Paper-- University of California, Davis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 46-50).

Despite myriad well-funded local and national initiatives to achieve health equity in the U.S., significant disparities in health between racial groups persist. Local health departments (LHDs) are one of the most salient organizations in efforts to eliminate racial health disparities. Organizational research has shown that characteristics of an organizations workforce can affect its performance. However, little research has been conducted on the relationship between LHD workforce characteristics and LHD engagement in health disparity elimination (HDE) activities. This study uses regression analyses to assess the extent to which one organizational characteristicracial diversity of the LHD workforceis predictive of HDE activity among county-level LHDs nationwide. Results suggest that workforce racial diversity is a strong predictor of HDE activity among county-level LHDs. Findings presented here indicate a need for further research on organizational factors associated with HDE activity and promotion of racial health equity. Implications for such research as well as practical implications are discussed.

Religion played an important role in the Rwandas 1994 genocide, but it is also playing a significant role in Rwandas recovery. Using a mixed methods approach, this dissertation inquires about the role of religious beliefs, religious social contacts, and religious organizations in promoting reconciliation after the genocide. Religious beliefs and values have laid the groundwork for hope and action for many people. Individuals rely on religious values, religious friends, and religious organizations for psychological support, vital economic assistance, and as means to reassert their personhood and membership in community. Religious organizations have developed religious understandings of peace as well as programs to respond to individual and community needs. These individual and organizational efforts are quantitatively and qualitatively linked to a variety of positive post-conflict outcomes. The role of religion in working toward peace in Rwanda is limited, however, as the countrys government has created a powerful state apparatus which discursively defines the genocide, peace, and reconciliation in ways which restrict the range of religious action.

This dissertation contains three articles on shared equity homeownership (SEH). SEH is resale-restricted, owner-occupied housing for lower income households that remains affordable in perpetuity. To examine the viability of SEH in a relatively affordable locality, the first article presents findings from focus groups with potential SEH beneficiaries in Nashville, TN. The study found that the majority of participants expressed an interest in SEH and perceived benefits of SEH relative to existing rental and homeownership options. The second article presents national performance data on SEH. Based upon data from a national survey of community land trusts (one form of SEH), the study found that owners of community land trust homes were substantially less likely to be seriously delinquent or in foreclosure proceedings than owners in the conventional market at the end of 2010. The final article reviews problems in the current landscape of SEH, which are hindering sector formation and growth; it puts forth recommendations to overcome these obstacles in order to take the sector to scale.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth are historically an under-studied subpopulation of youth. Over the past decade however, the subpopulation has garnered increased attention from scholars of education and youth development, primarily with regard to how experiences of stigma and victimization negatively influence school and family life. During this same time period, the transformative paradigm of positive youth development (PYD), which focuses on the positive or adaptive factors that support a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood (Durlak, 1998), has become increasingly prominent. Despite the potential value of this approach in offering a fuller picture of youth development inclusive of risk as well as positive supports, its application to LGBT youth thus far remains limited. A parallel growth in literature has attended to how new, Internet-based technologies affect adolescent development models, and how they may be especially useful for some socially marginalized groups. These new media, when viewed through a PYD framework, have the potential to re-energize civic participation and help create a more just society, particularly if they support development and assist in overcoming experiences of marginalization. This dissertation applies the PYD model to LGBT youth and examines a) the factors that influence access to PYD resources; b) how LGBT-related experiences of marginalization influence access to and use of positive resources and well-being; and c) whether LGBT-specific and Internet-based additions to the PYD framework facilitate well-being. Results show that online and LGBT-specific spaces and resourcesincluding resources related to LGBT identity development, social support, and participation in extracurricular and civic activitiescan contribute to well-being and thus, expand existing understandings of PYD for LGBT youth.

