Through the development of entertainment culture, African American actors, athletes and musicians increasingly were publicly recognized. In the mainstream press, Black celebrities were often faced with the same snubs and prejudices as ordinary Black citizens, who suffered persecution under Jim Crow legislation that denied African Americans their basic civil rights. In the Black press, however, these celebrities received great attention, and as visible and popular members of the Black community they played a decisive yet often unwitting and tenuous role in representing African American identity collectively. Charles M. Payne and Adam Green use the term "critical citizenship" to describe the way in which African Americans during this period conceptualized their identities as American citizens. Though Payne and Green discussed critical citizenship in terms of activism, this project broadens the term to include considerations of community-building and race pride as well. Conceptualizing critical citizenship for the black community was an important part of the overall mission of the Black press. Black press entertainment journalism, which used celebrities as both "constellations" and companions in the fight for civil rights, emerged against the battle against Jim Crowism and came to embody the spirit of the Harlem Renaissance. The purpose of this project is to trace how celebrity reporting in the black press developed over time, distinct from yet contemporaneous with the development of yellow journalism in the mainstream press, and to understand how black journalists and editors conceptualized the idea of "celebrity" as it related to their overall construction of critical citizenship. The evidence in support of this project was collected from an inductive reading of the entertainment-related content of the following black press newspapers over the time period 1895-1935: Baltimore Afro-American, Chicago Defender, New York Age, New York Amsterdam News, Philadelphia Tribune, Pittsburgh Courier, Cleveland Gazette, Kansas City/Topeka Plaindealer, Savannah Tribune, and Atlanta Daily World. In addition, the entertainment content of Black press magazines The Crisis, The Messenger, The Opportunity and The Negro World was included. / Media & Communication

Racial and ethnic minorities in the United States have higher rates of hypertension than European Americans. In this ethnographic study, 30 Nigerian immigrant health care workers with hypertension described their self-efficacy management of the disease to ascertain the relationship between health-related hardiness, individual attitudes on compliance, and medication adherence self-efficacy. Using a mixed methods designs comprised of survey tools and focus-group questionnaires, the research questions were focused on understanding attitudes and health practices within Nigerian culture that support self-efficacy management. The theoretical framework for this study is the social learning theory and the social cognitive theory postulated by Bandura. Content analysis of the focus group transcript revealed that all participants agreed that culture directly influences their self-efficacy practices. Interview responses generated 4 major themes in which the study participants expressed positive attitude towards adopted values including culture practices, faith, enculturation, and fear of medication effects. Cross tabulations of data from the survey tools showed no relationship between self-care management, attitude, and medication adherence. Factor analysis of the Health Related Hardiness (HRH) scale identified 6 constructs with a cumulative variance of 64.9%. Implication for positive social change include culturally specific health intervention programs that focus on the impact of culture on hypertension self-efficacy practices and self-care management.

Breast cancer is one of the most widespread chronic diseases and a major cause of death among women in the United States. African American women have a higher incidence of breast cancer than their counterparts from other ethnic/racial groups. The purpose of this cross-sectional survey of 126 African American females from the western US metropolitan area was to assess knowledge, attitudes, and behavior with respect to breast cancer manifestation, detection services, and the role of mammography in breast cancer prevention and control. The health belief model guided this study. A 41-item, ethnically sensitive, self-administered, and gender-specific instrument, the Champion Revised Susceptibility, Benefits, and Barriers Scale for Mammography Screening, was used in this study. Analysis of variance, the Scheffe post hoc tests, and Fisher's exact test were used to analyze the data. The results showed that all but three participants (97.6%) reported having had breast cancer screening; almost all of the participants were compliant and answered the knowledge question. The findings also showed that the women with high levels of education reported lower benefits of mammography scores and lower barriers to mammography scores; and higher cues to action scores. Income was not significantly related to attitude toward breast cancer screening. The implication for positive social change is that these results may help to facilitate continued development of intervention strategies to encourage African American women to utilize early breast cancer detection services.

Obesity increases risk for heart disease, hypertension and other chronic diseases, and it affects minority ethnic groups disproportionately. However, it is unknown if African American immigrant adults, an increasing segment of the population, are at higher risk for obesity than African American non-immigrant adults residing in the United States. This study examined the association of obesity and immigrant status by comparing African American immigrant adults now residing in the United States to the general population of African American adults. The socio-ecological model provided the conceptual framework for this study. This study used a cross-sectional quantitative self-administered web-based survey to collect primary data on 303 adult African American immigrants and non-immigrants residing in the United States. Data were analyzed using EpiInfo statistical software. It was hypothesized that the risk of obesity in African American adults is associated with immigration status after adjusting for other factors. The data revealed no significant relationship between obesity and immigration status in African American adults. However, binge drinking and other variables were revealed to be risk factors for morbid obesity in African American immigrants. The results impact social change by demonstrating that obesity control programs targeted at African American immigrant communities should incorporate socio-ecological risk factors. Specific interventions that could be implemented should include screening for alcohol consumption.

