Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Neighborhoods And Mental Health: Understanding The Social, Environmental And Structural Factors To Better Support Our Youth And Communities, Meghan Murtagh

Community Engagement Student Work

The social, structural and environmental characteristics of neighborhoods can have a significant impact on the social, emotional, behavioral and cognitive development of children and adolescents. The Center for Disease Control reports every 1 out of 5 children (22%) living below 100% of the federal poverty level have a mental, behavioral and/or developmental disorder (CDC, 2019). Through the utilization of ecological frameworks and a “place” based framework called The Social Determinates of Health, research was conducted to examine the link between neighborhoods and health outcomes in children and adolescents. These findings were then shared through a workshop with the target audience …

Racism In Media: How Media Shapes Our View Of People Of Color In Society, Semarial Wilder

Community Engagement Student Work

As a way to increase awareness about racism in the media, research was conducted to showcase the many ways racism is perpetuated against Black people through our everyday media consumption. A workshop was held and analysis of responses from pre-event surveys, activity post-it responses, and post-event surveys were completed by attendees. Using the cultivation theory, attendees increased their overall knowledge about how the media plays a huge part in how they see society. One attendee mentioned, “I learned how the media sets thoughts or images for you without you realizing it.” It is clear that the media does a wonderful …

Counter Stories In Counterpublics: Exploring Documentary As A Form Of Activist Media To Counter Reinforced Stereotypes About The Criminalization Of Black Men, Tirrea S. Billings

Masters Theses

A story told can change the world. Storytelling has been around since the inception of human communication and has been used as a tool to educate, preserve cultural values, and make meaning of our existence. More recently, storytelling has been used in activist and social change movements. One approach to social justice storytelling is through filmmaking: creating films as a tool to disrupt, interrupt, amplify, organize, shift power and create lasting, transformative change in communities. Specifically, social justice-oriented documentary film and media can be used as a vehicle for those who are in counterpublic spaces to argue against mainstream discourses …

Testing A New Photovoice Model: A Meta-Analysis On Participatory Action Research Methodologies In Geographical Research, Nolan Bergstrom

Masters Theses

Photovoice was developed in the early 1990s for use in public health studies evolving from participatory action research (PAR) and photographic methods. It attempts to mitigate the power dynamics between researcher and researched by allowing participants to be the primary knowledge producers. The Photovoice methodology has left open methodological avenues to implement Photovoice as a research tool in many fields. This research aimed to modify the Photovoice methodology to include mobile technology, social media to create a new model of Photovoice.

This research was conducted in K.I. Sawyer, MI, a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan over a …

Investigating The Perceived Effectiveness Of Domestic Violence Programs In Massachusetts, Katharina Ohmen

Criminology Student Work

Domestic violence affects many individuals on a daily basis. Rates of domestic violence have increased and affect one in three women, and one in five men in Massachusetts (Jane Doe Inc., 2019) and accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime committed in the United States (National Domestic Violence Hotline, n.d.). The current research examines the perceived effectiveness of the services provided by domestic violence programs designed to assist survivors in Essex County, Massachusetts. The current research investigated how well Massachusetts programs can be accessed and utilized by survivors. Qualitative data, in the form of face-to-face interviews with program directors …

Case Studies Of Three Wrongful Convictions, Kelsie Blood

Criminology Student Work

Although the criminal justice system is one of the most important systems in our society, it has its flaws. One role of the criminal justice system is to incarcerate people who have committed crimes in violation of criminal law. Unfortunately for thousands of individuals, the criminal justice system incarcerates people who are not guilty of those crimes. Wrongful convictions are a failure of our criminal justice system. There are different factors that contribute to a person being wrongfully convicted. These factors include eyewitness misidentification, inadequate or ineffective legal representation, DNA-or lack thereof, and official misconduct, or a combination of these. …

Public’S Perception Of Law Enforcement In Schools, Amarielis Morales

Criminology Student Work

Law Enforcement is inserted into schools all over the United States to ensure the school’s safety. Law Enforcement and community relationships are most important in developing trust between law enforcement and schools, including staff, students, and families. Once trust is established, law enforcement in schools is utilized by providing their services to better the school’s community. This research aims to get an insight into how people currently feel about law enforcement and what people would want from law enforcement in schools. Which raises the question, what does the public think about law enforcement in schools? The sample includes people above …

