SUGRS 2017 Papers
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Item Philosophy vs. Theology: The Similarities and Differences of Greek and Christian Antiquity(2017) Trump, DavidLiving in the South makes it impossible to not at some point be affronted with the Christian religion. It has integrated itself into radio, television, and social media. It is highly likely for a person to pass anywhere from 1 to 5 churches (or more) in a 1-mile stretch of road. Though Christianity has become popular, one cannot turn a blind eye to the religions of those who came before. In the Hellenistic Age, there was already a weathered faith and a series of worship practices well-established; all dedicated in faithful pursuit to the gods well before Jesus Christ ever came into the picture. Yet as one reads the Old and New Testament of the Christian Bible, one cannot help but find similarities between the way people worshipped gods in the “BC(E)” era and how one also worshipped God in the “AD” (CE) era; and likewise, similarities in the way God/gods honor/dishonor his/her followers. In what ways do these faiths intertwine? Is it possible that the Christian faith garnered many of their religious practices from the Greco-Roman tradition? To what purpose do the similar teachings and stories hold? And should one’s belief or view of his or her faith change after discovering its origin? Through the analysis of Greek plays and philosophies, combined with many modern-day scholars’ own interpretations and discoveries, I journeyed into the past and saw what historical evidence could be brought to the surface and how those clues helped decipher the questions many choose to simply ignore.Item Hands Up, Don’t Shoot: Using Poetic Transcription and Critical Race Theory to Re-Present Young, Rural, Black Men’s Experience with Police(2017) White, Ashley N.; Birch, DavidChronic life stressors, racial injustices, and social factors create disparities in care for Black men often hindering their ability to confidently manage their health. Black men in the United States have poorer health and die younger than men of other ethnic backgrounds and suffer extremely high rates of chronic conditions. The study that informed this manuscript focused on preventive health services use among rural, Black men ages 18-34. This article details the process of using poetic transcription to share stories of race and police encounters. Found poetry or poetic transcription was used to analyze the interview transcripts to interpret experience depicted in the interviews. Four stories and poetic transcriptions are presented and analyzed using Critical Race Theory. The narratives and poems presented reveal experiences of fear during racially charged situations the impact of this experiences on Black men’s identities. Using poetry as an analysis of interview data gives validity to the participants’ self-representation and offers a way for researchers to re-see a static data-driven text and offer new insights for the field of public health.Item History to Herstory: When The Tide Turned at The University of Alabama(2017) Jones, Cindy A.; Tomlinson, StephenThe purpose of my paper is to unpack the standard and traditional histoircal narrative of this university. My paper argues that the history of this university was altered by the herstory of Autherine Lucy Foster and Vivian Malone Jones. My work focuses on notions of space and place for black students at predominantly white universities in the south. This university serves as the case study for my work. In an ethnographic sense, black women form the center of my research interests. More specifically, I'm drawn to the herstories of Autherine Lucy Foster and Vivian Malone Jones. I realize that they left footprints for me as an African American woman here on this campus. Without their bravery and courage, I could not have designed and crafted a blueprint out of their footprints. Conversely, their blueprints have encouraged me to use my footprints to walk out their legacies of social justice and change.Item Dialogue, Space, and Justice: A Spatial Turn to Social Justice Through Dialogue(2017) Flint, Maureen; Guyotte, KellyThe past few months have seen rumblings and eruptions of activism and protest in light of cuts and reversals of legislation impacting higher education students, faculty, and staff in myriad ways. As we grapple with the repercussions of these changes, and face the uncertainty to come, a spatial turn is necessary and needed. A spatial turn asks how we take up, create, and produce space, not only at the local and bounded level of individual institutions and campuses, but space as enfolded and layered nationally and globally, as we look to national politics and legislation and higher education as national and international entities (Massey, 2005). A critical spatial perspective unpacks, complicates, and layers notions of how humanity and materialities interact with the world, and in turn, how those materialities interact with us to shape and create space. This paper takes a critical spatial perspective, “inverting the usual order and putting space first as the primary discursive and explanatory focus” to explore the spatiality of intergroup dialogue workshops, and specifically those led by the Sustained Dialogue Institute (Soja, 2010, p. 17). Through this conceptual framework I ask, how is space constructed within these workshops? How do human and non human bodies intra act to create this space? How is the space of the dialogue enfolded with the space of the institution and what implications does this have for social justice activism nationally? Through exploring these questions, I consider entry points for possibility and change, a spatial turn to the future of social justice.Item Does Musical Aptitude Influence Language Ability? A Multivariate Approach(2017) Porter, Mitchell; Tomek, SaraThe purpose of this study is to investigate which areas of music aptitude can be used to predict language ability. A multivariate regression analysis was used. The Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT) and