Search Results

open access

Putting the Panic Back in Moral Panic Theory: A Case for Disproportionality

Description: The appeal of moral panic studies, a once very popular sociological subfield, dropped precipitously around the turn of the century due in large part to debates about disproportionality, the notion a panicked group's concern about a perceived threat exceeds that warranted by its objective harmfulness. Classic theorists claim disproportionality is a panic's essential criterion and that it can be demonstrated by comparing a group's concerned reaction to the available facts. Critics argue it is a v… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: McCready, Marshall

The Impacts of Urban Sustainability on Economic Prosperity: Sustainability in the Spotlight

Description: City officials are in the position to adopt and implement policies within their jurisdiction that can have lasting impacts for businesses, people, and the environment. Sustainability research has highlighted the need to protect the environment by adopting policies which support the three E's of sustainable development (environment, equity, and economy). Stepping aside from the traditional mechanisms for building a successful city focused on economy first can be challenging for policy makers. Th… more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Cooksey, Christy

Black and White Attitudes toward Interracial Marriage in the U.S.: The Role of Social Contact Characteristics

Description: This research advances the literature on interracial marriage by using variables that align with the social contact hypothesis. The purpose of this project is to accurately gauge the exact social predictors influencing current attitudes towards Black and White interracial marriage. Multiple regression models containing social contact predictors are analyzed using data from the 2018 General Social Survey. The conclusive review of the literature summarizes age, region, and education as essential … more
Date: December 2020
Creator: Coleman, Samuel

Embodied Acts of Resistance: Portraits of Urban Breastfeeding Mothers

Description: This dissertation examines how breastfeeding mothers develop distinct geographies due to the stigma, symbolic and structural violence they encounter while breastfeeding if different spaces. I utilize multiple in-depth semi-structured interviews, participant observation and photo elicitation to develop portraits of four urban mothers. My findings highlight the complexity of motherhood and demonstrate how distinct socio-spatial power dynamics situate and contextualize the experiences of breastfee… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Veselka-Bush, Alexandra V.
open access

Exploring the Transnational Meaning of Home Amid Insecure, Hazardous Housing

Description: This project examines refugees' experiences of insecure housing and perceptions of home in the U.S. Many scholars of migration have focused on the resettlement experiences of refugees, including access to housing, yet refugees' experiences with housing in the U.S. remain largely undocumented. The following analyzes a case study of an apartment fire that displaced 16 refugee families in Dallas, Texas. Based on 18 in-depth interviews with tenants and members of refugee support organizations and n… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Fessenden, Deborah June
open access

Resettled: How Refugees Experience Employment and Unemployment in the United States

Description: Research on immigration in the United States has commonly studied the employment experiences of refugees. Few studies on refugees have focused on both, refugees' employment and unemployment experiences in the United States. This article draws on twenty in-depth interviews with refugees, along with ethnographic observation at a local refugee resettlement agency, to investigate how refugees make sense of their employment and unemployment experiences in the United States. I find that refugee men a… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Mumtaz, Mehr

Off the Gender Spectrum: Exploring Agender Experience

Description: With the proliferation of gender identity labels in the last twenty years, more individuals are identifying outside of a binary understanding of gender. Agender individuals are among this group, but we know very little about their experiences. Gender theorists have examined the ways that gender is performative and structural, but present theory does not provide the tools to understand the experiences of those outside of the binary, and even more so those who identify outside of gender altogethe… more
Date: August 2020
Creator: Clupny, Loren
open access

Unpacking Asylum: Participatory Online Platforms in the Information-Seeking Phase

Description: In the last few years, the world has been gripped by a crisis of forced migration and displaced persons. Being forced migrants, asylum-seekers are a unique and diverse population, originating from many countries with different backgrounds and experiences. This makes fulfilling the information needs of the asylum community difficult. Online participatory platforms, such as blogs and discussion forums, are flexible, adaptive information resources that could be used to meet the diverse needs of th… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Hudson, Cassie
open access

The Effect of Welfare Benefit Levels on Female Headship in the AFDC and TANF Eras

