Community Development and Action Master’s Theses

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    The Impacts of Social Determinants of Health on Older Adults' Technology Adoption
    (2025-05-09) Pearl Edem Yawa Amanfu
    The purpose of this study is to identify demographic and lifestyle characteristics that might point to the broader Social Determinants of Health within which they are contained, which may impact an older adult’s likelihood of technology adoption when technology access and training are already established. The data used was taken from pre- and post-surveys of a statewide digital skills training program dedicated to serving adults between the ages of 60 and 90+. The data was cleaned and then analyzed using linear regression, multinomial logistic regression, ANOVA tests, and Bonferroni corrections. Findings indicate that age, income, education, and knowledge gains have statistically significant impacts on older adults’ likelihoods of technology adoption after participating in a digital skills training module. For age, income, and education specifically, results may invite further investigation into how the Social and Community Context, Economic Stability, and Education Access and Quality SDOHs, respectively, contribute to older adults’ likelihood of post-training technology adoption.
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    "We're not just fighting for something that's outside of us; we're fighting for something that's inside of us:" A decolonial examination of queer youth's sources of resilience in Madagascar confronting cultural stigma
    (2025-05) Miantso Ursula Soloharison; Andrew Nalani
    This study examines the sources of resilience among queer youth in Madagascar as they navigate cultural stigma rooted in colonial impositions. Utilizing a decolonial framework, this research challenges Western conceptualizations of resilience by recognizing how colonial legacies have disrupted indigenous understandings of gender and sexuality in Madagascar. Through semi-structured interviews with six queer Malagasy youth (ages 18-30), this community-based participatory research illuminates how cultural stigma functions as a form of collective emotional abuse while revealing sophisticated knowledge systems youth develop to maintain authenticity and wellbeing. Findings reveal four key dimensions of resilience: strategic navigation between visibility and concealment across social contexts; reclamation of pre-colonial cultural acceptance as psychological protection against stigma; cultivation of chosen family and community despite limited options; and creative expression as emotional processing. Participants demonstrated remarkable agency in transforming colonial disruption into cultural regeneration, moving beyond mere coping to active creation of new cultural possibilities. The research reframes cultural stigma as collective emotional abuse perpetrated through multiple sources simultaneously—family members, religious institutions, healthcare providers, and strangers—creating an inescapable environment of invalidation. This perspective relocates the deficit from marginalized individuals to oppressive systems, suggesting interventions should target colonial knowledge systems rather than helping youth "adjust" to oppression. Significantly, participants expressed a profound longing for intergenerational connection with queer elders, highlighting how colonial disruptions severed traditional knowledge transmission about gender diversity. This study contributes to filling critical gaps in academic literature by centering Malagasy voices in conversations about queerness that have historically excluded them, challenging both colonial legacies and Western assumptions about gender and sexuality while documenting the extraordinary resilience of queer Malagasy youth who aren't merely surviving colonial legacies but actively creating new possibilities for authentic existence.
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    Ethnic-Racial Identity in Youth: Developing Civic Engagement
    (2025-04) Moneda, Christopher Andre
    Ethnic-racial identity (ERI) is an important developmental asset that young people of color must reconcile for positive development. ERI is a broad multidimensional construct that incorporates people’s beliefs and attitudes regarding their identification with an ethnic-racial group. ERI has been conceptualized as comprising several components, we focus on: resolution, exploration, and private regard. Emerging research highlights that ethnic-racial identity promotes civic engagement and may explain how youth of color overcome marginalizing social environments in their lives. In grappling with their identity, racially marginalized youth may learn to see the world critically––encouraging civic engagement. Culturally relevant pedagogy is associated with positive ERI, yet there is little research that explores the links between culturally relevant pedagogy, ERI, and civic engagement. This cross-sectional study examines the relationship between ERI and civic engagement among youth enrolled in ethnic studies. Analysis of quantitative survey data from 459 students enrolled in a school district in Southern California revealed a positive significant association between ERI exploration and resolution with civic engagement outcomes. This study highlights the potential impacts of culturally relevant pedagogy on student civic engagement outcomes and its implications of diversity in policy creation.
