Relationships among demographic, socioeconomic and person factors and Opioid Use Disorder diagnosis, treatment, and recidivism were explored. Data from a sample of 4,860 adults with substance use difficulties were analyzed. A program evaluation was conducted on Gateway Community Services to explore the use of Medication Assisted Treatments (MATs) and Psychosocial (PS) treatments to address Opioid Use Disorder. Using archival data, a chi-square analysis and independent sample t-test was performed. The results expressed that a relationship among race, type of substance use diagnosis, and treatment type and recidivism rate was found. While White/Non-Hispanics adults were more likely to use heroin than any other racial/ethnic backgrounds, gender differences were also found. Finally, frequency and duration of a combined treatment (PS + MAT) were negatively related to recidivism with no determination of previous prescription opioid use to be examined at this time. Keywords: medication assisted treatment, recidivism, psychosocial, opioid

Contrary to nationalist teleologies, the enslavement of Native Americans was not a small and isolated practice in the territories that now comprise the United States. This thesis is a case study of its history in Louisiana from European contact through the Early American Period, utilizing French Superior Council and Spanish judicial records, Louisiana Supreme Court case files, statistical analysis of slave records, and the synthesis and reinterpretation of existing scholarship. This paper primarily argues that it was through anti-Blackness and anti-Indigeneity and with the utilization of socially constructed racial designations that “Indianness” was controlled and exploited, and that Native Americans and their mixed-race Black-Native descendants continued to be enslaved alongside the larger population Africans and African Americans in Louisiana. Lacking a decolonized lens and historiography inclusive of the enslavement of Indigenous peoples, the American story ignores the full impact of white settler colonialism and historical trauma.

The purpose of this study was to determine if the use of the Structured Decision-Making (SDM) tool affects the disproportion of African American children accounted for in Riverside County Child Welfare System.

This research study was exploratory in nature and used a qualitative approach to learn firsthand from the intimate, personal and subjective experiences of African American women about the importance of spirituality and religiosity in their everyday lives.

This paper explores the issue of reparation and how institutionalized racism in the United States has influenced the outcome for the following ethnic groups - Japanese Americans, Black Americans and Native Americans.

The focus of this study is the significant and widespread overrepresentation of blacks in the child welfare system. The study specifically addresses the issue in the context of its association with decision-making practice of child welfare workers in the County of Los Angeles.

The study examined minority persons’ views and experiences with Child Protective Services (CPS) in the community. This study used a qualitative design with face‑to‑face interviews with 12 participants in the community. This study used the “Post‑Positivist” data analysis, which is qualitative in evaluation and explained each participant’s subjective reality. The study found that most participants were satisfied with the results and were dissatisfied with the process in and of itself. Overall the study found that most participants felt that there was some sort of a disconnect with social workers in reference to cultural competency. Miscommunication between the social workers at agencies and parents could have played a significant role in why participants had these experiences. However, most participants felt that the agency helped with services that ultimately left the participants feeling a sense of awareness about the purpose of the agency. The study suggests that implementing a program that would allow the community to be informed of all the programs that Child Protective Services can provide be critical in aiding and empowering the members of the community and in helping reduce CPS caseloads significantly.

Determining the effects of military service on those who volunteer is of vital importance in an age when service may lead to the loss of bodily function or life. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of military service with consideration for the demographic statuses of race, gender, and educational attainment on economic outcomes. Data for this study came from the Current Population Survey July 2010 with Veterans Supplement (N=83,000). Results from this study suggest that some veterans, namely those of minority racial status and lower educational attainment benefit from their military serve by achieving increased levels of household income as compared to similar non-veterans. Conversely, non-Hispanic White veterans and those with higher levels of educational attainment suffer negative consequences to levels of household income. Furthermore, differences among veterans were assessed. These results provide further insight into the experiences of veterans in the United States.

Often pointed to as the region’s model secular state, Turkey provides an instructive case study in how nationalism, in the name of conjuring ‘unity’, often produces the opposite effect. Indeed, the production of nationalism can create fractures amongst, as well as politicize, certain segments of a population, such as minority groups and women. This dissertation examines the long-term and present-day impacts on nationalist unity of a largely understudied event, the annexation of the border-city of Antakya from Syria in 1939, and its implications on the Arab Alawite population. In doing so, it deconstructs the dominant Turkish narrative on the annexation, rewrites the narrative drawing on oral history from the ground, and it shows how nation-building is a masculinist project that relies on powerfully gendered language through studying the national archives. The heart of the project, however, remains the investigation of the political, social, and religious subjectivity of Arab Alawite women, with an emphasis on resistance to the structures and practices sustained by the state and patriarchy. The Arab Alawites, once numerically dominant in the Antakya region, are now an ethno-religious minority group within the Turkish/Sunni-dominated state structure. Although Antakya was the last territory to join Turkey in 1939, ever since that time many of its Alawites have resisted assimilation through covert, yet peaceful, methods. Through this research, I show that a multiplicity of forces have increased the politicization of the Antiochian Alawite community and broadened their demands upon the Turkish state. My research highlights Alawite women’s leadership as a key driver of this process, thanks to the large-scale out migration of Alawite men, the increased socio-economic independence of Alawite women, and the perception of more progressive gender ideals being held by the members of this Muslim sect, when compared to those of nearby Sunni Turkish women. This dissertation relies on a postcolonial and feminist geopolitical analysis of the Turkish nationalist project to examine how the Turkish state has historically viewed Antakya and the Arab Alawites and how, in return, the experience and collective social and political memory of Alawites was formed. By utilizing innovative methodologies, this research shows how Alawite women are resisting/rewriting/reconfiguring political and social structures through everyday actions that shift the discourse on minorities and women on local and national scales.

This research study specifically addressed; how vocational preparedness programs effect the career aspirations of Black youth, within the context of the Middle Tennessee Council Boy Scouts of America’s Exploring program. The goal of this research is to represent Black youth participating in a vocational preparedness program. Interviews, journals, and rich, thick descriptions are utilized in this work. Using the lens of narrative inquiry and cultural studies, I hoped to further the field of career development through the experiences of some of its key players, African American youth. Within the context of their stories five major themes surfaced around the ideas: (1) Advancement via Individual Determination. (AVID), (2) Career Self-efficacy, (3) Roles of significant others in career development, (4) Perceptions of the Exploring program, and (5) what would you like to see happen in the Exploring program? Beyond themes expressed by the research participants, the following underlying factors also came to light; (1) giving voice to Black youth which are part of the marginalized minority population and restoring a sense of narrative power and authority to the youths telling the stories, (2) The Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program as a significant influencer, (3) structure and organization of the Learning for Life program, (4) the role of Black women as significant others in the career decisions of participants, and (5) career choice – trade vs. careers.