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>

<p> This review of the literature explored the particular risk factors for adult African American women ages 65 and older with depression who are involved in the health care system, particularly those who choose not to seek professional mental health services. In addition, this review explored the interventions and social support services available to them, and the effectiveness of existing programs and social support services in the United States that work towards properly diagnosing depression and treatment. This literature review analyzed the content of 34 empirically researched articles from the last 15 years. Results from this literature review found that older African American women with depression have multiple co-existing medical and psychological problems such as cardiovascular disease, hypertension and diabetes. Additionally, studies show that while social support services and programs are available to older adults with depression, a comprehensive strategy needs to be developed between the primary care physicians, mental health agencies, and church clergy system to develop uniform methods for understanding, detecting, and seeking treatment and coordination of services that foster effective interventions and improved quality of life on a national level.</p>

<p> This paper examines the association between race blame attitudes with support for policies aimed at improving the nation&rsquo;s large cities among White and Black Americans. Although legislative safeguards protect the constitutional rights of all Americans, Blacks trail Whites on nearly all quality of life indicators. By extension, the quality of life within cities with disproportionate and segregated Black populations is decidedly worse than in other cities. That said, the current study largely finds that black and white Americans maintain different motivations for supporting increased or decreased funding for large urban American cities, which often serves as a code word for Black cities. According to the General Social Survey (2014), among whites, individuals that believe that racial inequality result from a lack of Black effort are more likely than others to believe that that the government does not need to offer any additional help to large American cities. This relationship, however, does not hold up for Blacks, suggesting perhaps that the word &ldquo;city&rdquo; operates as a code word for Whites that spurs racial resentment.</p>

<p> This study examines African American student perceptions of persistence in engineering. The research design is methodologically qualitative using a purposefully selected population of engineering students. Semi-structured interviews were designed to develop an in-depth understanding of what completion of the engineering degree means to African American engineering students. This research seeks insight into the linkages between African American student perceptions of persistence as it relates to both the academic and social culture of the engineering department. </p><p> Vincent Tinto&rsquo;s model of Institutional Departure (1975, 1987) is one of the most commonly cited models of persistence in higher education (Braxton, Milem, Sullivan, 2000). Tinto&rsquo;s model was leveraged in this study to understand perceptions obtained through student interviews. Tinto suggests that exploration of student goal commitment and perceptions of institutional commitment are key to understanding student persistence. Results of this study suggest that African American students have perceptions about the university that may influence the decision to persist in engineering. Ultimately, this study may prove useful to researchers and administrators interested in improving access and success for African American engineering students.</p>