the Jake Mandell Music Tests (JMMT) were the instruments used to judge the music and language aptitudes of 204 participants. The results showed that there are statistically significant relationships between the variables of each test, most notably the rhythm test and audio-visual music intelligence test. One of the major implications of this study revolves around a relatively new approach to second language acquisition; dynamic systems theory. This study points at neurolinguistics to help future researchers answer the difficult questions revolving around language acquisition, as well as where language and music is processed in the brain.Item How Principal Leadership, Disciplinary Climate and Parental Involvement Work Collectively as Predictors of Student Reading Achievement and Their Perceptions on Reading(2017) Zhang, Sijia; Mitchell, RoxanneThe purpose of the study is to examine the relationships among leadership activities, disciplinary climate, parental involvement, students’ perceptions on their reading, and students’ reading abilities. Put simply, this study aims to explore how leadership activities are able to positively influence disciplinary climate and parental involvement, which in turn predict students’ perceptions of their reading, and their actual reading capabilities. Data were derived from a large scale dataset PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Studies).Item Elaboration Strategies to Eliminate Misconceptions about Environmental Chemistry(2017) Gungordu, Nahide; Thoma, StephenPrevious studies highlighted misconceptions of high school students related to environmental chemistry, and researchers have mentioned that current teaching methods trigger such misconceptions. In an effective learning environment, teachers should be conscious of students’ pre-existing knowledge, but uncovering students’ notions may require complex procedures. For instance, “Elaboration” is an effective study strategy that assists student mastery of new materials. It requires that students clarify their learning with their own words and connect it with their own lives. The present research paper investigates the effectiveness of elaboration strategies for eliminating misconceptions in environmental chemistry courses. For this purpose, a quasi-experimental study will be conducted with 9th-grade students who will take the chemistry course in Turkey. While the treatment group will learn the subjects through heavy application of elaboration strategies, the control group will continue to learn the subjects by way of regular classroom teaching methods. At both the beginning and at the end of the course, students will complete a knowledge test generated by Arslan, Cigdemoglu, and Moseley (2012) and adopted by Karpudewan, Roth, and Chandrakesan (2015) associated with misconceptions about environmental chemistry topics. Additionally, students’ perceptions related to the teaching style of their instructors will be collected via several survey items generated by the researcher.Item On the Status of Trait Empathy in American and Iranian population: A Cross-cultural Comparison(2017) Jami, Paria Yaghoubi; Mansouri, Behzad; Thoma, Stephen; Han. HyeminThe extent to which individuals with a variety of cultural backgrounds differ in empathic responsiveness is unknown. This paper describes the cross-cultural path of empathy and its differences in two Western and Eastern societies. The analysis of responses given by 606 individuals to Interpersonal Reactivity Index and Empathy Quotient questionnaires revealed a significant difference between the cognitive and affective component of trait empathy with regard to participants’ affiliation to either a Western or an Eastern culture. Data obtained from bicultural participants also indicated the availability of a specific path of trait empathy different from the other two groups. In line with previous studies, gender difference was observed in all subscales of questionnaires except perspective taking in favor of female participants. The same pattern was also observed with age and educational level. Implications for understanding the cross-cultural differences of various components of empathy trait are discussed.Item Breaking the Silence: Learning from the Experiences of Queer Educators in the Predominantly Heteronormative Space of K-12 Institutions(2017) Jinright, Dwight; Kuntz, AaronThe decision of queer teachers to come out at work is a complex one that is guided by both personal fears and principles and shadowed by common negative societal beliefs about queer persons in general. The primary purpose of this study was to describe and increase the understanding of the experiences of K-12 educators, who identify as queer while working in predominantly heteronormative institutions. In fulfilling the purpose of this study, I sought answers the following questions: What decisions do queer teachers make, or feel they are forced to make, regarding their decision to disclose or not to disclose information about their sexuality in the workplace? How do they understand their decisions regarding disclosure as affecting them personally and professionally? How do those decisions affect the ways in which they interact with students and colleagues? I conducted a multiple case study using semi-structured interviews which I audio recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed. Six participants were identified through a snowball recruitment method and included teachers of grades K-12 in Alabama. Analysis revealed five themes which included decisions regarding coming out at work; difficulty of not being oneself; concerns about homophobia and heteronormativity; the effects on interactions with students; and the lack of legal protection for queer teachers. Although society is changing, this study indicated that negative views and discrimination of queer persons (particularly teachers) still exist and provided a glimpse of the effect of such issues on the professional and personal lives of queer teachers.Item The Twin Schools: From Equalization Schools to Desegregation in Monticello, Georgia(2017) Carter, Coddy L.; Robinson, CecilWashington Park Elementary-High and Monticello High schools were both built in 1956 in Monticello, Georgia to educate black and white students, respectively. The new schools were built under the Minimum Foundation Program for Education enacted by Governor Herman Talmadge. The act aimed to close disparities in school funding between black and white schools through “separate but equal” institutions. Schools built under the MFPE included elementary, high, and combination schools that housed all grades one through twelve. