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Analyzing the Presence of Relational Frameworks in Environmental Education Resources in Oregon
Full text link58 pagesCommunity building and relationship development are impactful components of environmental education experiences. The relational aspect of learning in the outdoors significantly affects students, however, it is often not explicitly acknowledged. Many fields have seen a relational approach being used in recent years, and others, such as feminist care ethics and Indigenous ethics, have emphasized the importance of relationships through relational frameworks for a long time. While this knowledge has been used thoroughly in other aspects of environmental studies, the understanding of the extent to which a relational framework has been used in environmental education is limited. My research seeks to address this knowledge gap by answering the question: how do relational frameworks manifest in environmental education resources in Oregon, and what does this bring to the field? To answer this question, I articulate a relational framework and then conduct a literature analysis of seven environmental education resources, such as curriculum guidelines and conceptual frameworks, used in Oregon. I conclude that while components of a relational framework are found in environmental education documents in Oregon, the full extent of a relational framework is not truly represented. A more thorough integration of a relational framework in environmental education could help further the impacts that have been observed by educators and researchers alike.
Mixed Reality and Puzzle-Based Pedagogy for Intercultural Competence: Developing the I-Agents Arabic Unit
Full text link59 pagesIn the modern era, the internet and increased globalization have fundamentally transformed our ability to communicate with others across borders and seas. However, expanding international connectivity requires the capacity to identify and mitigate problems that may arise from communication based on differing communicative foundations, a skill not explicitly addressed in most American curricula for developing youth. As global interconnectedness expands and cultural heterogeneity within communities rises, American youth must develop the self-reflective skills that intercultural competence offers. In pursuit of contributing to intercultural competence education, my thesis discusses the development of a two-day Arabic lesson that utilizes mixed reality, physical, and digital materials. Developed under the existing I-Agents program, this curriculum follows an overarching narrative that exposes students to pragmatic phrases, cultural beliefs, linguistic features of Arabic, and core values of various Arabic-speaking nations. This thesis aims to enhance students’ understanding of the Arabic language and the many countries that use it, while allowing them to examine their preconceptions about the Middle East and Arabic. My project documents the process and my learning along the I-Agents Arabic curriculum development as an emerging curriculum developer
ACTIVITY BEHAVIOR PROFILES AND SLEEP DURATION AMONG PHYSICALLY ACTIVE ADOLESCENTS: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY
Full text linkOver 70% of US adolescents do not meet sleep recommendations despite the critical role of sleep in health and development. Increases in physical activity (PA) are associated with improved sleep among the general adolescent population. Among adolescents exceeding PA guidelines, less is known about how activity behaviors – moderate-to-vigorous intensity PA (MVPA), light-intensity PA (LIPA), sedentary behavior (SB), and phone-based screen time (ST) – cluster in association with sleep duration, and how nature exposure interacts with these associations. This study aimed to 1) identify distinct profiles of active adolescents characterized by activity behaviors, 2) examine demographic predictors of profile membership, 3) examine how profiles are associated with sleep duration, and 4) test nature exposure as a moderator.
An Oregon community sample of 326 adolescents (12-17y/o; 48.5% female) participated in a 7-day prospective study during summers 2022 and 2023. Seven days of MVPA, LIPA, SB, and sleep duration (via accelerometry) and nature exposure (via NatureDoseTM phone- application) were collected; participants reported daily ST from phone data. Latent profile analyses were conducted, specifying four activity behavior indicators (MVPA, LIPA, SB, ST) using the three-step maximum likelihood approach to examine profile membership associations with demographic characteristics and sleep duration.
Four distinct profiles of active adolescents emerged: "Active Resters" (High- SB/ST;37.1%), "Active Screenies" (High-ST;6.1%), "Balanced Actives” (Moderate-High- MVPA/LIPA/SB;49.4%), and "Highly Actives" (High-MVPA/LIPA;7.4%), with age being the consistent predictor of profile membership in lesser active profiles. “Active Screenies” demonstrated significantly greater sleep duration (9.5hr±29.5 minutes) compared to all other profiles (p<.001). Nature exposure showed no significant moderating effect.
