Fordham University: DigitalResearch@Fordham
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A Phenomenological Study of Black and Latinx Parents’ Experiences Using Digital Technology Choosing Schools
No full textThere have been persistent disparities in the academic achievement of Black and Latinx students versus their white and Asian counterparts. School choice advocates have touted that these disparities may be attributed to the schools that Black and Latinx children attend, and that with the ubiquity of digital technology, choosing the right school should have become easier. The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experiences of Black and Latinx families using digital technology to access school choice in one school district in New York City. Using a phenomenological framework, semi-structured interviews were implemented to gather rich descriptions of the phenomenon. This study found that while digital technology was a significant part of the apparatus of making school choice, digital technology was only as important as a parent’s ability to leverage their cultural capital. Overall, this study found that digital technology informed the process of finding schools but was not the main conduit for gathering information about schools. Parents in this study use a combination of social networks, digital tools, and digital know-how to successfully navigate the school choice system. This study should be used to expand the notion of equity by ensuring that parents are provided the various tools, including digital skills, to effectively make school choices. Parents need access to school information in formats that all parents understand
Why Black History is YOUR History: Three Black Songwriters Who Left an Indelible Impact on Every American Teenager
No full textCulture, Context, and Cognition: A Meta-Analytic Study Examining the Role of US Acculturation in Neuropsychological Functioning
No full textResearch indicates that pre-morbid demographic (e.g., age, education, sex) and sociocultural (e.g., acculturation) factors can markedly impact neuropsychological test performance among ethnoculturally diverse populations. Acculturation is defined as the process of individual change that occurs due to continual contact with individuals from different cultures. Broadly, previous findings indicate that higher acculturation to the United States (US) is associated with better neurocognitive functioning. The present study serves as the first meta-analytic and comprehensive exploration of the relationship between United States acculturation and neuropsychological functioning. Overall, a heterogenous body of findings revealed a small, statistically significant relationship between higher levels of acculturation to the United States and better performances on global neuropsychological functioning and some neuropsychological domains (i.e., processing speed, attention/working memory, memory, visuospatial, motor). Results suggest that neuropsychological test performances may vary widely based on the specific methodologies and sample characteristics represented in each study. In addition to characterizing potential reasons for the high level of heterogeneity across the literature, the current study also provided a preliminary examination of sociodemographic moderators (e.g., age, education) that may contribute to this relationship. Finally, the present findings underscore the need to examine the clinical utility of acculturation tools in conjunction with neuropsychological tests to assist in clinical decision making with ethnoculturally diverse populations
Essays in Applied Microeconomics
No full textLow fertility rates and population aging are established trends in high-income countries. In the United Kingdom (UK), the fertility rate remains below the replacement level. Low fertility rates impact economies, for instance, through social security systems. The increase in unemployment during recessions decreases the opportunity costs of having a child. At the same time, it also raises income uncertainty, which may curb fertility rates. Recent studies suggest that experiencing the Great Recession reduces women’s childlessness in Italy while it increases white women’s childlessness in the United States. This paper examines if experiencing the Great Recession affects men’s and women’s first birth decisions in a rapidly aging country, the UK. Using pseudo-cohorts and later panel cohorts of women from the British Household Panel Survey and the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study, this study assesses the causal effect of experiencing the Great Recession on the probability of childlessness of the 26- to 45-year-olds with a Difference-in-Differences approach. Women in their mid-30s experiencing the Great Recession significantly delay their first births, while women in their early-40s accelerate their first births after the Great Recession, which suggests that experiencing the Great Recession significantly reduces women’s permanent childlessness in the UK. Moreover, the Great Recession impacts women in England and men in Scotland/Wales/Northern Ireland. These results are robust within a Triple Differenced (DDD) model in both pseudo cohorts and panel cohorts. Further results suggest that the Great Recession decreases women’s permanent childlessness in the UK through changes in job loss and marriage timing. This paper contributes to the debate on whether and how economic crises affect fertility by assessing the Great Recession’s impacts on men’s and women’s childlessness in the UK