Research Question: Anger is believed to be a powerful motivator of group mobilization. The objective of this dissertation is to examine the role of anger in assisting individuals to overcome the collective action problem. Theory: I utilize Intergroup Emotional Theory in order to build and test hypotheses on when and how anger will lead to mobilization. Methods: I test my hypotheses through four experiments. Experiment 1 examines how individual level anger impacts mobilization. In Experiment 2, I implement a test to induce anger towards an out-group. In Experiment 3, I then examine how anger towards an out-group impacts mobilization under the contexts of threat and competition. In Experiment 4, I look at different threatening contexts and how anger towards an out-group, limited information, and discrimination all work together to impact mobilization. Results: In Experiment 1, I found that when an angry subject is asked to take action in a task unrelated to that anger, the subject fails to mobilize. In Experiment 2, I built and tested two experimental manipulations of out-group anger and was successful in inducing anger directed towards an out-group. Having successfully induced out-group anger, Experiment 3 then demonstrated that out-group anger increases mobilization under competition, but not under threat. The mobilizing effects of out-group anger was limited under threat because subjects also felt angry towards their own in-group. Lastly, I reexamine different variations of threat on mobilization. I attempt to reduce increases in in-group anger by limiting information and discriminating against the angry group, but as I stack the deck against the angry group, they responded by mobilizing less. Conclusions: The potential for anger to mobilize may be contingent upon the level of out-group and in-group anger within a group. These findings collectively shed light on how out-group anger can either facilitate action or lead to inaction.

Regional sprawl is a pressing concern of a community organization in a growing region of Northern Colorado. This thesis is an action research project that empirically analyzes population and housing characteristics, over time, in the three counties where the organization members reside. Beginning with a review of sprawls definitions, methods for measuring sprawl, and purported effects of the phenomenon, this thesis uses factors associated with sprawl to designate disaggregated geographic areas based on their association (or lack of association) with sprawl. Multivariate analyses of the population and housing characteristics are then carried out. The results lead to questions of segregation and displacement, based on race and class. Additional analysis of data follows, along with a brief case study of a community of low-income residents in the Front Range. Conclusions include the fact that sprawl is an engine for the elimination of affordability, and segregation by class and race. Recommendations are made for actions that might lead to changes in local and regional patterns of community development.

Collaborations are increasingly looked to for the resolution of social problems, in the establishment of market dominance on local and global levels, and within organizations as a method for increasing efficacy. Generally power and trust have been seen as critical elements to successful collaborations. However, in community contexts collaborations must often be preceded by community involvement. Using, correlations, hierarchical multiple regressions and a MANCOVA this article examines the relationship between coercive power, trust, and community involvement at multiple levels of analysis. Coercive power and trust were significantly and negatively correlated with each other. The trust variables were positively and significantly correlated with each other. They were trust in neighbors at the individual level, aggregate trust in neighbors at the community level, and trust in community organizations in which respondents were most involved. Trust in neighbors at the individual level and trust in community organizations were found to have a significant influence on community involvement. Trust in neighbors at the community level did not have a significant influence on community involvement. Respondents beliefs about how coercive power worked in their community did not have a significant influence on community involvement.

This organizational case study is concerned with the potential of human service organizations to go beyond ameliorative service provision to help change harmful social conditions. In this dissertation, I lay out a conceptual framework contrasting ameliorative and transformative human service approaches and follow one community-based organizations attempt to shift paradigms towards more transformative action. I describe the substantive changes this organization experienced as a result of this two-year change process as well as the factors that facilitated and constrained change. In this two-year change effort, I was an active participant and documented the process through observation as well as interviews and focus groups with staff, board members, and external partners. I learned that the organization made substantial changes in philosophy, shared purpose, and internal and external practices and that there were ripple effects in the community. Additionally, changes were observed in individual beliefs and individual and team practices. In sum, initial organizational conditions, clear change messages, internal and external agents of change, enabling structures, a dialogical learning process, and supportive organizational and community contexts facilitated the change process. This case teaches us that this type of transformation in human service organizations is possible.

This thesis examines the case of New Community Church, a digital film made by the author, from the perspective of ethnographic research. The case study shows how ethnographic process involves movement from a formative theory about a subject, into the field to collect anecdotal research data, about that subject, and finally to a grounded theory based on that data, which is in turn presented to an audience. In the case study it is shown that the authors filmmaking process follows all parts of this process, and the argument is made that the process should thus be considered ethnographic research.