Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-113). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Economics, June 1997. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

his study compares ethnic, age, and gender differences concerning attitudes and behaviors toward death, dying, and bereavement among Caucasian, African, Hispanic, and Asian American adult participants in north Texas with the results of a 1976 study by Kalish and Reynolds on death attitudes and behaviors of Caucasian, African, Mexican, and Japanese American adult participants in Los Angeles, California. A modified version of Kalish and Reynolds' study questionnaire was administered to 526 respondents (164 Caucasian, 100 African, 205 Hispanic, and 57 Asian Americans) recruited from community and church groups. Findings of this study were compared with those of Kalish and Reynolds in specific areas, including experience with death, attitudes toward one's own death, dying, and afterlife, and attitudes toward the dying, death, or grief of someone else. Data was analyzed employing the same statistical tools as those used by Kalish and Reynolds, i.e., chi square calculations, frequencies, percentages, averages, and analyses of variance. As compared with the earlier study, results indicated that this study's participants were less likely to have known as many persons who had died recently or to state they would try very hard to control grief emotions in public. Present study participants were more likely to have visited dying persons, to want to be informed if they were dying and believe that others should be informed when dying, to prefer to die at home, to have made arrangements to donate their bodies or body parts to medicine, to have seriously talked with others about their future deaths, to consider the appropriateness of mourning practices and the comparative tragedy of age of death from a relative standpoint, and to want to spend the final six months of their lives showing concern for others. Between study differences were found in ethnic group, age group, and gender group comparisons. Within study differences in death and dying attitudes were also found in this study among ethnic, age, and gender groups.

Recent political and cultural trends have led to an evaluation of the meaning of marriage within American society, and especially marriage as it concerns couples of the same sex. However, little research has been done to find out how attitudes toward same-sex marriage might vary according to race and ethnicity. Drawing on data from the 2004 National Politics Study, the author investigates same-sex marriage attitudes and tests hypotheses concerning the attitudes of various American race-ethnic groups. This study employs multinomial logistic regression analysis to compare attitudes of African Americans, Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites. Results indicate that even when socio demographic factors such as education and gender are controlled for, ethnic groups still differ in their attitudes toward this topic. Analyses also indicate that the relationship between race/ethnicity and attitudes toward same-sex unions does not vary by gender and that foreign birth explains the relationship between Hispanic ethnicity and attitudes toward same-sex marriage.

In the decade of the 1830's, Alexis de Tocqueville published a perceptive analysis of America in the Jacksonian era, which focused upon the customs, manners and intellectual habits of its citizens, and their social condition as seen through its political institutions. He advanced the proposition--a paradox of democracy--that equality of condition was as compatible with tyranny as with freedom. The social consensus, which stemmed from the wide acceptance of doctrine of equality and common wants and interests, when brought to bear upon legislator and judge, public official, juryman, and the non-conforming individual, he termed the "tyranny of the majority."

The visualization of recent episodes regarding apparently unjustifiable deaths of minorities, caused by police and federal law enforcement agencies, has been amplified through today's social media and television networks. Such events may seem to imply that issues concerning racial inequalities in America are getting worse. However, we do not know whether such indications are factual; whether this is a recent phenomenon, whether racial inequality is escalating relative to earlier decades, or whether it is better in certain regions of the nation compared to others. We have built a semantic engine for the purpose of querying statistics on various metropolitan areas, based on a database of individual deaths. Separately, we have built a database of demographic data on poverty, income, education attainment, and crime statistics for the top 25 most populous metropolitan areas. These data will ultimately be combined with government data to evaluate this hyp othesis, and provide a tool for predictive analytics. In this thesis, we will provide preliminary results in that direction. The methodology in our research consisted of multiple steps. We initially described our requirements and drew data from numerous datasets, which contained information on the 23 highest populated Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States. After all of the required data was obtained we decomposed the Metropolitan Statistical Area records into domain components and created an Ontology/Taxonomy via Protege to determine an hierarchy level of nouns towards identifying significant keywords throughout the datasets to use as search queries. Next, we used a Semantic Web implementation accompanied with Python programming language, and FuXi to build and instantiate a vocabulary. The Ontology was then parsed for the entered search query and returned corresponding results providing a semantically organized a nd relevant output in RDF/XML format. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Thesis. 1975. M.C.P.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. / Bibliography: leaves 196-200. / M.C.P.

Nashville, Tennessee, is home to nearly fifteen thousand ethnic Kurds. They have come in four distinct groups over the course of two decades to escape the hardship and horror of brutal central government policies, some directed toward their extinction. Many of that number are young people who were infants or toddlers when they were whisked away to the safety of temporary way stations prior to their arrival in the United States. What that means is that these youth have spent the majority of their formative years within the context of the American culture. This thesis is a study of how they view their place within and/or apart from that culture and the one into which they were born, the Kurdish one. My contention is that they all live a double life. Over the course of a seven-month period in 2013, I conducted recorded interviews with eleven Kurds in Nashville, ages 16-26. Most were young women but all represented a healthy cross-section of experience as third-culture kids. What I discovered is presented in three chapters dealing with the issues of emigration/immigration, gender, and identity. That is prefaced by a brief history of the Kurdish nation and of their movement out of Kurdistan, as well as a discussion of my fieldwork procedures and products. My interviewees present their perspectives on each of these issues through select transcript portions provided in each chapter. My thesis was direct: young Kurds in Nashville live a duality in which neither part, American or Kurdish, is equally valued or shared at all times. They live in two worlds but are not and, perhaps, cannot be fully invested in either. That is what their words spoke to me. But just as clearly, there was an unrivaled individuality in the way that every one of the eleven related to each community of which they were a part. Some were closer to one than the other while others attempted a seemingly uncomfortable straddle. Either way, they managed the hand they were dealt as they deemed proper and most did so remarkably well.

No description available.

Thesis. 1975. M.C.P.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Harry Minor. / M.C.P.