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, districts began approving “freedom of choice” plans to achieve desegregation. These plans overwhelmingly resulted in a number of African Americans attending white schools with few to no whites attending black schools. Green v. County School Board determined that “freedom of choice” was inadequate for desegregation. A series of federal lawsuits followed which eventually led to the desegregation of Jasper County Schools in 1970. This resulted in all students both black and white students attending Monticello High School and Washington Park School becoming the school district’s elementary school. Athletics also played prominently in the desegregation story as former Washington Park Indians became Monticello Purple Hurricanes and record of black athletic teams was left largely incomplete or non-existent.Item Anonymous Social Media and Qualitative Inquiry: Methodological Considerations and Implications for Using Yik Yak as a Qualitative Data Source(2017) Byrne, Caitlin; Guyotte, KellyTwenty-first century researchers face new challenges as they include digital tools and contexts in their research processes. One digital context that can be difficult for researchers to navigate is social media. This article considers the ethical and methodological issues that arise for researchers who situate their work in these digital spaces. I draw from existing research to discuss how scholars might use the social media app Yik Yak as a data source. I consider how ethical practices such as privacy, disclosure, and consent might function in this new context. I also discuss the methodological implications of working in these spaces, looking specifically at data collection and analysis practices. Finally, I advocate for continued qualitative work within these spaces, using these suggestions as starting points. Keywords: social media, anonymity, ethics, data collection, Yik Yak, digital spacesItem Benefits of Tracking Aids on a 1U CubeSat(2017) Simpson, Christopher R.; O'Neill, CharlesIncorporating active/passive tracking aids into the design of a university/high school CubeSat mission promotes good space stewardship. Tracking aids are necessary for improved tracking covariance of CubeSats. Tracking aid support and design-space cost are covered. Reflectarrays, patch array(s), and deployable antennas show the potential benefit of transmitting data over S-band frequencies and tracking aids that enhance the mission capabilities. Passive and active tracking aids with low impact on the mission provide reduced covariance of CubeSats orbit tracks shown through use of modeling tools.Item The Failure of All Mothers or The Mother of All Failures?: Juror Perceptions of Failure to Protect Laws(2017) Stanziani, Marissa; Cox, JenniferFailure to protect laws have been an area of interest amongst legal scholars, child and domestic violence advocates, and the social work and psychology fields with varying focuses on the societal underpinnings of the laws and their application. Despite the pervasive legal literature on “mother blaming” and the revictimization of battered women that these laws engender, few studies have empirically examined if “mother blaming” occurs in these cases, or if battered women are treated more harshly. The aim of the present study was to investigate the impact of defendant sex and presence of domestic violence on mock juror decision making in a failure to protect case. The influences of juror sex on decision making were also examined. Jury eligible community members read a summary of a case in which the defendant was charged with failing to protect their child from a third-party abuser. The sex of the defendant and the presence of domestic violence were manipulated. Participants then rendered a verdict, provided sentencing recommendations, and responded to attitudinal questions about the defendant and perpetrator. Mock jurors were more likely to find the defendant guilty and view the defendant more negatively when the defendant had been the victim of domestic violence. Defendant sex did not impact outcome measures, however female jurors were more punitive than male jurors. Results are discussed in terms of “victim blaming” and labeling theory of intimate partner violence.Item The Effect of Past Experience on the Perception of Psychological Pain(2017) Jami, Paria Yaghoubi; Mansouri, Behzad; Thoma, StephenObserving others in pain activates bilateral anterior Insula, rostral anterior cingulate cortex, brainstem and cerebellum, which could be slower when emphatic individuals are in an unfamiliar simulated condition. Research findings also showed that the same pain matrix would be activated when a person is experiencing social pain. There is a dearth of research on the interconnection of psychological pain and empathy. To meet this gap the current study explores the relationship between empathic reaction and psychologically painful situations. Of special interest we looked at relationship between degree of familiarity with a potential psychological pain-inducing situation and individuals’ empathic reaction. 80 participants completed two Empathy questionnaires and rated a set of fifty pictures of strangers experiencing psychological and physical pain. They were asked to determine their level of pain, feeling, perspective taking, empathic concern toward that person, and willingness to help on a 5-point Likert scale. The analyses of the data showed a significant role of past experience on individuals’ affective empathy.