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The focus of this study was to ascertain what, if any, were the commonalities and differences between and among bully-suicide victims between the ages of nine and eighteen. The focus of this study additionally was to determine to what extent, if any, was there a relationship between parent advocacy, media coverage, and/or a social event related to bully-suicide and the implementation or amending of state anti-bullying legislation. Bully-suicide victims (N = 92) from throughout the United States whose information was available through Internet search engines were included in this study. Further, state legislators (N = 50) who sponsored their states most recent anti-bullying legislation also were included. State legislators who provided direct responses to the request to participate answered four interview questions regarding their sponsorship of anti-bullying legislation. Commonalities between bully-suicide victims were analyzed to determine if particular demographics had an equal likelihood of occurrence. Legislator responses to the interview questions were analyzed for themes using a phenomenological research method. Through an examination of the research results and related literature, the researcher determined that there was a statistically significant deviation from equal likelihood of groups for bully-suicide victims who were male, high school-aged, or targeted due to appearance or sexual orientation. Further, bully-suicide victims were most frequently subjected to verbal bullying. Evaluation of the data also unveiled that parent advocacy, media coverage and social events related to bully-suicide were related to state legislator sponsorship of anti-bullying legislation

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The purpose of this study was to develop a field-tested prior notice/due process form that would be comprehensible by parents. An ancillary purpose was to determine the comprehensibility of a prior notice form that is currently used in southwest Virginia school divisions. A research and development model was employed to develop the field-tested form. A form and an application test were written in the predesign and design stage. In the initial review stage, a panel of experts reviewed the test and revised the form, and parents read the form and took the application test. Based on expert comments and an analysis of parent responses, revisions were made to the test and form. Another form and test revision was made following a main field test of parents. The final cycle of the. study was an operational field test of 65 parents in 11 school divisions in southwest Virginia. In a secondary mail survey, 80 special education administrators indicated their preference for the two forms on various dimensions. Data from the operational field test were used to test the hypotheses. Item analyses, using both standard and educational discrimination indices, were conducted to suggest areas for improvement on the revised form. It was concluded from the findings of the study that: (1) the hypothesis that a significant difference would exist in comprehension between parents reading the revised form and those reading the standard form was not supported; (2) on the application test, parents can obtain an acceptable mean score of 80% by reading either form; (3) specific problem areas on the form still exist, and should be corrected; (4) special education administrators prefer the revised form for use with parents; and (5) the use of jargon and complex terms seem to particularly discriminate parents of lower educational levels. Recommendations were made for form development and form use. / Ed. D.

This dissertation is concerned with "third-party" or "external" effects that pervade the economic dimension of human action. As an instance of these effects, actions in a specific market, the labor market, are isolated and studied. In the first part of the dissertation, the evolution of labor law in the United States is traced from the earliest recorded labor court case in 1806 through the present. In examining the dialogue surrounding changes in labor entitlements, it is found that the ubiquity of external effects in the labor relation has been historically recognized by lawmakers as they grappled with the design of optimal legal rules. The second part begins with an examination of economists' views of the labor relation. A survey of views indicates that economists have failed to approach labor actions in a manner that is both analytic and cognizant of the pervasive interdependence in labor. The concluding chapter of the dissertation attempts to integrate the disparate viewpoints of lawmakers and economists py viewing labor actions in a manner which highlights the external effects. Borrowing from the literature on "externalities," the chapter demonstrates that there exists a continuum of possible magnitudes of external effects in labor. / Doctor of Philosophy

This study focuses on the representative nature of the Senate Judiciary Committee in relation to the Senate as a whole. Three definitions of representation (descriptive, symbolic and instrumental) were used in order to assess the degree to which the Senate Judiciary Committee represented the Senate in the area of civil rights from 1957 through 1968. Results show that the Committee was not representative in the descriptive (regional) sense, but it was representative of the Senate in terms of its over-all descriptive (orientations) nature. In terms of symbolic representation, the study whows that the Senate Judiciary Committee has been labeled by the Senate as being "resistant" in the area of civil rights. This was interpreted as being a negative classification of symbolic representation. In the instrumental sense the Committee was not found to represent the Senate. The reasons for this overall lack of representation were attributed to two factors: (1) the lack of any institutionalized form of elections as sanctions for the lack of representation; and (2) the degree of social pluralism that is reflected in the membership of the Committee as a result of the type of issue at hand. / Master of Arts