Description: The purpose of this study is to revisit the question of whether welfare benefit levels influence female headship, and whether the effect differs between the two main eras of welfare policy relevant to female headship, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF). This study adds to the existing literature by including more up to date data allowing for a comparison between the AFDC and TANF eras. Results show that the effect of welfare benefits… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Degreve, Thomas Evan
open access

Stepparent-Child Relationship Quality and Young Adult Outcomes

Description: This study set out to test the effects of relationship quality with a stepfather on other familial relationships, romantic relationships, and usual outcome measures for products of parental divorce. OLS regression tests were conducted using responses from over a thousand participants from the New Family Structures Study (N=1,696). Respondents were organized by self-reported level of relationship quality with their stepfathers. Various qualities of stepfather families were then regressed agai… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Underhill, Marissa M
open access

When Women Swipe Right and Men Swipe Left: An Exploration of the Online Dating Preferences and Desirability of African American Women

Description: The purpose of this research study was to conduct an exploration of the dating preferences of African American women and U.S. men between the ages of 30-74 years old. This research focuses on the dating preferences and desirability of African American women and if they are influential on the high unmarried rates of African American women. A weighted stratified sampling of 2,800 personal advertisements of African American, Asian, Latino and White men and women from Match.com were collected to co… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Ford, Stacey L
open access

Framing a Sacred Fight: Framing Analysis and Collective Identity of the #noDAPL Movement

Description: The #noDAPL movement was an Indigenous-led environmental social movement occurring between 2015 and 2017, in which the Standing Rock Sioux and other American Indian tribes comprising the Oceti Sakowin garnered support to oppose the 1,172-mile Dakota Access Pipeline. Pipeline opponents agreed that the pipeline's construction posed a threat to the health and safety of tribal members and other residents of the area and that the pipeline's path crossed previously-designated tribal treaty boundaries… more
Date: May 2020
Creator: Gaston, Emilia
open access

As the Need Presents Itself: Social Identity Theory and Signaling in Online Crowdfunding Campaigns

Description: As social interactions increasingly become exclusively online, there is a need for research on the role of identity and social identity in online platforms. Drawing on Symbolic Interactionist approaches to identity, namely Social Identity Theory and Identity Theory, as well as Signaling Theory, this study argues that actors will selectively use religious language to signal their credentials to an audience for the purpose of garnering prosocial behavior in the form of donations to their fundrais… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Hamilton, Scott J
open access

Participatory Management and Absenteeism and Turnover of Nursing Assistants in Nursing Homes

Description: Nursing assistants (NAs) provide the majority of daily care to older adults in nursing homes (NHs); NAs working in NHs are the focus of this study. This study examined the influence of participatory management (the independent variable), and mediating variables, burnout – measured as emotional exhaustion, task performance, and affective organizational commitment, on NA withdrawal behaviors (the dependent variables absenteeism and turnover). Most of the data come from a 113-item self-administe… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Hughes, Susan D.
open access

Our Own and the Others: What Happens to Perceptions of Immigrant Threat when Value Priorities Collide?

Description: With immigration controversies increasingly found at the forefront of the European public arena, understanding the social and cultural forces driving negative perceptions of immigrants becomes a pressing task of academic scholarship. Situated within the broader theoretical framework of group-conflict theories, human values theory and social identity theory encourage different interpretations of how our interest to the welfare of the people closest to us (benevolence) and the broader human commu… more
Date: December 2019
Creator: Grigoropoulou, Nikolitsa

Cesarean Section Delivery and Exclusive Breastfeeding in Pakistan: Emerging Challenges

Description: This research examined two interrelated issues relevant to maternal and neonatal health in Pakistan, namely, the rising rates of C-section delivery and low rates of exclusive breastfeeding. By using the Andersen's health behavioral model to frame two empirical studies, the data from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS) 2012-13 was used. The first empirical study examined the correlation between place of delivery and the odds of cesarean section in Pakistan. Not all Pakistani women … more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: August 2019
Creator: Nazir, Saman
open access

Educational Degree and Career Satisfaction: Moderating Effects of Educational Expectations

