a result, international students constitute a considerable portion of student body in us universities and around the world. For many students, study abroad is a holistic and a life-changing experience. Life in a foreign country and everyday exposure to new social and academic cultures make international students undergo an uneasy academic socialization process and re-imagine themselves through the use of second language (l2). This process is simultaneously coupled with academic and language socialization practices that construct novices as certain kinds of situationally organized persons, with …

An Analysis Of The Archaeological Collection From The Jaketown (22hu505) Site At The University Of Mississippi, Alexandria Elizabeth Gochenauer

Honors Theses

Jaketown (22HU505) is a significant prehistoric site that is located in the Lower Mississippi Valley. A collection from the University of Mississippi was found in storage and contained an amalgamation of surface collections from Jaketown undertaken during the 1950s and 1970s that were never analyzed and reported. Analysis of the artifacts that constitute the UM Collection may have a meaningful impact on our understanding of Jaketown's importance. Analysis enabled the identification of the number of Poverty Point attributes, diagnostic features of the Poverty Point culture period, present in the collection. Future research may lead to new knowledge about prehistoric settlement …

Keeping Students In School: An Analysis Of Dropout Prevention Methods In Canton, Mississippi, Mary Elizabeth Kakales

Honors Theses

With a graduation rate of 29.7% and a dropout rate of 59.8% reported in 2005, the Canton Public School District qualified as one of the most low-performing school districts in the United States. Recently, though, the district has experienced significant improvement in these areas, reporting a graduation rate of 72.2% and a dropout rate of 17.8% in 2013. In this thesis, I analyze Canton, Mississippi's dropout prevention methods and conclude that their success is attributed to the combination of a community-wide effort and desire to be worthy of honor and respect alongside Canton Public School District's extensive Dropout Prevention Plan. …

The Entrepreneurship Center At The Mississippi Development Authority: An Assessment Of The State's Small Business Engine, Ryan Snow

Honors Theses

The importance of a strong entrepreneurial environment for overall economic development is well established. Mississippi, this Mississippi Development Authority's Entrepreneur Center is the state's leading authority on small business development. However, there has been little to no analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of the Entrepreneur Center. Two surveys were conducted. The Mississippi Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Survey (MEES) was administered by the University of Mississippi's McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement last fall to a population of 4214 business and community leaders with a responsive sample of n= 573. This survey is used to contextualize the business ecosystem of …

Experiences Of Neurotypical Siblings Of Children With An Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Qualitative Exploration, Stacie R. Keirsey

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

In recent years, the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been on the rise, prompting a simultaneous increase in scientific study regarding cause, impact, and intervention (Hughes, 2009; Ravindran & Myers, 2012). Research has proposed advances in the treatment of the individuals diagnosed and focused efforts on scholastic, parental, and professional intervention and supports. However, the siblings of ASD children have largely been neglected in this scientific investigation. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore neurotypical siblings’ experiences in living with a child diagnosed with ASD. Seven adolescents were selected using criterion, convenience, and snowball sampling. …

Disability And Forgiveness: An Intervention To Promote Positive Coping For Persons With Disabilities, Susan Stuntzner, Angela Macdonald

Counseling Faculty Publications and Presentations

Disability is an event that forever changes a person's life. Throughout the coping and adaptation process, many experience negative thoughts and feelings such as anger, anxiety, depression, and multiple forms of frustration. Some of these may be related to a disability, while others are by-products of the negative experiences, attitudes, and treatment of persons with disabilities. These include societal barriers and injustices and changes and losses that often accompany a disability. Counseling professionals can assist persons with disabilities in learning to improve their coping process by learning about approaches and, in this case, interventions to help promote healing and positive …

Exaggerated News Headlines And The Continued Influence Effect, Heather Nicole Bliss

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave: Cyberbullying, Anxiety, Depression, And Loneliness, Kristen Laprade Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cyberbullying can be defined as any intentionally aggressive act occurring through electronic forms of communication. Drawing on literature examining traditional, face-to-face bullying, it is likely that this relatively contemporary form of victimization is associated with emotional distress. This has yet to be examined with any empirical rigor, however, as there are few studies of the construct. The present research assessed prevalence rates of cyberbullying in youth in North Mississippi using a psychometrically sound measure. These rates were found to be towards the higher end of previous studies (67.6% with exposure to cyberbullying and 6.3% with clinically elevated levels of cyberbullying). …