The Prophetic Voice and Sacrificial Leadership of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
No full textDietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian, who is respected among Protestants and Catholics, as well as by both religious believers and individuals of a secular mindset. Bonhoeffer was a resister of the Nazi regime prior to and during WWII and was hanged by SS guards in the Flossenburg prison camp. Bonhoeffer wrote several books, which called on Christians to be disciples of Christ and affirmed the Lordship of Christ. Discipleship (1937) consists of his lectures to his students at his clandestine seminary in Finkenwalde, Germany. Life Together (1939), was written after the seminary was forcibly closed by the Gestapo. This historical study codes themes in which Bonhoeffer refuted key Nazi doctrines in Discipleship(1937) and Life Together (1939). In refuting these doctrines, Bonhoeffer created a Lebensraumwhich means a living space for the Church in an environment that had become hostile to it. An analysis of Bonhoeffer’s life and thought in these two works offers the reader Bonhoeffer’s assertions as to how to make faith relevant and visible in a culture that had become increasingly indifferent to and sometimes hostile to it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer knew that it was not sufficient to only preach the Gospel in Nazi Germany; every effort had to be made to stop the evil Nazi regime. The findings of the study point to Bonhoeffer’s proposed concrete theology that he livedout the prophetic truth daily and in doing so, made the Gospel a visible and concrete (i.e., tangible) reality in an antagonistic Nazi Germany
Delivering Understanding: The Goal of Philosophical Midwifery in Socrates, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche
No full textSocrates, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche are often linked together as sharing a method of “ironic midwifery” or “indirect communication.” This method is unique because it refuses to directly communicate to its audience a doctrine to be learned or an argument to be considered. Instead, it merely aids the reader with delivering their own the truth or proper relation to the truth. In Delivering Understanding: The Goal of Philosophical Midwifery in Socrates, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche, I argue that that the shared goal of their ironic midwifery is to help their readers deliver an understanding of their failure to grasp existentially-relevant truths and their inability to grasp these truths by theoretical understanding alone. This “negative” understanding is achieved by both intellectual and non-intellectual (e.g., dispositional, emotional, and psychological) means, resulting in a transformed mode of life and preparing the way for positive practical understanding of existentially-relevant truths. I label this negative type of understanding “maieutic understanding,” for it cannot be taught directly but rather depends on the indirect method of a philosophical midwife, who delivers and discards the intellectually-pregnant person’s pretensions to knowledge and helps deliver a recognition of one’s ignorance and a correct disposition towards the truth
The Role of Positive Future Thinking in Suicidal Ideation
No full textSuicide is a major issue and public health concern. In the United States, it is currently the 10th leading cause of death. Research suggests that there is an association between future thinking, or the ability to generate expectations for future events related to the self, and suicidal ideation; specifically, that individuals with suicidal ideation are less able to generate positive future thoughts (while no significant patterns have been found with relation to negative future thinking). Despite the extensive literature on positive future thinking and suicidal ideation, there are relatively few studies that examine this relationship longitudinally. This study assessed whether positive future thinking would be associated with suicidal ideation, whether positive future thinking would moderate change in suicidal ideation severity over time, and whether these associations would differ depending on whether the future thinking was intrapersonal or interpersonal in nature. Participants (N = 150) were recruited through Research Match and assessed at baseline and at a one-month follow-up. Positive future thinking was not significantly associated with past month suicidal ideation, with or without controlling for covariates. Neither intrapersonal nor interpersonal future thinking were significantly associated with past month suicidal ideation. Positive future thinking did not moderate change in suicidal ideation between baseline and follow-up; however, there were conditional effects such that there was a greater decrease in suicidal ideation among individuals with higher levels of positive future thinking over time. Neither intrapersonal nor interpersonal positive future thinking moderated the change in suicidal ideation between baseline and