Despite exceeding physical activity guidelines, distinct activity profiles emerged with varying links to sleep. “Active Screenies”, characterized by second lowest MVPA, least LIPA, least sedentary behavior, and highest screen time, demonstrated the longest sleep duration, and was the only profile that met sleep recommendations. Sleep interventions for active adolescents should consider interrelationships among activity behaviors, not only physical activity
Radical Play: Tabletop Role-Play Games and the Queer Community
Full text link43 pagesOver the past decades, tabletop role-play games have become featured more and more in media resulting in a growing popularity and a growing community. Unlike the past, this new community is more diverse and accepting, especially of the LGBTQ+ community, but this is not currently reflected in research and very few academics are investigating tabletop role-play gaming through a queer lens. The study aims to answer three main research questions: How does the LGBTQ+ community interact with tabletop role-play games? Where and why do queer people play tabletop role-play games? Can tabletop role-play games be considered a queer third place? By analyzing past literature about space and tabletop role-play games, it becomes clear that the definition of space is flexible, that space is shaped by people, and that tabletop role-play games can facilitate personal development. In total, 32 queer adults were surveyed about their identity and experience with tabletop role-play gaming and their answers reveal how queer people have transformed games so that they can connect with themselves and others and imagine worlds where they can exist authentically. This research adds information to a growing field by queering the physical tabletop role-play game space and it serves as evidence for the need of LGBTQ+ spaces and research
Climate Migration: Analyzing the Relationship Between Human Mobility and a Warming Planet
No full text71 pagesThis thesis investigates the impact of climate change on emigration patterns relative to economic, social, political, and demographic drivers. I review the existing scholarly explanations of migration, highlighting that migration is driven by economic opportunity, political instability, sociocultural support systems, and demographic compositions as well as environmental pressures. Using hypotheses derived from that literature, I then assess the extent to which climate change, as compared to other factors, explains variation in migration trends among Armenia, Bangladesh, Kenya, and the Philippines. I selected these countries as they had relatively similar non-climate drivers of migration during the study period, but differed in their vulnerabilities to climate change. Comparing how climate disasters influence migration relative to other drivers, I seek to provide insights that policymakers could use in their efforts to address climate migration, climate impacts, and migration more generally. Analysis of changes in emigration levels showed that changes in economic conditions and political stability had significant influence on those levels. But after accounting for those influences, deeper analysis showed that a slow-onset climate changes appear to have more influence on migration than sudden-onset events
Are Rehabilitation Programs Effective at Reducing Recidivism? The Answer Is Not So Simple
Full text link53 pages.The United States has extremely high incarceration rates considering its population size, which has resulted in an estimated 1.97 million people held in correctional facilities annually (Sawyer & Wagner, 2025). One of the goals of the incarceration system is to reduce recidivism and promote future public safety (Shelley, 2024). The incarceration system should use rehabilitative programs to achieve this goal because such programs address root causes, apply evidence-based practices, and use scientific research to continuously improve (Cullen & Jonson, 2012). Current methods of analysis of rehabilitation programs can make it challenging for researchers and administrators to discover how the incarceration system should effectively and efficiently rehabilitate people (Latessa, et al., 2020). Improving administrative data, standardizing recidivism measures, incorporating additional measurement variables, studying fidelity of program administration, and using rigorous scientific methods can aid researchers in discovering the best ways to rehabilitate people (Taylor, 2017; Hope, 2005; Rosenfeld & Grigg, 2022). Ultimately, this literature review shows that rehabilitative programs are effective at reducing recidivism because their variety of methods, range of focus areas, and diversity of structure and design allows for specialized treatment that leads to meaningful behavioral change (Cullen & Jonson, 2012)
INFANTICIDE: ILLEGITIMACY, CONCEALMENT, AND SHAME IN ENGLAND 1688-1821
Full text link50 pagesInfanticide cases in England’s history retell some of the most gruesome acts of desperation motivated by shame. And even when there was no intent of murder, a woman who experienced a stillborn birth would be in fear of being found guilty of committing infanticide. During this time, unmarried infanticidal mothers were viewed as morally deviant and secretive transgressors of natural and social law. The early modern British courts were quick to judge an unmarried woman accused of murdering her infant, and unfortunately for her the punishment was death. The courts’ judgments of infanticidal behaviors often included accusations of falling from God’s grace or even satanic influence. With the benefit of modern research tools, we can see that the high prevalence of actual infanticide and presumed infanticide stemmed from deep-rooted social prejudices against women of