<p> This qualitative study explored the experiences of African American collegiate women during a service learning program to the non-traditional study abroad location of Indonesia. The Integrated Model of College Choice, Human Capital Theory, and Experiential Learning Theory formulated the conceptual model and theoretical framework undergirding this research endeavor. The literature review comprised a discussion of non-traditional study abroad locations, study abroad trends of underrepresented groups, navigation of the study abroad decision process, and service learning as a study abroad option. Four research questions explored participants&rsquo; descriptions of the experience, social and cultural challenges encountered, changes and learning outcomes achieved, and recommendations for improvement. The findings from individual interviews, a focus group, and a document review yielded four emergent themes, including the development of transnational competence, personal growth and transformation, service learning programmatic considerations, and diversity perspectives. </p><p> Conclusions of this study indicated that transnational competence was developed by interacting and communicating through a language barrier and gaining exposure to different social and cultural norms, living conditions, religious beliefs, and educational system. Adaptability, flexibility, empathy, respect, and appreciation were achieved learning outcomes and contributed to the development of a global skill set helping students navigate cross-cultural dynamics. </p><p> Students&rsquo; articulation of preparedness, a broadened worldview, and the desire for future international endeavors demonstrated that a short-term service learning study abroad opportunity yielded transnational competence. Students&rsquo; experiences of diversity abroad highlighted the relative absence of African American collegiate women from the study abroad landscape in a non-traditional location. The higher education apparatus has a role in reversing the trend of low African American college student participation in study abroad by addressing programmatic considerations, including the provision of more information, improved program planning, and the availability of financing. Creating an institutional culture in which international education is a strategic priority, expectation, and norm can develop students&rsquo; transnational competence and positions African American students more competitively for academic and professional success in a globalized world.</p>

<p> African American women leaders positively influence the college experiences of students at predominately White institutions (PWI), but the retention of those women leaders remains an issue. At the time of this study, limited research informed race and gender issues that intersect the career advancement of African American women serving in midlevel leadership positions at PWIs. The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the intercultural and career advancement experiences of these women. Critical race theory, critical race feminist theory, and intercultural communications theory were used as a framework to understand the participants&rsquo; intercultural and career advancement experiences, perceived influences, and mentorship experiences. A snowball sampling approach with members of a national African American women&rsquo;s organization in higher education led to 9 participants who met the criteria. They were each interviewed twice to generate data to understand their experiences. Results from an inductive exploratory process of data analysis indicated that race and gender influenced their perception of career advancement potential and relationship building in the PWI workplace. Themes that emerged from their experiences were limited advancement opportunities, the effects of intersectionality, intercultural relationship challenges, and the benefits of locating and having a mentor. Support and guidance were paramount to their job satisfaction and retention. This study contributes to social change by providing insight to personnel at PWIs about the experiences of African American women leaders on those campuses and the needed improvement in the environment for retaining current and future women of color.</p>

<p>This study was to determine if any difference exists in the rates of cesarean birth, emergency room visits and preterm birth in African-American women who participated in CenteringPregnancy^&reg; group prenatal care in comparison with those in traditional prenatal care. Prenatal care under this model emphasizes risk assessment, health promotion, social support and education in a group setting of between eight and twelve patients. The effectiveness of CenteringPregnancy has had favorable clinical and behavioral outcomes, as well as high patient and provider satisfaction. Since few studies have researched outcome variables, this study was to answer if CenteringPregnancy prenatal care is related to improved birth outcomes than traditional prenatal care. Leininger&rsquo;s Transcultural Nursing Theory guided this study to provide a comprehensive and culturally sensitive nursing approach in caring for pregnant African-American women. The population was a convenience sample of African-American women between the ages of 15 and 38 years of age. A retrospective chart review was utilized for data collection and a total of 61 CenteringPregnancy charts and 62 traditional prenatal care charts were reviewed looking at the rates of preterm births, cesarean births and emergency room utilization between the two groups of women. A bivariate statistical analysis using the <i> t</i>-Test was utilized to describe any differences between the patients in the two different types of prenatal care and a chi-square was used to analyze any difference in frequency of preterm births and cesarean births between the two types of prenatal care. The results indicated that African-American women receiving CenteringPregnancy prenatal care had fewer preterm births than African-American women in traditional prenatal care (1.6% vs 11.3%). However, there was no evidence found that African-American women receiving CenteringPregnancy prenatal care had less cesarean births or utilized the emergency room during their pregnancies less frequently. </p>