Description: Prior research supports the relationship between education and status attainment, mobility, and occupational attainment. Today, within an increasingly bifurcated labor market, where education is important for occupational attainment and the associated income and benefits, understanding the processes of status attainment is important. Educational expectations shape educational attainment, while educational attainment influences occupational attainment and satisfaction. Utilizing the National Lon… more
Date: August 2019
Creator: Knudsen, Jennifer

The Role of Male Fashion in Protests against the Majority Culture: An Exploratory Study

Description: Throughout history, the Black Diaspora has used fashion as a form of protest. The element of fashion is often overlooked when considering the history and struggle for Black equality, because it is less tangible or definable in terms of its influence and effect, but it is still important because Black males resist the dominant culture via dress by dressing in military uniforms, creating their own style, and using different colors in their dress. Studying the Black struggle in American history du… more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: August 2019
Creator: Greenidge, Giselle C. M.

Turkish Gazis' (Injured Veterans) Transition into Civilian Life

Description: The aim of this study was to describe the dimensions of Turkish Gazis' transition to civilian life, to explore the main factors that make this process easier or more difficult, and their psychological integration, that is, specifically, satisfaction with their life. To that end, this study examined the impact of combat-related traumatic stressor (e.g., functional limitations), personal resources (social support, sense of mastery), perceived mental health on Turkish veterans' adjustment into civ… more
Access: Restricted to UNT Community Members. Login required if off-campus.
Date: August 2019
Creator: Celebi, Mehmet
open access

Chronic Homelessness and the Aging Population: Findings in a Homeless Sample from Arkansas

Description: Understanding underlying mechanisms and pathways that lead to chronic homelessness would help develop intervention strategies that could help prevent subsequent episodes of homelessness. Quantitative data for this cross-sectional study was gathered by interviewing individuals who were homeless in the State of Arkansas, using a structured survey between 2007 and 2011. Qualitative data was gathered using semi-structured interviews between 2016 and 2018. Chi-square statistics and a multivariate lo… more
Date: December 2018
Creator: Chekuri, Lakshminarayana
open access

Suicidality among Turkish Adolescents: Comparing Durkheim's and Tarde's Perspectives

Description: Suicidality is an important problem among adolescents. This study compares Durkheim's and Tarde's perspectives on suicide. While the Durkheimian perspective alleges that integration, regulation, and anomie play the major role on adolescent suicidality, Tarde's theory considers imitation as the most important factor affecting suicidality. Durkheim suggests that individuals with higher integration and regulation are less likely to commit suicide. Individuals with less integration and regulation, … more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Gurbuz, Suheyl
open access

Religious Identity and Interreligious Communications: Predicting In-Group and Outgroup Bias with Topic-Sentiment Analysis

Description: Intergroup relations and the factors affecting them constitute a subject of recurring interest within the academic community. Social identity theory suggests that group membership and the value we assign to it drives the expression of in-group favoritism and outgroup prejudice, among other intergroup phenomena. The present study examines how (ir)religious identities are related to topic-sentiment polarization in the form of positive in-group and negative outgroup bias during interreligious deba… more
Date: August 2018
Creator: Grigoropoulou, Nikolitsa
open access

Mediational Pathways between High School Extracurricular Participation and Young Adult Educational Attainment: A Structural Equation Analysis

Description: Little is known about the mechanisms by which extracurricular participation in high school influences educational attainment in young adulthood. Also limited is an understanding of the different types of extracurricular participation and how various activities may manifest within the relationship. The purpose of this study was to examine the link between high school extracurricular participation and educational attainment, with social capital, parental expectations, and academic achievement pre… more
Date: December 2017
Creator: Long, Roxanne
open access

How eHealth Literacy Impacts Patient-Provider Relationships: A Study on Trust, Self-Care, and Patient Satisfaction

Description: It has been well established, in the literature, the association between low health literacy rates and poor health outcomes. With the increase of technology dependence, more people are using the internet to look up health information. Research has shown that shared decision making between providers and patients can improve patients' health outcomes. This research aims to examine whether electronic health (eHealth) literacy impacts patient-provider relationships. This research will also examine … more
Date: August 2017
Creator: Cheun, Jacquelyn Joann
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