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    Organizational Structure and Empowerment in Horizontal Grassroots Movements: Case Study of Karachi Bachao Tehreek
    (2024-05) Qazi, Amar Latif
    There is an increasing interest in horizontally structured grassroots organizations, but there is a lack of in-depth case study analyses of how such organizations function and evolve - especially in the geographic context of Pakistan. Using the case of Karachi Bachao Tehreek (KBT), which is a grassroots organization that includes activists and residents resisting evictions in Karachi, Pakistan, the thesis focuses on these research questions: the organizational structure of KBT; internal challenges related to empowerment of mutasireen (people affected by demolitions); and external challenges to grassroots organizing in Pakistan. I conducted 11 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 13 members of KBT. The data were analyzed through grounded theory method and coding. While KBT claims to maintain a leaderless horizontal structure, I found that informal hierarchy emerges naturally in the absence of formal structure. KBT has been successful at empowering mutasireen through its internal structural aspects, such as by providing opportunity role structure and subgroup formations. The structure of committee subgroups also allows KBT to remain flexible and sustainable in a resource scarce and unpredictable environment. However, KBT also faces various challenges, including state violence, burnout and lack of funds. Due to major interpersonal conflicts, KBT has subsequently felt the need to restructure and become more formalized. This move towards formalization is consistent with resource mobilization theory. Through this restructuring, there is also potential for KBT to move towards the model of community organizing. Embedded in Pakistan’s context, the research provides important lessons on successful grassroots organizing practices along with the challenges that arise in this work. This research can help KBT and other organizations improve their organizing practices, and also fills an important gap in the literature of social movements and grassroots organizing in Pakistan. However, additional research is still required on grassroots organizational structure in different contexts, the challenges they face and how they maintain the balance between having an informal or formal structure.
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    “Finding a community that can open our mind”: Countering Pain Narratives among LGBTQ+ Youth in High Stigma Contexts
    (2024-05) Phillips, Kaitlyn
    This study investigates the multifaceted experiences and resilience strategies of LGBTQ+ youth in Tennessee, a region marked by heightened stigma. Through focus group interviews and semi-structured individual interviews conducted via Zoom, a total of 16 LGBTQ+ youth aged 14-24 residing in Tennessee participated in the study. The research explores the challenges faced by LGBTQ+ youth in navigating a high-stigma environment while seeking support and engaging in resilience strategies. Despite encountering systemic barriers and discrimination, LGBTQ+ youth demonstrate remarkable resilience through engagement in collective activism and advocacy endeavors. Supportive family members, LGBTQ+ friends and peers, affirming mental healthcare providers, and affirming social media encounters emerge as crucial spheres of resilience, buffering against the detrimental effects of minority stressors. These findings underscore the importance of adopting a more nuanced approach to understanding mental health disparities among marginalized populations and highlight the critical need for interventions that promote well-being and resilience within high-stigma contexts. By amplifying the voices of LGBTQ+ youth, centering their experiences, and developing interventions grounded in a desire-centered research approach, this study contributes to creating more inclusive and affirming environments for all members of the LGBTQ+ community
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    Community-Rooted Assessments and Measurements: Exploring the Relationships Between Community Knowledge, Intelligence, and Standardized Testing
    (2024-04) Horton, Omaya
    Eugenicists’ ideology still impacts the way that we construct, validate, and disseminate educational assessments. As the U.S. education system continues to grow more ethnically and racially diverse, cultural relevance and ethical practices in the assessment space become increasingly more important. Scholars have highlighted the ways in which our students deserve more from assessments, bringing justice orientations, culturally relevant content matter, multimodal test formats, and pushing back on white universality. I offer community-rooted assessments and measurements (CRAM) as a practice that creates pathways to implementing this new wave of assessments. By considering research approaches and tools to engage community more effectively, CRAM considers the actions that should be taken to create a new just system. It incorporates three tenants; justice orientation, de-hierarchization, and localization and two pathways which I refer to as transformative reformation and systemic overhaul.
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    Learning Online: Social Media's Impact on Sociopolitical Development
    (2024) Walker, Garret
    This study explored the relationship between political social media usage and sociopolitical development (SPD) in young adults and adolescents. While research into young peoples’ sociopolitical development is limited, there is increasing literature to suggest that online and hybrid spaces help facilitate SPD. A quantitative analysis of United States Census data (N = 3862) suggested that political social media usage can facilitate higher SPD. Additionally, in support of previous literature, adolescent and young adult political socialization served as a positive predictor of SPD. Study finding suggest the need to encourage future research in this domain to consider the impact and relevance of hybrid and online spaces, especially as social media continues to be a relevant facet of social interaction.