The Developmental Effects On The Daughter Of An Absent Father Throughout Her Lifespan, Carlee Castetter

Honors Senior Capstone Projects

Fatherless households are becoming increasingly common throughout the United States. As a result, more and more children are growing up without the support of both parents, and this may be causing developmental consequences. While there has been significant research conducted on the effect of absent fathers on children in general, there has been far less research regarding girls specifically. As discovered in this paper, girls are often impacted differently than boys when it comes to growing up without a father. The current research paper aims to discover just exactly how girls are impacted by this lack of a parent throughout …

Hora De Las Noticias: The Importance Of Spanish- Language News Media For Us Latinos, Barbara Gomez-Aguinaga

Political Science ETDs

This dissertation examines the mechanisms that set Spanish-language (SL) news media apart from mainstream media, and how they influence political behavior and identity among US Latinos. Specifically, it analyzes (1) the role of content coverage of SL news on issue salience, (2) the use of Spanish as a US minority language in the dissemination of information and its effects on Latino identity, and (3) the presence of Latino reporters and its implications on media trust. By leveraging original data collection, including conceptual content analyses and population-based survey experiments, and by engaging in multiple theories from political science and other fields …

Gen Z & Social Media Influencers: The Generation Wanting A Real Experience, Alexandra Wolf

Honors Senior Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

A Comprehensive Cybersecurity Policy For The United States Government According To Cyberattacks And Exploits In The 21st Century, Diana Hallisey

Honors Program Contracts

Adversaries launch cyberattacks or cyber-exploits with contrasting intentions and desired outcomes. A cyberattack is a malicious attempt by a state, third party, or individual to disrupt a computer’s network; whereas, a cyber-exploit is an action that uncovers and steals “confidential” information from a computer’s data. 1 Within this research paper, the main adversary of such cyberattacks and/or exploits will be the nation-state. The victims of these cyberattacks will range from multinational corporations, such as Sony, to nuclear programs in Iran. This essay will focus on four motivations behind such cyberattacks: (1) private sector hacking (the theft of intellectual property) (2) …

The Power Of Protest Music: A Concept Album, Matthew Patterson

Honors Program Contracts

No abstract provided.

English Language Learner’S Inequities And The Social Reproduction Theory, Cintia Khouzami

Honors Program Contracts

This poster explores the Social Reproduction Theory and connects it to the experiences of English Language Learners (ELL) among various social classes. The research looks into the inequity of resources and opportunities that ELL students receive and how it impacts the rest of their life.

Methods: Through interviews with ELL District Coordinators and ELL Alumni, the quality of education for ELL students will be assessed. Information from scholarly articles, charts, and course content will be used to further the findings and conclusions in the research.

The Potential Cost Of Methane And Nitrous Oxide Emissions Regulation In U.S. Agriculture, Tshepelayi Kabata, Lilyan E. Fulginiti, Richard Perrin

Department of Agricultural Economics: Faculty Publications

Most studies on the impacts of agriculture on the environment have devoted efforts to measure the environmental impacts of the sector rather than to assess its ability to reduce or mitigate such impacts. Some have addressed the environmental efficiency of the sector (Reinhard, et al., 1999, Ball et al., 1994 and 2004; Rezek and Perrin, 2004 and Serra et al., 2011) but only few have examined greenhouse gas emissions (Njuki and Bravo-Ureta, 2015; Dakpo, Jeanneaux and Latruffe, 2016) from the sector. This paper analyzes the agricultural performance of states in the U.S. in terms of their ability to reduce emissions …

Examining Biobehavioral Indicators Of Adhd In Children With Fxs, Hannah Pressler

Senior Theses

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity behaviors that are inconsistent with developmental age. Children with fragile X syndrome (FXS), a genetic neurodevelopmental disorder, are often diagnosed with comorbid ADHD (53-59% of males with FXS). Despite the prevalence of ADHD in FXS, little is known about the early manifestation of ADHD. The current project aims to explore group differences in play behaviors between children with FXS and typically developing (TD) children as well as the correlation of infant play behavior and heart activity to future ADHD attention outcomes. Participants included male children with FXS and …