Passive Unaccusatives In L2 English, Chad Tyler Davis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Passive unaccusativity refers to a phenomenon whereby L2 English speakers produce unaccusative verbs in passive constructions. Since unaccusative verbs are a subset of intransitive verbs and thus generally do not passivize, the question of how learners recognize unaccusatives without any overt input distinguishing subsets of intransitives has piqued the interest of many researchers since the late 1970's. Oshita's (2000) claim that passive unaccusatives are NP-movement markers is now a widely accepted claim; however, studies of more general characteristics of intransitivity have revealed close parallels between passive unaccusatives and other well-documented phenomena. The aim of this paper is to show that …

The Effects Of Parental Involvement On K-12 Education, Vivian Paris

Honors Theses

Recent research on levels of parental involvement uses advanced statistical techniques to describe the scope and scale of involvement and to determine its unique impact on student achievement. The present thesis looks into the unique impacts parental involvement has on k-12 student's academic performance. This thesis will review the positive relationship between parental involvement and pupils' academic achievements and that parental involvement is ultimately low. Ways to increase parental involvement in a pupil's education have been the effort of many establishments. Whether it is a government program or a local born idea, programs are in existence that have been successful …

Autism, Tara Crapnell, Lynette Lau, Christopher D. Hanks, Christina Nicolaidis, Alice Kuo

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex, lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that is marked by deficits in social communication and interaction, and repetitive or restrictive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. These symptoms can create challenges for individuals on the autism spectrum and their parents during the transition to adulthood, which may interfere with their ability to access and receive adequate and appropriate health care. Awareness of how the challenges associated with ASD may translate to healthcare barriers can help primary care providers address the complex needs of individuals who are on the autism spectrum and mitigate the risks of additional …

Parenting Under Stress: Examining The Protective Role Of Parenting Self-Efficacy In A High-Risk Environment, Lindsy Jean Magee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Research has demonstrated that risk factors such as poverty, neighborhoods that are lacking in resources and high in danger, and experiences with racism can compromise a parent’s ability to engage in parenting behavior that results in the most favorable child outcomes. It has also demonstrated that African American mothers are much more likely to face these risk factors. While research has demonstrated the protective effect of parenting self-efficacy against poverty’s influence on parenting behaviors, it has not examined whether or not parenting self-efficacy serves as a buffer against other risk factors. As such, it is the purpose of this study …

Some Men Just Want To Watch The World Burn: The Role Of Sensation Seeking, Impulsivity, And Empathy In Cyberbullying, Anandi C. Ehman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explored the potential role of sensation seeking, impulsivity, and empathy in cyberbullying behavior directed towards known and unknown persons. Sensation seeking is one’s propensity to desire novel situations and stimuli. Impulsivity is one’s tendency to engage in behavior without regard for potential consequences. Empathy is conceptualized as one’s ability to understand the experiences and emotions of others. Cyberbullying is the act of intentionally aggressing against another individual via some form of technology. University of Mississippi students (N=393) participated in an online survey and completed measures of the aforementioned variables. Cyberbullying behavior was measured in the context of aggressing …

Fluorine Dating Of Human Bone At The Pre-Columbian Maya Cemetery Of Caves Branch Rockshelter, Belize, Morgan Isaacs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis tests the ion-selective electrode fluorine dating method on the remains from the Maya mortuary site Caves Branch Rockshelter (CBR) in Belize. CBR is a cemetery containing at least 400 burials from the late Preclassic to the Postclassic periods. The intensive use and reuse of the site has disturbed the burial matrices, making it difficult to seriate the burials. Fluorine dating analyzes the amount of fluorine that has accumulated in bone over time. In principle, an older burial will contain more fluorine from groundwater than a more recently buried bone; however, this principle must be tested at each site …

Chief Justice Roberts And The Salience Of Issues Before The Modern Supreme Court, Anna Whisenant

Honors Theses

This thesis studies whether the Roberts Court has been hearing more important issues than the Warren, Burger or Rehnquist Courts. I operationalize important issues as pre-decision salience and measure mentions of cases in the first section of two newspapers. The research shows that the Roberts Court has been hearing more important issues than the other modern Courts. I reason that the Roberts Court has been hearing more important issues because interest groups and individuals are turning to the Court to make policy. Because the Court is becoming a more important policymaking institution, scrutiny of the Supreme Court will increase.

