The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the experiences of St. Bernard Parish, La., residents as they coped with the impact of the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005. An estimated 50,000 St. Bernard Parish residents relocated to a new home one year after Katina in 2006, and many of those residents moved again. This study examines the effects of the decisions of St. Bernard residents to relocate or to return on their social connections. The utility, adaptability and durability of social networks of these residents will be explored to enrich our knowledge about the social effects of recovery and the role that distance plays in the way residents connect to each other six years after Hurricane Katrina. It also examines the applicability of disaster theory as it relates to this case and develops a methodology for examining the impact of geographic dispersal on social networks.

When reviewing the entire project from start to completion, I can honestly say, Through the Eyes of the Homeless is a play about ten women and their plight. It illustrates their dealings with everyday issues of hurt, disappointment, abuse, love, and hope. I believe the true impact of this play is the undeniable prayer for help and hope within each monologue. Despite the horrors that are unveiled and released through hidden secrets, the undertone of betterment is truly resonating. My own expectation for this play is simply to strike awareness and understanding in the eyes of the people. It is my objective to have each audience member leave the show with a completely different perspective on homelessness. Homelessness seems to be one of those taboo societal problems the world chooses to turn away from because of lack of awareness. I believe it is fear of the unknown that keeps us blind, deaf, and dumb about certain issues. After all is said and done, I am simply asking anyone who reads this play, watches it, or hears it to listen to each voice carefully and the message it conveys.

<div> <p>New information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as cell phones, email, and social media, have been transforming how social movements recruit, organize, participate in collective action, and experience repression. Yet, limited scholarship has addressed the uses of these technologies by social movements organizing within American prisons. Using a dialectical interpretive approach, I examine how a coalition of prisoners’ rights organizations uses ICTs to plan and participate in collective resistance across prison walls. The coalition, referred to here as the New Prisoners’ Rights Coalition (NPRC), organizes against low and no-wage prison labor, unhealthy and unsafe prison conditions, and inhumane prisoner treatment. The NPRC has a multi-platform public digital presence and mobilizes prisoner activists and free activists. Through narrative description, I summarize the ways NPRC activists use ICTs from December 2013 through September 2016, noting changes in ICT use over time and in response to movement repression. I find that new ICTs offer innovative ways for NPRC activists to record and document their environments, communicate privately, and communicate publicly. ICTs, however, do not remove all barriers to activism or ensure that activists’ concerns are resolved or even taken seriously. NPRC activists struggle to overcome stigma and mischaracterization online. They face physical repression, interpersonal hostilities, institutional sanctions, economic repression, legal sanctions, interpretive repression, surveillance, and monitoring. In different circumstances, the NPRC responds to repression by increasing ICT use, decreasing ICT use, going dark, migrating from one online platform to another, and shifting digital responsibilities from prisoner activists to free activists. I explain how, most of the time, the digital unreachability of the prison environment makes it difficult for NPRC activists to substantiate their claims of mistreatment, abuse, and injustice. Moreover, I consider how current prison technology policies may be inadvertently pushing NPRC activists into difficult-to-monitor online spaces and exacerbating safety concerns of corrections workers.</p></div>

