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No description available.

My dissertation examines three factors that influence women's workplace inequality: the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Meritor Saving Bank v. Vinson, and women "opting out" (i.e., voluntarily leaving) of work to take care of their families. Each of the three essays attempts to resolve one or more fundamental questions in the literature on women's workplace inequality. Additionally, each of these factors is described in its own essay, and these essays are presented in chronological order of the events they discuss. The first substantive chapter, Chapter Two, examines the association between the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) and women's employment rates, men's employment rates, and women's disadvantage in employment rates. The PDA declared pregnancy discrimination a type of sex-based discrimination, making it illegal under Title VII. Among other provisions, the PDA extended temporary disability benefits (TDB) to pregnant workers who were already covered by TDB for non-pregnancy-related conditions. This extension was designed to increase the likelihood of women's returning to work after giving birth. There is a debate within the literature on whether the PDA positively affected women, hurt women, or had no effect on women. This paper uses difference-in-difference modeling with Current Population Survey data from 1968 to 2010 to weigh in on this debate. There is a positive association between the PDA and the difference between men's and women's employment because it narrows the gap between women's and men's employment rates. However, the PDA had no effect on women's employment rates and a negative effect on men's employment rates. Chapter Three examines the association between wages and the 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, which declared workplace sexual harassment illegal under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. I test two hypotheses, a "naïve hypothesis," which argues that anti-sexual harassment policies increase women's wages, and a "critical hypothesis," which contends that these policies hurt or had no effect on women's wages. Using a difference-in-difference model with Current Population Survey data from 1977 to 2010, I find that there is a negative association between Meritor and women's wages. Furthermore, I find no association between Meritor and either men's wages or the gender wage ratio. Finally, Chapter Four examines the association between women opting out and socioeconomic status (SES). I explore two contrasting storylines within the opting out literature. The first storyline focuses on the lives of high-SES women and the likelihood that they opt out. The other storyline focuses on the lives of low-SES women and the likelihood that they opt out. It is important to note that neither storyline denies the existence of the other, but research that focuses solely on one class of women may miss a significant part of the story. Using the Current Population Survey from 1980 to 2009, I first describe the trends of opting out over this 30-year span. I then test six SES-related variables (education of spouse, education of respondent, household income, below poverty line, receive welfare income, and receive food stamps). I find that low-SES women are opting out at similar rates between 1980 and 2009, but the rates for high-SES women have declined. Additionally, I find overwhelming evidence that low-SES women are more likely to opt out. / Sociology

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The purpose of this study is to determine if a transition program has a greater success rate, as measured by GPA, number of students recycled, attendance, and conduct, than a traditional program of study for over age, first time ninth grade students by the end of first semester of the ninth grade. Some of the typical outcomes during the transition to high school from grade 8 to grade 9 are high failure rates, lack of Algebra I readiness, and poor attendance. These concerns contribute to drop-out rates and the level of competitiveness students will have when facing the workforce. This is a timely issue as we continue to address Standards of Learning (SOL) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act and the initiatives to rethink our high schools as they attempt to prepare students for the ongoing changes of the economy, workforce, and expectations of colleges and universities. / Ph. D.

This case study elicits the process of coming out of a 6 member family-of-choice of an adult gay man in rural New Hampshire. 27.5 hours of face-to-face interviews were conducted with the family individually and collectively. Reflexivity, as a technique, was used extensively. Four themes were identified: Embracing gay identity, integrating as a family, building social networks, and social awakening. This study addresses the complexities of how multiple individuals negotiate rules and accommodate diverse viewpoints within a family system, provides insight into a family's journey of accepting their gay identity, utilizes personal narratives of family members, and reveals how the reflexive process contributes to a family's creation of new stories. Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed. / Ph. D.

Most privatization literature, of which outsourcing/contracting out is a sub-set, discusses: 1) localized anecdotes of how organizations privatized; 2) privatization's history; 3) its types; and/or 4) its pros and cons. What is missing is a methodologically defensible, comprehensive, macro-view of whether or not outsourcing has saved money and/or improved service quality. Using the vote-counting analytical procedure, this dissertation provides one comprehensive view by analyzing and combining the findings of 40 sources covering 222 outsourced services at all levels of US government. The author found that contracting out resulted in cost savings 79% of the time, but improved service quality only 48% of the time. The author also found that outsourcing savings and improved service quality declined as the level of government got smaller. This phenomenon could be an artifact of the federal requirement that a private contractor must show savings of at least 10% or $10 million before any outsourcing occurs. The lower levels of improved service can generally be explained by surveys which show that government managers treat service quality improvement as an afterthought. The findings of this study are consistent with other authors (e.g., Hodge, Savas, Dehoog, Moore) and led the author to the following insights: 1) Outsourcing continues to grow. 2) The amount of evidence regarding outsourcing effectiveness is minimal, confusing, and highly subjective. 3) Outsourcing saves money, but at the expense of quality or at least without improving it. 4) Contracting out can be a solution, but is not the only solution to government funding and service quality shortfalls. 5) Successful outsourcing has been implemented in certain ways. 6) Outsourcing does not spell the end of public administration. / Ph. D.

The COVID 19 pandemic posed a great challenge to the education system in the United States. Although in person learning resumed, many challenges in the transition were observed in the school systems. Reports of high teacher turnover and burnout among school staff were reported in the media and new articles (Ozamiz-Etxebarria et al. 2021;Sunawan et al, 2021). Occupational therapists were also reporting difficulty managing job burnout due to a multitude of factors such as high caseloads, lack of school support and role ambiguity (Goffredo et al., 2022; Poulsen et al., 2012; Shin et al., 2022 ). Research focusing on school based occupational therapy burnout is scarce, however what has been published discusses a need to assist this population in the school systems. This issue has led to the creation of the Ready for School online program. The Ready for School online program is designed to assist school based occupational therapists, with 0–8 years of experience in the Southern California region, gain tools and access to manage the many factors that lead to burnout in the school based setting. The program uses evidence-based research to target the main factors that lead to burnout and create a support system to allow new and novice school based occupational therapy practitioners (OTPs) to thrive. OTPs have the important role of supporting students through their educational journey, therefore it is paramount to properly prepare and equip them and their mental health needs.