The Nile Project: Creating Harmony Through Music In The Nile Basin Region, Kelly Mancini Becker

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT

The use of the arts as a tool for conflict transformation, or what has been called arts based peacebuilding, is a new and emerging field. Yet, there is sparse empirical evidence on its outcomes. The Nile Project, a musical collaborative from East Africa that brings together musicians from all of the countries that border the Nile River, is aimed at finding a solution to the dire water conflict and crisis in the region. This study aims to explore how their collaborative process of creating and performing music despite their linguistic, cultural, musical, and political differences, can illuminate how music …

Placing Natural Resource Decisions In Social And Historical Contexts: Sociological Inquiries Into Agency Communications, Management Rationalities, And Community Change, Emilian Geczi

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

A sociological understanding of natural resource management decisions traces the links between historical change (How does this historical period differ from other periods?), society (What social relations exist at this time and how do they persist or change?), and individuals (What types of conduct and discourse prevail in this society and in this period?). The papers submitted for this dissertation examine the connections between identity, social milieu, and historical change relative to three resource management issues:

(1) The promotion of nature play areas as a novel landscape form. Analysis of agency materials suggests that these spaces are advertised as bucolic …

Prejudice Against Black Americans Versus Black Africans In College Admission, Asia Mccleary-Gaddy

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Three studies examined prejudice as an explanation for the overrepresentation of Black Africans and the under-representation of native-born Black Americans in Ivy League institutions. I hypothesized admission officers may use Black Africans as a "cover" for their prejudice against Black American natives. The admission of more Black Africans may allow admission officers to express their prejudice toward Black American natives while maintaining an egalitarian image. In Study 1, although the Black African applicant was evaluated as more likable, competent, and had a greater chance of being admitted than the Black American native applicant, differences were only significant when compared with …

A Comprehensive Study Of Voter Identification Laws And The Discriminatory Effect They Have On Voting Rights, Christine Sim

Honors Theses

One of the most primary and essential rights of every American is equal opportunity to access the polls. Voting rights have been tirelessly fought for by people from many demographic backgrounds throughout the history of the United States. Now, due to the weakening of the Voting Rights Act, it is now easier for states across the nation to place voting identification legislation on the books that may change not only voter turnout at the polls, but also the ability of all Americans to exercise their fundamental right to vote. This thesis covers all aspects of the controversy over voter identification …

Fourth Amendment Search Incident To Arrest In The Home: Why Gant's New Vehicular Rules Should Supersede Chimel, Sidney Lampton

Honors Theses

The purpose of this article is to reveal and propose a solution for the current misguided search incident to arrest doctrine in homes and vehicles. As a result from modern Supreme Court cases, the rules controlling searches incident to arrest are inverted for homes and vehicles. Homes possess a higher expectation of privacy, but currently have less protection from invasive police searches than vehicles. This constitutionally incorrect doctrine is a consequence of Arizona v Gant's decision to return vehicular searches to the original intent of Chimel v California. However, interpretations of Gant failed to make the same adjustment in home …

Creating A Welcoming Clinical Environment For Lgbt Patients, Samy S. Ramadan

Family Medicine Clerkship Student Projects

The aim of this project was to develop a welcoming clinical environment for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) patients at Northern Counties Health Care (NCHC) and to serve as a model for community health centers across the nation that want to provide their LGBT communities with patient centered care that is affordable, compassionate and accessible. This was achieved by revising non-discrimination policies and new patient forms to be more inclusive of sexual orientations and gender identities, incorporating LGBT health learning modules into yearly provider and staff mandatories, and adding LGBT inclusive material into all waiting and exam rooms. The …

Social Work In Cadereyta, Mexico: Building The Future, Kellyn Cuevas Tovar

A with Honors Projects

During spring break, 2016, the author, a student of Parkland College, Champaign, IL, traveled to her hometown, Cadereyta, Neuvo, Leon, Mexico, where she interviewed a school social worker to discuss the impact economic and cultural factors have on educational success. The visit, in addition to reflection on her personal struggles growing up disadvantaged in the United States, have reinforced her commitment to becoming a social worker and returning to Mexico.