Never Enough: Assessing Body Image In College-Age Males, Austin T. Coale

Senior Theses

Body image issues are a prevalent issue among college-age students. College-age males specifically suffer from societal pressures of masculinity which manifest in different body image threats and coping strategies that focus on over-exercising and increased muscularity. This study aims to look at two distinct athletic populations of males at the University of South Carolina: yoga and weightlifting. An eleven item survey interrogated three types of coping strategies: avoidance, appearance fixing, and positive rational acceptance. Thirty males were surveyed and found that males participating in yoga reported rates of appearance fixing that were statistically significantly higher than those in the weightlifting …

Startle Response In Women With The Fmr1 Premutation And Risk For Anxiety Disorders, Azalfa Lateef

Senior Theses

Background: The FMR1 premutation, which occurs when there is an expansion of 55 -200 repeats of the CGG trinucleotide on the FMR1 gene, is associated with an increased risk for anxiety disorders. Indices of autonomic regulation may prove to be useful biomarkers for psychopathological risk, including stress and anxiety. In the general population, diminished habituation to a startle response is linked to a variety of psychological disorders, including anxiety, yet little is known about this relationship in those with the FMR1 premutation. Given the increased risk for anxiety in those with the FMR1 premutation, the present study aims to examine …

Sex Work Decriminalization And Feminist Theory, Gabriella Mesce

Senior Theses

This thesis explores the history and nuances of sex work and feminist philosophy, especially within the context of commercial sex and feminist legal theory. Through an analysis of four different feminist philosophies that stemmed from the “sex wars” of the 1980s such as abolitionism, neo-abolitionism, decriminalization and legalization and their perspectives on sex work, the belief systems of these perspectives and their relation to feminist jurisprudence, as well as a comparative study of decriminalized sex work in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands and Juárez, Mexico, this research shows the ramifications of decriminalization of sex work on progressive feminism.

An Intersectional Analysis Of Structural Racism And Police Violence Against Black Women, Ceylin H. Ucok

Senior Theses

Structural racism in the United States affects racial and ethnic minorities in many areas of life. The Black community, specifically, faces the highest risk of police violence and brutality. In particular, this paper explores the ways in which adverse police violence experiences affect Black women. Black women often face marginalization in movements for racial justice and gender equality, so this paper investigates the intersectionality of how Black women experience police violence. They often face overlapping forms of discrimination and racialized gender violence at the hands of police. The negative ways in which Black women are stereotyped are discussed to further …

Understanding The Impact Of Cross-Cultural Communication Between American And Japanese Businesses, Scott Jenkins

Senior Theses

This thesis aims to investigate the cultural differences between American and Japanese society most relevant to successful business collaboration in relation to SIOS Technology Group. First, by providing an examination of the issues SIOS Technology Group has experienced as a company with businesses in both Japan and the United States, this case will provide context for the use of relevant frameworks for researching cultural differences. Second, this thesis analyzes relevant theories of cross-cultural research such as the CAGE Distance Framework, Hall’s Cultural Elements, Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions, and Schwartz’s Cultural Values in order to apply their concepts to SIOS Technology Group’s …

Trade Financing In Emerging Markets, Jamie L. Morris

Senior Theses

Businesses need capital to initiate trades, drive growth, and produce profit, but unfortunately, not all companies can access to capital easily. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), although critical to the global economy, typically have trouble funding trades because of a lack of creditworthiness. This problem worsens for SMEs in emerging markets in volatile economies with political instability (“Trade finance and SMEs” 2016, p.11-21). In this study, we analyze how third-party trade finance companies can help finance trades more easily for SMEs in eight (8) emerging markets: Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Chile, Peru, Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia. We use a unique source …

Theraputic Strategies For Altering The Trajectory Of Neurocognitive Impairments In Hiv-1 Associated Neurocognitive Disorders In The Post-Cart Era, Kristen Addie Mclaurin

Theses and Dissertations

The marked increase in life expectancy for individuals with human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), following the great success of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), necessitates an investigation of the progression of HIV-1 associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND), and associated neural mechanisms, across the functional lifespan. Furthermore, given the persistence of HAND in the post-cART era, there remains a critical need to develop adjunctive therapeutics targeting the neural mechanisms underlying HAND. Thus, the guiding hypothesis for the present study was threefold. First, that there will be a differential progression of NCI in HIV-1 Tg and control animals. Second, that synaptodendritic dysfunction will …

Remote Sensing And Social Sensing For Improved Flood Awareness And Exposure Analysis In The Big Data Era, Xiao Huang