follow-up, but there were significant conditional effects such that there was a greater decrease in suicidal ideation over time at lower levels of intrapersonal or interpersonal positive future thinking. The proportion of achieved events did not significantly moderate the change in suicidal ideation severity from baseline to follow-up; however, there were significant conditional effects such that there was a greater decrease in suicidal ideation over time at higher levels of achievability. The proportion of achieved intrapersonal positive future events did moderate change in suicidal ideation severity between baseline and follow-up. The proportion of achieved interpersonal positive future events did not moderate change in suicidal ideation between baseline and follow-up; however, there were significant conditional effects such that there was a greater increase in suicidal ideation over time at higher levels of achieved interpersonal positive future events. These findings suggest that individuals with lower levels of positive future thinking may experience greater decreases in suicidal ideation over time due to a higher baseline level of suicidal ideation, and that there are not marked differences in levels of intrapersonal vs. interpersonal positive future thinking as they relate to suicidality. Findings also suggest that the achievability of positive future thinking, or how realistic positive future thinking is, may influence suicidal ideation. Specifically, achievability of intrapersonal positive future thinking is associated with a greater decrease in suicidal ideation. Clinicians and researchers examining the relationship between positive future thinking and suicidal ideation may want to consider the impact that the type of positive future thinking (intrapersonal vs. interpersonal) and the achievability of the events may have on individuals with higher suicide risk. Future research should continue to expand on these results by examining more granular fluctuations over time and should replicate results in an adequately powered sample
Essays on Empirical Macroeconomics and Expectations
No full textThis dissertation examines expectations and beliefs in macroeconomic topics through three interconnected studies. First, I analyze the effects of monetary policy announcements on household expectations between 2013 and 2021 using an event study and local projections. I find that the absence of tightening announcements decreases expectations of one-year ahead interest rates by 3.1%, while tightening announcements increase one-year inflation expectations by up to 3.6% and decrease one-year ahead home price growth expectations by 2.0%. Second, I explore the interplay between errors in credit spread expectations and macroeconomic indicators from 1948 to 2022. Using textual analysis on Wall Street Journal front pages, I fill in credit spread expectations and find that one-standard deviation jumps in their forecast errors are associated with declines in economic activity by up to a 3% decline in GDP growth during the sample period. Last, I analyze heterogeneity in categorical expectations data from the Survey of Consumer Expectations through a hierarchical Bayesian latent class model. I identify three belief types and demonstrate their economic significance through co-movements with widely used indices of sentiment and explanatory power for inflation expectations. Taken together, these studies emphasize the importance of effective central bank communication, sentiment in credit markets, and the diversity of household beliefs in understanding and predicting macroeconomic phenomena
“Necesito Romper El Silencio”: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Disclosure Experiences of Latinx Immigrant Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
No full textBackground: Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a silent epidemic – frequently underreported. Although several studies have examined factors related to disclosure and nondisclosure, most do not explore how immigration and cultural barriers or the relationship between the abuser and the child influences disclosure. In addition, very few studies focused on CSA among Latinx (gender-inclusive term) and immigrant communities. Objective: This study aimed to explore barriers to disclosing sexual abuse from the perspective of adult survivors of CSA. Participants and Setting: 14 survivors of CSA (thirteen women and one man), aged 21-52 years old. The immigrant and migrant Latinx survivors were receiving services at an NYC community-based sexual and domestic violence organization, Violence Intervention Program. Method: A convenience sampling technique was used to recruit participants, and a qualitative semistructured interview method was employed. A hermeneutic phenomenological design and reflective thematic analysis were used to assess the data collected in the study. Results: Our analysis resulted in five themes: Culture; Relationship to the abuser; Immigration and acculturation; Experiences of first disclosure; and Impact of CSA. Conclusions: The main finding was that culture, immigration status, and the relationship of the abuser negatively impact the disclosure of CSA. In addition, the findings indicate that negative reactions to first-time disclosures can impact further disclosure