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    Communication is Key: Sectoral Diversity and Unity in Substance Abuse Prevention Coalitions
    (2023-05) Stuehler, Alyxandra
    Community coalitions have become a popular strategy for community change, bringing together diverse community partners to address persistent and complex social issues. It is widely assumed that representation from diverse sectors is central to the work of community coalitions, yet engaging partners with differing perspectives can also create internal issues when partners disagree on the causes or solutions to the issue at hand. Drawing from previous studies of community coalitions, this thesis explores the impact of coalitions’ sectoral diversity on members’ perceptions of their coalition’s cohesion. An action research partnership with the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services provided access to survey data from the staff and participants of 35 county-level substance abuse prevention coalitions. Analyses tested relationships between coalitions’ sectoral diversity, similarity in the members’ perceptions of the causes of substance misuse (“convergence on causes”), communication between staff and members, communication among members, and participants’ perceptions of coalition unity. Results did not support the hypothesis that convergence on causes would be associated with greater coalition unity but did suggest that communication was positively associated with increased coalition unity. The findings suggest that having similar views on the focal issue may not be necessary for unity and highlight the powerful role of communication in coalitions.
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    Microaggressions and Acculturative Stress Experienced by Muslim American High School Students
    (2023-05) Novak, Rachel
    Previous research has illustrated the importance of examining both microaggressions and acculturative stress. However, there is a large gap in existing research examining the impact of microaggressions on acculturative stress in religious minority groups in the United States. This study is a qualitative analysis examining microaggressions and acculturative stress experienced by Muslim American high-school students in the Chicago area. This analysis was completed using existing focus group data collected for Dr. Ashmeet K. Oberoi’s prior study completed in a Mid-western city in 2013. Two focus groups, one composed of five male students and one comprised of six female students, all between the ages of 18-22, who attended public schools in the Chicago area, were coded and analyzed with several key themes emerging. Experiences described by the students supported Nadal et al. (2012)’s existing domains for microaggressions. Further, this study applied aspects of Bashir et al. (2021) acculturative stress domains while adjusting and adding themes for acculturative stress as they were explained by the students. This study supported several past findings from Dr. Oberoi’s research including gendered differences, stress related to needing to represent Islam in a positive light, and mixed relationships of support and conflict stemming from both teachers and Muslim peers. This research hopes to illustrate the need to reevaluate curricula in United States public schools and incorporate counseling as a key resource for Muslim immigrant students.
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    Adverse Childhood Experiences, Current Physical Violence, and Perceived Norms about Child Maltreatment as Correlates of Child Maltreatment Perpetration
    (2023-04-28) Walker, Sarah
    Misperceived social norms frequently impact personal behaviors. However, little is known about how this occurrence of misperceived social norms interact with Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Current Violence (CV) in the context of violence against children. We conducted a cross-sectional study in 2020-2022 that targeted all adult men and women with children aged 6 and up who resided within eight villages in Rwampara District, southwestern Uganda. Corporal punishment of children was elicited by self-report. We also asked participants what they believed to be the prevalence of corporal punishment of children among other parents within their village (i.e., perceived norms). Multivariable Poisson regression models were used to estimate associations between child maltreatment by adults and several potential correlates (including perceived norms, ACEs, and Current Violence) among women and men living with at least one child over age 6 in the household. Misperceiving the local child maltreatment norms to be exaggerated was associated with an increased likelihood of hitting one’s child. There is a gender difference in relative risk. Men and women are both influenced by what they perceive other people of their same gender are doing in their village. Men who perceive that “Most men hit children in their households 3 or more times per week” are 4.95 times more likely to perpetrate violence as those who perceive that “Most men do this 0 times per week” (p<0.001). Women were also impacted by their perception of other women’s actions, and women who reported current physical violence were 1.48 times more likely to perpetrate violence as those who had not experienced violence from the opposite sex in the past three months (p=0.027). Women who reported ACEs were 1.35 times more likely to perpetrate violence as those who had not experienced ACEs (p=0.005). Interventions to correct misperceived norms about child maltreatment may decrease violence against children.
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    Demystifying Data: The Relationship Between Data Attitudes and Data Use Among After-School Practitioners
    (2023-05) Schatte, Antonia
    Many students attend after-school programs, which can bolster their academic and developmental outcomes. However, after-school program practitioners often do not incorporate data into practice to the same extent as school-based practitioners. This mixed-methods study explores the relationship between attitudes towards data use and data use practices among after-school program practitioners. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 38 after-school program practitioners. My quantitative analysis (n=38) shows a significant difference in whether participants use data or do not use data based on their attitudes toward data use. Further, my qualitative analysis (n=19) shows that contextual barriers and previous experiences with data can affect data practices more than data attitudes. The results highlight the need for additional supports for after-school practitioners to incorporate data into practice, such as data training, more data conversations, and easier access.