low-class bearing illegitimate children. Infanticide was associated with insane, poor and unwed women. The perspective of an early modern women was silenced, as questions about the motivation and circumstances around infanticide or even cases of stillborn births were disregarded to instead focus on the aberrant nature of the crime. Proceedings of London’s criminal court of non-elites, the Old Bailey, demonstrate a noteworthy decline in the severity of punishment during the period between 1688-1821: at the beginning of this period, execution was the sentence for capital crimes, including infanticide. By the end of this period, the typical punishment for a guilty case of infanticide had been reduced to a few years of imprisonment. This change from execution to imprisonment serves as the main guiding point to examine the evolution of infanticide crimes in the eyes of the courts, society, and historians. To explain the changes in the laws and attitudes towards infanticide, I examined court the language of court proceedings, their length, and the severity of punishment in the Old Bailey from 1688 to 1821. In addition, I examine sources that illuminate in the gendered thinking and language about infanticide existing as a ‘single woman’s crime’. The evolution demonstrated in this period is characterized by changes in social perceptions regarding infanticidal motivation and the public spectacle of shame
"This is a Traditional Song; We Can’t Let You Stay Happy Long.”: Gender, Social Politics, and Identity in 19th Century American Murder Ballads
No full textMurder ballads are songs that tell the story of a murder. In American balladry, thesesongs are most associated with the Appalachian region and musical practices, an evolution of the
Anglo ballad tradition. While most of these ballads concern fictional events and people, a small
subset are about real crimes and historical actors. I am proposing the term “true crime murder
ballad” to isolate this subset of ballads as a meaningful subgenre. This study utilizes archival
research, folkloristics, media studies, literature analysis, and history to understand these ballads,
their historical actors, and their legacies within their contexts. Through three case studies, I seek
to examine why these true crime murder ballads emerged in the United States, how they function
socioculturally within the societies that originated them, and how these functions changed when
the ballads were taken out of their original contexts. I also explore the ways in which these true
crime murder ballads were used as news media, both within the societies where the murders took
place and by outsiders to perpetuate the “othering” of Appalachians and the Appalachian
diaspora through negative stereotypes regarding class, race, and gender
The American Film Industry's Obsession with and Sexualization of the Teenage Girl
Full text link56 pages.This thesis will analyze the ways in which the United States entertainment film industry has sexualized and exploited the feminine teenage body by discussing the origin of the term “teenager” and its consequential subject study in film within the United States post-WWII, as well as the beginning of the obsession over the teenage girl in cinematic media through Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 film adaptation of the novel Lolita, originally written by Vladimir Nabokov. It will also dissect the satirization of the genre of “coming of age” starring female protagonists, such as Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004), The DUFF (Ari Sandel, 2015), and Easy A (Will Gluck, 2010). It will then contrast these representations of female protagonists against those of boys coming of age as another means of highlighting how teenage girl life portrayal in Western cinematic media is used for the ridiculing and othering of real teenage girls. Next, it will go into how mental illness in young girls is portrayed and romanticized, both through original directorial intent and unintended audience perceptions, with films such as Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold, 1999) and The Virgin Suicides (Sofia Coppola, 2000) which focus on deteriorating mental health in young women. Finally, this thesis will explore a newer wave of veridical representation of being a teenage girl, such as Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig, 2017), The Edge of Seventeen (Kelly Fremon Craig, 2016), and The Diary of a Teenage Girl (Marielle Heller, 2015), why this new wave is a huge positive change in media representation, and how we can continue this trend. My goal for this thesis is to function as an academic work that can be used to stimulate new filmic products which carry a focus of depicting teenage girls and their intricate ways of life without satirization, dramatization, or unnecessary sexualization
Invisible Cultural Policy in America: How Public Administration Shapes Culture
No full text170 page PDFWhy, in a country where cultural production is a primary export to the world, does the bureaucracy that supports culture do its work largely outside of public view? The laws that shape cultural policy aim to support a diversity of expression and teach all Americans about culture, regardless of where they live or their background. The resulting cultural bureaucracy is decentralized, divided into various cultural domains, and comprises complex structures of public administration that support them. Consequently, while the system is highly pluralistic and serves all Americans, its full scope and intricacies often remain invisible to many. This chapter outlines how this book uncovers the mechanisms that make American cultural policy invisible by mapping out the institutions, initiatives, and arguments that underpin its framework and actions