Theses and Dissertations

Floods are among the most devastating hazards on Earth, posing great threats to a large amount of population in the world. As the severity and frequency of flood events have noticeably increased, there is a growing need to improve the flood awareness and exposure analysis to assist flood mitigation. Fortunately, the Era of Big Data has fostered many innovative spatial data sources as well as spatial data analytics. This dissertation advances the existing flood monitoring studies by obtaining enhanced flood awareness via the development of a data fusion enable and deep learning supported flood monitoring framework that systematically integrates remotely …

Vicarious Posttraumatic Growth Among Helping Professionals: Factor Analysis And An Investigation Of Construct Validity, Jennifer D. Deaton

Theses and Dissertations

The impact of trauma has varying effects on both clients and helping professionals ranging from negative responses (e.g. secondary traumatic stress [STS], compassion fatigue, and burnout) to positive responses (e.g. vicarious posttraumatic growth [VPTG], vicarious resilience, and compassion satisfaction [CS]). Vicarious posttraumatic growth is the experience of growth as a result of indirect trauma exposure. Scholars have exclusively investigated VPTG using the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI); a measure of the extent an individual experiences growth experienced after trauma. The PTGI has not held its factor structure when used among indirect trauma exposure. The purpose of this study was to explore …

Freedom And Food: Transformations And Continuities In Foodways Among The People Who Labored At Stono Plantation, James Island, South Carolina During The Eighteenth, Nineteenth, And Twentieth Centuries, Brandy Kristin Joy

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation compares archaeological assemblages from the Stono Plantation/Dill Farm, James Island, South Carolina between the periods of enslavement and Emancipation. Further comparisons are made with the neighboring Ferguson Road archaeological site and the Smith Plantation archaeological site, Port Royal, South Carolina. These comparisons are made in order to understand how Emancipation impacted the foodways including diet, vessel type and use, and cuisine of Lowcountry residents. Results suggest that while technological innovation and increased globalization enabled a shift in material culture, the overall foodways of the region remained relatively unchanged through time.

Parallel Spaces Of Migrant (Non-)Integration In Singapore: Latent Politics Of Distance And Difference Within A Diverse Christian Community, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This paper explores how the spatial practices of churches can lead to the (non-)integration of migrant communities. Whilst churches bring migrants and non-migrants together in space and time, so too can they cause them to become divided along ethnic, national, linguistic and/or class-based lines. In such cases, migrants can become integrated into a community of other migrants, which can discourage integration into the church-at-large, or into society more generally. These practices of (non-)integration give rise to parallel spaces of Christian praxis that can lead to the reproduction of distance and difference between (and within) migrant and non-migrant communities. To illustrate …

Global Fields, Institutional Emergence, And The Regulation Of Transnational Corporations, Alwyn Lim

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

World society theory has developed to become a major sociological perspective on globalization, focusing on the diffusion of global institutions and increasingly on the domestic impact of those institutions. Nevertheless, the emergence of global institutions has received less attention, raising questions about whether core elements of world society—institutional structures, actorhood, legitimacy—are sufficient to also explain how global institutions arise. This article proposes a “global fields” approach in which institutional emergence is conditional on the interaction between state and non-state actors around the exercise of international authority. Using archival United Nations (UN) data, I demonstrate this field approach through an historical …

Introduction Pages, Alexa Lamm

Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education

The Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education is the official refereed publication of the Association for International Agricultural and Extension Education (AIAEE). Its purpose is to enhance the research and knowledge base of agricultural and extension education from an international perspective.

Understanding The Context For Agricultural Technical, Vocational, Education And Training In Haiti, M. Christelle Calixte, T. Grady Roberts, J. C. Bunch

Journal of International Agricultural and Extension Education

Agricultural activities in developing countries are critical for the future of the world’s food security. These countries have the lowest agricultural productivity and dissemination of agricultural technologies are often insufficient. Extension has a vital role in improving agricultural productivity. The Caribbean country of Haiti is one such case. In Haiti, agricultural technicians perform much of the extension field work. Agricultural technicians often have a diploma earned at a Technical, Vocational, Education and Training (TVET) school. However, not much is known about Haitian TVET schools, as little research has been conducted. This study explored the context for Haitian agricultural TVET. Individual …

From The President, Laura Burtle

Georgia Library Quarterly

No abstract provided.