<p> This research study offers a revisioning of Black women&rsquo;s rage, which is typically viewed as a destructive emotion offering no value to modern society. Through the use of multiple methodologies&mdash;alchemical hermeneutics, literary textual analysis, and a focus group&mdash;and examined through the theoretical lenses of depth psychology, mythology, Black feminism, and Black women&rsquo;s literature, this dissertation presents a new understanding of rage, freeing it from the shadows of the ideal feminine, cracking it open, and presenting it as an agent for personal and global change. </p><p> Scholars have examined rage as an emotional expression; however, minimal psychological research has focused on the rage felt specifically by Black women. Depth psychologists must look deeper at rage as a result of racism, sexism, patriarchy, and white privilege, and the experiences of Black women in particular and how their experiences are expressed or silenced. This study uses a focus group as a research tool to witness the lived experiences of Black women and re-vision rage&rsquo;s manifestation as useful. </p><p> The study employs Singer and Kimbles&rsquo; theories of the cultural complex and the myth of invisibility, which evolved from C. G. Jung&rsquo;s theory of complexes. Culminating with the literary artistry of Black women&rsquo;s literature by authors hooks, Morrison, and Naylor, this study argues that &ldquo;the systematic devaluation of black womanhood&rdquo; (hooks, 1981) has taken its toll on the potentiality of all Black women born in Western societies. </p><p> The angry Black woman is a myth that continues to be rehashed using stereotypes to perpetuate the oppression of Black womanhood. Depth psychology offers an opportunity to see through the stereotypes and into the experience of Black feminine rage.</p>

This research examines the internal and external forces that motivated freeborn and emancipated black Georgians to emigrate to Africa during the African Colonization Movement, 1817-1860. Throughout the study, qualitative and quantitative data were used to analyze the reasons why antebellum black Georgians embraced the ideas of black expatriation. The qualitative data consisted of the writings of black opponents as well as the writings of the proponents of African colonization, including Georgia émigrés, and the agents of the American Colonization Society. The quantitative data consisted of the number of emigrants who resettled to Africa and their survival rate in the newly formed colony of Liberia. The conclusion suggests that the vast majority of black Georgians did not favor African colonization. Less than ten percent of the freeborn and emancipated black population in Georgia chose to resettle in Africa even though there were promises of political, religious, and economic independence and the promises of land and a free education. Key internal forces that motivated blacks to settle in Africa were the independence of Liberia in 1848 and the words expressed by black leaders and émigrés who espoused expatriation. The external forces were the American Colonization Society’s involvement in promoting the removal of free and emancipated blacks, and state laws that prevented blacks from possessing certain liberties or from integrating within the Anglo-American society. Other external forces in the study included the majority community’s fear of the free black population as well as John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry.

<p> This dissertation addresses the concept of the <i> experimental</i> in contemporary dance and performance. In it I argue that, although the word is used in very different ways in traditional artistic and scientific practices, a number of contemporary dance artists utilize experimental practices in their work that produce useful knowledge that is recognizable and transmittable beyond the walls of the theater or gallery. I have written about artists whose embodied work has been described as experimental, whose innovations and explorations have produced paradigmatic shifts in dance practice and new ways of knowing, both about and through bodies.</p><p> Using theories of embodied experience from performance studies, dance studies, phenomenology and enactive perception, I argue for shifting our attention beyond textual and visual models of understanding performance to a broader palette of sensory modes and ways that attendees and makers both enact them. I propose that by doing so we broaden the possibilities for understanding the effects of performance and gain much richer tools for creating, using and analyzing our experiences of performance. I make these arguments as a maker of performance and as one who attends, reads and writes about performances. </p><p> The final chapter is a reflection in language of my own experimental performance project <i>Performance Research Experiment #2</i> which was/is a <i>Practice-as-Research</i> performance project that engaged and embodied ideas and practices of scientific experimentation to specifically explore ways that artistic practice and scientific practice may inform or interrupt each other. By extension the project tried to think, and move, through different ways that we know what we know.</p>