L’agriculture est un secteur d’activité privilégié pour notre objet qui est l’étude de la dynamique sociotechnique et du travail. Nous montrons dans cette étude comment des éleveurs transformés de plus en plus en agro-pasteurs, à la suite de la sécheresse et la surcharge des hommes et du cheptel sur les ressources naturelles des parcours collectifs, sont amenés à changer progressivement leurs systèmes de production et partant leurs rapports sociaux.<p><p>Au-delà d’une vision figée et homogénéisante de la paysannerie véhiculée par certains modèles sociologiques et par la vulgarisation agricole au Maroc, nous mettons l’accent sur l’hétérogénéité de la paysannerie et les aspects dynamiques de l’activité agricole et de ses acteurs.<p><p>Bien que les éleveurs/agriculteurs évoluent dans un environnement physique et économique souvent défavorable à leurs activités, ils manifestent de différentes stratégies pour améliorer leurs conditions de vie ou renforcer leurs acquis. <p><p>A partir d’une étude sur le terrain rurale de la Commune de Ben Smim, au Moyen Atlas berbère marocain et ayant mobilisé différents instruments de recueil d’informations, nous avons relevé que l’activité agricole n’est pas simplement une activité de production mais aussi de repositionnement des acteurs dans le système social. L’ethnique, le social et le politique se mêlent dans l’orientation des rapports de production. C’est pourquoi il est difficile d’isoler une pratique agricole des autres pratiques qui lui sont intimement liées et qui peuvent concerner d’autres domaines de vie des agriculteurs.<p><p>Avec la crise du nomadisme, les éleveurs/agriculteurs se fixent dans les douars ou les villages et élargissent ainsi leurs réseaux sociaux et professionnels. Ils deviennent ainsi de plus en plus perméables aux innovations techniques et organisationnelles et améliorent la performance de leurs troupeaux, introduisent de nouvelles cultures de marché et diversifient leurs stratégies de vente. Les minorités du point de vue ethnique et économique, d’intégration dans le système social local, les notables sont à même d’apporter de nouvelles variantes à leurs systèmes de production.<p><p>En fin de compte, chacun, en fonction de sa situation et de son projet, participe à la dynamique socio-technique locale. <p> / Doctorat en sciences sociales, Orientation sciences du travail / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This dissertation examines learning as part of social transformation in a semi-rural town in New Mexico, United States. It incorporates a focus on young people through direct work with children and observations in school and argues that each person's understanding is historically emergent from what sense they make of the events of their personal history as this unfolds over time in intersubjective relations with others. This has implications for the ways in which Hispano/a and Latino/a people living in “Bosque Verde” make sense of concepts like respect, hard work and obligation, as well as how they think about family and children's wellbeing. The ways in which people experience and understand getting older and their movements from child to adult/parent and from parent to grandparent/elder are central to this process of making sense. As people age, what they know to be true transforms, as does how they perceive the effects of social change. For people living in Bosque Verde, this includes both the experience of contemporary social and economic shifts in New Mexico and the United States, as well as how people there have made sense of social marginalisation over the past century and back into the more distant past. Parents and elders manifest historical consciousness of these transformations in part through their concerns for children and their vulnerability in an insecure and unequal world. Children, however, constitute their own ideas about family, hard work, care and respect in ways that potentially transform their meaning, as well as the possibilities of their own futures. This thesis therefore describes ‘keeping it tight' in Bosque Verde as a microhistorical process that shapes how people understand and experience social relationships over the lifetime. This process, in turn, influences how people living there make sense of the past and imagine the future for themselves and others.

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.

Through the evolution of the field of social work, a divide in its ideologies has emerged and certain political and ideological groups such as the religious and conservatives have become underrepresented. As a result, over the years the liberal philosophies have emerged as the dominant group. This has led to a decrease in diversity within the field. Recognition of biases in the field of social work is difficult. Through a qualitative analysis method, this study was meant to explore if social work students feel they are free to share openly in the classroom, and if they are accepting of all ideologies or are there biases towards any ideologies or beliefs by the students. This study used a qualitative method data collection approach, which consisted of a six-member focus group with a demographics questionnaire. The findings of this research has brought to the surface that there are more liberal ideologies and less moderate or conservative viewpoints being shared in the classrooms because of self-censorship. The potential impact of this study is to increase awareness that there are underrepresented groups within the MSW population, which decreases the diversity in the field of social work.

The purpose of this study was to gather the perceive strategies and substance treatment needs of adults 60 and over. To examine what recovery treatment models and strategies could be most effective for the age-related complex needs of the 60 and over population who are at risk for substance misuse, use or abuse. In the coming years, there will be a substantial increase in the numbers of older adults with substance misuse and abuse problems. Even though one in five individuals who experience substance abuse are older adults many clinicians remain ill equipped to serve older clientele, and particularly those who face substance abuse. Furthermore, the diagnosis and treatment of substance abuse among older adults is complicated by assumptions about aging and the complex physical and cognitive changes in late life, each of which can make the manifestation of symptoms difficult to identify. The results indicate that participates has some definitive values that could increase their participation in engaging with substance treatments tailored to their specific age and belief systems.

Across the United States, an overwhelming majority of the population claim that religion and spirituality beliefs shape their worldview and assist in coping with life stressors. Yet, the literature has shown that mental health practitioners reported discomfort integrating religion and spiritually in clinical practice. The purpose of this study was to explore whether license-holding mental health professionals in Southern California develop reluctance toward addressing religion/spirituality with their clients. Through snowball sampling, 52 clinicians composed of social workers, counselors, marriage and family therapists, nurses, psychologists, and psychiatrists were recruited across Southern California (N =52). The participants were measured descriptively based on (a) confidence in their ability to integrate client beliefs into treatment and (b) their comfort discussing topics related to RS with their clients. Results revealed an overall level of reluctance ranging from 15 percent (for comfortability) to 25 percent (for ability) among the study participants. Licensed clinical social workers reported slightly lower reluctance level than other licensed professionals. Implications of the findings were discussed.

We are inundated by a constant feed of media that responds and adapts in real time to the impulses of our psyches and the dimensions of our devices. Beneath the surface, this stream of information is directed by hidden, automated controls and steered by political agendas. The transmission of information has evolved into a spiral of entropy, and the boundaries between author, content, platform, and receiver have blurred. This reductive space of responsive media is a catalyst for immense political and cultural change, causing us to question our notions of authority, truth, and reality.